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IKI JIKOGU (LIVING HELL)

2000/Director: Shugo Fujii/Writer: Shugo Fugii
Cast: Hirohito Honda, Yoshiko Shiraishi, Rumi, Kazuo Yashiro, Naoko Mori, Shugo Fujii

If it has not become evident in the few posts I have made already I should clarify that love Japanese cinema. I am a really big fan of older Japanese cinema, from the late 50′s and early 60′s but am often luke warm when it comes to a lot of contemporary Japanese cinema (while some new stuff I have seen is simply fanatstic, such as Shohei Imamura’s The Eel) As a relevant side note I am currently living in Beijing China and therefore it is easy to find droves of Japanese, Korean and Hong Kong films here at a cheap price. So even if I buy a real dud I am not out any real money. A DVD here usually runs about a buck American. I did not completely hate this film written, directed by and starring (in a less than minor role) Shugo Fujii however I confess I was disappointed after it was all over. The DVD cover I have (it is not the one I have posted here in the review) is pretty misleading and often here in China DVD covers can have little to do with the movie contents. The reviews that are posted on the back are often negative and panning the film and the credits can be from a completely different film. For a while it seemed every other movie I bought had the credits for Spielberg’s Munich on it. And when the language of the film is something other than English you have no clue as to what you may be getting. There are some scenes on the cover here that never even appear in the movie. All those trifles aside some people on the net seem to enjoy the film and the complaints they have (i.e. the terrible score) are the same ones I have, but I may have a few more that prevent me from being able to recommend this movie. (more…)

TETSUO

1989/Director: Shinya Tsukamoto/Writer: Shinya Tsukamoto

Cast: Tomorowo Taguchi, Kei Fujiwara, Nobu Kanaoka, Renji Ishibashi, Naomasa Musaka, Shinya Tsukamoto

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CAT’S EYE

1997/Director: Kaizo Hayashi /Writers: Kaizo Hayashi, Tsukasa Hojo (comic book creator)
Cast: Yuki Uchida, Izumi Inamori, Norika Fujiwara, Kenta Harada, Naoko Yamazaki, Kane Kosugi

I just have never been a big fan of Manga though I have tried. God knows I’ve tried. In the end it is not my cup of tea though I typically enjoy Japanese cinema and know a lot of modern action style films from Japan are heavily influenced by Manga comics. Here is a movie that I knew was based on a Manga comic as I had thumbed through the book before at a comic book store in Seattle. I was not expecting too much from the movie but was almost surprised by the first fifteen minutes or so. It really seemed to take off and had a lot of energy and style. The problem is after that first fifteen minutes the film seemed to fizzle and for the most part got pretty sappy with some romance sub-plots that were just soap-operaish.

To be honest the film had a mark against it since the copy I have is not subtitled in English. I live in China and more often than not Japanese or Korean movies are subtitled in Chinese but not English, even if the box says there are English subtitles. I watched it with my wife and she translated the story fro me every few minutes so I could follow it, but there was not much to follow other than the really hot Japanese girls in tight black leather outfits

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