Japan-uary II Quick Picks and Pans

After Life (1998) Writer/director Hirokazu Koreeda’s quietly reflective near-masterpiece delivers effortlessly on a simple premise: when people die, they enter a way station of sorts where they must choose a favorite memory that will be interpreted into a film.  This film will serve as the only memory they will take to the great beyond.  Koreeda, who directed several documentaries, adds a similar touch to After Life, with many scenes consisting of interviews with the recently deceased recollecting episodes from their past lives.  Some of the dead seem content, such as an 80-something woman (Hisako Hara) perpetually stuck in a 9-year-old’s world, while others seem agitated, such as a 21-year-old (Yûsuke Iseya, in his first film role) who refuses to single out one memory.  While many of the memories are relatively banal on the surface, they’re sublimely captivating because they remind us that it’s often the quiet moments that hold the most resonance. 

As we observe the counselors that help prompt the dead with their memories, we’re left to ponder who they are exactly, and why they’re stuck here in a seemingly infinite limbo.  The answer, which I wouldn’t dare reveal here, is appropriate and ambiguous.  After Life takes the time to allow us to process the memories that have been revealed and feel the joy as they’re subsequently duplicated in a movie studio.  It’s an unforgettable viewing experience that’s simultaneously melancholic and life-affirming.

Rating: ****.  Available on DVD.

 

Dororo (2007) Director Akihiko Shiota brings Osamu Tezuka’s manga to life in this tale about a despotic samurai lord Kagemitsu Daigo (Kiichi Nakai) who pledged 48 body parts from his unborn son to demons, in exchange for absolute rule.  The action picks up 20 years later, following young warrior Hyakkimaru’s (Satoshi Tsumabuki) quest to reclaim his body parts and vanquish the demons that took them.  He’s joined by a plucky female thief (Kô Shibasaki) who adopts the name Dororo.  Along the way, they fight a variety of imaginative foes, some of which are traditional yokai.  While the CGI effects are inconsistent, it’s still an entertaining romp, thanks to the lively performances of the lead actors, and stunning location shots (filmed in New Zealand).  The ending sets up sequels Dororo 2 and 3, which, sadly, were planned but never filmed.

Rating: *** ½.  Available on DVD and Netflix Streaming.

The Calamari Wrestler (aka: Ika resuraa) (2005) A new wrestling champion is crowned, only to see his title challenged by an unlikely contender.  None of this sounds too unusual, until you realize that his adversary is a squid.  Minoru Kawasaki keeps his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, in a story that follows a predictable Rocky-like trajectory, but manages to be original with its bizarre title character.  Efforts to defame the Calamari Wrestler (and ban him from the sport) backfire when he becomes an unconventional hero of the people.  One of his key proponents, paradoxically, is the disgraced champion, who vows revenge against the upstart mollusk (who also took his girlfriend away from him), but wants to defeat him in the ring.  Amidst this underdog story is commentary about contemporary Japan and modern hero worship, but you really shouldn’t strain yourself trying to read too much into this.

Rating: *** ½.  Available on DVD.

Karate-Robo Zaborgar (2011) Writer/director Noboru Iguchi’s unabashedly goofy remake (or re-imagining?) of the 70s TV series Denjin Zaborger follows a crime-fighting duo consisting of policeman/karate expert Daimon (played by Yasuhisa Furuhara and Itsuji Itao, as younger and older versions) along with his robot sidekick that can transform into a motorcycle (who also happens to be his brother – don’t ask!).  At nearly two hours, it’s a trifle overlong, but that can be forgiven, considering all of the craziness that ensues.  The humor never rises above middle school level, with a lady cyborg that fires brassiere missiles and a robot with caustic diarrhea, but it’s impossible to dismiss the film’s demented exuberance.  These are merely some of the wonders that await when you dive into the world of Karate-Robo Zaborgar.

