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Twenty (스물, Lee Byeong-heon, 2015)

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Twenty Movie PosterReview of Lee Byeong-heon’s Twenty (스물, Seumool) up at UK Anime Network. I really felt so old watching this film.

The age at which you become “an adult” varies according to your culture but in Korea, as in Japan, at 20 you become fully grown up with all the rights and responsibilities that carries. The three guys at the centre of the Korean film Twenty are just walking through this magic doorway which marks the end of their childhoods and the beginning of their adult lives. The road has forked for them and they have to decide which path to take. However, they’ll have to take their minds off the opposite sex long enough to make a decision.

To state the obvious, Twenty is aimed at a very specific audience and is likely to please a certain group of people very well whilst leaving others a little lost and bemused. It stars a collection of popular and very good looking younger Korean actors and actresses and is largely about what it’s like to be on the cusp of adulthood in contemporary Korea. What it’s not is a hard hitting drama. The target audience for this movie is people who are in their teens or early twenties, so they know what it is to be young, now. They just want to laugh along or sympathise with others in a similar position.

We meet the three guys, Chi-ho (popular rich kid), Dong-woo (put upon poor boy), and Gyung-Jae (doing OK middle class guy) towards the end of their high school years. The boys became friends after falling for the same girl who eventually picked Chi-ho but being boys they had a fist fight about it and are now bonded for their rest of their lives. In many ways they’re quite different, Chi-ho is rich, good looking and only interested in girls whereas Dong-woo comes from quite an impoverished background which means he’ll find it difficult to pursue his studies past high school because he needs to be supporting his mother and siblings. Gyung-Jae is almost the protagonist and is a typical middle class boy who’ll go to college and probably do alright for himself. He’s also a typical “nice guy” with a selection of fairly ordinary romantic issues (bar one interesting aspect which is raised but never followed up on) but being pretty level headed he’ll almost certainly get over it.

At twenty they have the whole of their lives ahead of them – or they kind of do given the fairly restrictive nature of Korean society. Chi-ho just thinks about sex. His parents are rich so he just lives in a perpetual adolescence where he hasn’t applied for university but hasn’t decided on a job either. He watches lots of movies and mopes but honestly he’s just a bit lost and afraid to admit it. Dong-woo wants to be a manga artist and decides to repeat the last year of high school whilst continuing to work all the other hours to support his family all the while feeling guilty about trying to pursue his dream rather than accepting the offer of a steady office job at his uncle’s company. Gyung-Jae actually has it pretty easy as his problems are just the normal sort of romantic growing pains everybody goes through and realising that makes them a little easier for him.

The film is not really a serious examination of the problems young people face. Even the eventual looming of military service is treated in quite a matter of fact way. Twenty is more of a celebration of being young and that it’s OK to be a bit lost and stupid when you’ve just left school. It gets surprisingly crude given that it’s aimed at a comparatively conservative Korean audience but generally gets away with it thanks to its cheeky tone. Undoubtedly hilarious in places (the “fist fight” finale in a Chinese restaurant being a late highlight) Twenty is a film that will play best to those around the same age as its protagonists in real terms and truthfully doesn’t offer so much for those who are already little older but it is nevertheless very funny and likely to entertain Korean idol fans of any age.

Reviewed at the London Korean Film Festival 2015.

 

The Yakuza Papers Vol. 3: Proxy War (仁義なき戦い: 代理戦争, Kinji Fukasaku, 1973)

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3-Battles-Without-Honor-and-Humanity-3-Proxy-WarThree films into The Yakuza Papers or Battles Without Honour and Humanity series, Fukasaku slackens the place slightly and brings us a little more intrigue and behind the scenes machinations rather than the wholesale carnage of the first two films. In Proxy War we move on in terms of time period and region following Shozo Hirono into the ’60s where he’s still a petty yakuza, but his fortunes have improved slightly.

It’s now 1960 – almost 15 years since Hirono came home from the war. The young people who are just coming of age grew up in the turbulent post-war era but probably don’t remember much of the conflict itself. These days the problem is the ANPO treaty and the wider world’s pre-occupation with communism. Russia and America are engaged in various “proxy wars” across the world in what would come to be known as the cold war. This tactic of indirect warfare has also taken root in the yakuza world as gangs and gang members form covert alliances, hatch secret plots to take out rivals, or otherwise try to manipulate the situation to their advantage. When the head of the Muraoka crime syndicate is assassinated in broad daylight and his underling, Uchimoto, does nothing, it kickstarts a chain of petty vendettas as each of the ambitious crime bosses vie to fill the power vacuum with the snivelling Uchimoto not least among them.

Bunta Sugawara returns to centre stage again with Hirono at the forefront of the action. One of the few yakuza guys who’s pretty happy with his lot and not seeking a higher position he’s in the perfect spot to become a very important player when it comes to supporting other people’s bids for power. Having originally backed Uchimoto he’s at something of a disadvantage following Uchimoto’s cowardly flip-flopping. However, having found himself back under the aegis of former boss Yorimoto, it does afford Hirono the possibility of finally getting revenge against him. Gangs merge several times while fracturing on the inside as the lower bosses try to get their guys in line whlst picking sides as to whom they support in the leadership battles (some with more of an eye on their own futures) but this time the action is a little more cerebral than the audacious violence of the immediate post-war period.

