Tag: Japan

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Dongji Rescue
(Dong Ji Dao,
東吉 嶼)

Director – Fei Zhenxiang, Guan Hu – 2025 – China – Cert. 15 – 133m

The first hour and a half **1/2

The last half hour ****1/2

Chinese islanders under Japanese Occupation in WW2 set out to rescue a thousand plus British prisoners from a sinking, torpedoed ship – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 22nd

An announcement in English on the BBC, from October 1st, 1942: “On September 27th 1942, the Japanese transport ship Lisbon Maru carrying 1,816 British prisoners of war departed Hong Kong for Japan. On October 1st, she was struck by a torpedo from American submarine USS Grouper and began to sink off the Eastern coast of China. Just two miles South West of the site lies a small island known to the Chinese as Dongji Island… This information comes overwhelmingly fast at the start, accompanied by CG images of the incident. Anyway, you get the drift.

And then, as if to suggest at least one of the directors’ true interests lie somewhere else altogether, there follow breathtaking images of an island, vast spaces with grasses blowing in the wind. And more verbal exposition: two young boys were rescued from the sea by Old Wu, but then the Northern islanders banished the boys to the Southern part of the island, believing them to have “pirate blood”.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Ran
(乱)

Director – Akira Kurosawa – 1985 – Japan, France – Cert. 15 – 162m

*****

Back out in cinemas this Friday to commemorate its 40th anniversary.

—

Jeremy Clarke on Akira Kurosawa’s live action epic.

Ran is Akira Kurosawa’s remarkable 1985 free adaptation of King Lear.

More than any other Japanese film director, Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) is responsible for bringing that country’s movies to the attention of international audiences. His first big exposure abroad came with the jidaigeki or period drama Rashomon (1950) which dramatised the story of a rape victim from different, successive character viewpoints. Entered in the 1951 Venice Film Festival without his knowledge, Rashomon unexpectedly picked up the prestigious Golden Lion award.

Subsequent international successes included Seven Samurai (1954) and Yojimbo (The Bodyguard) (1961). By the nineteen eighties, his productions had grown less frequent and more lavish with Kagemusha (The Shadow Warrior) (1980) and Ran (1985) requiring budgetary input from outside Japan.

Kurosawa’s influence abroad has been consolidated by various remakes of his films, with other countries adapting the Japanese elements to their own cultures. Many of his biggest international successes being period pieces have leant themselves to obvious translation into Westerns where gun-slinging cowboys were easily substituted for sword-wielding samurai.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Live Action Movies

Mars Express
(Mars Express)

Director – Jérémie Périn – 2023 – France – Cert. 15 – 85m

*****

In the 23rd Century, a private investigator and her resurrected robot assistant go to Mars to investigate the murder of a cybernetics student – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 13th from the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

The difference between humans and machines is one of the great themes of science fiction from Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) to Ghost in the Shell (Mamoru Oshii, 1995). Mars Express takes its name from an Earth-Mars shuttle which, following a bravura action / chase sequence early on, not unlike the one at the start of Ghost in the Shell, is used by private investigator Aline Ruby (voice: Léa Drucker from Custody, Xavier Legrand, 2017) and her assistant Carlos Rivera (voice: Daniel Njo Lobé) to transport a captured suspect from Earth to Mars where, it transpires on arrival, the relevant paperwork to detain their prisoner has been wiped from their on-person devices and internet-accessible office, meaning they are forced to release their prisoner. The narrative is littered with cleverly thought out ideas like this.

The setting is the 23rd Century and mostly Mars, where the pair are hired to search for a second year cybernetics student who has gone missing.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Live Action Movies

Karate Kid
Legends

Director – Jonathan Entwhistle – 2025 – US – Cert. 12a – 94m

*****

Latest franchise entry plays by all the rules that you would expect, yet somehow manages to completely break the mould and come up with something fresh and original – out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, May 28th

All a Karate Kid movie has to do is put a boy in peril from a bully or similar, then have him schooled in martial arts by a trainer to discover his inner strength and ultimately overcome the bully in combat. This is facilitated by a fight competition at the end, in which the two come face to face with one another. While the original The Karate Kid (John G. Avildsen, 1984) clearly struck enough of a chord to spawn more films, some entries, such as The Karate Kid Part III (John G. Avildsen, 1989), have felt worn, tired and clichéd.

