Art I adore...
Oshima/Suzuki/Imamura/Fukusaku/Miike/Sono
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- DirectorSion SonoStarsHiroki HasegawaKumiko AsôMotoki FukamiBullied and diminished by his fellow employees, demure and bashful Ryoichi Suzuki finds support in an unusual friendship with a turtle. Together they will share many adventures and finally conquer the world.fun, super creative, tragic, melancholic, destructive and finally redemptative.. Love & Peace is completely magical. I need not say I adore Sono.
- DirectorSion SonoStarsRyohei SuzukiYoung DaisNana SeinoIn an alternate Japan, territorial street gangs form opposing factions collectively known as the Tokyo Tribes. Merra, leader of the Wu-Ronz tribe of Bukuro crosses the line to conquer all of Tokyo. The war begins.Hip hop and yakuza and kung fu and anime and musical and a beatboxing maid and MERRA and TERA.
- DirectorSeijun SuzukiStarsMakiko EsumiSayoko YamaguchiHanae KanThe No. 3 assassin of Japan is given the chance to usurp No. 1 and take their place.Beautiful imagery, really atypical and improvisatory dialogue, wondrous costume, great use of symbolism and magical use of colour - the plot is also really loose yet framed throughout, and there is some great comedy thrown in as well. A few moments of funny yet poor cgi aside I really can't recommend 'Pistol Opera' enough. Actually I like the poor cg....
- DirectorYoshishige YoshidaStarsMariko OkadaKaizo KamodaKazumi TsutsuiAn engineer's wife returns home with a lost teenager. A man posing as her dad tries to get her back, causing the engineer to recall his youth as a revolutionary, obscured by dreamlike disruptions of time and space, fantasy and reality.An anarchic, destructive, nihilistic collage which leaves just enough clues to the puzzle to construct an infinite range of possibilities. The links are every bit as thematic as they are chronologic... if there even is a chronology to this film. I came up with my own theory as to the events and there were 7 different planes of reality to it. That is how far down the rabbit hole this film can drag you. Visually inspired, completely oblique.. an example of art that you can only engage with clinically, without passivity.
- CreatorYasuyuki UedaStarsKaori ShimizuBridget HoffmanDan LorgeStrange things start happening when a withdrawn girl named Lain becomes obsessed with an interconnected virtual realm known as "The Wired".I first discovered SEL when I was at college and safe to say it was monumental; to date I believe the first episode is one of the most abstract, complex yet stationary and overwhelmingly oblique things I have seen on the television, with a really powerful and empty art style, merging with surreal abstracts.As soon as I saw the first episode I was in love. I was in love from the first scene aka. Chisa's suicide. Of course this is before we even get into the implementation of philosphy and the complexity and abstraction of the story, which, along with the visuals and the singular/enigmatic Lain, elevates the series even further into the sky.
- DirectorTakashi MiikeStarsTadanobu AsanoNao ÔmoriShin'ya TsukamotoAs sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer Kakihara searches for his missing boss he comes across Ichi, a repressed and psychotic killer who may be able to inflict levels of pain that Kakihara has only dreamed of achieving.When you get the ultimate masochist and ultimate sadist in a movie; you get Ichi the Killer. 2 hours of completely depraved, rapid fire, cartoonish, absurd mayhem ....
- DirectorNobuhiko ÔbayashiStarsKimiko IkegamiMiki JinboKumiko ÔbaA schoolgirl and six of her classmates travel to her aunt's country home, which turns out to be haunted.Really playful and absurd, with a wondrous array of horrors and a fun cast of characters. So creative in it's use of animation and edits. I also love cats.... and watermelon.
- DirectorTakashi MiikeStarsShô AikawaRiki TakeuchiRenji IshibashiA yakuza of Chinese descent and a Japanese cop each wage their own war against the Japanese mafia. But they are destined to meet. Their encounter will change the world.comic, graphic, hyperactive and absurd gangster classic.
