Teen Angst in the 50's - Crazed Fruit

This was a controversial film when it was released in 1956 in Japan. It was one of the first films to portray the postwar generation as pleasure seeking, violent and corrupt youths who went against tradition and their elders. It's a story of two brothers, Natsuhisa and his younger brother Haruji, who are spending a summer vacation at a seaside town. They meet and eventually fall in love with the same woman, Eri, who, is married to an American businessman who is barely home. Eri is about the same age as Natsuhisa; the marriage superficial, at least in her eyes. Haruji is the one who dates Eri first; after being teased about not having a date to bring to the parties that his older brother and his delinquent buddies have. Bringing Eri to a party makes the others jealous; however his brother is so taken by her that he decides to see her as well; and a sibling rivalry develops. Eri enjoys Natsuhisa and his taken by his good looks and "dangerous" rebel attitude, however, her heart belongs to Haruji. The resolution is violent and tragic as Natsuhisa tries to run away with Eri (who was waiting for Haruji), and Haruji follows, blind with rage. A seemingly swift 86 minute movie, Crazed Fruit portrays a postwar Japan that while not showing the physical scars of war, shows all the mental unease and turmoil of a younger generations' anger toward their loser elders; a slacker attitude towards life, one of self indulgence. Natsuhiha was played by Yujiro Ishihara, the James Dean of Japan. The movie is similar in theme to Blackboard Jungle and Rebel Without a Cause in terms of teen angst and rebellion, but I feel Crazed Fruit has a better story with a lot more dimension, cultural and historical, than the Hollywood films, which seem almost quaint. Criterion does their usual masterful job of restoration, a beautiful black and white print, with commentary by Donald Richie. Highly recommended.

Kofun, a late 60's art house enigma

I had originally seen this on tape through Something Weird Video. It was a nice widescreen, English dubbed version edited by Harry Novak, an exploitation movie pioneer whose films were like the late nite cable of its time -- softcore, grindhouse movies that were the stape of Times Square movie theaters. I can only imagine the reaction the patrons had. This remastered edition, barely an hour and fifteen minutes, comes with the original Japanese soundtrack. It is about a man who, during a student demonstration, is arrested for rioting, then escapes after assaulting the officer. Elsewhere, a woman is standing on the edge of a cliff near the ocean, contemplating suicide. The man, fleeing, encounters the woman and assaults her. For an interminable amount of time, we see the woman's desperate and ultimately futile attempts to escape his clutches. In gorgeous black and white (the last ten minutes in color), we see the two struggle on the black sands (or volcanic ash?), run, and roll down the hills in slow motion. You really wonder what the heck you are watching - is this is one long painful exercise in abstract filmmaking? The music is spare, at times jazzy, other times minimal and abstract, accentuating the inner turmoil of both characters, their isolation amid the barren landscape, and their fight against each other. After subduing her he builds a fire and handcuffs her to a tree. He finds a suicide note that she wrote, that reveals her distrust of everyone, betrayed by an apparent affair between her fiancee and her mother. The following morning she breaks free, and the cat and mouse pursuit continues. The police spot them from a helicopter, which leads to her rescue and his capture (the results are an interview which starts the film). The film ends with the woman having a desire to live and survive, and she ends up stronger than the man, who is left a spent shell. How could one interpret this? Perhaps by reflecting on the social conditions of late 60's Japan, and the pains that society took from casting off its traditional culture to a modern western dominated influence? Or a metaphysical struggle? Not easy viewing, and definitely not the "erotic" film that it clains to be. Viewers will get sucker punched, and end up reselling it. Those with more patience for such "art" will be rewarded, though will it be something you want to have?

Mingus at Montreux 1975

Available on Eagle Vision as part of a series of "Live at the Montreux" dvds, this 2004 release of a Charles Mingus concert from 1975 is a welcome addition. It's unbelievable how few live concert dvds there are, when one thinks about the various television appearances both here in the States and in Europe. Perhaps there are copyright issues that are too prohibitive. But luckily we have this, and it is good stuff to see and hear. Mingus was close to the end of an illustrious career as composer and musician, a couple of years after this he would be confined to a wheelchair, not able to play the bass again. But this was his last great group, with Don Pullen on piano and George Adams on tenor sax, Jack Walrath on trumpet, and long time associate Dannie Richmond on drums. They had completed a series of critically acclaimed albums - Mingus Moves, Changes One, and Changes Two. The music on the dvd pulls material from the latter two lps. It's hard for me to criticize the music; I love this late Mingus period, as the band members really stretch out and push each other along. A mixture of bop and blues, the music provides moments tributing the past (Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, and Take the A Train), while criticizing the present state of things ((Free Cell Block F, 'Tis Nazi USA). The final two tracks include trumpeter Benny Bailey and baritone sax jazz giant Gerry Mulligan. The picture is clean, the sound is great, what more can one ask for? 85 minutes of jazz bliss.