Changing up his style slightly, Fukasaku keeps the overall documentary approach with the news reel voice over relating the salient political and historical details plus the initial captions explaining the names and allegiances of the major players but reduces the freeze frame death announcements. The action is still frenetic with ultra naturalistic handheld camera and occasional strange angles but this time he opts for a muted colour effect in the final shoot out which increases the shocking nature of the scene. Blow for blow there’s less overt violence here though there is a fairly graphic and unpleasant rape scene which feels a little out of place though it does add to Fukasaku’s argument about the nature of aggression.

Once again the ruined the dome looms large over everything, reminding us that this isn’t just a story of gang warfare but a critique of the senselessness of a violent life. As the film says, young men are the first to die when the battles begin but their deaths are never honoured. Like Hiroshima Death Match, Proxy War also leads to the death of a youngster in pointless gang violence – another young man who ended up in the criminal underworld through lack of other options. The futility of the cycle of violence is becoming wearing – as is perhaps the point. One gang boss falls, another rises – only the names have changed. There’s no rest for an honest yakuza like Hirono when the less scrupulous are willing switch allegiance without a second thought. The only victory is staying alive as long as you can.

Proxy War is available on blu-ray in the UK as part of Arrow Video’s Battles Without Honour and Humanity: The Complete Collection box set.

The Yakuza Papers Vol. 2: Hiroshima Death Match (仁義なき戦い: 広島死闘篇, Kinji Fukasaku, 1973)

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81ZkRgBFyyL._SL1378_If you thought the story was over when Hirono walked out on the funeral at the end of Battles Without Honour and Humanity think again – we’ve barely scraped the surface of the post-war Hiroshima criminal underworld chaos. The aptly named Hiroshima Death Match runs in parallel with the events of Battles Without Honour taking place in roughly the same time, 1950-1955, but features a new protagonist relegating Bunta Sugawara’s Hirono to the sidelines where he appears as a weary observer of the cruel yakuza world. This time our hero, Yamanaka, is younger – too young to have offered his life as a kamikaze in the war as he apparently wanted to, and is one of the thousands of young men who’ve found themselves alone and without futures thanks to both the after effects of World War II and the ongoing Korean War.

Hiroshima Death Match ties itself into Battles Without Honour and Humanity quite neatly when the protagonist, Shoji Yamanaka (Kinya Kitaoji), is sent to prison after taking a knife to a room full of guys who accused him of cheating in a gambling den. There he comes into contact with the first film’s hero, Hirono (Bunta Sugawara), who offers him some food whilst in solitary but then disappears for the vast bulk of the film. When he gets out, Shoji finds himself in trouble again when he can’t pay for his meal in a restaurant and offers to work off the bill. The waitress, Yasuko (Meiko Kaji), refuses and tells him to just forget about the money and leave when he’s done but Shoji is insulted by her “charity” and things kick off between him and a gang of yakuza also in the restaurant at the time. Yasuko turns out to be the widowed niece of a yakuza boss and after recovering in her care Shoji agrees to join the Muraoka gang to get revenge on the guys who beat him up.

Whereas Battles Without Honour and Humanity took as its protagonists the young men who’d returned from the war to a ruined and defeated country, Hiroshima Death Match focuses on the generation below who were too young to fight themselves but have still been marked by the after effects of the conflict. At the beginning of the film Shoji has nothing, he’s ashamed of cheating and gets upset when caught which only fuels his youthful and violent anger. He doesn’t seem to have any family to help him or honest work to go to and so, of course, he ends up a yakuza. Once again, the yakuza take the place of a traditional family offering both a place to belong and a degree of emotional and financial support – for a price.

When Shoji inevitably falls in love with Muraoka’s widowed niece, he discovers his surrogate father’s love is not quite unconditional. Yasuko has a young daughter and was married to a man who died a kamikaze war hero. Muraoka does not want her to remarry lest she shame her husband’s memory unless he keeps it in the family by marrying her off against her will to her huband’s brother. Shoji’s affair with Yasuko continues to cause a rift with Muraoka and he’s torn between a desire for a peaceful future with the woman he loves and loyalty to his gang boss to whom he owes so much. Muraoka’s own morals are shown to be far from the traditional yakuza ideals and he’s not above using Shoji’s strained loyalties to his own advantage eventually with tragic consequences.

Like Battles Without Honour and Humanity, Hiroshima Death Match is shot in the same quasi-documentary style with a weary sounding narrative voice over and frequent freeze frame captions identifying the characters along with their gangs and positions as well as their dates of demise at the appropriate time. The ruined Atomic Bomb Dome (now the Hiroshima Peace Memorial) continues to loom large over the proceedings as we’re reminded at the end that this isn’t the only blood that’s been shed here. Even more so than with Battles, Fukasaku rams home the senselessness and futility of violence. The film ends with Hirono attending another funeral (though this time in a black suit and melancholic air) where the bosses reap in consolation money and gamble at the wake. He gives his old bosses a sideways look as they laugh and joke while a young man who they all now account as some kind of legendary yakuza hero lies dead for no reason at all. What does this sort of life amount to in the end? The only reward for a life of violence is a lonely grave.

