Japan

A full description of the film can be found in James Quandt’s edited collection of writings on (and by) Ichikawa Kon from the Cinemateque Ontario (in Sato Tadao’s essay “Kon Ichikawa” on pages 109 – 111). A Billionaire was one of a handful of 50s comedies that Ichikawa directed that were extremely successful at the box office. These films were characterized by rapid-fire dialogue and biting social commentary (others like this include Pu-San and Mr Lucky). This is definitely a period of Ichikawa’s career that deserves more focus from the West.Read More »

Yasujirô Ozu wrote:
One could say this is the flip side of I Graduated, But… The student-protagonist scribbles his crib notes on his shirt sleeve, but the day of his graduation exam, the girl at his boarding house unwittingly takes the shirt to the launderette So naturally, he flunks. However, those who pass and graduate in high spirits cannot land any job, while the ones who flunked can continue to bum around living off their parent’s money. It’s a vignette. Although Ryu Chishu has appeared in my previous films, it was the first time I let him have a go at a more significant role.Read More »

One of the most important artists of our era, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s career spans from techno-pop stardom to Oscar-winning composer and anti-nuclear activist. This intimate portrait explores Sakamoto’s return to music following a cancer diagnosis, leading to the creation of a haunting new masterpiece.Read More »

Photographer Satoshi has become famous while working among the rhich and famous. His photos are worh a million. But the young man dreams of taking photos of Canadian landscapes instead of working in the studio with the same people all the time. His dreams fall to pieces when he gets a job working with model Shingo. All his anger is targeted at Shingo’s girlfriend, who is staying at Satoshi for some time. Satoshi’s neighbour Nanao overhears their whole converstation. Florist Nanao has a dream herself: She wants to go to France and studies French language very hard. This is then overheard by Satoshi. Little by little the two start listening more and more to the sound of their neighbour.Read More »

Quote:
Mother love gets the Shinya Tsukamoto treatment in the Japanese auteur’s latest mindfuck, a boldly abrasive, sometimes overwhelming tour of an unbalanced psyche. Said psyche belongs to a young, single mother (played by J-pop star Cocco) who imagines sinister doppelgangers lurking everywhere, stabs potential suitors with forks, lacerates her skinny arms with razors (“I cut my body to confirm it,” she muses in voiceover) and, above all, turns any activity involving her toddler son into grueling bouts of hysteria. Only singing seems to soothe her, and one of her songs catches the attention of a masochistic novelist (Tsukamoto) who’s willing to let her beat him into a bloody pulp in order to forge a relationship with her. Filmed with a reeling, zooming camera, scratchily edited, and set to a deafening cacophony of enfant shrieks and industrial noise, this virtuoso bit of grisliness may have something to say about violence-saturated societies nurturing Medea fantasies, but any thematic exploration plays second fiddle to Tsukamoto’s insistence on sheer sensory overload.Read More »

Quote:
The star of this documentary is a quintessential Imamura heroine: a hard-nosed, ruthless survivor, with a sense of loyalty and an earthy sense of humor. In this movie, she sits in a Tokyo bar, which she used to own, and tells the story of the various means she used to survive, beginning with the day the atom bomb fell. It is a history of compromises and hard deeds, though there are few outright betrayals.Read More »

The man who lives in the past and The woman who abandoned a past. They were lovers 10 years ago, and had met again in Paris.Read More »

Quote:
A professional hitman, turned against the world that made him and sensationalizes what he does, kills in the hope to one day take back pieces of his past. It’s a world void of connections, trust or meaning, embroiled by fleeting encounters with fugitive women, who along with the other usual croutons sprinkling similar films of the time – diversions and subversion, greed and hijinks, the nameless political element, egalitarian dreams coming up against walls of economy – make a Wakamatsu salad where every ingredient has its untold price that everyone will be made to pay.Read More »

SYNOPSIS
Groundbreaking animator Satoshi Kon (whose credits include Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress, and Perfect Blue) directed this visually spectacular adaptation of a science fiction novel by Yatsutaka Tsutsui. Atsuko is a psychiatrist who uses advanced technology to study the human mind. Atsuko has developed a machine that will allow her to enter the dreams of her patients and study their psyches from the inside. Atsuko also does double duty as Paprika, a high-tech detective who uses this new innovation to find out the truth about what the people she’s trailing really think. However, Atsuko falls victim to a thief who steals the one-of-a-kind machine, and Paprika sets out to find it as a wave of psychological instability tears through the city.
Mark Deming on All Movie GuideRead More »