February 2012
4 posts
2 tags
Scattered Clouds (1967)
Naruse’s final film. A story about the relationship between a pregnant widow and the man who (accidentally) killed her husband. There were moments where I thought the film was heavy-handed and silly, but other moments where Naruse displays his subtlety as a director. This also sums up my opinion of Naruse’s filmography. Having watched all the canonical works, I probably won’t...
2 tags
Daughters, Wives, and a Mother (1960)
A (typical) family drama. As always, Naruse’s direction baffled me at parts. So wide a screen feels wasted on a story which mostly happens indoors in intimate settings.
2 tags
Flowing (1956)
This was ok. The story’s general thrust seems to illustrate some of the sadness accompanying the dying geisha profession in post-war Japan, but it feels a bit more ambiguous than that. There is an interesting tension between the mundane existence in the geisha house and the nostalgic, somewhat romantic view the older geishas are inclined to take of the their work. The drama is contained to...
2 tags
Late Chrysanthemums (1954)
I was looking forward to this but didn’t particularly like it.
January 2012
13 posts
2 tags
Older Brother, Younger Sister (1953)
Some interesting aspects, including Naruse’s usual visual beauty, but overall a ho-hum experience for me. All the drama centers on the brother being a total dick for reasons which are very poorly articulated. I know better than to expect dramatic clarity from Naruse, but when it falls flat I feel like I am wasting my time.
2 tags
Dancing Girl (1951)
Very strange.
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The Little Girl Who Conquered Time (1983)
Well. I didn’t dislike it. But the direction is silly and details of the story are often unclear or confusing. I am tempted to say that it verges on camp.
This seems to be the first film version of the story and is apparently quite popular in Japan. Perhaps I would have more to say about it if I hadn’t already seen the recent (and internationally popular) anime version; but alas my...
2 tags
Yearning (1964)
This was ok … But that ending! Well, at least the mountain town was ridiculously beautiful. I would have liked to see more of it.
2 tags
Meshi (1951)
This was ok. The street shots of Osaka were cool. I wasn’t much interested in the story (revolving around petty wifely angst), but it didn’t completely turn me off the way Naruse’s more melodramatic movies do.
2 tags
The Funeral (1984)
I enjoyed this. It was even more subdued than I expected, but it’s relative lack of ridiculousness makes it somehow seem the most comically accomplished of Itami’s movies. My favorite gag was the driving-in-the-rain scene. I liked all the aisatsu gags as well.
There’s an old monk in the movie and there was one point where I thought he sounded exactly like Chishu Ryu. I...
2 tags
Lightning (1952)
I enjoyed this a lot. I admired all the shots of Tokyo in particular, but Hideko Takamine is great as well and the story isn’t as heavy-handed as I had expected. Even an outburst of self-pity near the end didn’t dampen my pleasure. I hope there are more canonical 50s and 60s Naruse films as wonderful as this (my experience with them so far has been mixed). As far as Naruse goes, this...
2 tags
Fall Guy (1982)
This was great.
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Sound of the Mountain (1954)
I’m going to refrain from saying anything about this for now.
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Chikamatsu monogatari (1954)
I enjoyed this to an extent. It’s pretty, after all. But the self-pity! I can only put up with that for so long. Mizugochi’s histrionics turned me off by the end.
2 tags
Ishinaka sensei gyojoki (1950)
A film consisting of three short romantic stories in which Ishinaka sensei, a novelist, plays a small but pivotal role. My first impression is that this is a pleasant and picturesque romantic comedy with the, as usual, slightly odd (in my opinion) Naruse direction. But, curious about this Ishinaka sensei, I did some research:
Ishinaka seems to be a not-so-disguised stand-in for the...
2 tags
Ohara Shosuke-san (1949)
A pretty, pleasant, and ultimately poignant film about a generous spendthrift/drunk who goes bankrupt. The main character is given the nickname “Ohara Shousuke”, which as far as I can tell is the name of folk character (also a spendthrift). Some verses of a song about Ohara Shousuke are sung throughout the film and directed at the main character.
