The line-up of japanese movie at this year’s Venice film festival is pretty impressive. Mamoru Oshii, Satoshi Kon, Shinji Aoyama, Kyoshi Kurosawa and Katsuhiro Otomo are sending their last effort there. Only two films are actually in competition and surprisingly enough those are anime.
On top of that studio Ghibli’s last effort Gedo Senki will also be shown. It’s the first full length directed by Hayao Myazaki’s son, Goro Miyazaki.
I was kind of surprised to hear about a new Otomo movie. Apparently Mushi shi, is a film adaptation of the anime tv show of the same name. Here’s the official website for the tv show in japanese of course.
It’s also interesting to note that the two movie in the official competion are from Otomo and Kon. Kon started his career at Otomo’s studio, he notably directed one of the sketches of Memories.
So we have a Master/student battle here, nice.
I have no idea what Kon’s movie, Paprika, is about, but the few images on the official site are just gorgeous. You can watch the trailer here, but it’s really a small. Up until now Kon has slowly imposed himself as an important animation filmmaker. His last effort the anime serie Paranoia Agent is probably one of the best thing coming out of japanese tv since Serial Experiment Lain.
Here’s the listing of all the japanese films for the Venice Biennale :
Competition
Paprika, Kon SatoshiMushi-shi, Ôtomo Katsuhiro
Out of Competition
Gedo senki (Tales from Earthsea), Miyazaki Goro
Out of Competition (Midnight)
Horizons
Horizons (Documentary)
Tachiguishi retsuden, Oshii Mamoru
Via
One of the most celebrated japanese director in recent years, Imamura Shohei has died on May 30th. He ’s mostly known for two movies in the west, The Ballad of Narayama and The Eel (Unagi), both having won him the Palme d’Or at the Cannes festival in 83 & 97. Imamura was one of the most prominent member of what was called the japanese new wave along with Nagisa Oshima and Masahiro Shinoda.
My personal favourite of his was Doctor Akagi (Kanzo Sensei).
There’s an obituary on the New-York Times, it barely made the news in Japan.
Hiroyuki Nakano who is best known for having directed the post-modern ninja parody Red Shadow and the post-modern samurai music video Samurai Fiction has won a prize for his short movie Iron.
“This short film deals with the troubled mind of an eccentric guy with peculiar ironing obsession.”
The movie won the OFAJ (Very) Young Critic Award. Each year the Cannes film festival organizes a critic’s contest with the highschools of France and Germany participating. The authors of the best ones are invited to a special jury within the Semaine de la Critique competition. This is the prize Nakano won.
Not much but at least he won a prize at Cannes. What did you win you slob ?
Brooklyn rail has recently featured a guide to japanese 70’s sexloitation movies on dvd. I have no other choice but to link it.
It’s good and full of female convicts, snow blood, and stray cats. What’s not to like ?
Clint Eastwood is going to direct not one, but two movies about the infamous Iwo Jima battle that took place between american and japanese forces during World War II.
The first one will focus on the american side of things, the second one on the Japanese point of view.
The cast has just been confirmed for the japanese one, it will include Ken Watanabe (Last Samurai, Memoirs of a Geisha), Shido Nakamura and Ryo Kase amongst others.
The japanese film is titled Red Sun, Black Sand, the american one Flags of our fathers.
Flags of our fathers shooting has already been completed and the film is due to be released in August. Ryan Phillipe, Adam Beach and Barry Pepper forms the main cast. Red Sun, Black Sand will be released in December of this year if everything go as planned.
Here’s Flags of our fathers official website(no trailer yet) and here’s the short page for Red Sun, Black Sand on imdb.
Happy new year all !
And since it’s new year, time to check what the best movies of 2005 were. Since i didn’t seen that much japanese movie last year i won’t do a top 10 myself.
Midnight eye annual poll hasn’t been released yet so we’ll have to content ourlves with the Eiga Geijutsu one.
Eiga Geijutsu is a japanese magazine, each year they ask critics and filmmakers to pick their favourite japanese movie of the past year. It’s a point based system, the movies with the less points end up in the worst movie of the year category.