Strung out and waiting for The Connection

An impossible movie to find even on video, this dvd release (made in Spain in an all region format) is a welcome reissue, especially to jazz fans. Taken from the Jack Galber play of the same name, with most of the same players, The Connection is a dreary look on a group of musicians in a New York City loft, waiting for the man who will supply them with their latest drug fix. Like the play, all the action is in one room of the apartment, and the musicians play several tunes throughout. It's bleak. Watching a bunch of strung out musicians is hard, but it sends a message about the destructiveness of drug addiction, the need and the living only for the next fix. There is also a filmmaker with them, recording them for a documentary he his making. The performaces are outstanding, perhaps too realistic, as many of the musicians were or had been junkies at one time. Notable primarily for the music, and to see some great musicians play. Black and white, full screen. With Jackie McLean (tenor saxaphone), one of the great jazz musicians of the late 20th century, and Freddie Redd (pianist), who composed all of the tunes. The music is available on the Blue Note cd The Connection, under Freddie Redd's name. I recommend the music to everyone; it's great hard bop jazz, but the movie can only be recommended for the jazz fans.

Ninja Gari - one thrilling action flick

Ninja Gari, or The Ninja Hunt, was made in 1964 by Toei Pictures, directed by Yamauchi Tetsuya. The only other movie I know that he did was Festival of Gion, but as to his history I am clueless. Konoe Jushiro plays a ronin called Wada, who is hired along with several other ronin to protect the Gamo Clan from the evil machinations of Kura, a ninja who is seeking to destroy the letter that will validate the Gamo's young heir to be their Lord. Otherwise, the clan is dissolved. They are awaiting for the arrival of the Shogun's messenger who will see the letter and escort the young lord to Edo. It has a "new wave" style to it; minimalist music, strong composition, with emphasis on diagonals and long shots, greatly taking advantage of the black and white film to emphasize the blacks of the ninjas lurking in the shadows, and the whites of the Gion clan in mourning, and the priests and nuns who are not what they seem. The attitude too, is akin to a film like a Gosha Hideo film, very violent for its time. Wada is ruthless as he tries to find the evil Kura, killing a small group of Gamo samurai in an incredible scene because he knows that one of them is a spy for Kura. There is an evil nun who collaborates with Kura, trapping a young Gamo maid because she may have a lead as to the location of the letter. The maid is killed by Kura, but the nun is no better. There is a disturbing scene where the nun is confronted by one of the Gamo ronin. Her allegiance exposed, she tries to seduce him in order to kill him. She's very pretty, but it makes no sense in the context of the film, other than that both act like vicious animals caught in the heat of the moment in sex and in war. They end up killing each other. There are beheadings, dismemberment, eye stabbing -- as the two factions vie for the upper hand in this battle for the clan's survival. The climax of the movie, taken place in the Gamo tomb, where the remaining main characters are trapped, is incredibly suspenseful. Kura is lurking in the shadows, picking off the clan one by one, until he has a final duel with Wada, in almost total darkness, while outside the Gion clan is desperately trying to bash the sealed door in....... A brisk 90 minute action film, atypical of its genre, but great viewing. I'm surprised I have not seen this movie mentioned other than online. Highly recommended!