Hiroshima Death Match is available on blu-ray in the UK as part of Arrow Video’s Battles Without Honour and Humanity: The Complete Collection box set.

 

The Yakuza Papers Vol. 1: Battles Without Honour and Humanity (仁義なき戦い, Kinji Fukasaku, 1973)

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Snapshot-2015-12-07 at 11_06_36 PM-930280086When it comes to the history of the yakuza movie, there are few titles as important or as influential both in Japan and the wider world than Kinji Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honour and Humanity (仁義なき戦い, Jingi Naki Tatakai). The first in what would become a series of similarly themed movies later known as The Yakuza Papers, Battles without Honour is a radical rebooting of the Japanese gangster movie. The English title is, infact, a literal translation of the Japanese which accounts for the slightly unnatural “and” rather than “or” where the “honour and humanity” are collected in a single Japanese word, “jingi”. Jingi is the ancient moral code by which old-style yakuza had abided and up to now the big studio gangster pictures had all depicted their yakuza as being honourable criminals. However, in Fukasaku’s reimagining of the gangster world this adherence to any kind of conventional morality was yet another casualty of Japan’s wartime defeat.

The story begins with a black and white image of a mushroom cloud with the film’s bright red title card and now famous theme playing over the top. This is Hiroshima in 1946. Things are pretty desperate, the black market is rife and there are US troops everywhere. Shozo Hirono (Bunta Sugawara) has just returned from the war (in fact he’s still in his uniform). He gets himself into trouble when he intervenes as an American soldier attempts to rape a Japanese woman in broad daylight in the middle of a crowded marketplace. He manages to cause enough of a commotion for the woman to escape but the Japanese cops just tell him not to mess with the GIs. Things don’t get much better as one of Hirono’s friends is assaulted by a yakuza. They get some rival yakuza to help them get revenge and in the commotion Hirono accidentally kills someone and is sent to prison for 12 years. In prison he meets another yakuza who wants to escape by pretending to commit harakiri and promises to get his yakuza buddies to bail Hirono out if he helps. From this point on Hirono has become embroiled in the new and dangerous world of the Hiroshima criminal underground.

Battles Without Honour and Humanity has a famously complicated plot entered around the various power shifts and machinations between different groups of yakuza immediately after the end of World War II. The film begins in 1946 and ends in 1956 though many of its cast of tough guys don’t last anywhere near as long. The picture Fukasaku paints of Japan immediately after the war is a bleak one. Even if some of these guys are happy to have survived and finally reached home, they’ve seen and done terrible things. Not only that, they’ve been defeated and now they’re surrounded by foreign troops everywhere who can pretty much do what they want when they want. They just don’t have a lot of options – if they don’t have connections to help them find work when there’s not enough to go around then it isn’t surprising if they eventually fall into to crime. Also, having spent time in the military, the yakuza brotherhood provides a similar kind of camaraderie and surrogate family that you might also find in an army corps.

It all gets ugly quite fast. Largely the yakuza are making their money profiting from the political instability, resenting the US occupation yet reaching deals with them to support their efforts in the Korean war and then selling new and untested drugs at home (with less than brilliant results). Betrayals, executions, assassinations in previously safe places like a bath house or the barbers – these are a long way from the supposedly honourable gangsters of old. One minute Hirono is offering to cut off his finger as a traditional sign of atonement (though no one knows exactly what you’re supposed to do in this situation and it all ends up seeming a little silly) and taking the rap for everyone else’s mistakes, but his friend faked harakiri to get out of jail and everyone is double crossing everyone else whichever way you look.

The whole thing is filmed in an almost documentary style with captions identifying the various characters and giving the exact time of their demise (if necessary) as well as a voice over giving background information about the historical period. The film is inspired by real life yakuza memoirs and there are parts which feel quite like a bunch of old guys sitting in a drinking establishment and recounting some of their exploits.

This new postwar world of heartless gangsters is a tough one and almost devoid of the old honour-bound nobility, however somehow Fukasaku has managed to make it all look very cool at the same time as being totally unappealing. You wouldn’t want to live this way and you definitely don’t want to get involved with any of these guys but somehow their self determined way of life becomes something to be admired. That said, there’s a sadness too – that even in the criminal underworld there used to be something noble that’s been obliterated by the intense trauma of the war. You can rebuild, you can move on from the destruction left by the war’s wake but there’s no going back to those days of “honour and humanity” – if they ever existed, they’re gone forever now.

Battles without Honour and Humanity is available in blu-ray in the UK as part of Arrow Video’s Battles Without Honour and Humanity: The Complete Collection box set.

