Maboroshii Productions

LA Eiga Fest! (Nov. 11-13)

2011-10-31T11:32:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

COMING VERY SOON my friends over at the LA Japan Film Society are doing the LA EIGA FEST; a short, but fantastic Japanese film festival on the weekend of November 11th - 13th.

Highlights include the West Coast premier of Yoshimasa Ishibashi's MILOCRORZE, Shinji Imaoka's international kappa-stroking Pink Eiga co-production UNDERWATER LOVE, Su-yeon Gu's face bruisin' HARD ROMANTICKER, and an exclusive 3D screening of Takashi Miike's 'no, this isn't 13 ASSASSINS part 2' jidaigeki, HARA-KIRI: DEATH OF A SAMURAI (most likely the only time it'll be screened in 3D for the foreseeable future).

But that's not all, you can get your Tokyo gore thirst slaked with Yoshihiro Nishimura's zombie milkshake HELLDRIVER and then later feel guilty about laughing at death by watching Hiroshi Nagashima's short documentary on the Tohoku Earthquake, REMEMBRANCE OF THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE.

Held at the Mann's Chinese Theater 6, in the black and crimson heart of Hollywood, the schedule of screenings is as follows:

Friday Nov 11th

7:30pm - Opening premiere – Milocrorze: A Love Story (Dir Yoshimasa Ishibashi)

Saturday Nov 12th

9:30am – Competition Selection: The Volunteer, For Real? (Dir Tsuyoshi Satoda)

11:40am – Shorts program 1

Rootless Heart (Dir Toshiko Hata)

Tidy up (Dir Satsuki Okawa)

Cat Shit One (Dir Kazuya Sasahara)

1:10pm – Competition Selection: Food and the Maiden (Dir Minoru Kurimura)

3:15pm – Shorts program 2 – Official Short Shorts Film Festival Selection

Super Star (Dir Kentaro Hagiwara)

Smile Bus (Dir Sang-joon Park)

Hokkaido Tourism (Dir Yosuke Hamaguchi)

Heaven’s Island (Dir Naoko Tajima)

5:05pm – Competition Selection: Door to the Sea (Reiko Ohashi)

7:25pm – Hard Romanticker (Su-yeon Gu)

9:50pm – Underwater Love (Shinji Imaoka)

12:00am – Midnight Screening - Helldriver: Director’s Cut (Dir Yoshihiro Nishimura)

Sunday Nov 13th

9:30am – Cannonball Wedlock (Dir Koji Maeda)

11:15am – A Man with Style (Yuya Ishii)

1:40pm – Remembrance of the Tohoku Earthquake (Hiroshi Nagashima)

3:05pm – Someday (Junji Sakamoto)

5:15pm – Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai 3D (Takashi Miike)

More info HERE.

If you're a fan of Japanese film, you definitely don't want to miss this. See you there!

T IS FOR TRANNY

2011-10-03T15:05:00.001-07:00

Hi Blog,

It's been over a year since I last posted here. There're many reasons for this, but frankly none of them are worth expanding on at the moment. Suffice to say, 'real life' got priority.

That being said, I'm dusting the old blog-o off, to shamelessly promote my entry into the Alamo Drafthouse's ABCs OF DEATH competition called T IS FOR TRANNY.

That snapshot you see above is a wee-taste of the boobs, blood and mayhem that you'll see packed into just 4 minutes of film. Shot in 19 hours, budgeted at four dollars and fifty-nine cents, and with a post-production turnaround of under 2 weeks, a lot of very talented people gave me their time and effort for no discernible reason other than they're all supremely awesome and deserve front row seats on the Rapture Rocket when it launches.

So please head on over to the T IS FOR TRANNY show page on the Alamo's website and check out the film. If you like it, please vote for it and pass it on to your friends. This is, apparently, a popularity contest, and I'm prepared to offer all of you less homework and ice cream for dinner if you vote for my film. I promise you.

Thanks!

http://26th.theabcsofdeath.com/t-is-for-tranny/

Shinya Tsukamoto Panel at the Tribeca Film Festival

2010-04-20T11:22:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Just a quick head's up that I'll be moderating a discussion with one of my favorite filmmakers, Shinya Tsukamoto, at the Tribeca Film Festival. He'll be in town supporting the rather badass TETSUO: THE BULLET MAN. The discussion will be happening THIS Saturday, April 24th, 2010 at the Apple Retail Store in SoHo, Manhattan. (103 Prince Street NY, NY)

Three random bits of trivia:

If it weren't for Tsukamoto, I wouldn't be as much of a Japanese film dork as I am.
If it weren't for Tsukamoto, I likely wouldn't have pursued filmmaking. I'd probably be making a living recycling bottles and searching the beach for loose change with a metal detector.
The SoHo Apple Store is right next door to my old Post Office, where I had my PO BOX for 6 years. (Coincidence? Or evidence of fate's hand?)

TETSUO: THE BULLET MAN will be having its US PREMIER at the Tribeca Film Festival on these dates:

Sun, Apr 25, 9:00PM
Village East Cinema 1

Tue, Apr 27, 7:30PM
Village East Cinema 7

Fri, Apr 30, 4:30PM
Village East Cinema 7

Sat, May 01, 11:45PM
Village East Cinema

It's a new cut that he spent all fall and winter working on, as I understand it, and I believe that Nine Inch Nails was involved in the new theme music, if I'm not mistaken. (Update: I haven't been able to confirm this, but I'll likely ask about this on Saturday. Stay tuned!)

So if you're in NYC, please do stop by the discussion. It's free and frankly, this is an unusually rare opportunity to hear the master speak about his art. Both lead actor Eric Bossick and producer Masayuki Tanishima, are also slated to attend the discussion.

More info about the discussion HERE.

TETSUO screening info HERE.

Bitchin' Wakamatsu Koji Series this Month!

2009-11-01T14:53:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

My programming for the Cinefamily (aka. The Silent Movie Theater) here in LA, continues with a pretty awesome seven-film Wakamatsu Koji series that kicks off this coming Wednesday with the masterful UNITED RED ARMY. (And that was a long sentence!) The series will then go on to run for the first three FRIDAYS in NOVEMBER, offering a pretty great selection of films (almost all collaborations with leftist political radical screenwriter Adachi Masao) -- some of which have never played in Los Angeles before.

The films, in order, are:

1. UNITED RED ARMY: Wednesday Nov. 4th 8pm

2. SHINJUKU MAD: Friday Nov. 7th, 7pm (Double Feature ONE)
3. ECSTASY OF THE ANGELS: Friday Nov. 7th 830pm (Double Feature ONE)

4. GO, GO SECOND TIME VIRGIN: Friday Nov. 14th, 7pm (Double Feature TWO)
5. RUNNING IN MADNESS, DYING IN LOVE (LA Premier and, oh yeah, what a fucking cool title?): Friday Nov. 14th, 8:30pm (Double Feature TWO)

6. VIOLATED ANGELS: Friday Nov. 21st, 7pm (Double Feature THREE)
7. VIOLENT VIRGIN: Friday Nov. 21st, 8:30pm (Double Feature THREE)

Here're the film write-ups I did for the series (with some copy-editing and some additional notes done by the editors up at the Cinefamily):

Intro:

Divisive, exploitative, cruel, vengeful, erotic, political, provocative, avant-garde -- Koji Wakamatsu is all these things, and a ridiculous amount more. A country bumpkin who wandered his way through the Yakuza and into one of the most prolific directing careers in Japan, Wakamatsu has created an unsurpassed, massive filmography of unique and disobedient works. While inextricably connected to the pinku eiga (Japanese soft-core film), Wakamatsu himself has always insisted that his films were something more. Certainly they contain copious amounts of sex and nudity, but this often was a cover for leftist political diatribes decrying Japan’s imperial inclinations, and its subservience to US foreign affairs on Asian politics. Now in his seventies and having produced more than 200 films in his career, Wakamatsu and his uncompromising worldview show no signs of slowing. In addition to his latest epic transgression, United Red Army (2008), The Cinefamily is thrilled to present six of Wakamatsu's other treasures -- some of which have never before screened in America!

United Red Army
(SPECIAL WEDNESDAY SCREENING!)
"Consensus is boring." -- Koji Wakamatsu

For 35 years, director Koji Wakamatsu has been mulling over what happened to the idealism and moral imperative of the far left Japanese student movement that left a rash of dead bodies and unanswered questions, and his latest film is as close to his heart as Schindler's List was for Spielberg. In the unflinchingly violent United Red Army, Wakamatsu dramatizes the self-immolation of the fiercest of Japan's underground paramilitary groups, who, in the early '70s, after internal strife led to the murders of fourteen of its own twenty-nine members, fled to a remote mountain location and instigated a police standoff which lives in infamy to this day. No stranger to radical politics, Wakamatsu not only drew from interviews with surviving URA members, but also from his own street-level experiences with the URA and other subversive organizations at the time -- affiliations which landed him on the U.S. State Department's no-visa blacklist, where he remains to this day. Backed by a searing psych rock score by former Sonic Youth member Jim O'Rourke, United Red Army is a film that doesn’t pretend to have the answers, but is instead an epic dissection of ideology can trump reason.

11/7 @ 7pm / SERIES: koji wakamatsu: sexfilmrevolution
Shinjuku Mad
shown with
Ecstasy of the Angels
With a sensationally violent and squelchy opening that sets up the plot of a father searching for his child’s murderer through the Shinjuku underworld, Shinjuku Mad never lets up its relentless assault as the blood flies, the bodies pile and the suffocating alienation multiplies like H1N1 in a school playground, all while Japanese '70s space rock band Food Brain provides harrowing cuts of fuzzy skronk on the soundtrack. The film was embraced by college students, artists and intellectuals upon its release, for its abrasive style and its honest countercultural insight (hippies and bikers are to be equally mistrusted!) Scripted by Wakamatsu’s partner in crime and leftist political radical, Masao Adachi, this film is purportedly one of Wakamatsu’s personal favorites for its "…vicarious portrait of Swinging Shinjuku in its vibrant heyday, making full use of local landmarks…" One of six(!) films Wakamatsu released in 1970.

Ecstasy of the Angels, a jarring exercise in experimental cinema clothed in pink film trappings, trails a leftist terrorist unit that, after a failed attempt to steal weapons from a US military base, learns that they might have been set up to fail by their parent organization. Dispensing with conventional storytelling, Wakamatsu plunges the viewer into a melange of political dissertations, rough and sweaty sex, explosions and swanky nightclubs. Though it certainly looks and feels like an exploitation picture, Ecstasy clearly has much more on its mind. The infusion of radical politics into the head-spinning assault of nudity and gore makes for a very odd experience, and the rapid shifts in time, film stock (black and white alternating with colour), sound effects, and character affiliations make this a dense, truly rewarding hour and a half. Ecstasy was Wakamatsu's biggest production to date -- a fact that guaranteed that the film was still released even though the government viewed him as an instigator of violence and anarchy.

11/14 @ 7pm / SERIES: koji wakamatsu: sexfilmrevolution
Go, Go Second Time Virgin
shown with
Running In Madness, Dying In Love
An allegory for the end of the hippie movement? For the impotence of youth against the crushing oppression of a chaotic world? Or a cruel reflection of society’s self-destruction during the chaos of the 1960s? It’s up to you to draw your own conclusion, for Go, Go Second Time Virgin's grim teen rebellion has explosive impact that defies conventions. In the film, two psychologically battered teenagers of the opposite sex meet on a desolate urban rooftop and bare their psychic scars to each other. The boy feels a mixture of arousal and anguish when he sees the girl unclothed following a gang rape on the rooftop (in which he was a partial participant) but their relationship becomes far more devastating and perverse than a forced sexual encounter. Though running barely over an hour, Go, Go... packs a tremendous amount of artistry into every scene, as Wakamatsu gives us one of his most visceral and intensely focused works.

Lesser-known but still packing a mad punch, Running In Madness... tells of a student activist who is forced to flee Tokyo with his sister-in-law after he inadvertently shoots his police officer brother at a protest rally. We follow the two as they travel north to their hometown of Hokkaido, across a majestic winter landscape. Shot in a stellar psychedelic style and scripted by frequent collaborator Masao Adachi, the story was influenced by Adachi’s time spent with master director Nagisa Oshima, which led to Adachi's development of a more rigorous, formal approach to his work. Running In Madness is one of the first Japanese films to employ "Landscape Theory" (fukei-ron), a style of storytelling, according to Adachi, in which "all the landscapes one faces in...daily life, even those such as the beautiful sites shown on a postcard, are essentially related to the figure of a ruling power."

11/21 @ 7:30pm / SERIES: koji wakamatsu: sexfilmrevolution
Violated Angels
shown with
Violent Virgin
One of Koji Wakamatsu’s more infamous productions (and inspired by the real-life case of Richard Speck's 1960s student nurse killing spree in Chicago,) Violated Angels is a compact celluloid acid trip into one man’s derangement as he kills a group of nurses and regresses to a child-like state. Acting more as a protest piece than Grand Guignol debauchery -- although it strongly delivers the goods in that department, with shocking deaths filmed in lurid color by Hideo Ito (In The Realm of the Senses), and a bevy of ravaged beauties -- the film draws a strong analogy between the man’s dehumanized actions and the Vietnam War protest movement going on concurrently with its production in 1967. Filmed Corman-style in less than one week in order to seize upon the wave of publicity wafting off of the Speck murders, this melancholy mini-masterpiece plunges the viewer headlong into ice-cold madness.

Easily the most divisive film in this series, Violent Virgin is guaranteed to bewilder, titillate and spark debate in the theater lobby. Shot on a punishingly low budget and tight schedule, the film follows the bizarre ritual of a group of Yakuza and their female companions, who all go to the countryside to punish their boss’s unfaithful mistress and her chinpira (low-level Yakuza) lover. A simple-enough scenario for your average twisted pink film, but Wakamatsu, never one to take the straight and narrow path, grabs the material by its neck and yanks it into a Jodorowsky-esque realm of Christ symbology, dream logic and all-around bat-shit insanity. As well, it's all couched inside another nod to underground political struggles, as the Japanese title, Shojo Geba Geba (reportedly suggested by Nagisa Oshima) refers to the German word "Gewalt", linked specifically to violence from student protestors. Filled with sex and cruelty, as well as Wakamatsu's trademark fantastic eye for black-and-white images, Violent Virgin is one of the headiest and rawest works in all of late '60s Japanese cinema.

More info on the Cinefamily website. See you there!

TOKYO GORE NIGHT! VAMPIRE GIRL VS FRANKENSTEIN GIRL (LA PREMIER) - 10/13/09

2009-10-11T13:14:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

It's been a while, eh?

I've been helping do some Asian Film programming over at the excellent Cinefamily theater here in LA and am happy to announce the LA Premier of Tomomatsu Naoyuki and Nishimura Yoshihiro's light-footed gorefest VAMPIRE GIRL VS FRANKENSTEIN GIRL. If you're reading this blog, then chances are good that you already know about it. But if not, here's the write-up that I did for the Cinefamily's calendar:

After barnstorming and brain-frying the minds of Asian film fanatics all around the world with knife-legged dog women and flesh key wielding "engineers" in 2008's cinematic acid tab Tokyo Gore Police, Japanese SFX-meister and genre director extraordinaire Yoshihiro Nishimura is back with this campier (and bloodier?) gore freakout. Co-directed with Naoyuki Tomomatsu (Stacy) and based on the manga by Shungiku Uchida, Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl tells of two schoolgirls who pine for the love of the same boy. But did we mention that one girl is a vampire with a love for blood filled chocolates, while the other is a woman whose mad scientist father uses possessed and squirming pet screws to turn his daughter into an ass-kicking Frankenstein monster? More gonzo then you can ever imagine, this Japanese splatter film slips and trips across the line of good taste and does what most Hollywood horror films seem incapable of doing nowadays: entertain!

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! Not content to let this film alone melt your mind out of your ears and nose, we went and dug up the rare and totally freaked short films that Nishimura and his band of SFX maniacs have made when they're between jobs -- and we're showing them all! Tokyo Gore Night is like a GWAR concert -- without the bloodstained clothes, and in Japanese!

The fine folks from Eleven Arts (the film's distributors) will be in attendance and the [blood red colored?] booze should be flowing freely.

Looking to next month, we will be giving Sono Sion's excellent LOVE EXPOSURE a proper Los Angeles screening with a special LOVE EXPOSURE event. While the movie did play in LA earlier this year, during the Asian Pacific Film Festival, the screening was poorly advertised and attended. Suffice to say, a film like LOVE EXPOSURE doesn't come along very often and so we're breaking out the big guns to have - what promises to be - one hell of a fun night out that you won't want to miss. I'll post about this screening in the coming weeks.

Ta-ta for now!

Angelinos! FUNKY FORREST Playing Friday June 5th at Midnight!

2009-06-03T14:22:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Katsuhito Ishii's gigantically weird film ナイスの森 (aka FUNKY FORREST) will be playing this Friday, June 5th, at midnight at the Silent Movie theater.

What's to say about the film? Well, it features color coordinated girls DJ-ing gnarled and moss covered trees; prolapsed anuses built into TV-sets; men dressed up as fuzzy animals with, erm... tails coming out of their crotches... Oh and it features Tadanobu Asasno and a fat, chocolate bar eating Caucasian kid as the Guitar Brothers. I dunno... You all should just go and see it. This is one film that is better on the big screen with a crowd (that is potentially high/drunk).

Here's what the Subway Cinema folks wrote about the film when they screened it in NYC back in 2006:

Not since David Lynch slunk onto the scene with ERASERHEAD has a more singular vision broken out of one man's skull and run riot across the silver screen seducing audiences with its sugary strangeness. But FUNKY FOREST: THE FIRST CONTACT is a hermetically sealed, fifth dimensional artifact from Planet Japan beaming out of our eyes and into our universe. The only movie with an A side and a B side this is a full-on invasion of third-dimensional Earthling brains by a twelfth dimensional alien consciousness.

From the director and cast who brought you last year's Audience Award Winner THE TASTE OF TEA, this flick invites you to drink the Kool Aid, take the red pill, show us your dancing and break the chains of reason and logic that bind our brains. Director Katsuhito Ishii (who directed the animation in KILL BILL VOL 1) and a crew of ace comedic actors (including Tadanobu Asano as the laconic Guitar Brother) have made a movie featuring TV's made of giant buttholes, powered by belly button energy and capable of producing miniature sushi chefs. Not everyone can master this frequency. As the Shorty Trio says, "Some days people laugh, some days…they don't." With its shoe obsession, fixation on Snickers bars, and its firm belief that the secrets of the universe can be unlocked by dancing, FUNKY FOREST: THE FIRST CONTACT strips everyday life of meaning, turns mundane tasks into bizarre rituals, and makes surrealist hay out of our most sacred ideals. This is not a movie. This is an invitation to join a dancing army of holy fools and travel through time and space to the super-elastic, thoroughly fantastic Planet of Piko Riko." (Link)

Other stuff I've written about Ishii.

Tsumugi

2009-05-05T17:59:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

This has been taking up all of our time lately...

more at pinkeiga

Aoi Sora.

Wings of Defeat Documentary Airing Tuesday May 5th

2009-04-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

I was the original editor on Risa Morimoto's documentary WINGS OF DEFEAT, about three years ago (back when it was still called "BEYOND THE SUN"). I've written about it here before. Anyway, Risa's documentary is a deeply personal exploration of the history of the Tokkotai (aka. the Japanese 'special attack force' that the Kamikaze pilots were a division of) and the effect that the war had on a generation of young men (both in Japan and in the US).

