Author Archives: Sekenbanashi

Dark Habits (Entre Tinieblas)

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  • Entre Tinieblas (Dark Habits)

10/28/25 (Tues)

A cabaret singer taking refuge in a convent with nutty nuns – but we’re a long way from Sister Act. Almodóvar’s 1983 film was his third feature but the first to win wide notice. The Spanish title refers to a Catholic service that takes place in the three days before Easter, commemorating Jesus’ suffering and death through a gradual extinguishing of candles and ending in total darkness.

A cabaret singer’s abusive boyfriend dies from some bad heroin that he scored for her. Afraid of the police, she takes refuge in a local convent, the Order of the Humiliated Redeemers. She is given the room of a former woman who ran away to serve in Africa, where she was eaten by cannibals. The latter’s newly widowed mother, the Marquess, has decided to withdraw her support from the convent, leaving it in dire financial straits.

Mother Superior is a masturbating, cocaine-snorting, would-be lesbian with fantasies about the new recruit. She believes humiliation is the only way to redemption (“Man will not be saved until he realizes he is the most despicable being ever created”) and thus gives her followers degrading names: Sister Rat of the Sewers writes trashy novels under a penname based on the stories of former penitents; Sister Sh*t is haunted by guilt from a murder for which Mother Superior lied in order to save her, and often drops LSD (the hallucinogenic view from her perspective is hilarious); Sister Damned is fond of playing the bongo for her pet tiger, a surrogate child; and Sister Snake makes fashionable dresses for the Virgin Mary statues along with the chain-smoking priest, who she secretly loves (he adores the costumes for My Fair Lady but is apparently straight).

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The Killer (喋血雙雄)

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  • 喋血雙雄 (The Killer)

10/25/25 (Sat)

Woo followed his breakout A Better Tomorrow and its sequel with this 1989 thriller. An assassin (Chow Yun-fat) agrees to one final job before retirement (this “final job” trope could be a genre on its own). He succeeds in gunning down an entire gang in a nightclub, but accidentally blinds a female nightclub singer who gets too close to the action. Plagued with guilt, he gets close to her without revealing his identity and vows to himself to get the money for a corneal operation that will restore her sight.

At the same time, the triad boss who hired him for the kill now wants him dead. A bloody shootout ensues in which a child is injured. Even as Chow manages to escape, he brings the child to a hospital. A detective (Danny Lee) on the case is intrigued that Chow would risk his own life to get the child to safety, especially in light of his relation with the blind singer. Sensing human feeling inside the killer, he becomes obsessed with capturing Chow. After numerous betrayals and plot twists, Lee ends up fighting the bad guys alongside Chow until the final climax, where they confront a triad gang at a church in a you-gotta-see-it-to-believe-it battle.

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A Better Tomorrow (英雄本色)

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  • 英雄本色 (A Better Tomorrow)

10/24/25 (Fri)

John Woo’s 1986 flick apparently defied gloomy expectations and proved an unexpected blockbuster, making Woo a major presence, reigniting the film careers of Chow Yun-fat and Ti Lung, and propelling pop star Leslie Cheung to film stardom (he also sang the theme song). Moreover, it changed the game for Hong Kong action films, essentially creating a new genre.

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Infernal Affairs (無間道)

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  • 無間道 (Infernal Affairs)

10/19/25 (Sun)

Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s 2002 classic was not only a big hit in its own right but spawned a prequel, a sequel, a TV series, and adaptations in Korea, Japan, India and America (Scorsese’s Oscar-winning The Departed). So I figured it’s about time I caught up with it. The Chinese title, “The Endless Road”, refers to the eternal sufferings of Buddhist hell, described more fully at the beginning and end of the film. That would have made for a memorable English title, but as it happens they found a terrific substitute. I wish Japanese title-makers were this creative.

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A Look Back: Merrily We Roll Along

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With the release of the filmed version of the 2023 Broadway revival of the cult Sondheim musical Merrily We Roll Along, the timing seems right for a rerun of this piece from last year. Unlike the Met Live and National Theatre Live productions, the film is not the record of a single performance but shot over three days and edited into one work. While that feels like cheating — it essentially gives the actors three takes to get it right, going against the entire idea of a live show — it does give a wider audience a look at a flawed vehicle that most are unlikely to see in person. Reviews of the film rendering have been mixed, but the production itself, based on the original London showing that I saw some years ago, was solid. It’s also a way for the producers to squeeze even more money out of the show after charging up to $899 per ticket on Broadway. Here is my take.

