So as not to hijack the favourite actors/actresses thread (which has partly turned into a discussion about Japanese Cinema) and because a previous thread I started on this got lost when the Forum crashed I'm starting a new one off.

Just found two copies of Tenchu for sale on e-Bay (see actors/actresses thread). I enjoyed Gosha's Sword of the Beast so I'll probably pick this one up.

The best Japanese films I've seen recently are the Criterion editions of Ichikawa's Burmese Harp & Fires on the Plain. Both are first rate and will stand up to repeat viewings. I've even bought the novel of Fires on the Plain as the translation is by the great Ivan Morris and the content is significantly different from the movie.

I'd also recommend Naruse's When A Woman Ascends The Stairs which is another Criterion recent release.

Two films I'd like to know about are Kurosawa's Sanshiro Sugata (which can be watched for free on Google video but the subtitling is awful) and Okamoto's Samurai Assassin. Are these any good in their Region 4 and Region 1 DVD incarnations?

The best "Bollywood" film I have seen is Lagaan, a sprawling cricket epic full of anti colonialism & a call to end the communalism & caste division which splits India.

Sholay is a classic Indian film. A man has his arms cut off in it. Channel 4 showed it many years ago and its a true epic with a bit ofeverything.

The only martial arts films I know really is the Zatoichi series which are a bit repetitive but all have moments of grandeur, wit and excitement. There's 25 in the series. I haven't seen them all. Then there's Lone Wolf that I go on about all the time anyway. Great films tho - Shogun Assassin is the best entry in the series as its a superb edit of parts 1 and 2 of the Japanese series.

It looks like EmCee and Grahams Pink lady or whatever his name is know the most so I'm looking 4wd to reading it.

It's a Russian film (that's asian right?) most of which is in Japanese, I really liked it:

The Sun

I thought The Sun was truly exceptional. The Japanese people I know say that Issey Ogata was very convincing as Hirohito. This film is rather different from Downfall but was released round about the same time and it might appeal to people who enjoyed Bruno Ganz's portrayal of Hitler. Sokurov has done a great job of imagining the interior life of Hirohito and - though it's similar to a Tarkovsky movie - there's also quite a bit of humour focused around the way people relate to someone they think is a living God.

Sokurov has also made a film about Hitler called Moloch that is worth a look. And one about Lenin called Teletswhich looks intriguing but as far as I know it's not out on a DVD with English subs.

Issey Ogata was also in Tony Takitani, the recent adaptation of the Haruki Murakami short story. Has anyone seen this?

My current top Japanese films (in no particular order):

1. Harakiri (Criterion edition - the UK DVD is crap, apparently)
2. Rashomon
3. 47 Ronin (Mizoguchi's version)
4. All About Lily Chou Chou
5. Ping Pong
6. Ugetsu
7. Sword of Doom (Criterion Edition again)
8. Kwaidan
9. Manji
10. Face of Another
11. Woman of the Dunes
12. Red Angel
13. Onibaba
14. Assasination
15. Hana Bi
16. Battle Royale
17. Fires on the Plain
18. Cure
19. Humanity and Paper Balloons
12. Tange Sazen and the Pot Worth a Million Ryo (Yamanaka version)

Here are some questions I have about Japanese films:

Issey Ogata was also in Tony Takitani, the recent adaptation of the Haruki Murakami short story. Has anyone seen this?

I know of but have never seen any of the Baby Cart series. What are they like and why are they good?

I've also only seen one film by Mikio Naruse. Is that UK box set worth bothering with?

A film I'd really like to know about is the old surreal and apparently disturbing silent A Page of Madness. People go on about this like they do about Eraserhead. Here I'm bothered about the picture quality of the bootleg DVD. Is it watchable and does this film deserve it's Lynch-like reputation?

Lastly, I've never seen Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Eyes of the Spider and Serpent's Path. Any good?

