Hana-Bi (1997)

Essential Viewing

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: はなび

Writer/Director: Kitano Takeshi

Cinematographer: Yamamoto Hideo

Composer: Hisaishi Jō

Cast: Beat Takeshi, Kishimoto Kayoko, Osugi Ren, Terajima Susumu, Watanabe Tetsu, Hakuryu

A laconic former police detective, whose wife is slowly dying of cancer in a hospice, and who is seriously indebted to a Yakuza boss, resorts to drastic measures in order to solve his problems; whilst a friend and former colleague of his, who has become wheelchair bound after being struck by a hitman’s bullet, approaches his problems in a decidedly different manner, in Kitano’s painfully violent, poetically beautiful, and terribly moving film. Iain.Stott

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Rainy Dog (1997)

Recommended

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 極道黒社会

Director: Miike Takashi

Writer: Inoue Seigo

Cinematographer: Li Sixu

Cast: Aikawa Shō, Chen Lianmei, Gao Ming-Jun, He Jianqin, Ko Sau Leung, Taguchi Tomorowo

A ruthless Japanese hitman, based in a rain-sodden Taipei, finds his humanity slowly begin to reappear when his mute, illegitimate son shows-up on his doorstep, and he meets a pretty, young brothel worker; but repercussions of his brutal past are unlikely to allow him to find any sort of peace, in Miike’s violent, mournful, and thoughtfully made yakuza film. Iain.Stott

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Vital (2004)

Highly Recommended

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 死亡解剖

Writer/Director/Cinematographer: Tsukamoto Shinya

Composer: Ishikawa Chu

Cast: Asano Tadanobu, Tsukamoto Nami, Kiki, Kushida Kazuyoshi, Lily, Kino Hana, Rijū Gō, Kunimura Jun, Kishibe Ittoku

A medical student, suffering with amnesia following the car accident that caused the death of his girlfriend, restarts his studies, but when his memories begin to come back to him, and he commences the dissection of a strangely familiar corpse, he starts to question the validity of his consciousness, in Tsukamoto’s thoughtful, intriguing, and ultimately tremendously moving exploration of grief, guilt, memory, and spirituality. Iain.Stott

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Humanity and Paper Balloons (1937)

Highly Recommended

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 人情紙風船

Director: Yamanaka Sadao

Writer: Mimura Shintarō

Cinematographer: Mimura Akira

Composer: Ota Tadashi

Cast: Kawarasaki Chojuro, Nakamura Kan'emon, Nakamura Tsuruzo, Bando Choemon, Sukedakaya Sukezo, Ichikawa Emitaro, Kiritachi Noboru, Yamagishi Shizue

Every square inch of Yamanaka and Mimura’s exquisitely composed frame drips with meaning and portent in this gently humorous and terribly moving work; a portrait of the poor inhabitants of an 18th Century Japanese backstreet, depicting their troubled encounters with a high ranking samurai and the thugs with whom he associates. Iain.Stott

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Tokyo Sonata (2008)

Recommended

Japan/The Netherlands

Feature Film

Original Title: トウキョウソナタ

Director: Kurosawa Kiyoshi

Writers: Kurosawa Kiyoshi, Max Mannix, Tanaka Sachiko

Cinematographer: Ashizawa Akiko

Composer: Hashimoto Kazumasa

Cast: Kagawa Teruyuki, Koizumi Kyōko, Koyanagi Yū, Kai Inowaki, Igawa Haruka, Tsuda Kanji, Kojima Kazuya, Yakusho Kōji

When his department is transferred to China, a household’s patriarch loses his job, the fact of which he contrives to conceal from them, continuing to leave the house each day as normal; as the days pass, family life (now built on lies) slowly but surely begins to disintegrate, in Kurosawa’s quietly enigmatic, thoughtfully unsettling, and brilliantly acted piece of social commentary. Iain.Stott

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The Idiot (1951)

Recommended

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 白痴

Director: Kurosawa Akira

Writers: Hisaita Eijirō, Kurosawa Akira, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Cinematographer: Ubukata Toshio

Composer: Hayasaka Fumio

Cast: Hara Setsuko, Mori Masayuki, Mifune Toshirō, Kuga Yoshiko, Shimura Takashi, Higashiyama Chieko, Fumiya Chiyoko

An idiot, who was traumatised by a wartime incident in which he was moments away from being executed, finds his life increasingly filled with heartache and tragedy when two beautiful and very disparate young women enter his sphere, in Kurosawa’s vaguely camp and slightly melodramatic adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s acclaimed novel, which proves to be rather confusing at times (perhaps due to studio imposed cuts), but it is also a film filled with deftly acted and bravely constructed scenes of great power. Iain.Stott

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Kamikaze Girls (2004)