This is a very, very good documentary and while I'm bummed out that the version that is airing on PBS' [I]ndependent Lens this coming Tuesday, May 5th, is a shortened 52 minute cut, it's absolutely worth your time to watch. And then, if you feel inspired you can hit the PBS website for the film and vote for it if you like it. AND THEN, if you have the spare change, you can buy the full-length feature from the WINGS OF DEFEAT website, where you can also buy the follow up documentary that Risa and Linda Hoaglund made called WINGS OF DEFEAT: ANOTHER JOURNEY. (Not the best title in the world... Perhaps...)

Do try to check out the film. It really is worth your time.

Trailer:

Sono's Love Exposure playing this Monday in LA!

2009-04-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Just stumbled on the news that Sono Sion's 4 hour magnum opus AI NO MUKIDASHI (Love Exposure) will be screening this coming Monday, May 4th, 2009 as part of the Los Angeles Asian Film Festival.

I watched this back in March and have to say that without question it's the best film by Sono Sion that I've seen. Is it flawed? Yeah. But there's something incredible about watching a 4 hour long exploitation film about Catholic guilt, up-skirt photography and revenge.

Those in the loop about current Japanese film (which includes just about everyone who reads my blog, so I'm preaching to the converted) will already know about this. But for those who don't please check out these links for more info. (Japan Times; Jason Gray; Ground Report)

I will end this by saying I did a very interesting interview with Sono Sion for Midnight Eye where we talked at length about the making of Love Exposure as well as his highly anticipated adaptation of the legendary (and totally excellent) history of Black Metal book, LORDS OF CHAOS. Look for that on Midnight Eye in the coming months.

Here's a link to the LA screening.

And here's the trailer:

ps - I've been told that LOVE EXPOSURE, which played at Shibuya's EURO SPACE, was a smash hit and broke all box office records there. Not bad for a 4 hour long movie!

The Real Shaolin Screening This Saturday!

2009-04-28T21:34:00.001-07:00

Hi Blog,

The feature documentary I co-wrote with writer/director Alexander Lee, The Real Shaolin, will be having its US Premier at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (aka. the VC Film Fest) this Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 at 5pm.

Regardless of my involvement in this film, I think that it's an interesting subject matter that is well made and executed. For all of the fans out there of Kung Fu movies and Asian martial arts, in general, this is a different view of the world of martial arts that shows the cold, commercial reality of Shaolin.

If you live in LA, definitely come to the Laemmle's Sunset 5 and see the film. I think you'll like it.

VC Film Festival page.

Previous postings here.

Angelinos! Kurosawa Kiyoshi Coming to LA 3/10!

2009-03-06T15:33:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

Just learned that Kurosawa Kiyoshi will be giving a talk at a Japan Film Festival** symposium next Tuesday, March 10th!

I've met him several times and even had an opportunity to interpret for him and can promise you that it's well worth your time to attend this talk. (Plus, it's free!) Not only is Kurosawa one of the best directors currently working in Japan, he's also very intelligent and articulate with an encyclopedic knowledge of world cinema -- as to be expect from a man who is both a professor and critical film theorist.

Japan Film Festival Symposium co-hosted by JVTA/ UCLA-JABA
Theme: Creating Films for an International Audience

Date: March 10 (Tue)
Time: Open 4:30pm　Start 5:00pm
Place: UCLA Korn Convocation Hall
Admission: Free

Special Guest: Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Japan Film Festival Committee and Japan Visualmedia Translation Academy are proud to present prolific Japanese director; Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Mr. Kurosawa will speak about his experiences as a director and explain how to correlate Japanese culture through film. There will be a Q&A session at the end of this presentation.

Do not miss this exciting event!!

Due to the limited seating, please RSVP to contact@jffla.org with your name and number of attendees.

http://www.jffla.org/event?lang=en

Incidentally, I'm betting that the Japan Film Festival will screen TOKYO SONATA, even though it played at the LA Film Festival last November.

Link to the Midnight Eye interview with Kurosawa Kiyoshi.

Here's the trailer for one of my personal Kurosawa faves, CURE:

** This is the same film festival that I spoke at last year.

Death and the Debt Collectors

2009-03-04T12:16:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

This isn't Japan† related, but I'm posting it because, well, I've been waiting for this day to come for a while now. Today's NY Times has what I felt is a mindbogglingly horrifying article on debt collecting from the recently deceased.

So why am I posting about it? Well, you see, I've long believed that it's only a matter of time before the collection agencies figure out how to enter the afterlife -- FLATLINERS like -- and get their payments* and this article appears to be the first broad step in that direction. The question is, how will they exact the payment? I think it'll be indentured servitude via the afterlife. Something like setting up a database or call a center from the land of the dead or something like that. (The plus side for the corporations is that the undead a) don't get tired and therefore don't need breaks and b) no health care costs or worker's comp claims to contend with.)

Anyway, you can read the article here and be gobsmacked by the total lack of decency and class that the DCM folks are operating under. I was particularly impressed by the three-week sensitivity training course that the operators undergo to better cajole the money out of the bereaved-- who incidentally are under no obligation to pay back the deceased's debt, but are never alerted to this fact.

"New hires at DCM train for three weeks in what the company calls “empathic active listening,” which mixes the comforting air of a funeral director with the nonjudgmental tones of a friend. The new employees learn to use such anger-deflecting phrases as “If I hear you correctly, you’d like...”

“You get to be the person who cares,” the training manager, Autumn Boomgaarden, told a class of four new hires."

What a bunch of vultures.

Try reading the article while listening to Faith No More's classic: 'Surprise! You're Dead!' I've embeded it below.

† Apparently in Japan there is a responsibility to pay debt, but this can be passed on to other (more distant) family members if the appropriate forms are filed with the government. But do you really want to mess with Japanese debt collectors - aka. the Yakuza?

* Incidentally, some people believe that this won't be the case. They feel that in fact credit will be given against your future offspring's indentured servitude. Could be...

That queasy feeling you have in your stomach? It's the bugs.

2009-02-21T16:38:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

People collect bugs in Japan. This isn't the something just for kids-- but in fact adults, with paychecks, buy them in stores or even on Yahoo! Auction.

Look this one here ->

Costs 4100円。

(Here's the auction page if you want to buy it.)

Anyhoo, it appears that sometimes folks also collect bugs to watch them fight. And sometimes they record these fights and post them on the interwubs with pro-wrestling announcements and flying graphics. Like this site: Japanesebugfights.com.

Before you think that this is a free-for-all, apparently there are rules. Three of them. And they are not to be broken. ("Rule 3: No Outside Weapons." !?)

I will freely admit that I couldn't stop watching these videos and that I had the creeps the whole time. That queasy feeling you have in your stomach? It's the bugs.

Here're a couple of the fights. (For some reason, the folks who do this site love fighting with scorpions. I've tried to mix it up a bit.)

Oh! And if you have your own bug fights that you've recorded and want to share with Japan Bug Fights, go for it! There's a submission link on their front page.

Dozo.

Midnight Eye Best of 2008!

2009-02-17T10:51:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

Woah, so I'm like totally, totally, really, unbelievably late in posting this. And I'm sure that most of you fine folks who read this blog have already checked it out so maybe this is totally useless, and yet I'll announce it nonetheless...

The Midnight Eye Best of 2008 list is finally up on-line! As usual, I'm represented there. This is something like year seven for me to contribute to the list and as always, you should keep in mind that this is just one man's opinion. (For better or for worse...)

The one film that I would've totally added to my list if I had seen it in time is Johnnie To's SPARROW. What an amazing film. It's as if LE SAMOURAI were a light-footed musical with some Johnnie To ELECTION tossed in for good measure. Anyway, it'll undoubtedly show up on my best of 2009 list, just as a super advanced head's up.

Here's the link.

Out of the Darkness Now Playing in NYC!

2009-02-17T10:27:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

My film Out of the Darkness has been playing on Monday nights in NYC-- in Elmhurst, Queens specifically-- this month (Feb '09) as part of a screening series called CINEMONDAYS. I know there's only like, ONE more Monday left this month, but if you can swing by the Terraza 7 Train Cafe, you can see it along with some other short films. You know, maybe have a drink there as well.

Terraza 7 Train Café
40-19 Gleane Street
Elmhurst, NY 11373

Info here.

ウララ　ウララ　ウラウララ〜♪ Time for a Yamamoto Linda Hip Thrust

2009-01-23T16:26:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

Ooh la la indeed!!

Getting bogged down here in writing and desperately need a pick me up. Sure a shot of espresso or a some ice cubes down the pants could work, but it's not nearly as satisfying as watching the glorious sequined 1970s bombshell Yamamoto Linda belt out some tunes courtesy of the old YouTube time machine.

Up first, 狙いうち (Nerai-Uchi! - Aim and Fire!):

Up next, どうにもとまらない (Donimo tomaranai! - Can't Stop Myself!):

いいね！If you like her stuff, there's plenty more of it on line. I leave you to find it on your own. (BTW, she's not nearly as interesting now... But that's the way it goes, I suppose...)

Studio 4ºC UPDATE: Genius Party Box Set & Mind Game in Los Angeles

2009-01-22T10:03:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

I'm happy to report to two tasty bite-sized bits of Studio 4ºC news: the mind-blowingly awesome and totally worth your time in every way possible anime MIND GAME will play in Los Angeles this FRIDAY night at midnight. Although it's a digital projection (can't be helped, I suppose) it is Studio 4ºC sanctioned and as such, it should be supported.

Now why should you go and see this? Two reasons really: it is one of the most inspiring films I've seen in a long time -- seriously, you will leave the theater reassessing and reprioritizing your life. Also, you will come to an perspective shifting realization that animation in the west is trapped in some 20th century stasis like a mosquito in amber while Studio 4ºC's animation has been created and broadcast to us like Ranman aliens with higher evolved aesthetics and execution. (Or something.)

Anyhoo, do see the film. It's playing at the Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles. Friday. Midnight. Details here.

Also, I just received an email from a producer at Studio 4ºC and she is happy to announce that the uber-excellent GENIUS PARTY and GENIUS PARTY BEYOND will be released this March in a 3-disc box set in Japan. Although, Midnight Eye has been slow to post our critical picks for 2008, those two films easily made my best of list and if I ever get off of my ass and write it, I have a lot of thoughts to share about those films that I'd like to put in a review.

But, come on Rucka, is GENIUS PARTY really that good? Well, to be frank, since it's an 'omnibus' collection there's the good stuff and the not so good stuff. But what's always so cool about watching a Studio 4ºC release is that when the good stuff works, MAN does it work! As the west trends towards photo-realism and CGI, Studio 4ºC is working on challenging the very form of anime: from experimenting with the use of voice talent all the way to choosing new ways of photographing and animating their cell animation. (Some of it bordering on experimentalism.)

Maybe, eventually, we'll see this kind of fresh thinking out here in the west. But in the meantime, I'm sure it'll show up on the internubs on March 21st with sub par fansubs (although, it could be like the MIND GAME DVD and have excellent subs already on it?) and that'll be the way that the fans will be able to watch it until a proper export edition comes out...

You can buy it through Amazon Japan.

Lots and LOTS of previous posts about MIND GAME and Studio 4ºC here!

Interview that I did with the head of Studio 4ºC, Ms. Eiko Tanaka, here!

あけおめ! / Pink Eiga

2009-01-06T15:38:00.000-08:00

(View of Los Angeles Downtown, Sunrise, 1/1/09)

Hi Blog,

明けましておめでとうございます！今年もよろしくお願いします！

Wishing you all the best in 2009!

Okay, so towards the end of last year I helped the Pink Eiga folks out by doing some writing for them. As such I've had a chance to check out several of their releases and previews of many more and I have to say that these guys are doing good work.

But what I'm worried about is that they're also doing thankless work that no one will buy... It's no secret that the world economy is in the tank [duh!] and add to that the fact that DVD sales are down and you get how tough it is to be a new DVD company on the block.

Now, add to that the fact that Pinku Eiga is relatively unknown genre outside of Japan and is frequently mistaken as Nikkatsu Roman Porno or regular old softcore porn and you start to see the difficulties that Pinku Eiga might be facing. (For a good write up on this all, I humbly defer to my pal Jasper Sharp's excellent new book Behind the Pink Curtain -- or you can check out the preview of it on the Midnighteye website.)**

At any rate, the folks over at Pink Eiga are putting out good stuff. I definitely recommend that you check out their site and, if possible, purchase directly from them since you get both free shipping [yes!!] and a bonus disc [score!!!]. This is good deal for them too, since they stand to earn a few more dollars from the sale by cutting out the middle man.

Anyway, here's an excerpt from the press release, talking about their first releases:

Los Angeles based distributor PINK EIGA Inc. was established in 2008 to promote this unique genre to the international market. Their inaugural titles are: “S&M Hunter” (1986, Dir. Shuji Kataoka) and “New Tokyo Decadence: The Slave” (2007, Dir. Osamu Sato). “S&M Hunter” had its North American premier this year at the popular Fantastic Fest held in Austin, Texas. Greeted with an enthusiastic response, the audience was riveted by this hitherto unknown genre.

“S&M Hunter” is an action fantasy film that references Japanese Manga and Anime. Definitely not politically correct, it tells the story of the S&M Hunter—a man who has the ability to dominate women by using his rope. After a man’s boyfriend is kidnapped by a girl gang called the “Bombers,” he hires the S&M Hunter to track down his missing lover. Certainly an equal opportunity offender, “S&M Hunter” leaves no taboo unturned—or so we think—until we reach the unbelievable conclusion of the film, with the ultimate coup de grace: a rope bondage stunt where a woman is bound and dangled from the end of a 200ft high crane! This ending has become legendary in Japanese film history.

By contrast, PINK EIGA Inc’s other release, “New Tokyo Decadence: The Slave” is a BDSM semi-fictional autobiography of the film’s star: Rinako Hirasawa. Telling of Hirasawa’s journey in discovering her inner-masochist, we’re introduced to a young Rinako as a sexually promiscuous high school student who gets ‘extracurricular’ lessons (in BDSM) from her math teacher. Once graduated and in the working world, Rinako discovers that the boss at her new job wants her as his slave. Falling comfortably into this role, Rinako discovers that this is her raison d’etre. The rest, as they say, is bondage!

Here's a trailer for one of their first releases, S&M HUNTER!

And here's a trailer for NEW TOKYO DECADENCE: THE SLAVE!

You can check out more about the films and their upcoming release slate on their site, pinkeiga.com.

**Incidentally, I'd avoid what's written up on Wikipedia about Pink Eiga-- it's filled with errors.

Oshii Mamoru Directs Stage Version of TetsuJin 28! (In Osaka?!)

2008-12-02T09:40:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

If you're in Osaka in January and have about ¥10,000 to blow, then you should go and see Oshii Mamoru's directed stage adaptation of TETSUJIN 28 (aka. 鉄人２８号). I'd be curious to check this out considering Mamoru is a recluse who prefers the company of drawings and basset hounds to people. (So what's he doing directing real live actors?)

Oh! And can someone tell me what's up with this guy「サンプラザ中野くん」? (aka. Sun Plaza Nakano Kun - Pic right) He looks like a younger, balder Tamori.

Info can be found here.
(Via Kine Japan.)

Kumakiri's Kazuyoshi's new film NON-KO at FILMeX

2008-11-19T20:11:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

Been meaning to post about this for a while and am now just getting around to it. My old friend Kumakiri Kazuyoshi, for whom I did the subtitles for his debut feature KICHIKU DAI ENKAI (for its initial film festival run), has a new film in competition at the upcoming TOKYO FILMeX called NON-KO 36 SAI: KAJI TETSUDAI. (The English title is just: NON-KO)

Although I have yet to see it, it appears that this film is a kind of return to Kumakiri's roots. It's a simple character drama with the cast and crew positions filled out by Kuma's old team. Sakai Maki stars as Bando Nobuko and Ujita Takashi again picks up the scriptwriting reigns with Kumakiri. Kumakiri's old Osaka Geidai pal Akira aka. AKAINU has composed the music and Kimura Toshiki is on for producing duties.

The story is as follows:

Nobuko tried to be successful as an actress in Tokyo (stage name ‘Nonko’), but wasn’t popular. She married her manager and soon divorced. Now a once-divorced woman in her mid-30s, she returns home to the Shinto shrine that her family runs, to help out with domestic chores. Her father is always in a stubborn rage, her mother is always trying to calm things down. However, Nonko’s married sister, who already has a daughter, scathingly says of Nonko, “It’s all over for her.”
There’s no place to run to and no place to belong, just a backwards little country town. The only thing to do is ride her bicycle to her friend’s bar to drink with the owner, another divorcee. She can’t remember the last time she got dressed up or had sex.

Nonko, who is totally lacking in ambition, encounters a young man named Masaru. He has great expectations about selling chicks at the shrine festival. Nonko ends up taking him to the house of Yasukawa, who allots space for festival stalls. Masaru is rather naïve and pitiable, but this earnest and straightforward younger man puts a smile back on her face, and she gradually becomes more emotionally and physically receptive, until her ex-husband, Udagawa, makes his appearance.
Nonko’s heart begins to tremble.

I'm excited to see this as I think that Kumakiri is an immensely talented filmmaker who succumbed to early career success (to some extent). Of just about all of the young directors I encountered, Kumakiri has shown without a doubt some of the best intuitive filmmaking skills. And plus, any director who casts Wakamatsu Koji as Babe Ruth is doing something right.

NON-KO will be playing FILMeX Nov. 24th at 6:30pm and there are English subs, I think.

Here's a clip from the local Yorii news, where NON-KO was shot, talking about the filming of the movie and its recent premier. Kumakiri is, naturally, heavily featured.

And here's the link to the trailer.

There's plenty of more info about the film on the very English friendly website. Something tells me that they're actively courting the international audience...

Obayashi's HAUSU on IFC! (aka. HOUSE)

2008-11-16T09:49:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

Outcast Cinema's Marc Walkow brings word of IFC Channels amazingly cool and yet, totally unexpected, broadcasting of Obayashi Nobuhiko's HAUSU (1977) later this month.

Regular readers of this blog know that HAUSU is one of my favorite films-- and certainly one of my favorite horror films inspired by a seven-year-old's story idea. (That would be the director's daughter.) I've alread written about it here so I won't repeat myself. That said, the plot synopsis on the IFC Channel's website is incorrect. HAUSU isn't a murder mystery. Where'd they get that from?

Here's the trailer again because it's so damn good.

HAUSU is being broadcast Saturday Nov. 22nd at Midnight and 3am on the IFC Channel. (I think that would make it really late Friday night for those who are staying up, right?)

Link to previous postings.

Link to the IFC Channel's Page.

ギャランドゥ - The Gyarando

2008-11-11T14:44:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

One of the running jokes in Japan that I always found funny, but never really got (that's kind of like laughing because everyone else is) is the Gyarando. (aka. ギャランドゥ)

For a country where chest hair is generally a fairly limited prospect there's a joke that a man with a hairy chest has a 'Gyarando.' I never knew where it came from. In fact, I always thought it was a "Gyaran + Do" As in a nice 'hair-do,' that was also known as a 'Gyaran.'

Anyway, I found out some months back that like many slang and jokey expressions in Japanese, this one was rooted in pop culture-- this time it's a 1983 hit pop song by Saijou Hideki (西城秀樹) called, you guessed it: 「ギャランドゥ」. And thanks to the wonderful time travelling scientists over at YouTube, you can watch a video artifact of it right now. On your computer.

Oh! But first, here's a riddle you can ponder while you watch this video: why does Gyarando refer to chest hair in the first place? Apparently, it's because Saijou Hideki is prancing about with a billowing open shirt, proudly showing off his bare chest-- only, he has no chest hair (as far as I can tell). See for yourself:

Next time you're in Japan, you'll never have to pretend that you know what the whole 'Gyarando' joke is all about. Laugh freely. Go on.

Update! The "Pretty Person" has posted this comment and I find it so educational -- especially the 'boomerang' bit -- that I want to include it in the post. Thanks 'Bijindesu!' (Btw, did you find my posting via YouTube?)