Bullet Train

Disaster films in the 70s were big money makers in the U.S., so it is natural that other countries would emulate that theme. Japan's version, Bullet Train, came out in 1975. The story is about a disgruntled businessman who has fallen on hard times, who concocts a scheme with some associates to plant a bomb on the new high speed train to extort money. Get this: if the train goes below a certain speed (80 kph),then the bomb will go off. Sounds familiar? Yes, the movie Speed rips this concept off amost 20 years later. However, that movie had the novel idea of having it on a bus, and the obstacles that had to be overcome were a lot more kinetic and exciting than in Bullet Train, where the controllers just have it switch tracks to avoid the other trains. Sonny Chiba gets top billing on most American releases, but he only has a minor role as the train pilot, spending a lot of screen time sweating and on the phone. The real star is Ken Takakura, an underappreciated star here in the States, known for his brooding style and described as the "Clint Eastwood of Japan." His most well known pictures (at least to the American film fans) are the Abashiri Prison series, Festival of Gion, Golgo 13, and especially Black Rain. After 40 minutes or so of focusing on the train itself, dealing with the obastacles of keeping it at a certain speed, it switches to a police procedural. It focuses on the Takakura character, and his cat and mouse playing with the police, as they desperately are trying to negotiate, then try to trap, him and his men. Unfortunately, one's interest is lost because of the focus switch in this two hour film, especially when compared to the films it later influenced. The adrenaline built up in the first 30 minutes is lost, and suspenseful moments of the detectives trying to outwit the bad guys feel contrived, especially during a key moment when the coffee shop where Takakura leaves instructions as to how to diffuse the bomb is mysteriously burned down. Takakura's decline and fall as businessman, husband and criminal is more central than the saving the passengers on the train, and I see that as a flaw in the story, even though the idea is good. But as a disaster film, it just doesn't work, and I am mystified as to a lot of positive reviews that I see on other sites.

August 31 update: Apparently, this version of Bullet Train, as part of the Sonny Chiba 3 pack that recently came out on BCI Eclipse, is a cut version of an even longer version. That will appear in 2007, and I bet will flesh out the characters and situations a lot more. But 152 minutes is a heck of an epic for this story.

Electric Shadows

This is a well done and moving picture about people who grew up around and have a passion for movies, in China in the 60's through the present. It starts when a young man, who leaves the country for the big city, becomes a water delivery boy who has a passion for films. On his way to see one, he cuts through an alley and crashes into a pile of bricks. A young woman is there, and she takes one of the bricks and hits him with it, knocking him out. He walkes up in a hospital, and the police are there to get his side of the story. He meets the woman again, and discovers she can't speak, and she asks him to take care of her fish, and gives him the key to her place. Baffled, he goes and finds her place covered with film star photos and movie clips, dvds, and other ephemera. He finds a diary in the form of a screenplay book and reads it. The story shifts, becoming a flashback, telling of the young woman's mother (who was an actress and a member of the Party, delivering news broadcasts), and of her life in a village near the mountain and desert. She has a child out of wedlock, and as the child gets older, has a friendship with a roughneck mischevious boy who also shares a passion for movies. How they break apart and come back together is the arc that we follow, as well as discovering what happens to the young woman's family as they grow older. The final fifteen minutes of the movie, as the pieces are finally put together, are well planned surprises and the conclusion very satisfying. The cinematography is lush and yet simple; you see the wide sweeping landscapes around the village, the outdoor movie theater that every one gathers together to see. Good acting, from the kids to the adults. Highly recommended!

Snakes...........I Hate Snakes!

Yup, I saw this today. Go ahead - groan, roll the eyes, anything! I was with my friends - five people among an audience of ten, maaaybe fifteen people in the theater. Everyone else went to see World Trade Center. I'm glad I saw this. No, it isn't a great movie. Neither is it a bad movie. It's silly and entertaining, which is more than one should expect from a stupid premise. Nathan Phillips plays Sean Jones, a surfer and motorcyclist who in Hawaii witnesses a murder by the notorious L.A. gangster Eddie Kim. He is spotted fleeing the scene of the crime by Kim, and his henchmen. Samuel Jackson plays Neville Flynn, a FBI agent who saves Sean from being killed. Sean is pursuaded into becoming a witness for the prosecution, and Neville escorts him to Los Angeles. Kim arranges to have a crate full of snakes of various types (all poisonous) put on the plane. The flower leis which are stored with the snakes are doused with pheremones to aggravate the snakes into a fury. The smell is supposed to circulate through the plane; the idea being that the snakes will cause enough havoc that the plane will crash. Ooooookay, whatever! On the plane, we have: an assortment of stewardresses, ranging from young and cute to old and wise; a rapper and his entourage; a rich bitch; honeymooners; two young brothers on their first solo flight (from Hawaii to L.A.??? Please!!!!); a kickboxer; a latina mother; and a couple of young horny college age kids. There are others, but why waste time detailing, since a lot of people die in this film. Halfway through the flight, the crate is opened through a timed release, and the carnage ensues. Let me say that I found the movie entertaining beacuse of some smart, funny dialogue, and obvious set ups of characters, and the brisk, no nonsense pace that keeps the movie going, because in no way should we pay too much attention to plot or character development. The killing is gratuitous and awful. We were all groaning at how stupid it all was! Death by high heel shoe in the ear, falling onto an axe (on a plane???), by food cart, in the bathroom, while having sex in the bathroom, and more. If there was a napkin flying in the air I'm sure it would have cut someone's head off. Yes, both pilots die, and yes, in the classic Airport tradition, some one has got to land the plane. A lot of elements are borrowed from those 70's disaster films -- the passengers deal with one mishap to another, fighting to stay alive, and the action keeps you hanging in there with them. There are genuine moments of suspense (okay, maybe 30 seconds), and you have the Samuel Jackson quote, coming 3/4 into the film. Contrived? Yes, but it's better than a lot of other big budget summer blockbusters that have come out already. A good time wasting movie, and one that will make a killing on dvd, as this will make a great party film.