They made 6 Baby Cart films in the 70s. They are based on the 9,000 page epic comicbook 'Lone Wolf & Cub'. The films are good because of the relationship between the disgraced Samurai Itto Ogami and his 3 year old son Daigoro. Together they walk the assassins road to hell. Which means lots of balletic bloodletting, honour, love, repsect and all those other great things.
As the films go on they get ever more outlandish. At the end Lone Wolf & his cub are defeating entire armies of thousands of men. But they are all really good, and for me I can watch them over and over just for the effect they create.
However - I haven't seen any of the films you have listed and for all I know they could knock Lone Wolf into a cocked hat.

Dumplings is highly worth watching if you haven’t. Chinese horror thriller type. A really disturbing film.

spirited away
ghost in the shell
itchi the killer
shoalin soccer
Samurai
Samurai II
Samurai III
akira
kwaidan
hard boiled

Audition

Watch it

Re: Baby Cart Movies. The first one is good, the second one is The One To Watch, and three shows a more pastoral side (relatively), but they tailed off badly after that. There's only 6 because they were a bit of a flop in Japan, and the cast and crew went on to make the Razor movies (of which there are three). In Japan, if you talk about Lone Wolf they assume you mean the TV show of Lone Wolf and Cub which ran to 78 episodes I think. There's a rule of thumb to j-culture which goes the more famous someone is in Japan, the more obscure they are in the West and vice versa. Hands up who has heard of Kimura Takuya. Hands up who has heard of Boredoms. See what I mean.

Re: Naruse Boxset - what Naruse boxset? Um...who is Naruse? A lot of the fun in liking asian cinema is knowing nothing about it (and then finding out).

Eyes of the Spider and Serpent's Path are both perfectly fine movies but unless you are particularlly a Kurosawa or Aikawa Sho fan, there's no reason to chase them down, especially if you haven't seen any Pinky Violence movies.

10 Pinky Violence Movies that rip

1. Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (The Best J-Film Ever!)
2. Criminal Woman, Killing Melody
3. School of the Holy Beast
4. Sex and Fury
5. Terrifying Girls High School: Lynch Law Classroom
6. Female Convict Scorpion: Beast Stable
7. Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs
8. Girl Boss Guerilla
9. Sukeban
10. Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter

Yeah, his dream sequences were really harrowing, you can get a glimpse about 1min20seconds into this:

Trailer

In the film though, it's accompanied with a mad cello soundtrack, I stayed back after in the cinema to find out what it was, J.S.Bach Suite No.5 for solo cello, I got the Casals recordings after, and they've become some of my favourite music since.

Some Tips For Buying Samurai Movies

1. First up, why would you want to buy any Samurai movies in the first place?

"In general what makes the samurai film genre so compelling, aside from the sword action, is its capacity for philosophy, politics, and complex states of mind, all wrapped up in the beauty and stunning simplicity of the Japanese aesthetic. Where else can one observe heated sword fights accompanied by cool musings on the nature of existence?...the stories are infused with a worldly wisdom rarely seen in genre entertainment, crediting the audience with a greater intelligence and capacity for conflicting thoughts and emotions than it tends to get from formulaic Hollywood fare" - Patrick Galloway, author of Stray Dogs and Lone Wolves: The Samurai Film Handbook

2. As in all Japanese cinema, the same actors crop up again and again. Mifune Toshiro will forever be the western image of a samurai due to the trailblazing films he made with Kurosawa, but others equally good, if lesser known include:

Nakadai Tatsuya - rivalled Mifune as the greatest actor of late 60s Samurai films
Katsu Shintaro - most famous for Zatoichui, but in loads of others
Wakayama Tomisaburo - if you need a bruiser for your movie, call this guy! Most well known over here as the lead in the Lone Wolf and Cub films.
Ichikawa Raizo - died from cancer when he was 37 and at the height of his powers. Japan's James Dean.
Tamba Tetsuro - appeared in over 300 movies during his career, given all of them a touch of class (including You Only Live Twice - he's Tiger Tanaka). Japan's greatest character actor.

