Movie Going Madness in Japan

[Takuma]

By the way Takuma...just curious but are you fluent in Japanese? I noticed even when you lived in Finland, you would buy R2 discs from Japan without subs.

Not fluent. It really depends on what kind of movie / dialogue we're talking about. Many modern films are relatively easy, and actually the 1961 Police Department Story films (co-starring Chiba) were pretty easy too, but a lot of the 1970's jitsuroku yakuza talk can still be a nightmare to try to follow...

Is that Haruko Wanibuchi in the poster to Jail Breakers? she has quite a distinctive look and is easy to spot hehe.

Yep, that's her.

[47lab]

well, Shinji Somai did die of lung cancer, so all those pics of him with the cancer sticks in his mouth doesn't really surprise me. What a shame to have Somai pass on at such a relatively young age.

By the way Takuma...just curious but are you fluent in Japanese? I noticed even when you lived in Finland, you would buy R2 discs from Japan without subs. Is that Haruko Wanibuchi in the poster to Jail Breakers? she has quite a distinctive look and is easy to spot hehe.

[Takuma]

Sonny Chiba Festival Day 3: June 16th (Sunday)

Army Intelligence 33 (Rikugun choho 33) (Tsuneo Kobayashi, 1968)

This criminally neglected mixture of spy-noir and commando action by director Tsuneo Kobayashi (The Escape, 1962) is a lost gem. The film's storyline is loosely based on the Nakano Spy School which operated in Tokyo during the Second World War. It was officially focused on correspondence, but in reality trained top spies for the government. Chiba portrays a promising young soldier who is kidnapped and forced to become a spy. After receiving tough training (martial arts, weapons, explosives, foreign languages) by none other than Tetsuro Tanba, he is sent for his first mission, which is to gather secret information from a foreign ambassador. This is when the film takes a turn to a wonderful noir with gorgeous cinematography, great old fashioned score and terrific atmosphere. Chiba himself looks fabulous as a spy in long dark coat and black hat which immediately bring American noir stars like Humphrey Bogart to mind. This is probably something many foreign fans never expected to find in Chiba's filmography.

Army Intelligence 33 isn't entirely a spy noir, though. The final act sees Chiba sent for a Lee Marvin style commando mission to South East Asia together with his partner in crime Kenji Imai. The action packed final third can't quite compare with the wonderful noir section, but it's a tremendously entertaining climax nevertheless. The only weakness is occasional lazy screenwriting throughout the film, which has us believe that these kidnapped young men would barely protest their destiny, and the enemy soldiers whose behaviour isn't always all that logical. This is however a small gripe in a hugely entertaining film. Chiba later returned to the same training camp in another Nakano Spy School influenced film: Military Spy School (Junya Sato, 1974). That film, however, couldn't compare with the far more elegant and entertaining Army Intelligence 33, which remains one of Chiba's best movies.
























Jail Breakers (The Escape Game) (Dasso yugi) (Kosaku Yamashita 1976)

Jail Breakers, or The Escape Game (literal translation) is another rarely seen movie that has probably never been released outside Japan. It hasn't been preserved so well in its native country either; no DVD release available and even the festival print was in such a shape that it could have fallen apart any time. The caper-style movie stars Chiba as the worst behaving prisoner of all time: he has 31 prison escapes under his belt. He makes his 32nd run in the film's opening scene by performing a spectacular escape by climbing to the roof, grabbing to ladders from a helicopter, hanging from the ladders in in the air while the helicopter makes its way through the countryside, and changes his clothes in the mid-air before dropping to a moving truck and making the escape by then jumping to another moving vehicle - one of the many stunts on Chiba's career that his greatest fan, Jackie Chan, later improved upon (Police Story 3, 1992).

The film is packed with nice stunts throughout, but the screenplay could be better. After escaping the prison Chiba teams up with a bunch of thugs, who design prison escapes for money. Unfortunately trust and loyalty are unknown concepts to these men who take turns deceiving each other. The endless “who's-cheating-who” game has been done better in other films, and sometimes the writing is downright sloppy: when a carefully planned escape operation fails, Chiba simply steals a fire engine and drives away without anyone noticing! It also feels that director Kosaku Yamashita, who made his name with yakuza films, was a bit out of his element here. However, even with these weaknesses it's an entertaining action comedy which compares favourably against some of the later, similar Yasaku Matsuda films like Execution Game (1978) and No Grave for Us (1979). It's also essentially a family friendly affair with no sex whatsoever, and only minimal violence. The focus is on stunts and comedy.

