Post a review for a movie you enjoyed watching. I'd prefer this thread to limit itself to stand alone movies. ( not based directly on a series that would limit it's understanding ) so that if people are interested they can pick up the movie and have the full experience.

I'll start:

Title:
Yakuza like a dragon (ryuu ga gotoku: gekijou-ban) --by Takeshi Miike

Genre:
Action / comedy


Review:
There are three concurrent stories that are going on in this film. It follows a recently released convict and ex Yakuza member as he escorts a young girl to find her mother. Her mother used to be a host and gave the girl up at adoption. Has elements of comedy that I really enjoyed and lightened the mood between the more dark and serious scenes. The fight scenes really make the movie an enjoyable experience as well as trying to figure out the back stories of another young couple that are trying to rob their way to wealth for an unknown reason. There is also a mysterious Seoul hitman type character that plays a part in his own story that gently weaves it way into the other stories. The language used by the characters is more natural for random people you meet in Tokyo after getting to known them a bit (or if you're adventurous immediately). While some of the language is over the top it definitely feels more colloquial and natural between friends using aspects of rough speak and respect depending on the situation. There is a little korean in the film with japanese subtitles so if you also are interested in korean those scenes will provide some value for you. The movie ends pretty abruptly but overall is worth a view.

Thermae Romae (with Abe Hiroshi and Ueto Aya):

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. It reminded me of classic Hollywood comedies. Great attention to detail (sets, wardrobe), character definition, amazing soundtrack, and the obligatory impossible love story.

The movie takes place between Ancient Rome and Modern Japan, and a recurring theme is the bath culture of both societies. The characters travel back and forth between the two eras (it's not spelled out, but it's basically the invisible hand of destiny directing their travels), and get into all kinds of misadventures, as the fate of the Roman Empire hangs in the balance.

Those are the good parts. The bad part is that, on occasion, the whole thing devolves into over the top quirkiness. I think the movie could've used less of that. But still, one of the best comedies I saw all year.

(tl;dr: This is technically based on a series.)

Title:
Street Fighter II

Genre:
Action / comedy

Review:
I recently saw this movie on TV (did anyone else catch it? It was on 地上 Digital in the 関東 region a couple of weeks ago). It's just as good in Japanese as it is in English. If you've seen any of the video-game-based movies of the 1990's, you can imagine how good this movie is.

There were only a couple things that I didn't like about it:

1) I'm not big into video games, but I think in Japanese, Balrog and M. Bison's names are switched. They did NOT switch them in the Japanese dubbing of this movie, so M. Bison is still the final boss, and Balrog is still the boxer.

2) My favorite quote from the movie (spoiler: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0001118/quotes (it's the second quote)) just isn't that good in Japanese. I dunno if it was just translated poorly, or if my Japanese just isn't good enough to appreciate it.

Overall, it's pretty awesome. The Japanese is also not that difficult.

Toki wo kakeru shoujo (live-action)
It's bad. Don't watch it. The climax is just eh... and the movie is just boring. so much time is wasted that could've been used to develop the background information or characters or something. The only pro is that there are Japanese subs available.

I reckon the genre is romance and uh... sci-fi?
so i recommend the anime version of the movie (which also has japanese subs) so there's no reason to watch the live-action movie. I watched it bc I thought they would come up with a good variation on the story but they didn't. At least it seemed like that from the kaiken video that was on youtube. It was like THAT'S IT! and on top of that they didn't develop the characters well which added to the THAT'S IT!? reaction. The anime movie is pretty good. The beginning is sorta boring but I think there's pay-off at the end. Also the animation is really good. ANOTHER alternative that I recommend is to read the book 失はれる物語 by 乙一 which contains the story きみにしか聞こえない. That story gets pretttty exciting.

I've yet to see a good japanese movie but once i do i'll recommend.

[Zgarbas]

Robogeisha.
It is amazing. Being an action movie it doesn't have complicated dialogues, so beginners can watch it without subtitles with little to no consequence. Bring your friends. Just watch the trailer and you'll instantly know what to expect.

Marebito.
Awful, awful, boring movie which I saw in a top 10 horror movie list once. Just don't.

Also movies which got American remakes (so I expect people to know their stories) like Ju-On, Ringu or Dark Water were pretty good.

After Life (ワンダフルライフ)

Directed by Koreeda Hirokazu, who is I think one of Japan's best living directors. (Nobody Knows, however, is super depressing. Good but super depressing.)

It's set in a waystation for recently dead people. A crew of workers helps each person recreate and film one memory to take with them into the afterlife. But one of the counselors discovers that the person he's counseling married his fiancee after he [the counselor] was killed fighting in World War II. It's a movie about memory, and coming to terms with one's past, and there's something incredibly touching and magical about it. The vision of Heaven as a sort of grubby, run-down bureaucracy, something like a second-rate university, is original and very Japanese!

