Japanese Movie Mini Reviews

[Takuma]

Broken Blossoms (戦場のなでしこ) (Japan, 1959) [DVD] - 2/5
A sappy hospital melodrama about a bunch of Japanese nurses in Manchuria under soviet command immediately after losing the war. Tears, flag waving and ‘oh Japanese are such good people after all’ moments. Later a handful of them are forced to serve as soviet comfort women (yeah, this didn't age well) but nothing juicy ensues. There are quite a few foreign actors in the cast and loads of Russian dialogue, though none for Osman Yusuf in a minor, non-speaking moustache role. Teruo Ishii helms it all with professionalism, but there is no spark. Had he directed it 8 years later, it could've been an amazing exploitation picture. Now it's merely toothless.

Thirst of Love (愛欲)(Japan, 1966) [VoD] – 3.5/5
Beautifully old-fashioned, grand melodrama with quite a bit of resemblance to the 90s and 2000s Wong Kar-wai films. Advertising company employee Rentaro Mikuni is the doomed hero who is one step away from marriage with kind, long time darling Yoshiko Mita when he falls in love with melancholic Kyoto widow Yoshiko Sakuma. Boss Tetsuro Tamba tries to talk sense to him but love has no ears. There’s an overwhelmingly romantic score, classy cinematography and fantastic performances that make the film feel like something from the 1950s. Although old-fashioned to the bone, the melodrama also wisely focuses on the main characters and their feelings only (one of the best scenes featuring quilt-ridden Mita telling the innocent, desperate Sakuma that she’s really sorry but she’s not going to give Mikuni back to her) and largely avoids the kind of conservative moral judgement that could easily be present. A bit surprisingly, this was helmed by soon-to-be yakuza film maestro Junya Sato.

Underworld Betrayal (裏切りの暗黒街) (Japan, 1968) [VoD] – 2/5
Four gangsters (lead by Koji Tsuruta rob) a bagful of yakuza money. They agree to lay low for three years before touching the money. But a kid (Ken Sanders) who witnessed the robbery thinks he can either redeem a membership in the gang (and a share of the money) or sell the information to the yakuza whose money went missing. This is a standard modern day gangster picture with energetic opening and closing reels; the rest is routine, though at least free of any comic relief. Yasuo Furuhata directed.

Japan's Underworld History: Futile Compassion (日本暗黒史 情無用) (Japan, 1968) [VoD] – 2.5/5
The fictional account of Noboru Ando’s underworld activities, part 2. Ando does not actually play himself here, but him being an ex-gangster and gang leader, there was often ambiguity about how much his characters were based on reality even in fictional films. This movie has a curious low-key approach to the protagonist building his gang and conducting businesses, with action toned down to the minimum. But director Eiichi Kudo’s unenthusiastic handling keeps it from becoming truly interesting. It’s not until the action packed ending that the film truly comes alive. Curiously, Kudo later directed one of the most stylish, energetic and psychologically interesting jitsuroku-style yakuza films of the 70s: Yakuza vs. G-Men: Decoy (1973).
    

Beautiful, Goodbye (ビューティフル、グッバイ) (Japan, 2018) [Nippon Connection Online] - 1.5/5
A stuttering introvert on the run from the police picks up a pretty girl who's been killed by her boyfriend but came back to life as a zombie. I do not wish to be too hard on this because it was clearly made by young, perhaps still student filmmakers. But the romantic arthouse road movie with one revisionist zombie suffers from the same problems as a lot of modern Japanese indie films. It's way bloody too long at 2 hours, feels pretentious and ultimately quite unoriginal despite the somewhat original premise (that doesn't lead anywhere). You can tell the filmmakers would disagree, like someone who invented the wooden wheel in the year 2018 thinking he was the first. Someone should have told them the rest of us have already got Pirellis. At least the film looks pretty solid from a visual point of view, particularly for an indie.

Shape of Red (Red) (Japan, 2020) [Nippon Connection Online] - 4/5
Excellent, progressive gender role critique dressed up as a trendy love story. Kaho (from Gentle Breeze in the Village and Puzzle) is devastatingly good as a young mother who realizes her happiness may not be with her daughter and husband, but in an extramarital affair with ex-boyfriend Satoshi Tsumabuki. Her dilemma cracks open the traditional belief of home, marriage and children as the basis of woman's happiness: a way of thinking so deeply rooted in Japanese society it's rarely questioned even by women. There is a key scene where she is asked why she started a family, but can’t answer because she never realized there was another way to happiness. Most people around her still don’t. Another incredibly powerful and well acted scene sees tears of happiness and guilt flow down her face at the same time as she has sex with Tsumabuki. One can’t help but to wonder how director Yukiko Mishima managed such an intimate, poignant portrayal of a young woman. Perhaps she's just a damn good director. Or maybe women making a film about women is, after all, an equation that can bear more fruit than male directors guessing what women must be thinking. Anyhow, the film is so strong you forget it’s yet another tale of someone dying of cancer! And so non-judgemental of its protagonist it won’t be well received by all audiences, even women.

Under Your Bed (アンダー・ユア・ベッド) (Japan, 2019) [Nippon Connection Online] – 4/5
A great opening scene in this one: a lovelorn hero lies under the bed and feels the mattress as the love of his life has sex on top of it. When he isn’t under the bed, he’s peeking into the house from the opposite building… until his zoom lens catches something more threatening than himself. The premise is Hitchcockian, the shocks DePalma (this is rated R18+), but the social context strictly Japanese with an otaku-like protagonist who has fallen outside the social circles and destined to live alone as an invisible man. The film draws an overly romanticized image of the (stalker) hero, which is something sure to rub foreign audiences in the wrong way, but also a way to create an interesting character and “a cleaver love story” (as praised by Kiyoshi Kurosawa). But a true otaku he isn’t as he’s got fishes instead of video games, a cool hair instead of a terrible one, and he’s played by the boy from the girls’ daydreams: Kengo Kora. Perhaps that was female director Mari Asato’s input. She helms the film with style, pace and loads of sympathy towards her two protagonists, creating something not too unlike the mix of love, naivety and brutal violence in True Romance (1993). 

Beautiful Escape (ファンファーレが鳴り響く) (Japan, 2020) [Yubari Fanta Online] – 3/5
“Adults are full of lies, so we have to kill them”. A bullied schoolboy and a girl who likes to kill small animals find each other and embark on a journey to change the world by brutally murdering bullies and rotten grown-ups. An interesting youth film by new director Kazuki Morita, slightly amateurish in parts, but also energetic and focused with a clear vision, which is something most Japanese indie productions are solely missing. Morita does a meaningful drama about social problems, but does not shy away from throwing in severed limbs, a zombie musical dream sequence (somehow neither particularly over-the-top nor out of place) and opening shot of God being decapitated (two bare-breasted angels accompany him). It’s all done with practical effects as well (considering Asuka Kurosawa’s casting as the protagonist’s mother, I wonder if her husband Soichi Umezawa had an assisting hand in the gore). Someone might call the mix of social drama, gore and nudity pretentious, but a good argument could be made that this is the exact opposite (particularly when compared to many of the amateurish, stiff art films made by similarly inexperienced filmmakers). Director Morita is Yubari 2019 Grand Prix winner and made this film with the award money. Theatrical release coming Oct. 2020.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/VGZ7A2sXxP0

Edited September 22, 2020 by Takuma

[Takuma]

Lone Kanto Yakuza (関東やくざ者) (Japan, 1965) [TV] – 3/5
A standard ninkyo film with honourable yakuza Koji Tsurura going against merciless, but not entirely rotten businessman gangster Tetsuro Tamba. There are too many talking heads scenes and a storyline that isn’t awfully interesting, but also solid filmmaking and drama that sneaks into the film almost unnoticed. Tamba is always interesting, and the bloody final sword duel against him is quite powerful. There’s also some old fashioned charm stemming from an extensive use of songs, which shouldn’t necessarily be surprising since Toei’s prominent enka singer actors Hideo Murata and Saburo Kitajima are both in the film. This was the 2nd movie in the Kanto series, one of Toei’s early ninkyo series. Shigehiro Ozawa wrote and directed them all five of them. While I have not seen the others, it appears Tsuruta plays the same character only in the first two, and different characters in the rest.



