Movie Going Madness in Japan

[Takuma]

While I was in Tokyo, I also found time to drop by in Jinbocho Theater for Japanese 1970s retrospective. I don't know how to translate the title (七〇年代の憂鬱 退廃と情熱の映画史) well but basically the focus was on socially aware films mirroring the new gloomier era.

The program is quite excellent with titles like Tanaka's Secret Chronicle: She Beast Market (1974), Kumashiro's Africa's Light (1975), Fukasaku's Cops vs. Thugs (1975), Terayama's The Boxer (1977), Hasegawa's The Man Who Stole the Sun (1979), and more, all in 35mm except Sachiko no sachi. I only had a chance to see two titles, Sadao Nakajima's Aesthetics of a Bullet (1973) (my second time in 35mm) and Toshiya Fujita's Did the Red Bird Escape (1975).



Aesthetics of a Bullet is a well done tale of a miserable wanna-be gangster (Tsunehiko Watase) getting his change act big while he's actually just being used by big shots. It was an ATG film made by Toei director and cast, and feels exactly that. Also features fantastic theme song and Miki Sugimoto is a supporting role.

Did the Red Bird Escape is a pretty fantastic "70s depression" zeitgeist about two small time goons (Yoshio Harada, Masaaki Daimon) and a girl (Kaori Momoi) living together and trying to make money with frauds and blackmails. The film is a bit of a slow burner, but the cast is great, Momoi spends half of the movie topless, cinematographer Tatsuo Suzuki does terric job and director Fujita was at his element with this kind of material. The 35mm print was so amazing it nearly blew my brain out.







Other pics

Africa's Light and The Boxer


Ryoma Ansatsu and Cops. vs. Thugs


Zeni geba, Take Care,Red Riding Hood, Sachiko no sachi

[Takuma]

Meiko Kaji Film Festival in Shin Bungeiza





Full report in the Female Prisoner Scorpion thread:
http://www.rockshockpop.com/forums/s...893#post172893

[Takuma]

There is an all night film festival called "Pig in the Bag" (Finnish idiom) in Finland. The idea is that they screen 4 films back to back, but they don't announce the program in advance. You don't know what you'll be seeing until the title hits the screen, and if you doze off at the wrong moment, you might never discover what you saw.

Many moons ago, before the festival went 35mm, it started as an event to "select the best movie in the world", conducted by voting after a set of films had been screened. The film selection included movies like The Human Tornado, The Warrior and the Blind Swordsman, and Raiders of the Doomed Kingdom. Shogun Assassin won.

The reason I'm telling this story is that a few weeks ago on Saturday night, when "Pig in the Bag" was once again held in Helsinki, Finland, I sat in a movie theatre in Tokyo watching Teruo Ishii movies screened in 35mm back to back all night! And all night I kept thinking, "this is a strong candidate for the best movie ever!" Maybe not "really", but under those circumstances, breathing that amazing atmosphere, watching movies like Horrors of Malformed Men, Inferno of Torture, and Bohachi Bushido at 4am on big screen from pristine prints... yeah! I mean, Fuck Yeah!

The program was:
22:30 Inferno of Torture (1969) (35mm)
0:25 Horrors of Malformed Men (1969) (35mm)
2:20 Porno jidaigeki: Bohachi Bushido (1973) (35mm)
3:55 The Executioner 2: Karate Inferno (1974) (35mm)

I attended the night with a good friend of mine, whom I got into quality cinema about 7 years ago when I met him in a Japanese university (I borrowed him the first 2 Tetsuo films, which he watched alone in a classroom!). By pure chance we were both wearing Hard Core Chocolate T-shirts... me The Return of the Street Fighter and he Girl Boss: Escape from Reform School.







The night finished at 5:20 am, after which I headed to my capsule hotel for some sleep. There wasn't much time to sleep since Sex and Fury (1973) and Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs (1974) were screening in 35mm in the same theatre the next day (well, technically speaking the same day). And then I needed to head to Cinema Vera for Shogoro Nishimura retrospective in the evening, but I have already covered that event before in this thread...

[AngelGuts]

Thank you so much for these observations, Takuma.

[tetrapak]

Re-Evaluating Shogoro Nishimura

...include 8 pink films by the notorious Roman Porno vending machine,.

LOL :up:

[Takuma]

Thanks. This was the second time I got trapped in Tokyo overnight because of cancelled flight. Last time it happened I spent the night in Shin bungeiza theatre watching clown movies all night...

[Ian Jane]

Making the best of a bad situation. Awesome notes as always.