I thought the Japanese version of the ring was awful. it was just boring and not very scary. Just another crappy 90s movie from Japan. My impression was that the story in the american version was better plus they don't have wasteful scenes in the american version (I remember there was a scene where they're just sitting at a table in the japanese version... I don't really remember well. I just remember it was really boring and not scary) I remember that the american version was more graphic which made it more scary. I actually read the book RINGu a few afters seeing that movie. And let me tell you there's a lot of stuff going on in the book so if you were to incorporate all that into the movie there's going to be a lot of dialogue or narration. There's just so much more going on in the book compared to the american plot. I think it's just too complicated to make it into a movie. Then the second book gets even more complicated and more difficult to make into a movie. So anyways I recommend the books. They are stimulating to read but I'm not too fond of the author's writing style. The movies just doesn't do the story justice. They must've watered it done or left out a lot of stuff if i was bored watching it. I think the movie to book transition for the ring was worse than the one for harry potter... if i were to give an anology. but then again harry potter was pretty shitty in my opinion too. the HP movies are just SOOOOO boring even though the book has so much juicy stuff going on.

Stansfield123 Wrote:Thermae Romae (with Abe Hiroshi and Ueto Aya):

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. It reminded me of classic Hollywood comedies. Great attention to detail (sets, wardrobe), character definition, amazing soundtrack, and the obligatory impossible love story.

The movie takes place between Ancient Rome and Modern Japan, and a recurring theme is the bath culture of both societies. The characters travel back and forth between the two eras (it's not spelled out, but it's basically the invisible hand of destiny directing their travels), and get into all kinds of misadventures, as the fate of the Roman Empire hangs in the balance.

Those are the good parts. The bad part is that, on occasion, the whole thing devolves into over the top quirkiness. I think the movie could've used less of that. But still, one of the best comedies I saw all year.

Downloading this now. I hope it lives up to your review because that sounds great.

Contributing:

The Secret of Arrietty
Its a recent Ghibli anime that follows a Thumbelina sized girl and her tiny family who live their lives "borrowing" supplies from the humans whose house they live in.
A young boy visiting his aunt who lives in the house Arrietty and her family borrow from is determined to find out if the rumors he has heard about these fairy people are true.

Ghibli, as usual, really killed it on the animation and got a great soundtrack out of Cécile Corbel. However, IMO the thing they did best here was really making you feel like you experienced what it would be like to be only about 5 inches tall. Giant cats, venturing through the walls in the house, the massive echo of the ticking clock, etc. There's a lot of detail in that kind of stuff and it makes the whole adventure so much fun.

tl;dr If you remotely enjoyed a Studio Ghibli film before this one is worth watching too.

p.s. great thread. can't wait to see what everybody else posts so I can get to watching.

"Cold Fish" by Shion Sono

でんでん acting the perfect pervert, harsh and for me, so far unexpected, Japanese dialogues between protagonists. This movie is really sick, but that's why I liked it

"ヒミズ" by Shion Sono

Another typical film made by Shion Sono. I liked the monologues of the protagonists and the obsessiveness of the actors.

"告白" by ??

One of the best films I've seen in my life, perfect adaption of the perfect book I find!! A must watch for every thriller/drama fan.

Kamikaze Girls (Shimotsuma monogatari)

A comedic odd-couple story about a misanthropic, 18th Century Rococo-obsessed, "Lolita" and an unsophisticated "yanki" girl.

Momoko, obsessed with frilly dresses, embroidery, and elaborate sweets, is a complete fish out of water in her rural Japanese town, where everyone buys their clothes at the supermarket. In need of cash to pay for her expensive habits, she starts selling bootleg Ver*ace and Uni*ersal Studios clothes she gets from her yakuza Dad. Madness ensues when bike gang leader Ichigo shows up at her door, spitting and cursing.

This is one of my favorite Japanese movies. It has a very biting, dark sense of humor and highly stylized art-direction (including some short animated segments), without being as over-the-top as stuff like Machine Girl and RoboGeisha (also awesome). There's something very polished about this movie that put it a cut above other modern Japanese movies I'd seen when it came out. The dialogue is quite funny, the story is engaging, and the characters give you a fun look into several Japanese subcultures. The pacing drags a little towards the end, but overall I highly recommend this for lighter viewing!

Just a suggestion for everyone, personally I'm more likely to look into a film if the trailer is hyperlinked. Feel free to do so if you really want to recommend a movie.