Expelled from the Kanto Mob (関東破門状) (Japan, 1965) [TV] – 2.5/5
Kanto yakuza Koji Tsuruta is expelled from his clan after wounding rotten bastard boss Nobuo Kaneko in a fight he didn’t start. It’s all for preserving underworld harmony. One gets the feeling there was great potential for a watadori film here. The filmmakers, however, went for a standard ninkyo romp that doesn’t do much with its premise (in their defence, the genre was still young). Tsuruta merely relocates himself while tearful sweetheart Junko Fuji produces tears at home, and Kaneko does more evil things until it’s time for Tsuruta to right wrongs. This was part 3 in the Kanto series. Not to be confused with the Nikkatsu / Tetsuya Watari film of the same title (1971).

Kanto Yakuza Storm (関東やくざ嵐) (Japan, 1966) [TV] – 2.5/5
The 5th and last in the series. There's a good Shakespearian start with the 'in love with the rival boss’ daughter' Koji Tsuruta ordered to go nagurikomi on old man to settle gang accounts that don’t even involve him. Can’t escape the damned giri. This is another film that could’ve been interesting had it focused on the above mentioned humanity / obligation tragedy. Unfortunately Tsuruta soon drifts off to digging holes and bonding with a loud-mouth construction worker yakuza Rin’ichi Yamamoto while the film largely forgets the opening premise. There are still some beautiful scenes, a nice use of umbrellas (a romantic genre cliche that never got old), and a strong ending, but too much time is spent on unessentials.



The Karate 2 (ザ・カラテ2) (Japan, 1974) [VoD] – 3.5/5
A mentally insane sequel with blinded Tadashi Yamashita chased by a legion of vengeful martial artists, including Chinese Hercules Bolo Yeung as a fighter called Dracula! There’s also a Swedish assassin who tries to kill Yamashita on the surgery table before he can get his eyes fixed, resulting Yamashita going Zatoichi for the rest of the film. The whole film is built on such shaky grounds that it could collapse any moment, but somehow the insanity keeps it together. There’s more comedy, but also moments of gut ripping brutality, and a constant uncertainty about whether Yamashita looks brain-dead on purpose or by accident. But it’s American assassin Jerry Samson who gives one of the most ridiculously over-the-top performances you’ll ever see. The action nevertheless remains good, at times ridiculously good with loads of good moves by Yamashita, Samson and Korean double kicker Kim Jin-pal (Bolo goes partially wasted, unfortunately). Also interesting to see All Japan Karate Federation’s Masafumi Suzuki (who’s also in The Street Fighter and a few other films) returning in a rather large acting and action role.



The Karate 3 (ザ・カラテ３　電光石火) (Japan, 1975) [VoD] – 3.5/5
Yamashita starts this film by doing some Truck Yaro’ing well before Bunta made it a thing… until he realizes he’s been smuggling guns for the yakuza, and the black dude Danny Williams napping at the back is a vicious karate killer. Yamashita also wears a red suit and a blazing red hat, has a 27 second romance with a Chinese girl (18 year old Emi Hayakawa, a housekeeping school graduate AND a Shorinji Kempo practitioner!) and a little longer bromance with her kung fu father. What a great, breezy start! The rest of the film holds up alright, but suffers from weaker villains than the previous movies. Yamashita has again brought together a set of attention hungry martial arts buddies to make a movie, but they come off even more as comic buffoons than before. Williams is the only one who manages to challenge Yamashita in fighting and stupendous facial impressions. The last in the series.



Tokyo Fundoshi Geisha (東京ふんどし芸者) (Japan, 1975) [VoD] - 1/5
An absolutely horrible geisha sex comedy that is sometimes considered a 7th film in the Hot Springs Geisha series, just without hot springs. It certainly was a production follow-up, courtesy of producer Kanji Amao and writer Masahiro Kakefuda. But this is even worse that the worst of the Hot Springs films. Yukio Noda helms it in much the same way as the most unbearable of his idiotic Delinquent Boss films, with retarded comedy mixed with boring drama and silly sex scenes. The film climaxes with a 25 minute geisha vagina duel (Shingo Yamashiro is the judge, of course) where two contestants perform tricks with their pussies, e.g. calligraphy, rope pulling and playing a trumpet (ok, I laughed there). The actual storyline I'm not too sure about since the film is unwatchable and I could only make it to the end with extensive fast-forwarding.

Edited November 10, 2020 by Takuma

[One Armed Boxer]

On 12/14/2016 at 6:37 PM, Takuma said:

Flower and Snake: Zero (Japan, 2014) [VoD] - 4/5
Most SM films run the same old tired formula. There's a proud housewife in a need of shaming, provided by men who rope discipline her all the way to the morally dubious romantic happy end. Not so here. This one starts with police raid into an underground SM shoot - something that immediately turns into a bloody gunfight. It's a deliriously over the top crime film / S&M movie fever dream with an intriguing mystery plot, violence that occasionally slips to the splatter action territory, and one hell of a climax. It's also very erotic, thanks to stylish direction, attractive cast and decent characters (a blackmailed female cop who does karate, an abducted wife, and a cute giggling young woman who discovers she loves S&M). The storyline frequently (unintentionally) borders ridiculous, but that only works to its benefit. The only liability is that none of the cast look very convincing with guns; that being said, the weapons are "real" and the film is a feast in practical effects.

.

One of the many movies I've watched based on your reviews, I couldn't resist giving this one my own review treatment for COF, in the hope that it gives it a little more 'exposure'  - 

https://cityonfire.com/flower-and-snake-zero-2014-review/

[Takuma]

On 11/9/2020 at 1:21 PM, One Armed Boxer said:

One of the many movies I've watched based on your reviews, I couldn't resist giving this one my own review treatment for COF, in the hope that it gives it a little more 'exposure'  - 

https://cityonfire.com/flower-and-snake-zero-2014-review/

Oh yeah, I thought I recognized myself in the review

Glad you liked it

[Takuma]

Ishihara x 5 (and 1 Watari in the middle)

Man Who Causes a Storm (嵐を呼ぶ男) (Japan, 1957) [VoD] – 2.5/5
A Nikkatsu classic with hard-fisted delinquent Yujiro Ishihara put behind drums to replace arrogant AWOL band star Toshio Oida. The boy proves to be an instant sensation. But the yakuza affiliated (backed up by crooked Toru Abe) Oida isn't going let his glory, nor his stripper girlfriend, be taken away that easily. Energetic Ishihara shines, but the conservative drama with Ishihara seeking mother's approval is strictly a product of its time, and can bog down the film's momentum at times. The film remains one of Nikkatsu’s more popular pictures, however, and has been remade multiple times.

