The best modern day action in a Japanese movie

[D1 Ma]

I'm not a fan of Japanese cinema. Over the years I watched maybe around 50 Japanese movies, hoping to see something at least half-way decent, but eventually gave up. It's always low-budget and too simple for my taste.

So, the other day I was watching Stuntmen React by Corridor Crew and they show some bits from the second Fable movie  - The killer who doesn't kill(2021).

It got me interested and I watched the whole film. (BTW, I watched the first one, The Fable(2019) a couple of years back and wasn't impressed)

The second movie continues the story and it's your typical Japanese low-budget stuff, over two hrs long. BUT! It has two absolutely brilliant action sequences that really blew me away. Maybe 5 minutes into the movie we have a runaway car scene and I would never expect to see something like that outside of HK cinema in its hey-day. Superb action design, direction, execution, great stunt work..  It just took my breath away.

And then we have the scaffolding sequence that features shootouts, fights, stunts, special effects - all blended in one great imaginative scene. To me, the best scaffolding scene I've ever seen - and I've seen a few )   Just WOW

 

 I honestly think it's the best action design to ever come out of Japan. Again, I'm not that familiar with Japanese modern day action, but from what I've seen, the action in The Fable II is light years ahead of anything else.  Prove me wrong  

 

[DrNgor]

The action sequences in Death Trance and Versus are excellent and have that distinct Hong Kong flavor to them, mixing well-choreographed fisticuffs with John Woo-esque gunplay, especially in the latter. If you can get past the forest setting that shows up in so many low-budget action films, you should be pleased. Returner does something similar in a modern urban setting, but with sci-fi trappings.

 

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by DrNgor

[D1 Ma]

I watched all three. Versus was  the best of the three, but still was pretty amateurish and cheap, although it had some cool shots.(I still have a bootleg DVD bought on ebay laying somewhere, haven't re-watched it in over a decade)

I thought the Returner sucked big time, sorry

 

[One Armed Boxer]

6 hours ago, D1 Ma said:

Again, I'm not that familiar with Japanese modern day action, but from what I've seen, the action in The Fable II is light years ahead of anything else.

I've similarly heard good things about 'The Fable II' from an action perspective, so your comments almost have me inclined to check it out (almost).

In terms of 'modern' - let's keep it to post-2000 - there's not too many options that don't fall into the "low budget" or "too simple" category. It's low budget, but I felt like 2019's 'Hydra' delivered on the action front through 2 outstanding fights (and was everything 2016's 'Re:Born' should have been). It struck a perfect balance between the quiet human drama Japan is known for, and blistering one on one fight scenes, resulting in a solid all-round movie.

On the more exploitative side, think an updated version of Sonny Chiba's 1970's karate actioners, you have 2016's 'Karate Kill'. Again the action is fight based, but there's some entertaining stuff in there paired up with a ludicrous plot. Depending on your taste though, it may indeed tick both boxes of being low budget and too simple.

In terms of big budget stuff, it's mostly live-action anime adaptations that tend to get the most money thrown at them. I really enjoyed 2015's 'Attack on Titan: Part 1' as an action spectacle, which was only let down by a dull and exposition heavy sequel.

[laagi]

@One Armed Boxer I was only waiting for you to mention Hydra

I think some of the best modern action out of Japan came with the Rurouni Kenshin series. It's also hands down one of the best manga live action adaptions.

@D1 Ma If you haven't I highly recommend you watch these 6 part movie series as soon as possible. Doesn't get much better than this at least IMHO.