Rating: ***.  Available on DVD and Netflix Streaming

Gorath (1962) This obscure end-of-the-world flick from director Ishirô Honda deserves to be better known.  The story, for those familiar with When Worlds Collide (1951) or Warning from Space (1956), won’t seem particularly original (the star Gorath, half the size of Earth but with a mass several thousand times larger, is hurtling through space on a collision course with our home planet), but Honda keeps things engaging nonetheless.  Set in the future of 1979, the governments of the world pool their resources to stop it.  The human race is left with two options: destroy Gorath or move the Earth.  After determining that wiping out the errant star is unfeasible, the United Nations opts for plan B, and constructs a giant Antarctic installation with multiple giant rockets to nudge the Earth out of harm’s way.  While I can’t vouch for the authenticity of the science on display in Gorath (It’s doubtful that the Earth’s orbit could be significantly altered without catastrophic global consequences), I enjoyed the film’s hopeful message about worldwide cooperation, and it’s always fun to watch the impressive miniature effects, thanks to Eiji Tsuburaya.  For some reason, the American version omitted a walrus kaiju that attacks the Antarctic base (walruses reside in the opposite pole, but no matter), but there’s still a healthy dose of eye candy without the monster.  Worth a look… If you can find it, of course.

Rating: ***.  Currently unavailable on DVD.

Boys on the Run (2010) Toshiyuki Tanishi (Kazunobu Mineta) is a socially inept salesman for a company that makes plastic bubble novelty toys.  His pathetic efforts to find a girlfriend are continually thwarted, thanks to his self-defeating behavior. It’s painful to watch Tanishi as he continually takes one misstep after another in his attempts to win over his co-worker Chiharu (Mei Kurokawa), then spends the rest of the movie trying to win her back.   It’s hard not to feel ambivalent about Tanishi, as we simultaneously root for him and wish he’d just grow up and move on with his life. 

It isn’t easy to pigeonhole Boys on the Run into one genre. It’s not really funny enough to be a comedy, and it’s a little too lightweight as a drama.  As a result, we’re left with something in between that seems a bit underdone.  While the end product isn’t entirely successful, it’s still worth a look, to observe Mineta’s bold performance as a complete loser.  Without giving too much away (minor spoiler alert), it’s clear to see that things are not going to end well for our protagonist (In a nod to Taxi Driver, he tries to emulate Travis Bickle, leading to disastrous consequences). 

Rating: ***.  Available on DVD and Netflix Streaming.

 

Kibakichi (aka: Kibakichi: Bakko-yokaiden) (2005) It’s a shame that Kibakichi fails to live up to its modest ambitions, showcasing a mysterious traveling warrior who does battle with supernatural creatures known as yokai.  While the war between yokai and humans is outlined in only the sketchiest of terms, one of the film’s biggest faults is that we never care about the title character (Ryûji Harada), who remains an enigma.  Maybe the filmmakers were trying for a “man with no name” vibe, but most of his actions (or inactions) seem far from heroic.  He fails to do anything for most of the film’s length, and when he finally does, most of the good guys are already dead. 

The film does little to transcend its low-budget origins, confining the action to a few murky sets, and depicting the yokai only sparingly.  In an obvious effort to keep makeup costs down, the creatures conveniently disguise themselves as humans.  If you want to see yokai in action, you’d be much better off watching the superior Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare (1968) or The Great Yokai War (2005).

Rating: **.  Available on DVD.

The Once Over Twice: Destroy All Monsters

(1968) Directed by Ishirô Honda; Written by Ishirô Honda and Takeshi Kimura; Starring: Akira Kubo, Jun Tazaki and Yukiko Kobayashi; Available on Blu-ray and DVD

Rating: *** ½

Movies can serve to lift the spirit or hold a magnifying glass to our world’s ills.  We can marvel at the wonders of nature or cry at the scourge of our environment.  Motion pictures are the perfect medium to convey in metaphor our most grandiose desires and deepest fears.  Sometimes, however, we just want to see buildings get smashed and stuff get blown up.  Destroy All Monsters is tailor-made for that 10-year-old in all of us who would rather be entertained than sermonized. 