Red Handkerchief (赤いハンカチ) (Japan, 1964) [DVD] - 4/5
Young detective Yujiro Ishihara quits the force after gunning down a drug ring suspect and orphaning pretty girl Ruriko Asaoka. Years later police chief Nobuo Kaneko finds him in the snowy north working as a construction worker and a wandering guitarist! The chief needs help with the old case which remains unsolved and somehow landed Asaoka in Ishihara's ex-partner Hideaki Nitani's amorous hands. Beautifully atmospheric and visually poetic mood action with a great use of metaphoric winter and fall scenery, which reminds of matatabi films. Of course, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to see Ishihara's character as a modern matatabi hero. Though my knowledge of the genre is limited, there is doubt this film is rightfully considered one of the cornerstones of Nikkatsu Action.



Man Who Causes a Storm (嵐を呼ぶ男) (Japan, 1966) [VoD] – 2/5
A disappointing remake of the 1957 Yujiro Ishihara film. It’s the same storyline, but with conflicts and villains downplayed to the point of the drama becoming toothless. Tetsuya Watari is the new delinquent going band star, Tatsuya Fuji the arrogant drummer, and Meiko Kaji a girlfriend character in a new race driver brother side-plot. Despite the star power, Watari is the only one who makes an impression. It’s very much the same film as the original, only with less punch, and in colour this time. No, wait, the original was in colour, too!

Safari 5000 (栄光への5000キロ) (Japan, 1969) [VoD] – 4/5
You probably didn't know there was a Japanese 3 hour racing film that is both a sentimental epic and heavily influenced by French new wave. And a good chunk of it is spoken in French. Japanese daredevil driver Yujiro Ishihara crashes near-fatally in Monte Carlo, separating ways with teammate and close friend Jean Claude Drouot. The latter goes on to become a rival, while girlfriends Emmanuelle Riva (of Hiroshima Mon Amour and Haneke's Amour) and Ruriko Asaoka (who speaks all her dialogue with Riva in French) remain close. Motorsports boss Toshiro Mifune and team leader Tatsuya Nakadai then recruit Ishihara for the legendary East African Safari Rally. Koreyoshi Kurahara helms the film with loads of style and intense documentary-like touch in the racing scenes (the climatic rally scene takes over 50 min). Ishihara is excellent as the bull-headed driver, and manages his abundant English dialogue alright (his Kenyan co-driver, on the other hand can speak English well, but not act). The storyline was inspired by real events. This was the no. 1 film at the Japanese box office in 1969.



The Walking Major (ある兵士の賭け) (Japan, 1970) [VoD] – 3/5
America is a friend: The Movie. Major Dale Robertson (and sidekick Frank Sinatra Jr.) decides to walk through half of Japan to raise money for an orphanage. And then he walks, walks, once falls into a ditch, and then walks some more. Cute little kids cheer for him, women shed tears of admiration, and once he even stops to put out a fire. A terrible military march keeps playing in repeat. Pretty pedestrian filmmaking to say the least, and could pass for a genuine propaganda piece only if it wasn’t produced by the Japanese themselves, Yujiro Ishihara’s Ishihara International. And it is a true story, with some invented content, the opening states. It is not without innocent, sentimental charm, however. By the end, you’ve likely grown quite fond of it. And the last part of the film is genuinely curious. Aside Ishihara, there’s Toshiro Mifune, Ruriko Asaoka, Mayumi Nagisa and Michiyo Aratama popping up, faring somewhat worse with their English in what is mainly an English language film than in Safari 5000. The director is b-grade import Keith Eric Burt aka Keith Larsen.

Fuji sancho (富士山頂) (Japan, 1970) [VoD] – 2.5/5
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation: The Movie. In 1964 Mitsubishi - yes, they did more than just cars and rice cookers - built weather radar on top of Mt. Fuji under gruelling conditions. And here we have a motion picture epic about their struggles to make that happen, courtesy of Yujiro Ishihara's Ishihara Production. It's big enough a film for engineer protagonist Ishihara to disappear for a good 40 minutes while Shintaro Katsu and Makoto Sato try to drive a bulldozer on top of the mountain. Third billed Tetsuya Watari doesn't appear until well into the 2nd hour as a helicopter pilot. It’s a great cast only rivalled by the beautiful scenery, in a decently suspenseful but awfully safe tale of a national achievement. Very much made for mainstream audiences, and indeed, this was the 3rd biggest box office hit of 1970, tied with Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo.

Others

Ganso dai yojohan dai monogatari (元祖大四畳半大物語) (Japan, 1980) [DVD] - 1.5/5
Unfunny mainstream comedy co-directed by Chusei Sone and Leiji Matsumoto (based Matsumoto’s manga). It’s is about a nerdy teenager staying opposite of a yakuza chinpira in a guesthouse. Yuri Yamashina (does not strip) and James Hunt (does not play) pop up briefly. This must rank as one of Sone’s most boring films. There are no laughs, no characters to care for, and nothing cinematically inventive. Sone had done much better with another teen comedy, Hakatakko junjo (1978), a few years earlier.

Tezuka's Barbara (Japan / UK / Germany, 2019) [DCP] - 3/5
Astro Boy Osamu Tezuka's adult manga brought to screen as jazzy noir weirdness with an intellectual undercurrent. A writer (Goro Inagaki) with "slight mental issues" (he mistakes a lingerie store mannequin for a real woman and tries to make love to it) is saved by bad-mannered, booze-loving, French literature quoting Barbara (Fumi Nikaido). But things only get more bizarre from there on. Lots of interesting talent behind this one: Tezuka's son Macoto helms, Christopher Doyle lenses, and Third Window Films' Adam Torel produces. It’s a good looking picture, with a standout performance by (the frequently naked) Nikaido as Barbara. But this could have been even wilder, with tighter editing, better character depth, more cannibalism and, well, let’s not give away too much. Still, even with its shortcomings, this is surely the most interesting film in Japanese multiplexes at the moment, one with some bite.

 

Edited November 30, 2020 by Takuma

[DrNgor]

Black Rat (2010, d: Kenta Fukasaku) - original title: Kuronezumi - So a few years ago, a mobile game called "Granny" came out. It's a first-person survival horror game in which you guide a nameless character through the blood-soaked halls of a dilapidated house, trying to escape before falling prey to the title character, a pyschotic old woman wielding a baseball bat. Last year (or so), the game was parodied on the Roblox platform as "Piggy," in which your character is chased around by characters from the famous "Peppa Pig" cartoon. I bring this up because the film's central conceit: a bunch of teenagers being stalked through the halls of a school by a schoolgirl wearing a large plush rat mask made me think of that game. I even joked with my daughter that I was watching a film adaptation of "Piggy". 

About two months after the suicide of their friend, Asuka (Rina Saito), six graduating teenagers receive a mysterious text message from Asuka inviting them to their homeroom at midnight. Four of them--nerdy Takashi, pretty boy Ryota, shallow and bubbly Saki, and bookworm Kanako--arrive on time, only to discover a killer in a rat mask and the fifth member of troupe, Kengo, who's already been beaten to death by a baseball bat. The killer stalks the other four and we learn just how this group of friends fell apart prior to Asuka's suicide.