Similarly, some directors are better than others. If you see a samurai film by any of the following, get it:

Kurosawa Akira - look, even if it isn't a samurai movie, if it's by Kurosawa, get it!
Kobayashi Masaki - the most overtly political director in the samurai genre. Discovered Nakadai Tatsuya also.
Gosha Hideo - The Japanese salaryman's director of choice when it comes to pure samurai films; his film "Tenchu" is considered the best ever samurai film by afficianados.
Okamoto Kihachi - drafted in 1943, Okamoto saw almost all of his colleagues die, an experience that informs his exposure of the cynicism of politics. Equally famous for his yakuza movies as his samurai movies, Okamoto portrays souls being corrupted by a world losing its values



There are an incredible amount of Samurai films. Here's a list of some of the very best:

Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo, Sanjuro - dir. Kurosawa, all starring Mifune, the last two have Nakadai in also. Masterpieces all.

Hara kiri (original Japanese title is Seppuku) - dir. Kobayashi, starring Nakadai in possibly his best performance. My personal favourite with a political message that is as true today as it was when the film was made 44 years ago.

Sleepy Eyes of Death series - dir. Various, starring Ichikawa Raizo. Japan's most photogenic actor in his defining role as the "super cool, wickedly snide ronin" Nemuri Kyoshiro.

Kwaidan - dir. Kobayashi, starring Nakadai. A rare example of a scary Samurai movie: four folk tales, guaranteed to change your mind about just how original Ring, Dark water, and Juon actually are...the first part is called "The Black Hair"

Samurai Rebellion - dir. Kobayashi, starring Mifune and Nakadai. Both a love story and a stinging attack on the feudal traditions of Japan. Loyalty to the samurai code comes into conflict with human feeling, with Mifune and Nakadai on opposing sides. One of the greats.

Sword of Doom - dir. Okamoto, starring Mifune and Nakadai. Set during the turmoil of the 1860s, Nakadai gives an incendiary performance as a man for whom the sword is a way of life...for taking life. Will Mifune, a man who believes the sword manifests a spiritual awareness be able to defeat him


I will add more when I think of them. If you are interested though the book you need is: "Stray Dogs and Lone Wolves", Patrick Galloway ISBN 1-880656-93-0


Japanese Psychological Horror Movies

One thing I hear often is that horror movies are no longer scary. Here are some to terrify.

WARNING in particular about Audition and Blind Beast. Neither are for the faint hearted, not because of the gore (none of the films underneath have much by the way of blood), but because of the reflection of the dark corners of your personality that the honest viewer might see.

1. Onibaba 1962 Dir. Shindou Kaneto, equal parts arthouse cinema and psychological horror set in feudal Japan. A young woman, widowed by warfare, finds new love when an old friend returns home to the village; however she now lives with her frail mother-in-law. To what extent will the "demon hag" (onibaba in Japanese) go to keep her daughter-in-law with her?

2. Manju 1964 Dir. Masamura Yasuzo. "Sonoko, a bored housewife entering middle age, finds herself driven to steal a small trinket from a shop. She notices another woman watching her, however, and decides to follow the woman out of the store to explain herself. After an emotional exchange, Sonoko and the other woman, Mitsuko, end up locked in a passionate embrace. Unable to think rationally about what she wants, Sonoko becomes steadily more obsessed with her new lover. Meanwhile, her husband Eijiro, a police detective, grows suspicious of his wife's behavior." - Jean-Marc Rocher

Adaptation of Tanizaki's classic story of jealousy passion and within a love triangle. Occasionally pops up at Gay and Lesbian Festivals, but otherwise hard to track down.

3. Rashomon 1951 Dir. Kurosawa Akira. The film that introduced Japanese cinema to the West. Adapted from Akutugawa's short story "In The Grove", a woman is attacked and her husband killed. A judge hears testimony from four different witnesses describing the event. Who is telling the truth...or is anybody?

Like Dostoyevsky, Rashomon is the more terrifying the more honest the viewer can be with the dark recesses of their soul. Still the best examination in film of the duplicity of human nature, even amongst the best of us.

4. Audition 1999 Dir. Miike Takashi. The only Miike film that is brilliant from start to finish, and the only psychological horror from recent years to stand up to the old masters. Adapted from Murakami Ryu's novel, Audition is best seen knowing nothing about it.

kirikirikiri

5. Blind Beast 1969 Dir. Masamura Yasuzo. "Masumura made many fascinating films...his Blind Beast based on a story by Edogawa Rampo, one of Japan's most famous horror writers, is an intense study of obsession, emotional manipulation and the perverse nature of art.