Toho Pictures’ bigger-budget follow-up to Son of Godzilla (aka: Kaijûtô no kessen: Gojira no musuko) was released as Kaijû sôshingeki (translated as March of the Monsters), but American International Pictures adopted the flashier title, Destroy All Monsters for the U.S. release.  The film went through a number of name changes over the years, including a re-release in Japan under the curious moniker Godzilla Electric Battle Masterpiece.  Whatever you choose to call it, Destroy All Monsters was a landmark film for Toho and the Shōwa era Godzilla flicks, when kaiju movies were experiencing a decline, losing ground to cheaper television productions.

According to the Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski’s informative DVD commentary, Honda was getting bored with being typecast as a monster movie director, and was becoming increasingly frustrated by Toho’s refusal to finance his other, non-kaiju projects.  Unlike his masterpiece Gojira, Honda didn’t attempt to infuse Destroy All Monsters with social commentary about our inherent destructive impulses, or ponder Japan’s role in the late 60s as an emerging global economic powerhouse.  Instead, he set out to showcase a veritable who’s who of giant monsters creating mass havoc. 

Destroy All Monsters is set in the future year of 1999(!), when humankind has established a permanent presence on the surface of the moon and the bottom of the ocean.  Peace on Earth is maintained, thanks to the world’s monsters being confined to an inescapable remote South Pacific island.  Of course, it would be rather dull if the monsters simply stayed on the island for the duration of the film, so we’re introduced to a malevolent alien race to mix things up.  The Kilaak want to create a utopian society on Earth, but they figure you can’t break an omelet without breaking a few eggs.  They decide to release the monsters from their island prison and lay waste to the world’s major cities in the process.   It should be no surprise that Honda chooses to focus on the destruction in Tokyo, while other cities get the short end of the stick (we have to take an announcer’s word that London was devastated, rather than actually see it.).

With a budget of roughly $500,000 in U.S. dollars, Honda had to get a lot of bang for the buck (or Yen, in this case), using limited resources.  Several readily familiar kaiju, along with a few more obscure monsters, appeared in the film, with most having been literally recycled from earlier Toho flicks.  While a new Godzilla costume was created for Destroy All Monsters, the filmmakers had to make do with monster props that were in varying states of disrepair.  Probably the most obvious (and disappointing) concession to a dwindling budget was Mothra, who only appeared in larval form, since the original winged prop was too damaged to use in the production.  Despite the cost-cutting woes, we’re treated to several welcome guests, including the serpentine Manda from Atragon, who makes short work of an elevated train track, and King Ghidorah, who arrives just in time for the climactic kaiju-filled smack-down.

 While the monsters are the star attraction, several human contributors are worth noting.  The stirring music by Akira Ifukube, borrowing many themes from his Gojira score,  pushes the right buttons, and provides a certain dignity to the proceedings, no matter how silly the on-screen action becomes.  The leads are also suitably appealing in their somewhat two-dimensional roles.  Akira Kubo makes a convincing leading man as Captain Katsuo Yamabe, who leads his crew on a desperate fight against seemingly indestructible aliens.  Yukiko Kobayashi appears to be having fun in her role as Kyoko Manabe, a human pawn under the influence of the Kilaak. Eiji Tsuburaya, who also worked on Gojira, deserves praise for his inventive miniature effects work.

There’s been some debate about where Destroy All Monsters stands in the pantheon of Godzilla flicks.  Some have held on to their fond childhood memories of the film, while others take a revisionist tact, citing it as an overrated entry in the series.  Although both camps’ skewed opinions certainly have merit, I can’t help but side with the former.  Destroy All Monsters won’t win any awards for originality or attempts at profundity, but it ultimately delivers the goods.  Even if Honda’s efforts at this point were more perfunctory than enthusiastic, his movie lived up to its premise, with its Toho monster dream team.  In terms of sheer quantity of kaiju (with only a couple notable exceptions), it has most of the competition beat.  It’s best watched with your inner 10-year-old in tow, free from the encumbrances of over-analyzing what unfolds on screen.  Sit down, shut up, and strap yourself in for the ride.

