Movie Going Madness in Japan

[47lab Guest Find all posts View Profile Close 47lab]

Hey Takuma, you must've been holding out & saving some of the good shit for yourself cuz I didn't see some of these posted at your other sites like Iona getting her breast suckled. btw, what was the theater that Patrick Macias mentioned in his book that showed classic pink films -- I believe it was in Shinjuku? I didn't see it in your list or has it been shut down since the publication of his book?

[fatboyslim142 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close fatboyslim142]

Yubari is a tiny town (with a population less than 10 000) in the middle of nowhere, and those vids are from the Nishimura events so naturally they don't attract that many people. Furthermore, not everyone makes it to the end. This year the program started at 10:30 am and finished after 3am... Nishimura himself went to sleep for a few hours during the program and left Noboru Iguchi in charge (without telling him )

Most of the people visiting the festival are filmmakers. The number of invited quests alone was over 250 this year. The festival area is very small, and there are only two hotels in Yubari, so you'll be running into filmmakers all the time, and you'll be sitting next to them in the audience (usually without knowing it).

I still remember in 2013 when I was watching The ABCs of Death in Yubari. This blond Japanese girl was sitting (almost) next to me. A very unusual sight in Japan. Even more unusual was the feeling when I recognized her on the screen. Yes, it was this girl:

Did you get a pic with her & or her autograph?

[Mark C. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Mark C.]

Nice work Takuma, very cool post. Love those shots of the posters, the Japanese really know how to make a striking movie poster. Yubari Fanta looks like it was a blast. Thanks for sharing.

[sukebanboy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close sukebanboy]

HAHA....Not hard to work out which one is you in that video of Yuipuru (Yui Murata) mini-concert + fan service (2013) you foreigner!!!

What an honor though!!!:up:

[Takuma Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Takuma]

Did you get a pic with her & or her autograph?

No, I didn't. I didn't want to upset my girlfriend too much

So instead I just had a picture of myself with Yoshihiro Nishimura.

Hey Takuma, you must've been holding out & saving some of the good shit for yourself cuz I didn't see some of these posted at your other sites like Iona getting her breast suckled.

I think you've been dreaming I don't think I've seen that happen. But she was the naked sushi plate. And she was the one doing the boob attack (picture on page 1). And she even got naked in Brussels it seems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqPF...outu.be&t=5m2s
(the guy is Naoya Tashiro... her husband)

btw, what was the theater that Patrick Macias mentioned in his book that showed classic pink films -- I believe it was in Shinjuku? I didn't see it in your list or has it been shut down since the publication of his book?

I haven't read that book. Do you remember what the theater was called?

I don't really know many pink theaters because I'm not so interested in the genre except for roman pornos.

After tonight I'm gonna be offline until Monday. 13 movies and three nights in a capsule hotel in Tokyo planned...

[47lab Guest Find all posts View Profile Close 47lab]

No, I didn't. I didn't want to upset my girlfriend too much

So instead I just had a picture of myself with Yoshihiro Nishimura.



I think you've been dreaming I don't think I've seen that happen. But she was the naked sushi plate. And she was the one doing the boob attack (picture on page 1). And she even got naked in Brussels it seems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqPF...outu.be&t=5m2s
(the guy is Naoya Tashiro... her husband)



I haven't read that book. Do you remember what the theater was called?

I don't really know many pink theaters because I'm not so interested in the genre except for roman pornos.

After tonight I'm gonna be offline until Monday. 13 movies and three nights in a capsule hotel in Tokyo planned...

drats, maybe it was a dream! or more like wishful thinking. Iona certainly likes to reveal her best assets at these film festivals and her husband is one cool dude to play along.

I'll have to check on the name of the theater if I can ever find my copy laying around somewhere in this mess of a room. Come to think of it, I think I got it wrong and it actually showed old yakuza flicks and not pink films. :think:

anyway, have enjoy your movie binge and capsule hotel stay. :up:

[Takuma Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Takuma]

Well, that was awesome four days in Tokyo!

Tokyo Day 1: Friday

I swear I'll never take such an early flight again! I was so tired I fell asleep about five times during Akio Jissoji's Utamaro's World (1977). At least I woke up quick as each time the same scene was still playing. The film is an enjoyable period drama with some action, plenty of sex, moody atmosphere and very stylish cinematography. The theatre warned about poor print condition, but that was typical Japanese over-cautious statement: it was a beautiful print with some dirt here and there.