 

Jellyfish Eyes (めめめのくらげ, Takashi Murakami, 2013)

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161244_01Jellyfish Eyes (めめめのくらげ, Mememe no Kurage) is the feature film debut of the internationally popular Japanese artist, Takashi Murakami. Well known for his cutesy character designs which are as likely to turn up in the world’s best regarded art galleries as they are on a kid’s backpack, Murakami is one of Japan’s most highly regarded art exports. Having unsuccessfully tried to raise interest in the more obvious totally CG animation, Murakami has enlisted the help of gore master Yoshihiro Nishimura for some director’s chair tips in creating a live action/CGI hybrid. Jellyfish Eyes is very definitely a kids’ movie, calling it a “family film” seems unfair when the age cut off is most likely around seven or eight years old but those who meet the (lack of) height requirement are sure to lap it up.

The story is set in post-tsunami Japan as Masashi (Takuto Sueoka) has finally moved out of the earthquake evacuation centre with his mother (Mayu Tsuruta) to live in a new town. As it will transpire, the two have moved there alone as Masashi’s father (Kanji Tsuda) has been killed in the tsunami and his mother has a brother (Takumi Saito) in the area. Not long after he moves in, the boy makes a new friend in the shape of a Jellyfish-like creature who floats in the air and loves eating the same kind of snacks as Mashashi. The creature, christened Kurage-bo (Jellyfish Boy), becomes a firm fixture in Masashi’s life and when he arrives at school Masashi realises Kurage-bo is not the only one of his kind. In this strange town all the kids have a weird little creature friend they can control by means of a smartphone app. Predictably some of the meaner boys use them to fight, but could there be a more sinister reason for the appearance of these very odd little guys? and what’s up with the bizarre religious cult that’s located right next to the creepy science lab? This is a very strange town indeed.

The film’s Japanese title, Mememe no Kurage, is a little reminiscent of the master work of the late Shigeru Mizuki, Gegege no Kitaro and like that perennially popular franchise the film focuses on the daily lives of children as they have strange adventures with supernatural creatures. The central premise is that a shady group of black clad scientific researchers (played by Masataka Kubota, Shota Sometani, Hidemasa Shiozawa, and Ami Ikenaga) claim to have found the key to surpassing natural disasters like earthquakes and it relies on the particles generated by the negative emotions of human children. Predictably it’s not long before things go from bad to worse and a giant kaiju-like creature descends on the town requiring the kids to work together to combat the marauding monster before it destroys the entire planet.

To be frank the film sounds a lot more entertaining that it turns out to be. Though undoubtedly very cute and not exactly uninteresting, it all ends up feeling, well, “superflat” only in an unintended way. The photography is generally basic though the CGI itself is of an extremely high quality and perfectly toned to match Murakami’s thematic concerns. Structurally it’s all over the place with the central ideas emphasised a little too strongly only to be thrown out of the window for the sugar rush finale of a million adorable monsters all fighting to the death for their cute as a button sad children masters. There’s quite a lot of darkness and melancholy lurking around the edges but the adorable little critters seem tailor-made for keeping the bad stuff in the background.

Like all good children’s movies the messages are the usual ones about the importance of friendship, sharing, teamwork and doing what’s right but it feels like Murakami has quite a lot of other things to say about reliance on forms of technology (and in particular what that can open the door to) and the state of post earthquake Japan that don’t quite come through. Having said that Jellyfish Eyes boasts some amazing visuals in its adorably cute cast of F.R.I.E.N.Ds and though a little messy is perfectly watchable. A festive treat for younger members of the family, Jellyfish Eyes is full of youthful idealism in the power of simple sincerity and genuine human feeling to win through against even the most terrifying of monsters but ultimately fails to offer much beyond its cutesy visuals.

Here’s a trailer – it says the creatures are invisible to adults but they aren’t (but some of them can make themselves transparent, if that makes sense).

Otakus in Love (恋の門, Suzuki Matsuo, 2004)

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koi no monReview of Suzuki Matsuo’s Otaku’s in Love (恋の門, Koi no Mon) first published on UK Anime Network in February 2014.

The word “otaku” is a difficult one to pin down. In the West, it’s often come to be a badge of pride and respect, a label that many fans of what most people would perceive as a niche subculture actively identify with and eagerly apply to themselves. However, the roots of the term are much darker and in its native Japanese, “otaku” can be far from a nice thing to call another person. Of the central couple in this film perhaps only one can be thought of as a traditional “otaku” the other being more of a “tortured artist” whose eccentric behaviour makes it difficult for him to survive in the real world. Well, to be honest finding a base line for “normal behaviour” in this film is a pretty tall order, we run into bizarre anime conventions, cosplay obsessives, broken hearted ex-mangaka (manga) bar owners and a bizarre cult like office environment where the only rule is you must be “happy!” all the time. Otakus In Love is an endearingly odd film that is jam packed full of in jokes and meta references that knows its audience very well and never fails in the humour stakes as a result.