Now and Forever, or Weepies, part 1

Now and Forever is a Korean movie I'd like to classify as a "weepie," or tear-jerker. It's a romance movie, featuring Jo Han-Seon and Choi Ji-Woo as destined lovers who meet in a chance encounter in a rain storm, then in a hospital, the reasons for which unfold throughout the movie. Jo Han-Seon plays a playboy, schmoozing one woman while fielding phone calls from another, and eyeing a third. He runs an online gaming company with his best friend, played by Choi Seong-Gook. Jo Han-Seon romances Choi Ji-Woo in the hospital, and the first half of the movie follows their constant escapes from the hospital to go to restaurants, fishing, whatever. Then Jo Han-Seon finds out about Choi Ji-Woo's heart condition, and that she is soon to die, and the rest of the movie becomes a somber, handkerchief inducing series of moments as they split up, then come back together again, as he renounces his former loves, gets proof of this in writing (!), to demonstrate his feelings for her. Little does she know he too has a condition which will end his life soon.... a brain tumor! Like 90% of these movies, it runs about 15-20 minutes too long, because a lot of time is spent overindulging in the moments and not in the story. Using the hospital as the background was a good idea, but overall, there are inconsistencies. The supporting cast is not used effectively, from their best friends who also fall in love, who fall in and out of the movie, to the doctor and head nurse, whose romance is not played up enough -- they are just there as backdrop, and to remind everyone they are in a hospital. Apparently this kind of movie is big stuff in Japan, where housewives fantasize about the male romantic leads, and men drool over the gorgeous women. Choi Ji-Woo is considered a big actress in Asia, and in Japan they nickname her "Princess Ji-Woo," but I don't see anything here that addresses her talents. Neither Jo Han-Seon, and I have seen him in other films, and he has done better. If you like this kind of movie, by all means see it, and bring a bucket.

Romance and other guilty pleasures

I'll get right to the point -- I hate romantic movies! I hate the melodrama, the long shots of man and woman gazing longingly at each other through traffic/forest/war, etc., the soft fuzzy camerawork, but especially the strings -- that 101 strings, syrupy sound that is supposed to make things get all mushy. But what really gets me is that movies have developed, through trial and error, the idealized notion of romance, and that this has somehow filtered into our subconscious and has become our notion of what a relationship should be, even though reality is much different. That's why I appreciate dreck like Return of the Living Dead 3 -- boy meets girl, boy loses girl, girl becomes a zombie, does some incredibly nasty things, boy has to make things right, girl bites boy, and then boy joins girl in zombie heaven in double suicide. Stuff like that is not only improbable in real life, but silly as well. It's a movie, damn it. It's not real. And I know when I go out with someone situations like that will never arise.