[D1 Ma]

By modern action I mean present day settings, car chases, gunfights, explosions, ets. I like some set pieces, action happening on the streets, not just in some closed environment. I did enjoyed the fights in Hydra and even the movie as a whole wasn-t that bad, but it did have that cheap, low budget feel

 Attack on Titan was fun for what it was

I watched a few scenes from Rurouni Kenshin on youtube. I liked them, although Chambara is not my favorite genre. I doubt  I'll sit through the whole movie though, let alone the series

 

 Thank you for your replies guys! They showed me that I'm pretty much up to date with the most known Japanese movies

2 One Armed Boxer - I doubt you'll like the Fable 2, but I do recommend you to watch the action. I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy it. It's top-notch ( The movie's available on Netflix)

 

[DrNgor]

The thing is, if you go to Japanese cinema hoping for the likes of a vintage Michael Bay film or a Dante Lam movie, you'll probably come away disappointed. A mixture of cultural aspects and economics--I understand that the largest portion of moviegoers there consists of women--means that the big studios will rarely (if ever) produce anything like that. That's why most of the action and martial arts films are relegated to low-budget films (often shot in forests). It was like that in the late 80s and early 90s, when they had the V-cinema movement, where Toei (?) produced low-budget action shlock for VHS release. It would not have been profitable for them to produce higher-budgeted fare for a theatrical release.

@Takuma - Can you explain my thoughts betters?

Edited April 14, 2022 by DrNgor

[One Armed Boxer]

18 hours ago, D1 Ma said:

By modern action I mean present day settings, car chases, gunfights, explosions, ets. I like some set pieces, action happening on the streets, not just in some closed environment.

Ah gotcha, I'd originally interpreted your post to mean when the movies were made rather than those that take place in a contemporary setting.

In that case there's definitely some V-Cinema stuff you should check out from the 90's. My vote would go to 1995's 'Score' (I reviewed it here), and 1992's 'Triple Cross', which @Takuma offered his thoughts on in the below post - 

 

[Drunken Monk]

I second watching Hydra. The entire film might not be everyone's cup of tea (I loved it) but its two big action sequences are stunning. Truly some of the most innovative hand-to-hand stuff I've seen in a while.

I'd recommend keeping your eye out for the upcoming Baby Assassins. I think it hits Hi-Yah! soon and, from what I've seen, its action sequences are bananas.

[Takuma]

On 4/14/2022 at 9:04 PM, DrNgor said:

@Takuma - Can you explain my thoughts betters?

Thanks, lol.

Ok, so brief history of Japanese cinema (as far as related to action cinema). Japanese cinema was hugely popular in the post-war years. In the mid 50s cinemas started playing films as double features. Toei Studios was the first one to really capitalize on this: they started a system where their own and contracted theatres would play nothing but Toei films as the studio would provide both films for the double bill. Other studios had to follow the suit.

This resulted in a studio era in Japanese cinema. Each studio had their own actors, directors, and theatres, and had to deliver two new films every two weeks: the A-film (the bigger budgeted audience draw) and the B-film (the lower budgeted but not necessarily worse film). Under this system action and exploitation films thrived. Although modestly budgeted, they hugely benefitted from the talent (e.g. filmed by some of the nation’s best cinematographers, the same people who would work for Kurosawa etc.) and studio resources: the locations, the sets, the costumes, the equipment etc.

The rise of television in the 60s posed a new challenge to cinema: with stuff like the Tetsuro Tamba & Sonny Chiba detective / stunt action show Key Hunter (1968-1973) on air, cinema started losing audience. They had to up their game with more daring or exciting content. Nikkatsu introduced Nikkatsu New Action with stuff like the Stray Cat Rock series (1970-1971) that modernized their gangster film output, before they switched over to Roman Porno in late 1971.

Toho put out some excellent films like A Creature Called Man (1970) (heroic bloodshed action), Target of Roses (1972) (Hong Kong set hitman action drama) and Hairpin Circus (1972) (existential car chase film) under their “Toho New Action” movement before the exploitation chambara movement in 1972-1974 (Lone Wolf and Cub, Lady Snowblood, Hanzo the Razor etc.).

The king of action cinema was of course Toei. They were a former samurai film studio who switched over to chivalrous yakuza films in the mid 60s, then ultra-violent true account yakuza films in the early/mid 70s (e.g. the incredible Graveyard of Honor, 1975). They also created my favourite film genre of all time: Pinky Violence, which mostly consisted for girl gang films and other female lead action pictures like the Girl Boss series (1971-1974),  the ultra-violent Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs (1974) and a personal favourite of mine: Criminal Woman: Killing Melody (1973).