Opening escape. Over 3 minutes of it was shot in single take just to show you it's really Chiba doing it all


















This was the last day of my first Tokyo stint. I would return for more Chiba on the following weekend after taking care of some real life business. More reviews to come!

[Takuma]

Unfortunately some Somai films are still not available on dvd even in Japan, thanks to Toho who are utterly unaware that they have ever produced anything else than Kurosawa and Godzilla films in the past. It's unbelievable they haven't put out Lost Chapter of Snow: Passion (1985) even though it's directed by Somai, stars one of the great 80's idols (Yuki Saito from the first Sukeban Deka series), features a legendary 14 minute tracking shot, and just happens to be a damn good film. I just bought the original pamphlet a few days ago...







I also bought some more Hiroko stuff (below)









How many shots of Somai with a cigarette can you find?







I live a few hundred metres from that river, btw.

[47lab]

Going through this thread made me realize how sadly neglected Shinji Somai is here in the West. Alas, I deeply regret not picking up the Kadokawa IVL release of SSAMG a few years back even if it was the old transfer/theatrical cut and not the complete version as you have in the Hiroko box set. I ended up buying a whole lot of 'em including all the Yusaku Matsuda ones that I could find but skipped out on SSAMG hoping to pick it up later.

[Takuma]

Sonny Chiba Festival Day 1: June 14th (Saturday) (Part 2: The Films)

From here on it's going to be film mini-reviews all the way. The films screened during the first day were The Executioner 2: Karate Inferno and G.I. Samurai. Neither one of them was quite the typical Chiba film.

The Executioner 2: Karate Inferno (Chokugeki jigoku-ken: Dai-gyakuten) (Teruo Ishii, 1974)

Karate Inferno (1974) is best described as an act of terrorism. Director Teruo Ishii was never keen on making karate movies, but the studio had him direct one with The Executioner (1974). The mismatch resulted in an exceptionally sleazy action fest that was probably more enjoyable than Ishii ever intended it to be. To his shock, it was a commercial success and Toei had him direct a sequel, which Ishii turned into a madcap comedy (there was a similar case with biker gang movies only one year later, when Toei had Ishii direct a sequel for Detonation: Violent Violent Riders, and Ishii turned it into a love story with musical scenes).

Karate Inferno is essentially a comedic caper in which the same gang we know from the original film are supposed to save a kidnapping victim, but when the deal goes bad they decide to rob their employer instead. Most of the film consists of Chiba (asshole ninja), Makoto Sato (asshole ex-cop) and Eiji Go (asshole pervert) taking the piss and molesting Yutaka Nakajima while also planning a big diamond heist. In the film's highlight we see Chiba saving his pall, whose jacket was caught on fire, by pissing on him! The jokes are crude but funny, the soundtrack is fantastic, and there's some great action at the end of the film. The Japanese audience had a blast, even clapping hands during the film in a couple of highlights, which is extremely rare in Japan. Many of the jokes are film references, though, and may not be understood by most foreign viewers (e.g. Kanjuro Arashi appearing as the same character he plays in Ishii's Abashiri Prison series - Chiba also appeared in the 4th and 6th film).



G.I. Samurai (Sengoku jieitai) (Kosei Saito, 1979)

G.I. Samurai is a very different type of film compared to Karate Inferno. This big budget action fantasy stars Chiba as an army commander whose platoon somehow gets thrown back in time to the 1600s. Luckily for them, all their weapons, equipment, and vehicles (including helicopter and a tank) come with them. The heavy artillery comes in need when they get involved in a clan war between two historical figures: Nagao Kagetora (Isao Natsuyagi) and Shingen Takeda. It's time to show the samurai what a modern man is made of!