The film played in Cinema Vera, which is a nice film archive -like theatre playing double features. Utamaro's World played in actor Shin Kishida retrospective. The second film was the awesome smutty ninja exploitationer Demon Spies (1974), also available on R1 DVD by Animeigo. The film is probably a bit underrated because the DVD came out after the amazing Lone Wolf and Cub films, which set the comparison too high. Demon Spies is, however, quite a fantastic mix of ninja spies, ultra-violent bloodshed, sex, nudity, and excellent action choreography. It was real treat seeing this on pristine 35 mm print.











After a bit of rest and some good ramen I headed to my favourite theatre Laputa Asagaya for the evening screening. They were playing Meika Seri retrospective, and this week's film was Tatsumi Kumashiro's roman porno Wet Lust: 21 Strippers (1974). The film features some terrific cinematography and typically excellent (for Kumashiro) soundtrack, including the theme song from Delinquent Girl Boss and a few characters singing and whistling Meiko Kaji's Urami Bushi (from Female Prisoner Scorpion). Very realistic drama with lots of exotic striptease by real performers, but towards the end there are too many dull sex scenes and the audio-visual treat is sort of toned down. Still quite a good film.

[Takuma Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Takuma]

Tokyo Day 2: Saturday

The day begun in Meguro Cinema with a Shunji Iwai double feature. The theatre is playing Swallowtail Butterfly and All About Lily Chou Chou back to back all day, so I jump in from the second screening. Great atmosphere; the theatre is packed to the last seat (despite this double feature playing 3 times a day for seven days). Between films they're playing Swallowtail Butterfly and All About Lily Chou Chou soundtracks. As a nice little touch, the staff rings bells when a screening is about to begin.

Swallowtail Butterfly (1996) has always been one of my favourite movies. Despite some clumsy acting and Chara not getting her accent right in any language, it's just such an amazing, amazing film that you never get tired of. It's a wonderful coming of age take with awesome characters (personal favourite: Mickey Curtis as slum doctor tattoo artist), spoken mostly in English (also Chinese and Japanese), and featuring drama, “live” music, yakuza, bazookas, even horror elements!

And even then, All About Lily Chou Chou (2001) is an even more impressive film. I've seen it at least 6 times and I was nearly crying in the theatre just because of how great a movie can be. Arguably the most breathtaking cinematography of the decade (by Noboru Shinoda), great soundtrack, and a well constructed storyline which remains challenging on repeated viewings due to broken chronology and “anonymous” chat conversations. Yu Aoi is just great, too, and Hayoto Ichihara isn't as wooden an actor as he'd become in a few years. There's no better film about Japanese youth.

No doubt, these two are both among the best movies ever made. On the negative side, worn-out yellowish 35mm print on Lily Chou Chou wasn't quite what I was hoping for, but the film still blew my mind.





After 5 hours of Iwai I figured out just one more movie would probably be enough for the night. The last film would be Teruo Ishii's excellent cult classic Horrors of Malformed Men (1969), which had a special screening in Cine Qualite. This has remained a rarity in Japan since its 1969 self-imposed “ban” by Toei who drew it from distribution soon after its release. It has never been released on video or DVD in Japan due it its “political incorrectness”. However, the film does play in special screenings and retrospectives every now and then, so it's not impossible to catch on screen in Japan. The talk event after the film went on a bit longer than I expected, so I had no time to watch more films that night, which was perhaps a good thing.



Then the bad news: my fucking capsule hotel was full; I had to find another one, and that was a piece of shit with pillows made of stone and even the AV channel didn't work. Ugh! Not the most comfortable night, though you can't beat the price: $25 for a night in central Tokyo (Ueno) is quite good.