Beyond the visual of the killer being a girl in a rat mask, the film is pretty conventional, even by Western standards. It plays the supernatural card ambiguously, and even when the rational explanation pops its head near the end, there's still a subtle hint of the supernatural lingering in the proceedings. One thing I did like was how Saki, the girl who most fits the slasher archetype of "the slut", becomes the Final Girl and even goes all Yukari Oshima on the killer at the end. And with a short running time--less than 80 minutes--it never wears out its welcome.

 

Cursed (2004, d: Yoshihiro Hoshino) - original title: 'Chô' kowai hanashi A: yami no karasu - On paper, this sounds like a parody of Ju-On: The Grudge, in which instead of a haunted house that curses anyone who steps foot inside, you have a haunted convenience store that curses anyone who steps inside (or at least makes a purchase). That said, the premise is played completely straight. The film doesn't have so much a plot as just a collection of vignettes of people who enter the Miyasato Market, make a purchase, and then suffer a horrible fate afterward. The characters holding it together are a girl who works the day shift (although she's called a part-time worker) and the female representative a larger chain of convenience stores that has bought out the Miyasato Store and is doing the inventory before the turnover. 

The vignettes range from bizarre (usually those involving the two owners of the convenience store, who may already be under the ghosts' spell) to creepy (the one customer who's stalked by a sledge hammer murderer on her way home). There's a triple haunting sequence--where we jump back and forth between three people being attacked by supernatural forces--that starts out great but is ultimately ruined by the melodramatic music that plays as each individual story reaches its respective climax. An explanation is given for the haunted nature of the locale, although it ranks with H.P. Lovecraft's "The Shuttered House" in terms of disappointment. The film also doesn't have much of a climax, either. Surreal enough to be worth a view, but I'm not sure if it'll become a classic in most people's books.

Edited December 8, 2020 by DrNgor

[DrNgor]

RASEN (1998) - Okay, I watched this forgotten, bastard son of the highly popular RINGU. This was has an interesting backstory. By the time the RINGU novel finally started paying dividends and making a movie was a no-brainer, the author had published the second novel in the series, RASEN. The studio scooped up the rights to that book and put a film adaptation into production concurrent with the adaptation of RINGU.

 

The problem is that Hideo Nakata and his screenwriter made a number of important adjustments to the story, adjustments which the makers of RASEN were not aware of. And so you have a movie loosely based on a novel that became a cultural phenomenon, and an faithful adaptation of the novel's sequel that nobody could make heads or tails of. It's like watching WIZARD OF OZ (1939) and then RETURN TO OZ (1985) in rapid succession. You'll wonder why things got really dark and disturbing all of a sudden, but it's because the makers of the latter were making an adaptation of a sequel novel, instead of a sequel to the first film.

 

This movie picks up where the first movie leaves off, in which a suicidal doctor is tasked with performing the autopsy on Ryuji, the ex-husband from the last film. He strikes up a relationship of sorts with Ryuji's traumatized girlfriend and eventually comes into possession of Sadako's tape through Reiko's boss. Except that when he finally watches the tape, he doesn't get a phone call giving him seven days to live. Instead, the film takes a trip into the bizarre, with pseudo-science that's so head-scratching that "haunted videotape" seems absolutely rational in comparison.

 

Everybody who watches this movie hates it, and with good reason. When your attempts to give a "real world" explanation to a tape that kills people in 7 days makes less sense than "dead girl with psionic powers kills people from beyond the grave," you're probably doing something wrong. Apparently, the third book, LOOP, tried to rectify *that* by going The Matrix route.

 

That said, I myself can't bring myself to hate this movie. I kinda liked the first third, even if it felt like a more moody, leisurely take on the paranormal detective theme. Once the protagonist watches the video, it slips into melodrama for the second act, mainly because the guy is already suicidal, so he has no incentive to stop his own death. Then we delve headfirst into WTF territory for the last act in which we really start asking ourselves how the author ever thought this could stem organically from THE RING.

 

You know, I sort of wish that Hideo Nakata had tried to adapt RASEN into the Hollywood RING 2 instead of the film we got. That would've been interesting.

[DrNgor]

RING 2 (1999) - Director Hideo Nakata, who did the first RINGU, which was a major hit with local audiences, did not want his masterpiece to be forever associated with RASEN. So he directed a sequel to his film (as opposed to a movie based on the sequel to the novel) and released it the following year. As far as sequels go, it's not all that bad, even if scenes from it are bound to remind people of the infamous EXORCIST 2.

Like RASEN, the film revolves around Mai Takano, the ex-husband's girlfriend from the previous film. She's looking for answers regarding the sudden death of her partner, but the sudden disappearance of Reiko and her son is making things difficult. The police, who are investigating both the death of Ryuji from the first film and the discovery of Sadako's remains in the well, are also left in the dark because of Reiko's disappearance.

Nonetheless, everybody is on the path to meet up with Sadako once again. On one hand, like a virus, the slightest contact with anyone she's cursed will have some sort of psychic fallout on that person. This is especially true once Mai and a reporter colleague of Reiko's find themselves at the mental hospital where the friend of the first victim from the last film is committed to. Moreover, the reporter, who's finishing Reiko's investigation into the rumors of the video, finds a copy through one of the high school students he's interviewing.

One of the most interesting parts of the film is the moral cost of both surviving AND stopping the curse once the video has been watched. On one hand, a major character is willing to kill off one family member in order to save another, probably using the logic that "so-and-so is old, they've lived a good life" as a way to convince themselves that they're not a monster.

On the other hand, a second major character receives a copy of the tape with the promise they'll watch it. But realizing the evil of the tape, that person is willing to condemn another person to death if it means that the deadly chain might stop. That sort of moral ambiguity is fascinating to behold.

The movie falters at the end when pseudoscience rears its head and another supporting character tries to use it to battle Sadako's curse. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense and cheapens an otherwise effective film.

 

RING 0: Birthday (2000) - The final movie in the original trilogy (or tetralogy, if you wish to include RASEN), is a prequel depicting the tragic final days of Sadako's life prior to her getting knocked into the well. Like the last film, it's pretty good until the final act, when suddenly becomes a remake of the 50s horror film THE MANSTER.

We're start in late 1960s or so, where Sadako Yamamura is living in Tokyo working with an theater group. She's basically CARRIE here, in that she's withdrawn and solitary, while her colleagues don't like her because of the strange aura about her. The only people who like her are Toyoma, the sound guy, and the director, who may as well be named Weinstein Tanaka...if you get what I'm saying and I think that you do.

An unexplained death in the cast puts Sadako into the lead role. However, a tragic sequence of events involving disgruntled theater trope members, an even more disgruntled journalist, and a scorned costume designer, will result in a series of deaths culminating in the end we know will happen: Sadako's adopted dad throwing her into the well and sealing her inside. As one reviewer put it, it's CARRIE by way of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.

Much like Carrie, Sadako becomes less of a force of evil rather than a tragic figure condemned to a horrible life by the psychic powers she was born with and her overall upbringing. That does take away a bit from the malevolence of the whole story arc, although the actress playing Sadako makes her sympathetic enough that you really feel bad for her. Both Carrie and Sadako are almost doomed to tragedy from the outset.