[Takuma]

Re-Evaluating Shogoro Nishimura

Cinema Vera kicked 2018 off big time with the most interesting retrospective in a while. Not only did the 14 film Nishimura series include 8 pink films by the notorious Roman Porno vending machine, but also 6 mainstream movies from his early years. And indeed, it's time to re-evaluate one of my most hated Roman Porno directors!

I watched all 6 of the mainsteam movies screened, and loved half of them and liked most of the rest! The films included the biting drama comedy The Gambling Monk (1963) based on a Shohei Imamura script, the fantastic Sun Tribe film Kaettekita ookami (1966), the gritty and stylish moral corruption drama Burning Nature (1967), the lame post war yakuza flick Tokyo Street Fighting (1967), the mediocre ninkyo yakuza film Biographies of Killers (1969), and the excellent ninkyo/jitsuroku hybrid Yakuza Native Ground (1969) with Tetsuto Tamba!

For those interested, I (quicly and hastily) wrote an article with reviews of the 6 films in my blog:
https://sketchesofcinema.wordpress.c...a-early-films/

I only wish they had screened more of his mainstream films. He made 14 of them in total, before Roman Porno begun.

Festival poster


Crimson Night Dream, Apartment Wife: Affair In the Afternoon, Tokyo Eros: 1001 Nights


Crimson Night Dream, Apartment Wife: Affair In the Afternoon


Tokyo Streetfighting, Kaettekita ookami


Kaettekita ookami


Kaettekita ookami was my favourite of the bunch, and it was pure luck that I got to see it. I had a flight scheduled for Monday night, but then this happened...



Yeah, not a common sight in Shibuya! My flight was cancelled and I had to go capsule hotel hunting. On the positive side, I could attend Tuesday screenings as well because I figured that if I gotta stay an extra night I might as well go see some more films next morning.

[Takuma]

Days 5-8: Part 2

My day in Tokyo had started with some less than impressive films and I needed a sure hit for the night, so I headed to National Film Center for the endlessly re-watchable Evil Dead Trap (1988). While the film makes little sense, it's such a fast paced mix of spectacular Fulci inspired kills, Argento esque camerawork and a fantastic "bootleg Goblin" score that I never get tired of it. This was my second time seeing it in 35mm. A bit of trivia: two of the three female leads are 80s AV stars (Hitomi Kobayashi and Eriko Nakagawa). The English title is faithful to the original (Shiriyo no wana = "Trap of Evil"), which is indeed a reference to the JP title of The Evil Dead (Shiryo no harawata = "Guts of the Evil"). Co-produced by Japan Home Video, which did the later Guinea Pig films and some Riki Takeuchi action, and Director's Company, a small arthouse firm formed by Ikeda, Shinji Somai, Sogo Ishii, Kichitaro Negishi and a few other young filmmakers to produce their own films.

I attended the screening with a friend who lives in Tokyo. Last time I saw him I gave him a Wolfguy BD as present. This time he had bought me a present: "Oppai zukan: The only existing full-scale oppai visual dictionary in the world". Hmmm, thanks, I guess.

Next day I headed to Laputa Asagaya, who had a series for Rentaro Mikuni. I caught two films, the pretty good 1959 Toei docudrama Seven Bullets (七つの弾丸) (about a bank robber in Osaka, documenting the daily lives of him and his victims prior to the incident) and Kon Ichikawa's The Burmese Harp (1956), which I had never seen before. Needless to say 35mm in cinema was the way to experience it, even if the print was rather damaged. Seven Bullets in turn looked absolutely pristine.

Top and bottom left: Rentaro Mikuni retro. Bottom right: Yukiko Todoroki retro and Shintoho Pink series








I initially wasn't too happy to see Laputa Asagaya dedicate their Late Show to semi-recent Shintoho pink films. I wasn't even going to attend any screening but the curiosity got the better of me when I 1) realized I'd never seen a Shintoho pink film in 35mm and were curious about how it would look like in comparison to the worn out home video releases, and 2) I was already there since I had just finished Seven Bullets.

I was glad to have been proven wrong as, at least in the case of this film, someone had done fine programming job exposing one of those small semi-gems a casual viewer would otherwise never discover. Hidden beneath the fleshy premise and ridiculous title, Aching Wives: Continuous Adultery (うずく人妻たち 連続不倫) (2006) turned out to be a rather beautiful film set in two time periods. A young single man and middle aged woman with troubled marriage first meet and have a brief affair in 1995. In 2007 they meet again by chance in a small hot springs hotel where he, now married, has escaped his troubles, and she, who has managed to fix her marriage but not forget him, arrives with her husband. Effectively minimalist and sad film with surprisingly fine performances. Oh, and the 35mm print was just beautiful.