While I wouldn’t say that it...
2 tags
The Hidden Blade (2004)
A romantic, rather stiff samurai film. Which is what I expected. It was ok. I am in the mood for more historical stuff.
December 2011
7 posts
2 tags
Park and Love Hotel (2007)
I enjoyed this.
2 tags
The Road I Travel with You (1936)
Boring. Bizarre. I think there’s supposed to be some kind of commentary about class/family differences (it’s a tragedy a la Romeo and Juliet), but it’s lost in the weak drama and uninteresting characters.
I find Naruse’s early films most curious: sometimes they are amusingly inept (as here), sometimes unpretentiously wonderful. Naruse’s is a mysterious filmography.
2 tags
The Magic Hour (2008)
Silly.
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After School (2008)
Immensely entertaining. There are still details I don’t understand, which means the plot is probably too convoluted and misleading, but I don’t care. I had too much fun to criticize it.
2 tags
Oyuki the Virigin (1935)
I recently read Maupassant’s “Boule de suif” and thought, “Surely this has been made into a movie.” I was surprised to discover Mizoguchi had directed such an adaptation, and furthermore that adaptation is Oyuki the Virgin, a film I have been meaning to watch.
Of all the changes the film makes to the original story, the most dramatic and most bizarre is the...
2 tags
The Dancing Girl of Izu (1933)
A wordy silent (apparently it was planned as a sound film?). Dull story. Some pretty scenes. According to the internet, this film is interesting for a number of historical reasons.
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The Boys from Fengkuei (1983)
Hou’s breakout film. I enjoyed it.
2 tags
Permanent Nobara (2010)
Hmm. Hmmmmmm. Sometimes enjoyable, at other times obnoxious, for the most part left me completely ambivalent. The “what the hell” moment near the end made me realize this film wasn’t trying particularly hard to tell a story. Why was I wasting my time? Also, I get that this director’s schtick is dark comedy, but what kind of person do you have to be to find some of this...
November 2011
6 posts
2 tags
Tokyo Rendezvouz (2008)
I was quite surprised to discover that this is a quiet indie about wayward adults (which makes me the target audience). I loved everything but the end.
2 tags
Genkai in a Black Company (2009)
A “zero-to-hero” comedy. It’s silly. As one who does not understand Japan’s office culture, I didn’t really get it. (A “black company” refers to a company with long hours, low pay, few perks, etc. Apparently these jobs attract those without many prospects, as is the case with the hero here.)
EDIT: “Genkai in a Black Company” seems to be the...
2 tags
Cafe Isobe (2008)
This begins as an inoffensive comedy but turns into an uninteresting drama. I didn’t dislike it, but there is not much I can praise about it. I liked all the actors. A mildly entertaining waste of time (which is what I was doing).
2 tags
Sketches of Kaitan City (2010)
An impressive, well-executed slice-of-life. On the one hand, I am drawn to this film’s direction and technique; but on the other hand, it is a “life is miserable for everybody” type of story, something I am generally opposed to. Whatever I may feel about it, the few reviews which have been hyping this up since its release are justified. This film deserves more attention (in the...
2 tags
Good Men, Good Women (1995)
After giving some thought to the slice-of-life genre, I had the urge to watch some of Hou’s films. This, unfortunately for me, is one of Hou’s historical films, so I don’t have much to say about it.
October 2011
8 posts
2 tags
Burden of Life (1935)
This was ok.
2 tags
Awa no odoriko (1941)
A rather straightforward revenge jidaigeki. Fun, but I feel the actual revenge was not executed as well as it might have been. The dance (festival) is infectious and happy, and juxtaposing it with murder is effective, but they show so little of the actual revenge (a dissolve into a body?), and the drama surrounding the various revelations which take place is kind of botched. But whatever. It is...