My main complaint here is that while the film answers one question--what was Sadako's life like between her mother's suicide and her own "death"--it also fails to answer a big question that the characters have been asking since the first film: Who exactly was her father? Different characters had asked that question aloud in the previous film and the question is tied into the silly MANSTER subplot that shows up in Act 3, but it's never addressed. If they had provided an answer in the first film, it would have cheapened that one a lot. But after a sequel and a prequel that made their own mistakes in trying to explain things, revealing her father's identity couldn't have made things too much worse.

[DrNgor]

KARATE WARRIORS (1976) - The Japanese karate boom, which started in 1973 with BODYGUARD KIBA, ran out of steam rather quickly, compared to its Hong Kong counterparts. That's surprising considering how Japan is home to as many martial arts as it is (numerous schools of karate, aikido, judo, kendo, kenjutsu, ninjitsu, etc.), but the fact of the matter is, outside of Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao, Japanese mainstream moviegoers seem to have taken with martial arts films in small spurts over the years.

KARATE WARRIORS is about a gang war erupting between two factions of the Yakuza, each led by the son of the big boss who died a few years before. His successor is serving a life sentence, and the two brothers are bickering over a shipment of heroin that each one think the other has in his possession. Enter Sonny Chiba, a wandering karate freelancer who joins forces with one of the factions. He befriends the kid son of a kenjutsu master, who has thrown in his lot with the other faction. Lots of violence and double crossing ensues.

It's a shame that Japan didn't find it lucrative enough to continue financing pure karate films. On the technical side, they were more advanced than their Hong Kong counterparts. The photography here is great, especially when it beats Zack Snyder to the punch (har!) with the whole slow motion->speed up->slow motion trick that Snyder used so extensively in 300.

This movie is odd in that it simultaneously has more heart than any of the STREET FIGHTER films--Chiba plays a sympathetic character as opposed to an amoral bada**--but at the same time, manages to be even more misogynistic than that series. Still, worth a look by fans of the genre.

[Takuma]

On 12/15/2020 at 11:55 AM, DrNgor said:

KARATE WARRIORS (1976) - The Japanese karate boom, which started in 1973 with BODYGUARD KIBA

I would like to clarify a little bit: the new wave of karate films started with Kiba (May 1973) indeed, but the actual "boom" didn't start until a bit later. Enter the Dragon was released in Japan in December 1973, and that was the film that started the martial arts film boom in Japan. The Street Fighter hit the theatres 6 weeks later in February 1974, and that's where the domestic karate boom started.

 

On 12/15/2020 at 11:55 AM, DrNgor said:

This movie is odd in that it simultaneously has more heart than any of the STREET FIGHTER films--Chiba plays a sympathetic character as opposed to an amoral bada**--but at the same time, manages to be even more misogynistic than that series. Still, worth a look by fans of the genre.

In Japan, Karate Warriors is sometimes considered the 4th film in the Street Fighter series because of the original title. Street Fighter is Satsujin ken ("Killing Fist") while Karate Warriors is Kozure satsujin ken ("Killing Fist with a Cub"). And yes, the Cub is a reference to Lone Wolf and Cub (Kozure ookami).

And yeah, the film is quite a bit of fun. The slow-mo effect is awesome! Btw, the American version has some of the scenes played in different order than in the Japanese cut.

Edited December 24, 2020 by Takuma

[Takuma]

The Shogun’s Vault (御金蔵破り) (Japan, 1964) [TV] – 3/5
Teruo Ishii entered Toei with a number of stylish, contemporary capers. Here he does the same formula in Edo, with met-in-prison Hashizo Okawa and Chiezo Kataoka putting on black hoods and scheming to nab the shogun’s gold without anyone noticing. The film takes a while to get going, but the heist sequence delivers thrills in spades. Also noteworthy is the opening (all male) prison segment, full of perversity pre-dating Ishii’s late 60s Tokugawa films.

Woman Boss: Chivalrous Fight (女親分　喧嘩渡世) (Japan, 1969) [TV] – 3/5
A standard ninkyo film elevated by star Nijiko Kiyokawa. At 57 years of age, she wasn’t quite the cutie idol Toei put in their other movies. An actress since the early 1930s, she was probably best known to Toei yakuza audiences as the battle axe wife in the Tomisaburo Wakayama’s Gokudo series. This film is somewhat a derivative, with mostly the same cast (Kiyokawa, Shingo Yamashiro, Bunta Sugawara, Minoru Oki, Bin Amatsu) and a similar feel. Kiyokawa gets her gang into female wrestling, quarrels with delinquent girls (Hiroko Minami, Masumi Tachibana, and Yumiko Katayama with some amazing fashion), and shoots a bad guy in the eye! Mediocre Takashi Harada helms it with professionalism albeit without originality. But it is lovely Toei gave Kiyokawa a film of her own at this point of her career…. even if they couldn’t refuse a bunch of (non)sex appeal jokes.



Chivalrous Woman (女渡世人) (Japan, 1971) [DVD] - 3/5
An unusually feminine yakuza picture with Junko Fuji searching for her long lost mother, and becoming a mother figure herself for a girl whose father (Koji Tsuruta) went nagurikomi on an evil gang. Fuji always had a distinctly motherly aura, even at a young age, which still didn’t stop her from killing a dozen people and slicing a few arms off, as in this film’s opening scene. Another oxymoron: director Shigehiro Ozawa filmed much of this picture in real mountainous locations instead of studio sets, which creates an oddly realistic effect in the fairytale like ninkyo context. A solid film with many good scenes (e.g. clueless/arrogant boss Tatsuo Endo asking for Fuji's name and getting a formal yakuza self-introduction in return) but it could have done with a few barrels of tears less – half of the film is spent about crying over lost and found mothers.

Chivalrous Woman 2 (女渡世人　おたの申します) (Japan, 1971) [DVD] – 3.5/5
An unusual ninkyo film that attempts to strip the genre of its trademark romanticism. Junko Fuji is a woman gambler who travels to another town return a fellow gambler’s ashes to his parents, and to collect his debt. However, her good deeds are only greeted with ungratefulness, and every action she takes brings more death and misery to the people around her. "We are yakuza, we are destined to live in the shadows" says honourable companion Bunta Sugawara. There is some silly comedic relief in the beginning, and a rather uninspired musical score, but by the bloody climax the film has descended to a level of emotional despair never before seen the ninkyo genre. An inconsistent, but remarkable effort by director Yamashita and writer Kasahara.



Swords of Death (真剣勝負) (Japan, 1971) [TV] – 3.5/5
Tomu Uchida’s final Musashi Miyamoto film, produced a decade after the classic 5 film series (1961-1964). This one follows Miyamoto’s (Kinnosuke Nakamura) encounter with chain and sickle wielding Baiken Shishido (Rentaro Mikuni), which results in a massive, 30 minute battle scene between the two adversaries. At only 75 minutes, this is a compact pack of both hard core action and philosophical discussions. Whether the abrupt ending and the short running time were artistic decisions or merely a result of director Tomu Uchida dying before the film was completed, they often work to its benefit. The film was brought to theatres in February 1971, some six months after Uchida’s death.



