Japanese films

[My Name is Trinity]

i don't know very well the japanese cinema, but several times i've heard critics say that mizoguchi is probably the greatest filmmaker ever, even better than welles or renoir.

what are your favorite japanese movies?

[DieselDaisy]

Mizoguchi, Ozu and Kurosawa: the three giants of Japanese cinema's 'golden age'. My own favourites are too many to name but here are a few Japanese films which may serve as an introduction for a newbie:

Tokyo Story

Rashamon

Seven Samurai

Hana-Bi

Ghost in the Shell

[Spuffy78]

Audition and Ichi The Killer.

[Stiff Competition]

Hausu (or House in english)

[Georgy Zhukov]

Seven Samurai

Ran

Rashamon

The Hidden Fortress

Ikiru

Those are the Kurosawa films I've seen. I was impressed by all of them. Have yet to see Dersu Uzala but I should ask about it on my Russian film thread.

[DieselDaisy]

Very moving and heartfelt, Dersu Uzala.

[OmarBradley]

Yojimbo

[axlfan88]

mizoguchi is probably the greatest filmmaker ever

Mizoguchi's first great movies are Osaka Elegy and Sisters of the Gion (1936).

But he made his greatest films after the war. Between 1950 and 1956 he filmed twelve absolute masterpieces:

Portrait of Madame Yuki, Miss Oyu, The Lady of Musashino, The Life of Oharu, A Geisha, Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff, The Crucified Lovers, The Woman in the Rumor, Tales of the Taira Clan, Princess Yang Kwei-Fei, Street of Shame.

These are his twelve last films, they are perfect works of art, maybe the most beautiful films ever done, especially the last one Street of Shame.

This blu-ray box set was released a couple of days ago:

Oyu-sama (1951) is an adapatation of Tanizaki Jun'ichiro: a poignant tale of two sisters and their ill-fated relationship with the same man: a tale of the social mores and affairs of the heart that might destroy siblings.

Ugetsu monogatari (1953), a ghost-tale par excellence and one of the most highly acclaimed works of the cinema, is an intensely poetic, sublimely lyrical tragedy of men lured away from their wives which consistently features on polls of the best films ever made.

Gion bayashi (1953) is a drama set in the world of the geisha, a subtle masterwork that yields a myriad of insights into the lives of Japan's "service-class" in the early '50s.

Sansho dayu (1954), aka Sansho the Bailiff, recounts an unforgettably sad story of the 11th century involving kidnapping and indentured servitude - and figures, again, with its exquisite tone and purity of emotion as one of the most critically revered films of any era.

Uwasa no onna (1954), another Mizoguchi picture set in a modern geisha house, pits mother against daughter, with the ensuing drama forcing both to confront their attitudes toward family and business in what is one of the filmmaker's most astute filmic examinations of oppressed femininity.

Chikamatsu monogatari (1954), aka The Crucified Lovers, is the tragic story of a forbidden love affair between a merchant's wife and her husband's employee, was hailed by the legendary Akira Kurosawa as "a great masterpiece that could only have been made by Mizoguchi. "

Yokihi (1955), aka The Princess Yang Kwei-fei, recounts an 8th-century Chinese story of a widowed emperor and his imperial concubine, filmed in sumptuous, hallucinatory Agfa-stock colour.

Akasen chitai (1956), aka Street of Shame, is Mizoguchi's final masterpiece and one of the greatest last films ever made, depicting the goings-on in a Tokyo brothel carrying the name "Dreamland, " where dreams are nevertheless shattered beneath the weight of financial necessity and all questions of conscience - a last testament which inspired the great French critic Jean Douchet to proclaim: "For me, along with Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux and Renoir's La Règle du jeu, the greatest film in the history of the cinema. "

Edited November 6, 2013 by axlfan88

[My Name is Trinity]

ok, thanks for the info

[eye2eye]

You must try out 13 Assassins by Takashi Miike

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgPC74-Tde8

probably the greates movie I've seen in recent memory.

[Mao5]

in the realm of the senses (erotic film by oshima with references to the marquis de sade and georges bataille. the film contains scenes of unsimulated sexual activity).

few movies have gone that far in the exploration of love, passion, sexuality and death.

[DieselDaisy]

You must try out 13 Assassins by Takashi Miike

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgPC74-Tde8

probably the greates movie I've seen in recent memory.

Great film. For those in the UK, Film Four have shown it a few times recently. Incidentally, I have a suspicion that the woman who has had her tounge and limbs cut off is inspired by Shakespeare's Titus Adronicus.

[eye2eye]

It could be, but whole film is put together masterfully, acting is perfect and as I've seen that movie few times whole built up to the final battle (which will surely blow minds of those who didn't see it) is fanastic and film itself is touching some many subjects without forcing anything and without delivering easy answers.

[wasted]

Karate kid 3 was pretty wpic.

[DieselDaisy]

Mizoguchi's films have strong female characters. They believe it has something to do with his childhood as his family were very poor and his sister was effectively 'sold' into Geishadom. His sister then rescued the youg Mizoguchi from poverty, getting him a job making kimonos. So, although it might be a bit far to call his films 'feminist', his films certainly all have these strong women who in many ways have attributes superior to the male leads. This is unlike, Kurosawa whose females tend to be very much the passive subsmissive Japanese archetypes with one or two exceptions (such as the Lady Macbeth character in Throne of Blood).

I recently watched Mizoguchi's Tales of the Taira Clan which is a historical epic about the rise of the Samurai class in the 12th century.

Edited November 18, 2013 by DieselDaisy

[wasted]

Tetsuo: Body Hammer and Akira. Battle Royale the best japanese movie of alltime, other than Black rains.

Edited November 19, 2013 by wasted

[DieselDaisy]

Battle Royale - weirdly - became popular amongst the chavs. My mate who used to work in HMV said, you got all these chavs coming in and going, ''fuckin hell, 'ave ya got Battle Royale like? It is fuckin belter like''. I say weird because I could imagine a chav sayinng, ''I divand like ahl these 'chinky' films like. They ahl speak fuckin funny and stuff.''

[wasted]

Its just sick and violent like horror. Maybe japanese have that sadistic attitude chavs have. Or scallies anyway. Maybe ita like a modern day Exorcist or something.

[axlfan88]

Tetsuo: Body Hammer and Akira. Battle Royale the best japanese movie of alltime, other than Black rains.

Oh come on, Battle Royale is a good movie, but best Japanese movie of all time ?!? lol

[wasted]

Tetsuo: Body Hammer and Akira. Battle Royale the best japanese movie of alltime, other than Black rains.

Oh come on, Battle Royale is a good movie, but best Japanese movie of all time ?!? lol

Black Rain is better probably.

[axlfan88]

Tetsuo: Body Hammer and Akira. Battle Royale the best japanese movie of alltime, other than Black rains.

Oh come on, Battle Royale is a good movie, but best Japanese movie of all time ?!? lol

Black Rain is better probably.

lol

[DieselDaisy]

I am not an expert on Manga/Anime (I like it but I am not a fanatic) but even with Akira, I know everyone who has read the comic says the film is crap basically - especially in relation to the ending.

[moreblack]

That's not uncommon for Anime/Manga adaptations sadly.

Miyazaki's last film is being released soon.

[wasted]

I've read Watchmen and seen the movie. I like the movie in an different way. Same with Akira really. And Ghost World.

[DieselDaisy]

Anyone like Masaki Kobayashi's films? Harakiri (1962) is a true samaurai masterpiece - I think Miike remade it a couple of years' ago.