Cautiously Recommended

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 下妻物語

Director: Nakashima Tetsuya

Writers: Takemoto Nobara, Nakashima Tetsuya

Cinematographer: Ato Masakazu

Composer: Kanno Yōko

Cast: Fukada Kyōko, Anna Tsuchiya, Miyasako Hiroyuki, Kiki Kirin, Okada Yoshinori

Nakashima’s highly stylised confection – all bright colours, quirky edits, and showy camera movements; relating the story of a rather unlikely friendship between a pair of 17-year-old girls, one a vapid loner who’s obsessed with bizarre and kinky Little Bo Peep-like outfits, and the other a member of a violent all-girl biker gang – proves to be a guilty pleasure whilst its images flicker before us, but is decidedly forgettable once they stop. Iain.Stott

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Mister Lonely (2007)

Cautiously Recommended

UK/USA/France/Japan

Feature Film

Director: Harmony Korine

Writers: Avi Korine, Harmony Korine

Cinematographer: Marcel Zyskind

Cast: Diego Luna, Samantha Morton, Denis Lavant, James Fox, Werner Herzog, Leos Carax, Richard Strange

A lonely Michael Jackson impersonator, barely scratching a living in Paris, meets a friendly Marilyn Monroe impersonator, who convinces him to join her at an impersonators' commune in the Highlands of Scotland; whilst at the same time in Panama, a mission of nuns learn to fly, in this by turns entertaining, infuriating, beautiful, ugly, and provocative curio from Harmony Korine. Iain.Stott

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The Lady of Musashino (1951)

Cautiously Recommended

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 武蔵野夫人

Director: Mizoguchi Kenji

Writers: Yoda Yoshikata, Ooka Shohei

Cinematographer: Tamai Masao

Composer: Hayasaka Fumio

Cast: Tanaka Kinuyo, Todoroki Yukiko, Mori Masayuki, Katayama Akihiko, Yamamura Sō, Shindō Eitarō, Hirai Kiyoko, Nakamura Minako

With its rather insistent score and generally melodramatic tone, this exploration of (or perhaps lamentation about) the loosening of post-war Japanese morals – depicting a series of extra-marital affairs (both consummated and unconsummated) in the small hamlet of Musashino – proves to be, despite excellent performances and a quite breathtaking, symbolically rich final scene, a decidedly minor Mizoguchi. Iain.Stott

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Only Yesterday (1991)

Highly Recommended

Japan

Animated Feature Film

Original Title: おもひでぽろぽろ

Writer/Director: Takahata Isao

Composer: Hoshi Masaru

Cast: Imai Miki, Yanagiba Toshirō, Honna Youko, Ito Masahiro, Terada Michie, Masuda Yuuki, Minowa Yuki, Yamashita Yorie

Nostalgic without being sentimental, and winsome but not wincingly so, Takahata’s gentle film – in which a 27-year-old unmarried office worker from Tokyo spends a ten day holiday in the countryside, working on a farm and reminiscing about her childhood – proves to be, as it paints a rather moving portrait of the inconsequentiality of adulthood and the monumentality of youth, a film of great beauty. Iain.Stott

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Metropolis (2001)

Recommended

Japan

Animated Feature Film

Original Title: メトロポリス

Director: Rintaro

Writers: Ōtomo Katsuhiro, Tezuka Osamu

Cinematographer: Yamaguchi Hitoshi

Composer: Yamaguchi Hitoshi

Cast: Yuka Imoto, Kei Kobayashi, Kouki Okada, Tarō Ishida, Kousei Tomita, Norio Wakamoto, Junpei Takiguchi

The nefarious leader of Metropolis hires a mad scientist to build a life-like robot to replace his dead daughter Tima, whom he wishes to help him with his plans to rule the world; but an arson attack on the laboratory in which she is being built leads to her meeting with a kindly Japanese boy instead, in this visually stunning and surprisingly moving animated film, which contains at least one sequence (of lyrical destruction, scored to an ironically mellifluous Ray Charles ditty) that will leave an indelible mark upon all those that see it. Iain.Stott

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Red Angel (1966)

Essential Viewing

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 赤い天使

Director: Masumura Yasuzo

Writers: Kasahara Ryozo, Arima Yoriyoshi

Cinematographer: Kobayashi Setsuo

Composer: Ikeno Sei

Cast: Wakao Ayako, Ashida Shinsuke, Kawazu Yūsuke, Akagi Ranko, Senba Jotaro, Kita Daihachi

Masumura’s painfully visceral anti-war film – filled with agonisingly indelible scenes of pain and suffering, in which bone-sawingly repulsive sequences of field hospital surgery are followed by those of rooms full of cholera-sufferers vomiting and moaning, punctuated only by gang-rapes and pity-sex – claws continually at the sensibilities of the viewer until any remaining feelings about the romanticism of war are entirely and justifiably destroyed. Iain.Stott