Chiwawa (チワワちゃん) (Japan, 2019) [DVD] - 3.5/5
Fragmented, hectic youth exploration about a group of friends recalling Chiwawa, a cheerful party girl who was found floating in Tokyo Bay in pieces. Director Ken Ninomiya again proves he is (the only new Japanese director) on to something. Here he updates Hideaki Anno's masterpiece Love and Pop to the Instagram age, and does Harmony Korine's (masterful) Spring Breakers with honesty instead of satire, resulting in a film that feels very much on to its time. One can only assume these images spring from the director's own life. And after bombarding the audience with disco lights and life on speed for 100 minutes, he ends the film with a scene where all these young, popular actors have been stripped of make-up, and the result is beautiful. He could've cut the film shorter, though. Side note: contains an insanely funny group sex scene.

[DarthKato]

I watched a really good movie today called "Pulse(2001)": Its a Japanese horror film about, as far as I can understand, ghost spilling out into the real world and the ramifications of that happening. Very spooky and creepy, with a good cast of characters. Defiantly recommend it. 

[masterofoneinchpunch]

1 hour ago, DarthKato said:

I watched a really good movie today called "Pulse(2001)": Its a Japanese horror film about, as far as I can understand, ghost spilling out into the real world and the ramifications of that happening. Very spooky and creepy, with a good cast of characters. Defiantly recommend it. 

It works so well as a metaphor for today's Internet/Social Media society.  If you have not seen the director's Cure, I highly recommend it.

[DarthKato]

On 1/6/2021 at 4:34 PM, masterofoneinchpunch said:

It works so well as a metaphor for today's Internet/Social Media society.  If you have not seen the director's Cure, I highly recommend it.

I can see that. Like how we are becoming so dependent on the internet for human interaction, that we have basically given up on the real world? 

I will definitely check Cure out. It was a bit too expensive on Amazon, but I found a good copy of it on YouTube!

[DrNgor]

Long Dream (2000) - (orig. title: Nagai Yume) - TV movie. A short (58 minutes), intriguing subject about two neurologists working at a hospital. One of them is following up on his first cancer patient, Mami (Moonlight Whisper's Tsugumi); the other one has a rather peculiar patient: Mukoda Tetsurou (Shuji Kashiwabara, of Alien vs. Ninja) has dreams, or rather nightmares, that are taking up progressively more time in the dream world with each passing night. He says that in one dream, he spent eight years having to go the bathroom while looking for a place to go. His dreams are getting so long that he has difficulty both remembering what happened the previous day and is starting to mistake the content of the dream for actual reality. Moreover, his body is mutating during his sleep: he now looks like a humanoid version of the bug-eyed aliens from Invasion of the Saucer People. Meanwhile, the doctor assigned to him starts having visions of his deceased girlfriend, Kana (Gatchaman's Eriko Hatsune), and starts to think that she's waiting for him in the Dream World.

The film is very scary per se--there's only one jump scare--but it is eerie and unsettling. Obviously the premise is enough to make people imagine themselves in the same situation and chew on just how (heh) nightmarish it would be to, every night, descend into a deeper level of dream (a lá Inception). And at 58 minutes, the film never wears out its welcome, either.

 

Haunted School: Curse of the Word Spirit (2014) - (orig title: Gakkou no kaidan: Noroi no kotodama) - aka Kotodama: Spiritual Curse - Another "haunted place" J-horror film, less successful than others. After a few effective jump scares in the first act, the movie settles into a series of vignettes about students trapped into the titular locale: nine students in Year 1 Class 5, whose homeroom is located right next to the boarded up Class 4, which may have been subject to a freak gas accident 16  years before. There is also a young woman, Shiori (Anna Ishibashi, whom I thought was Tag's Reina Triendl), who is convinced that her deceased mother is trying to communicate something about the school to her. Finally, there are four amateur filmmakers (including the cute Hitomi Arai) who are trying to film a creepy pasta video and become famous on the internet. The film sort of jumps back and forth between these characters and the numerous creepy things they are subjected to, until a clunky exposition dump ties it all together, followed by a series of twists that I honestly had a hard time making sense out of.

The title suggests that the scary things happening to the characters are the result of their talking about the supernatural. It's an intriguing idea, especially once the major twist is revealed. However, the last few minutes sort of kills that because secondary and tertiary twists bring up questions that some viewers (myself included) may not be able to answer coherently. There are a few solid jump scares, although the movie does the thing I hate with the sound: the dialog is played rather low, but the musical stings accompanying the jump scares are friggin' loud: you have to increase the volume too much to hear the dialog, and then the jump scare almost ruptures your ear drum. I also didn't like how the characters are named gradually throughout the film, so by the final scene, I'm still learning the names of the main characters. Count this one as a miss, all things considered. 

[Takuma]

Bullet Wound (弾痕) (Japan, 1969) [DVD] – 3.5/5
Interesting, bloody counter-espionage thriller set in 1969 Tokyo during violent, anti US student protests. Yuzo Kayama is an American-Japanese operative working for the US to uncover an arms deal between an American seller and Chinese communists, and to take out both parties. After almost getting assassinated himself, he takes a wounded civilian (Kiwako Taichi) with him despite living in a world where no one can be trusted. This is a loosely linked companion to Kayama’s other sniper / professional killer films Sun Above, Death Below (1968), The Creature Called Man (1970) and Target of Roses (1972), but with a more political approach. And there is no lack of nihilism, as proven by the unnecessarily long torture / interrogation scene. The film’s first half runs at leisure pace and ought to have been cut down, but the second half is tight, suspenseful and action packed. The era is captured well, and Kayama is great at channelling lonely tough guy vibes as a man with no true homeland, looked down upon by Americans and Japanese alike.

Farewell, Movie Friend: Indian Summer (さらば映画の友よ インディアンサマー) (Japan, 1979) [DVD] – 3.5/5
Film aficionado Takuzo Kawatani, whose life aim is to watch a movie in theatre every day for 20 years, makes friends with student boy Naohiko Shigeta and his girlfriend Atsuko Asano whose delinquent girl antics and yakuza affiliations proves troubling, in 1969 Tokyo. This was Masato Harada’s (Kamikaze Taxi, Bounce ko gals) first film, a love letter to cinema. Toei’s live action Donald Duck Kawatani gives a heartfelt performance in the lead. He’s best know as a Piranha Gang member (a group of Toei bit-player hell raisers who spent their nights drunk and days competing who gets the most outrageous on-screen deaths; fellow piranha Hideo Murota is in this film too). But those who saw him in Fukasaku’s Gambling Den Heist already knew the underlying talent he had for tragicomedy. Here, from the opening where he runs himself breathless to catch a movie, to reciting movie dialogue at every chance, doing a Dancing in the Rain number, and studying Ken Takakura movies to learn how to deal with the yakuza, Kawatani just oozes sympathy. The film’s weakness is giving too much of (the excessive 110 min) runtime to the good but less interesting Shigeta.



Tokyo Heaven (東京上空いらっしゃいませ) (Japan, 1990) [VoD] – 2/5
A deceased teen idol refuses to go to heaven, comes back to earth as a runaway spirit to try and live an ordinary life. She seeks shelter with a young marketing employee who has just been tasked with covering up her death for a greasy politician responsible for her ran-over-by-a-car mishap. Shinji Somai was arguably the greatest youth film director of the 80s, but he seemed to lose his intimate touch and technical genius as he grew older. This one plays out like a standard domestic 90s drama with a low key fantasy touch akin to Nobuhiko Obayashi. There is one scene, however, where the protagonist meets a childhood friend on a buzzing home district street, all shot in one long take, that sparks the old Somal magic. The film remains a largely forgotten entry in Somai’s filmography, though it's been making a bit of a comeback with recent 35mm screenings in Tokyo and VoD distribution.