"You are only half right. Galando is is not chest hair, it is the hair on the lower belly.
Hideki wwas wearing speedo when he was on some idol swimming competition shows. His lower belly hair showed up above the speedo, looked like the extension of pubic hair. It was embarrassing for girls to mention it directly. So a singer said on her radio talk show to ask guys with Galando to come for some event. That started the word Galando meanig lower belly hair. Galando is a word created by the song lyricist, made up of "Gal and Do"

Also, Speedo is called "boomerang" in Japan because Hideki wore speedo while he was promoting his hit single "boomerang"

Here's the vid, minus the speedo...

or

One more for Late Bloomer: Roger Ebert is a fan?!

2008-11-10T22:08:00.001-08:00

Hi Blog,

Roger Ebert watched Shibata Go's LATE BLOOMER and likes it. Crazy.

"You watch for a while and the movie is tough going. Then it takes hold and you begin identifying with Sumida. He is a bad, bad man. You can sort of understand that."

Link.

Oodles of previous Late Bloomer posts.

Midnighteye review and Shibata Go interview. The first ones in English, btw.

Shogun Assassin! Hannukah, Christmas, or Kwanza - Here's a gift for ya

2008-11-09T15:09:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

Just got my review copy of this 5-film box set in the mail. It comes in a slip case with fold out packaging ala Homevision's legendary BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR AND HUMANITY box set. The set also includes two essays by Monsieur Patrick Macias: "Samurai and Son - The Making of Shogun Assassin" (this is adapted from the original interview published in Macias' "Tokyo Scope" book, I think) and "The Greatest Team in the History of Mass Slaughter - Three Decades of Shogun Assassin."

But you know what's also cool about this? The fact that Animeigo actually put together full liner notes for this set. You remember those? Back in the day Animeigo's LaserDisc liner notes were the best. They served as a primer, a glossary and a history lesson all in one. I've asked them numerous times why this essential tool was no longer being produced. Answer: money. But I've always felt that people would be willing to pay a little more to get something better in the end. It appears that this box set has made it financial worthwhile for them.

The films look good. They sound good. But are these really the original Lone Wolf and Cubs? Short answer: yes and no. (It is Shogun Assassin, I know) The first two are the famous re-edits of LW&C. Three through five are English language dubs of the films that Animeigo did on their own. In fact the box set includes an on-camera interview with the English dub director Scott Houle. So question is: why don't they include the original Japanese audio tracks with English sub options? They clearly have the subtitles from Animeigo's original LW&C LaserDisc release from way back when. What gives?

No clue, but I do know that the Shogun Assassin DVD releases have been a big seller for Animeigo. I guess the old belief is true that Americans don't like subtitles. Still, having the option would've been nice.

As a final recommendation, I would've had Animego contact Tom Mes at Midnighteye since he was commissioned way back when to write a book on LW&C. Alas, the book never came out. I quite liked it and think that this would've been a good opportunity to get some interesting background into the series as a whole. But truth be told, this is the SHOGUN ASSASSIN collection and not LONE WOLF AND CUB collection. I know. I get it. Still, someone should talk to Mr. Mes about that book... I'm just sayin'...

Oh, and one more thing: there's what looks to be an amazing retrospective of Wakayama Tomisaburo and Katsu Shintaro films at Teatoru Shinjuku (テアトル新宿) starting Nov 11th thru Dec 5th. And yes, you can watch the LW&C flicks in their original celluloid glory. Japanese link here.

Der Eisenrost

2008-11-09T14:18:00.001-08:00

Hi Blog,

Back in 1995 when I first went to Japan I found myself in a particularly bad spot. I had no money, I was alone in Tokyo, I knew no one, it was お正月, and I for reasons that are way too complicated to explain here had half of my belongings including my passport and flight ticket stuck over on the other side of the country. In short, I was royally screwed and without a plan.

Now, when you're down and out like this you either roll up into a little ball and give up or you draw power from different sources and fight back. I fought back and drew my power from Japanese film and music. Specifically noise and experimental (industrial) stuff. Things like Tsukamoto Shinya's TETSUO (鉄男) and the music of Ishikawa Chu's (石川忠) band (and Tsukamoto's composer of choice) Der Eisenrost. It was during this trip that I got my hands on my first Der Eisenrost music collection.

Here's quick write-up about the band, that I stole from their website:

"DER EISENROST" are formed back in April 1993 ,And since then, we have been appealing our metal-percussion with heavy rock and punk musical style to audience. In December 1993,Released live and studio mixed CD ;ARMORED WEAPON" from Jpan overseas label..
On December 1995, D.E.R released"TOKYO FIST" on CD. It was soundtracks of SHINYA TSUKAMOTO's films"TOKYO FIST". 2 years after, DVD"TOKYO FIST" D.E.R.'s live video by SHINYA TSUKAMOTO special tracks. Live DVD out in 2005.
We playing many club and musical festival, Some audience said "You are cool and so crazy!" "Your style are only you style!"In Japan, In 1993-1995 D.E.R .played with Esplendor Geometrico,dive(klink). [MIX2000] was famous big festival with 100 over bands in Sapporo Hokkaido.Joined from U.S. U.K.and many country. [Drive to 2000] 10days about 117bands. D.E.R. proud to join in this special program.DER EISENROST's metal percussion instruments are all made by ISHIKAWA. He has made so many instruments from metal scraps such as engine tank of a truck and wheels of motorbikes. At their live performances, the metallic beats generate more speed and tension than "TETSUO" film.

Of course, I would've loved nothing more than to have actually seen them perform live, but alas I wasn't able to. That said, for many years I've enjoyed Ishikawa's soundtrack work for Tsukamoto. Most recently I finally got around to watching Tsukamoto's entry into the omnibus film FEMALE (his entry is called TAMAMUSHI - 玉虫) and while I will review that soon here, it has a score by Ishikawa Chu that is very reminiscent of SNAKE OF JUNE (六月の蛇). This got me thinking about what ever happened to Ishikawa's band Der Eisenrost? I know that he's been working steadily, but is this band kaput?

No, in fact. It turns out that they're alive and well -- they just played a show at the end of Sept. in Osaka (!!) -- and have a recently updated MySpace page along with an (somewhat) English friendly homepage. Nice!

Listening to these old tracks on MySpace, after all of these years it's amazing to think that these guys are still collaborating and are even making commercially successful films together, like NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE 1 & 2 (悪夢探偵). (Don't know whethere ND2 will be successful or not, but you get what I mean.)

Anyway, here are some links to the Der Eisenrost stuff . Enjoy the music. I find that it makes me want to get to work and kick some ass. (Or get to work, kicking ass.)

Der Eisenrost MySpace link.
Homepage link.

From the wonder that is YouTube comes some videos:

New Liner Notes for Ten Nights of Dreams - Out Now!

2008-11-09T13:47:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

Woah, it's been over two months since my last update. That's something like 14 months in dog years. (Or about four generations of house flies.) Anyway, I've been busy working a lot lately and have also had family obligations and so, in the meantime, the fun stuff like doing a Japanese film blog has to take a back seat to the 'grown-up' (read: paying) responsibilities.

That's the reason why I'm only now writing about Cinema Epoch's DVD release of TEN NIGHT OF DREAMS (Nikkatsu Corp.) which came out last month. I've got a new set of liner notes on the disc talking about Soseki Natsume and the historical context of the short story collection from which this film was adapted.

The film itself is a mixed bag with some really strong entries and others that are, well, uneven. That said, one the great things about an 'omnibus' collection is the fact that there's plenty of other entries to watch and enjoy. Don't like what you're seeing? Skip it.

Wanna know my highlights of this collection? (In no particular order...)

Yamashita Nobuhiro's entry # 8 (幻覚的)
Yudai Yamaguchi's entry # 10 (ゲロ的馬鹿に笑いもの)
Suzuki Matsuo's entry # 7 (ファンキ)
and, perhaps, Shimizu Takashi's entry # 3 (不気味)

Keep in mind that this is one man's opinion. But you won't know unless you check it out.

TIFF: The Real Shaolin Screening Times!

2008-09-03T23:54:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Spent yesterday evening working on a new trailer for The Real Shaolin with director Alexander Lee and a professional trailer-editor [fancy!]. Timed for the Toronto International Film Festival, this trailer was one of the last key elements that Alex had to get squared away before jetting off to the fest first thing this morning. This is a brand-spanking-new trailer for the film that I think rocks a lot more than the previous one-- which was done many months ago in a hurry, very late at night by little elves.

The screening schedule at Toronto is as follows:

All screenings at theater AMC Yonge & Dundas 24
Public Screening 1 (AMC 6)
Sun. 9/7 at 3:45pm

Public Screening 2 (AMC 9)
Weds. 9/10 at 9pm

Public Screening 3 (AMC 9)
Sat. 9/13 at 3:15pm

Yonge Dunda's Square Live Kung Fu Demo: Wed 9/10 at 6:30pm

Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend this fest but I look forward to hearing people's thoughts on the film!

Previous blog postings about the film here.

Newly refurbished The Real Shaolin website!

9/5/08: Pecha Kucha Presentation at Royal/T in Los Angeles

2008-08-31T22:43:00.001-07:00

Hi Blog,

Yeesh, this blog is turning into my personal secretary minus the fingers and phone calling skills but as the title of this blog says, I'll be presenting at the next Pecha Kucha night here in Los Angeles. That'd be on this coming Friday, September the 5th at 20:20 O'Clock.

What is Pecha Kucha? Let's reprint what their site sez:

What is Pecha Kucha Night?

Pecha Kucha Night, devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham (Klein Dytham architecture), was conceived in 2003 as a place for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.

But as we all know, give a mike to a designer (especially an architect) and you’ll be trapped for hours. The key to Pecha Kucha Night is its patented system for avoiding this fate. Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each – giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.

Pecha Kucha (which is Japanese for the sound of conversation) has tapped into a demand for a forum in which creative work can be easily and informally shown, without having to rent a gallery or chat up a magazine editor. This is a† demand that seems to be global – as Pecha Kucha Night, without any pushing, has spread virally to over 100 cities across the world. Find a location and join the conversation.

Whelp, I didn't know jack about this whole Pecha Kucha thing until I was asked to participate (or it was firmly suggested that I should) and still have been kind of flying by the seat of my pants on this one but in a last minute desparation as to what the hell I should blab about I've decided to focus on something Japanese film related. (Surprise!) And something from the 60s and 70s! (Double Surprise!!)

Actually there will be some other stuff from more contemporary corridors here, but it seems like a fun thing to do and even though I've just submitted my 20 slides to the curators, I still don't know how or what or どうやって I will put this together. Should be fun though.

At any rate, if you do make it out to the event, please bring soft and spongey foodstuffs to through as they don't hurt as much when you get pelted by them. Thanks and see you there!

Location:
Royal/T
8910 Washington Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232
T 310 559 6300
F 310 559 6633

A Snack to Tide You Over

2008-08-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Busy, busy, busy here! Time for a snack!

Only, Jyagariko (aka. じゃがりこ) is like my most-favoritist snack ever and I can't buy it in the US! But then I find out that Calbee, the manufacturers of this awesome snack, has built a factory in the US. So I decide to write them and find out directly.

Here's what I wrote:

Hi,

Calbee's Jyagariko is pretty much my favorite snack food. Whenever I'm in Japan I buy it or when my in-laws come and visit from Japan I ask them to bring some. Furthermore, every American that I've shared it with thinks it's amazing-- not a single person dislikes it!

So here's a question: why can't I find it in the US? I found it very rarely when I lived in NYC at JAS Mart. But now I live in Los Angeles, so why doesn't Nijiya or Marukai stock it?

Thanks!

Nicholas

You know what I love about Japanese manufacturers? They actually respond to these type of queries. And fast too!

Here's what they told me:

Nicholas,

We often receive inquiries regarding where to buy Calbee products that are produced in Japan. Unfortunately, Calbee America does not import products from Japan and cannot locate where to buy those products.

Please feel free to look at our website, www.calbeeamerica.com, for more information about Calbee America Products, which are produced in Fairfield, CA.

Thank you,

Jillian Ayala
Calbee America, Inc.
2600 Maxwell Way
Fairfield, Ca 94534

Well that was useless.

Anyway, if any of you kind souls can advise me as to where I can buy this bitchin' snack in the US (or on-line) I'd appreciate it. In the meantime, I'm waiting my next shipment from Japan, which should be here in about three weeks from now...

Update! No sooner do I make this snippy post, then I was at the Japanese market yesterday and found two types of Jyagariko (Salad flavor = excellent and Cheese flavor = Okay)! Yay!! Question: Was it my prodding or just dumb coincidence?

New DVD Liner Notes! Yume Ju Ya - Ten Nights of Dreams

2008-08-16T22:47:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

I guess I must've done something right on my TOKYO DECADENCE DVD liner notes because I was asked by Cinema Epoch to do a set of notes for their upcoming YUME JU YA DVD release (aka. TEN NIGHTS OF DREAMS). This is a 10 director/short film omnibus based on Japanese cultural icon Soseki Natsume's collection of short stories (of the same name).

Additionally, if you live in La-La-Land and are curious to check it out, I'll be introducing the film on opening night, next Friday August 22nd (don't know what time-- will have to post about it later), at the Imaginasian Theater here in Los Angeles. I'm still working on it as we speak, but the talk will likely focus on Soseki with some discussion about the directors chosen to participate. Incidentally, I must say that my old pal Yamashita Nobuhiro's entry (Night Eight) is pretty fantastic.

Oh! And rumor has it that someone important from Nikkatsu will be attending. Info here.

Info about Cinema Epoch's DVD release can be found here. (And hey! Cash burning a hole in your wallet? Pre-order it at Amazon here!)

The Real Shaolin

2008-07-29T19:26:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

One of the projects, which I worked on and that I've had to keep mum about for the past year and half, is called THE REAL SHAOLIN. It's a documentary that I co-wrote with the director Alexander Sebastien Lee about Shaolin Kung Fu and the allure/mystic that surrounds it. It's a real labor of love by Lee who spent a lot of time, energy and money over the past four (actually almost 5) years making it. We had a great time working together on it and more importantly a good friendship was forged out of it.

So why do I mention it now? That's because THE REAL SHAOLIN's world premier will be at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival!

Here's Toronto's Press release:

7/29/2008| TIFF Documentaries Explore Worlds Of Youssou Ndour, Valentino, Lebron James, Jimmy Page, Agnès Varda, Eco-Warriors, '68 Rebels, Swingers And More!

Toronto - The Toronto International Film Festival announces 26 documentaries to screen in various programmes as part of TIFF08. One documentary will screen in Mavericks, two will screen as Special Presentations, one as a Masters title, and 22 as part of Real to Reel, showcasing the finest in non-fiction cinema from around the world. Highlights include a look at a fashion master in Valentino: The Last Emperor and a self-portrait of French auteur Agnès Varda in Les Plages d'Agnès. Guitar heroes Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White are profiled in It Might Get Loud. Two films, Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love and Soul Power, explore the musical exchange between Africa and abroad. Three films examine crusading eco-warriors - controversial Canadian activist Paul Watson in At the Edge of the World, authors Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan in Food, Inc. and Native Americans of the Hoopa tribe in Upstream Battle. Two films revisit cases of injustice - from the courtrooms of California in Witch Hunt to a tarnished legacy in Israel in Killing Kasztner. Several films intersect with various sports, including kung fu masters in The Real Shaolin and LeBron James's high school basketball team in More Than a Game. Two films have the backdrop of Ivy League schools in the tumultuous year of 1968, with Tommy Lee Jones playing college football in Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 and student strikers at Columbia University in A Time to Stir. Not to mention the sexual revolution uncovered in American Swing.

"Documentary-making continues to flourish," says Thom Powers, Documentary and Mavericks Programmer. "Every year there are more films that command the big screen. There has been a short-sighted focus on the recent lack of a documentary blockbuster. In the larger picture, more docs are getting funded and released theatrically than ever before."

Now live at tiff08.ca/blogs, the Festival's Doc Blog returns to offer visitors all of the exciting details and comprehensive information surrounding this year's inspired non-fiction films, and will feature contributions from programmers and filmmakers alike. Ticket packages now on sale. Purchase online at tiff08.ca, by phone at 416-968-FILM or 1-877-968-FILM or in person at the Festival Box Office at Manulife Centre, 55 Bloor Street West (main floor, north entrance). Box Office hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday. The 33rd Toronto International Film Festival runs September 4 through 13, 2008.

And here's a link to THE REAL SHAOLIN's webpage. It's kind of slow loading and a bit out of date, but I think that'll be rectified soon. There's more to tell, but I'll save it all for a later date!

I'm very happy about this!!

New DVD Liner Notes! Tokyo Decadence

2008-07-20T16:24:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Haven't had much chance to post on the old blog-o lately and it might continue to be quiet around here for a little while longer. But I wanted to announce that I have a new set of DVD liner notes coming out; this time on Cinema Epoch's August 4th, 2008 release of Murakami Ryu's TOKYO DECADENCE.**

I'm actually really impressed on how fast Cinema Epoch's turnaround was on this release. I turned in my liner notes back at the start of June and I already have my gratis copies. 本当にすげーな！！

Murakami's film is kind of a classic and if you haven't seen it, it's a particularly interesting window into the immediate post-bubble chaos and uncertainty in Tokyo. Oh and to all of those jonesed pervs on Amazon who give the film one or no stars because it isn't very sexy: Ha!

From Cinema Epoch's description:

Long out of print, the cult classic returns to DVD! A timid Japanese college girl, Ai, tries to make ends meet as a S&M bondage girl for hire within a world of wealthy businessmen & lavish Tokyo penthouses. Her quest for true love and happiness contrasts with the dark nighttime in Tokyo, ridden with perverse sex and drugs. From the writer of "Audition.

** Of note, the plot description on Wikipedia for TOKYO DECADENCE is incorrect. Ignore it.

Bone House Asia Presents: LATE BLOOMER

2008-06-24T20:01:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Ijichi-san over at Tidepoint Pictures sends me news of a new DVD label Bone House Asia and Late Bloomer's US release. I wrote about my pal Shibata Go's film Late Bloomer NYC screening before (here) but it's now been confirmed as happening at the Pioneer Theater in NYC from July 25-31st!

So if you're not at the San Diego Comic Con and are in NYC, then don't dally! See the fucking movie! Also, if you're interested in having it play in your area-- and if you are a theater owner/programmer or whatnot-- then contact Ijichi-san via the Tidepoint Pictures website. I know he's still looking for more venues.

The cover for the Late Bloomer DVD is above.

Bumming... WaiWai gone Bye-Bye

2008-06-22T14:47:00.001-07:00

Hi Blog,

Some downer news here. Mainichi Daily news has canned it's brilliant WaiWai column. For those who didn't know about it, you missed out on the goofy dregs of shoddy Japanese tabloid journalism brilliantly translated by Mainichi editor Ryan Connell. Today I shed a tear for unsubstantiated sleaze reporting from Japan in English.... Guess I'll have to settle for this.

Thanks to Japan Probe for the bumming news... (More info available there...)

NYTimes: URA in NYC - Wakamatsu Koji Article

2008-06-21T19:03:00.002-07:00

Hi Blog,

There's an article on Wakamatsu Koji in today's NYTimes. Link here.

Over all a good bit of PR for Wakamatsu-san and his roundly praised film UNITED RED ARMY. However, I have a bit of an issue with author film critic Dennis Lim's line about pinku eiga being something to grow out of.

Snip:

At 72, having outgrown the smut-minded confines of the pink film, he has made his most ambitious work, “United Red Army,” a 190-minute chronicle of the tumultuous rise and self-destructive collapse of the Japanese militant student groups of the 1960s and ’70s...

Okay Mr. Lim, if you say so. As if filmmakers like Wakamatsu or Kurosawa Kiyoshi were slumming and doing these films because they suffered arrested development. Maybe Wakamatsu should've grown up sooner and not at 72?