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Street of Joy (1974)

Recommended

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 赤線玉の井 ぬけられます

Director: Kumashiro Tatsumi

Writers: Kumashiro Tatsumi, Shimizu Ikko

Cinematographer: Himeda Shinsaku

Cast: Miyashita Junko, Seri Meika, Oka Naomi, Nakajima Aoi, Kani'e Keizō, Furukawa Yoshinori

Very loosely based on Mizoguchi’s Street of Shame (1956), Kumashiro’s visually arresting Roman Porno – set in a Tokyo brothel in 1955, just before the closure of all such establishments, following the day-to-day lives of four disparate prostitutes, illuminating the realities of their situations – proves to be an episodic, painfully convincing, oft funny, and surprisingly moving film. Iain.Stott

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The Mysterians (1957)

Not Recommended

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 地球防衛軍

Director: Honda Ishirō

Writers: Kimura Takeshi, Kayama Shigeru, Okami Jojiro

Cinematographer: Koizumi Hajime

Composer: Ifukube Akira

Cast: Sahara Kenji, Shirakawa Yumi, Kōchi Momoko, Hirata Akihiko, Shimura Takashi, Fujita Susumu, Ito Hisaya, Tsuchiya Yoshio, George Furness, Harold Conway

When aliens, whose own planet has been destroyed by nuclear war, land in Japan, demanding a small piece of land and some earth women with whom to rebuild their race, the powers of the world decide against a peaceful approach and determine to rid the planet of these invaders, in this generally diverting piece of science fiction, which suffers somewhat from several rather drawn out action sequences and a few cheesily didactic moments. Iain.Stott

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Lake Tahoe (2008)

Recommended

Mexico/Japan/USA

Feature Film

Director: Fernando Eimbcke

Writers: Fernando Eimbcke, Paula Markovitch

Cinematographer: Alexis Zabe

Cast: Diego Cataño, Hector Herrera, Daniela Valentine, Juan Carlos Lara II, Yemil Sefani

Juan, a quiet, skinny youth, wanders around a small town, early one morning, attempting to acquire the part necessary to fix the family car; along the way, he bumps into a number of oddballs and eccentrics, who do little but hinder his progress, in this beautifully simple, touchingly droll, and often quite hilarious character study, which ultimately proves to be really rather moving. Iain.Stott

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Repast (1951)

Essential Viewing

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: めし

Director: Naruse Mikio

Writers: Ide Toshirō, Tanaka Sumie, Kawabata Yasunari, Hayashi Fumiko

Cinematographer: Tamai Masao

Composer: Hayasaka Fumio

Cast: Uehara Ken, Hara Setsuko, Shimazaki Yukiko, Sugi Yōko, Kazami Akiko, Sugimura Haruko

A young woman (Hara, excellent as ever) starts to question her lot-in-life when financial constraints and a young house-guest begin to exacerbate niggling marital troubles, in Naruse’s subtle family drama, which manages, without pointing a finger at anyone or thing in particular, to paint an overwhelmingly moving picture of the way that society imposes roles on to us all which, no matter how hard we try, we cannot avoid (with that in mind, the ostensibly happy ending is particularly devastating). Iain.Stott

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Drunken Angel (1948)

Recommended

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 酔いどれ天使

Director: Kurosawa Akira

Writers: Kurosawa Akira, Uegusa Keinosuke

Cinematographer: Ito Takeo

Composer: Hayasaka Fumio

Cast: Shimura Takashi, Mifune Toshirō, Yamamoto Reisaburo, Kogure Michiyo, Nakakita Chieko

Kurosawa’s post-war melodrama – set in a poor, gang-ridden Tokyo neighbourhood, bordering a cesspool, following the curious relationship between a TB-suffering, perma-sozzled young gangster (a young Mifune in his first collaboration with Kurosawa) and his oft drunk doctor (Shimura, excellent as ever) – is a distinctively shot, adroitly acted, and bleakly powerful work, with numerous memorable scenes. Iain.Stott

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Assassination (1964)

Recommended

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 暗殺

Director: Shinoda Masahiro

Writers: Yamada Nobuo, Shiba Ryotaro

Cinematographer: Kosugi Masao

Composer: Takemitsu Tōru

Cast: Tanba Tetsurō, Okada Eiji, Ozawa Eitarō, Kimura Isao, Takewaki Muga, Iwashita Shima, Sada Keiji

Friends and foes alike tell tales of the revered and feared samurai Kiyokawa Hachiro, attempting to make sense of his decision to switch sides from the Emperor worshipping, foreigner hating imperialists to the more liberal Shogunate, in Shinoda’s stylishly compelling, labyrinthinely plotted, and violently distinctive film. Iain.Stott

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