Japanese Movies/Akira Kurosawa

JBogs · Johnny's Jr Joined: 23 Jul 2008 Posts: 32

I love Japanese movies!! I had this thing where I would get random movies from the foreign section of the library to watch and one day I got Shall We Dance? (The Japanese one) and afterwards I was just like "I wanna learn Japanese" and that eventually led up to me discovering Arashi Wohoo!

So I owe my exsistence to Japanese movies.

I've also come to love Akira Kurosawa movies. Seven Samurai is my all time, hands down favorite movie ever and I also enjoyed the Hidden Fortress and Kagemusha.

And two other awesome movies are The Taste of Tea and The Bird People of China

So here you can chat about good movies, and possibly make some recommendations of Japanese movies to junkies like myself big grin

zer0rei · PIKA★★NCHI DOUBLE Joined: 06 Jun 2008 Posts: 233

Ah, I've been wanting to see Shall we Dance? for a while now.

I'm kind of a fan of the Tartan Asia/Asia Extreme films, so Battle Royale is clearly up there amongst my favourites. I really enjoy the darkly funny bits in the film and the genki instructional video always cracks me up, even though it's about young delinquents pitted against each other in a fight to the death scenario.
Others in the horror genre: The Ring trilogy, of course. I'm in the complete minority subset of really liking the prequel Ring 0: Birthday where you can see the actress who plays Yankumi in Gokusen in the lead role.
Audition is really good. I was worried it was overhyped as I'd heard lots of good things about it, but I wasn't let down even though it wasn't what I expected.
Ju On (The grudge) wasn't as good as I expected... although it is hails as one of the modern "classics" of Japanese horror
Uzumaki was ok. Bit of overuse of special effects at the expense of a solid plot, but interesting nonetheless.
Gozu was just weird...
The Happiness of the Katakuris another popular one, though it's not strictly horror-esque. It's the freaky brand of Takashi Miike surrealness, who also directed Gozu, Audition, Ichi the Killer (which I've got lined up to watch), your Bird People of China, and Sho's new film Yatterman

Other genres -
Kamikaze Girls comes HIGHLY recommended. A lot of people compare it to the Nana movies, but I prefer KG personally. It's a more quirky and offbeat version of the "unlikely friends" story with a sweet lolita girl and a yankee played by Anna Tsuchiya (who's fabulous IMO).
Nana does have a nice element of music in it though as it's based around a slightly clueless cutesy-type girl and a girl in a band who both share the same name, Nana.
Speaking of Anna Tsuchiya, she's also in the excellent Sakuran about a girl becoming an Oiran (like a geisha, but much less artisan). It's visually stunning and has a great soundtrack by Shiina Ringo.
If you've seen the drama, Orange Days and like the pairing of Tsumabuki Satoshi and Shibasaki Kou, then Dororo could be a good one to pass the time. Not groundbreaking, but enjoyable enough.

This post is stupidly long. Gomen. I'll stop typing. Right... Now.

nerdpuff712 · PIKA☆NCHI Joined: 16 Mar 2007 Posts: 89

Hmmm, I haven't watched that many japanese films but I enjoyed:

Shinobi - A very colorful film.
Blue Light - Dramatic movie. Great acting by Nino (as always)
Tekkon Kinkreet - I watched this movie for the sake of Nino but didn't expect the movie be so interesting. Great movie for an animation.
Ju-on - This movie scared the crap out of me because I had to watch this with SMALL subtitles on my old, small-screen computer. Imagine your face being inches in front of the screen to read the subs when suddenly a ghost pops out. ACK! I couldn't sleep well for a few days!
Reincarnation - The beginning felt kind of long but I got spooked when the story unfolds
Deathnote, Deathnote: The Last Name, L-Change the World: Great trilogy! Very interesting storyline if you're into suspense/thrillers.

Thats all I could think of for now. I'm more into jdramas than movies though. Hope you like my picks!