Aching Wives: Continuous Adultery


Chirashi


I also visited Shin Bungeiza's Nobuhiko Obayashi retro (held in advance of his upcoming film Hanagatami), despite my irritation over the fact that all the films I wanted to see played at inconvenient dates. This marked the 4th time I've missed House in 35mm in Tokyo (each time the screening was a few week before or after my stay, or sold out). What I saw was the rare 1983 TV film called Reibyo densetsu (麗猫伝説) (in 16mm) that no English language website has ever heard of. It's about an old actress who may be a ghost. I thought the film was pretty boring, but then again I often dislike the "standard Obayashi" films and only love the masterpieces (Futari, Tenkosei, House).





On my last day I was supposed to go to Shin Bungeiza to see School in the Crosshairs, but after realizing it's a DCP and not 35mm I decided to sleep late in my capsule rather that waste my money on that screening. Once I got up, I headed to Cinema Vera who had just started a new retrospective for Tooru Abe. Toei fans know him best as the regular bad guy in ninkyo yakuza films. Cinema Vera did a cleaver move and omitted all of those films, and chose to screen movies that don't play in other retrospectives so often. I only had time to see one film before my flight, Wrath of Daimajin (1966), which I enjoyed a fair bit thanks to its fantastic special effects and a nice sense of adventure.

[Takuma]

Amazing account of your trip, Takuma.

Thanks. I still have part 2 coming.

Yakushima forest looks stunning, too.

It was totally worth the visit.

I've wanted to see TWO BITCHES for ages as I once read a sterling review. I don't suppose it's subtitled on video anywhere?

No, not even unsubbed as far as I know. I gotta keep Toei Channel on an eye in case they'd broadcast it. Maybe they did already, the film just wasn't on my radar before.

I discovered to my surprise that it played theatrically in Finland back in the mid 60s and early 70s. I spoke to a Finnish veteran critic online and he said he reviewed it for a newspaper in the early 70s (because all the older critics refused!). It was called "Yí¶n naiset" (Women of the Night) in Finnish.

[AngelGuts]

Amazing account of your trip, Takuma.

Yakushima forest looks stunning, too.

I've wanted to see TWO BITCHES for ages as I once read a sterling review. I don't suppose it's subtitled on video anywhere?

Shame ABOUT MILITARY COMFORT WOMEN.

[Takuma]

I've been on a movie trip again

Days 1-4

This is not directly related to movies, but I finally went to check out Yakushima. The island is best known as the inspiration for Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke. There are plenty of cool hiking paths in the centre of the island, including Shiratani unsuikyo which ascends from 600 metres to 1070 metres is it goes through the stunningly green mountain forests. You'll run across wildlife like monkeys and deer, have to keep your eyes open in order not to get lost or fall to your death, and you can drink water from the nature. Also keep the weather on an eye as the paths and crossing the mountain brooks becomes dangerous in heavy rain. It took me about 7 hours to hike all the paths.











You'll see plenty of wildlife in the rest of the island as well, especially on the west side where the narrow seaside roads have dozens of monkeys lying on the roads balls towards the sun. Deer are common as well.



Days 5-8: Part 1

My return trip went through Tokyo so I decided to jump out of the plane and go to the movies. And what a better way to start than by checking out a pink film theatre I had never visited before: Ueno Ookura.

Like most pink cinemas, Ueno Ookura play films in triple features, from around 10 am in the morning till 4:30 am next morning when trains start running again. You could spend all night at the cinema, though you'd be seeing the same films twice since most of them run only for about 60 minutes.

The days of 35mm film prints in pink cinemas are sadly long gone. Still, what I got in Ueno Ookura wasn't exactly what I was expecting. The files they screened looked like they had been transferred from VHS, or perhaps downloaded from DMM's streaming site. The resolution certainly looked like a 10 year old web stream. I guess that added a certain "charm" to the experience though I could've done without it.

The theatre itself is very clean and surprisingly big with a large screen. You can enter any time in the middle of a movie because there isn't always a break between films and customers are not even expected to wait till a film begins. I didn't get to witness any dubious behaviour (unfortunately?).



Female Convict 101: Sexual Hell (1976)


Dokyumento: Seijuku genchizuma (1995) + Female Convict 101: Sexual Hell (1976)


I watched two films at Ueno Ookura. The fists one was Dokyumento: Seijuku genchizuma (ドã‚ュメント 性熟現地妻)(1995), a sort of docudrama about a Shinjuku club hiring and exploiting Chinese women as sex workers. The film was surprisingly decent for a "sex flick" as I found myself somewhat caring for the characters towards the end. It also has a nice 90s atmosphere (think of Miike's Shinjuku Triad Society minus the violence and madness) and big breasted stars who are rather pleasing on the eye.