Ping Pong 「ピンポン」

"A 2002 sports film directed by the Japanese filmmaker Fumihiko Sori. It is based on Taiyō Matsumoto's manga of the same name and is about the friendship between two high school table tennis players. The film concentrates on these two friends, their two mentors, and three players who they encounter at high school table tennis tournaments. It explores the different motivations and philosophies that they have towards table tennis and tries to portray the excitement and subtlety of the sport." (Wikipedia)

Great film, really chill, awesome music, great at making the ping pong matches feel intense and real. I think the characters develop really well and has a satisfying ending. Not too much to say, highly recommended.

Space Brothers 「宇宙兄弟」

"The story follows two brothers, Mutta and Hibito Nanba, who, in the summer of 2006, discovered a UFO which flew to the moon. In 2025, as Hibito has managed to become an astronaut set to go to the moon, Mutta has not been so successful in achieving his dream of going to Mars. That is, until he is accepted to join an astronaut training program." (Wikipedia)

The synopsis I linked was for the manga in general, but the movie is that basic construction. I haven't read the manga or watched the anime so I'm not sure how well it translates, but I love watching Oguri Shun for some reason. The movie itself was okay, lots of bad acting by Americans and the accident that occurs is just so dumb. I'd say watch it if you're really bored but I wouldn't recommend it much.

[s0apgun]

^ The anime is amazing if you haven't watched it yet.

I'm a bit of a cinefile (I watch a lot of world cinema - you can see from my log here https://www.evernote.com/shard/s4/sh/504...c22adba3bc ), here are a couple Japanese titles that I've most appreciated.

"Seppuku" by Kobayashi Masaki - my all-time favorite Japanese film. It's honest, earnest and powerful. I thought Kurosawa was the master of samurai nuanced samurai cinema until I saw this. And what an indictment of the samurai class this was.

"Vengeance is Mine" by Imamura Shouhei. A wild ride with a psychopathic killer on the run. Surprisingly graphic for a 70s film, and refreshingly non-judgmental in its telling (though what he's doing is clearly bad, the film doesn't coach you on how to think about it).

"Late Spring" by Ozu. A classic family drama.

I have also heard amazing things about the works of Teshigahara, like "The Woman in the Dunes" (砂の女).

砂の女 is by far teshigahara's best film. 'pitfall' and 'a face of another' are solid.

wahnfrieden gave good recommendations. 'vengeance is mine' is good, but imamura's 'the pornographers' is one of the best new wave films i've seen. it starts off as a black comedy about a couple of hoodlums making porn flicks and on the way transforms into wonderfully surreal nightmare. thematically and visually it's amazingly fresh and modern, not dated at all.

i'm in the middle of exploring nagisa oshima's 60's opus and will write about it in the future.

Watched the Rurouni Kenshin movie. Surprisingly not that terrible, but I'm still confused as to why every Japanese movie feels the need to be over 2 hours. Most of them overstay their welcome. I would say the movie is good to watch while doing Anki reviews but maybe not in most other situations. I haven't read the manga or watched the anime so I have no prior knowledge of the series.

TheVinster Wrote:Surprisingly not that terrible, but I'm still confused as to why every Japanese movie feels the need to be over 2 hours.

Try watching pinku eiga, most are 60-70 minutes long. Some of the best are: "Monzetsu!! Dondengaeshi", "Zoom In: boko danchii", "Reipu 25-ji: Bôkan" & "Uwakizuma: Chijokuzeme".

Confessions (2010). As far as revenge movies go, this is a good one. It's not blood and gore, it's psychological. Not gonna write a long review, because they're available (on RottenTomatoes, IMDB, etc.), and everyone seems to agree that this is a really good movie.

So if you're into the genre (or anything even just kinda close, i.e. Death Note), just watch it.

that movie was good for the first 20mins. after that it just started repeating the same things over and over again.

I saw confessions! It was good. I finally saw a good japanese movie where stuff actually happens, isn't boring as hell or slow-paced as hell, or has horrible acting that's either just bad or overacting. It's dark, disturbing, about revenge so I can't really recommend it to everyone i'm sure some people wouldn't want to see it. I loved the ost too. If you're like me and almost "hate" japanese movies because you've seen bad ones, definitely check it out. It's well-made! and i totally can see why it won that award or awards. I snagged the book for a dollar at book-off so i can't wait to see how it is in the book. I would love to get more details~

I was going through the lines after watching it and i found the full script transcribed by some chinese learning japanese or something?

here ya go

Zgarbas Wrote:Marebito.
Awful, awful, boring movie which I saw in a top 10 horror movie list once. Just don't.

I like that movie. Though, I don't think I liked it the second time I watched it, when I was sober.

edit:

howtwosavealif3 Wrote:I finally saw a good japanese movie where stuff actually happens, isn't boring as hell or slow-paced as hell, or has horrible acting that's either just bad or overacting.

