kurai_hisui Reviews

Mizu no onna (2002)

Come on, it wasn't _that_ bad

[7/10 · 19 September 2004]

It bugs me when people complain about Hollywood drivel, but then tear apart any movie that wanders too far from the plot diagram you learned in junior high language arts. Like most foreign films, Japanese dramas require a different sensibility to get the most out of them. Mizu no Onna is almost a textbook example. Sure, it has it's problems. It is a good half-hour too long, the nameless biker chick played by Hikaru is pretty much unnecessary, and I actually hit a point where I wished Ryo would put her s**t back on already. (and on a technical note, the contrast in the first third of the film was way to harsh). But the reviews people have written already make me feel like I should be defending it.

This is very much a character piece. The plot is low key, the dialogue minimal (and, as someone else mentioned, not everything is given the Dr. Watson scientific explanation, which I actually thought was a plus). But the two main characters are interesting and, with a couple of blips, well developed. UA and Tadanobu Asano do brilliant jobs of portraying two contrasting people drawn together by their respective marginalisation. This is almost entirely done through body language and the cinematography (though yes, some of the mood setting shots of rain do drag on. It's wet, we get it.) The plot isn't particularly convoluted, and quite easy to follow as long as you actually listen to the dialogue.

There are some cultural nuances that some people won't get. The bath-house culture, in particular, with all it's nostalgia and community spirit, is hard to convey unless you've been to one, and this is rather important to understanding the character development. A lot of Japanese films, even artsy ones, are quite accessible to foreign audiences, but gMizu no onnah is perhaps more 'Japanese' than most. If you can accept that, and sit through the first 20-30 minutes or so (after which it seems to find it's rhythm), it's a very attractive and thoughtful film. There are worse ways to spend a rainy afternoon.

Taboo (1999)

It's not a movie, it's a screen saver

[4/10 · 31 December 2003]

If you're going to make a samurai film, I propose that you should have either 1. an engaging plot with interesting characters or 2. lots of wicked-cool sword fights (or ideally, both). Gohatto has neither. What it does have is cool outfits, and lots of men looking at each other longingly (both of which would be fine, if it also had either of the two criteria listed above).

After seeing this movie and `Collage of our Life' in one weekend, I'm starting to rethink by formerly high opinion of Ryuhei Matsuda. Though it could just be the lukewarm performance by everyone else make his trademark 'malaise' outright bland. Even Beat Takeshi, who I thought would be perfect as Hijikata, looked like he couldn't care less about what was going on. Just about the only character that has any personality is Tashiro (Tadanobu Asano), who disappears for about 2/3 of the film. Everyone else is either a flat caricature (Okita smiles a lot, Inoue is old and inept), or just plain flat. Most of the film could have been done with finger puppets to similar effect.

The plot is just as one-dimensional. The whole story takes place during the Bakamatsu, one of the most interesting episodes in Japanese history. Does Oshima use this fascinating period as a poignant backdrop for his drama, or at the very least an excuse for overdone swordfights to disguise the lack of a plot? No, we get these guys sitting around, making contrived references that sound like they're dictating footnotes for a history textbook. Other than that, the bloody struggle to determine the future of Japan is totally irrelevant to the plot. It could have taken place at an open minded country club.

There isn't so much plot development as 'stuff happens'. There a guy, and someone dies, and there's this other guy, then it snows, and they have dinner quote history texts, and pine over the pretty-boy. These haphazard events are tied together by such brilliant transitions as a black screen with the words `Meanwhile' `One month later' `patience is rewarded'. Wow, riveting stuff. Why is Kano-the-cute such an efficient killing machine? What does he have against women? How does that life threatening head wound heal without even a scab? Who knows? There was one moment near the end when I went 'Oh, that's kind of interesting,' and even that little twist wasn't a big surprise.

I'd have no problem with a low key, psychological take on the Bakamatsu, or homoeroticism among the Samurai, if there was even one character in the whole movie I could have cared less about. And even the homosexuality is lukewarm ('Gee. I like the pretty-boy, gosh darn it'). On the other hand, the swordplay is beautiful (in a somewhat authentic way, not a Ryuhei 'Versus' Kitamura bloodfest way), as are the swords themselves (if you're into that kind of thing), but they're too few an far between to cover for the flimsy story. So there's really no reason to see this film at all, no matter what kind of movies you like. Unless you have a major interest in costuming and set design, or simply must see some samurai manlove.