[Takuma Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Takuma]

Tokyo Day 3: Sunday

Sunday started in Laputa with Ikasama bakuchi, which played in the massive screenwriter Koji Takada retrospective. Laputa only has about 48 seats, so I knew when I'd be among the last people to choose the seat when I got ticket number 31. In the end, the screening turned out so full they carried extra seats for people. I was by far the youngest person in the theatre, sitting between two 70 year old guys, one of them mumbling to himself throughout the film…

Ikasama bakuchi (1968) is the 6th instalment in Toei's popular Gambler series, which fall into the ninkyo yakuza (or old school yakuza) film genre. These films are all about honour, duty and friendship between men. Ikasama bakuchi doesn't reinvent its enjoyable genre conventions, but rather mixes them with small changes. This time Koji Tsuruta, one of Toei's three great yakuza stars of the era, plays a gambler who indirectly causes the death of another man in the hands his enemy. Feeling responsibility he then tries to win back the money the dead man (and his family) owned. Confronting him on the gambling floor is Tomisaburo Wakayama as a master card dealer and swindler working for a rotten yakuza gang. Intense gambling matches and a classy formula played by charismatic actors - a very enjoyable genre film.

Poster for Ikasama bakuchi (on the left)


Since I was not in a hurry, I stayed little while in the theatre to enjoy the atmosphere and take some more photos. The CD player in the downstairs was playing soundtracks from Battles without Honour and Humanity, Hokuriku Proxy War, and Graveyard of Honour, all of which were screening in the Koji Takada retrospective. There was also a new film in the Meika Seri retro stating from that day: Man and Woman Behind the Fusuma Screen: Enduring Skin (1974) by Tatsumi Kumashiro.



Man and Woman Behind the Fusuma Screen: Enduring Skin


Hokuriku Proxy War (photo from Friday night, actually)


Bookshelf with something to read (photo from Friday night, actually)


And outside the theater: a big billboard for the Koji Takada retrospective


My next film is Koji Wakamatsu's vicious torture classic The Embryo Hunts in Secret (1966) in a theatre called Pole Pole. Scripted by Masao Adachi and then filmed by Wakamatsu in just a few days it's an odd movie consisting mostly of a troubled man (haunted by family problems) beating a woman he has kidnapped. It is very describing that the film still got rated 18 (16 after appeal) in France less than 10 years ago, when films like Rambo and Only God Forgives were passed with a 12 rating. In any case, the movie does have something to it.

The real highlight followed the film when none other than Masao Adachi walked on the stage. Adachi was Wakamatsu's active collaborator in the 1960. In the early 70's the duo filmed the propaganda film Red Army/PFLP: Declaration of World War (1971) in Palestine. While Wakamatsu returned to Japan, Adachi joined the battle in Palestine and stayed in the country for decades. He was considered somewhat a terrorist in both Palestine and Japan, and spent time in prison in both countries. He's been a free man since 2003, though, and seemed very much energetic today. Adachi was joking how feminists hated The Embryo Hunts in Secret back in the 60's because it shows an asshole man beating a woman, but then later feminists begun to like his work because it displayed the man beating a woman as an asshole (+ the ending had something to do with it). Go figure...



Adachi's talk went on longer than I expected (and the train was 5 min late, which is forever in Japan), so I was in a real hurry to the day's most important screening, The Defensive Power of Aikido in Laputa. I could still make it on time, but the very convenient number 5 ticket I got earlier the same day was utterly useless because I was the last one to arrive there. Oddly enough, I ended up on the same seat where I was sitting 6 hours ago in Ikasama bakuchi, and again on my right side there's some weir dude who's having way too much fun watching a “silly old movie”. Something wrong with that seat, I'm not gonna go close to it again…

The guy next to me didn't manage to distract me much, because Sonny Chiba kicked ass!!! The Defensive Power of Aikido (1975) has some of Chiba's best fights, though he plays a (little bit villainous) supporting role. The real star is his bother Jiro Chiba, who portrays Aikido founder Moriehei Ueshiba in a VERY loose adaptation of his life. Great action, cool soundtrack by The Street Fighter composer Toshiaki Tsushima, and quite a good screenplay by Koji Takada. Oddly enough, there's no sex or nudity whatsoever. A very enjoyable karate (uhm, aikido) film that is on par with Chiba's similarly themed karate biopics The Killing Machine and Karate Bullfighter.