JBogs · Johnny's Jr Joined: 23 Jul 2008 Posts: 32

I will have to check some of those out smile

But now that I think about it I have never seen any of those Japanese horror films.....I've only seen the American versions of the Ring and the Grudge. I didn't really find the Grudge that scary, but I did find the Ring scary WTH

Not to mention after I finished the movie at like 12 at night, the phone rang. Turned out to be my brother's teacher calling to say he failed the regions Eh?

There was also another j-horror movie I saw in the foreign section at blockbuster called "Cello" and the cover had a cello case with blood coming out it.... if anybody else has seen it, let me know what that was about (killer cello perhaps?)

minamichan03 · PIKA★★NCHI DOUBLE Joined: 24 Jun 2008 Posts: 386

nerdpuff712 wrote:

Ju-on - This movie scared the crap out of me because I had to watch this with SMALL subtitles on my old, small-screen computer. Imagine your face being inches in front of the screen to read the subs when suddenly a ghost pops out. ACK! I couldn't sleep well for a few days!

ahaha... that's just hilarious,ne! Laughing

because when i was watching this... i was just so scared! that i really cover my eyes.. while watching it.. (too good,i can only bear with the sounds since i understand japanese) but still, i was so afraid after watching that!

and of you really watch the screen so closely.. oh my... ne.. kowaii.. unsure

pinkspider · PIKA☆NCHI Joined: 23 Apr 2008 Posts: 72

I adore japanese movies!!
I think everyone should se Koizora at least once, but theres a possibility you'd watch it three times, beautiful!
And then there's Taiyou no Uta with Yui, which is a nice one too..
There are a lot of good movies from Japan and Asia in general, but a lot of bad one's too!

minamichan03 · PIKA★★NCHI DOUBLE Joined: 24 Jun 2008 Posts: 386

pinkspider wrote:

There are a lot of good movies from Japan and Asia in general, but a lot of bad one's too!

hmm.. i just can't think of a movie that was a bad one... Eh?

can you name the movies??

nylegna7 · Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 7:05 pm Post subject:

Japanese horror films are the only horror films that freaks me out. Espacially THE RING. I didn't get to sleep that night. I was too busy listening to something or when my tv will turned on and Sadako might come out.

~shivers~
WTH

Although there are a lot of Japanese movies that are good. I even learned japanese so that I could listen and not read the subs anymore which is so distracting. smile

amandaXD · PIKA☆NCHI Joined: 17 Jun 2008 Posts: 114

i'm a japanese movie holic i would recommend
love com-so colorful and amazing
Hanaikusa (i'm not sure if this counts as a movie or sp but for fans of memoirs of a geisha it's a must see)
kamikaze girls-was so hilarious and so much lolita clothing in it <3
Gegege no kitaro-very good if u like japanese mythology or kitaro
The Great Yokai war-horrible cg but wonderful story and a cute little boy starred and also full of japanese mythical creatures

julygrl393 · STORMY translator Joined: 19 Jun 2008 Posts: 487

i know like THE saddest japanese movie, it's called
hoshi ni natta shounen (星になった少年）i was crying buckets of tears! ~sigh~

it's about a guy who loves his elephants, and uhm yeah.. but the ending is extremely sad!
i recommend horror movies from japan, they are overly scary!
grudge, etc. etc. you get my point (hopefully) after i saw grudge, i swore to myself i would never watch a japanese scary movie! like now, i'm toootally fine with american scary movies! hehe

s4chi3 · Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 6:02 pm Post subject:

For the movie, i love Akira Kurosawa movies, for me, he is really and truly are the Godfather of Japanese movies. All of his work are great Heart

For the horror movies, Japanese horror movie are not recommended by me. Especially if you have heart diseases, coz watching it will make you got an heart attack immediately. Unbelievable

When i watch The Ring, i can't stand watching tv alone in my room for a month. And i still manage my self to watch The Grudge, and i can take a shower with my door closed for some more times Sick

Right now, i'm fine without japanese horor movies Bashing

but i love the drama movie..
I love Quill, a simple story but truly nice.