Mon is a down on his luck, in fact totally broke, manga artist. Well, he calls himself a “manga artist” but his work isn’t exactly what most people would expect. In a touch of the avant garde, Mon makes his manga out of rocks. Mon’s “manga” are, in fact, a collection of rocks painted with a single kanji character and arranged inside a custom made wooden box. Needless to say each of Mon’s works is a one off piece and his sales record is not exactly going to get him on the best seller list. He can’t seem to hold down a part time job either due to his extreme reactions to people not taking his art seriously and his strange appearance which is something like a seventies guru come glam rock god whose ragged clothes have an oddly deliberate look to them. One fateful day he has an interview for Tsugino Happy Inc which turns out to be a cult-like office environment which seems to advocate happiness through total subjugation. He lasts about an hour at this job before punching his new boss in the face for failing to appreciate his artistic qualities.

However, on the way there about to pick up a particularly fine looking rock, he meets Koino who turns out to be a colleague of his at Happy Inc. The two go out for drinks which ends up at Koino’s apartment where upon Mon wakes up the next morning to find out he’s been a victim of forced cosplay! Unwittingly dressed up as Koino’s favourite character from Soul Caliber II, he’s quickly posed by Koino for her cosplay wall and dragged into a world of doujinshi, comiket, cosplay and all things geeky. Koino is an amateur manga artist who claims to have made a small fortune selling her home made manga at conventions and is well and truly an otaku. Can two such different people really find love? There’s only one way to find out!

Otakus in Love is based on Jun Hanyunyuu’s manga Koi no Mon (also the original Japanese title of the film) and as such carries over various extremely clever meta visual references. Directed by well known actor Suzuki Matsuo (Ichi the Killer) the film is often about as close as you could get to being a live action manga as Matsuo manages to make standard manga tropes like reaction shots and surreal action scenes work in a totally believable way. In the course of the film we’re treated to full on musical sections and ridiculous comic motifs that resurface at fairly predictable moments which could all end up just being far too much, but under Matsuo’s steady hand the film comes out on the right side of crazy and is never anything less than totally zany fun.

The film isn’t afraid to wear its otaku badge on its sleeve, either. Jam packed with references from video games, anime, and manga, Otakus in Love gets its audience completely and trusts it to understand all of its allusions and homages without needing to repeatedly bash the viewer over the head with tie-ins. It also takes an affectionate side swipe at fan culture with some bizarre interactions with cosplay, conventions and ani-singers which any anime fan can probably relate to. The film also has a fair few cameos from such well known personages as Hideaki Anno, Shinya Tsukamoto and Takashi Miike to name but a few.

At a 114 minutes it does run a little long and occasionally feels like it’s going to run out of steam but for the vast majority of its running time Otakus in Love is a genuinely hilarious, truly bizarre, romantic comedy. Full of warmth and exuberance, it’s difficult to image anyone not being swept away by its surreal humour and though it’s certainly on the broader side of comedy it never feels particularly over the top (or at least not in a bad way). Otakus in Love is a romanic comedy that no self confessed otaku should miss out on seeing.

Reviewed at the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2014.

Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme Announces 2016 Line-up!

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Farewell letter to jinu

The Japan Foundation London’s annual festival of Japanese film is back for 2016 and boasts its biggest programme yet. There are 14 films in total which will play at London’s ICA from 5th February 2016 before some of them head off around the country.

The Cowards Who Looked to the Sky

(ふがいない僕は空を見た, Fugainai Boku wa Sora wo Mita)

This 2011 film from Yuki Tanada (One Million Yen and the Nigamushi Woman) stars Tomoko Tabata (Moving) as a bored housewife obsessed with cosplay who embarks on an unwise affair with a high school boy.

A Farewell to Jinu

(ジヌよさらば ~かむろば村へ~, Jinuyo Saraba ~ Kamuroba Mura e)

The latest film from Otakus in Love director Suzuki Matsuo, A Farewell to Jinu is the familiar story of a burned out salaryman (played by Ryuhei Matsuda) who decides to upsticks to the country for a simpler life. “Simpler” isn’t isn’t always simple though as he finds out in this zany comedy based on the manga, Kamuroba Mura e, by Mikio Igarashi.

The Letter

(手紙, Tegami)

The Letter is a social drama circling the lives of two brothers one of whom has gone to drastic measures to protect the other but now finds himself resentfully languishing in prison. Directed by Jiro Shono and stars Takayuki Yamada, Tetsuji Tamayama and Erika Sawajiri.

This is based on a novel by Keigo Higashino (The Devotion of Suspect X) who, to be frank, I don’t get on with as he’s so rigidly “moral”. His mysteries are often good but I end up thinking the detective should just shut up at the end because he just ends up making a tragic situation even more pointless and stupid than it needs to be. I’m from the Poirot school of just letting everyone go and hoping they won’t do it again, I guess. That said, he also wrote the book Himitsu is based on and tends to be a bit weird so you never know. [/rant]

Pecoross’ Mother and Her Days

(ペコロスの母に会いに行く, Pekorosu no Haha ni Ai ni Iku)

This social drama focuses on the growing problem of elder care in an aging society. Directed by Azuma Morisaki, the film follows the daily life of a manga artist as he tries to care for his elderly mother who has alzheimer’s. Topped the Kinema Junpo best of list back in 2013.

