Lumberjack the Monster / Kaibutsu no Kikori jmovie review

 

Who doesn't like serial killer movies? It is a topic that is always fascinating because what sort of human would be compelled to commit multiple crimes for no other reason than to satisfy their own ego? Alas, when I think of serial killer in Japanese movies, I think about how bad Kurosawa Kiyoshi's Creepy was or Oguri Shun's museum. I cannot, off the top of my head think of a good serial killer jmovie.

Which brings me to Miike Takashi's Lumberjack the Monster which is on Netflix. One of Japan's most talented directors, he has made really good movies like Sun Scarred, Audition, Zebraman and Gyakuten Saiban but also horrible movies like Ai to Makoto, Yakuza Apocalypse and Mole Song?

Lumberjack the Monster starts with the police raiding a scary house a long time ago where a woman has kidnapped a lot of kids to cut open their heads. The woman is kills herself and we fast forward to the present, we meet Kame who is playing a lawyer who is actually a serial killer who has no ability to feel guilt or apathy. 

Kame is partner in crime with another serial killer, this time a doctor played by Sometani Shota. One day Kame is ambushed by a person in the lumberjack mask and survives and is injured in his head and discovers that he has a chip in his brain from when he was a child.

Lumberjack the Monster is Miike Takashi at his most restrained. I have always argued that he has great technical skills and works best when he is constrained by the script and story like Sun Scarred instead of when he gets to do whatever he wants like Ryu ga Gotoku.

The violence in Lumberjack is surprisingly restrained when you consider this is the director who did Audition and Ichi the Killer but I argue that less is more and building the tension and suspense is better when less is shown.

I enjoyed the story because it posses the question, if psychopaths exist because they have a deformity in their brain that does not allow them to have guilt and apathy and this can be artificially created, then how much responsibility to psychopaths have for their actions?

The only thing I don't like is Nanao as the profiler police officer chasing Kame. She is just wrong for the role but she is not that crucial so I didn't mind. I am just happy that Miike has done a decent movie and I rather enjoyed it. Watchable.

Demon City movie review

In the world of Japanese action splatter B-movies, 3 movies come to mind: Kitamura Ryuhei's Versus, Machine Girl and Miike Takashi's Ichi the Killer. I have hardly seen any Japanese movies in this genre recently so I am happy that Netflix has financed Demon City.

Ikuta Toma is the super hitman Sakata who does one last job killing lots of people before leaving his life of crime to enjoy it with his family. Of course, Sakata's family home is invaded by a bunch of scary people in masks talking about a demon of Shinjo city and Sakata's wife and daughter are killed before his eyes before Sakata is shot.

Remarkably, Sakata survives as a vegetable for 12 years before he wakes up and goes and goes on a bloody revenge spree.

WHAT I LIKED

+ Good amount of splashing blood

+ Love the scary masks of the bad guys.

+ Love the world building of Shinjo city being controlled by this cabal of people in masks.

+ Sakata's trademark machete with rope is cool

+ There is a one shot stairs fight sequence that is very good

+ Surprised to see Takashima Masanobu in an action movie!

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE

- Stupid fake CG blood. I would rather have no blood than fake CG blood.

- Not any memorable action scenes besides the one shot stairs sequence. 

- I liked Higashide Masahiro as the creepy bad guy but the fight was meh. The thing is, most of the guys in the masks turned up to be not so scary at all.

SUMMARY

I really want to like this movie but there is nothing that sticks in my memory. The building blocks are there but the action scenes are mostly meh. They are trying hard but something is missing. Meh.

Louder!: Can't Hear What You're Singin', Wimp! jmovie review

 

Louder!: Can't Hear What You're Singin', Wimp! is a movie by Miki Satoshi. He is a so-so famous writer/director and the first thing of his I watched was Adrift in Tokyo which I don't remember anything about. 

My favourite Miki Satoshi work is Atami no Sousakan which was weird and interesting. I think his most famous work might be Ore Ore with Kame which I can never mustered enough motivation to watch. His latest movie is Convenience Story and I could not even get to the middle of the movie before quitting. I decided to give Louder!: Can't Hear What You're Singin', Wimp! a go because it has Abe Sadawo and Yoshioka Riho. Surely their combined acting prowess will make this a watchable movie right?

Abe Sadawo is metal singer called Sin who supposedly has this amazing voice because he doped his vocal cords but this is causing damage and he damages his vocal cords during a performance and spurts out enough blood to fill up a hospital blood bank. He runs into Fuka played by Yoshioka Riho, a timid singer who sings in a soft voice. Louder is a comedy about a singer past his prime meeting another singer who he helps realise her potential. Sounds great in concept but I don't get Miki Satoshi's execution.

It feels like Miki Satoshi is doing a poor version Love Exposure, two damaged people who need each other. Watching Louder!, I kept thinking this guy is doing Miike Takashi at his worst. Kind of like Mole Song or Yakuza Apocalypse. Random things just happening, whatever the director finds funny while I am looking at the screen bored out of my brains.

The housing area where Yoshioka Riho lives reminds me of Kisetsu no Nai Machi, super duper colourful and everyone a weirdo. The movie really lost me when it moved to South Korea and I did not give a crap about any of the characters.