Seriously, I have seen a lot of Korean romance movies. Comedy, action, whatever, and while they do tug as many emotional strings as any other film industry, I find myself somewhat engaged, and yes, once in a while, entertained by what is offered. Such is the case of Romance, a bland title for an interesting movie. Jo Jae-Hyeon plays a cop who saves a woman (Kim Ji-Soo) from killing herself from an oncoming truck. She is married to a politician (Eom Hyo-Seob), who is making a bid for the presidency the following year. And he's nuts. Everything in his household is fine, wealthy, executive, and stifling, and his wife is suffering from the lack of freedom and the love that has soured. It's a one way street, all his. Jae-Hyeon has issues too -- a hard boiled troublemaker in the force, whose wife and kid have left him, and he's struggling. So they meet, date, tango, go to a motel, compare scar tissue (they are both beaten up -- her by her husband, he by 'enforcing the law'),and fall in love. All in 20 minutes. Cue the 101 strings. What I found interesting was that every time the story seemed to lean towards conventional romantic melodrama, it gets knocked back into place by the evil machinations of the husband, who, having found out about the affair, really goes nuts! In a quiet, passive/aggressive yet sinister way. Like having his henchmen beat the stuffing out of him and kidnapping the wife to a hospital to "cure her," that is, brainwash her with a bunch of drugs. The cop survives, and the rest of the film is a rescue operation, hostage situation, and shootout. Forget the last ten minutes of the movie -- too much of a cliché, but the other hour and a half is really engaging. The acting is solid from all the principal characters, the direction tight and well paced, the camera work a bit uneven in style -- washed out a la contemporary Spielberg in the beginning ( I guess meant to evoke romance but it doesn't feel that way), then film noirish for the rest of the film. Thumbs up, worth a rental, especially for guys who have endured one too many chick flicks -- you can sneak this in the rental queue. Or for the ladies who know they have put their guys through one too many chick flicks, but will not concede to them renting Aliens vs Predator. There's enough schmaltz to get the hankies out.

Blue Swallow

Apparently a controversial film when it was released in Korea in December of 2005, Blue Swallow is a well made big budget picture about Korea's first female pilot, Park Kyung-won, during Japan's occupation of Korea in the 1920's and 30's. Controversial because Park Kyung-won's success was due in no small part to the Japanese military, and that she was seen as a collaborator to the Japanese. Also because when the film came out, critics saw it as a revisionist history, tying to put a positive spin on her career. In fact, the movie makes an effort to show that things weren't all black and white. Park Kyung-won's dream was to be able to fly, politics and affiliations did not come into play until much later. The flying schools were all run by the Japanese, so she went to where she could be trained. The movie does show that she seeks financial support from the Korean community, but it there wasn't much -- so naturally, support comes from a former rival and now friend, who is a daughter of a high ranking Japanese official. Aside from the overly melodramatic and swarmy intro of Park Kyung-won as a child and seeing her first plane flying overhead, the movie is a solid, well written tale, giving enough information to non Korean audiences to understand the historical and political contexts. The sequences of her flight training and competition between rival schools are intense and dramatic -- good CGI for a lot of the flying sequences (remember these are biplanes). Halfway through the film the mood changes when her boyfriend's friend, a reporter, assassinates the boyfriend's father and a couple of Japanese officials. Park Kyung-won and her boyfriend (Ji-hyuk) are taken into custody and tortured. She is released when he admits guilt (even though he wasn't), and is given a choice about pursuing her dream, which was to fly back to Korea solo, then to Manchuria. It comes at a price -- she embraces the Japanese flag (in photo ops), and is reviled in her home country. This is a Hollywood-like film (almost like the bio pics that were done in the 1930s or 50s), that outdoes a lot of contemporary US films. I enjoyed it especially because, embellished history or not, it gives one some insight into another country's past. Korea has been releasing a lot of compelling movies in the past 10 years, and this is a very good one to watch. Recommended.

The Executioners Trailer

Inferior sequel to Heroic Trio. Try to find this film on dvd! I found a copy when it came out.

The Heroic Trio Trailer

A classic HK action film with three the top leading ladies of the time. Johnnie To directed.

CANNONBALL ADDERLEY - Primitivo (1962)