The second film I saw was the thoroughly uninspired and unsexy women in prison Roman Porno Female Convict 101: Sexual Hell (1976). Rumi Tama is a woman sent to prison for strangling a man who was trying to rape her; Naomi Oka is the bad girl calling the shots behind the bars. The rest of the film plays out exactly the way you'd expect it to.

I then headed to Cinema Vera who had a series celebrating Toei actresses who appeared in more feminine films than the usual masculine Toei action fare. The best film I saw was Two Bitches (二匹の牝犬) (1964), a superb, gripping tale of a hardened woman (Mayumi Ogawa) working as a prostitute in Tokyo. She's visited by her seemingly innocent and ultra-cute little sister (Mako Midori) who turns out to be a total sociopath as learns to manipulate people. Director Yusuke Watanabe is not know as one of the greats, but here manages strong drama, some fantastic framings and a long tracking shot, the kind Shinji Somai would do two decades later, and absolute powerhouse performances by Midori and Ogawa.

Less successful but nevertheless somewhat entertaining was Tenshi no yokubo (天使の欲望) (1979) ,an oddly misbalanced film pretending to be a serious drama while helmed by the exploitative hand of sexploitation director Ikuo Sekimoto. In the film a slutty older sister spends all her time sleeping with men or getting raped. Once the virginal younger sister discovers this, her disappointment initiates a psychological and eventually physical war that climaxes in an unintentionally silly scene where the two fight it out in the nude.

Another rarely seen film was Military Comfort Woman (従軍慰安婦) (1974), directed by Ryuichi Takamori and written by Teruo Ishii. Unfortunately we get the worst of both gentlemen here; Takamori's sloppy handling of drama and Ishii's dumb humour. Add bad acting, especially by Yutaka Nakajima, and it becomes impossible to tell if the film was supposed to be taken seriously or not. Also, a sexploitation flick it is not as nudity is sparse. There is some entertainment value, though. Highlight: a hooker saves the day at the battlefield by pissing on an overheated machine gun.

Though Cinema Vera screens movies as double features, Military Comfort Woman was a special screening that only played once a day on four different dates. The screening I attended was over-sold out with all 142 seats filled and the rest of the people standing.

I saw a few other films in Cinema Vera as well but I can't be bothered to write about them now.

Military Comfort Woman (1974) (top) / The Story of a Nymphomanic (1975) (right & bottom right) / Two Bitches (1964) (bottom middle)


Tenshi no Yokubo (1979) (left) /Yojí´han monogatari: Shí´fu shino (1966) (right)


The Story of a Nymphomanic (1975) + Ooku maruhi monogatari (1967)




Two Bitches (1964) (middle)


Chirashi (click for bigger version)

[tetrapak]

I decided to skip Jeans Blues, which isn't especially good

Reportedly Meiko Kaji too isn't very fond of that movie (according to Chris D interview with her, from his book "Outlaw masters of japanese film") but when I watched it I didn't find anything too embarassing. It's a solid heist/chase tale of two doomed youngsters, Badlands/Bonnie & Clyde style. Meiko plays a character that show how Sasori would have been not being a convict. The music is above average (for a TOEI production) and the cinematography and screenplay are ok. In my opinion it's worth of an Arrow release.

as for Escape from Reform School, I like it a lot, I agree it's one of the best of the series...

it's so cool you watch these films on the big screen in cinemas with an audience... it must be really a great experience!

[Takuma]

Shin bungeiza was having a Tsunehiko Watase memorial in May.

I visited there on a Friday at the end of May when they played Girl Boss: Escape from Reform School (1973) and Jeans Blues: No Tomorrow (1974) as a double feature. I was supposed to watch both but since I felt sleepy in the morning I decided to skip Jeans Blues, which isn't especially good and I had already seen it in 35mm a few years ago.

Girl Boss: Escape from Reform School on the other hand was a blast. It's been getting better little by little every time I've seen it, and now I'm finally ready to grant it a four star rating. Genuinely cool characters (especially after the nasty, misogynist Girl Boss Revenge), badass girl power, groovy soundtrack, and bits of good humour instead of dumb comedy. I also liked Kenji Imai, an actor I normally don't pay much attention to, and of course Watase, who is good at playing these kind of rough but somehow pitiable characters. Cool without being too flashy, except for the reform school's standard punishment method which is stripping teenage girls topless, tying their hands behind their back and leaving them in a cell alone. Hah! The best film in the series.

[AngelGuts]

Thanks, Takuma, for your replies here. I'm going to order these DVD's. Must!