Amazo Japanese Films

An engaging movie that takes a bleak, but also beautifully hopeful look at the lives of four young women who live on the margins of life in contemporary Tokyo. Sex in the City it's not. The portraits of these women are, almost unnervingly, complete. Great great independent film for adults.

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sitenoise at the movies: Strawberry Shortcakes

Poetic. Dreamy. Surreal. There's just something about the way Sion Sono puts together a film that appeals to me. The assemblage maybe more than the film.

A debt collector offers Fumiya an opportunity to erase his debt: walk with him around Tokyo. What we get is a road movie, a very funny road movie, where the unlikely duo walk instead of drive. There's eventual male bonding, marvelous footage of Tokyo, and a smorgasbord of odd characters and situations along the way. Very enjoyable.

sitenoise at the movies: Adrift in Tokyo [2007]

Simply Beautiful. This is Brokeback Babbling Brook. Incredibly insightful story about one-sided young gay love that transcends itself. The woman who made this film is the daughter of a famous film director and I'd say its given hera wonderful head start. She's young and destined for greatness if the gentle and mature way she put this film together is any indication.

The infamous needle torture is more conceptually gruesome than it appears in practice at the end of this film, but the foot amputation by wire is kick-ass-sexy-hard-to-watch.

It must be chauvinistic to suggest that a film about a young man accused of touching a young girl's hip and right buttock under her skirt on a crowded train doesn't sound like a compelling two and a half hour legal drama, but this film is compelling and impeccably done. Japan's 99.9% conviction rate is the star of this show and it's scary stuff.

Fans of ERASERHEAD should like this. It's gross and disturbing beyond the call of duty, yet ultimately very amusing. The funniest scene in the film involves necrophilia gone bad. Not for the lactose intolerant!

A couple clean cut kids who don't have much bad happen to them struggle for identity anyway. They are extremely cute and the film is put together artfully; beautiful scenery, split screens, and lots of fades give the film a poetic rhythm. And there's tinkling piano too.

Geez, this is massive cute from top to bottom. Five year old Ei Morisako practically steals the adorableness award from Kyôko Fukada, the Angel. Everybody's attractive, it's not stupid, the Angel loves to drink gin and lime, and there's a cat lady! This movie really packs a feel good punch. There are four different character threads involving lonely hearts which are chaperoned by the Angel and they're all good. Gosh ... everybody, I love you, man.

This is one of the funniest albeit confounding movies I have seen in a long long time. This is a happy film with a happy ending. A connection is finally made between young and old, the pop group's work is done and the most suicidal of the teenagers, the one whose boyfriend surprises her by landing on her when he jumps off a building in a suicide attempt, but doesn't die until he's had time to discuss the irony of the event with her, (tell me that isn't pure comic genius).

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sitenoise at the movies: Suicide Club

This is just what a guy wants from a Japanese movie: bizarre humor, twisted family relationships, a little sexual deviance, beautiful women. Most guys will probably go for robo-babe Eriko Sato, who does a great job playing mean and self-centered, but it's Hiromi Nagasaku who shines in this film--a multiple award winning performance. Nagasaku plays the innocent, an outsider who has married into a crazy family and she is the only character any one should relate to (or pity). Check out her filmography, she always elevates a film. This one is stylized decadence with a sweet filling. Not for mainstream lovers.

Only from Japan. This has a sensibility and sense of humor similar to ADRIFT IN TOKYO and FUNUKE, SHOW SOME LOVE, YOU LOSERS! Bizarro-land family dynamics. Things are said where the delivery and body language don't play at the same level of intensity as the words. Kyôko Koizumi plays this kind of role perfectly, similar to her character in ADRIFT. Hiromi Nagasaku also has a wonderful small role. The soundtrack is a little trite and annoying in parts as are the 360 degree camera swings but it's funny and intense with a spectacular ending.