While G.I. Samurai doesn't have the kick of Chiba's best movies, it's nevertheless full of major action scenes, huge body count, historical characters in entirely fictional situations, and more serious themes about masculine desire for power and domination. There's a lot that springs from the 1970's exploitation film mentality, but at the same time the film also showcases a new era in Japanese filmmaking. The film was produced by Kadokawa, who was a new player in the filmmaking biz. Up till late 1970s Chiba had been working for Toei, who mass produced cheap genre films at rapid pace. Kadokawa, however, were making modern Hollywood-like productions. Their films were often accompanied by theme songs, novels and other supporting products. The amount of money invested in G.I. Samurai - ¥ 1,350,000,000 - would probably have financed a dozen Street Fighter flicks. Also look for numerous cameos, like Hiroyuki Sanada climbing to a helicopter, and the soon-to-be super-idol Hiroko Yakushimaru as a child warrior.



Sonny Chiba Festival Day 2: June 15th (Sunday)

The Escape (Niniroku jiken: dasshutsu) (Tsuneo Kobayashi, 1962)

The first film for Sunday night was the rarely seen The Escape. This was one of the many Japanese films based on the infamous February 26th Incident that took place in 1936. The incident involved army rebel forces attempting a coup d'état in Tokyo. The rebels opposed to Japan's modern policies and believed that the Emperor had been misled by politicians. To restore Japan's past glory they gathered hundreds of men and attempted multiple simultaneous political assassinations. One of their attacks was the raid on the prime minister's house. Nearly 300 rebels took part in it; however, the prime minister managed to hide and eventually escape.

The film focuses on the military police's (partly fictionalized, no doubt) attempts to rescue the minister before the rebels find out he is still alive. He manages to hide in a closet because the enemy mistakes a dead body that greatly resembles him as him. The military police now tries to get him out without the rebels realizing what's going on. It's a mostly dialogue driven affair with exciting action in the beginning and end of the film. Sonny Chiba plays only a small supporting role as a soldier who discovers the prime minister's hiding place, but agrees to help the military police. The real star of the film is Ken Takakura. An entertaining military / caper mix, but not a classic film.



Bodyguard Kiba (Ryuichi Takamori, 1973)

The 1973 action thriller Bodyguard Kiba is one of Chiba's weaker efforts. The film stars Chiba as a Japanese karate fighter taking on the mafia, all in the name of promoting karate. It's a pretty messy storyline that nevertheless allows for some memorable ultra-violence and enjoyable spaghetti western influences. Action scenes are, however, sloppily filmed. One of the film's biggest merits may actually be featuring the 16 year old Etsuko Shihomi as a stunt double for Yayoi Watanabe (who plays Chiba's sister). In the superior sequel, Bodyguard Kiba 2 (1973) Shihomi inherited the role, which marked her first acting role in a movie. Another thing worth mentioning is that the film is based on the manga Bodyguard Kiba, which was influenced by Chiba's real life master Masutatsu Oyama. Although names have been changed, when Chiba's character speaks of his master in the film, he is actually referring to Oyama and his real life adventures. Oyama also makes a cameo during the opening credits.

Bodyguard Kiba is better known in its international form under the title The Bodyguard (1976). The American version changes the storyline somewhat, with almost all karate philosophy and Oyama references removed. In that version Chiba is simply fighting crime when not filming movies (yes, he actually plays himself in the US version!). In the Japanese version Chiba's character actually comes out as a bigger asshole, not least because of the new ending scene where he seems to have forgotten about all the casualties and tells the press how this whole massacre was great advertisement for karate. The US version is missing the ending scene. There are, however, some highly amusing added scenes in the US version. These include the famous Ezekiel speech that Quentin Tarantino quoted in Pulp Fiction, US martial artists Aaron Banks and Bill Louie discussing who's a tougher guy: Sonny Chiba or Bruce Lee, and a modified opening credits sequence accompanied by Viva! Chiba! Viva! Chiba! chanting.

[Ian Jane]

I have a bootlet of Wolfguy Enraged but the quality is lousy. Would love a properly released disc in my collection. And yeah, I've got a big ol Karate Bearfighter tattoo on my left bicep, haha.

[Takuma]

Chiba tattoo?