Without further ado :
Best
1-Linda Linda Linda
2-Patchigi
3-Dokushosuru hi
4-Kanariya
5-Kuchu teien
6-Lakeside Murder Case
7-Unmei ja nai hito
8-Hibi
9-Sekai no owari
10-17-sai no fukei: shonen wa nani o mita no ka
Worst
1 Always: Sanchome no yuhi
2- Operetta tanuki goten
2-Takeshis’
2-Lorelai
5-Mata no hi no chika
6-Kita no reinen
6-Yogisha Muroi Shinji
8-Nana
9-Tetsujin 28-go
10- Ashurajo no hitomi
Pia is another magazine. Their poll is supposed to reflect the opinion of the “man of the street”. They ask the audience as they exit movie theatre what they think about the movie they just saw. Probably doesn’t mean much but still they come up with two rankings. One is based on small movie theatre in tokyo the other is nation wide. It also concerns all movie that have been released in Japan, not only the japanese one.
Tokyo small theatre ranking :
1-Summer Time machine Blues
2-Maison de Himiko
3-Chorus
4-Beyond the Sea
5-Hanging Garden (Kuchu Teien)
6-Linda, Linda, Linda
8-Scrap Heaven
9-Bungee Jumping of Their Own
10-A Song of Joy
Nation wide :
1-Star Wars Episode III
2-Always — Sunset on Third Street (Always — Sanchome no Yuhi)
3-A Moment to Remember
4-Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
5-Yamato: The Last Battle (Otokotachi no Yamato)
6-Cinderella Man
7-Shall We Dance?
8-Fly, Daddy, Fly
9-Aegis (Bokoku no Aegis)
10-A Stormy Night (Arashi no Yoru ni)
Tadaaa !
By the way, here’s the list of the awards given and the recently ended Tokyo Film Festival :
Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix
WHAT THE SNOW BRINGS
Special Jury Prize
Conversations with Other Women, dir. Hans Canosa
Award for Best Director
Kichitaro Negishi [ WHAT THE SNOW BRINGS ]
Award for Best Performance by the Actress in Leading Role
Helena Bonham Carter [ Conversations with Other Women ]
Jin Ya-gin [ You and Me ] dir. Ma Liwen
Award for Best Performance by the Actor in Leading Role
Koichi Sato [ WHAT THE SNOW BRINGS ]
The Audience Award
WHAT THE SNOW BRINGS
Award for Best Artistic Contribution
Loach is Fish Too, dir. Yang Ya-zhou
Best Asian Film Award
Sepet (Slit Eyes) dir. Yasmin Ahmad
Special Mention
Be with Me, dir. Eric Khoo
Best Picture Award
Who’s Camus Anyway? dir. Mitsuo Yanagimachi
Special Award
Ski Jumping Pairs -Road to Torino 2006- dir. Masaki Kobayashi
The 19th Tokyo International Film festival (better known as TIFF) will be held in roppongi Virgin theater from the 22nd to the 30th of October.
On the international side of it, the program is nice: The Brother Grimm, Sympathy for lady Vengeance, Wallace & Grommit: curse of the were rabbit. Walk the line (the Johnny Cash biopic) and Oliver Twist.
The jury will be presided by Zhang Yimou which last movie Riding alone for thousand miles will open the event.
There’s a huge selection of movies from all over asia, of course if you don’t read perfect japanese it might be hard to keep up with the subtitles. But if you speak chinese, thai, tagalog, korean and vietnamese it should be no problem. Unless a cambodian movie shows up then you’re screwed.
Any way other notable movies are : Trio, a 1997 comedy by Chan Wook Park, Rikidozan a biopic of the korean wrestler, Under the same moon, the new Kenta Fukasaku movie starring Kubozuka, and The Whispering of the Gods one of the best japanese film of 2005 according to Donald Richie.
The official website is in japanese and english. The english version is not finished though and the translation feel automated.
Negadon is a CGI short film that pays hommage to the old kaiju movies that we all love. They even put a scratches and dust filter on the picture to have that authentic 60’s feel.
The two trailers are pretty cool, the official site is in japanese. I don’t know what else to say, i’m too moved by this.
Trailer 1
Trailer 2
via stauffen
via imdb :
” … the Japan Tobacco company is offering free tickets to a screening of Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City, on one condition — that everyone smoke… Company spokesman Tsuyoshi Miyashita told the newspaper, “The event is to provide a rare opportunity for smokers to light up freely while watching the movie, so they can enjoy the film without suppressing their urge to smoke. … I remember seeing filmgoers smoke in theaters, though it’s impossible today.”
JT is also doing a campaign to make people stop smoking on the street while walking. Where does those guys stand is behind me.
I guess they have attain that famous level of wealth, when you start eating your own poopoo.
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