3/5/22 (Sat)
Imamura Shohei’s hard-hitting 1979 film is based on the case of an actual serial killer in Japan active in 1964 just before the Olympics. The title is taken from Deuteronomy, where it is God who insists on that honor (“Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord”). But it is not clear here what the main character is taking vengeance against. Continue reading
3/22/22 (Tues)
Spirited Away, the worldwide anime hit, has been retooled as a major stage show by British director John Caird of Les Mis fame. It’s always a thorny business bringing films to the stage since few producers have the creativity or guts to stray too far from familiar material, as way too many Broadway duds have proven in recent years. This one was particularly tricky since they’re dealing with an animated feature involving supernatural elements. Anime/manga has been a rich vein for producers here to mine, such as the hugely successful Kabuki version of the One Piece epic and a musical rendering of video game phenomenon Token Ranbu. It is now its own genre, known in local parlance as 2.5D shows. But Spirited Away is based not on a series but on a single highly popular film – it reigned for years as Japan’s biggest-selling movie by far of any genre (until eclipsed by another anime last year) – with iconic characters and scenes that its legions of fans will be eagerly awaiting. The trick for a long-running success is how to balance between lovers of the film and audiences less familiar with the material if at all.
That’s not necessarily a problem in Tokyo: the show is only being done here for four weeks (followed by a national tour) and boasts familiar stars. That ensures a full house for the brief run – tickets were quickly snatched up – and the high-for-Tokyo ticket price of ¥14,500 should guarantee a profit despite the elaborate staging (they were going for over 10 times that price on online resale sites). Given the familiarity of the movie and the family-friendly material, I’m at a loss why they didn’t book this for a longer run, especially with the money they’ve put into it. I have to assume they’re aiming for a future production in London or New York considering the creative staff – in addition to director/adaptor Caird, non-Japanese handled the music arrangement, orchestrations, art design and puppetry design (in the land of classic puppet theater). That would make this a trial run of sorts. The Japanese theater world works in strange and mysterious ways.
3/13/22 (Sun), Kanze Noh Theater (Ginza)
The pairing of these two lively crowd-pleasers was almost completely sold out despite the state of semi-emergency in Tokyo at present. The only reminder of the fading pandemic was the ubiquitous masks, though I noticed a lot of exposed noses, which I’m going to take as progress. Continue reading
2/7/21 (Sun)
Scattered Clouds (also known as Two in the Shadow), Naruse’s last film, is a 1967 drama starring Hayama Yuzo and Tsukasa Yoko set in then-contemporary Tokyo. Continue reading
1/27/21 (Tues)
Oshima Nagisa’s fictional 1999 film conjures up a story of nanshoku (male-on-male sex) in the famed Shinsengumi samurai corps in 1865, just three years before the collapse of the shogunate. A certain amount of fooling around can be expected among samurai given the not-unknown phenomenon throughout Japanese history of male-on-male sex (not exactly homosexuality) as documented in novels, popular Kabuki plays and shunga prints. Within the Shinsengumi, at least as portrayed here, boy love was looked down upon not because of morals but from concerns over discipline and was basically ignored if held in check. The film is also known in English as Taboo, but something like Forbidden would be more accurate; gohatto literally means “against the law” or in this case “against the samurai code”. Putting historical figures like Hijikata Toshizo and Kondo Isami in this context seems unfair to their memories, but I guess that’s Hollywood (well, the Japanese equivalent).
2/20/21 (Sat)
A superior film. Ozu’s 1935 work is his last surviving silent film, made well into the sound era. The jobless Kihachi (a wonderful Sakamoto Takeshi) wanders around a barren landscape with his two young sons looking for work, often having to choose between dinner and shelter. The kids help out by catching dogs and turning them into the pound for a small reward. Kihachi eventually runs into an old friend (Iida Choko, also terrific) who helps find him a job. Kihachi then runs into a woman he had met at the shelter, who has a young daughter. He starts falling for the woman and helping as best he can. When the daughter becomes sick, he turns to stealing to help. In the end, he asks the old friend to take care of the children as he prepares to turn himself in. The friend is devastated at not lending him money earlier, not realizing his noble intentions. We see him at the end walking in the empty landscape, presumably toward the police.
1/16/21 (Sat)
Naruse’s bleak 1954 film about failed marriages, based on Kawabata’s novel. Continue reading
11/19/20 (Thurs)
Ozu honed his craft in the silent era, and this 1932 film, coming at the tail end of that period, is one of the most lauded of all his works. Highly acclaimed from the start – it won the prestigious Kinema Junpo Award as the year’s Best Film – it remains a critical favorite.
9/25/21 (Sat), Tokyo
The second feature by 40-something director/writer Harumoto Yujiro. The English title is lame: the “balance” (tenbin) in the Japanese title (literally Yuko’s Tenbin) refers to a set of scales like those held by Lady Justice. Here, documentary filmmaker Yuko is forced to weigh her values when the tables turn on her and the subject becomes the prey.
8/5/21 (Thurs)
Imai Tadashi’s 1959 film about two half-black siblings in a farming community at the foot of Mt. Bandai in Fukushima Prefecture. The film interestingly came out the same year as the highly successful remake of Imitation of Life and Cassavetes’ experimental Shadows, which both deal similarly with mixed-race or light-skinned blacks, as did that year’s Bunraku puppet drama 白いお地蔵さん (The White Buddha). Wonder if it was something in the air.
8/9/21 (Mon)
Ichikawa Kon’s 1960 film. Sentimental schlock based on a novel by Koda Aya. Koda also wrote Flowing (流れる), the source for one of my all-time favorite films. No such luck here. Continue reading
7/16/21 (Fri)
Matsumoto Toshio’s uncategorizable 1969 film about “gay boys”, a phrase used here mainly to refer to transvestites or male-to-female transgenders (the line isn’t clearly drawn). Having just seen John Cassavetes’ fragmented Shadows of ten years earlier, I thought I was ready for anything, but this psychedelic romp steps even further into the Twilight Zone. It’s drawn loosely from Oedipus Rex, which forms a framework of sorts, but that’s hardly the point in this house-of-mirrors experience.
The nominal story, set in contemporary Tokyo, revolves around the young and beautiful bar “hostess” Eddie (i.e., Oedipus – get it?), who is battling the bar’s aging kimono-clad Mama-san for the affections of an older gent. Eddie, whose long-absent father exists in his mind only as an old photo with the face burnt out, is haunted by memories of his mother laughing at his effeminate nature, beating him mercilessly after catching him putting on makeup, and screaming in horror as he stabs her to death when he finds her with a man (whom he also murders). Somehow he has found his way into Tokyo’s underground gay world, where he reigns as the most popular hostess at his bar among businessmen looking for a thrill. He ultimately wins the older gent, unwittingly causing the distraught Mama-san to commit suicide, and takes over the bar. Anyone familiar with Oedipus can see the rest coming, but it follows it more closely than I had imagined (too closely, to be honest) with one real shocker a la Buñuel in an expressionistic ending. Let’s just say that I’m glad the film’s in black-and-white.
sekenbanashi 