That changed with the genuinely brilliant idea of introducing Hong Kong’s clown prince of kung fu Jackie Chan as the trainer in the two decades later remake The Karate Kid (Harold Zwart, 2010), which breathed new life into the big screen franchise (there have also been live action and animated spin-offs made for television).… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Throne Of Blood
(Kumonosu-jo,
蜘蛛巣城,
lit. Castle
Of The Spider Web)

Director – Akira Kurosawa – 1957 – Japan – Cert. 12 – 110m

*****

Out on BFI UHD & Blu-ray on Monday, May 19th 2025.

Currently streaming on BFI Player alongside many other Kurosawa films together with a much wider selection of Japanese movies.

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most familiar plays. In 1957, Kurosawa reworked it against the backdrop of feudal, 16th Century Japan. Ascendant samurai Washizu (Toshiro Mifune) and Miki (Minoru Chiaki) hear from an old crone at a spinning wheel in the forest that Washizu will become Lord of Cobweb Castle, later to be succeeded by Miki’s son. Washizu’s wife Asaji (Isuzu Yamada, her face rigidly fixed in Noh mask poses) preys on his insecurities to convince Washizu to murder his way to the top. Slayings, ghost sightings, hand washing and his demise duly ensue.

Not only does Kurosawa jettison all Shakespeare’s dialogue, he also makes the material thoroughly his own even while remaining true to its essence. For instance, when Washizu, eating in public, sees Miki’s ghost, Mifune with the camera following him starts running around like a man possessed, slashing wildly at an unseen apparition. Watching this, it’s hard to imagine it ever being shot on film (let alone performed on a stage) any other way.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Tokyo Pop

Director – Fran Rubel Kuzui – 1988 – US, Japan – Cert. 18 – 99m

****

A girl singer, fed up with being sidelined by the music business in New York, relocates to Tokyo and falls in with local rock band hopefuls there – select UK cinema screenings from Friday, April 25th prior to its Blu-ray release on Monday, May 5th

“Hey, Mike, when do I get to use my song?” asks the band’s disgruntled, leather-clad back-up singer, feeling redundant as she stands on stage holding a tambourine. Her music career in New York stalling fast, Wendy (Carrie Hamilton from Cool World, Ralph Bakshi, 1995; Shag, Zelda Barron, 1989) receives a “Wish you were here” postcard from her friend Jane in Japan and shoots back a reply: “Hope you meant it – ‘cos I’m coming.”

In Japan, a band does an English language cover of Blue Suede Shoes. When Wendy arrives in Tokyo, her girlfriend has moved on to Thailand. Barely speaking any Japanese, Wendy winds up in a cheap hotel in Itabashi the space of a small Japanese apartment where footwear is removed on entering and, as an Aussie resident tells her, everything operates on credit card and a shower is Y100 for ten minutes.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Before We Vanish
(Sanpo Suru Shinryakusha,
散歩する侵略者,
lit. Strolling Invaders)

Director – Kiyoshi Kurosawa – 2017 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 129m

***

Three humans claiming to be aliens steal ideas from people’s heads as they prepare for their race’s forthcoming invasion – from LEAFF, the London East Asia Film Festival 2017

This review is of a first viewing of this film. It really doesn’t happen often, but I can imagine liking this film more second time round. It’s a very strange movie.

Hands take a goldfish from a group in a white bathtub and transfer it into a metal pan. A sailor suited schoolgirl carries the fish in a bag to another house. Inside the latter, on its floor, the fish struggles to breathe as it lies on the ground out of water.

Spattered with blood, the girl (Yuri Tsunematsu) walks happily along the middle of a busy road. As she strolls without a care, swerving to avoid her, a lorry crashes headlong into an oncoming car.

