Best forum for japanese movies: http://www.mandiapple.com/snowblood/index.html
It has a huge list of great reviews.

"Summer Time Machine Blues" is really funny. The premise is that it is a hot summer day, and someone breaks the remote for the air conditioning unit in the science fiction club room. As there is no switch on the unit itself (so true for those Asian style AC units!), they sit in agonizing heat until a time machine appears in their room, and they come up with the brilliant idea to go into the past and recover the "yet-to-be-broken" AC remote. I saw it on an airplane and liked it so much I ordered it online (expensive that way though).

For anyone in Vancouver (Canada), Pacific Cinematheque is showing a retrospective of Oshima's work from Jan 16 - Feb 16. Some not available on DVD. Pretty incredible collection.

http://www.cinematheque.bc.ca/realm-oshima

Also, the Japanese consulate presents Japanese films at PC somewhat regularly, I think.

I also reccomend summer time blues machine. My roomate brought it over from Japan.

I also reccomend "Linda! Linda! Linda!"

Thanks, Thora, I may check that out. I believe Pacific Cinematheque also showed Kimura Takuya's latest samurai flick, which I caught on DVD. Also Granville 7 has shown parts of the new Death Note movie, though the night I went it was so badly dubbed it was hard to watch. (Some of the cosplay in the audience was great, though.)

Thora Wrote:For anyone in Vancouver (Canada), Pacific Cinematheque is showing a retrospective of Oshima's work from Jan 16 - Feb 16. Some not available on DVD. Pretty incredible collection.

http://www.cinematheque.bc.ca/realm-oshima

Also, the Japanese consulate presents Japanese films at PC somewhat regularly, I think.

It's too bad I don't have the money to take off here for a few days, my wife has been bugging me to visit Vancouver and I am only a few hours away now ( Kelowna, BC )

Hopefully I can catch something when I DO visit there, would be interesting.

I recently watched "Magic Hour," which was pretty funny. It is about a guy who is going to be killed by a crime boss, but is let go under the assumption that he will lead the boss to an elusive assassin that the boss always wanted to meet. In actuality, the guy didn't actually know the assassin, so he hires an actor to play him, and has to convince the actor that he is actually starring in a movie. The Japanese is pretty tough, even with Japanese subtitles on, I probably only got about 80%, so I missed a couple critical points.

Also, "僕の彼女はサイボーグ" (my girlfriend is a cyborg), interesting enough if you like romance/comedy type movies, plus the Japanese is a little slower than "Magic Hour", so I was able to understand pretty much everything when I put Japanese subtitles on.

Ah Japanese films, I used to watch a lot of those. That's how I got interested in Japanese.
I think I have over 500 in my home country, thanks to the golden days of edonkey networks. I wonder if people still use them.

I think the best website about asian cinema is http://www.midnighteye.com
They have good reviews, and not only about extremely violent flicks. They even have interviews with directors.

I think the Snowblood Apple site looks like a myspace page and is interesting to people who are solely into the gore extreme violent stuff (like me when I was 16). To each his own.

A few random favorites in English (at the time of watching I didn't know any Japanese), all set in contemporary Japan.

The Eel (unagi, original story)
Drunken Angel (Yoidore Tenchi, by Kurosawa, great acting)
Survive Style 5+ (very funny!)
Happyness of the Katakuris
Go-con, japanese love culture (actually not so interesting, but it explains about go-con, and i think it's good for learning Japanese, because the guys repeat their stories to each girl)
Bounce, Kogalls (Kogalls = Call girls, surprizingly good)
Tampopo (makes you love ramen if you didn't already)
Blue Spring (cool music and images)
Ping Pong
Go
Monday
The Taste of Tea (cha no aji, this one is the king of Japanese sunday afternoon movies, funny relaxed and beautifull)
Picnic (by Shunji Iway)
All about Lily Chou Chou (beautifull music and images, one of the first fully digitally shot mainstream movies in Japan)
Audition (this one is gory, but not your average horror movie)

As you will notice there isn't anything from the last couple of years. After I moved to Japan, I pretty much stopped watching them!

[ファブリス]

I'd recommend Yasujirō Ozu. His movies from 1950 and after, you might find also a DVD compilation of his colour movies.

Of course it is very different from modern Japan and in a way, even if I am not living there I would bet it is very much the same. Just like if I was watching a 1950 documentary of Belgium it would look both very different and similar. But another reason for that is that Ozu's movies really focus on the characters, so they are timeless. It is well worth a watch if only to discover a different style of filming.

I don't know about the speech patterns though, some of it may be different, I'll let the pros fill in on that

Anything by Tak Sakaguchi. Anything. Versus especially if you're into RADICAL ZOMBIE-FIGHTING ACTION. Which, naturally, I am.

Also, I saw someone recommend Mimi o Sumaseba, to which I have to say YES. VERY YES. One of my top two favorite movies ever, and I don't even like romance.

JimmySeal Wrote:The language is a bit tough to follow because Beat Takeshi's speech is a bit "rough" but 菊次郎（きくじろう）の夏 is a great movie, and certainly anyone can pick up bits here and there.

菊次郎 is my favorite Japanese movie of all time. Kurosawa's "Dreams" has sub-titles in eight languages including Japanese.

zwarte_kat recommended midnight eye, and i second that - great site.

I think the state of Japanese cinema is the same as everywhere: between the extremely arty and the mainstream are the good ones.

Ozu Yasujiro is top choice, but the pace might be too slow for people coming from anime and such.
I personally like Kitano Takeshi's style. This is a trailer for one of his latest, Kantoku Banzai!, a mish-mash of pastiches celebrating Japanese cinema.

Recent good ones: I Just Didn't Do It/それでもボクはやってない - social commentary

Drifting around Tokyo 「転々」 - one of those weird, fun films that everyone falls for

A psychedelic typhoon: Throw Away Your Books, Rally In The Streets by Terayama Shuji
*slightly NSFW trailer