Why are Japanese films so terrible?

Gojira movie feat.Smog Monster (Jap version) = second gratest film of all time. At one point they convene a MAJOR ROCK CONCERT ATOP A MOUNTAIN to dispel the demons of pollution, you think ver kidz are going to save the universe god that's lame, but ROCK CONCERT FAILS!! Only a jumping man in a rubbish rubber suit will do!!

Ring 2 fails to capitalise on the idea of the first film, and ends up in some sort of no mans land of schlocky pseudo horror. Pity. I hear Ring 0 (the prequel) is appalling too.

I of course rather like some Japanese films - and think After-Life is genius. I am looking forward to Battle Royale with more than a bit of interest.

Tokyo Fist = best.film.ever

followed by 7 Samurai

Didn't get much outta Violent Cop at all. He was a violent cop though, truth in titling there...

Godzilla vs Smog Monster, liked that one a bunch back in the day. The kids on the mountain were playing surf music on psychedelic Fenders, right?

Quite Good: "Ghost In The Shell", "Branded to Kill" (or is it "Branded to Thrill"? I mean the one with the hitman who is sexually aroused by the smell of cooking rice), "Violent Cop" (if only for the ending), "Ring" (not as scarey as people say, especially not on my tiny computer screen)

Pants, but bizarre non western pants (and therefore nevertheless interesting): "Roujin-Z" (see robotic beds fight!)

What about when Godzilla does the highland fling? That was funny! Ha ha ha!

I STILL HAVEN'T SEEN PRINCESS MONONOKE. Is there/has there been showings of his new film yet? (something like "wandering spirits" - can't recall right now)

And Ozu makes it hard for me to remember if I've seen a particular film, since every other one is called 'Late Spring' or 'Early Autumn' or 'That Bit Just Before Winter When All The Leaves Have Finally Fallen But It's Not That Cold Yet' or something like that.

Were the Gamera films Japanese or Korean?

I dunno, but it's kinda irrelevant, considering the universality of their wonderful theme song:

You are groovy Gamera
groovy, groovy Gamera

Betcha that Rock concert to stop pollution would've worked if they'd played that!

is anyone familiar with Terayama's cinematic output?
(Emperor Tomatoketchup, where children rule the world and have grown ups as there slaves, and Throw away your books, go out into the streets! which is like a japanese Brecht protest film)

Nothing like eating cornflakes and watching a blind masseuse take out a dozen people in a few seconds with a katana hidden in a cane.

Yes! Mizoguchi is less known than he should be. Other good films of his are "Sisters of the Gion", "The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums", "Women of the Night", "Miss Oyû", "Tales of Ugetsu", "Gion Festival Music", "The Woman of Rumour" and "The Tale of the Crucified Lovers".

_the snow woman_ is the only one that i really love on that daiei gothic set but i do generally like the others, its just kind of an entertaining formula

seijun suzuki’s _a tale of sorrow and sadness_ is a blast and my personal favorite meditation on golfing and celebrity. haven't gotten the disc yet tho. but i intend to!

i think it was partly also a case of having seen the other Yotsura version and Snow Woman as part of Kwaidan so it wasn't as new as it could've been. and whilst I'm a fan of this stuff specifically, none of it was as good as Kuroneko, say.

(but then I've just bought a 4th version of the Loyal 47 Ronin so...)

(yotsuya, sorry)

yea that was my first yotsuya. (well, its been a while for kwaidan, i didn't make the connection…) didn't realize its basically an industry in and of itself and that there are like 65 more until i poked around after watching, which is kinda neat

tbh i enjoyed it the least of the three but… cool production design!

there's a '56 version starring wakayama which I'll have to keep an eye out for

(the one i'd seen, the other '59 version, is on the internet archive. i think i preferred it despite the daiei version being misumi)

by coincidence... out next month...

https://www.radiancefilms.co.uk/products/the-tale-of-oiwas-ghost-le

watched Versus, which was like evil dead 2 but with zombie samurai, or something. same cheap feel and was a bit tiring tbh, not great.

but i did also pick up some Radiance films the other day and the random film picker* choose I, The Executioner this morning and that reminded me, mainly based on the angles, of The Ipcress File. apparently tai kato used to dig holes in order to get the camera to sit lower. i will buy more.

useful Japanese serial killer feature as an extra too, some of which I'd seen, and some of which were too modern for me, but a couple of suggestions

(* random film picker is just a random number generating website, which chose 6 this morning and this was the 6th in the pile of unwatched films. actually the 3rd Bounty Hunter was 6th but it didn't make sense to start at the end of a trilogy so ...)

