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WorldCinemateque uploaded a new video
(2 hours ago)
Directed by: Nobuhiko Obayashi
Country: Japan
9th-graders Kazuo (boy) and ...
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Directed by: Nobuhiko Obayashi
Country: Japan
9th-graders Kazuo (boy) and Kazumi (girl) take a tumble at a temple in a small seacoast town in Japan. Through supernatural intervention, their minds and bodies are switched, and the result is a touching and hilarious coming-of-age comedy as they attempt to survive the pressures of junior high school life.
This hilarious movie catapults two youngsters hitting puberty into the opposite sex after a fall from which they recover in each other's bodies. The timid sensitive girl becomes the effeminate insecure boy, and the unredeeming prankster becomes the loud clumsy girl with a chip on her shoulder. Both lead actors do tremendous jobs portraying the opposite sex, and often do so delivering more than a laugh. It ends in a bittersweet tone, but it is a really cute movie with hilarious moments.
Kobayashi Satomi is absolutely hilarious as she pretends to be the opposite sex. She perfectly changes her voice, posture, speech, and body movements to match that of a teenage boy, but she does it in such an honest way that, at some points, I believe she is an actual boy. The male lead, Omi Toshinori, is equally as successful in his portrayal of a school girl trapped in a boy's body. His insecurity, the way he held his bag, covering his chest while wearing a swimsuit, his high-pitched voice--all the little things came together to create a performance that could not be more perfect.
Obviously, the film is predictable and occasionally lacks depth, but there are few filmmakers in the world who would be able to produce a quality film with a similar plot. This is a wonderful example of simplistic Japanese cinema and a classic in my book.
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WorldCinemateque uploaded a new video
(2 hours ago)
Directed by: Akio Jissoji
Contry: Japan
In a motel near the Sea of Japan, ...
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Directed by: Akio Jissoji
Contry: Japan
In a motel near the Sea of Japan, two university students from Kyoto, Shinichi - an ex-activist and Hiroshi - a trotskyist and an individualist at the same time, and their girlfriends are exchanging partners. Shinichi and his girlfriend are attacked by two followers of the owner of the motel on the seashore, and then experience a queer pleasure. After having returned to Kyoto, they go back to the seashore so as to learn about the incident and meet the owner, who turns out to be the leader of a small community. They follow him to a village in the mountains, where he is creating a sort of Utopia based on the idea of primitive communism, which has auto-sufficient agriculture and eroticism as its principles. In Kyoto, the other couple worry about their disappeared friends, and also go back to the seashore. There, they are attacked by the members of the community and are brought to the village. Shinichi and Hiroshi, sometimes with the leader, longly discuss various notions and thoughts such as Utopia, time, revolution and charisma. Shinichi, who no longer believes in the future, is attracted by the community, whereas Hiroshi, who believes in eternal revolution, rejects its thought. And during their opposition, an incident triggers off the rapid collapse of the community...
This is the second piece of Jissoji's ATG trilogy (1970 - 1972), all the scenarios of which were written by Toshiro Ishido.
In his four ATG films, Jissoji's main concern is directed towards the past/tradition and eroticism. In this one, he goes back farthest, to the archaic period. Yet the scene is set in the contemporary Japan, and the past is represented as a religious sect. And in many places, the dialogue is obliged to be discussions about thoughts between the protagonists.
This rupture/opposition seems to be brought by the standpoint of the scenarist too. In an interview, there are these words of theirs:
Jissoji: It would have been better, if we could describe the shamanism more intensively.
Ishido: I can't do that.
Jissoji: But I wanted to. (Art Theatre vol.89 1971)
Ishido says he tends to think and write by comparison. And Jissoji says, "Perhaps in fact, he and I are far from each other." (Ibid.)
Despite Buddhism or at least a syncretism of Shinto and Buddhism, suggested by the title, the images and the statues which the leader of the sect respects, and the rituals observed by the sect, a kind of primitive community, in which shamanism plays a central role, seems to be aimed in this utopian group. And it seems to try to deny history/words and evolution.
As the central theme of this film is the abolition of time, it's inevitably illusionary. Anyway it would have been necessary to introduce a certain critical point of view, if one wanted to describe a vision similar to the Japanese romanticism in a film in '70s.
In the dialogue, "Kanzeon Bosatsu Fumonbon 25" refers to the Lotus Sutra Chapter 25.