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Yankee damns Yankees

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  • Yankee damns Yankees

10/12/25 (Sun)

It seems that the 1955 musical Damn Yankees is set to be the next sacrifice on the altar of woke. I was excited to hear that a revival of the show, one of the best of the Golden Age musicals, will be moving to Broadway after an apparently successful run in Washington DC. I saw the last revival twice in 1994 with a pitch-perfect Victor Garber as the devil, and it was a joy. I remember in previews when 104-year-old George Abbott, the original director four decades earlier, showed up in the audience to a standing ovation.

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Undercurrent (夜の河)

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  • 夜の河 (Undercurrent)

10/11/25 (Sat)

Yoshimura Kozaburo’s 1956 melodrama (also known more literally as Night River) is another of his Mizoguchi-type female-centric films exploring the plight of women in contemporary Japan. Yamamoto Fujiko is a Kyoto kimono designer working at her family shop. Her talent and perseverance have won her success in what is seen as a dying industry (back in 1956! – fortunately that proved untrue) in an increasingly Westernized society. She missed out on the normal marriage years due to the war and is now 30 and unwed, quite old for the time. She is resolved to be her own woman, not reliant on anyone, and rejects the efforts of her friends and family to match her up. A young painter is clearly in love with her, even basing his works on her, but to his despair, she takes no notice romantically.

During a stroll into town, she happens upon a man (Uehara Ken) wearing a tie with her design. Something about him attracts her, and they strike up a friendship. Continue reading →

Highest 2 Lowest

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  • Highest 2 Lowest

10/9/25 (Thurs)

I shouldn’t be commenting on this since I only watched a small part before giving up. I was excited to learn of this remake of the Kurosawa classic High & Low, directed by Spike Lee, starring Denzel Washington – how perfect is that? The moviemakers retain the basic plot of a businessman who must decide whether to save his employee’s kid at a devastating cost to himself, but shift the setting to a black music producer taunted by a struggling rap artist. I re-watched the original first with friends, then took in the remake.

All of us were stunned at how awful this was in just about every department. Continue reading →

Noh: Kocho, Tenko (胡蝶, 天鼓)

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  • NOH: 胡蝶, 天鼓 (Kocho, Tenko)

9/21/25 (Sun), Umewaka

Kocho: This winter piece is rather unseasonal in these still humid days, but it’s always a pleasure to watch. A butterfly laments to a monk that she has never seen a plum, which blossoms in the late winter, since butterflies don’t live that long. The monk recites a sutra for her, and the power of prayer allows her miraculously to enjoy the flower.

You’d have to look hard to find any profound theme in this, but it’s a light and lovely show. Continue reading →

Lullaby of the Earth (大地の子守歌)

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  • 大地の子守歌 (Lullaby of the Earth)

9/15/25 (Mon)

Masamura Yasuzo’s 1976 work was playing at a retrospective of powerful film performances by actresses, and a friend spoke so highly of Harada Mieko that it piqued my interest.

It is the 1930s. An orphaned 13-year-old girl has been raised by an old lady in the happy solitude of the mountains of Iyo (Ehime Prefecture). She returns one day to find the woman dead. Extremely strong-willed, she is determined to live her life dependent on no one. She initially rejects one man who tries to recruit her for steady work, but gives in when she learns that it is by the sea, which she’s always dreamed of seeing. She is taken to a remote island, where unsurprisingly she is put to work in a brothel, though, given her age, as an assistant to the girls and not a prostitute herself.

She is headstrong and not interested in making friends or being liked. She resists limits and labels: she insists on rowing the boat that takes the prostitutes out to sailors, usually a man’s job, and cuts her hair to look like a man. She resolutely refuses to be with clients even after she gets her first period – which she only comprehends after a kind lady on the outside explains – but gives in when she realizes that the money earned can buy her way out. After first forcing a young kid to have sex with her to get that out of the way, she plunges into that world as with everything and is soon the most popular whore in the house.

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Fashion Freak Show

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  • Fashion Freak Show

9/12/25 (Fri)

Jean Paul Gaultier’s more-or-less autobiographical show, subtitled “The Exhibition”, has evidently been around for a few years, but I knew nothing about it when a friend called and tempted me with a free ticket. I assumed at first that it would just be a fashion show, but reviews from London and elsewhere suggested that it was a musical revue of sorts and were broadly positive. And I couldn’t argue with the price.

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Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean

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  • Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean

9/7/25 (Sun)

Criterion introduced a salute to Robert Altman this month, and this 1982 title caught my eye. It’s based on a Broadway play that Altman himself directed the same year with the same starry cast. Having just seen Emilia Pérez, I was surprised to come across another transgender role, this time from eons ago (the play was written in 1976). Even more interesting, the film, similar to the much later work, was not patronizing or preachy.

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