(oh and the shinobi box i got was 3 films in a normal width box. i think the limited editions may be a box each in a bigger sleeve, with printed notes, but that is sold out and more money)

third film in little over a week where people have used a tsuba as an eyepatch...

(bounty hunter, samurai wolf, lone wolf and cub)

Mermaid Legend was pretty good, woman goes on rampage after someone kills her husband. There's a Third Window disc bonus feature about the jazz fusion musician Toshiyuki Honda, who did this soundtrack and others.

i love that one. the revenge part is just so satisfying, like an elemental force.

https://www.radiancefilms.co.uk/products/daiei-gothic-vol-2-le

ooh. (i say ooh, but i've not heard of any of those... oh, maybe the last one. and the second one sounds like a black cat thing which i've wanted more of)

Haunted Castle is a must see! Awesome film and finally on bluray outside japan!
Demon Of Mount Oe is pretty good, not that gothic, more of a samurai action movie with a couple of monsters.
Not sure if I've seen Kasane Swamp because a lot of these films were remade a lot, but if I did see it, it's one of the less memorable ones.

Kasane Swamp plot sounds like Yotsuya again, but the director, Nakagawa, had already done that. and that and Haunted Castle and Kuroneko and Kwaidan and a few other favourites are all mentioned in the same footnote in my copy of Eros in Hell. but i can't see a mention of the other film in the set

Kasane Swamp = Masseur's Curse https://letterboxd.com/film/masseurs-curse/

Looking at the dates, I definitely haven't seen that version of Kasane Swamp.

lol at page one here

https://letterboxd.com/mishima24/list/the-most-comprehensive-list-of-japanese-movies/

ghost cat this, yotsuya that...

trying to think of anything similar in English that gets redone even half as often. A Christmas Carol is the only thing that comes close.

I just saw Scent Of A Spell, same director as Mermaid Legend but I think I liked this one even better? I want to get Luminous Woman and Love Hotel, it's an interesting little pocket of japanese film history.

order email from radiance.

"OIWA GHOST Replacement Disc × 1 Free"

so it looks like there must've been an issue with the originals (which i haven't watched yet)

"THIS ITEM HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED DUE TO PLAYBACK ISSUES ON SPECIFIC PLAYERS - INCLUDING PANASONIC UB820 AND PLAYSTATION CONSOLES" ah, ok. i do have a panasonic...

finished the Shinobi box (1, 2, 3) over the weekend, which is i think where modern ninjas come from. it's odd in that the 3 films follow on from each other more like a tv series would than a film series would. a couple of useful (short) documentaries on there as well, but no commentaries.

whilst looking for the snow woman soundtrack on discogs, i found the daiei label and these
https://www.discogs.com/artist/1339696-Shintaro-Katsu

been on a Tomisaburo Wakayama jag for most of this year, prompted by a bunch of Radiance purchases (Bounty Hunter, Shinobi, Big Time Gambling Boss, Oiwa) and random appearances in other things (Red Peony Gambler, Zatoichi). i think 18 Years in Prison was the first time i'd seen him wearing modern clothes (albeit 50s prisoner officer uniform).

Got one new one left (Japan Organised Crime Boss), and 2 more Lone Wolf films to rewatch for a total of 20. Nice then, that one of the lesser Freeview channels is showing Black Rain this friday.

The Betrayal was great, a new favourite

they have messed up the partial commentary though and are sending out replacements

said commentary says that Radiance have more Tanaka films in the works and one of the other extras has clips from the Sleepy Eyes Of Death series and The Whale God so here's hoping

I would like Whale God

I saw Box Man, highly ambiguous. Maybe the novel will help me understand but the director Ishii seemed to feel that it's endlessly flexible for interpretations. The fights were certainly fun.

What I recall of the novel is pretty ambiguous too, hope I can see this anyway. I watched Ishii's early film Burst City today, biker gang cyberpunk craziness from 1982, probably an influence on Shinya Tsukamoto. At least half an hour too long at 115 minutes and totally incoherent but good fun. The Crazy Family is his best by a long way from the ones I've seen.

Not just Tsukamoto, I think Crazy Thunder Road inspired a whole generation of directors, I felt very underwhelmed by it but I think it was a student film and I guess it showed people what a young low budget director could do.

Would love to see August In The Water.

Might be a baffling choice to some but Isn't Anyone Alive is my favorite of the 9 I've seen.

august in the water is INCREDIBLE. total masterpiece. and also very different from the earlier cyberpunk films.

I haven't watched the upload and can't speak for the quality of the subs etc but fwiw its on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNYywDdpBz0-

the score is a fave as well:
https://hiroyukionogawa.bandcamp.com/album/august-in-the-water-music-for-film-1995-2005

angel dust is also great!

My favorite thread title. Not because I agree with it.