It's showing as part of the New York Asian Film Festival in conjunction with New York's Japan Society's Japan Cuts '08 festival. (July 6th at 4pm) I have a screener sitting here begging to be watched. I just need 190 minutes to do so...

Midnighteye interview with Wakamatsu here.

New Yorkers! New York Asian Film Festival '08 Starts Today!

2008-06-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog!

The title says it all. Arguably the best Asian film fest in the US -- and there's some bias there since they're my pals running it -- starts today in NYC. Running until the 3rd of July, if you live in NYC or anywhere remotely nearby, I highly recommend you catch some films at the NYAFF.

Full schedule is here.

Good luck Grady, Goran, Brian, Dan and Marc! I hope this year's fest crushes New York like iddy-biddy taxis under Godzilla's feet!

New Liver? One Million for the Visa, $100,000 for the Hospital

2008-06-13T09:31:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Today's LA Times On-line has a new article on the spate of Yakuza who either came or tried to come to LA for liver surgeries. I previously wrote about this brouhaha here, but this article is of interest for these reasons:

Two of the patients donated $100,000 each to UCLA within months of their surgeries, although hospital officials say no preferential treatment was given in exchange for the gifts.

Busuttil [ Note: He's the legendary liver transplant surgeon who performed Yakuza leader Goto's surgery ] did not directly address whether he wrote a letter to the embassy on Inagawa's behalf but said he believes that "individuals seeking a U.S. visa for medical treatment are required to substantiate their application with supporting documentation such as a doctor's letter. If I am asked by a referring doctor to provide such a written medical assessment for a person in dire need of lifesaving medical treatment, I do so."

The U.S. State Department confirmed that it requires such a letter.

Busuttil went on to say: "I believe it is unethical to discriminate among patients on the basis of nonmedical factors. . . . The healthcare professionals in our liver transplant program have saved the lives of nearly 5,000 babies, children and adults from all walks of life, and of varying nationalities and economic status."

Sorry to interrupt but I have to comment here: "5,000 babies, children and adults from all walks of life..." Seriously? So are there Yakuza babies?

The Westwood medical center had developed a reputation among Japanese organized crime figures as the place to go to for transplants, two of the three sources said. Its appeal grew after Tadamasa Goto, whom law enforcement officials identify as a powerful gang leader, received a new liver at UCLA in 2001 and returned to Japan looking healthy and vibrant, they said.

"UCLA became the place," said the lawyer, who specializes in finance and has extensive knowledge of gangs in Japan. "That's how these guys think. One guy does something, the rest of them want to do it."

One stop shopping...

And here's what a former FBI agent that was involved in the visa petitioning process for a Yakuza who wanted to come into the states had to say about his involvement:

"I went to the American Embassy and said, 'This gentleman is trying to get into the United States for surgery. He's willing to make a large donation to the hospital that lets him in. I suspect he has some nefarious connections, and you tell me if you want him to come in or not,' " Revell said.

"They came back and said, 'We are not interested in his coming in, irrespective of the amount of money that he might contribute' " to a hospital or the type of information he was willing to provide.

"Gentleman?" Wow. By the way, I like that he makes a point of mentioning the large potential donation that the Yakuza would make to the hospital -- as if that would sweeten the deal.

More of this brilliance can be read here.

And his family hates him...

2008-06-12T18:32:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Of interest?

Snip:

Guinness certifies Japanese TV host as the world's busiest

AP Photo

TOKYO (AP) -- Flick through a few channels on Japanese TV and Monta Mino is most likely there. And the world's most prolific television presenter, who just broke his own record for the most hours of live television in one week, says he wants to work even more.

Mino, whose real name is Norio Minorikawa, received a Guinness World Record certificate Thursday acknowledging his 22 hours and 15 seconds of live TV broadcasts in April. He broke the previous record - also set by Mino in November 2006 - of 21 hours and 42 minutes.

In counting the hours for the record, Guinness included Mino's appearances on various live shows on several TV channels.

The hyperactive 63-year-old, who claims he only needs four hours of sleep every night, hosts 11 TV programs, including news shows, talk shows, wildlife shows and quiz shows, and appears on television every day of the week except Sunday. But apparently that isn't enough.

"How about a live show on Sunday?" Mino said at Thursday's award-giving ceremony at Nippon Television Network Corp., where he hosts an early morning news program. (link.)

The MACHINE GIRL California Roll!

2008-06-03T22:26:00.000-07:00

MACHINE GIRL
(aka. Kataude Machine Girl)

Dir. Noboru Iguchi

Cast:
Minase Yashiro
Ryôji Okamoto
Kentaro Shimazu
Taro Suwa
Asami
Honoka
Yûya Ishikawa

Year: 2008

Format Viewed: DVD

Hi Blog!

So what can I say? MACHINE GIRL absolutely, positively does not need my review -- nor any review for that matter -- because it is essentially critic proof. Pulled from the same brackish waters as the Rodriguez/Tarantino GRINDHOUSE double feature (replete with Bruce Lee yellow and black jump suit font via Tarantino's pop cultural rejiggering) Noboru Iguchi's MACHINE GIRL is an attempt to be knowingly sleazy and exploitative and in doing so, give the audience what they want: sailor suits, geysers of blood and heaps of shot up people that look like poorly masticated hamburger. But the question you should be asking yourself, if you're a curious soul like me is: exactly who is the audience for this film? Japanese? Non-Japanese?

But before I get into that, let me tell you what the "The One-Armed Machine Girl" is all about.

Ami plays basketball, can do a li'l bit of Karate, and looks good in a sailor outfit. In fact, she's so damn sexy that even her circle of femme friends lust after her. But did you know that Ami also has a high school aged brother named Yu? Fortunately for Ami, Yu doesn't mess up Ami's cuteness by being ugly and together they laugh and shadow box with each other; personifying the best in filial love. But alas, behind that cute smile all is not well in Yu-land because he's a giant puss. Like flies to fecal matter, the bullies are attracted to Yu and want to kick his ass 10 ways from Sunday and this, it turns out, is where the story comes from.

Yu, together with his nerdy friend Takashi, are receiving the rough treatment from a group of high school hoods headed by the spoiled rotten son of the notorious Hattori Hanzo/Yakuza/Ninja/I-don't-quite-know-what-the-fuck-they-are gang. But hold up! There's more to the back story it seems. As it turns out, Ami and Yu have been walking around with a cosmic kick-me sign on them. They've got a vortex of bad luck around them and their brief moments of happiness are in actuality superficial displays masking deep emotional scarring. Taking a page from Lemony Snicket, Ami and Yu's folks are dead having committed suicide after suffering the burden of an erroneous murder rap (never explored, nor explained). (Incidentally, this strikes me as incredibly selfish of their parents but it's good for character motivation so I'll go with it.) At any rate, imagine the pain that Ami suffers when Yu is killed by the evil high school yakuza brat and his evil cohorts! She's inconsolable and revenge becomes her modus operandi.

Alas, cuteness has its limitations and Ami has zero luck tracking down her brother's (and Takashi's) killers. Fortunately, through some luck and cleverly placed deus ex machina, Ami discovers Yu's diary where he'd helpfully scrawled the names of the bullies. Voila! We now have a revenge film. Tracking down these assholes, Ami discovers that it's very much 'nurture' and not 'nature' that has turned these kids into murderous little shits; soon enough Ami is mutilating the various parents too. Cue fights and carnage which all leads to a creative and yet somehow contrived (or is it forced?) gore set-piece that culminates in Yu losing her left arm. But being the hero, Ami doesn't bleed to death and in her stupor she conveniently stumbles into Yu's dead pal Takashi's folk's garage who, in a amusing subversion of audience expectation, turn out to be former bosozoku lovers with a knack for auto mechanics and metal shop. Crafting a gatling gun that can mount on Ami's arm she becomes the titular "Machine Girl" and soon is mowing down dinks by the dozens (or half-dozens), leaving pureed bodies in her wake. (Nerd question: is it really possible to miss that badly when shooting a gatling gun in close quarers?)

A month or so back I wrote a bit about a talk I gave at the Japan Film Festival. In it I argued that Hollywood's remakes Asian horror to look and feel like Japanese horror-- even when the original source material isn't from Japan-- is tantamount to claiming that a California Roll is Japanese food even though it isn't. Further more, this packaging of the films as Japanese-like has fostered an expectation in the audience that is incorrect and as a result is forcing filmmakers to produce more works that are simulacra of what is thought to be Japanese. I called this the California Roll as film because just as California rolls aren't wa-shoku it has become what people in the west consider part of a typical Japanese meal.

Ladies and gentlemen guess what? I think what we have here with MACHINE GIRL is a perfect example of a Japanese crew making a California Roll explicitly for the foreign market. (Or would that be for the domestic market in the US?) MACHINE GIRL's production financing (and I don't know the exact break down here so bear with me here) came in part from Media Blasters (aka. Tokyo Shock) via their Fever Dreams production arm. I would argue that the aim of a film like this as judge by the kind of film it is (low-budget Japanese exploitation), to the elements used (High School girls! Sailor outfits! weapons! Gore!) were all deliberately calculated to maximize the satisfaction of the intended audience and thereby Media Blasters profits.

Don't get me wrong here; this isn't a criticism of good business per se and in fact knowing who your audience is and actually delivering in large part on the promised film is no small feat. MACHINE GIRL does so, I think. I do think that the film needed some nudity in it, because a true exploitation leaves no grimy stone unturned. (Besides, why would you hire an AV starlet like Asami and NOT use some of her goods? That's like hiring, I dunno, Orson Welles and having his keep his mouth shut.)

But as much as I had fun watching this film, there's something incredibly odd about it: it doesn't feel like I'm watching a Japanese exploitation film that has somehow lucked out and gotten a DVD release here in the US. It feels like someone had watched a bunch of gonzo Miike Takashi films and one or two Sono Sion flicks said, "Shit we can do that!" and forked over a 150,000 clams to get it made. To put it another way, it felt as authentic as the Kill Bill did to the Asian films Tarantino was making love to. The key difference here is that MACHINE GIRL has been made in large part by Japanese people. But somehow it still chafes; it doesn't fit right. It feels like a Japanese chef has been hired to prepare food that is thought to be Japanese food, but really isn't.

All in all, I enjoyed the film enough. It vacillates between some smart filmmaking (the high school ninja club attacks!) and some incredibly embarrassing production short-comings (Halloween cobwebs and spiders production design?) but for a silly night out it's all right. But I can't shake the feeling that this film could have been better. How? I think ultimately it should've come down to less Tarantino cliche and more expectation subversion. The school girl thing is cute, I guess, but it's played out. Less California Rolls and more regional fare, please.

Here's, like, a BILLION links to MACHINE GIRL via Twitchfilm.

Liver

2008-05-29T21:16:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Okay tough guy. Here's the deal: You think that being a lowly Yakuza is easy? That even down in the lower-ranks of Chinpira-dom that all of that strong-arming, gani-mata de aruku, smoking, womanizing and boozing is easy? Sure, punch perms and sorikomi fads come and go, but the irezumi is for life. Right?

Well, it turns out that if you live life to the Über-Yakuza fullest-- and don't get off-ed in the process-- you'll start falling apart anyway. But if you've got enough money and are willing to shill some soft tips to the FBI you can stroll on into the US and get that much needed liver transplant to get you right back onto the road of drinkin' and hard livin'. (Diabetes, though is another story since they haven't figured out a surgery for that.)

Got 10 minutes? Read these articles on the UCLA liver transplant service for the needy and sick Yakuza. And for the record, just like Dr. Busuttil, I'm not passing judgement here. I don't do that. I just report what I see without prejudice.

Oh, and if you're still around then definitely read Jake Adelstein's opinion piece from the May 11th Washington Post (pasted at the bottom of this post) where he talks about being a beat journalist for the Yomiuri Shinbun who reported on the Yakuza and how his reporting about said UCLA liver transplants lead to death threats against he and his family.

Omoshiroi...

From the LA Times:

Four Japanese gang figures received livers at UCLA

The recipients included one of Japan's most powerful crime bosses. Some in the medical community worry the revelation will have a chilling effect on organ donations.

By John M. Glionna and Charles Ornstein
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

May 30, 2008

UCLA Medical Center and its most accomplished liver surgeon provided a life-saving transplant to one of Japan's most powerful gang bosses, law enforcement sources told The Times.

In addition, the surgeon performed liver transplants at UCLA on three other men who are now barred from entering the United States because of their criminal records or suspected affiliation with Japanese organized crime groups, said a knowledgeable law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The four surgeries were done between 2000 and 2004 at a time of pronounced organ scarcity. In each of those years, more than 100 patients died awaiting liver transplants in the greater Los Angeles region.

The surgeon in each case was Dr. Ronald W. Busuttil, executive chairman of UCLA's surgery department, according to another person familiar with the matter who also spoke on condition of anonymity. Busuttil is a world-renowned liver surgeon who co-edited a leading text on liver transplantation and is one of the highest-paid employees in the University of California system.

There is no evidence that UCLA or Busuttil knew at the time of the transplants that any of the patients had ties to Japanese gangs, commonly called yakuza. Both said in statements that they do not make moral judgments about patients and treat them based on their medical need.

U.S. transplant rules do not prohibit hospitals from performing transplants on either foreign patients or those with criminal histories.

The most prominent transplant recipient, Tadamasa Goto, had been barred from entering the United States because of his criminal history, several current and former law enforcement officials said. Goto leads a gang called the Goto-gumi that experts describe as vindictive and at times brutal.

The FBI helped Goto obtain a visa to enter the United States in 2001 in exchange for leads on potentially illegal activity in this country by Japanese criminal gangs, said Jim Stern, retired chief of the FBI's Asian criminal enterprise unit in Washington.

Goto got his liver, Stern said, but provided the bureau with little useful information on Japanese gangs.

"I don't think Goto gave the bureau anything of significance," Stern said. Goto "came to the States and got a liver and was laughing back to where he came from. . . . It defies logic."

Although Stern was not involved with the deal, he said he learned the details when he became unit chief in 2004 and continues to be troubled by what happened.

After the transplant, Goto was again barred from reentering the United States, said the first law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and therefore requested anonymity.

But Goto continued to receive medical care from Busuttil in Japan. The doctor traveled there and examined Goto on more than one occasion, said Goto's Tokyo-based lawyer, Yoshiyuki Maki -- and evaluated Goto while he was in custody in 2006.

Busuttil's medical opinion was cited in a successful court petition to have Goto released for medical care at a Tokyo hospital, Maki said.

The Times is not naming the other three transplant recipients in this article because neither they nor their lawyers could be reached.

Several transplant experts and bioethicists contacted by The Times said they were troubled by the transplants, especially because organs are in such short supply in this country. In the year of Goto's surgery, 186 people in the Los Angeles region died waiting for a liver, U.S. transplant statistics show.

Some, but not all, of the experts said a transplant center has an obligation to determine whether a patient would be a worthy custodian of an organ and to protect potential donors' faith in the system.

"If you want to destroy public support for organ donation on the part of Americans, you'd be hard pressed to think of a practice that would be better suited," said Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania.

In a statement, the UCLA Health System said it could not comment on specific cases because of federal patient privacy laws. Generally, it said it complies with all the rules and regulations of the United Network for Organ Sharing, the federal contractor charged with ensuring the safety and fairness of the U.S. transplant system. Last year, UCLA performed more liver transplants than any other U.S. hospital.

"UCLA's processes for evaluating a patient -- both for mental and physical suitability for organ transplants -- are the same regardless of whether the individual is a U.S. citizen or a foreign national," the statement said.

Hospitals and doctors in the United States have the final say on which patients get added to their waiting lists and have the discretion to refuse patients with unhealthy lifestyles that could compromise the transplant's success. Patients may be refused on other grounds as well, including an inability to pay.

At the time of Goto's transplant, liver allocations were made based on both a patient's medical status and waiting time. Since 2002, livers have been allocated to patients based almost entirely on how sick they are.

It is unclear when Goto joined UCLA's waiting list. He had been in the United States two months when he received a new liver. Overall, 34% of the patients added to UCLA's liver waiting list between January 1999 and December 2001 received a new liver within three years of being listed, national transplant statistics show.

Busuttil, a former president of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons who has testified before Congress on who should receive priority for transplants, released his own statement this week. He did not directly address the transplants of the Japanese patients but said in part:

"As a surgeon, it is not my role to pass moral judgment on the patients who seek my care . . . . If one of my patients, domestic or international, were in a situation that could be life-threatening, of course I would do everything in my power to assure that they would receive proper care.

"I consider that to be part of my responsibility and obligation as a physician."

'A serious player'

On May 18, 2001, Tadamasa Goto boarded Japan Airlines Flight 0062 at Narita International Airport, bound for Los Angeles with his son Masato.

Goto, now 65, had hepatitis C and was worried it would develop into cancer, Maki, Goto's lawyer, said in an interview last week in his Tokyo office. Because Japan has an extreme shortage of organ donors, many sick patients feel they need to go abroad to seek treatment.

The FBI did not help Goto arrange his surgery with UCLA but did help him gain entry to this country, Stern said. The agency had long been frustrated by the reluctance of Japanese law enforcement to share information on yakuza members in the United States.

"For American law enforcement, it's been like pulling teeth to get criminal intelligence from Japanese authorities," said David Kaplan, a journalist who co-wrote the book "Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld," published in 2003 by University of California Press.

In his book, Kaplan describes Goto's gang, the Goto-gumi, as an offshoot of the largest Japanese organized crime group, the Yamaguchi-gumi. In an interview, Kaplan said Goto is "a serious player in the yakuza. His gang is known for being particularly ruthless and violent."

A senior member of the group and an affiliated gang member were sentenced to prison for the 1992 slashing of a Japanese director whose film portrayed the yakuza as violent thugs, according to a story in the Japan Times. Goto was not personally implicated in the case.

Goto underwent a successful transplant in July 2001. He received the liver of a young man who died in a traffic accident, Maki said. "Goto is over 60 now, but his liver is young," he said.

Several years after the transplant, in May 2006, Goto was arrested in Japan on suspicion of real estate fraud.

Maki said he and other lawyers worried their client was not well enough to be interrogated. In addition to his liver problem, Goto was suffering from heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes.

The lawyers asked that Goto be released immediately, but authorities rejected the request, Maki said. He said the lawyers asked that Goto be given his medication at precise times, but that did not happen either.

"Goto lost his appetite, had a terrible headache, scratched his arm until it started to get infected, and he was throwing up," Maki said.

Maki used the interview to vent against Japanese prosecutors, saying he believes they were attempting to exploit his client's poor health to obtain a conviction on what Maki considered groundless charges.

He said Busuttil, along with doctors from Tokyo University Hospital and Showa University Hospital in Tokyo, examined Goto in jail and recommended that he be released for outside medical treatment.

On May 24, 2006, some 16 days after he was arrested, the court temporarily released Goto and he entered the hospital.

Goto was acquitted of the charges in March of this year.

"The UCLA doctor [Busuttil] examined Goto during his detention and again one week after he received his not-guilty ruling," Maki said.

The law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Goto's criminal history includes prison time. But Maki said his client's last conviction was three decades ago, for assault, and that his previous convictions were as a youth.

Court records in Japan are kept by prosecutors who generally do not share them with anyone not party to a case.

Jake Adelstein, a former reporter at Japan's largest daily newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun, said he received a tip about the circumstances surrounding Goto's liver transplant in 2005. Within days of making inquiries, however, Adelstein was visited by men who told him: "Erase the story or be erased," he said in an interview.

Adelstein did not pursue the story but mentioned the incident in a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post. He said he would elaborate on it in a forthcoming book.

Dealing with scandals

Word of the surgeries at UCLA comes as the U.S. transplant system is slowly recovering from scandals that forced the closure of three transplant programs in California. In one of those, St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles moved a Saudi national up a liver waiting list, bypassing dozens of others, and then covered it up by falsifying paperwork, officials there have acknowledged.