PandaThinks

JBogs wrote:

I love Japanese movies!! I had this thing where I would get random movies from the foreign section of the library to watch and one day I got Shall We Dance? (The Japanese one) and afterwards I was just like "I wanna learn Japanese" and that eventually led up to me discovering Arashi Wohoo!

So I owe my exsistence to Japanese movies.

I've also come to love Akira Kurosawa movies. Seven Samurai is my all time, hands down favorite movie ever and I also enjoyed the Hidden Fortress and Kagemusha.

And two other awesome movies are The Taste of Tea and The Bird People of China

So here you can chat about good movies, and possibly make some recommendations of Japanese movies to junkies like myself big grin

Before I really was AWARE of Asian Drama I was really into foreign and particularly Asian films. I've been so absorbed in that for months, I haven't been aware of more serious "films" in a while.

Which Kurosawas have you seen? If you haven't seen them yet I recommend Stray Dog, Ikiru, and Red Beard. In Stray Dog Toshiro Mifune is so young and clean cut I didn't recognize him for a while! They're all non-Samurai though, probably why they're lesser known. I didn't notice if you're in the US or not, but you can get them from Netflix, and a lot of libraries can inter-library loan them from anywhere in the country. University libraries get more privileges for that than public ones though.

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has a TON of information on dramas and movies from most of Asia. (Mostly the pop-culture types, not Kurosawa). Their list of Korean movies is particularly good. That's where I found most of them. A lot of them have Trailers there too.
I'd recommend Seducing Mr. Perfect, He Was Cool/The Guy Was Cool, 100 Days with Mr. Arrogant, 2 Faces of My Girlfriend, and A Millionaire's First Love (less silly than the most of the others. Very sweet).
From Japan I recommend Kamikaze Girls and LoveCom (Lovely Complex Live). I did ENJOY the Nana movies, but 1 felt incomplete and then 2 pissed me off.
All of those are pretty strong comedy and/or romance. Usually both.

Back to the more traditional Foreign "Films":
the Road Home (Zhang Ziyi, Chinese.) Gorgeous.
Master of Masks (something like that? Older film)
Traveling Alone for Thousands of Miles
Gah... it really HAS been a while. I can only remember the ones on my "TO watch" list right now, sorry...
Shanghai Triad was decent, but sadder than I wanted it to be.
No One Knows is really GOOD, but also really sad.
Personally I really like In the Mood for Love and 2046 -- they're visually gorgeous -- but I've read complaints that their plotlines (esp. 2046) are a little too wandering. 2046 is definitely a lot like a series of short stories, but I still think they're both definitely good. ... Though I guess everyone's taste is different, right? But that's mine.
3-Iron from Korea -- I love it, even though it's really unusual so some people hate it. Especially the ending is somewhat confusing.

I'll try to remember more later. Even though I already said a lot I guess. lol. Let me know what you think, anyway.

zer0rei · PIKA★★NCHI DOUBLE Joined: 06 Jun 2008 Posts: 233

PandaThinks: I totally agree with you on the Nana films. The second actress and the things Nana does in the sequel was REALLY grating for me...

I've also seen In the Mood for Love and 2046. There's the sorta prequel as well, Days of Being Wild, which I mean to get round to watching. The are indeed very beautiful films. I list ItMfL as one of the "lush" films along with Sakuran(mentioned above) and Devdas(Bollywood). And not forgetting to mention that Kimura Takuya is in 2046, along with Faye Wong, who sang the Final Fantasy song Eyes on Me.

wunderrkind · Posted: Sat Nov 15, 2008 6:35 pm Post subject:

I love japanese movies too! The first one I watched was Koizora. It was so touching. Whenever there's japanese movies, I'll make my friends watch them with me. Actually I don't have to make, they're fans of japanese culture (?) too.