A sculptor, Machio, blind since birth, becomes obsessed with a beautiful artists' model, Aki and kidnaps her with with the assistance of his devoted mother. Dedicated to producing a sculpture of the the imprisoned beauty, Machio's plans are initially thwarted by Machio's reluctance to be his model and mother's reluctance to let her boy experience physical love for the first time." - FertileCelluloid

Not for everybody as it contains hard truths that can easily upset, and the cultural differences are significant. Should be available in HMV by now (it was imminent last time I looked).

:applaud: Great post./ I'm going to print this out and carry it around with me at all times.

HMV is suprisingly good for world cinema and martial arts in particular. You can get some good stuff there and some is bargain bargain. I got Shogun Assassin for £2.99 on DVD!!! Reduced from £19.99. I could hardly belive it. I nearly bought all 3 copies there before relaising it would defeat the object somwhat.

Great post anyway =- thanks a lot!!!!!

Also ta EmCee who also supplied great info. You guys know yr stuff alright and respect is due (you don't go around carryin big swords do u?>>)

Aaw, shucks.

I found this in the film review section of "Metro" (the free newspaper they give out on the Met each day, for those lucky enough to live in Manchester):

Bonkers Japanese exploitation flick Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 is a cult classic and apparently inspired Tarantino's Kill Bill. In fact, this 1972 movie makes Quentin's effort look about as edgy as Heartbeat.

Director Shunya Ito, walking the fine line between art and trash, presents a delirious whirl of increasingly surreal scenarios as we follow the beautiful, near-mute prisoner Scorpion (Meiko Kaji) as her escape from a prison dungeon and its vicious guards is followed by an orgy of violence before she can exact her final, steely-eyed revenge. Shocking and perverse, yet bizarrely verging on being a feminist tract, it's hard to work out whether you're watching B-movie tat or an art-house masterwork. But whatever it is, it's impossible not to be riveted to the screen.

Available to buy now :)

this is the first three minutes of Jailhouse 41. All you need to know is that Matsushima (Kaji Meiko - also the lead in Lady Snowblood!!!) was typically yasashii (gentle/submissive) but was betrayed by a cop boyfriend, jailed for a crime she did not commit and ends up as the character you see in this clip. Note how this opening sequence tells you all you need to know about her character; this is a quite *extraordinary* film, and it just gets better...

EDIT: forgot to say, this is the second of the four in the Joshuu Sasori/Female Convict Scorpion series. The first one is a perfectly fine exploitation movie with an unusually good lead actress, but the second and third (Jailhouse 41, and Beast Stable) are as good at it gets, both being that rare example of being both A-movies and B-movies at the same time.

I like Shogun Assassin also. It was the first 70s japanese film I ever saw, and it was the start of a beautiful love affair...I paid rather more than £2.99 for a frankly rubbish VHS transfer when I first saw it though. As you say HMV + DVDs = bargain if you look hard enough. HMV has some exclusive boxsets where you get three films for £20.

If I had a £100, I would get

1+2) the two Fukasaku Yakuza Boxsets.

The first one has Street Mobster/Yakuza Papers (AKA Battles Without Honour and Humanity) and Yakuza Graveyard and the second has Japan Crime/Graveyard of Honour/Cops Vs Thugs. At least 4 of these films are better than Battle Royale (which Fukasaku also directed. I mean I like Shibasaki Kou and Kuriyama Chieki and Ando Masonobu as much as anybody, but none of them has the distinction of being able to act, quite unlike Sugawara Bunta, Ando Noburo, Tamba Tetsuro, Kobayashi Akira, and the many other fine actors who worked with him in his 70s pomp. Remember: Fukasaku + Sugawara > Scorsese + De Niro. Here's the proof.

3) Samurai Boxset with Sword Of Doom, Samurai Rebellion, and the fantastic Samurai Assassin (hint hint EmCeeDeeJay)

4) Kill Bill Inspiration Boxset - it's yellow, threw away the cardboard box a long time ago so can't remember it's name, but it has Lady Snowblood 1, Baby Cart 2 (the best), and Zatoichi meets the One Armed Swordsman.