Overseers of the U.S. transplant system say they are unaware of other cases in which hospitals have provided organs to foreign criminals. But some hospitals, including Stanford University Medical Center, have performed transplants on U.S. prisoners -- often controversial because taxpayers foot the bill.

According to the ethics committee of the United Network for Organ Sharing, "one's status as a prisoner should not preclude them from consideration for a transplant."

The United Network for Organ Sharing encourages transplant programs to give foreign recipients less than 5% of organs from deceased donors each year, but the figure is not a hard-and-fast rule. At one point, in the 1980s, the threshold was 10%, but it was lowered after Congress considered banning transplants for foreign nationals entirely.

Centers that exceed the 5% guideline are asked for an explanation in writing, but none has been sanctioned publicly. In 2001, the year Goto received his transplant, UCLA slightly exceeded the guideline.

Typically, transplant experts say, foreigners cannot receive transplants at U.S. centers unless they are willing to pay the full cost of the procedure out of pocket -- without the substantial discounts given to insurers. Charges for a liver transplant and immediate follow-up care generally exceed $523,000, according to an April report by Milliman Inc., an actuarial firm.

It could not be determined how much UCLA and Busuttil were paid for the Japanese transplants.

Tom Mone, chief executive of OneLegacy, the group responsible for procuring and distributing organs in much of Southern California, said transplants for foreign criminals are "an unfortunate result of a system that's magnanimous to the world."

Mone also said that hospitals do not have the resources to investigate their patients. "The enforcement should be at the borders, not at the hospital," he said.

In recent years, nonresident foreign nationals have accounted for less than 1% of all transplant recipients nationwide, transplant statistics show.

Dr. Mark Fox, associate director of the Oklahoma Bioethics Center, said the UCLA transplants may create pressure to eliminate transplants for foreign nationals entirely, which Fox said he does not support.

"For some people, there are misgivings for transplanting foreign nationals at all. For some people, there are misgivings about transplanting criminals at all," he said. "When you put those two together, it is certainly reasonable to expect that a certain portion of the population would say, 'This is not what I expected when I signed my donor card.' " (link.)

From the Washington Post Opinion Page:

This Mob Is Big in Japan
By Jake Adelstein
Sunday, May 11, 2008; B02
I have spent most of the past 15 years in the dark side of the rising sun. Until three years ago, I was a crime reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest newspaper, and covered a roster of characters that included serial killers who doubled as pet breeders, child pornographers who abducted junior high-school girls, and the John Gotti of Japan.
I came to Japan in 1988 at age 19, spent most of college living in a Zen Buddhist temple, and then became the first U.S. citizen hired as a regular staff writer for a Japanese newspaper in Japanese. If you know anything about Japan, you'll realize how bizarre this is -- a gaijin, or foreigner, covering Japanese cops. When I started the beat in the early 1990s, I knew nothing about the yakuza, a.k.a. the Japanese mafia. But following their prostitution rings and extortion rackets became my life.
Most Americans think of Japan as a law-abiding and peaceful place, as well as our staunch ally, but reporting on the underworld gave me a different perspective. Mobs are legal entities here. Their fan magazines and comic books are sold in convenience stores, and bosses socialize with prime ministers and politicians. And as far as the United States is concerned, Japan may be refueling U.S. warships at sea, but it's not helping us fight our own battles against organized crime -- a realization that led to my biggest scoop.
I loved my job. The cops fighting organized crime are hard-drinking iconoclasts -- many look like their mobster foes, with their black suits and slicked-back hair. They're outsiders in Japanese society, and perhaps because I was an outsider too, we got along well. The yakuza's tribal features are also compelling, like those of an alien life form: the full-body tattoos, missing digits and pseudo-family structure. I became so fascinated that, like someone staring at a wild animal, I got too close and now am worried for my life. But more on that later.
The Japanese National Police Agency (NPA) estimates that the yakuza have almost 80,000 members. The most powerful faction, the Yamaguchi-gumi, is known as "the Wal-Mart of the yakuza" and reportedly has close to 40,000 members. In Tokyo alone, the police have identified more than 800 yakuza front companies: investment and auditing firms, construction companies and pastry shops. The mobsters even set up their own bank in California, according to underworld sources.
Over the last seven years, the yakuza have moved into finance. Japan's Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission has an index of more than 50 listed companies with ties to organized crime. The market is so infested that Osaka Securities Exchange officials decided in March that they would review all listed companies and expel those found to have links with the yakuza. If you think this has nothing to do with the United States, think again. Americans have billions of dollars in the Japanese stock market. So U.S. investors could be funding the Japanese mob.
I once asked a detective from Osaka why, if Japanese law enforcement knows so much about the yakuza, the police don't just take them down. "We don't have a RICO Act," he explained. "We don't have plea-bargaining, a witness-protection program or witness-relocation program. So what we end up doing most of the time is just clipping the branches. . . . If the government would give us the tools, we'd shut them down, but we don't have 'em."
In the good old days, the yakuza made most of their money from sleaze: prostitution, drugs, protection money and child pornography. Kiddie porn is still part of their base income -- and another area where Japan isn't acting like America's friend.
In 1999, my editors assigned me to cover the Tokyo neighborhood that includes Kabukicho, Japan's largest red-light district. Japan had recently outlawed child pornography -- reluctantly, after international pressure left officials no choice. But the ban, which is still in effect, had a major flaw: It criminalized producing and selling child pornography, not owning it. So the big-money industry goes on, unabated. Last month's issue of a widely available porn magazine proclaimed, "Our Cover Girl Is Our Youngest Yet: 14!" Kabukicho remains loaded with the stuff, and teenage sex workers are readily available. I've even seen specialty stores that sell the underwear worn by teenage strippers.
The ban is so weak that investigating yakuza who peddle child pornography is practically impossible. "The United States has referred hundreds of . . . cases to Japanese law enforcement authorities," a U.S. embassy spokesman recently told me. "Without exception, U.S. officials have been told that the Japanese police cannot open an investigation because possession is legal." In 2007, the Internet Hotline Center in Japan identified more than 500 local sites displaying child pornography.
There's talk in Japan of criminalizing simple possession, but some political parties (and publishers, who are raking in millions) oppose the idea. U.S. law enforcement officers want to stop the flow of yakuza-produced child porn into the United States and would support such a law. But they can't even keep the yakuza themselves out of the country. Why? Because the national police refuse to share intelligence. Last year, a former FBI agent told me that, in a decade of conferences, the NPA had turned over the names and birthdates of about 50 yakuza members. "Fifty out of 80,000," he said.
This lack of cooperation was partly responsible for an astonishing deal made with the yakuza, and for the story that changed my life. On May 18, 2001, the FBI arranged for Tadamasa Goto -- a notorious Japanese gang boss, the one that some federal agents call the "John Gotti of Japan" -- to be flown to the United States for a liver transplant.
Goto is alive today because of that operation -- a source of resentment among Japanese law enforcement officials because the FBI organized it without consulting them. From the U.S. point of view, it was a necessary evil. The FBI had long suspected the yakuza of laundering money in the United States, and Japanese and U.S. law enforcement officials confirm that Goto offered to tip them off to Yamaguchi-gumi front companies and mobsters in exchange for the transplant. James Moynihan, then the FBI representative in Tokyo who brokered the deal, still defends the operation. "You can't monitor the activities of the yakuza in the United States if you don't know who they are," he said in 2007. "Goto only gave us a fraction of what he promised, but it was better than nothing."
The suspicions about the Yamaguchi-gumi were confirmed in the fall of 2003, when special agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), whom I've interviewed, tracked down several million dollars deposited in U.S. casino accounts and banks by Susumu Kajiyama, a boss known as "the Emperor of Loan Sharks." The agents said they had not received a lead from the Tokyo police; they got some of the information while looking back at the Goto case.
Unlike their Japanese counterparts, U.S. law enforcement officers are sharing tips with Japan. Officials from both countries confirm that, in November 2003, the Tokyo police used information from ICE and the Nevada Gaming Control Board to seize $2 million dollars in cash from a safe-deposit box in Japan, which was leased to Kajiyama by a firm affiliated with a major Las Vegas casino. According to ICE Special Agent Mike Cox, the Kajiyama saga was probably not an isolated incident. "If we had some more information from the Japan side," he told me last year, "I'm sure we'd find other cases like it."
I'm not entirely objective on the issue of the yakuza in my adopted homeland. Three years ago, Goto got word that I was reporting an article about his liver transplant. A few days later, his underlings obliquely threatened me. Then came a formal meeting. The offer was straightforward. "Erase the story or be erased," one of them said. "Your family too."
I knew enough to take the threat seriously. So I took some advice from a senior Japanese detective, abandoned the scoop and resigned from the Yomiuri Shimbun two months later. But I never forgot the story. I planned to write about it in a book, figuring that, with Goto's poor health, he'd be dead by the time it came out. Otherwise, I planned to clip out the business of his operation at the last minute.
I didn't bargain on the contents leaking out before my book was released, which is what happened last November. Now the FBI and local law enforcement are watching over my family in the States, while the Tokyo police and the NPA look out for me in Japan. I would like to go home, but Goto has a reputation for taking out his target and anyone else in the vicinity.
In early March, in my presence, an FBI agent asked the NPA to provide a list of all the members of Goto's organization so that they could stop them from coming into the country and killing my family. The NPA was reluctant at first, citing "privacy concerns," but after much soul-searching handed over about 50 names. But the Tokyo police file lists more than 900 members. I know this because someone posted the file online in the summer of 2007; a Japanese detective was fired because of the leak.
Of course, I'm a little biased. I don't think it's selfish of me to value the safety of my family more than the personal privacy of crooks. And as a crime reporter, I'm baffled that the Japanese don't share intelligence on the yakuza with the United States.
Then again, perhaps I'm being unreasonable. Maybe some powerful Japanese are simply ashamed of how strong the yakuza have become. And if they're not ashamed, they should be. (link.)

おそいひと - Late Bloomer NYC Theatrical Run in July!

2008-05-28T21:02:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

I initially hinted teasingly-like here in Japanese that Shibata Go's awesome feature film おそいひと (aka. LATE BLOOMER) would be getting some sort of NY theatrical run come the summer. Well I got an email from Iijichi-san over at Tidepoint Pictures and he has informed me that LATE BLOOMER will be (finally!) getting it's long overdue theatrical run this July!

It's a teeney-weenie one week run unfortunately but it'll be playing at the cute and compact Two-Boots Pioneer Theater starting Tuesday, July 25th. Calendar info is here. (But curiously there's no info about the film listed on the site as of yet...)

Anyhoo, I like the Pioneer a lot. It's a cool theater on Avenue A in Manhattan that's attached to a pizza parlor and video rental shop. They always show interesting indie films and, in fact, was where I had my very first screening of my short film OUT OF THE DARKNESS way back when. How's that for trivia?

So! If you live in the NY region and have a taste for crippled serial killers with drinking problems, then have I got a film for you! Includes an uber groovy soundtrack by World's End Girlfriend.

Go see it!

Link to longer post about LATE BLOOMER.

The All Seeing Logboy! A Bonanza of Trailer and Film Info!!!

2008-05-19T18:04:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

The logboy** has forwarded on these tasty (and nutritious!) bits of Japanese movie info and trailers.

Either he doesn't sleep or he already has a bioware port installed in his head and is downloaded Japanese film info 24 hours a day for the good of humanity. If so, I salute you!

KAMISAMA NO PAZURU (aka. God's Puzzle - dir. Miike Takashi) (Miike's tent pole summer film for Toei. What's it about? It looks zany!)

HANSAMU SUITS (aka. Handsome Suits - dir. Tsutomu Hanabusa) (It's like Frankenheimer's SECONDS, but for ugly and dumpy people)

HOMURESU CHUGAKUSEI (aka. Homeless Junior High Student - dir. Furumaya Tomoyuki)(I actually have an interesting connection to this book/project-- but because of a NDA I can't write about it. Anyway, the book was a massive hit, so the film should be too.)

AOI SORA PUNCH! (aka. Punch the Blue Sky - dir. Shibata Go) (I'll write more about this in a couple of days, but this is my good pal Go's long awaited follow up to OSOI HITO aka. Late Bloomer. But before you all freak out, it was a work for hire and as such won't be as transgressive as his other works.) Link to the super short trailer.

JIROCHO SANGOKUSHI (aka. Jirocho the Mighty - dir. Tsugawa Masahiko) (From the director of the humorous and multi-award winning NEZU NO BAN aka. Wakeful Nights comes a comedy that looks like it's once again made for the oyaji set. But wait! Is that Takeuchi Riki in a wig!?) Link to trailer.

And finally, since my fingers are getting cramped from typing up all of this goodness, Kurosawa Kiyoshi's Cannes Film Fest storming and Señor Tom Mes slaying new film, TOKYO SONATA, now has a HP up and running. Word is it's good. Very good. I can't wait to see it. Link. Oh! And check out Jason Gray's copious writings about it here and Tom's review here.

Special thanks to logboy for the always appreciated good info!

** (not his picture)

New York Asian Film Festival '08 Mostly Full Line Up Announced

2008-05-19T13:12:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

My pals in NYC have announced most of their line-up for this year's fest. I'll leave it to the press release I'm pasting below to explain it, but let me just say that this is probably the best Asian Film Festival in the continental US. And when I say Asian, it's all films from Asia -- not to be confused with the New York Asian America Film Fest, which includes Asian American films too.

Anyhoo, I know that every year it's a royal pain for these guys to get it all together. Even though they're in their 7th year, it only seems to get harder for them to get films they want to screen. This has a lot to do with distro companies over-valuing their films and also it just has to do with bias against small film fests. And yes, NYAFF is quite simply small, scrappy and cult. They show awesome films because they have awesome taste. The feeling of going to one of the screenings is much like hanging out at your cool film maniac friends house with the amazing DVD collection; it's like a party and anyone is invited, provided you pay the 8 bucks.

But these guys need your support. They don't get the big funding bucks like other fests. They are dependent on y'all showing up and paying for the flix. So do yourself a favor, catch some of these films. Some I have seen already and know are good, the others are all films that I really want to see. Don't dilly dally! Buy your tix in advance!!

Here's the press release:

SUBWAY CINEMA

presents

THE NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2008!!!

June 20 – July 6, 2008
at the IFC Center (June 20 – July 3)
and Japan Society (July 3 – July 6)

The New York Asian Film Festival is back like a bad dream, ready to cleanse the dirt from your soul with a barrage of sparkling, super-powered movies straight out of Asia. It's a seventeen day orgy of new films from Takashi Miike, Johnnie To, Hur Jin-Ho, Koji Wakamatsu and Shinji Aoyama. Plus, our first-ever documentary (YASUKUNI) and our first movies from Indonesia (KALA) and Vietnam (THE REBEL).

We'll spend the first fourteen days at the IFC Center (323 Sixth Avenue, between 3rd and 4th Streets) and the final four days up at the posh Japan Society (333 East 47th Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenues) where we'll be co-presenting several films as part of their JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Films (which runs from July 2 – July 13).

There are a few more movies to be confirmed, as well as some special guests, but for now here's what's coming. Stills and screeners are available on request.

ACCURACY OF DEATH (Japan, 2008) – sometimes a movie sounds like a bad idea: the Grim Reaper comes to Earth with a talking dog to evaluate the lives of potential dead people. But with Takeshi Kaneshiro playing the Grim Reaper, and set in 1988, 2008 and the near future, this flick turns out to be a light-footed romantic comedy that winds up turbo-charging your sense of optimism. Kaneshiro, a veteran of Wong Kar-wai, Zhang Yimou and John Woo films dominates this flick, and shows exactly what it is that a movie star does to earn those bags of cash. In his hands, every second of this film feels like pure gold.

ADRIFT IN TOKYO (Japan, 2007) - This is a movie about two men walking down the street. Seriously. That's it. But bear with, because isn't CITIZEN KANE just about a guy who owns a sled? A scruffy law school student (Joe Odagiri, the Johnny Depp of Japan) is deep in hock to a thuggish, middle-aged debt collector who offers to forgive what he owes if the kid accompanies him on long walks through Tokyo. What sounds contrived takes about 10 minutes to settle into a loopy, at times hilarious, rhythm as the two stroll through the city trying to figure out how watch repair shops stay in business these days and pondering the plight of the pygmy hippopotamus. After seeing this flick you'll learn the soul-soothing pleasures of walking, and you'll never take the bus again.
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)

ALWAYS 2: SUNSET ON THIRD STREET (Japan, 2007) – one of Japan's biggest hits, ALWAYS: SUNSET ON THIRD STREET rocked the New York Asian Film Festival back in 2006 and now the sequel is back to deliver even more mid-century melodrama about a neighborhood in Tokyo where everyone is struggling to make ends meet and get ahead in post-war Japan. It was a mega-hit in Japan and this time...Godzilla attacks. Seriously. And in case you missed it, we're bringing back the first ALWAYS (winner of 12 Japanese Academy Awards).
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)

ASSEMBLY (China, 2007) – China's second-biggest box office hit of 2007 sets new standards for the dirt-in-your-teeth war film. Taking place during China's Civil War of 1948, it's an epic that boils down to one question: how do veterans deal with the choices they made on the battlefield once the war is over and they've come home? Director Feng Xiaogang is China's biggest hit-maker, and his swordplay epic, THE BANQUET, opened last year's New York Asian Film Festival.

THE BUTCHER (Korea, 2007) – the Korean film industry spent last year falling apart with big, glossy productions bombing at the box office, one after the other. This grotty mash-up of HOSTEL and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE was made completely off the map, shot on video far outside the studio system, by first-time director Kim Jin-Won, and in it he depicts the Korean film industry as a bunch of pigs and rapists shooting snuff films for foreign audiences. The comparison to Korea's OLDBOY-inspired cinema of violence is hard to miss.

DAINIPPONJIN (Japan, 2007) – never has a comedy been this patient in setting up its audience. A mockumentary that starts out as the most boring movie ever made about the most boring man on earth suddenly switches gears when we discover that the government job he's complaining about is one that requires him to grow to enormous size and defend Japan from horrible giant monsters. While wearing purple underwear. Written, directed and starring Hitoshi Matsumoto, Japan's number one comedian, this is the movie CLOVERFIELD should have been, combining the lunacy of WWE smackdown with the insanity of THIS IS SPINAL TAP. Ever wanted to know what happens when giant monsters are in heat? See it here!
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)

DOG IN A SIDECAR (Japan, 2007) – it's easy to slam a coming of age movie because there're just too many of them and they usually follow the exact same set of dramatic beats. But DOG IN A SIDECAR sidesteps that problem and breathes new life into what has become a tired genre. It also marks the comeback film for actress Yuko Takeuchi (THE RING) who won six "Best Actress" awards for this film, playing the lazy, uncouth girlfriend of a single parent. Gentle and unambitious, this is a golden example of the small, well-made film that proves good things come in small packages.

FINE, TOTALLY FINE (Japan, 2007) – a spiritual successor to previous NYAFF hit, THE TASTE OF TEA, this flick is almost impossible to describe. On the surface it charts a lazy love triangle between three losers who are hitting 30 and haven't gone anywhere in life. But that leaves out the ghost, the quest to create the world's best haunted house, how not to open a box of Kleenex, the worst way to sell a porno magazine, the joys of used bookstores and the world's biggest, child-killing chewing gum bubble.
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)

HAPPINESS (Korea, 2007) – Hur Jin-Ho has made his career out of looking at worn-out melodramas from new angles, resulting in some of cinema's most sob-worthy and exquisitely crafted romances like CHRISTMAS IN AUGUST and APRIL SNOW. Here he manages to make a love story between two sick people (he's got cirrhosis of the liver, she's got lung disease) feel like something fresh and tender by playing up the moments that get lost and playing down the big dramatic beats. It's an honest tear-jerker, where you feel like you don't have to sell yourself short in order to have a good cry.