- DirectorTeinosuke KinugasaStarsMasuo InoueAyako IijimaYoshie NakagawaA man takes a job at an asylum with hopes of freeing his imprisoned wife.This was what got me into art so I adore it, I love the sequences with the free jazz drumming coinciding with dance and the riot sequence, I love the hissing sounds of the opening coincided with watery visuals, I love the woodwind sounds and ghostly choir and the shadows within the mental asylum. The plot is highly abstract, yet one can determine narrative, and the film is only short as some of it is lost. The visuals are exquisite throughout and the atmosphere it evokes is entrancing. A+
- DirectorShûji TerayamaStarsHiroshi MikamiTakeshi WakamatsuKeiko NiitakaA young man, haunted by his past, travels the land in search of the lyrics to a lullaby his mother used to sing to him.Shuji Terayama.
This is a quite good introduction to his style as it's only 40 minutes long. - DirectorSion SonoStarsMitsuru FukikoshiDendenAsuka KurosawaThe lives of a bored suburban couple are changed forever when a seemingly nice old man gives their daughter a job at his fish store, and soon his gruesome hobbies are brought to light.brutal, disarming and overwhelming Murata's character is straight up amazing from start to finish in terms of acting, dialogue and his presence... some of the dialogue is truly sublime and as with Guilty of Romance Sono is dealing with some very interesting and rewarding themes and his symbolism is up there with Himizu as Sono's most rewarding. I love the use of slight comedic touches which somehow manages to make the film even more bleak. An inspirational work of art, as to be expected...
- DirectorSion SonoStarsShôta SometaniFumi NikaidôTetsu WatanabeAfter two teenagers from abusive households befriend each other, their lives take a dark adventure into existentialism, despair, and human frailty.Actual title is Himizu. Not only does this film have an ingenious re-contextualization of the poem 'Ballade' but, as with Guilty of Romance, the narrative is overlayed with the poems overall theme, this time of identity. In this respect Sono is using the poem in a very clever way, not merely to illustrate, but to illuminate a theme otherwise not available to him through the character's gradual recognition of this poem and it's meaning to him/her internally... to an extent, as with guilty of romance, it can be argued the characters themselves become intertwined and interconnected with the poem in such a way it is hard to separate them out as entities. The young leads are both ferociously abused, the use of the metaphorical and physical gallows the parents are building for their daughter is simply ingenious. There are again slight dark comedic touches, but all shattered with this emotional intensity and bleakness. This film highlights one of my favourite aspects to Sono's art the way Sono's characters repeat and repeat dialogue with increasing and increasing alarm, as if a primal response to a chaotic or evolutionary circumstance, also adore the use of sound design to create this overwhelming crescendo of noise, the use of handheld cameras to create a sense of both physical and emotional brutality and the constant reference to 3/11 and natural disaster. For all the above Himizu is simply astounding.
- DirectorNagisa ÔshimaStarsTatsuya FujiEiko MatsudaAoi NakajimaA passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual relationship.Entrancing, fuses eroticism and sex with such tension, you can cut this film on a knife edge. Beautifully shot, the attention to detail in colours and the symbolism of that is done magnificently, as a period piece it's astounding and as a narrative, it's gradual spiral, descent and this disquieting almost hypnotically tense feeling, and then you have the kind of depth from a film such as this.. seminal. The characters and the tragedy of this film is art indeed.
- DirectorSion SonoStarsRyo IshibashiMasatoshi NagaseMai HoshoA detective is trying to find the cause of a string of suicides.One of Sono's most confounding films, plays out like a rough patchwork or collage of scenes stiched together loosely, just holding together just enough to reveal a scrappy narrative hidden within the twirling blood soaked kaleidoscope...
- DirectorSion SonoStarsKazue FukiishiTsugumiYuriko YoshitakaA teenager called Noriko Shimabara runs away from her family in Tokoyama, to meet Kumiko, the leader of an Internet BBS, Haikyo.com. She becomes involved with Kumiko's "family circle", which grows darker after the mass suicide of 54 high school girls.I felt such a strong relation to the teenagers and their parents at the same time. In fact, Sono's characters are frequently the only characters in films I can see transcend being characters on a screen for me, they feel as though they represent something more real, as do the films themselves .. Dialogue is at times really poetic and clever literately speaking, at times this film is so tragic and emotionally brutal; always a pleasure. I adore Ueno Station 54! Characters are typically developed in such a specific way.
- DirectorSion SonoStarsMiki MizunoMakoto TogashiMegumi KagurazakaA grisly murder occurs in Maruyama-cho, Shibuya, Tokyo - a love hotel district - a woman was found dead in a derelict apartment. Kazuko (Miki Mizuno) is a police officer called to investigate on this case, she will discover the story of two women who, despite appearing respectable on the outside have all manner of darkness hidden away.To explain this film properly I would have to state several plot details, which I won't do, but I will say that every time I see it I fall more in love and I think Mitsuko is an amazing character, her introduction and transformation are magical.