5) The one with Illusion of Blood and portrait of Hell in. It's a horror boxset, but again I've thrown the box away. i think there might be 4 DVDs in this boxset, but these are the 2 films you want. Both have Nakadai Tatsuya in at his best.

Japanese Cartoon (1943)

Even if you can't speak japanese, it's a gem, despite the spider's lips

Seriously that gave me a shudder :unsure:

I'm absolutely no expert on Asian cinema, however recently I enthusiastically watched two movies on TV I hadn't seen in quite some time:

Infernal Affairs (Hong Kong; later adapted by Martin Scorcese for "The Departed")
Oldboy (South Korea; not for the faint of heart)

I would be very excited if John Woo's "Bullet in the Head" gets shown one day again. :rolleyes:

Yeh, I got this in HMV as well. Great value for 3 brilliant films. It was slightly tacky in its marketing and appearance but you have to overlook this to get to the real treasure. In fact - I'm inspired to go to HMV on Sat. to have a quick look.

The Zatoichi box in the same series was good too. Zatoichi is a notch down I know...but he still makes me laugh and the action is good. There's some stellar fx...like when a moth is annoying a load of guests in a house by flying round the lamp. Zatoichi is blind...but he gets his toothpick and flicks it across the room...exactly spearing the moth.

I've got a Japanese zombie movie that's quite good called 'Versus'. Its pretty brutal. Worth a look.

There's a shop in town with a lot of the Tartan Extreme stuff but I never know what to get and they're a bit pricey so I stay away. On the upside you can get vids cheap there...like £2 or £3. I'm quite happy with vids. Dvds ...i hate the 'extras' - ZZZzzzz. I'm not interested in trailers, commentaries, 'making of' documentarys, deleted scenes or any of that. i just like the film.

Good luck with the maverick filing system at HMV, Bradx - maybe my local store, the Manchester branch, is an anomaly, but for reasons best known to themselves, many samurai movies are filed in the Martial Arts section rather than World Cinema which makes things a bit trickier than they need be. On the other hand there's double the chance of blundering across something interesting, so there's that I guess.

I like Versus also - it's directed by Kitamura Ryuhei, and he had no budget so they shot it all in a forest; no props required there, and this kind of ingenuity singles out a lot of the best of the new breed of directors I think. He's also made one of the better modern chambara movies (swordfight movies) in Azumi which stars Ueto Aya in a rare non-cute role. It's not brilliant, true, and the sequel is not so good, but it's definitely worth a look. The final fight is especially good. Kitamura also helmed the last Godzilla movie and that's a real return to form for the franchise, but I've no idea if that is available in this country or not.

Tartan Extreme...well, it reminds me a little like buying Fall albums. Many titles are so good you feel undercharged given the brilliance on display, whereas others are, well, y'know. The company is not that helpful either, pretending that each new title is like a revelation, whereas the truth of the situation is rather more inconsistent.

i was going to suggest that

awesome film :thumbsup:

I can't claim any great knowledge of Japanese cinema, but one of my all-time favourite films of any type is Takeshi Kitano's recenti(ish) telling of the Zatoichi story. It's bloody BRILLIANT! The story is told so gently, and there are some ace moments in the soundtrack. Really, top-5 stuff no messing.

:thumbsup:

I like this tune especially! Not entirely sure if the original Zatoichi series contained moments like this, but who cares - it's one of the strengths of "Beat"oichi that' he's so willing to take the character in different directions. It's by some measure his most successful movie domestically, and as the japanese know a thing or two about sword fight movies, I think that speaks for itself.

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is in my opinion even better then the original (Though you really do need to watch the first to grasp the second).
Nice to see Itchi getting a mention, as well as Spirited Away.
Oh, and you must see The Vengence Trilogy ('Oldboy', 'Sympathy for Mr. Vengence' and 'Lady Vengence') before you die.
Korea and Mexico = Hotspots for ace indie films.

... For the unconventional use of piano wire.

No, the original Zatoichi didn't have any dance sequences. Well, not the ones i've seen. They made 25 tho I think. HMV did a Zatoichi box. The films r a bit repetitive but I like them a lot. That remake of Zatoichi was great I agree.