KALA (Indonesia, 2007) – Joko Anwar blew away festival audiences with his hilarious JONJI'S PROMISE, but his follow-up film is not what anyone expected. A dark, alternate history film noir set in a version of Indonesia where everyone dresses like it's still the 1950's and where sudden, hideous violence waits around every corner in a black sedan, this conspiracy thriller slowly tightens its hand around your throat until darkness creeps in on the edge of your vision. A narcoleptic reporter and a gay cop are drawn into a murderous plot to find what's known as The First President's Treasure, while the city around them descends into lawlessness. A massive blockbuster in Indonesia, it's an unsettling, stylish walk into the dark at the end of the street.

KING NARESUAN 1 & 2 (Thailand, 2007) – the number one and number two box office hits of all time from Thailand, these massive epics tell the life story of Thailand's warrior king, Naresuan. Full of sets dripping with gold, political intrigue that makes American politics look straight-forward and some of the biggest, most rousing action scenes you'll ever have the pleasure of sucking through your eyes. Imagine THE KING & I with the musical numbers replaced by herds of stampeding war elephants, six-foot-long rifles and bloodthirsty Amazons.

L: CHANGE THE WORLD (Japan, 2008) – the DEATH NOTE movies were massive hits in Japan (and at last year's NYAFF) and now the latest installment in the series hits screens, courtesy of Hideo Nakata, director of the landmark horror film THE RING. This time out it's L, the teen, goth version of Sherlock Holmes who takes center stage. Slotted into the last 23 days of his life, this flick is a big budget summer blockbuster that sees this hunchbacked, candy-munching genius take on a terrorist cult armed with a flesh-melting virus.

M (Korea, 2007) – Lee Myung-Se has the best set of eyes in all of Korea, resulting in the visual extravagances of his action movie, NOWHERE TO HIDE, and his swordplay flick, DUELIST. Now he's turned those magic orbs on the ghost movie and created the divisive, infuriating, totally unique M, that's the closest you'll ever come to dreaming with your eyes open. A popular junk novelist has just blown his latest deadline but hasn't written a word of his new book because his high school sweetheart has suddenly shown up in town from out of the past. She may be real, or she may be a ghost, or she may be a memory, or there may be no difference between the three. Audiences practically tore the screen down when this deeply personal movie premiered, but when cinema owners tried to yank it out of theaters early, fans took to the streets in protest.

MAD DETECTIVE (Hong Kong, 2007) – Johnnie To reunites with actor Lau Ching-wan after seven years to make this crime flick that's like a high performance engine firing on all cylinders. Lau plays a cop who can see people's souls, fired from the force after sawing off his own ear and giving it to his commanding officer as a gift. Now he's pulled back in to solve a crime committed by another police officer and what unfolds is one of the blackest, darkest, most despairing films you'll ever see. Director Johnnie To is available for email interviews.

MISE EN SCENE SHORT FILM FESTIVAL – Korea's number one festival of short films comes back for a return engagement and this time we picked the shorts ourselves. There's the gruesome tale of a fluffy puppy out for revenge against the owners who abandoned it, a plot by zombies to control the Korean film industry, a gang of chickens who eat the moon, a company where contracts are settled by martial arts and a very strange story about the secret love child of famous British author John Fowles.

THE REBEL (Vietnam, 2007) – an old time Republic serial, pumped up on politics and super-charged with ONG BAK caliber action scenes, THE REBEL is the biggest box office hit ever to come out of Vietnam. Set in the 1920's, it's all about a secret agent for the colonial French government who is tasked with rounding up anti-French rebels and kicking them in the head until they die. Then, one day, he finds that he can't put down his own people anymore and he goes on the run. Wall-to-wall beat-downs, insane Vietnamese martial arts, and thrill-a-minute chases make this an adrenaline-charged, bloodied knuckled ode to Vietnamese freedom. Director Charlie Nguyen is available for phone interviews.

SAD VACATION (Japan, 2007) – Shinji Aoyama (EUREKA, ELI ELI LEMA SABACHTANI) is one of Japan's best kept secrets. This is part three of his unofficial "Kita Kyushu" trilogy which started with his first film, HELPLESS, continued with EUREKA and concludes with SAD VACATION (named after the Johnny Thunders song). No familiarity with the previous films is necessary. Instead, all you need to know is that Tadanobu Asano plays a guy who was abandoned early on by his mother and, after taking in a Chinese orphan left over from a human trafficking job gone wrong, he suddenly comes across her again as an adult. He's determined that vengeance will be his, but he finds out that blood is so much thicker than water it'll drown us all.
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)

SPARROW (Hong Kong, 2008) – on the other end of the spectrum, Johnnie To must have fallen in love before he made SPARROW. This charming flick took three years to make and it's a sparkling, life-affirming film about a gang of pickpockets who cross paths with a mysterious femme fatale. An ode to rapidly-vanishing old Hong Kong, it feels like it's going to burst into song at any minute and contains some of To's most gorgeous, intricate and technically breathtaking set pieces. Watching this movie feels like soaking your soul in a big glass of cool, bubbly champagne for 87 minutes. Johnnie To and the Milkyway Image crew are available for email interviews.

SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO (Japan, 2007) – set to be released theatrically later this summer by First Look, Takashi Miike's English-language spaghetti western combines Shakespeare, YOJIMBO, Sergio Corbucci films and plants that grow tiny fetuses into an unholy car bomb of a movie that explodes in your face, showering the audience with a nutso reimagining of American Westerns. Everything you've ever wanted in a Takashi Miike movie, including Quentin Tarantino hamming his way through a cameo that rivals his appearance on "The Golden Girls" and more, more, more! It's bigger! Louder! Faster! Better!
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)

THIS WORLD OF OURS (Japan, 2007) – one of the most astonishing debuts in recent years, 25-year-old director Ryo Nakajima was a hikikomori (a shut-in) who emerged from his room to make this digital howl of rage. Screening at the Vancouver Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival and winning three prizes at Japan's Pia Film Festival it charts a continuum of anger that has the 9/11 bombings at one end and high school bullying at the other with gang rape, self-mutilation and school massacres in between. Think A CLOCKWORK ORANGE mixed with Shunji Iwai's ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU CHOU and scored to Beethoven.

UNITED RED ARMY (Japan, 2007) – Koji Wakamatsu, Japan's most controversial filmmaker, wraps up 45 years of moviemaking with this 3-hour, insanely researched epic about Japan's United Red Army faction, one of the world's most notorious terrorist groups. Director Wakamatsu is barred from entering the United States due to his political affiliations, but we will be conducting a live, satellite Q&A with him after the screening on July 5, and the screenwriter, Masayuki Kakegawa, will be attending the festival and is available for interviews. Koji Wakamatsu is available for email and phone interviews.
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)

YASUKUNI (China/Japan, 2008) – this documentary about Japan's Yasukuni shrine to its war dead has become a cultural flashpoint in Japan, with several cinema chains refusing to screen it and elected officials calling for a boycott of the film, while right wingers are threatening to fire bomb screenings. A sprawling documentary about the protestors, right wing nationalists, thugs, patriots and misguided Americans who use the Yasukuni shrine as their stage, this documentary pits war against peace and national pride against xenophobic jingoism. The result will make all audiences deeply uncomfortable.
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)

Please direct all press inquiries to Grady Hendrix at this email address or call him at 917-405-7477.

For press inquiries about Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film, please contact Natascha Bodeman at (212) 673-4627 or nbnypublicity@gmail.com

And keep your eyes on www.subwaycinema.com for updates.

JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film (July 2 – 13)
For the second consecutive summer, Japan Society brings a sizable slice of Japan's dynamic contemporary film culture to New York City with the annual JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film, the first and only large-scale annual film festival in North America celebrating the latest films from Japan. Running for 12 days Wednesday, July 2 through Sunday, July 13, 2008 at Japan Society, JAPAN CUTS presents nearly 20 feature films--all U.S. and New York premieres--ranging from blockbusters and animation to documentaries and cutting-edge independents. In addition, special events include collections of short films, family screenings and appearances by leading filmmakers and actors.

To learn more about Japan Society's JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film, July 2-July 13, visit www.japansociety.org.

Link to last year's postings.

Link to the NYAFF site!

Indies Fight Major Logjam (from Variety)

2008-05-15T19:29:00.001-07:00

Hi Blog,

Here's another article that I wanted to post in the last couple of days, but didn't have a chance to. Last Thursday (May 8th) Marc Schilling wrote an interesting article for Variety on the plight of the indie film in Japan. You can either read it below of click to their site. (Link from Ryuganji RSS.)

Snip:

Japan

Indies fight major logjam

By MARK SCHILLING

TOKYO -- Japan is the world's second-largest film market, with a total B.O. in 2007 of $1.98 billion on 163.2 million admissions. Also, the Japanese biz released 407 theatrical titles last year, out of a total of 810. Of these local pics, 29 earned $10 million or more at the B.O., compared with only 22 foreign titles -- 18 released by Hollywood majors -- that hit this mark.
All is not going swimmingly for the Japanese biz, however, particularly for the dozens of small- to mid-sized indie distribs, who must fight tooth and nail for a static number of arthouse screens while trying to scrape out a profit from a slowly shrinking DVD market. (Last year, earnings from sell-through DVDs fell 2.3%, and from DVD rentals 1.4%.)
"About 70 new Japanese features ended up on the shelves last year, unable to find a screen -- there are serious bottlenecks in the film distribution system here," says Hirobumi Doi, prexy of Japan Digital Contents Trust, a leading film fund manager.
The average production cost for Japanese commercial pics is about $3 million to $3.5 million, usually supplied by consortiums consisting of a distributor, TV network, ad agency and other media companies.
"(Producers) can usually raise all the financing they need from these sorts of consortiums -- they don't have to go outside the country," says Takashi Uchiyama, director of Visual Industry Promotion Organization (VIPO), an industry org that promotes Japanese content abroad. "They can also recoup nearly all their money domestically, so they aren't very internationally oriented."
The Japanese government, beginning with the powerful Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) is actively promoting Japanese content abroad. For the 2008 fiscal year the government has appropriated $42.2 million for content-related programs. Of this coin, $6 million is going for pic production and $17 million for the Japan Intl. Contents Festival (CoFesta). An umbrella org launched last year, CoFesta coordinates content-related events held in the fall, with the centerpiece being the Tokyo Intl. Film Festival and the concurrently held TIFFCOM market.
Even so, government support for the biz, including tax and other incentives for foreign producers, is still lacking, Doi admits. "It's hard to see the government doing much more than it is already," he says. "Parliament won't pass the needed legislation."
Private backing for production from local film funds is available, however. Most funds are one-shots, set up for a single pic or project, though some fund outfits such as JDC, which launched in 1998, are in it for the long term and serve a variety of clients. One of the biggest, JDC funds, started in April 2006, plans to raise $46 million for a slate of 20 pics for indie producer and distrib Cinequanon.
Among the pics already produced with the fund is "Hula Girls," a dramedy set in the 1960s about a mining town trying to pull itself out of the economic dumps by starting a hula troupe. Based on a true story, the pic was a hard sell to mainstream media companies, who thought its subject matter too downbeat, but Cinequanon manage to make it with JDC coin -- and the pic scored a solid $14 million at the B.O. in 2006. "We could balance the risk with other films on the fund slate," Doi says. "It's an easy concept for investors to understand."
JAPAN STATS
FILM FINANCE AT A GLANCE
Total film production spend in 2007: N/A
Total B.O. for Japanese pics 2007: $946 million (407 films released)
Top Japanese film: "Hero" ($81.5 million)
INCENTIVES
Japan does not offer financial or tax incentives to foreign producers. Production assistance is available through the 100 members of the Japan Film Promotion Council, an umbrella org for film commissions throughout Japan.
WEB
Japan Film Promotion Council: film-com.jp/en/fc.html
Japan Location Market: j-lm.com
B.O. STATS
Top film: "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," $109 million
Total B.O. in dollars: $1.984 billion
Total number of releases: 810
PICKUPS
"Nim's Island," Kadokawa Pictures
"Running With Arnold," Shochiku
"Rain Fall," Sony Pictures Japan
"The Reader," Showgate
"Mongol," Toei
Read the full article at:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117985323.html

Thanks to the Ryuganji RSS for the link. Check it out if you haven't yet!

愛の奴隷 (Ai no Dorei aka. Slave of Love)

2008-05-15T17:43:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Updating the old blog has become something of a luxury of late but I hope that I can get back to some sort of regular thingy come summer. Thanks for your patience!

So, judging by my Google analytics statistical breakdown of [unique] hits to my blog it seems that the naughty stuff gets the most eyeballs. Well that solves it then, doesn't it? Since I now know what you all like to read I've got to start gearing my postings more towards that, right?

Well, perhaps not but this time around I've got something that y'all might be interested in-- especially if you enjoyed my review of Ike Reiko's album Koukotsu no Seikai (link): a capsule review of Tiliqua Records awesome release of the uber rare and now out of print (unforunately) Mabuki Junko 愛の奴隷 (Ai no Dorei aka. Slave of Love) album.

愛の奴隷 (Ai no Dorei aka. Slave of Love)
Artist: 麻吹淳子 (Mabuki Junko)
Tiliqua Records: TILAR-5010CD
Year Originally Released: 1980

Fitting someplace in between phone sex and those 3D sonic sex journey CDs that came out in the mid 1990s, Ai no Dorei was a cassette only release by Victor Records back in 1980. According to the highly informative liner notes included with Tiliqua's re-release, this album was part of a 'Yoru no Driver' series (that's 'Night Driver' for those who are Nihongo challenged) that was designed as a little aural companionship for those long haul truckers pulling the night shift. (Yes, I'm aware of how loaded with innuendo that last sentence was...)

Born in Oita prefecture, Mabuki Junko was for a short time in the early 1980s a hot hot hot Nikkatsu actress specializing in S&M flicks. Her voluptuous body proved to be such a hit with fans that she recorded but two releases capitalizing on her success: a 7" single and an audio cassette only release.

Being about as naughty and sleazy as an audio cassette can get it "...Victor Records refrained from releasing this historical gem on vinyl, thus confining its existence to gas station and truck-stop cassette racks. " (Link)

So, okay thanks for the history lesson but what's it like? Well Ai no Dorei is basically an audio journey of Mabuki Junko's introduction to and supplication within the world of BDSM. Junko's starts out a naive waif and then upon meeting a man who likes a bit of the old B&D she relinquishes herself to his perverted devices in a noble attempt to satisfy his letch. But Junko is still freaked out by the sleaziness of it all and remains embarrassed and confused through most of the tracks on the album. At one point seeking solace from a female friend who, promptly takes advantage of Junko's sexy naiveté and coerces her into a little girl on girl S&M action.

Through the whole of Ai no Dorei a thin narrative** thread of sexual discovery is weaved that culminates in a 12 minute opus called 花街の母 (Hana Machi no Haha - The Mother of Flower Town). The climax, so to speak, features the perverted man who took Junko's "S&M virginity" and the woman who introduced her to lesbianism in a kind of BDSM tag team that brings Junko to a delirious S&M peak that includes... ah... um... the sounds of a golden shower.

Ahem.

SO! How is the disc? Pretty amazing actually. Chockablock filled with dirty story bits accented by top shelf studio musicianship•• playing traditional Japanese and classic Enka music, the voice acting is unusually convincing without somehow losing it's cheekiness. You get the feeling that this is all a bit of a gag for everyone involved but still it somehow manages to maintain its perversion and, um, sexiness.

Ultimately, I found myself thinking a lot about the sound design/effects/foley work on this album. Who did this? Was it just a job for them or was it exciting? Were they taking the train home from work thinking about how to replicate the sounds of a whip hitting naked flesh?

No question that props have to go out to Mabuki Junko who had the tall order of moaning and groaning through large sections of this album. A professional through and through I can only imagine that the roads in Japan during December 1980 were a dangerous place to drive-- especially at night.

As a final note, Tiliqua records did a great job with this disc. The mastering is great and the quality of the materials production is top notch. Packaged in a cardboard gate-fold sleeve with nice quality paper used for the liner notes it's a release designed for the collector. Johan over at Tiliqua did a great job with this and he's a nice chap, too. For those of you who aren't living in Japan (like me!) I can highly recommend doing mail order with Tiliqua. They ship fast and the disc comes well wrapped. I also recommend checking out their site periodically to find other goodies. Johan promises some real treats in the coming months. I can't wait. (Link.)

Link to audio samples!
Link to Nikkatsu Roman Porno page with info about Mabuki Junko.
Link to a page for Nishimura Shogoro's Dan Oniroku - Bara Jigoku (pic is above left), which was the film that the single Fute Bushi from Ai no Dorei was in timed release with.

** Hey, you're not listening to this for the plot, right?
•• There's a lot more specific information about this contained in the Tiliqua disc liner notes for Ai no Dorei.

Me

2008-05-03T12:34:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Doing a little housekeeping here on the ol' blog-o and wanted to give an update of what I've been up to a bit lately.

First off, I posted about this previously, but this past Tuesday (04/28/08) Synapse Films released Karaoke Terror here in the US. The DVD includes my first [printed] liner notes. Shit or not, I hope people are at the very least reading them. (DVD Talk, among other sites, has a good review of the film and favorably mentions both Christine Yano's notes as well as my own in their reviewage. Read it here.) So, in short, buy the DVD so you can read what I have to say. (C'mon, support the good folks over at Synapse films; they make, like, zilch doing this.)

Next, remember I did that Japan Film Festival symposium back in the beginning of April? It went well, all told, and I hope to have some sort of essay version of my talk up on the blog in the future. That said, don't keep your eyes too peeled as they might dry out... (The reality is, that I don't have much time to write critical theory at the moment... Unfortunately...)

The theme of my talk, if you recall, was how the type of horror known as 'J-Horror' is no longer a type of Japanese film but instead a Hollywood (read: American) creation.

To be clear, I am convinced that J-Horror is Japanese in the way that Benihana is Japanese: they're both simulacrum for the real thing. Here's what I mean: in the same way that Benihana's teppanyaki dinner, which is more about the performance than the traditionality of the food, has become what many people in America believe Japanese food to be for the sake of my talk I called this J-Horror simulacrum a 'California Roll'** for Japanese films. This foodstuff would not (until recently) be found in Japan because it's not Japanese.
And while I recognize that the genesis of the J-Horror aesthetic is something which is found originally in Japan, what we see being remade in Hollywood right now is not Japanese. It's a Hollywood view of Japanese horror. This holds true even when the film is made by Japanese director (and in fact, the argument could be made that the films are better when they're not made by Japanese filmmakers.) Notwithstanding all of this, in the same way that the California Roll has become a dish that people who eat Japanese food expect to eat when they go out here in the US, the J-Horror aesthetic is now what people think of when they go see a Japanese horror movie. And to my mind, that cannot be a good thing of for no other reason than it enforces a culture of stagnation.

You want to hear something funny? The MC for the symposium was Ichise Takashige's assistant here in LA. That's 'Mr. J-Horror,' to you. (Ain't coincidence a bitch?)

Anyway, here are the links to the Japanese articles (Nihongo de!). These are both in PDF format.

Variety Japan pdf.

Nikkan Sun pdf.

(** "The origin of the California roll is somewhat murky, but usually food historians credit Ichiro Mashita, sushi chef at the Tokyo Kaikan in Los Angeles with inventing the roll in the early 1970s. Mashita realized the oily texture of avocado was a perfect substitute for toro. He also eventually made the roll "inside-out", i.e. uramaki, because Americans did not like seeing and chewing the nori on the outside of the roll." Link.)

Angelinos: Kamikaze Documentary "Wings of Defeat" Playing Tomorrow!