A brief biographical note: Jissoji was born in Tokyo, but grew up in Manchuria - Northeast China, since his father, a bureaucrat, was transferred there. He returned to Japan after World War II.
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WorldCinemateque uploaded a new video
(4 days ago)
Directed by: Kazuo Kuroki
Country: Japan
Story of the last three days in t...
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Directed by: Kazuo Kuroki
Country: Japan
Story of the last three days in the life of Sakamoto Ryoma (1836-1867), imperial loyalist who tried to unite the Choshu and Satsuma clans and prepared the way for the Meiji Restoration (1868). A samurai film in an ironic almost burlesque style, but not without affection for its hero.
Kuroki Kazuo was one of the leading filmmakers of the 60s and 70s independent film movement centered on the Art Theatre Guild (ATG). The Assassination of Ryoma shows the last three days of Sakamoto Ryoma, a hero of Meiji Restoration, who was assassinated a year before the Restoration was achieved. Like Yamanaka, Kuroki rejects showing Ryoma only as a hero. Rather, he focuses on anonymous people as well as on the carnivalesque mass events called eijanaika, in which commoners would rampage through an increasingly restive Edo (Tokyo) chanting "why not?" The film is one of many attempts in the period to think through the first one hundred years of Modern Japan, which came into being after Ryoma was killed. Kuroki's discontinuous modernist style is exhilarating to watch, and helps connect Ryomas tragic end to the "Asama mountain lodge" incident of 1972, in which a radical political sect involved in a series of murders was caught in a standoff with the police. Perhaps we can see in the film's loose and fragmentary form the confusion of radical artists, caught in the transformation from the political activism in the 1960s to the consumerism in the 1980s.
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WorldCinemateque uploaded a new video
(4 days ago)
Directed by: Kazuo Kuroki
Country: Japan
Based on the novel by Kazumi Taka...
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Directed by: Kazuo Kuroki
Country: Japan
Based on the novel by Kazumi Takahashi. - Murase is a bodyguard of yakuza group. Ochiai is a police officer who once was a student activist. When they meet, they are surprised how identical they look. So they swtiched their positions. Murase investigates the case he was involved. Ochiai feels rather comfortable in the world of yakuza. They begin to feel sympathy for each other...
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WorldCinemateque uploaded a new video
(3 weeks ago)
Directed by: Toshio Matsumoto
Contry: Japan
Love, rage, grudge and remorse...
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Directed by: Toshio Matsumoto
Contry: Japan
Love, rage, grudge and remorse: a colorful array of emotions is vividly depicted in this movie. The effective use of stop motion is impressive. The nasty bloodshed involving an infant could not be more gruesome.
A Shioji ronin, Satsuma Gengobei cabals to avenge the murder of his lord. He pretends to indulge in debauchery till the ripe opportunity comes. However, he irresistibly falls in love with a Geisha, Koman. She, too, seems to be attracted to him and tattoos Go-taisetsu, denoting Gengo, my love. Gengobeis biggest problem is to prepare his share of 100 ryo. His devoted servant sees his struggle and sets out for fund-raising. He managed to procure 100 ryo, which Gengobei deeply appreciated. He repents and resolves to commit himself to take revenge. A samurai of Takano, Zenigaya Banemon breaks the news that somebody is paying 100 ryo to bail out Koman. This news breaks Gengobeis heart. He cannot help giving out the 100 ryo he received for buying her out. He falsely believes that Koman would happily move in with him once she is freed. However, she has a family, a husband Sangoro and a child. He learns her deception and swears to retaliate. He breaks into their house and puts conspirators to the sward. Sangoro and Koman with their baby manage to escape the attack and take refuge in Yotsuya. While Sangoro meets his father Tokuemon who wishes to contribute 100 ryo to his masters need, Gengobei locates their hideout and discovers that Komans tattoo was altered to Sango-taisetsu, indicating Sangoro, my love. Gengobei is taken over by a rage and obdurately murders Koman and their baby. Later, Tokuemon delivers 100 ryo with Sangoro to a hermitage of his master Sohemon. They are stupefied to see Gengobei sipping sake with Komans head on the table. Gengobei is in fact Funakura Sohemons alias as a recluse. They finally apprehend the whole story that they took the money from Sohemon to give it back to himself at a cost of many lives. Mortified Sangoro kills himself and Gengobei departs, leaving sobbing Tokuemon alone. Several months later, loyal Shioji ronin make a raid for revenge. Funakura Sohemon is not found among them.
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