I like the Pang Brothers, everything they have done i have liked.

The thing with asian horror is that here in the west our horror films tend to abide by certain rules ie Nightime, lightning, and a gloomy setting, castle mansion etc etc.

Yet in asian horror its broad daylight and everyday circumstances where the story plays out ie JU ON & the eye also Ringu. It gives the viewer a sense that there is no escape from the events that are being depicted.

Im going to watch the Audition now as ive seen it reccomended in this thread.

At the risk of sounding even more like a deranged pervert, I like Cutie Honey (2004). It's top: it starts with her in a bath, so you know you're in for a bit of class, there's just no messing, and, hey, Honey's prepared, she takes the phone in the bath with her, but then the phone rings, so she answers it, but LO, not 5 seconds into the conversation there is a scuffle and the line goes dead, so Cutie springs into action, but no, she doesn't have any clothes apart from bra and panties because she's run out of power, at first I thought it was weird oops, I forgot to say she is an android and the guy on the phone was her uncle and she has this transformatron-master-of-disguise choker that when she presses it, her appearance is altered but that she needs power for it to work i.e. food, I mean I missed it first time round, I thought Uh maybe android's aren't allowed in boutiques in Tokyo or something, I mean you would have thought so, but well anyway, so she pegs it to the shops clad in a bin bag and underwear, white obviously, I mean you watch anime right, you know about this weird fetish of Japanese men, well let's not get sidetracked, she stuffs her face with nigiri, then transforms into biker honey and roars off on her bike, I dunno, maybe transformatron choker's make bikes appear out of nowhere, I dunno, but she definitely looks cool, so that's the main thing and that's the first 2 minutes. Now that's escapism :D

Directed by Anno Hideaki of Evangelion, Gunbuster and Kare Kano fame.

EDIT: did I tell a word of a lie?. The actress is Satou Eriko and one year she won the much coveted Onani-chan award (which does mean what you biblical studies students out there thinks it means!).

Well? :unsure:

The copy i borrowed from a friend was badly scratched , i couldnt get past the first 7 minutes unfortunatley.

Hopefully they may have a copy at the local blockbuster store.

I'm pretty dissapointed as i turned the lights off and settled down for a good film and shit happens !

Unlucky on that one mate, you should definately check it out as soon as you can.

If you're interested they have the special edition in my local Virgin for £9.

Cheers i will head down to virgin at the weekend then, thats if it isnt in blockbuster !

without giving too much away its not too disturbing is it ?

Well there's almost no gore but it's violently shocking and incredibly suprising as a film. Something that takes a while to absorb too.

I hope you like it now!

I watched it twice in a week to pick on all the things i'd missed and formulate what i could take from it. That is a sign of a good film in my book.

In an earlier post, I felt it was the fair thing to do to warn people just how scary Audition is. It's not bloody or gory in particular, at least not compared to Lone Wolf and Cub for example; but by virtue of making us care for the characters before the chills hit, the scares really hit home.

Audition was adapted from a novel by Murakami Ryu so its script is one or two notches higher than the average fare, so be prepared for some psychological shocks. Although it is best to watch knowing nothing about it, I do think it is fair also to say that the film first came to notice to the amount of walkouts it provoked on the festival circuit (where typically, the audience would know nothing about a film before seeing it).

I think time will deem Audition a masterpiece.

EDIT: but well, who knows?...but I wouldn't hesitate to say it is definitely the best film where the leading roles are taken by an ex-rock singer and a model (true!).

I agree and tankfully i went into it completely cold. It was on late night channel 4 a few years ago after something else we had watched and we thought it looked interesting. We were glued to the screen and needed a drink after hehe

Ok, so it may not be ultra obscure (or ultra violent for that matter, as is the case with most Asian films that take off in the West) but you really can't go wrong with most of the animated movies released by Studio Ghibli.

Just check out Princess Mononoke, The Cat Returns, Howls Moving Castle or the (dreaded phrase) Oscar winning Spirited Away to see what I mean.
All great movies in my opinion, and you could even watch them with your kids.