2008-05-03T11:05:00.001-07:00

Hi Blog,

Beyond the Sun was the version one name of Risa Morimoto's feature documentary Wings of Defeat. I cut that documentary about two years ago while I was still living in NYC and it was after I'd left NY that the director and producer decided to rethink the project and started over from scratch. Wings of Defeat is that new version and I am now listed in the credits as 'Associate Editor'. The documentary has received overwhelmingly positive reviews around the world and has already enjoyed a 23-city theatrical run in Japan and is now available there on DVD. (I wrote about that previously on this blog.)

I feel that Wings of Defeat -- which focuses on the Tokkotai (special attack forces, of which the Kamikaze pilots were but one iteration) and the reality and duress surrounding the use of suicide attacks during WWII -- is of particular interest given the recent controversy surrounding the Li Ying's Yasukuni documentary. The key difference here is that Wings of Defeat features first person interviews with the actual pilots and victims and is a film about understanding what this war did to the young men in Japan and the US who fought in it. In addition there's an effort by the filmmakers to create a cross cultural understanding between the Japanese and the US as witnessed by their recent US education tours wherein they've brought the US victims of Kamikaze attacks and some surviving Japanese pilots to speak at US high schools. NPR (National Public Radio) covered this the other week, in an interesting piece. (Here.)

At any rate, if you live in Los Angeles you can check Wings of Defeat out tomorrow May 4th, noon, at the Laemmle's Sunset 5 where it is playing as part of the Asian Pacific Film Festival.

Screening info here.

More about the documentary and the high school educational tour that has been created in the US to create greater awareness of the issues discussed in the film, here. (From the Japanese Embassy in the US homepage.)

Edgewood Pictures homepage.

Imdb page.

ANGELINOS! 1960s Nikkatsu Action Series this Weekend!

2008-04-24T11:19:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

This weekend: Fri, Sat & Sun at the Egyptian!

Schedule:

Friday, April 25
7:30 PM GANGSTER VIP & THE VELVET HUSTLERS

Saturday, April 26
7:30 PM MY GUN IS MY PASSPORT & GLASS JOHNNY LOOKS LIKE A BEAST

Sunday, April 27
7:30 PM THE WEIRD LOVEMAKERS & ROUGHNECK

These are rare screenings of rare films and most are not available on DVD anywhere! (Not legally that is...) Live subtitling by Marc Walkow of Outcast Cinema (curator/organizer of this traveling series).

Quite simply, if you love Japanese cinema and are a fan of 'cool' stuff, you need to be there. Are you cool enough? Shishido 'Ace' Jo cool??

The Sky Crawlers Trailer (スカイ・クロラ予告編)

2008-04-24T11:15:00.000-07:00

Nice. Thx Logboy.

Opinion: Yasukuni Doc Should be Leaked onto the Internet

2008-04-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Recently, it seems like every day-- multiple times of day, even-- when I hit my usual news sites and clear out my RSS reader, there are more and more articles about the whirlpool of controversy and bullshit engulfing Li Ying's YASUKUNI documentary.

I have to say, that those conservatives who are handicapping the release of this film and are stifling the very right to free speech and expression in Japan are in violation of the basic freedoms guaranteed under Article 21 of the Japanese consitution:

Article 21.Freedom of assembly and association as well as speech, press and all other forms of expression are guaranteed.
(2) No censorship shall be maintained, nor shall the secrecy of any means of communication be violated. (Link.)

My anger surrounding this has everything to do with my belief that if the pro-censorship nationalists and conservatives win here, then I believe that Japan's constitution, and by proxy, the social freedoms it guarantees will be severely compromised.

But I have a simple solution to this problem. Argo pictures should just eat the loss and leak the film to the Internet-- once the genie's out of the bottle the enemies of this film can stew in it. I say, put it up on YouTube in sections; let people download it via Bittorrent; put it up on iTunes and charge for it! Hell, there's NO need to even do subtitles, let translators around the world do it for you.

The point is, the film can't be resigned to a traditional death and burial at the hands of those who have an agenda antithetical to the will of the country and the people. It's that simple. That's my unsolicited opinion.

Link.
Yet another link.

Yasukuni

2008-04-09T23:03:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

I haven't had any time to write about the documentary YASUKUNI, by Japan based Chinese ex-pat Li Ying, and the controversy that is swarming around it but fortunately people who are much smarter and more articulate than me have!

Because I think this is important, I'm including a link to a great article about the film, that also includes an interview with Li Ying. The link can be found below.

In the meantime, here's what you need to know:

There's a major freedom of speech issue that has developed as a result of this documentary. Nationalists and conservatives both within and outside of the LDP have decried the film as a Chinese campaign to discredit Japan, and by proxy, the Emperor.
At issue: Movie theaters around Japan that had agreed to screen the film have backed out at the last minute citing safety and security issues that might arise out of the inevitable [violent?] protests by Japanese nationalists.
Defenders of the film and those who believe in the constitutional right to free expression claim that it is a well orchestrated campaign by conservative LDP leaders in cahoots with nationalist groups (that act as their strong arms) to stifle diverse and free expression in Japan. Critics claim that it represents an abuse of public arts funds to support what they believe to be essentially anti-Japanese film.
What the real issue is: Freedom of expression in Japan. With recent political trends there are questions about whether basic civil liberties are being compromised -- or destroyed -- in Japan by members of the LDP... Certainly things there have become much more difficult recently for foreign nationals.

At any rate, at the Japan Focus e-journal David McNeill and John Junkerman have assembled a very good article and interview with Li Ying about the documentary YASUKUNI and the issues surrounding it. It is recommended reading. Link.

POUNDING! Yubari Fantastic Film Festival Short Film Winner "A Woman Who is Beating the Earth" is On-line!

2008-04-07T23:35:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Got a missive from Señor Tom Mes -- my friend and editor at Midnighteye central-- telling that the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival jury award winning short "A Woman Who is Beating the Earth" (「大地を叩く女」aka. Daichi o Tataku Onna) can [at the moment] be watched on-line.

あらすじ：

In a meat shop in a half-deserted shopping center, a woman is pounding pork tenderloin, making it just the right thickness for cutlets. Pounding! And pounding! The pounding beat gets faster and louder, and the earth starts to tremble. This is an amusing film, expressing the feelings of a woman with sounds with a completely new style and approach. It is another version of "Carne" by a woman director. The film, ambitiously directed, invokes the instincts of the viewers. It will for certain become a cult hit.

I've been up to my ears in work and family stuff so I haven't had a chance to peep it yet, but I plan to scoop out 21 minutes in the next 24 hours to watch it.

But really guys, how can Isshin Inudo and Tom Mes be wrong?

Watch it here.

Link to Yubari program page with the director Inoue Tsuki's pic and blurb.

Karaoke Terror DVD! (aka. Showa Kayo Daizenshu)

2008-04-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Yesterday I was very happy to receive my copy of Synapse Film's KARAOKE TERROR DVD. (To be released: 4/29/08) For those who missed my posting(s) from waaaaaay back when, this release contains my first official DVD liner notes.

Produced by my pal Marc Walkow, the disc looks good and the packaging is nice. But really, I guess that I'm just stoked to actually have some liner notes that are on paper instead of being put physically on the DVD.

Oh and in other news, I'm still waiting for my copies of the APPLESEED: EX MACHINA DVD! (Released 3/11/08) Not only am I apparently well featured in the DVD featurettes, my wife and I did a bunch of translation and transcription of the interviews for the disc. But, no, apparently that's not enough for Warner Bros. who mysteriously can't be bothered to send me my gratis copy. What gives?

Well, I guess we all know that Synapse is far cooler than WB. And that's the truth, Ruth.

Read my old Midnighteye review for KARAOKE TERROR here.

THIS SATURDAY! Japan Film Festival: Talk and Symposium

2008-04-04T17:14:00.001-07:00

Hi Blog,

As I posted earlier, I will be giving a talk at the Japan Film Festival.

Tomorrow, in fact, Saturday, April 5th.

Additionally, I will be participating in a panel discussion on Japanese films in the US with several filmmakers and commentators. Should be interesting.

As to what I will be talking about, my topic will be a kind of continuation of my J-Horror article and critique that I wrote for Midnighteye back in 2006: "The Death of J-Horror?".

The new piece is tentatively titled: "From J-Horror to J-Horror-wood: As authentic as a California Roll". Basically, I have some new thoughts on J-Horror and how it is being remade in Hollywood (and abroad) and how it fits in the world marketplace.

There's a chance that after this is all said and done, that I will organize my thoughts into an essay and either post it as a follow up on Midnighteye or on these digital pages. But rather than wait around for it, come and hear it straight from the... erm... horses mouth.

Here's the skinny:

UCLA Symposium (presented by JFFLA and UCLA-JABA)
Date & Time: April 5th (Sat)　Entrance opens at 3pm
Start at 3:15pm
Close about 7pm

Venue: 　UCLA Anderson School of Management　Korn Hall, 110 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095

Theme: Japanese Films in the US: Past, Present, and Future

See ya there!

Hotaru no Haka: New Live Action Version in July!?

2008-03-23T16:29:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Thanks to the logging boy for pointing this out to me almost two weeks ago (delay was unavoidable...).

Anyway, the cycle in Japan of remakes (or what I can kindly call the cannibalism of older films) is speeding up. No longer content with remakes of 'old' films by Kurosawa Akira and the like there is now a new version of GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES (火垂るの墓 aka. Hotaru no Haka) that is set for a July 5th, 2008 release.

Question: So is this a remake of the classic Takahata Isao anime from 1988? Or is it a remake of the 2005 live action TV movie made for NTV? Or, wait, am I totally wrong here and this is a page zero reinterpretation of Nosaka Akiyuki's semi-autobiographical 1967 novel?

I am a little bit more than intrigued by this version for the simple reason that while critically praised, HOTARU NO HAKA is not a big money maker because it is incredibly depressing. So the burning question is why are they making this now? Box office be damned?

For those who don't know the story I'll quote the blurb from the old Central Park Media webpage for the 1988 anime:

In the final days of World War II, a devastating firebomb attack on their city of Kobe leaves 14-year-old Seita and his 4-year-old sister Setsuko homeless orphans. The two seek refuge with a distant aunt, but after several disagreements with her, they insist on fending for themselves. But in all the chaos and destruction, can they survive outside the system? (link.)

Short answer no. While this blurb is misleading because it pitches the film as a drama with the hook being whether these children can beat the odds and survive (framed this way, it seems like a heart warming story of triumph and survival) the film is actually an unflinching portrayal of the cost of war via its toll on the innocent. (Incidentally, the fact its anime has no bearing on the power of the story its telling.)

The trailer on the website for the new live action film doesn't tell you much so it's hard to guess what kind of movie this will be. But suffice to say, no matter how they execute this story it's going to be a tear jerker. But rather than sell it as such, the splash page for the new film says: "That immortal work has become a live action film!"

Ah yes, happy stuff indeed. Bring some packets of tissues with you folks.

Link to the site.

Japan Film Festival: Talk and Symposium

2008-03-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Sorry for the radio silence-- or is that blog silence?Anyway, there's a new member of the family now-- and my time has been very happily taken up by her.

Next month, here in LA, there will be a Japanese film festival called appropriately: The Japan Film Festival. I have been asked to participate in the symposium on April 5th entitled: "Japanese Films in the US: Past, Present and Future."

As part of this, I will be giving a 15-20 minute talk about Japanese films in the US (the exact topic of which I am working out at the moment) and then will be participating in a moderated conversation.

From the JFF site:

UCLA Symposium (presented by JFFLA and UCLA-JABA)
Date & Time: April 5th (Sat)　Entrance opens at 3pm
Start at 3:15pm
Close about 7pm

Venue: 　UCLA Anderson School of Management　Korn Hall, 110 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095

Theme: Japanese Films in the US: Past, Present, and Future

The actual Japan Film Festival will run from the 11th to the 17th of April at the newly built Imaginasian Theater here in downtown LA. I wrote about its opening here.

The fest will then continue on from the 18th through the 20th, at the Starplex Cinemas in Irvine. All of this info, along with the list of films playing can be found on their site.

I will add that one of the most exciting films that they're showing, which I plan to catch is Nakajima Ryo's PIA Film Fest award winning feature THIS WORLD OF OURS. Jason Gray was the first person I know of to raise world awareness to this film and considering his high praise, I'm very excited to see it. (Jason Gray's post.)

More info to come...

New Nakashima Tetsuya! Pako and the Magic Picture Book - Home Page On-Line

2008-03-09T23:10:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog,

Some time last year, there was a bit of news about director Nakashima Tetsuya's (KAMIKAZE GIRLS & MEMORIES OF MATSUKO) new flick: PAKO AND THE MAGIC PICTURE BOOK (aka. Pako to Mahou no Ehon パコと魔法の絵本) when the cast was announced (see link here for details). After that the info trail went dry and that was that.

Well, after finally getting around to watching one of the last Nakashima films that I had missed, BEAUTIFUL SUNDAY (aka. ビューティフルサンデー) (capsule review forthcoming perhaps?) I went on-line to check up on PAKO. And guess what? Toho now has a homepage up for it.

Set to come out this fall (2008), there isn't a trailer up on the site yet, but there is a brief story description which makes the film sound alternately wacky and kind of depressing. It goes something like this**:

There's this hospital where lots of strange folks hang around. A young girl named Pako (Ayaka Wilson) becomes a patient there after she and her parents are in a traffic accident and they're killed. Hospitalized with some kind of brain damage (ala Memento?) she's only able to remember things for a day.

As a result (or is it because of this?) she becomes obsessed with a picture book that she likes to look at while sitting on a bench... and some sort of insanity ensues. (I think involving some of the wacky patients at the hospital.)

Because I'm a big fan of Nakashima, I'm looking forward to seeing this. But I'm starting to wonder what is up with all of these cute girls getting beaten up in his movies.

HAPPY GO LUCKY - (1997) - A junior high school girl gets bullied.
BEAUTIFUL SUNDAY - (1998) - A little girl gets bullied.
KAMIKAZE GIRLS - (2004) - Girls getting beat up.
MEMORIES OF MATSUKO - (2006) - Largely about a woman who gets beat up.

I'm half-joking here, because I do think that there is more going on under the hood of these films-- dealing with issues of isolation, emotional scars and the ramifications of sticking with certain decisions-- but there's no denying that there's a trend. (But is it a fetish for him? Inquiring minds want to know!)

Link to the Japanese website.

(**This is a distillation from the Japanese not a direct translation or press release. Any screw ups are mine only. Duh.)

Update to Karaoke Terror DVD Info

2008-03-08T12:15:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

Some activity on my Karaoke Terror post from back in December so I'm putting a link on the front page here for easy access.

Here's a link to the Synapse Films blog posting about the upcoming DVD (release: April 29, 2008).

Kurosawa Akira 100th Anniversary Exhibition in Los Angeles in 2009 or 2010?

2008-03-07T10:17:00.001-08:00

Hi Blog,

Jason Gray wrote last week on his blog about how timed with Kurosawa Akira's 100th anniversary of his birth (1910~2010) the Kurosawa Production Company will be hosting (with other sponsors) film screenings, exhibitions and festivals dedicated to the deceased master director.

Knowing that I live in Los Angeles, Jason Gray forwarded an announcement posted on the Cinema Topics Online that makes mention of the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ® helping host an exhibit on Kurosawa here in Los Angeles. It's not clear when it is set to happen, but considering that the anniversary celebrations are set to run from November 2008 through June 2010, I think we can safely guess that it will occur during this time period.

I also suspect that whatever exhibit is created will probably travel-- but don't quote me on that.

Thanks Jason for the link!

Here's a link to Kurosawa shilling for a whiskey company!

And here's a link to Kurosawa shooting the breeze with a young Beat Takeshi!

Hey New Yorkers! Must see concert tonight!

2008-03-07T09:56:00.001-08:00

Hi Blog,

My pal Charles' totally groovy band end is playing a show tonight at Galapagos in Brooklyn part of an AERO! CCCP label/Wrecking Ball event. He's playing with the brilliant Russian maniacs Messer Chups along with NY breakcore weirdo DenimVenom.

Quite frankly, if you're in NYC you'd be stupid not to go. It's times like this that I wish I was back in NYC. (Wait! That's the second time I've written that this week. First Boris than this. What can I say?)

Uruma Delvi Exhibit Going on at PARCO in Shibuya

2008-03-05T14:19:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

Uruma Delvi (alternately written Uruma Derubi and うるまでるび) have an exhibit going on right now at Parco in Shibuya (6th Floor) until March 14th.

I like these guys a lot. They make stupid cartoons about turds, people making turds, or bugs that bite butts (that conceivably would be ejecting turds if not for the bug). I've written a bunch about these guys before on this site, so you can read more about them here.

Anyhoo, as just mentioned, it seems that inspired by their Butt Biting Bug (おしりかじる虫）hit song and cartoon (done for NHK, see below), there is a two-week exhibition of some Uruma Delvi work at Parco. Curiously, the bane of the Japanese PTA and my favorite, Burutabu-Chan (the poop genie), is missing from this exhibition. What a shame. What a crying shame.

You can watch more here.

HOLY SHIT! New BORIS Single for Upcoming Album: "SMILE"

2008-03-04T16:53:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

One of my favorite bands in the world (at the moment), BORIS, is playing live in NYC this evening at the Knitting Factory. Too bad I no longer live there....

But as a consolation prize, I just stumbled upon their new video for the new single for the new upcoming album (April!), SMILE.

(If only I had checked the Southern Lord blog earlier...)

I love it.

Quick Update: Sound samples are up on DIWPHALANX Records site! (In Japanese.)

Chuhai!

2008-02-24T12:28:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

Yesterday's Japan Times had an interesting column on the cocktail known as "Chuhai" that's well worth a read, if you have an interest in Japanese booze.

Anyone who has gone out on a bender in Japan has inevitably supplemented their bar drinking with a can of this stuff, while they stumble from one location to another. The reason? It's cheap and rather tasty.

Here're some interesting factoids from the article:

The term "Chuhai" is derived from the words Shochu and Highball, with Shochu being a traditional Japanese spirit distilled from any number of ferment-able foodstuffs.
Those can "Chuhai" (pictured above) don't have any Shochu in them; instead the alcohol is Vodka?!
For all of you boozers out there, there's more alcohol per volume in the cans of citrus flavored Chuhai rather than the other soft fruit flavors. The reason? Citrus flavors demand more alcohol to achieve a better taste combination. (Also, the ladies prefer the non-citrus flavors and according to Kirin Breweries, women don't want as much alcohol in their bevies.)
A real "Chuhai"-- made with Shochu that is-- is known as a Ganso (元祖) Chuhai. The article recommends that you go to "...the area in eastern Tokyo along the Keisei train lines..." to try this style of Shochu.

Read on here for more info!

Here's a Chuhai commercial with a guy catching a Frisbee with his teeth:

Coin Locker Babies

2008-02-18T10:14:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

A quick follow up on the Asano Tadanobu post from yesterday here. The long rumored "Coin Locker Babies" film adaptation of the eponymous Murakami Ryu book is now categorized as "in production" on regular IMDB and "unknown" on IMDB-Pro.

Though mentioned at Twitchfilm way back in March 2005, there was no discussion about how this was a pet project of Sean Lennon (?!) who had optioned the book way back when and has cast himself in one of the parts (presumably, one of the twins). The fact that the story revolves around a pop star and his twin and how they're trying to track down and murder the mother who abandoned them in a coin locker as, you guessed it, babies, is very interesting. Perhaps Yoko needs to hire more protection?

Asano is supposedly still attached, but we'll see. Though there is now a larger crew list complete with cinematographer Steve Gainer's credit and Miramax as distributer, I can't verify the film's status on line.

The key question I have is will the film be in English or Japanese? What will Asano speak?