Cheers from Heaven

(天国からのエール, Tengoku Kara no Yell)

This one sounds like a weepy. Hiroshi Abe plays a man with an undisclosed terminal illness who decides to open his shop up to a group of youngsters who have nowhere to practice their music. Directed by Makoto Kumazawa.

Noriben – The Recipe for Fortune

(のんちゃんのり弁, Nonchan noriben)

Directed by Akira Ogata, this 2009 food focussed feature tells the story of Komaki – a woman who decides to leave her husband and move back to her hometown with her little daughter, Non-chan, in tow. When the “Noriben” (a bento with nori on top of rice) she makes for Non-chan becomes a hit at school Komaki decides to try her hand at running a bento store.

Uzumasa Limelight

(太秦ライムライト)

Loosely based on Charlie Chaplin’s Limelight, this gentle tale of a dying industry tells the story of Seiichi, a now elderly “kirareyaku” whose sole job is repeatedly dying in samurai movies. However, these days period films are not as popular as they once were and even those that are made don’t require his particular skillset. Feeling the sun setting, Seiichi is given another chance to make an impact in the form of an unlikely young girl who hopes to become his pupil.

I have already reviewed this one! Spoiler – quite good! It’s also getting a release from Third Window Films at some point.

I’ll Give it My All…Tomorrow

(俺はまだ本気出してないだけ, Ore wa Mada Honki Dashite nai Dake)

Sounds familiar…this one’s a comedy about a 41 year old who quits his job to become a “full time slacker” playing video games and working part time at a fast food restaurant before realising his true dream is manga! Adapted from the manga by Shunju Aono and directed by Yuichi Fukuda the film has a starry cast including Shinichi Tsutsumi, Ai Hashimoto, Takayuki Yamada, and Gaku Hamada.

Being Good

(きみはいい子, Kimi wa iiko)

Latest movie from Mipo O (The Light Shines Only There), Being Good starts Kengo Kora as an idealistic teacher who fears one of his students is being abused at home meanwhile Machiko Ono plays a mother who was abused herself as a child and finds herself lashing out at her own infant daughter. This is the big ticket, folks!

The Elegant Life of Mr Everyman

(江分利満氏の優雅な生活, Eburi Man Shi no Yugana Seikatsu)

Now here’s an unexpected gem! A 1963 salarayman comedy from Kihachi Okamoto (The Human Bullet) The Elegant Life of Mr Everyman is the story of a drunken salaryman who pitches articles to two different magazines and ends up deciding to write a novella about himself and his middle class life. Excited about this one!

Predictably no trailer but here’s the DVD cover which features Keiju Kobayashi looking confused!

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A Japanese Tragedy

(日本の悲劇, Nihon no Higeki)

Rare outing for this 1953 classic from Keisuke Kinoshita. A bleak picture of a mother’s sacrifice for her ungrateful children, A Japanese Tragedy is a portrait of maternal love and social indifference in post-war Japan.

If you’re looking forward to this one you could read up on some of my other Kinoshita reviews…

(sorry).

(This trailer has no subtitles but there is no dialogue either)

Tale of a Butcher Shop

(ある精肉店のはなし, Aru Seinikuten no Hanashi)

This is apparently exactly what it sounds like as it’s the story of a family run butcher shop which also farms and slaughters its own produce. Contains actual footage of real animal slaughter.

(I don’t think this one is for me, also not including a trailer.)

Anthem of the Heart

(心が叫びたがってるんだ, Kokoro ga Sakebitagatterunda)

Recent anime from Tatsuyuki Nagai. From the same team as Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, this is the story of Jun Naruse, a young girl who feels she she always seems to say the wrong thing and hurts people’s feelings. She then meets an “Egg Fairy” (!) who says he can help by casting a spell on her so she’ll never speak again. The years go by and eventually Jun is cast in a high school musical where she enounters music and friendship.

Might start paying more attention to eggs in future…especially if they’re wearing hats…

Miss Hokusai

(百日紅～Miss HOKUSAI～, Sarusuberi: Miss Hokusai)

Based on the manga Sarusuberi by Hinako Sugiura, Miss Hokusai is the story of the daughter of the famous woodblock artist of the Edo era. Directed by Keiichi Hara whose film Colorful was also featured in a previous Touring Film Programme, Miss Hokusai has been receiving mixed reviews but has also won a few international animation awards. Will also be released by All the Anime at some point.

The festival begins at the ICA from February 5th before heading to: Aberystwyth, Birmingham, Bristol, Cumbria, Derby, Dundee, Endinburgh, Exeter, Leicester, Manchester, Nottingham and Sheffield. Dates are as yet unconfirmed, as is which films will play which venues but you can keep up with all the latest news on the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme website (which is also updated with Japanese film related content throughout the year).