Drug Connection (極東黒社会 DRUG CONNECTION) (Japan, 1993) [TV] – 3/5
Toei V-Cinema antics disguised as a theatrical film. Opens with a close-up of bare breasts, in a New York drug lab full of topless men and women processing narcotics, moments before the police raid the place and shoot half of the people dead. The mafia then decides to seek new markets in Japan. Cut to Shinjuku where small time smuggler (Koji Yakusho) is caught between Japanese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong crime syndicates (the latter lead by ruthless Jimmy Wang Yu!) fighting for drug dominance. Enter N.Y. undercover cop (Sho Kosugi!) who has followed the trail to Japan, and a gaijin woman who shows her boobs. Good film! There's a bit of Fukasaku, a hint of mid 90s Miike, and perhaps even a passing resemblance to John Woo here. The action is never quite as catchy as you'd wish, and there is excess length at 110 min, but the great cast and the sheer amount of sex and violence in theatrical wrapping makes this worth a watch. The film's box office failure, they say, sank Toei ever deeper into V-Cinema where the audiences for stuff like this were.



The Blood of the Wolves (孤狼の血) (Japan, 2018) [VoD] – 2/5
Toei is back at the gangster game… with a film that opens with a close up of shit coming out of a pig's ass. The turd finds its way to a man's mouth, who is soon to be found dead, initiating a police investigation lead by take-no-shit detective Koji Yakusho. An ugly portrait of ugly business, as witnessed by idealistic rookie cop Tori Matsuzaka. Over-rated director Kazuya Shiraishi borrows heavily from Fukasaku, which only highlights this film’s relative shortcomings. Gone is the filmic look, gone are Toshiaki Tsushima's badass riffs, replaced by a nauseatingly dull modern soundtrack, and while Yakusho is good in his role, the cast just doesn't have the grit of the 70s Toei guys in films like Okinawa Yakuza War or Osaka Shock Tactics. These modern stars come out as great pretenders, which is what the whole film ultimately is.

[Takuma]

Japan's Underworld (日本暗黒街) (Japan, 1966) [TV] - 3.5/5
A super-stylish gangster / action film with ex-mobster Koji Tsuruta forced back in action when his ill-lucked buddy (excellent Ko Nishimura) gets himself in trouble with the yakuza. The film achieves nothing profound, but it's got a great, unmistakably 60s swing (probably attributable to comedy / musical director Masaharu Segawa) and even a bit of spy film influence. There's an excellent jazzy score, superb cinematography and spot-on performances / characters that are loving caricatures of the kinds of tough guys and beautiful women that populate these sort of noirish gangster tales. Koji Tsuruta in particular is at his Humphrey Bogart best here. Very enjoyable..

Funeral Parade of Roses (薔薇の葬列) (Japan, 1969) [VoD] - 4/5
A hugely important, semi-documentary exploration of the late 60s Tokyo underground gay scene, helmed by experimental director Toshio Matsumoto and starring the to-be gay star Peter in his first role at the age of 16 or 17. Matsumoto blends purely fictional storytelling (that borrows from an ancient Greek play) with genuine interviews about gay life, drugs and anti-government protest that were going on in the streets of Tokyo at the time. Most of the characters are what modern audiences might see as drags, but what wasn’t so clear cut back then, e.g. Peter who dresses up as woman, but has not gone through a sex change operation (something that would also have been nearly impossible in 60s Japan, though fellow star Maki Carrousel did go through that and nearly died), and identifies himself as gay. Groundbreaking upon its release when gay and trans characters were usually reduced to comic relieves in hit films such the Abashiri Prison series, or heinous villains such as in Teruo Ishii's Shameless: Abnormal and Abusive Love (1969), the film still remains a fascinating zeitgeist, a visual tour de force, and a showcase for the brilliantly captivating (and it must be said, gorgeous) Peter.



Women Hell Song (おんな地獄唄 尺八弁天) (Japan, 1970) [VoD] - 2/5
There's something fascinating on a scholastic level about a near-lost film scripted by underground hero Atsushi Yamatoya, starring the first ever pink queen Katori Tamaki (of Flesh Market, 1962) and helmed by one-man soft porn factory Mamoru Watanabe as of his 200+ films. But this is just another dose of Yamatoya's half-baked pink terrorism coming out as little more than a pretentious sex roughie. A female outlaw who does a tiny bit of gambling (the popular comparisons to Red Peony Gambler are largely unwarranted) is violated by two villains and one lawman, and then goes for revenge. Another girl gets violated some more. Little happens aside a multitude of rapes, but some of the B&W compositions look good, and you can read it all as commentary about male cruelty if you so wish.

Gushing Prayer: A 15-Year-Old Prostitute (噴出祈願 １５歳の売春婦) (Japan, 1971) [VoD] – 4/5
Mesmerizing philosophical-political exploration with four 15 year olds, one of them pregnant, set on beating the sex-driven adult world that is trying to swallow their souls. Koji Wakamatsu’s main screenwriter, to-be Red Army fighter and convicted terrorist Masao Adachi’s poetic youth film and pink flick is constantly balancing between true art and ridiculous-pretentious. But it has so much to say, and it unfolds on screen via such striking images, accompanied by a hypnotic score, that it comes out as nothing short of Pure Cinema. Many indie filmmakers have attempted the same, few have succeeded this well. This instantly became one of my favourite youth films of all time. Trivia: Japan’s all time best screenwriter, Haruhiko Arai, served as “director’s assistant” in this film.



Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (シン・エヴァンゲリオン劇場版𝄇) [DCP] – 3/5
Anno completes his remake quadrilogy after battling COVID release restrictions, Godzilla, and depression. He seems to have emerged victorious since this is the most positive, life-embracing of the franchise known for mirroring Anno's unstable mental health. Now if I could just remember what the heck happened in the previous film, which I saw in theatre eight (!) years ago, I could probably appreciate it even more. As usual, the mecha action is as boring as ever (I've no clue what makes it so popular, the choreography is a mess) but what happens between those fights is more interesting. Following the opening action bore, Anno finds time to settle down in the countryside with his emotionally healing characters, with no mecha is sight for the next 60 minutes. He's got all the time in the world, with a massive 155 min run time. And there's finally a conclusion to Shinji's story, surely a relief to those who were sending Anno murder threats in the 90s after the earlier psycho-acid-mindfuck endings. But for its added coherence and positivity, the film is never quite as gripping, nor fascinating, as what he had achieved before in anime or live action (his masterpieces, Love & Pop, Ritual).

[Duel to the Death]

Me and a friend have started a Godzilla marathon. Slowly over the next few months we plan to go through most of if not all the Godzilla movies. We are watching the Japanese versions with subtitles. 

So far we have seen Godzilla (1954), Godzilla Raids Again (1955), King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) and Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)

We watched Mothra tonight. I have only seen the first 5 or 6 movies before and maybe a couple during the Millennium era but haven't seen the rest. I'm looking forward to Destroy All Monsters. I'm almost positive i haven't seen it and i heard it's one of the best. 

[masterofoneinchpunch]

On 4/21/2021 at 6:02 PM, Duel to the Death said:

Me and a friend have started a Godzilla marathon. Slowly over the next few months we plan to go through most of if not all the Godzilla movies. We are watching the Japanese versions with subtitles. 