Funky Forest: The First Contact

(2005) Written and directed by Katsuhito Ishii, Hajime Ishimine and Shunichiro Miki; Starring: Andrew Alfieri, Hideaki Anno and Moyoco Anno; Available on DVD

Rating:  *** ½

Where do I begin? Well, for starters, the wildly eclectic Funky Forest: The First Contact features a forest, and it’s decidedly funky, so it does live up to its name.  Further interpretation is solely at the viewer’s discretion.  There’s probably more weirdness here than in ten other movies, which isn’t a bad thing.  This genre-spanning film defies easy categorization, description, or notions of coherence.

Katsuhito Ishii, Hajime Ishimine and Shunichiro Miki shared the writer/director chores (Ishii and Miki collaborated previously on The Taste of Tea) for Funky Forest: The First Contact, and gave themselves license to let their imaginations and styles run free.  Instead of a linear narrative with a central story, it’s an anthology of short episodes, linked together by several different threads running throughout.

The Mole Brothers, a white-suited, slapstick duo, serve as our nominal hosts to the madness that follows, in a series of short bridging segments.  While their schtick doesn’t directly relate to any of the other vignettes, their presence serves as a welcome signal that the tone is about to make an abrupt shift.  In addition to the Mole Brothers, several characters appear in a patchwork quilt of recurring segments.  “Guitar Brother” features three unlucky in love siblings.  It’s never explained why one of the “brothers” happens to be Caucasian and significantly younger than his fellow siblings, but it’s just one of many things in Funky Forest that you accept at face value.  In another thread, a pupil discusses the nature of her relationship with her former English teacher (they’re together, but they’re not really dating).  They relate their dreams in a couple of elaborate sequences, accompanied by song and dance.  Woven into the mix are several “Home Room” * segments, which chronicle the bizarre goings-on in a most unconventional high school home room, populated by a mismatched group of students.  In one of the most disturbing/surreal/hilarious moments, a group of music students assemble to play various instruments that are comprised of mutant creatures. 

* Fun fact: Anime enthusiasts will be thrilled by the appearance of animator/director Hideaki Anno (best known for the Neon Genesis series) in a small role as one of the high school students, and in another segment, (surprise!) as an animator.

At more than 150 minutes, Funky Forest starts to wear out its welcome long before it’s over.  The filmmakers probably could have cut an hour from the running time, and said everything that needed to be said (whatever that is).  It feels as if the material had been stretched a little thin at times, probably best digested over several sittings.  Despite the film’s bloated running time, I can’t dislike it either.  I admire Funky Forest’s sheer chutzpah to wave its freak flag high and proud.  The distinctive music and images continue to linger in my brain as I write this, and will likely remain there indefinitely.  I suspect that your capacity to enjoy this film will be directly proportional to your need for everything to make sense. 

To call Funky Forest “dreamlike” doesn’t do it justice.  Acid flashback is more appropriate. If logic and coherence are not your priorities when seeking out movies, then you may have just found your nirvana.  It’s best described as a Dadaist film, heavy on absurdity, and short on logic.  Trying to make sense of everything is missing the point.  What’s the point?  Damned if I know.  In the “making of” DVD featurette, one of the cast members said it best when he remarked, “I think it’s better not to try to understand it.”  ‘Nuff said.

Classics Revisited: Kwaidan (aka: Kaidan)

(1964) Directed by Masaki Kobayashi; Written by Yôko Mizuki; Based on the collection, Kwaidan, by Lafcaido Hearn; Starring: Rentarô Mikuni, Michiyo Aratama and Misako Watanabe; Available on DVD

Rating: *****

Note: This review refers to the 163-minute Criterion Collection version, not the 183-minute original cut.