There are plenty of movies that don't fit this description, and some slow ones that are good.

howtwosavealif3 Wrote:I snagged the book for a dollar at book-off

Agh! I went to the dollar section and two women were discussing it, the one convincing the other to buy it, and I said, ”そうですね、その本が面白いだと思います” and then she bought it so I'm just waiting, ha. But I do have the book for 愛のみきだし so maybe I should read that. I wonder how it will be without Bolero.

howtwosavealif3 Wrote:Toki wo kakeru shoujo (live-action)
and on top of that they didn't develop the characters well which added to the THAT'S IT!? reaction.

Ah, that's too bad! I didn't know they made a live action version of that. That anime worked in large part because it was anime and they could do cool stuff with it. Perhaps it'd best be done in a style like 'Run Lola Run' or 'Go' (the American 'Go'*) I might watch this despite your recommendation not to.

*Go with 窪塚 洋介 is good. 窪塚 洋介 is good.

I don't think I could watch Robogeisha, but Dark Water is good, as is the short story (kinda).

The recent movies I've seen that I enjoyed enough to watch twice were 'Picnic' by 岩井俊二 with 浅野 忠信 and 19 (crappy trailer).　花とアリス has special place in my heart (that trailer has some awful noise in the background).

haplochant, I think you'd like 'Memories of Matsuko' and maybe even 'Sakuran'.

But I'll write about 'お早よう' by 小津 安二郎.

Ohayo is a movie about two boys in some kind of tract housing outside of Tokyo. They play games of manliness with their peers and local oyaji, such as competing to see who can make the cutest fart noise! Then they take a vow of silence against their parents who won't buy them a TV and it's a symbol about society so pay attention! The soundtrack in this movie is terrific.

It's a shame that Japanese movies are pretty shit these days. What happened to good Japanese movies?

For that matter, what happened to good Hong Kong movies?

2 years from now, I'll also be asking, what happened to good South Korean movies? They're already on the path to shittiness now.

With the "rise" of China, hopefully we might be seeing some good stuff coming out of there.

tashippy Wrote:But I'll write about 'お早よう' by 小津 安二郎.

Ohayo is a movie about two boys in some kind of tract housing outside of Tokyo. They play games of manliness with their peers and local oyaji, such as competing to see who can make the cutest fart noise! Then they take a vow of silence against their parents who won't buy them a TV and it's a symbol about society so pay attention! The soundtrack in this movie is terrific.

that's probably my favorite of his. ozu is always worth it - not just because of insights into japanese society, but his films neatly illustrate some of the most common themes in japanese aesthetics.

incidentally, last week i went to see 浮草物語(original version) with benshi narrator and it was really good. watching silent films this way is a completely different experience and i'd like to see some of european silent classics getting this treatement, too.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:2 years from now, I'll also be asking, what happened to good South Korean movies? They're already on the path to shittiness now.

i know what you mean, but let's wait and see. my impression is also that they're already recycling past successes, but after almost two decades of great films, i guess it was inevitable.
still, korea is one of the rare countries that during that time had quality mainstream AND festival/art film production.
finally, i'm really looking forward to this.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:With the "rise" of China, hopefully we might be seeing some good stuff coming out of there.

china already made a lot of great films during 80's and 90's. zhang yimou had a string of 3-4 excellent films in a row, there's wong kar wai, one of the most influential directors in the past decades, there are individually great films like 'suzhou river', 'still life', etc...
so there's plenty of good stuff there, but i have to say that i kinda stopped following chinese cinema during 00's and don't know much about that period.

umetani666 Wrote:i know what you mean, but let's wait and see. my impression is also that they're already recycling past successes, but after almost two decades of great films, i guess it was inevitable.

The recycling of past successes is most obvious in the thriller genre, particularly ones with the "revenge" theme.

umetani666 Wrote:china already made a lot of great films during 80's and 90's. zhang yimou had a string of 3-4 excellent films in a row, there's wong kar wai, one of the most influential directors in the past decades, there are individually great films like 'suzhou river', 'still life', etc...
so there's plenty of good stuff there, but i have to say that i kinda stopped following chinese cinema during 00's and don't know much about that period.

Yeah, there were notable non-Hong Kong Chinese movies back then. I bring China up because China back then had a crappy economy. Now that China has more money, many there will be an artistical resurgence. The Chinese censors is still a major problem though.

The other opportunity or setback (depending on your point of view) is the gradual "unifying" of Hong Kong and China. Hong Kong movies had always had a different flavor than mainland Chinese movies. The issue here is with the influence of China on Hong Kong, will Hong Kong movies find new areas of inspiration or will the HK style/personality be diluted?

Due to the rigid Chinese censorship policies in movies, I fear it may be the latter. Chinese movie censorship can be summarized as: Obey authority (the government). If you disobey authority, you WILL be punished.

I'd cite a recent movie name as an example (and several older ones) but just by doing so, it would be a spoiler.