Yeah, we need more Chiba on dvd, especially Wolfguy! The Street Fighter was my favourite Chiba until I saw Wolfguy... three times on the same day. Chiba as a karate skilled reporter who also happens to be a werewolf! I was afraid the theater staff might think I'm crazy when I came back for the third viewing... Also, one person descended into mental insanity as a result of the screening, but I'll write more about that later when I get to the reviews...

[Ian Jane]

Man, I'm soooo jealous! I'd love to meet Chiba (he'd probably see my tattoo and think I was insane but still!). I've been a huge fan ever since seeing Street Fighter when I was like 12 or something, definitely younger than I should have been. I wish we'd get more English friendly releases of some of his lesser known (at least over here) titles. BCI/Adness was doing great work there but that well went dry once they folded. I'm thankful for what they did put out though. If they put on a retrospective like that here in NYC I'd probably just move into the theater for the duration.

[Takuma]

I was supposed to ask him about Soul of Chiba and I kind of did, but I can barely remember anything about it anymore because I was too excited, especially since he started asking me questions ("What did you think about the film?" "Where did you see it?")

[sukebanboy]

AWESOME!!!

Chiba is looking great for his age....and seems to be mentally as sharp as a tack too from what you wrote!!

Would have loved to have seen his movies on the big screen....Seeing him in person might have been too much for me to handle!!!

[Takuma]

And one more set of photos before I start going through the film program (later)

Memoir of Japanese Assassins (1969), Karate Warriors (1976) and Message from Space (1978)


Memoir of Japanese Assassins (1969), Karate Bullfighter (1975) and Jail Breakers (1976)


Okinawa Yakuza War (1976) and Okinawa 10 Year Wat (1978)


Kamikaze Man (1966) and Okinawa 10 Year War (1978)


Karate Bullfighter (1975)


Samurai Reincarnation (1981)

[Takuma]

Day 1: June 24th (Part 1: Chiba)

The first day was the big day because Sonny Chiba talk would be held in the afternoon. Some fans had arrived three screenings in advance. This meant that they would be watching G.I. Samurai - one of the two films screening that day - twice just to keep their seat. That's possible since the theatre is not emptied between the screenings. Once you're in, you're expected to watch two films and leave, but no one's going to kick you out if you stayed longer.

I went in two screenings in advance, and by that time it was already challenging to get a good seat. When Chiba walked on stage, every single seat (144) was taken and additional people were sitting on the floor. The wait was well worth it. The legendary action star is 75 years old now, but he's still full of energy and acts like 15 years younger than his age. During the 40 minute talk event Chiba recalled his career and joked about how in the early 1960's Ken Takakura, Koji Tsuruta and Tetsuro Tanba were always the producers' first choice to any Toei film, and he could only get the role when they were busy. Chiba also regretted the state of modern Japanese action cinema that relies too much on CGI, unlike back in his days when they did real action.

Chiba knew what he was talking about. He made his first martial arts films in the early 1960's, established his own film school Japan Action Club to train physically capable action stars such as Hiroyuki Sanada and Etsuko Shihomi, and was even a well known star in Hong Kong due to his TV show Key Hunter (1967-1972). Both Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan were impressed by Chiba, the latter especially. Jackie was such a big fan of Chiba that he even travelled to Japan to meet him - and of course repeated and improved upon many of his stunts (e.g. the helicopter scene from the 1976 film Jail Breakers, which Jackie managed to beat in Police Story 3 in 1993).

Chiba was also a real life martial arts master who practiced Kyokushin Karate under its founder Masutatsu Oyama since the late 1950's. Chiba fought in Oyama's team in the international fighting tournament in Hawaii in 1977, where Chiba defeated the former east coast champion Greg Kauffman with a knock-out in the second round. Chiba also acquired black belts in more than half dozen martial arts, including Kyokushin Karate, Ninjutsu, and Shorinji Kempo. In the late 1970's Chiba also fought in Oyama's team in the

In addition, Chiba was never just an action star or martial artists. His rich career, especially in the 1960's, features comedies, dramas, war films, science fiction, noir, crime movies and super hero flicks. In some respects, he was at his best as an actor in the 1960's when he was bursting with youthful energy and charm and often played good hearted heroes. During the 1960's alone, Chiba appeared in more than 60 movies, many of them starring roles. These roles were quite different from the 1970's action movies that his international fans best know him for.