Kwaidan might possibly be the most beautiful horror film ever made.  Director Masaki Kobayashi imbues each scene with an artist’s eye, creating the illusion that the frames were painted rather than filmed.  Its signature style exemplifies one of the principal differences between Japanese and American cinema.  Instead of attempting to create realistic set pieces and special effects, Kwaidan maintains the conceit of an illusory world that could only exist in the realm of cinema.

The film, which consists of four supernatural tales set in feudal Japan, was based on a collection of stories published around the turn of the 20^th century by the American journalist Lafcaido Hearn.  Although Hearn was an outsider in a closed society, he eventually became a naturalized citizen of Japan, bringing traditional Eastern tales of the supernatural to the Western world.  The stories stemmed from a myriad of sources, including original Japanese texts, Chinese folklore, and tales that had only previously circulated orally.  Most of the stories concern ghosts, or yurei (with one notable exception – more on that in a moment).  The overarching theme in each segment is that one of the primary characters has made a fatal error, and as a consequence must pay a terrible price.

The first story, “The Black Hair,” is about selfishness and regret.  A young samurai (Rentarô Mikuni) leaves his wife (Michiyo Aratama) to find success under the tutelage of a wealthy and powerful warlord.  He eventually marries his mentor’s spoiled daughter (Misako Watanabe), and gets everything he wanted, only to realize that his life is hollow.  The story’s true horror lies within the fact that insight often works in reverse, after it’s too late to undue the rash decisions made during youth.   

In “The Woman of the Snow,” a woodcutter and his young apprentice trudge through a desolate, frozen landscape in search of respite from the cold.  The sky is filled with a menagerie of eyes, suggesting that they are not alone, but under the gaze of forces beyond their control or understanding.  They encounter a strange woman (Keiko Kishi) with an abnormally pale complexion, and icy breath.  She’s as scary as she is alluring to lonesome travelers with a stare that means certain death.  She’s not a ghost, as her appearance would suggest, but a being known collectively as a yokai, or specifically a Yuki-Onna (Hearn’s original story was aptly titled “Yuki-Onna.”).  This stands out as my favorite segment, due to its elegant simplicity, inventive use of art direction (thanks to Shigemasa Toda) and lighting effects. 

The third tale, “Hoichi, the Earless,” concerns a blind musician, Hoichi (Katsuo Nakamura), who lives in a monastery built to commemorate a great sea battle between two families.  Hoichi, with his gift for telling stories through song, is called upon by the dead warriors to sing about their legacy.  They return on a nightly basis to demand Hoichi’s ballads, but it begins to exact a toll on his health.  When he discovers the origin of Hoichi’s nocturnal disappearances, the head monk (Takashi Shimura) devises a plan to rid Hoichi of the ghosts and their draining influence.  But there’s just one flaw, which I won’t reveal here.  One of the highlights of this segment is the stylized, theatrical sea battle, accompanied by Hoichi’s mournful song.  Another memorable image is his body covered in kanji script to ward off the ghosts.

The final story, “In a Cup of Tea” is about a guard (Kan'emon Nakamura), haunted by the image of a rival samurai (Noboru Nakaya).  In one memorable scene, he fights against opponents that may only be a figment of his imagination.

 

Kobayashi dispenses with notions of realism, choosing a more impressionistic approach. 

Color is employed to great effect, with a palate ranging from vivid to subdued.  Red lips in a sky, along with a character clad in a rose-colored kimono, signifies lust and fertility.  A purple kimono symbolizes an aristocratic air, and a cold distance between a lady and her house servants.   In “The Woman of the Snow,” simple lighting effects make a huge difference, as the Yuki-Onna’s warm tones immediately transform to something cooler, and her visage changes from benign to menacing.

Kwaidan takes its time allowing each story to unfold.  Its deliberate, contemplative pace might seem slow and uneventful to viewers accustomed to quick cuts, jarring action sequences and thunderous explosions, but each segment is meant to be studied and admired, like portraits in an art gallery.  Kwaidan is a film to be treasured, filled with stunning visuals from start to finish.  It’s a true masterpiece that requires the viewer to be an active observer rather than a passive viewer.