So far we have seen Godzilla (1954), Godzilla Raids Again (1955), King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) and Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)

We watched Mothra tonight. I have only seen the first 5 or 6 movies before and maybe a couple during the Millennium era but haven't seen the rest. I'm looking forward to Destroy All Monsters. I'm almost positive i haven't seen it and i heard it's one of the best. 

As much as I like Destroy All Monsters, I have a special spot for Gojira and Mothra.

[DrNgor]

Message from Space (1978) - (original title: Uchu kara no messeji) - Produced by Toei. This is an adaptation of the story "Nansō Satomi Hakkenden", but obviously updated to fit Star Wars sensibilities. A planet who has been conquered by an alien race releases eight "Liabe seeds" (played by walnuts) into space to find the eight heroes who will deliver the people from oppression. They send their princess, Emeralita (Etsuko Shihomi, in a mostly non-fighting role), to find the recipients of the seeds. Lots of stuff happens. In the end, there are laser battles, Sonny Chiba has a faux-light saber battle with the villain, some space ship dog fights, and stuff blows up. The special FX are actually very good by 70s Japanese standards--I'm guessing that Toei TV shows were doing well enough that could splurge a bit for a feature film. The FX seem to trump those of Toho's War in Space from the year before. It just takes far too long to really get interesting.

[Takuma]

The Ghost of the Hunchback (怪談せむし男) (Japan, 1965) [TV] – 1.5/5
Greedy relatives fight for their share of a dead man’s fortunes. Ghosts start appearing and a few people die at the end. Creepy hunchback Ko Nishimura may have something to do with it. This gothic ghost story may have some appeal to the fans of the genre. For me this was comparable to Toho’s Dracula trilogy, whose popularity I could never quite fathom. Like the Draculas, this also travelled a bit, with theatrical releases in at least Italy. Director Hajime Sato is best known for Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (1968).

The Ghost of the One Eyed Man (怪談片目の男) (Japan, 1965) [TV] – 1.5/5
A near identical production follow-up to The Ghost of the Hunchback, with Nishimura a murdered company president who comes back haunting the greedy relatives. Once again set in a big mansion. The director is Tsuneo Kobayashi this time, and under his helming the film makes even less sense.

Ninja Chushingura (忍法忠臣蔵) (Japan, 1965) [TV] – 3.5/5
The last film in Toei’s mid 60s female ninja trilogy, all based on Futaro Yamada novels. The first two (by Sadao Nakajima: Kunoichi ninpo and Kunoichi kesho) are somewhat better known. This one is a female ninja side-story to the classic 47 Ronin tale. Ako Clan leader Lord Asano is dead after being ordered to commit hara-kiri (for having attacked Lord Kira). Kira’s enraged son has sent his ninja troops after the Ako men and their new leader Oishi (Minoru Oki). Unknown to both parties, Iga ninja Mumyo (Tetsuro Tamba) has been hired by Hyobu Chisaka (Ko Nishimura) to lead six female ninjas to soil the Ako men’s reputation and corrupt their morale in an attempt to stop their revenge plan and avoid a clan war. This is a bit of an odd duck in the trilogy, featuring a male lead. The eroticism has been toned down accordingly. The 47 Ronin frame is pretty cool, but also a limiting factor, ensuring the ninjas remain in the shadows and won’t conflict too much with the classic tale. And yet there’s enough plotting crammed into 83 minutes to fill a 3 hour movie, making it a bit difficult to follow in parts. But despite all this, it remains a cool, unique little genre film with a fascinating premise and plenty of entertainment.



Shadow Warriors (影の軍団　服部半蔵) (Japan, 1980) [TV] - 3/5
Eiichi Kudo’s debated ninja film, later re-made into a legendary Sonny Chiba TV series. This was produced just after when Toei had brought back their big budget, all-star jidai geki (Shogun's Samurai, Swords of Vengeance) and were putting out more comparable productions for the paying audience. The days of mass produced, small budget genre films had largely come to an end. Hence here we have a 136 min tale of political intrigue, with Koga and Iga ninjas involved. It's a bit of an overlong mess. Yet, it’s got a collapsing castle, two Hattori Hanzos (Tsunehiko Watase and Teruhiko Saigo), Aiko Morishita fighting with a three sectioned staff (moments before she is stripped naked), and the infamous(ly awesome) tactical all-day and night ninja battle where the ninjas take turns attacking each other in teams as if they were American football players (they are even wearing helmets and shoulder pads!). A classic example of 80s mental madness raising its head in an otherwise polished, expensive period production. So it's not all bad, not at all!



Rise of the Machine Girls (爆裂魔神少女 バーストマシンガール) (Japan) [VoD] - 1/5
Abysmal reboot courtesy of Yoshihiro Nishimura protégée Yuuki Kobayashi and Nikkatsu. Kobayashi goes for excessive bad taste that makes the original look like high-brow art (the opening, where two SM girls have their big boobs tied tight, and then sliced off with a sword, lets you know what to expect). Unfortunately the film is embarrassingly badly made, from ridiculous cool posing to endless crap CGI, dwelling in forced "craziness", and heavy infusion of idol culture at its most appalling (it's often hard to tell whether it embraces or parodies it, but one gets the impression it does the former under the guise of the latter). There are some semi-interesting ideas such as apparent inspiration from Midori (the film has a circus setting) and tons of Toei yakuza films references, most of them coming off childish and misguided. Director Kobayashi is a young hood whose breakthrough was the amateurish, but energetic youth biker gang docudrama Kamikaze Cowboys (2016) starring his friends, genuine youth criminals. He's likely a former gang member himself, even if he denies it.

[WangYu]

Legend of eight samurai 1983

This is a  predictable Japanese sword and sorcery flick featuring all the tropes. Evil sorcery, evil castle ( and you know how it ends with evil castles), magical weapon and monsters. Quite fun but with a 150min run time it was too long for me. Notable also was the soundtrack which was pretty awful with its synth score but most interesting was an american pop song during a love scene ( it played also during the intro and end credits). If you can make it till the end, the final battles are quite satifying. 
Starring: Hiroyuki Sanada, Sonny Chiba as most famous faces in the West.

 

 

[Super Ninja]

11 hours ago, WangYu said:

Legend of eight samurai 1983

This is a  predictable Japanese sword and sorcery flick featuring all the tropes. Evil sorcery, evil castle ( and you know how it ends with evil castles), magical weapon and monsters. Quite fun but with a 150min run time it was too long for me. Notable also was the soundtrack which was pretty awful with its synth score but most interesting was an american pop song during a love scene ( it played also during the intro and end credits). If you can make it till the end, the final battles are quite satifying. 
Starring: Hiroyuki Sanada, Sonny Chiba as most famous faces in the West.

 

 

Love that movie.

[Takuma]

3 hours ago, Super Ninja said:

Love that movie.

Me too! Seen it half-dozen times, including once in 35mm. And I've got the theatrical pamphlet in my Hiroko Yakushimaru collection!

[Super Ninja]

2 hours ago, Takuma said:

Me too! Seen it half-dozen times, including once in 35mm. And I've got the theatrical pamphlet in my Hiroko Yakushimaru collection!

Are those set photos with original artwork?! Great stuff! Is it available on blu?