掲示板 Forums - Favourite Japanese films?

One i saw recently is Rental Family, a English/Japanese language fim by Japanese director Hiroko, starring Brendan Fraser, and it's a really interesting cross-cutral view of modern Japanese society.

one I saw in high school that had a huge emotional impact on me was My Secret Cache. The ending really caught me by surprise and helped me consolidate my personal world-view.

It's cliche, but the original Godzilla (1954) movie is really good. Other highly political/post-war movies I've enjoyed are Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), starring David Bowie, and No Regrets for Our Youth (1946), starring Setsuko Hara.

More non-war/recent movies I would recommend are Tampopo (1985), After Life (1998), and Air Doll (2009), with After Life being my favorite-favorite of the bunch. The premise is that you can only keep one memory in eternity, and a film crew does their best to recreate and film said memories within a week of one's death. An interesting aspect of the movie is that some of the older 'actors' are just regular people sharing their memories, and reflecting on how Japan has changed throughout their lives.

My all time favourite is 送り人 (Departures). It's a bit older tho. It's a quiet movie about a failing musician who finds his calling as a kind of mortician. It explores his struggles due to the stigma of this profession.

Siri says Departures is available on Plex, whatever that is. Your library may have the DVD as well. Music is a significant part of the film, including some original compositions. Since the protagonist is a cellist, there is a sweet cello solo.

​Always from Kitano Takeshi and around the same mood, I think you might like also 「あの夏、いちばん静かな海。」("A scene at the Sea"). Kitano's films can vary A LOT in terms of content, but this doesn't feature any violent scene.

I personally like to watch a bit of everything, tonight I just watched Dead Sushi (デッド寿司) from from Iguri Nobuchi (fairly gory, but still fun!). I also do enjoy watching fairly old and peaceful movies from directors such as Ozu Yasujiro (the classic 東京物語 from 1953, 晩春 from 1949 and so on), but also different styles from Suzuki Seijun (影なき声 from 1958, ハイティーンやくざ from 1962, けんかえれじい from 1966), Fukasaku Kinji and of course Kurosawa. From Fukasaku I watched the whole "Yakuza Papers" movie series, he really wanted to change the idealised and romantic way sometimes yakuzas were portrayed in movies, and what was left was brutality and greed. Speaking of criminal organisations, one of my favorite movies from Kurosawa might be 醉いどれ天使 (1948), where the legendary Mifune Toshiro and Shimura Takashi are respectively portraying a young and lost yakuza and a doctor trying to help him with his sickness (but I also loved his take on MacBeth with 蜘蛛巣城 from 1957). Oh and then of course the first 「バトル・ロウイアル」 (2000) from Fukasaku, violent sure but also political and meaningful.
(意味深長　な映画 ?).

Among modern directors the names which come to mind are Miike Takashi, Kitano Takeshi, Tsukamoto Shin'ya. I love how Miike can make a great movie for families but also be quite disturbing when the context "requires" it ( 殺し屋１ is a good example of this). Fun fact: if you want to learn once and for all the difference in accent between 着る and 切る, you could watch his 「オーディション」(1999)

. To compensate, a really fun and for everyone movie always directed from him is 「妖怪大戦争」(2005).

To finish this unsolicited rant, I'll add one nice and heartwarming movie I've also watched this year: 夏の庭 from Somai Shinji.^^ I also do like horror and I watched several animation movies from Ghibli of course, but maybe in another post.

​Let us know what you think of it once you watched it.

Another fairly cozy movie, but with a bit more action and some weirdness, could be 忍たま乱太郎 (Ninja Kids!!!) always from Miike (2011). To be fair I watched it a long time ago, but I'd like to watch it again now

From Ozu I also quite enjoyed お早う ("Good morning", 1959), more vintage but the story of these two brothers who decide to stop talking as a form of protest (they just really really want that tv!) is quite funny. There's also a scene where the older one starts criticising the way Japanese people fill their speech with pleasentries, almost trying to find some underlying hypocrisy in it (which is an interesting take coming from a native director I think). Perhaps, later in the movie to "fix" this Ozu goes back to the topic and concludes with a less harsh take on the matter.