None of those accomplishments reflected in his behaviour in the Chiba festival. Chiba showed sincere interest to his fans by answering their questions and sometimes spending more time asking them questions than talking about himself. As I mentioned before, Chiba even came to shake hands with be of his own initiative. All in all, the man came out as a very modest, very polite and very energetic gentleman.

Chiba!


Chiba!


Hepcat in the Funky Hat (1961) and Army Intelligence 33


Bullet Train (1975)


Bullet Train (1975)


Karate Warriors (1976) (left) and Wolfguy: Enraged Lycanthrope (1975)

[Takuma]

Sonny Chiba A Go Go
Cinema Vera, Tokyo
June 14th - July 11



Although 2014 has been a fantastic year for film retrospectives in Tokyo (such as Art Theatre Guild and Norifumi Suzuki retrospectives), the highlight of the summer was no doubt Sonny Chiba film festival which played in Shibuya's Cinema Vera. Cinema Vera had dedicated Chiba a 24 film retrospective which covered the first three decades of his career.

During the festival Cinema Vera played nothing but Chiba films for four weeks straight. Each day two films were screened back to back all day from 11 am to around 11 pm. Each of the films would also play again on a later date in case you missed the first day, meaning each film would have a total of 7- 10 screenings. All movies played from original 35mm prints, except for the TV production Tokyo Daijishin Magnitude 8.1 (1980), which screened from the original 16mm film.

The festival programme included not only popular classics like The Street Fighter (1974), but also rare gems like the superb action/noir Army Intelligence 33 (1968) and Wolfguy: Enraged Lycanthrope (1975), which is probably Chiba's best and most outrageous movie of all time (I watched it three times during the same day!). The selection demonstrated the diversity of Chiba's career, which started already in the early 1960's, and included not only action and martial arts films, but also samurai films, war movies, crime films and many other genres. In fact, as an actor Chiba might have been at his best in the early 1960's when he played mainly good guy roles and demonstrated some amazing energy.

The theatre in which the films screened, Cinema Vera, focuses on film retrospectives (past series include Teruo Ishii, Masao Adachi, Yasuharu Hasebe and Noboru Nakamura). One of the coolest aspects is that they always do fantastic job decorating the lobby with original posters from the movies. Every week there were new posters on display, including Wolfguy: Enraged Lycanthrope (1975), Karate Bullfighter (1975), Message from Space (1978), Okinawa 10 Year War (1978), Samurai Reincarnation (1981) and many more.

The real highlight of the festival was, of course, Chiba himself. The 75 year old actor attended the festival during its first day. Chiba held a 40 minute talk event, answered questions in a Q&A, and greeted fans after the event in the theatre lobby. I'm glad to report Chiba was an absolute gentleman without a smallest sign of arrogance. He talked with fans, asked for their opinions, gave autographs, and took photos with fans. My best memory is probably how (after already having asked Chiba a question during the Q&A and taken a photo with him) he came to me on his way out, shook hands and thanked me for coming to the event.

I was also glad to see the festival was obviously a success. Although old school theatres are closing one after another these days Chiba festival seemed to attract many people. A lot of people showed up and there were many viewers even during weekday mornings. I spent a total of 10 days (three extended weekends) at the festival and caught 20 of the 24 films that played. I'll be reporting day by day, although the report may change its form a little bit as it goes on.

List of Films Screened at the Festival:
Hepcat in the Funky Hat (Kinji Fukasaku, 1961)
The Escape (Niniroku Jiken Dasshutsu) (Tsuneo Kobayashi, 1962)
Gambler Tales of Hasshu: A Man's Pledge (Masahiro Makino, 1963)
Abashiri Prison 4: Northern Seacost Story (Teruo Ishii, 1965)
Kamikaze Man: Duel at Noon (Kinji Fukasaku, 1966)
Game of Chance (Samurai's Lullaby) (Ryuchi Takamori, 1966)
Army Intelligence 33 (Tsuneo Kobayashi, 1968)
Memoir of Japanese Assassins (Sadao Nakajima, 1969)
Bodyguard Kiba (Ryuichi 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)
Jail Breakers (Dasso Yugi) (Kosaku Yamashita, 1976)
Okinawa Yakuza War (Sadao Nakajima, 1976)
Karate for Life (Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, 1977)
Message From Space (Kinji Fukasaku, 1978)
Okinawa 10 Year War (Akinori Matsuo, 1978)
Swords of Vengeance (Kinji Fukasaku, 1978)
G.I. Samurai (Kí´sei Saití´, 1979)
Tokyo Daijishin Magnitude 8.1 (Kiyoshi Nishimura, 1980)
Samurai Reincarnation (Kinji Fukasaku, 1981)