Mixing Samurais with Machine Guns

Ever played role playing games? Growing up in the 80's, I was exposed to Dungeons and Dragons, Traveller, etc., and while I seldom played - I always enjoyed making the characters rather than playing the game - my friends did, and after playing the same sword and sorcery scenario for the millionth time, someone got the bright idea of spicing things up by introducing modern day soldiers and throwing them into Middle Earth. There was a lot of fun with that, and that concept is used in this movie, Time Slip 1549, which came out in Japan last year. It is about modern day soldiers, who in a secret government experiment, are somehow thrown back almost 450 years into the past, into the feudal battles between warlords. The first platoon was lost in the first experiment; two years later the government tries again. They know that they were sent into the past, because, after the area they were in disappears, then reappears, so does a lone samurai. They recruit a man who used to be a part of the original platoon, and along with the woman who was in charge of the first experiment, and another platoon, are sent back into the past. There they encounter machine gun toting samurais dressed in camoflauge armor, the lone helicopter from the first group wipes out the new platoons' air support, and a lot of people are killed before they are captured and brought to a castle near Mt Fuji, which is a combination of a classic feudal warlord castle and an oil refinery. Yes, the leader of the first platoon, realizing that there was no way to get back home, decides to become ruler of this universe, easily overcoming the local warlords and accumulating a fighting force of great magnitude. Complete with tanks. This two hour epic was made in honor of the 60th anniversary of Kadokawa Pictures. The movie, related to but not a remake of G.I. Samurai, starring Sonny Chiba, is a fun action movie, not to be taken too seriously. Otherwise the warts and seams will show, and yes, the ending drags on for about 10 minutes too long, as they feel the need to push all the emotional buttons. One subcontext that I found interesting was here we have the modern Japanese military, reformed in organization and in spirit after World War II, tossed back into time where everybody was at war with each other. And the modern soldiers gets their asses kicked! So for them to survive, the original platoon guys rediscover their old fighting spirit, the way of the samurai, as do the second group, but in a slightly different (and of course, a more positive) way. Worth a rental!

The Bad Really Do Sleep Well

This Criterion dvd, which was released earlier this year in January, is not only one of the great Akira Kurosawa films but one of the greatest crime films ever made. It was made in 1960, a year before Yojimbo (1961), and for some reason it gets overlooked when you read surveys or reviews of Kurosawa's work. Probably because High and Low (1962), his definitive crime movie, was released both on video and dvd before this film, thus getting more exposure? Or is it because it is more complex and longer (2 1/2 hours)? It does feel staged like a play, and it has been said that William Shakespeare's Hamlet was an influence on the story. It is about a young executive (played by Toshiro Mifune) who plots to bring down a group of company higher-ups, because they caused his father's murder. The opening scene is classic, one of the great suspenseful sequences in cinema -- it opens to a wedding reception, and we are introduced to the characters from the point of view of a group of reporters who are covering the event. It is though their eyes that we are drawn into the story, becoming more and more curious as events unfold. The wedding cake is brought out, with various objects that allude to the father's murder. The reporters know they have a story, the perpetrators are aware that someone knows, and our movie begins. Mifune uses a company man (who was stopped from committing suicide) to haunt the killers, going so far as to chalk his face to appear like a ghost. The Mifune character is also involved with the main company man's daughter, who also has a brother who is threatening to kill him if he makes his sister unhappy. Layers upon layers. The ending is not so upbeat, Mifune is killed in an old WWII bunker or underground dwelling, but the villain loses the respect and love of his son and daughter; they ostracize him. When I saw this, I could not help seeing this as a samurai film dressed in contemporary clothes, and reading the notes, this point is view is mentioned. The staging and unfolding of the plot and the characters all are reminiscent of Kurosawa's period piece films, or even other films, like Harakiri. The revenge elements, the scheming and plotting of one man against a larger and more powerful group of men, the dehumanizing effects that power and money can have, are not restricted to any one time period. A classic and one of my all time favorites.

Bakeneko: A Vengeful Spirit

Bakeneko is an interesting film, yet another ghost story movie from the later 60's, but not as powerful or compelling as Kuroneko, or Kwaidan. Briefly, it is about a man, Nabeshima Naoshige, who murders his lord, Takafusa Ryuzoji, for power and his wife. Ryuzoji's wife drowns herself along with her cat in a nearby marsh to avoid Naoshige's clutches. This sets the stage for a decade later, as Naoshige has become a powerful and evil lord, who becomes enamored with a village woman. His attempts to steal and control her causes a curse to befall on him, when she kills herself at the same marsh as Ryuzoji's wife. Thus his downfall begins......... I don't find it as compelling partly because of the execution of the story, decent as it is. Maybe it is the direction, which is workmanlike but not spectacular. I don't get the same sense of creepiness or foreboding as in Kuroneko. Perhaps also, the Naoshige character is too evil, and not as interesting a character, so certainly I want to see his demise, but I didn't care one way or another. Everything moves from a to b to c in a straightforward but bland manner. It is a black and white film, letterboxed with english subtitles, and there are moments of good cinematography, but maybe that was because the director wasn't looking. As I said, an interesting movie recommended to the diehard film lover.