- DirectorSion SonoStarsMasumi MiyazakiIssei IshidaRie KuwanaThe erotic novelist Taeko is writing a morbid story of a family destroyed by incest, murder and abuse. Her assistant, Yuji, sets on a mission to uncover the reality of this story, but the reality might be too much to bear.Perverted, sono at his most messed up. Overall a really almost gothic film, the use of Camille Saint-Saen's 'The Swan' gave the film a exquisitely delicate and elegant yet somber tone, sustained throughout, even despite the extremity one senses a fragility to this film. Disturbing yet obtusely comic. Strange Circus is Sono's bizarre psycho-sexual guide through the grotesque hall of mirrors, death's circus is a swinging guillotine.
Yet, 'reality is the mystery'. - DirectorSion SonoStarsReina TriendlMariko ShinodaErina ManoA girl's life cascades into chaos as everyone around her suffers a gruesome fate while she becomes less certain of who she is and her once-once normal life."Life is surreal. "
Strange film this, one of Sono's weaker efforts. This is his highest and most visually... redundant production I think and one of his more popular films of late even so 'Tag' is still one playful adrenaline smash with all it's abrasive cut up form of surrealism dueling with wider philosophical themes. I wish Sono would have stuck to his more distinctive music, while I don't mind Mono; it's more that Mono don't give the film a distinctive edge audibly; not like the baroque of Guilty of Romance providing a tragic tone, the rock and roll of 'Love and Peace' which is precisely the entire backbone of the hyperactive film, and the low pitch drones of 'Himizu' which amplify the alienation and tension superbly... in contrast Tag, in this regard, just evokes nothing seminal throughout, it is passive, as oppose to Sono's normally central emphasis upon music.. Either way Tag still is a complex and challenging film which still more than lives up to Sono's glowing standards. - DirectorSion SonoStarsTakahiro NishijimaHikari MitsushimaSakura AndôA bizarre love triangle forms between a young Catholic upskirt photographer, a misandric girl and a manipulative cultist.I was watching this for the third time and I noticed all the nuance and detail into Yoko's character and her chronology. I thought to myself then that I would never ever come up with a single character of Yoko's complexity, though I could and have spent ages trying.
- DirectorSion SonoStarsChiaki KuriyamaMegumi SatôTsugumiAbout hair extensions that attack the women that wear them.What I considered would be a stupid satire film managed to contain one of the greatest openings I've seen to a film; the tour of the city and work in first person dialogue whilst having second and third person interjections but it didn't end there because this film has some real potency and depth of emotion.
- DirectorAndrzej ZulawskiStarsLeszek TeleszynskiWojciech PszoniakMalgorzata BraunekDuring the Prussian army's invasion of Poland in 1793, a young Polish nobleman, Jakub, is saved from the imprisonment by a stranger who wants in return to obtain a list of his fellow conspirators. Following his mysterious savior across the country, Jakub sees the overall chaos and moral corruption, including his father's death and the betrayal of his friend who stole his fiancee. Being apparently demented by what he has seen, he commits a number of seemingly motiveless and gory killings.Diabel is never anything less than ugly, but elevated to such an extremity and combined with a sad, sustained tension and a vicious hallucinatory and almost surreal flair. Astounding.
- DirectorPark Chan-wookStarsChoi Min-sikYoo Ji-taeKang Hye-jeongAfter being kidnapped and imprisoned for fifteen years, Oh Dae-Su is released, only to find that he must track down his captor in five days.Bleak and grim korean thrillers are a personal favourite for me, the claustrophobia, relentless smashing, fast pace and vicious ending. Yeah Oldboy kills it.
- DirectorHayao MiyazakiStarsDaveigh ChaseSuzanne PleshetteMiyu IrinoDuring her family's move to the suburbs, a sullen 10-year-old girl wanders into a world ruled by gods, witches and spirits, and where humans are changed into beasts.seemingly unending in it's imagination and creative power.
- DirectorNagisa ÔshimaStarsMiyuki KuwanoYûsuke KawazuYoshiko KugaA harsh young man seduces a freeloading young woman and eventually takes advantage of her knack for hitch-hiking to rob middle-class men.