Toei were also the home of Sonny Chiba, who may be best known for karate films internationally, but who originally rose to stardom as a stunt action star. He followed the TV show Key Hunter (1968-1973) with similar films like the Yakuza Deka series (1970-1971) (part 4 is the best, somewhat similar to 80s Jackie Chan films), Jail Breakers (1975) and later G.I. Samurai (1979). Those films utilized the stuntman army of Japan Action Club, a film school Chiba established. They would go on to make films until the 80s, one of the very best being the Hong Kong style and completely insane Roaring Fire (1981).

The mid 70s also saw a notable car action film boom, most notably with Kinji Fukasaku’s incredible crime / car chase thriller Violent Panic: The Big Crash (1976), while Toho returned to the genre with the relatively good Hakunetsu Dead Heat (1977) (a grindhouse type thriller where a villain uses his car to murder people). In Sadao Nakajima’s Crazed Beast (1976) robbers hijack a bus. Then there was of course Norifumi Suzuki’s most famous work, the 10 film action/comedy/drama series Truck Yaro (1975-1979) that seamlessly mixes touching drama, low brow comedy and truck chases. And if truck and cars weren’t enough, there was the excellent Bullet Train (1975) that pre-dated Speed by 20 years.

With the exception of some Japan Action Club films, Japanese action cinema together with other genre cinema essentially died in the late 70s. Karate films, Pinky Violence and mostly yakuza films too all ended in 1977. Chambara had disappeared already a few years earlier. There just wasn’t enough audience anymore. Studios started making bigger films for wider audiences and target female viewers. Actors would no longer be studio loyal, and films would become bloated and expensive productions. The studio era was over.

One sad example of this new era was provided by Sonny Chiba. When he went all the way with the action and stunts in the terrific "Commando the in samurai era" Shogun's Shadow (1989), the critics criticised the film for having too much action.

Television continued to thrive however, with shows like Seibu keisatsu (1979-1984) that became legendary for their action sequences. The series trailer even proudly states “The number of destroyed cars: roughly 4680”.

 

The late 70s, 80s and 90s saw a small number of noteworthy films such as the Japan Action Club films, Fukasaku’s return to yakuza and car action with Triple Cross (1992), and the wonderfully bonkers Woo/Tarantino rip off Score (1995), as well as the ultra violent Okinawa actioner South to the Horizon (1986). Then there was Yusaku Matsuda with his action films, many of which had been toned down due to the new era or just weren't that good. But I think Resurrection of the Golden Wolf (1979) is quite terrific. The Game / Yugi series (1978-1980) is quite clumsy in my opinion but does have tons of gunplay (often filmed in tracking shots lasting several minutes)

 

There was also the DTV movement (V-Cinema for Toei films, and synonyms for others) but I’m not particularly well versed with these.

Besides those, action became a half-dead genre. And that’s pretty much the end of the story if you ask me. Yes, there are some action films made nowadays in Japan, a mix of zero budget indies and big budget CGI crap fests. I have limited interest in the former and none in the latter. The former have produced some good films though: Versus, Death Trance, and my personal favourite Japanese action film of the 2000s: Hard Revenge Milly: Bloody Battle.

But the conclusion here is, if you’re looking for Japanese action cinema, look to the 60s and 70s, and perhaps a bit in the 80s. Anything good after that is a needle in a haystack.

Edited April 17, 2022 by Takuma

[Yggdrasil]

On 4/14/2022 at 2:40 AM, D1 Ma said:

I watched all three. Versus was  the best of the three, but still was pretty amateurish and cheap, although it had some cool shots.(I still have a bootleg DVD bought on ebay laying somewhere, haven't re-watched it in over a decade)

I thought the Returner sucked big time, 

The Japanese are good at horror stories and samurai films. Lone wolf & cub is a brilliant 1970's gore fest. 

The Japanese are also good at making tear jerking short TV drama. I'm a 50 year old bloke and I'm not scared to admit that I've cried to a few J-TV dramas.