Isabella - a 2006 HK masterpiece?

Nominated for the 2006 Golden Bear, this is a terrific movie about a policeman who is suspended pending hearings of corruption, and his relationship with a young woman who claims to be his daughter. The background is 1999 Macao, which was about to be turned over to China. While there is a definite Wong Kar Wai feel to the film, in terms of impromptu character acting and dialogue, and the slow but deliberate pace, it is very different. For one thing, there is a lot of deception, not only by the characters, but by the director as well. Ho-Cheung Pang sets up a lot of scenes that are meant to be interpreted one way, then later in the film through flashbacks or dialogue turns out to be something else. For instance, it appears that the policeman Shing(Chapman To, in his finest performance to date), after binge drinking and womanizing at a local club, brings home a woman for sex. The following morning, he wakes up and is told by the woman that she is his daughter Isabella (played by Isabella Leong, in her movie debut). Turns out she was outside while another woman was doing all the work, then slipped in after that woman had left. The movie develops into a very well developed study of their relationship, thought the lines of father and daughter are not made clear. Isabella becomes his girlfriend, not to his face, but in dealing with the other women in his life, meeting each one and cutting them off by saying she's his girl. A potential boyfriend for Isabella is thwarted the same way. Shing, on the other hand, reflects on his failed opportunity to take responsibility when, in a flashback, he goes to the clinic with Isabella's mother who is pregnant. She goes in, he is supposed to wait, but he gets cold feet and leaves. Over the course of the movie he begins to take responsibility, especially for the consequence of his actions as a policeman, and be a father. However, Isabella is not whom she seems to be, knowingly or not. A fine drama, some great performances and good directing. It's great to see that Hong Kong cinema can still deliver top quality films, as opposed to the big budget period pieces or crime dramas that have been mined to death recently.

Woman of the Dunes revised

I have seen bootlegs of the "extended" version for sale on ebay, but I am glad I held off from buying. The British Film Institute has recently issued the 141 minute letterboxed version of this fine 1964 Japanese film directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara. This supplants the 123 minute widescreen version that was on Image Entertainment, now out of print. This movie won the Special Jury prize at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for a couple of Academy Awards, so when it was released, it was recognized as a great film. The movie is about a teacher who while out on a trip, misses the last bus home, and is offered shelter by the local villagers. It so happens they live in a valley where the only access to it is by climbing down a rope ladder. He spends the night at a woman's house, and the following morning discovers that the rope ladder is gone and there is no way out. Plus, the valley is more like a sand pit, where the woman's house is under constant danger of being run over. He ends up helping the woman remove the sand, but it keeps on coming, no matter how much they remove during the day. The hopelessness of their situation draws them closer and they become lovers, though the teacher becomes obsessed with escaping this pit. The movie is gorgeous - black and white, full of minimal and abstract images of the shapeshifting land, closeups of the lovers deep in passion, the darkness and feeling that they are below the earth. Music was done by Toru Takemitsu, a celebrated film composer, who accentuated this otherworldliness. BFI dvds are of high quality, like Criterion, and this is a must buy. I will report on what has been added, as I have the Image dvd.

Masumura's Red Angel

"My goal is to create an exaggerated depiction featuring only the ideas and passions of living human beings....In Japanese society, which is essentially regimented, freedom and the individual do not exist. The theme of the Japanese film is the emotions of the Japanese people, who have no choice but to live according to the norms of that society. The cinema has had no alternative but to continue to depict the attitudes and inner struggles of the people who are faced with and oppressed by complex social relationships and the defeat of human freedom....[But] after experiencing Europe for two years, I wanted to portray the type of beautifully vital, strong people I came to know there, even if, in Japan, this would be nothing more than an idea."
- Masumora from a 1958 essay

Although the subject of several film fests, Masumora's films have not been available in the US until fantoma reissued four dvds around 2001 of his work: Afraid to Die, Blind Beast, Manji, and Giants & Toys. In mid-September, they will reissue Red Angel, a mid-60's work about a nurse who is working on the front lines of war. Her relationships with a soldier amputee and a drug addicted surgeon test her spirit, her sense of mission as a nurse, and her will to survive a horrible environment. He slightly predated the "New Wave" of Japanese films of the 60's, led by Oshima, but his movies are unique for their time, depicting gangsters (Afraid to Die), forbidden love triangle between two women and a man (Manji), ruthless business practices of corporations, and their dehumanizing means to make a buck (Giants & Toys), and the relationship between artist and model (Blind Beast). His films all contain clean, vivid photography, developing toward surreal in the later 60's (as seen in his horror masterpiece, Blind Beast, with the artist's studio made into a huge sculpture of human body parts). Japanese movies regarding modern war are ususally engaging, often harrowing (see The Human Condition trilogy, about Japan's occupation of Manchuria), so I will look forward to this release when it comes out.

