Member daisho2004 Posted February 10, 2011 Member Share Posted February 10, 2011 Man what is going on with the Japanese Cinema? When was the last really great Samurai or even Ninja movie that came out of Japan? Where are the old style action movies like Lone Wolf & Cub? I think the last great movie IMO was Azumi what is going on here? I'm eagerly awating to see Zatoichi The Last as soon as Merlin starts to ship it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Takuma Posted February 10, 2011 Member Share Posted February 10, 2011 Japanese action cinema as it was is long dead. The industry has changed. Ultra violent action movies are not appreciated - on the contrary, they're treated with accusitions and disrespect. The only good violent action films are made with mini budget... Takanori Tsujimoto (Bloody Battle), Siji Chiba (Alien vs Ninja), Rina Takeda (Karate Girl), the more splattery Yoshihiro Nishimura, etc. There's a random Oscar wanna-be drama in the samurai film genre every now and then, but mostly it's just cheap TV dramas. Many of the theatrical jidai geki films are aimed for female audience, too. There just doesn't seem to be much interest for a new adventure film series ala Zatoichi or Kozure Ookami. Japan's produced a trillion of those in the past already, and the new audiences aren't so interested any more. Kitamura did a couple of chanbara films 10 years ago because he, too, though Japanese action cinema was / is dead. And he wasn't that successful. Azumi flopped on its theatrical run (although the dvd sales were good enough to green light a sequel that also flopped). If samurai and ninja action is your thing, then you have two choices: 1) Watch the small budget actioners 2) Watch old movies I doubt the old school will make a come-back. There's a reason thy Toho is even ending the Zatoichi series. And Godzilla. Super sentai is still alive and kicking, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member daisho2004 Posted February 11, 2011 Author Member Share Posted February 11, 2011 Takuma: I love the Old School Samurai/Ninja movies I have a ton of the rare stuff that I have gotten from Merlin and also CK. Most of the movies I have will never see a legit release. But I think its time to bring back some Old School! Like a new twist on LW&C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Takuma Posted February 11, 2011 Member Share Posted February 11, 2011 As far as the low budget films go, Seiji Chiba is the official period action guy now. Already before Alien vs Ninja and the upcoming Kunoichi he directed films like Evil Ninja, Nukenin, Ganryujima, and the Iga no ran films. Alien vs. Ninja is great not because any technical merits - it looks like ass, is written by an ass, and the humor is a flashback from 1980’s Hong Kong – and not a in a good way. But it’s insanely inventive – you know, in the way “motherfucker, did I just see that??!!” . I lost count how many applauses the film received in the screening I attended. Nukenin is a female ninja film starring the AvN co-star Mika Hijii. It has pretty cool action scenes in the beginning, but the quality trend is downwards, and everything else from cinematography to storyline is pretty much free of merits. more here: http://www.kungfucinema.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10675 Evil Ninja Trailer: Chiba is a promising guy, but he certainly needs to learn better directing and technical skills and preferrably get bigger budgets. I have my hopes up for Kunoichi, because there he's working with two other promising talents, Sonomura and Takeda. Let's hope he has improved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member BlackLamaFaction Posted February 11, 2011 Member Share Posted February 11, 2011 I heard Hideyuki Hirayama's Sword of Desperation was really great. I don't think an English version exists at this point however. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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