Elsewhere, something is wrong with Shinji Kase (Ryuhei Matsuda from The Raid 2, Gareth Evans, 2014). His behaviour alarms his wife Narumi (Masami Nagasawa from Our Little Sister, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2015, and playing in LEAFF this Saturday 28/10).… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Cloud
(Kuraudo,
クラウド)

Director – Kiyoshi Kurosawa – 2024 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 124m

*****

The art of the deal. The past of an internet goods reseller driven by making money who has made enemies among his one-off suppliers and customers comes back to bite him – out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 25th

Ryosuke Yoshii (Masaki Suda) makes a take-it-or-leave it offer to Tonoyama (Masaaki Akahori), who manufactures electric therapy devices: ¥90 000 for his entire inventory. Tonoyama protests that at such a low price he will barely make any money after all the investment he has made. Tonoyama’s wife (Maho Yamada) is horrified and pleads with Yoshii, but he is ruthless. He explains that if he can’t sell the items, the ¥90 000 will ocver him to pay someone to take the unsaleable goods away. Returning home to his sometime live-in girlfriend Akiko (Kotone Furukawa), Yoshii puts the items online at ¥200 000 each. They quickly sell out. He tells her she can buy whatever she wants with his credit card.

At Yoshii’s day job, in what appears to be a factory floor for the laundering of clothes, his boss Takimoto (Yoshiyoshi Arakawa) holds him in high regard, feeling his talents are underused as a mere shop floor worker and regarding him as a future leader.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Shark Skin Man
and Peach Hip Girl
(Samehada Otoko
to Momojiri Onna,
鮫肌男と桃尻女)

Director – Katsuhito Ishii – 1998 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 108m

*****

Arresting and highly inventive thriller is out as a standalone Blu-ray release in the UK from Monday, April 14th 2025, also on digital, having previously appeared as the first disc of the three disc release Katsuhito Ishii Collection from Third Window Films just over a year ago (when the following piece was written for All the Anime).

Deriving its odd title from a literal translation of the leads’ surnames, Katsuhito Ishii’s highly original gangster movie from 1998 is based on a familiar plot: a man runs off with the mob’s money, and a lady companion. Or, as pioneering French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard once put it: all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.

Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl has much the same strengths as Godard when he’s on form. Ishii demonstrates a similar flair for taking actors or actresses and having them do what they do on camera so that it’s completely absorbing to watch: look no further than the extraordinary title sequence which starts about five minutes in and consists of little more than names and images of all the major cast members against a white background with overlaid black line animation images.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

The First
Slam Dunk

All images: © I.T. PLANNING, INC. © 2022 THE FIRST SLAM DUNK Film Partners

Director – Takehiko Inoue – 2022 – Japan – Cert. 12a tbc – 124m

*****

A high school basketball team sets out to defeat the seemingly unstoppable league champions – on 4K UHD + Blu-ray Collector’s Edition, Steelbook, Blu-ray, and DVD on 24th March following its debut in the 2023 Annecy International Animation Festival from Wednesday, June 14th; Edinburgh Film Festival from Wednesday, August 22nd-23rd; out in cinemas in the UK and Ireland on Wednesday, August 30th

The coastal town of Shohoku. 11-year-old Ryota Miyagi (voice: Miyuri Shimabukuro) lives in the shadow of his 14-year-old, elder brother and school basketball star Sota (voice: Gakuto Kajiwara). One evening, Sota takes his younger sibling out for a practice at the local court, playing as hard as he can to push Ryota, which makes the youngster want to push himself harder still. Sota then alienates Ryota by going on a fishing trip with his peer group rather than respond to Ryota’s demand to extend their practice session. When his elder brother is tragically killed at sea, Ryota must both step into both the role of man of the house and prove himself in the school basketball team.

By the time Ryota is 17 (voice: Shugo Nakamura), he is one of the players on the Shohoku school basketball team which itself faces challenges: specifically, if it is to win the national championships, it must defeat the the seemingly unstoppable reigning champions the Sannoh school basketball club and their star player Masashi Kawata (voice: Mitsuaki Kanuka), Ryota’s opposite number (both wear their team’s no.… Read the rest