Tokyo Day 4: Monday

One movie to catch in Kineka Omori before my flight back to the northern island. This is a nice mainstream theatre which often has interesting non-mainstream double features. Also, there's a collection of posters for Studio Ghibli movies that played in the theatre since the 1980's. The film I'm seeing is the excellent, recently discovered and completed 1975 Vietnam action Number 10 Blues: Goodbye Saigon, which I have already discussed in another thread:
- http://www.rockshockpop.com/forums/s...281975-2013%29

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

The Defensive Power of Aikido is pretty underrated, at least on these shores, probably because it hasn't been given a decent release. I have a so-so quality bootleg of it. It's a pretty solid movie.

[sukebanboy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close sukebanboy]

This picture is Japan to me...



While all sorts of chaos on those posters that would be out of place anywhere else.....but here they are directly next to a kettle, cups and tea...with a girl enjoying a good book nearby close to a beautiful view of nature !!!

Only in japan is this mixture of chaos and normality living in harmony together...

[Takuma Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Takuma]

There's going to be a Sonny Chiba retrospective in Tokyo in Cinema Vera next month (June 14th - July 11th). 24 films, including many treasures like the super rare SFX / earthquake movie Tokyo Daijishin Magnitude 8.1 (1980)





Chiba himself will also attend during the first day. I'm already booking my flights!

Full Program
Funky Hat Detective (Kinji Fukasaku, 1961)
Niniroku Jiken Dasshutsu (Tsuneo Kobayashi, 1962)
Gambler Tales of Hasshu: A Man's Pledge (Masahiro Makino, 1963)
Abashiri Prison: Hokkai ken (Teruo Ishii, 1965)
Kamikaze Yaro (Kinji Fukasaku, 1966)
Samurai's Lullaby (Masashige Narusawa, 1966)
Rikugun chí´hí´ 33 (Tsuneo Kobayashi, 1968)
Memoir of Japanese Assassins (Sadao Nakajima, 1969)
Bodyguard Kiba (Tatsuichi Takamori, 1973)
The Street Fighter (Shigero Ozawa, 1974)
The Executioner 2: Karate Inferno (Teruo Ishii, 1974)
Wolfguy: Enraged Lycanthrope (Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, 1975)
Bullet Train (Junya Sato, 1975)
Karate Bullfighter (Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, 1975)
Karate Warriors (Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, 1976)
Dasso Yugi (Kosaku Yamashita, 1976)
Okinawa Yakuza War (Sadao Nakajima, 1976)
Karate for Life (Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, 1977)
Message From Space (Kinji Fukasaku, 1976)
Okinawa 10 Year War (Akinori Matsuo, 1978)
Swords of Vengeance (Kinji Fukasaku, 1978)
G.I. Samurai (Kí´sei Saití´, 1979)
Samurai Reincarnation (Kinji Fukasaku, 1981)
Tokyo Daijishin Magnitude 8.1 (Kiyoshi Nishimura, 1980)

The Defensive Power of Aikido is pretty underrated, at least on these shores, probably because it hasn't been given a decent release. I have a so-so quality bootleg of it. It's a pretty solid movie.

I will check the Japanese VoD version soon (I was supposed to do that during the weekend, until I found out you can't do payments with JP Post Bank ATM during the weekend... unbelievable!) but it may come from the same source as the bootleg DVD: the Toei Channel broadcasting.

[Takuma Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Takuma]

The Defensive Power of Aikido is pretty underrated, at least on these shores, probably because it hasn't been given a decent release. I have a so-so quality bootleg of it. It's a pretty solid movie.

I will check the Japanese VoD version soon (I was supposed to do that during the weekend, until I found out you can't do payments with JP Post Bank ATM during the weekend... unbelievable!) but it may come from the same source as the bootleg DVD: the Toei Channel broadcasting.

The VoD version is probably not any better than the bootleg dvd, in fact, I think it may be slightly weaker. Similar quality, but lots of ghosting.









Etsuko Shihomi is incredibly cute in the film

[sukebanboy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close sukebanboy]

TAKUMA...I am pretty much BURSTING with ENVY everytime you post something new here....

Not sure how much more I can stand!!

I need to get to Japan ASAP!!!!

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

Thanks for the caps, Takuma, the quality looks roughly the same.

And yeah, Etsuko Shihomi is adorable in everything she did around this time but is especially so in this picture.

That Chiba retrospective would be amazing.