Return of the Street Fighter (1974), Karate Bullfighter (1975), Karate Warriors (1976)


Top Middle: Bodyguard Kiba (1973) and The Escape (1962)


Two posters for The Fall of Ako Clan Castle


Bullet Train (1975) and Jail Breakers (1976)


Karate for Life (1977)


Message from Space (1978)


Bodyguard Kiba (1973( (top) and Yakuza Deka: Poison Gas Affair (1971) (bottom)


G.I. Samurai

[Takuma]

Theatre Introduction: Meguro Cinema

I already wrote a little bit about Meguro Cinema in this thread when I discussed About Lily Chou Chou and Swallowtail Butterfly. That double feature was a part of their Shunji Iwai series, which started with Love Letter and Hana & Alice, and later continued with Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom? (1993), April Story (1998) and Vampire (2011) (Vol. 3), and Fried Dragon Fish (1993), Picnic (1996) and Kon Ichikawa Story (2006) (Vol. 4). Since these latter two volumes included a combination of short and feature length film, they played as triple features instead of double features.





I need to emphasize how amazingly good April Story looked on 35mm. Here's a film that really demonstrates the strengths of the format and features some absolutely stunning cinematography. It used to be my favourite Iwai film when I was young. Now I recognize it's perhaps a bit too light on story to compare with Iwai's greatest masterpiece, All About Lily Chou Chou, but it's still an amazing tranquil film.



I saw Vampire for the first time. It's an uneven film that feels more like a film school graduate work than an Iwai film, but it's also a fascinating, beautiful and extremely uncommercial movie that is free from nearly all the vampire movie conventions. I had forgotten that Yu Aoi is in it, too. She's one of the most talented actresses of her generation, and the most beautiful of them all!

Meguro Cinema screens all their movies as double features (or in some rare cases triple features). The same two films will be played all day for all week. There's no seat reservation: you buy the ticket from a vending machine and hand it over to the staff. They will then show you to a line where people are waiting for the current film to end. Once you're in, you could basically sit there all day if you wanted to see the same movies three times. Of course, you can also just choose to watch only one film since the price is relatively affordable anyway. This system does result in some inconvenience for the staff, though, since they don't know exactly how many people are in. In popular screenings they have to come and count the empty seats there are to know how many tickets they can still sell.

As you could expect, Meguro Cinema doesn't screen the latest hits since double feature system wouldn't be suitable for that. Instead they show semi-recent films which have recently finished their theatrical run, movies from a few years ago, and sometimes slightly older movies like 1990's stuff. Films screen from 35mm whenever that is the original format - newer films are DCP since no film prints exist.

The atmosphere is nice. Movie soundtracks are played in the theatre during breaks whenever available. When a film is about to begin, the staff informs the audience by ringing bells. The seats are comfortable and the screen is mid size (5.4m x 2.5m). The only minus side is that the air condition can make the theatre a little bit cold at times if you're wearing t-shirt. You usually don't notice it during the first film, but if you're staying there for a double feature you may wish to bring a long sleeve shirt with you (or something else that you can put over your arms) just in case.

The last time I went to Meguro Cinema was when they screened Akira (1988) and Memories (1995). This double feature was screened for three weeks straight, and seemed to be very popular. Unfortunately I didn't have time to stay for Memories, but seeing Akira from a good quality 35mm print was an unforgettable experience!



Access: Meguro Cinema is located in very close to the JR Meguro station. It's easily accessible for example via the Yamanote line (about 10 min from Shibuya or Shinjuku). You should take the West Exit, and walk to the traffic lights about 50m to the right. If you look to the other side, you should be able to see the theatre.

Website: http://www.okura-movie.co.jp/meguro_...w_showing.html