MOVIE REVIEW
The Wind Rises (2013)
© 2013 二馬力・GNDHDDTK
Hayao Miyazaki’s final film before retirement (heard that one before with “Ponyo” — glad it wasn’t true then, hope it isn’t true now), “The Wind Rises” is perhaps the legendary animator’s most adult film ever. Since maturity and wisdom are a given in his anime even when aimed for children, we say adult because the new film is based on history and biographies for a change. “The Wind Rises” is a fictionalized account of the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the engineer who designed many of Japan’s World War II fighters. The result is part Studio Ghibli fantasy and part Yasujiro Ozu melodrama about life in Imperial Japan leading up to the Second World War.
Continue reading “Final Flight of Fancy” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011)
55th BFI London Film Festival
The ticket-holder line for the Vancouver International Film Festival special screening of Takashi Miike’s 3-D “Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai” snaked around the corner of the theater even in the miserable Vancouver drizzle. But these weren’t the typical Miike fanboys. Many were middle-aged and chatted about their fond memories of Masaki Kobayashi’s 1962 masterpiece, “Harakiri.” They wondered how this remake would measure up with caution in their voices: “It’s like remaking ‘The Godfather’.” For a film rarely mentioned outside critical circles compared to other Japanese films of the era, “Harakiri” — aided by Tatsuya Nakadai’s performance — developed a devoted following among cinephiles and even casual fans of Japanese cinema.
Continue reading “Suicide Missionary” »
MOVIE REVIEW
13 Assassins (2010)
Magnet Releasing
Takashi Miike has more than cemented his reputation as the sickest filmmaker known to man. Fans gush (and hurl) endlessly over each and every Miike defilement of all that is sacred, but rare is the mention of his fairly conventional and humble beginnings as Shohei Imamura’s assistant director. We actually got a sneak peek of his classical sensibility in “Audition” of all things, up to the point when the movie finally breached the boundaries of decency and earned cinematic infamy. His new film “13 Assassins,” though, is that true classical jidaigeki feudal epic that those who have seen “Audition” know he has in him. And Mr. Miike executes (pardon the pun) it so beautifully that it’s breathtaking.
Continue reading “In Feudal Japan, Rounding Up an Ocean’s 13” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Confessions (2010)
Japan Society
“Confessions,” the official Japanese entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category for this year’s Oscars, made the shortlist of nine but fell short of a nomination. Curiously, the film has much in common with the eventual victor, Denmark’s “In a Better World.” Each tackles the subjects of revenge and vigilantism through the delinquency of a fair-haired juvenile mastermind and his social-misfit accomplice. But whereas “In a Better World” offers a cop-out ending with no actual harm done, “Confessions” serves up shattering collateral damage far and wide.
Continue reading “Crucified on a Cross, Not Pitied” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Enter the Void (2010)
IFC Films
“Vous avez 30 secondes pour abandoner la projection de ce film,” the title card’s boldface lettering and countdown rudely interrupted the proceedings of Gaspar Noé’s “I Stand Alone” before the climactic murder/suicide/incest. Sure, it was gimmicky, but the intensity of what ensued totally merited the warning. His follow-up, “Irreversible,” started out bracingly with the fire-extinguisher bludgeoning and the underpass rape, but ultimately fizzled due to its reverse chronology. Although Mr. Noé’s latest, “Enter the Void,” follows a more conventional time line, it unfortunately turns out to be just as anticlimactic.
Continue reading “Memoirs of a Gaijin” »
Martin Tsai/Critic's Notebook
When “Departures” claimed an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category, it had already hung on for six months in Japanese theaters, and its DVD was on its way to local stores. But its box-office receipts more than doubled after its Oscar triumph, even with the DVD readily available.
“Part of me wishes it wouldn’t take an Academy Award for the film to get that big,” Yojiro Takita, the director, quipped, speaking through an interpreter. “It was a mystery to a lot of people how this film might find an audience, and how to market it to reach that audience.”
Continue reading “Japanese Sleeper Crosses Over to World Acclaim” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Departures (2008)
Regent Releasing/Here Media
In a surprise win over the much-hyped “Waltz with Bashir” and “The Class,” a modest film from Japan took this year’s Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. “Departures” is a beautiful, quietly moving film which hits the mark precisely because it does not try to be too ambitious in telling the simple story of a man finding his way in the world.
Continue reading “Spirited Awry” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Tokyo Sonata (2008)
Regent Releasing
"So·na·ta (n.): a musical composition of three or four movements of contrasting forms." – Dictionary.com.
In a curious exercise, Kiyoshi Kurosawa quite literally applies the musical definition of a sonata to his visual study of modern-day life in Tokyo. The subject is family, the unifying theme dysfunction. His characters are the instruments that play out his contradictions in style and form, juxtaposing the director's various genre practices against each other in one cumulative whole. The result: "Tokyo Sonata," a collection of narrative movements that feels as grand – and yet concise – as any musical sonata piece by Beethoven or Mozart.
Continue reading “When Bright Future Eludes, a Family Unites” »