Two Japanese ghost movies

These two dvd releases are good reasons to own an all- region player. The EUREKA! label, based in the UK, has been steadily releasing a series of outstanding movies from around the world at the highest quality. They are very much like the US based Criterion, and some of the releases has overlapped, as in the case of Kwaidan. However, you should pick up the EUREKA version of Kwaidan, because this is the definitive, 183 minute version. 21 minutes of more footage added, never seen before to Western audiences. It comes with a very nice 72 page booklet that includes Lefcadio Hearn's 4 stories, and an interview of the director, Masaki Kobayashi. Kobayashi was a director who exploded onto the world cinema scene in the late 1950's with his epic 9 hour trilogy, The Human Condition, featuring Nadakai Tatsuya, and with the classic Harakiri, one of the great samurai films, in 1962. Kwaidan is THE classic ghost story film, four stories dealing with people who become entangled with the supernatural. The segment Hoichi, the Earless, is my favorite. Hoichi is a blind musician/priest who is called upon to perform before a lord and his entourage. What he doesn't know is that they are all ghosts, and that they will kill him after several perfomances........

Kuroneko is a major find, and the movie that led me to discover the EUREKA label. This is another classic Japanese ghost story movie, directed by Kaneto Shindo, in 1968. Shindo also directed Onibaba (1964), itself a classic in world cinema. This concerns a mother and daughter who are brutally raped and murdered by a band of roving soldiers during a war; the house is burned down, and in the smouldering ash ruins, a lone cat appears and licks the remains of the women. They are transformed into avenging spirits, changing into human and cat form, who terrorize the woods by killing every solder who travels through. Black and white, sparse, but well paced (the scenes showing the baiting, seduction, then murdering of the soldiers are repeated, but reduced in time in each instance, respecting the viewer's knwoledge of how things will turn out), terrific performances by everyone involved, this is mandatory viewing for any cinema fan.

Jigoku, a Japanese horror masterpiece

Criterion is releasing in mid-September a fantastic horror movie from 1960 called Jigoku, or Hell. I have a copy that I bought from a dealer on ebay a few years ago, and I will definitely upgrade to this edtion. It's about a student who is involved in a hit and run accident, who becomes riddled with guilt. He encounters a person -- his doppleganger?-- who is pure evil, and goes with him and his girlfriend to a party, where they are all poisoned and killed. They all end up in the afterlife, which is one firey pit of evil, where all the really bad people are tormented. There is graphic violence that is decades ahead of its time, even a couple of years ahead of Hershall Gordon Lewis. But the vision of the afterlife as imagined by Nobuo Nakagawa, the director, is vivid and disturbing; a social commentary and a spit in the eye to the then contemporary Japanese movie scene. Letterboxed and looks to be in gorgeous color, based on some preview sites. Highly recommended!

Mario Bava - Black Sabbath - Italian Trailer - Boris Karloff

One of my favorite Karloff horror films! Based on a Checkov short story.

The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula (trailer)

If you haven't seen this film, rent or buy the dvd! A classic 70's hybrid vampire/kung fu film, produced by Shaw Brothers and Hammer Films (both, by the mid 70's were in their declining years).

Ziyi zhang msn interview

Although Memoirs of a Geisha was a mediocre flick, it did feature good actors and actresses, including Zhang Ziyi, who I do have a soft spot for.

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - Goldie

Paris, 1959 clip of THE classic hard bop group, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, with Lee Morgan and Wayne Shorter. HOT!!!!

Miles davis et John Coltrane - So what

From 1959, a clip from a summer tv series featuring Miles Davis and the Gil Evans Orchestra

Miles Davis video 1967

An amazing look at the classic jazz quintet from the 60's:

Miles Quintet 67
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