- DirectorShûji TerayamaStarsEimei SasakiMasahiro SaitoYukiko KobayashiAn angst-ridden teen dealing with his dysfunctional family hits the streets. The story is inter-cut with various psychedelic, energetic vignettes.
- DirectorNagisa ÔshimaStarsKatsuo NakamuraMariko KagaYumiko NogawaAfter Atsushi commits murder, he is blackmailed into keeping a suitcase full of embezzled money. What follows is a descent into lustful, reckless actions and regret.
- DirectorNagisa ÔshimaStarsMiyuki KuwanoFumio WatanabeMasahiko TsugawaLong takes and a highly theatrical visual approach combine to form a tense and confrontational look at the decline of a socialist student activists' movement in Japan.
- DirectorWojciech HasStarsJan NowickiTadeusz KondratIrena OrskaJózef visits his dying father at a remote mental institution, where time itself doesn't seem to exist, and the line between dreams and memories becomes indistinguishable.
- DirectorSeijun SuzukiStarsTetsuya WatariChieko MatsubaraHideaki NitaniAfter his gang disbands, a yakuza enforcer looks forward to life outside of organized crime but soon must become a drifter after his old rivals attempt to assassinate him.
- DirectorTakashi MiikeStarsShôsuke TaniharaMiho NomotoTamaki KenmochiIn order to settle a business dispute, a mob leader murders one of his own teenage sons. The surviving son vows to avenge his brother's death, and organizes his own gang of teenage killers to destroy his father's organization.
- DirectorNagisa ÔshimaStarsFumio WatanabeAkiko KoyamaTetsuo AbeA young boy reluctantly aids his swindling father in a threatening scam.
- DirectorSeijun SuzukiStarsJô ShishidoMariko OgawaAnnu MariAfter a botched assignment, a rice-fetishizing hitman finds himself in conflict with his organization, and one mysterious, dangerous fellow-hitman in particular.
- DirectorSion SonoStarsJun KunimuraFumi NikaidôShin'ichi TsutsumiA renegade film crew becomes embroiled with a yakuza clan feud.
- DirectorNagisa ÔshimaStarsKayoko HonooKôji NakaharaMasahiko TsugawaIn Osaka's slum, capricious folks without futures engage in pilfering, assault and robbery, prostitution, and the trading of ID cards and blood.
- DirectorYoshishige YoshidaStarsMariko OkadaToshiyuki HosokawaYûko KusunokiTwo interwoven stories. The first is a biography of anarchist Sakae Osugi which follows his relationship with three women in the 1920s. The second centers around two 1960s students researching Osugi's theories.
- DirectorHayao MiyazakiStarsSumi ShimamotoMahito TsujimuraHisako KyôdaWarrior and pacifist Princess Nausicaä desperately struggles to prevent two warring nations from destroying themselves and their dying planet.
- DirectorNobuhiko ÔbayashiStarsTomoyo HaradaRyôichi TakayanagiToshinori OmiA high-school girl acquires the ability to time travel.
- DirectorNagisa ÔshimaStarsSaeda KawaguchiAkiko KoyamaKei SatôTwo young women must come to terms with the fact that a man they're deeply linked to is a murdering rapist.
- DirectorSeijun SuzukiStarsZiyi ZhangJoe OdagiriHiroko YakushimaruAmechiyo (The banished prince) falls in love with Tanukihime (a princess of raccoon dog disguised to human). This is an Operetta which includes comedy, singing and dancing, and a love story.
- DirectorNagisa ÔshimaStarsTadanori YokooRie YokoyamaMoichi TanabeStory of a bookstore thief named Birdey who is led through various adventures in Tokyo's Shinjuku district by salesgirl Umeko.
- DirectorTeinosuke KinugasaStarsMachiko KyôKazuo HasegawaIsao YamagataA samurai pursues a married lady-in-waiting.
- DirectorHayao MiyazakiStarsHitoshi TakagiNoriko HidakaChika SakamotoWhen two girls move to the country to be near their ailing mother, they have adventures with the wondrous forest spirits who live nearby.
- DirectorSeijun SuzukiStarsJô ShishidoMisako WatanabeTamio KawajiA violent thug plays opposing yakuza bosses against each other.