2 tags
Where Are You? (2009)
Story of a high school kid in a rather desperate situation. Like Bashing (also by Kobayashi), I feel the main character is slightly exaggerated, which cheapens the tragedy of a very real story. Anyway, I feel like I have seen enough of Kobayashi’s films now to have expectations, and his style seems to be much narrower than I had originally thought. His characterizations are not...
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A Heartful of Love (2005)
A filmful of pedestrian dramatic contrivances. I guess I should not have assumed that just because the film was directed by Shiota it would at least be interesting. Oh well.
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Capricious Robot (2009)
A short (40 min) film about a busy writer who has hired a robot to help manage his house. It begins with Tadanobu spanking himself, so I had high expectations for the rest of the movie. And indeed I enjoyed it. Whimsical and fun. The robot is adorable.
2 tags
On Next Sunday (2009)
Not what I expected. Apparently Younha is a Korean pop star, but who knows how she ended up in this movie.
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The Volatile Woman (2004)
About the relationship between a middle-aged woman (who runs a gas station) and her burglar. It’s entertaining. I loved the ending.
Based on this and Moon and Cherry, I need to see more films from this ‘Love Collection’.
2 tags
The Graduates (2007)
The drama was fairly weak, but this was an otherwise well executed movie. Not a stand-out example of the genre, but enjoyable.
Thankfully Japan seems to produce an endless supply of these youth films. They satisfy me to no end.
September 2011
6 posts
2 tags
April Bride (2009)
Ho hum. A mainstream melodrama with a bit of the intelligence one might expect from Ryuichi Hiroki. For such a simple story, though, it’s overdone at 2 hours. [Is it even fair of me to criticize a melodrama for being overdone? Surely not.]
3 tags
The Great Happiness Space (2006)
Super depressing.
2 tags
Eli, Eli Lema Sabachthani? (2005)
Tadanobu Asano is typically badass, Aoi Miyazaki is typically adorable, and Shinji Aoyama’s film is typically enigmatic and downbeat. I don’t much like Aoyama’s style, but for as long as Miyazaki is onscreen, I can tolerate it =3. Overall this was ok.
2 tags
Halfway (2009)
I enjoyed this. The story is sometimes silly, sometimes adorable, at the rare moment smart. The only thing I did not like was the camera work — mostly handheld (transitional shots seemed to be the only still moments), close-ups, jump cuts, &c. Not that it was bad — on the whole it looked beautiful (as Japan always does on camera), but I would have liked it so much more if I had...
2 tags
favorite Japanese films of the 2000s →
This list needed to be made sooner or later.
2 tags
Closed Diary (2007)
gawd this was so bad.
Before this, I had admired this director for his intelligent execution of rather commercial scripts. But I will have to reevaluate my opinion of this man’s work once I am done facepalming.
August 2011
15 posts
2 tags
After the Rain (1999)
I enjoyed this, though there were aspects of the film’s characterization and script which I did not like.
Now that I am reading about Japanese history, jidaigeki films suddenly interest me.
2 tags
Sincerity (1939)
Hmm. Strange movie.
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The Milkwoman (2005)
There were a number of aspects with the script and direction that I did not like, but Nagasaki is such a cool town. If a film has great location shooting, I can endure the worst of stories (not that this story was at all bad). So overall, I enjoyed this.
[Searching the internet for the location (the film hides the fact that the city is Nagasaki), I came across this interview, for those...
2 tags
The Family Game (1983)
I didn’t like this much. Not my type of humor and it definitely made me feel uncomfortable at times.
2 tags
Morning's Tree-Lined Street (1936)
I enjoyed this.
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Empty Rooms (2001)
The only other pink film I have seen is Hentai Kazoku, which was hilarious. I have no interest in pink films (bondage, rape, and other physical/emotional/sexual violence make me :( sad), but I heard this was a tame one and a good representative of the genre. It is fairly tame (but occasionally still too much for me) and the story is kind of interesting. So overall, ok. Still, I’m not sure...