Anyway, file this under wait and see. Here's a blurb from LastFM.com about some Coin Locker Babies teaser that was on the 2006 Sean Lennon "Friendly Fire":

After Grand Royal Records' demise in 2001, Sean signed with Capitol Records, yet no solo material surfaced until early February 2006, when "Dead Meat" was released as the first single from his new album, Friendly Fire. A promotional trailer for the CD/DVD package of Friendly Fire was leaked online in early 2006. The trailer featured scenes from the film version of the album, a DVD of music videos comprised into a film. In actuality, the videos were screen tests for Coin Locker Babies, another project on which Lennon is working, and rather than waste film, he decided to create a cinematic counterpart to his new album. Friendly Fire went on to be released in October, 2006. (link.)

(Sean Lennon - Headlights Music Video: Will Coin Locker Babies look like this?)

Capsule 3: TOKYO ZOMBIE and ELI, ELI, LEMBA SABACHTANI (Two with Asano Tadanobu)

2008-02-17T18:10:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

As to be expected, I've got quite the pile of screeners sitting around here. I keep on hoping to catch up on all of the movies I've picked up or had given to me recently, but it's proving to be more difficult than I ever expected. I remember being at college and almost nightly sitting down in the old film department theater and watching two or three films in a row-- with a couple of Fat Albert or Simpsons cartoons thrown in to boot. In this way I was able to see a bunch of stuff and through this fall in love with Asian cinema.

Anyway, as I've gotten older I've discovered that collecting movies is kind of like trying to bail out water from a sinking ship-- basically hopeless; I've got more movies to see than time to watch. In kind of a cool way this has allowed me to always have stuff lying about that I want to see and an added bonus is that I can watch some films that were all buzz a year or so back when the critical or fan hype has died down; this allows me to enjoy it on its own terms.

So as the subject line for this posting states, I finally got around to watch two very different films starring Asano Tadanobu. Asano is an actor who I quite enjoy but I think that it's not so much his performance that I like as much as his on-screen personality. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I never get totally lost in his performance-- perhaps with the exception of KOROSHIYA ICHI or maybe LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE --but I enjoy watching his stuff and (in a sense) 'hanging out with him.' Speaking of hanging out, I've also been fortunate to have met up with Asano several times and am happy to report that he is a very nice chap, who is both totally mellow and easy to talk to. It should come as no surprise considering his marriage to Japanese pop idol Chara, to learn that his first love is music and acting is more or less something that he views as his job.

TOKYO ZOMBIE (aka. Tokyo Zonbi)
dir. Sato Sakichi

Cast:
Asano Tadanobu
Aikawa Sho
Okuda Erika
Furuta Arata
Matsuoka Hina

103 min.
Format Viewed: Japanese DVD

A couple of weeks ago I wanted to watch a fun piece of action/horror fluff and it seemed like a good time to check out TOKYO ZOMBIE. As most all active Japanese genre fans probably know, this was the long anticipated feature debut from bizarro genre scribe Sato Sakichi. (Who coincidentally has a cameo in the Asano starrer LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE as well as much more prominent gag appearance in Quentin Tarantino's genre milk-shake KILL BILL: VOL. 1).

Designed to be a kind of irreverent... I don't know what, TOKYO ZOMBIE is from its opening shots a silly movie. I knew from the DVD cover that this film was going to go for the obvious gags over the harder earned ones, by putting stars Asano Tadanobu and Aikawa Sho in goofy wigs (afro and bald ones respectively). The world they operate in is a kind of manga influenced one with production design tending towards digital mattes and cgi shading while the story is a half-baked mess of bro-love expressed via jujitsu pins and random verbal associations. (Does this makes sense? Nope, neither does the film.)

The plot goes something like this: Fujio (Tadanobu Asano) and Mitsuo (Sho Aikawa) are two garbage men (?) who get wrapped up in a zombie apocalypse when they deposit the corpse of their loud mouthed boss, whom Fujio murdered, at a mount of black dirt called Kuro Fuji-san, which we learn in an opening preface is a blackened trash pile version of Mt. Fuji, which has become a repository for all of the Japanese society's waste. When the chemicals from all of the trash mingle together they cause the buried dead (presumably ditched there because if it's good enough for your old refrigerator, it's good enough for a person) at Kuro Fuji-san to reanimate as Zombies and the rest is.... You get it.

What struck me as odd in this film is that given Sato's day job as a screenwriter you'd think he'd place more emphasis on actual storytelling and less on gimmickry. Sure, hiring Aikawa and Asano, two veteran actors, seems like a sure thing. Especially since they're both so watchable. But, like a Saturday Night Live skit that starts out less than funny and soon loses its welcome, Sato tries to run this one for 100 minutes filling it out with dumb gag after dumb gag with trying results.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't looking for serious art here, nor was I expecting top genre filmmaking (possibly because I don't think Sato is capable of delivering this type of storytelling). But while technically it was fine direct to video work, I ultimately felt that there just wasn't any there there. Specifically, the humor was thin through out and all other creative choices I felt I had seen someplace else before.

In the end, TOKYO ZOMBIE was a film that I really wanted to like, but the story and filmmaking kept me from that goal. Quite simply I was bored by it.

ELI, ELI, LEMBA SABACHTANI

Dir. Aoyama Shinji
Cast:
Asano Tadanobu
Miyazaki Aoi
Okada Mariko
Nakahara Masaya
TsuTsui Yasutaka
Toda Masahiro

107 min.
Format Viewed: Japanese DVD

Looking for something else to watch to clean TOKYO ZOMBIE out of my head, I figured it was high time I checked out Aoyama Shinji's ELI, ELI, LEMBA SABACHTANI; another Asano starrer and one that I had heard so many mixed things about. But first an admission:

As is the case with a lot of Japanophiles, I've been a noise [music] fan for many years. My taste has never been exclusively Japanese noise oriented, but one of the reasons why I certainly chose to live in Osaka was because of two bars: BEARS and BAR NOISE (that and the Boredoms were from there...). Alas, BAR NOISE had closed down a month or so before I moved to Osaka, but BEARS was (and still is?) in existence.

Being a noise fan in Japan during the late 1990s allowed me to see a lot of the Japanese noise bands play live: Merzbow, Massona, Incapacitants, Hasegawa Hiroshi formerly of C.C.C.C., Aube (a personal favorite), Violent Onsen Geisha (see below) etc. It's something that I still remember fondly and wish I could go and do again.

Noise is something that is meant to be experienced. Seeing noise live is radically different from hearing recordings of it. Similarly, seeing it live is radically different than prying a 10" vinyl from a 3 lb. block of plaster with power cables embedded in it. What noise is, as a simple definition, is art that demands an interaction from all who are experiencing it. What happens to you while you are experiencing it is a uniquely personal thing and while on the one hand it can be panic inducing it can also be trance forming. The mind often times tries to find a pattern or some sort of musicality to hang on to to form a kind of safe place from which to experience the noise.

Not to go on a tangent here, but this is one of the things that industrial noise legends Einsturzende Neubauten recognized and experimented with on their epic "Headcleaner"(* see bottom) track from the awesome 1993 album, Tabula Rasa. In part one: Zentrifuge / Stabs / Rotlichtachse / Propaganda / Aufmarsch the music is a discordant banging machine that crushes your cochlea and challenges your patience. With part two, Einhorn, you've got two piercing A notes, in discrete stereo channels that borders on being agonizing to listen to. It's not that the A note is so discordant, it's that they're off just enough and the note holds just long enough, to worm its way into the lizard part of your brain and make you panic. But it's when the concluding part three comes in, Marschlied, it's basically the same as part one, but it sounds totally different and almost calming. What was once agonizing to listen to is now pleasurable, and yes, you feel cleansed: head cleaned, if you will.

This is clearly what Aoyama Shinji was gunning for with ELI, ELI, LEMBA SABACHTANI, a kind of loose sci-fi flick set in a near future (2015) where an epidemic of suicide has nearly devastated the human race (or at least the Japanese countryside). Typical for Aoyama and something I like that is counter to Hollywood filmmaking is the resistance to and therefore lack of explanation about key information: what caused the disease and how is it transfered? No clue. For the story that Aoyama is trying to tell, it's of little importance. What he's more interested in is setting the mood of a wasteland where human life has virtually disappeared and only artistic expression offers a solution or solace to humanity's woes. The art in this movie is noise music and it is found to have a therapeutic quality that forestalls, but does not eradicate, suicidal behavior.

Asano Tadanobu and real life noise musician** (and award winning author) Nakahara Masaya play Mizui and Asahara respectively, two friends who are the most famous musicians in the world for their noise band Steppen Fetchit. Their brand of noise is a kind of guitar and location recording collage thing that finds them living out in the rural wastelands of Japan scavenging for parts to be used in their next noise performance. Old fans, rubber tubing and other sorts of brickabrack are put to use in their recording studio where they spend time making 5.1 surround sound noise. When Mizui and Asahara are approached by an aging politician and his detective friend to cure the politician's suicidal granddaughter, Hana (Miyazaki Aoi), they won't do it. For some reason this blatant exploitation of their art as a cure-all turns Mizui and Asahara off. But when it is revealed that Asahara also suffers from the suicidal bug and he, in fact, makes this artful noise to help himself, it turns out that Asahara is in a much more fragile stage than originally thought. The events that follow lead to the centerpiece of the movie-- and from all signals appears to be Aoyama Shinji's aim in making this film, in the first place -- the giant noise performance.

I'll be blunt about this film: it doesn't work as a whole. But the photography by veteran and genius DP Tamura Masaki (Lady Snowblood!) is first rate and the super scope aspect ratio of the film is fantastic. (If you're a fan of Tamura's work, and if you haven't seen it, check out one of the other Aoyama collaborations, the vastly superior: EUREKA). While I did enjoy the noise enough-- and let me tell you, it gives your surround sound system a nipple stimulating work out! -- the story and performance in the film is somehow lacking. I was never entirely sure of what Aoyama was after in so far as what he wanted to make me (as the audience) feel. In fact, the movie feels like more of a vanity project for Asano Tadanobu's noise music. (Check out Peace Pill for more on that.) As such, the film could have dispelled with story al together and just had two dudes hanging out in the countryside in a post apocalyptic wasteland making noise. Make the film basically dialog free and you'd be doing better. But as it stands ELI, ELI doesn't quite do it as a film.

These critiques on their own aren't to say that the film should be missed-- quite the contrary in fact. I would have loved to have seen this film in the theater and my lasting regret was that I didn't do so when I was in Japan during it's theatrical run. The experiential quality of the movie is worth a 107 minutes of your time. But the best I can recommend is have a drink (or a smoke, if you like), relax, turn off the lights and turn up the movie. Fall into the experience, but just don't expect much more than a pretty good noise performance-- but sometimes that's enough, I think.

(** Nakahara Masaya is the man behind the legendary noise project Violent Onsen Geisha.)

(* Headcleaner Live)

RIP: HD DVD (2006~2008)

2008-02-16T11:58:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

News from the wire is that Toshiba is ending its HD DVD business:

NHK said Toshiba would suffer losses running to tens of billions of yen (hundreds of millions of dollars) to scrap production of HD DVD players and recorders and other steps to withdraw from the business. (NYTimes Link)

A while back I wrote about how Blu-ray was becoming the format of choice for Japanese AV (porn) companies. My commentary was that although they weren't actively supporting this, SONY had chosen not to limit access to the Blu-ray compressors and pressing machines abroad -- nor what they were being used for. (They only had issues with Blu-ray AV discs being made within Japan.)

As a result, it seemed that this time Sony had decided at least in action, if not in words, to not fall victim a second time to the simple 'no porn' tactical error that sank Betamax in old the VHS/Beta format wars. In that same piece, I also noted that conversely, that US porn industry had embraced the HD DVD format because it was comparably cheaper to manufacture.

Well, it seems that porn didn't define the current war -- no surprise there, considering the over-abundance available for free online. But that fact combined with the news from earlier this week that key big box store chains in the US would support Blu-ray exclusively it seemed clear to Toshiba that the gig was up.

Toshiba has been rather circumspect about the whole ordeal considering the enormous losses it has sustained. They had this to say:

"Marketing was a weak point for Toshiba. We learned a lot from HD DVD. Strengthening marketing will continue to be an issue for us going forward," the source said. (NYTimes Link)

Really? I wonder how many people will be fired as a result of this... It'll be dark days around Toshiba corporate, I would imagine.

As for me, I'm collecting more Laserdiscs than DVDs at this point. From a cost standpoint, you can't beat it. And quite frankly, I'm waiting to see what the next format will be.

RIP: 市川崑 (Ichikawa Kon) ~ 1915-2008

2008-02-13T23:13:00.001-08:00

Kon Ichikawa and Leni Riefenstahl (photo link)

We're starting to run out of legendary Japanese directors...

Angelinos! Nikkatsu New Action Series Coming at the End of April!

2008-02-12T10:24:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

On his Outcast Cinema blog my pal Marc Walkow has posted more dates for his curated Nikkatsu New Action Film Series. And while I recognize that there are other places outside of Los Angeles, I only care about what's happening here. (So there!) But if ya want further info, go to his site-- chances are pretty good it's coming somewhere near you. And if it isn't you can contact him about trying to make it come where you live.

In the meantime, I'm in the middle of writing a piece on Nikkatsu New Action films for Midnighteye. I was hoping to be done with it last week, but it keeps growing. And growING!

April 25-27

American Cinematheque at the Egyptian - Los Angeles, CA Nikkatsu comes to one of the best cinemas in America with Gangster VIP, A Colt is My Passport, The Velvet Hustler, Glass Johnny, Roughneck, and The Warped Ones

Miyake Tomoko: Beautiful chicks eat a lot too, you know...

2008-02-11T23:50:00.000-08:00

Hi Blog,

Well, this is old hat for those who are on top of things, but my life is quickly spiraling out of control and I have no excuses any more.

But one look at my tracker statistics and I see that a lot of people are still interested in champion hot dog gourmand and general food hoover Kobayashi Takeru. I don't get it, people. Why are you so interested in a people who eat like ducks for 12 minutes just to see how much they can stuff in their guts without retching or exploding?

Anyway, always being one who is willing shill to the masses, here's a tidbit via the excellent Japanprobe blog reporting on super food chomper Miss Miyake Tomoko. A groovy looking lass who is apparently at least one-third robot with hollow legs who can inhale food stuffs with the best of the competitive eating pros. (Oh! And did I mention that she's a looker?)

Here she is eating a fucking HUGE bowl of Ramen in a half hour or so!

And here she is eating a 3.3 kg (7.27525465 pounds) Okonomiyaki in just under 19 minutes!

You know, I love how they call her a 「食イドル」-- an 'eating Idol'.... What a thing to be famous for! She'll be known everywhere as an expensive date.

Anyway, there's a bunch more clips of her eating all sorts of foodstuffs up on-line. (And I just read that she was in NYC on Feb. 1st doing some eating and filming there. Somebody hide the big apple........... Sorry about that....)

Here's a link to Tomoko's blog.

Link to previous Kobayashi Takeru postings.

Link to Japanprobe.

５月〜７月：米国へ「おそいひと」の上映可能性が高い。。。

2008-02-11T23:38:00.001-08:00

続報を楽しみに！

Maboroshii Productions

LA Eiga Fest! (Nov. 11-13)

T IS FOR TRANNY

Shinya Tsukamoto Panel at the Tribeca Film Festival

Bitchin' Wakamatsu Koji Series this Month!

TOKYO GORE NIGHT! VAMPIRE GIRL VS FRANKENSTEIN GIRL (LA PREMIER) - 10/13/09

Angelinos! FUNKY FORREST Playing Friday June 5th at Midnight!

Tsumugi

Wings of Defeat Documentary Airing Tuesday May 5th

Sono's Love Exposure playing this Monday in LA!

The Real Shaolin Screening This Saturday!

Angelinos! Kurosawa Kiyoshi Coming to LA 3/10!

Death and the Debt Collectors

That queasy feeling you have in your stomach? It's the bugs.

Midnight Eye Best of 2008!

Out of the Darkness Now Playing in NYC!

ウララ ウララ ウラウララ〜♪ Time for a Yamamoto Linda Hip Thrust

Studio 4ºC UPDATE: Genius Party Box Set & Mind Game in Los Angeles

あけおめ! / Pink Eiga

Oshii Mamoru Directs Stage Version of TetsuJin 28! (In Osaka?!)

Kumakiri's Kazuyoshi's new film NON-KO at FILMeX

Obayashi's HAUSU on IFC! (aka. HOUSE)

ギャランドゥ - The Gyarando

One more for Late Bloomer: Roger Ebert is a fan?!

Shogun Assassin! Hannukah, Christmas, or Kwanza - Here's a gift for ya

Der Eisenrost

New Liner Notes for Ten Nights of Dreams - Out Now!

TIFF: The Real Shaolin Screening Times!

9/5/08: Pecha Kucha Presentation at Royal/T in Los Angeles

What is Pecha Kucha Night?

A Snack to Tide You Over

New DVD Liner Notes! Yume Ju Ya - Ten Nights of Dreams

The Real Shaolin

New DVD Liner Notes! Tokyo Decadence

Bone House Asia Presents: LATE BLOOMER

Bumming... WaiWai gone Bye-Bye

NYTimes: URA in NYC - Wakamatsu Koji Article

New Yorkers! New York Asian Film Festival '08 Starts Today!

New Liver? One Million for the Visa, $100,000 for the Hospital

And his family hates him...

The MACHINE GIRL California Roll!

Liver

Four Japanese gang figures received livers at UCLA

おそいひと - Late Bloomer NYC Theatrical Run in July!

The All Seeing Logboy! A Bonanza of Trailer and Film Info!!!

New York Asian Film Festival '08 Mostly Full Line Up Announced

More Amoeba Videos - Kimya Dawson & Kate Nash

Indies Fight Major Logjam (from Variety)

Japan

Indies fight major logjam

By MARK SCHILLING

愛の奴隷 (Ai no Dorei aka. Slave of Love)

Me

Angelinos: Kamikaze Documentary "Wings of Defeat" Playing Tomorrow!

ANGELINOS! 1960s Nikkatsu Action Series this Weekend!

The Sky Crawlers Trailer (スカイ・クロラ 予告編)

Opinion: Yasukuni Doc Should be Leaked onto the Internet

Yasukuni

POUNDING! Yubari Fantastic Film Festival Short Film Winner "A Woman Who is Beating the Earth" is On-line!

Karaoke Terror DVD! (aka. Showa Kayo Daizenshu)

THIS SATURDAY! Japan Film Festival: Talk and Symposium

Hotaru no Haka: New Live Action Version in July!?

Japan Film Festival: Talk and Symposium

New Nakashima Tetsuya! Pako and the Magic Picture Book - Home Page On-Line

Update to Karaoke Terror DVD Info

Kurosawa Akira 100th Anniversary Exhibition in Los Angeles in 2009 or 2010?

Hey New Yorkers! Must see concert tonight!

Uruma Delvi Exhibit Going on at PARCO in Shibuya

HOLY SHIT! New BORIS Single for Upcoming Album: "SMILE"

Chuhai!

Coin Locker Babies

Capsule 3: TOKYO ZOMBIE and ELI, ELI, LEMBA SABACHTANI (Two with Asano Tadanobu)

RIP: HD DVD (2006~2008)

RIP: 市川 崑 (Ichikawa Kon) ~ 1915-2008

Angelinos! Nikkatsu New Action Series Coming at the End of April!

Miyake Tomoko: Beautiful chicks eat a lot too, you know...

５月〜７月：米国へ「おそいひと」の上映可能性が高い。。。

ウララ　ウララ　ウラウララ〜♪ Time for a Yamamoto Linda Hip Thrust

The Sky Crawlers Trailer (スカイ・クロラ予告編)

RIP: 市川崑 (Ichikawa Kon) ~ 1915-2008