University of Laughs (笑の大学, Mamoru Hoshi, 2004)

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warainodaigakuUniversity of Laughs (笑の大学, Warai no Daigaku) is certainly an apt name for a film which aims to teach the universal power of comedy. Based on a 1997 stage play by Japanese comedy master Koki Mitani and directed by Mamoru Hoshi, the film is set in 1940 at the height of Japan’s militaristic fervour. With the annexation of Manchuria only three years previously and the war in full swing, there is no room for such petty bourgeois pleasures as slapstick comedy shows. The censor’s stamp rules all and if the piece doesn’t exult the glorious nature of the empire, then what good is it?

Or so thinks recent Manchurian returnee Sakisaka (Koji Yakusho) – the newly appointed occupier of the censor’s chair. Sakisaka has been appointed because he has no sense of humour at all and very little in the way of human feeling. In fact, he even thinks this censorship business is a little pointless and it would be better to just ban everything outright. Then, one day, he encounters quite the stupidest piece of low comedy he’s ever come across in the form of the latest play by a company called “University of Laughs” written by their company director, Tsubaki (Goro Inagaki).

Tsubaki is a nervous, neurotic young man. “Don’t worry, we very rarely use torture” Sakisaka reassures him. Still, Tsubaki tries to talk him through his parodic play script called “The Tragedy of Juleo and Romiet”. However, Tsubaki’s play is no good at all! It’s full of foreigners! And there’s romance, and no one talks about how amazing Japan is, what the hell sort of play is this!? Sakisaka tells him to bring it back tomorrow with the requisite changes. However, tomorrow’s effort is only a little better. Maybe another day? Gradually over the course of a week the pair become uneasy collaborators as Sakisaka eventually rediscovers his sense of humour.

The central irony being that in trying to eliminate all subversive elements in the script, Sakisaka actually ends up in the position of editor – all of the changes he suggests only succeed in making the play funnier and more coherent. The more advice he receives from Sakisaka, the better a writer Tsubaki becomes. However, Sakisaka is the representative of everything the true artists abhors as the tool of an oppressive state which seeks to repress all independent thought. In going along with Sakisaka’s recommendations, isn’t Tsubaki becoming just another government lapdog? Is it better to compromise, go as far as you can go, and stay open or should you staunchly refuse and boycott the regime in its entirety?

For Tsubaki, comedy is a religion. He’s a comedy writer, if he can’t write comedies he may as well not exist at all and the way he sees it, this stuff is making the work better so who cares what it’s all about, really, so long as the work is good. His actors, though, feel differently and Tsubaki is paying a heavy price for his awkward quasi-friendship with the government stooge. Nevertheless, the two develop a strange bond with the previously stiff Sakisaka bucking his rigid adherence to government doublespeak in opening up to Tsubaki’s comedic education. However, their friendship may not be as deep as Tsubaki hopes when he unwisely reveals his real feelings about the regime causing Sakisaka to remind him where his loyalties lie. This is 1940 after all and the spectre of war lies all around. In the end, even if Tsubaki’s now near perfect work is passed for presentation, he may be unable to realise it in person.

Consciously old fashioned, University of Laughs has echoes of Fellini though perhaps filtered through mid period Woody Allen. The Nino Rota-esque score further enhances the association as does the idea of the fascist state as a mad circus where one is forced repeat the same actions over and over again until the ringmasters finally applaud. Warm, witty and surprisingly engaging for a film that is essentially two guys in a room for two hours, University of Laughs is another impressive effort from the pen of Mitani which offers both a cutting critique of oppressive censorship, a defence of the artist and an exultation of the universal power of laughter.

A Matter of Interpretation (꿈보다 해몽, Lee Kwang-kuk, 2015)

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matterofinterpretation_keyartFirst published on UK Anime Network – review of Lee Kwang-kuk’s A Matter of Interpretation (꿈보다 해몽, Ggumboda Haemong).

Romance Joe director Lee Kwung-kuk returns to the director’s chair with a another meta take on modern Korean life only this time he’s interested in the nature of dreams vs reality. A Matter of Interpretation is, ironically, a little closer to Lee’s mentor Hong Sang-soo thanks to its repeated dream motifs but always stands at a slightly more abstracted angle than the comparatively more realistic Hong. Building on the promise of Romance Joe, A Matter of Interpretation further marks Lee out as a talent to watch in modern Korean cinema.

The film begins with a group of performers nervously waiting in a rather circus-like theatre before eventually deciding to cancel the performance because no tickets have been sold. Yeon-shin, the star actress, storms out and goes for a smoke in a nearby park. Her boyfriend eventually finds her and they talk about the film project Yeon-shin has just been bumped from in favour of a young pop idol. They break up and we time jump to the same bench some point later as Yeon-shin talks to a policeman who, it turns out, can also interpret dreams. Yeon-Shin has had a dream about attempting to commit suicide in an abandoned car only to find a man (who now has the face of Seo, the policeman) tied up in the car’s boot.