I was a bit scared by Spirited Away. Very unsettling.

No that isn't a joke either.

Been away on holiday so missed a lot of the recent additions to this thread.

Mikio Naruse is meant to be an auteur director to rival Mizoguchi and Kurosawa. Criterion have just released When A Woman Ascends The Stairs which I bought and thought was good. There's also a UK box set of 3 of his films that has got good reviews but I've been a bit reluctant to get it in case his other films are a bit like Ozu's (whose movies I've only seen one of and was a bit put off).

GLPL, I've heard that the Artsmagic DVD of Samurai Assassin is crap quality. HMV have got it for a fiver, though. I know the film is good but is it watchable?

Two older films worth going for are Humanity and Paper Balloons & Tange Sazen and the Pot Worth A Million Ryo. The director died at the age of 29 but had he lived he would probably have been bigger than Kurosawa and you can see why if you get hold of these. The R2 of the former film goes for about a tenner in most online stores and the other one frequently crops up on e-Bay. The picture quality is pretty good in both cases considering the age of these films.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews15..._dvd_review.htm

Mizoguchi's 47 Ronin has virtually no fights and lasts for about 4 hours. But the dissembling and intrigue really drew me in. Not a film for everyone but I rate it:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/Reviews/47_ronin.htm

I love Masaki Kobayashi. He's my favourite Japanese director at the moment. Hopefully, someone will release his Human Condition trilogy soon.


What else is there? Well those who liked Audition may like to check out Cure or Pulse by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. I think there's a bit more depth to this guy's movies though Takashi Miike can be quite good too.

For those interested in Japanese culture more generally, I recommend this:

http://www.amazon.com/Japan-Journals-1947-...77009037&sr=1-1

I've read a lot of books about Japan but this one is the best. Besides being an expert on Japanese Cinema, Richie seems to have known virtually everyone worth knowing about in the country. He was also mates with loads of famous non-Japanese artists, novelists, film makers, and so on. But he also hung out with ordinary Japanese people: taxi drivers, construction workers, transvestites, prostitutes, you name it. A fascinating bloke.

Great post :applaud:

Really I should go to bed, so this is just a quick post:

Samurai Assassin is a perfectly fine but nothing special transfer. It's way better than the VHS copies that used to do the rounds, and FOPP did have it for £3.

What was the Ozu film you saw BTW?

Completely agree regarding Kobayashi - currently chasing the same films myself! Apparently the Human Condition is Nakadai's lead debut also.

As for 47 Ronin/Chushingura - it's been filmed many times, but the best version is probably Inagaki's version. There's also a great gaiden (Side story/spin off) called Shura: The 48th Ronin which is tough to track down, but definitely worth it - try your contact, this is another acid test movie.

Thanks for the heads up about Naruse. It's always nice to find out about a new director. I'll let you know what I think once I've seen one of his films.

The best book on japanese culture imho is called "The Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture":



...and yes, that is Pink Lady on the front cover!! Entirely justified also!

Good post also :applaud: i will have to order that book as my knowledge on japanese pop culture is lacking ! I'm a horror fanatic myself and the Japanese excell in that seemingly.

...um, except in my idiocy, I mistook Samurai Assassin for Shogun Assassin. Errr...yes, Samurai Assassin is a good transfer, probably as good as you could hope for given the quality of the original film stock and the fact that the relatively small western (and increasingly Japanese!) audience for these movies precludes a remastering job I would think. Within about five minutes you'll be hooked I would venture, and wouldn't care anyway. Worth seeing as Mifune is rarely this good in non-Kurosawa movies!

You can have a look at a few pages here from the book I mentioned. When I bought it, I had no idea who Tezuka was, had never heard of Yamaguchi Momoe, knew nothing of Yuming, thought Kurosawa was the be all and end all of J-cinema, didn't realise that Japan had a garage and psyche scene the equal of America, had never heard of the only singles act to rival the Fall...*

I don't know why they pick an entry on Animal Friends as a sample chapter, but you can have a look at the Title Page to see the entries. One of two books to change my life.

Really must sleep (too busy fiddling though with a mix CD though for one *ahem* lucky member of the forum).

* see avatar :D