Love Collage (2003)

I wanted to like this movie, I really did (no spoilers)

[3/10 · 29 December 2003]

Personally, I like the odd pacing of Japanese dramas, not too picky about bits of freaky English, and willing to put up with a lot from anything Ryoko Hirosue is in (I even made a heartfelt effort to like Wasabi). But all I can think of in regards to this movie is "what went wrong?" Well, first, the plot. The overall story could have been a very touching little love story, a la "Truly, madly, deeply," or at least "Reisei to jônetsu no aida" (if you like Japanese flicks). Morose photographer Makoto Seigawa (Matsuda) and quirky Shizuru Satonaka (the ever adorable Hirosue) meet, fall for each other, and have an amusing 'opposites attract' relationship, until Seigawa does what every moody male Japanese lead does and screws it up. Ok, typical set up, but done fairly well. But once Seigawa goes to New York, things just get screwy. It turns into a cheezy comedy/mystery/action (very loosely speaking) seizure. You'd get more plot consistency randomly channel surfing. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to hear that a bunch of scripts got mixed up, and no one noticed until they were too over-budget to re-shoot. Why does Seigawa keep getting beaten up? What's with all the guns? What does the Chinese Mafia have to do with anything? Your guess is as good as mine. When they finally do get around to the main plot again, it's pretty much duct-tapped together with coincidences, if at all. The 'climax' come out of nowhere, and plays out like an episode of "G.I. Joe". All this makes the last desperate attempt to return to a serious drama even more pathetic. And then the acting. Now, Hirosue and Matsuda can both act. I really believe they could have pulled this off (with a serious script rewrite, at least, which would have given them a chance to develop their chemistry a little more too). The other Japanese actors are mediocre, but the English parts are truly beyond belief. That's fine if you're only dealing with a few bit parts, but half the movie and most of the secondary characters are in New York. That's a heck of a lot of pre-school-Christmas-play level acting to put up with. Matsuda obviously has only a vague clue as to what he's saying, and he still had the best delivery in the bunch. Ok, there's some nice cinematography (not too much to ask from a movie about photographers), and lots of pretty pictures (mostly of Hirosue, which is fine if you, like me, have a thing for her). Unfortunately, any symbols of any significance are then pounded into your brain again and again, often followed by a close-up in case you still missed the point (all right with the oranges already, WE GET IT!!). The meandering tangents in New York feel like one of the financial backer's nephews said "Gee... New York, maybe we should toss something in about 9-11. Oh, and race relations, yeah, that's good too." I wanted to like this movie, for the following reasons:

1.Ryoko Hirosue's in it (but not nearly enough). 2.Ryuhei Matsuda's in it (but his monotone English is only witty for about the first 3 lines. Then it's just monotone). 3.The Japanese DVD has English subtitles (but they don't match the dialogue, even the English parts) 4.It's a Japanese romantic drama, and I like those (well, the first part is, then you have to be on crack just to keep up).

Between Calmness and Passion (2001)

Attractive, but inconsistent

[11 January 2003]

It was a beautiful film, visually, without a doubt. The choices of setting, camera angles, lighting, are all stunning. The rest of the movie is pretty inconsistent. The plot is interesting, but a bit predictable. Pacing alternates between some brilliantly timed scenes and long, dragging ones. The acting, in particular, feels like two movies got spliced together by accident. The Japanese segments are excellent (with one or two notable exceptions), and Yutaka Takenouchi plays his part perfectly. But I winced whenever someone starting speaking English. Merv (and I think you should lose two stars just for naming a character 'Merv') is like watching a infomercial host doing a bad Bill Clinton impression. He's so lifeless, it's funny. And Kelly Chen pauses so long between English lines, you'd think she was reading them phonetically from a TelePrompTer. And her character, Aoi, seemed particularly under-developed. All that said, it was a nice, and very pretty little romance. Worth renting for a quiet evening, but I wouldn't go searching for it on e-bay or anything.

Battle Royale (2000)

Bloody, yes, but far from mindless

[9/10 · 24 November 2002]

Make no mistake; it is a gory film. I'm not squeamish, and there were a few scenes that made me go 'ewwww!'. On the other hand, it's _not_ a slasher flick, and it's definitely not mindless. Given the number of characters, many of them are well developed, and the acting is top notch (They must have cast, and killed off, nearly every decent teen-actor in the country. And the scythe-wielding Kou Shibasaki was brilliant). The pacing was perfect, I thought, matching the theme of the movie. Things often turn violent suddenly, sometimes unexpectedly, but it doesn't feel totally random (and doesn't resort to that annoying 'shake the camera until the audience is nauseous' technique so popular in action films lately). And considering the on-screen-death/screen-time ratio is about 1 per 3 minutes, it's amazing that they manage to pack in more character development than some dramas. The music and cinematography were very good, too, even if a couple of sets do look 'budget' (less so than in many Japanese films, though).

It's no psychological drama, and far from subtle, visually or thematically, but defiantly thought provoking (as long as you're willing to stop and think about what's going on behind the violence). It comes across as a heavy-handed "Lord of the Flies,"... with uzis. As long as you don't get hung up on the (big) gouts of blood and hatchets to the head, there's a lot to get out of this film. To be fair, if you have any experience with Japanese schools, you'll probably 'get' a lot more (like the importance of those cookies, or Kitano-sensei doing calisthenics alone), and I think one of the major points of BR is to criticize the Japanese education system (I _know_ teachers like that. And students, for that matter...) Still, considering the slightly perverse popularity of "Survivor," I think there are a lot of interesting implications in BR. And in its own twisted way, it's a lot of fun, too.