The car itself ends up becoming a recurrent theme in the film, appearing in the dreams of multiple people and eventually in reality (maybe?). The policeman (who frequently pulls out a pocket watch and seems to be late for a very important date) interprets Yeon-shin’s dream as being about regret over rashly ending her relationship with her boyfriend and a mixture of guilt and worry that he quit his theatre job soon after and she hasn’t heard from him since. There are other repeated motifs such as the date 7th February circled on a calendar and, like Romance Joe, a pre-occupation with suicide but A Matter of Interpretation proves an apt title for a film that’s so bound up with playful symbolism.

Also like Romance Joe, A Matter of Interpretation owes a lot to Lee’s mentor Hong Sang-soo. Like Hong, Lee has opted for a concentration of static camera shots with his subjects centrally framed like a conventional landscape photograph albeit with the occasional creeping zoom. However, where Hong can be deliberately repetitious, Lee’s repeated motifs take on a different kind of playfulness – deliberately disorientating us with his mix of dream and reality to the point where we can’t really be sure which of the two is the “real” world. He’s also ported over his love of Alice in Wonderland (or this time Through the Looking Glass) which adds another surrealistic layer of whimsy to the film.

Ultimately, A Matter of Interpretation builds on the promise of Romance Joe to create something that feels much more well thought out as well as much more affecting than Joe’s rather distant atmosphere. Much of this is thanks to Shin Dong-mi’s engaging performance (even more so than her winning turn as the “coffee waitress” prostitute in Romance Joe) as the aging actress Yeon-shin who’s coming to regret some of her previous life choices and wondering how things might have been different. Whimsical is probably the best way to describe the film. It isn’t trying to be deep or profound so much as playfully thoughtful though its complex, interconnecting narrative symbolism is certainly likely to spur post viewing debate. Less contrived and undoubtedly more fun than Romance Joe, A Matter of Interpretation marks a definite step up for director Lee Kwang-kuk and hints at even more meta tales of playful absurdity to come from this promising director.

Reviewed at the London Korean Film Festival 2015.

Summer Time Machine Blues (サマータイムマシン・ブルース, Katsuyuki Motohiro, 2005)

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summertimemachineblues-2There ain’t no cure for the summer time blues! Unless, of course, you have a time machine. For the boys of the sci-fi club the long, boring summer vacation is just getting started. They mess around playing baseball while the two girls from the photography club who’ve been unceremoniously ousted from their club room in favour of the boys take photos of them. Then some weird stuff starts happening and their air con remote gets broken and it’s just so hot! When the boys somehow end up with a mysterious time machine, the solution is obvious…

Full of nostalgic charm, Summer Time Machine Blues is a fitting tribute to all those endless, golden summers of adolescence. Hanging out in the university club room even though they’re on their summer break, the kids waste time in distinctly old fashioned ways – playing baseball, going to the baths, working on a photo project etc. Though the guys are nominally the “science-fiction club” they actually aren’t very interested in science fiction and kind of make fun of the sort of people who would belong to the very club that they do, actually, belong to. Perhaps they just wanted the bigger room with the air conditioner and were lucky enough to get it as their two female friends are the only two members of the photography club and mostly hang out in the dark room at the back anyway.

The film began as a stage play put together by Europa Kikaku and though it makes the cinematic jump extremely confidently also maintains its youthful absurdist tones and theatrical comedy beats. The humour itself is cheerfully bizarre, full of fast comebacks and naturalistic sounding banter between a group of young guys. Added to this there are numerous references to other popular science fiction and time travel themed franchises such as the obvious homage to the Back to the Future series which is even prominently showcased in poster form at the local rep cinema. The cinema itself (a mini plot point in the movie) is run by a total sci-fi buff and time travel story expert who dresses (from the waist up) in a Star Trek: The Next Generation Command uniform complete with Communicator Badge. He seems to have something of a beef with the only actual scientist in the film who never has much success with his discoveries and only succeeds in boring everyone around him with his needlessly complicated theories.

Directed by Katsuyuki Motohiro who may be best known for the Bayside Shakedown series, Summer Time Machine Blues, also mixes in plenty of fun stylistic devices like the anachronistic tape rewinds or the elaborate disappearing of the time machine itself. He also makes good use of split screens to compare and contrast what’s happening where and pays especial attention to make sure everything works out in the most completely satisfying way.

Indeed, one of the most satisfying things about Summer Time Machine Blues is that despite essentially becoming a parody of time travel movies, all of its complicated paradoxes are internally consistent and even though it doesn’t really have an obligation to, it all makes sense no matter how hard you poke at it trying to find the holes. Of course, there’s also the more melancholic side of time on show as the scientist points out he’s riding a time machine as well – just one that will never go backwards, only very slowly into the future. This aimless summer will end at some point, as will college and eventually the universe too, one supposes.

However, that’s no reason not to enjoy the time you have, as one character realises towards the end as he fears his romantic desires may come to nothing going on some hints from the future. An enjoyably absurd and youthful farce, Summer Time Machine Blues is lives up to its name as a transporting delight which carts the viewer back to their own days of long and boring summers filled with improbable adventures. Smart, funny and beautifully crafted, Summer Time Machine Blues is the perfect way to while away an aimless afternoon at any time of the year.