Might be a baffling choice to some but Isn't Anyone Alive is my favorite of the 9 I've seen.

I like that one, too! Also Electric Dragon 80000V.

xxp thanks i'm really intrigued to watch august in the water now — never heard of it before. (it can also be streamed with subs at jp-films.com if anyone else is interested.)

Box Man's star reminded me a lot of Tsukamoto, feels like a role he easily could have done but Masatoshi Nagase had the role since the late 90s, the film kept being postponed.

Saw Kokuho. Enjoyed watching it, but can't decide if it's actually good or not, will have to sleep on it.

next couple of months is chock full of things being published that i've heard talk about but never seen.

5x miyamoto musashi by tomu uchida (eureka, feb)
the trilogy with 13 assassins, great killing, 11 samurai (arrow, mar)
bushido, cruel code of the samurai (eureka, mar)
the two ginza butterfly films featuring meiko kaji (arrow, april)
and a couple on radiance, as usual.

have already preordered the first, payday tomorrow...

Re: Uchida... I recently watched Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji and Chikamatsu’s Love in Osaka and both were excellent.

Also watched the two remaining Tanaka films I'd not seen (The Wandering Princess and Love Under the Crucifix, her only color films) and they were disappointing compared to the others, with scripts that fail to match some great cinematography. (The same goes for her mentor Mizoguchi's color films.)

The Wandering Princess
and
Love Under the Crucifix

ugh meant to delete that extra text.

Also watched the two remaining Tanaka films I'd not seen (The Wandering Princess and Love Under the Crucifix, her only color films) and they were disappointing compared to the others, with scripts that fail to match some great cinematography. (The same goes for her mentor Mizoguchi's color films.)

They're def dated curios as opposed to stone cold classics, but I'd rather watch Wandering Princess again than most David Lean epics.

(ooh, my preordered Zen and Sword box has been dispatched, 10 days ahead of release)

went to the Samurai exhibition at the British Museum (easter holidays, too many kids. too many people in general) and they were showing the new Shogun and the new Last Samurai thing (netflix apparently) and not much else in the way of films. but there was a tiny screen later on that was showing, of all things, both versions of 13 Assassins, which is not the most obvious (i don't remember kurosawa or mifune being mentioned at all, but i must be wrong)

this was coincidentally the day the new Arrow box of 13 Assassins, The Great Killing, 11 Samurai. they are all very similar, same antagonist for the first and last even (ok, different name, same initials, still the shogun's brother). and the fighting is so (realistically) scrappy. but nice upgrade from my ntsc video copy of 13A.

the commentaries for those have put me on a 47 Ronin jag. the 1958 Daiei doesn't appear to be in print anywhere but i've watched the 4 i have (Ako Castle rewatch tonight). it's nice how similar those are - you can track the same character across the different films by their mon. slightly annoyed that the 1941 Mizoguchi version has the actual raid offscreen. it was 3 and 3/4 hours long and they skipped the big action scene...

Wandering Ginza Butterly and Bushido disks have just turned up. i think that's the last of the 11 things i was particularly looking forward to.

that netflix thing apparently Last Samurai Standing which is a modern japanese jidaigeki. maybe it'll get a dvd release. i still occasionally look for Shogun, but it's never there.

Shogun is Disney + in the UK.

slightly annoyed that the 1941 Mizoguchi version has the actual raid offscreen.

When I went through Mizoguchi's entire (sound-era) filmography recently that is the one movie I skipped as it looked too boring. I'm kind of bemused by the amount of adaptations of this story -- I've seen the Inagaki film and wasn't thrilled by it despite the star-filled cast.

That 1958 version can be streamed at jp-films should you be interested in watching that way.

I rewatched Street of Shame just last night, such a great movie.

the 1958 version is showing at the japanese embassy this month incidentally

https://www.uk.emb-japan.go.jp/JAPANUKEvent//event/2026/202604/12-JHL-TheLoyal47Ronin.html

(the timing of that is pretty much perfect, the location is fine (walkable), the thought of sitting and watching a film for early three hours WITH PEOPLE means it'll never happen)

loved the Mizoguchi 47 Ronin when I saw it, but then I'm a sucker for slow films with men on their knees for hours wracked with Feelings about Honour and Shame
also funny that it was commissioned as wartime propaganda about loyalty and sacrifice, yet underneath it's really a tragedy about the pointlessness cruelty that fealty demands

> I'm kind of bemused by the amount of adaptations of this story

it's hard to think of an English equivalent (ie real life event filmed endlessly). in a completely different vein, maybe the ripper murders? d-day landings?

The Fall Of Ako Castle is a very watchable version - hits all the same plot points, has good fighting.