Miki Satoshi is a director who just does weird stuff and actors seem to like appearing in his movies but nothing in this movie makes me think this director is great in framing this sequence or creating something funny. I am not watching any more Miki Satoshi movies anymore. Do not watch.

Golden Kamuy live action review

Once upon a time, the idea of a live action remake of manga/anime shows would send a shudder down my spine. Sure we had shows like H2 which are easy to adapt but we had crap like Ranma 1/2 and Shingeki no Kyojin where it did not translate well to live action. I think a lot of the shows had bad budget and people still did not know how to do the costumes and makeup and everything looked like bad cosplay.

Then Sato Shinsuke brought a new standard to jmovie manga adaptations with Gantz, I am a Hero and Inuyashiki and it seemed like manga adaptations were getting better and better. Now we have one very faithful adaptation of Golden Kamuy.

Golden Kamuy is about 3 groups of people chasing this secret treasure of the Ainu people in Hokkaido. We have our main characters, Sugimoto who is a former soldier and Ahsiripa, a young Ainu girl looking for her father who hid the treasure.

Hot on their hells is the evil Lieutenant Tsurumi and his soldiers from the 7th division.

Along with Hijikata Toshizou's group. Yes, that Hijikata from Shinsengumi! One thing Golden Kamuy does really well is the casting. I am kind of meh Yamazaki Kento is Sugimoto because he gives off a rougher impression from the anime but everyone else is just sublime.

The casting and make up is just perfect. Having seen so many manga adaptation, I do not recall an adaptation with so many characters where everyone is just perfectly cast. I guess Rurouni Kenshin had a good cast but Takei Emi was so wrong for Kaoru.

Golden Kamuy live action came out as a movie which I watched on Netflix and then 9 episodes on WOWOW. There is going to be a movie after this set in Abashiri prison. As someone who has watched the anime, I have no complaints. I am not a huge fan but I am enjoying the jdorama more because how many action/comedy jdorama/movies are there with such a budget?

It is not all perfect. The bear scenes are pretty bad with the bears being men in suits ala Ultraman. Some scenes look very cinematic and some look very cheap and sound stagey. I can't complain because what WOWOW have been able to do with their budget is amazing. 

One of my favourite things about Golden Kamuy is showing the culture and customs of Ainu people, the indigenous inhabitants of Hokkaido. Their culture is so different from Japanese culture and is something you don't really see in Japanese media.

All I look for in manga adaptations is faithfulness and Golden Kamuy is right up there with I"s. Very watchable and I hope it continues to succeed so they have money to adapt the whole thing.

Your Eyes Tell / Kimi no me ga Toikakateiru jmovie review

I have had this 2020 Yoshitaka Yuriko movie in my hdd for a very long time. She plays Akari, a blind woman who likes to watch this dorama with an old man working working at a car park because he could describe to her what was happening in the dorama. 

As luck would have it, the old man runs away from his stable and easy job and ex kickboxer Antonio steps into the job and becomes friends with Akari. The beginning of Your Eyes Tell is the must cliche and derivative romantic melodrama I have ever seen. 

The chemistry and dialogue is meh. The heroine works in a call centre and can afford a very spacious apartment. The movie woke me up in the middle when we learn more about Antonio's past. I thought ok, this movie is about making up for one's past.

The fighting was so so because the target audience is not men. Then the movie really goes into super melodrama mode so that it can create melodramatic scenes and point to the audience and say, "look how sad this scene is!" I wondered if it was a remake of a HK movie but it turned out to be a Korean movie remake.

I managed to finish it for Yoshitaka Yuriko. She is very good but for me Your Eyes Tell feels so manufactured to get female viewers to cry and there is no magic in the dialogue. If you want a really good romantic melodrama, watch Tenshi no Koi. If you want a good blind girl movie, watch Blind Witness. Meh from me unless you are a fan of Korean melodrama.

Respect the source material: Adaptations in jdorama and jmovies

 

There is a story in Oshi no Ko about the mangaka played by Shida Mirai who was not happy with the script of her the dorama adaptation of her work got me thinking about adaptations in general. Shida Mirai wasn't happy because she accused the writer of not getting her characters basically saying that the characters motivations and behaviour are completely different.

In the past, when thinking about live action adaptations of mangas, there are only two worries: The first is whether someone can translate the idiosyncrasies of a manga from page to real life and secondly how to fit the story from a long running manga to a season of dorama or a movie.

For example, there is no way to do a faithful live action version of Gantz on a Japanese movie budget. However, Sato Shinsuke did a very good job translating the essence of the characters and the story with a limited budget and he also did a good job with Inuyashiki.

An example of not being able to fit the story is Netflix's Yuyu Hakusho which stripped away way too much of the manga and I suspect a lot of it was due to budget.

One of my favourite adaptations of all time is I"s. I am a huge fan and have read the manga many times and the dorama series is exactly like the manga come to life. You can tell the people involved in the jdorama version of I"s love and respect the source material.

Which brings me to Amazon's Ryu ga Gotoku series which I have written about but I am still so pissed off about. Ryu ga Gotoku is not manga but the makers of the series don't love and respect the source material. Instead of understanding why fans love Kiryu, Haruka and Nishiki from the first game, they decided that they can fix the story by giving Kiryu less screentime, sidelining Haruka and giving more story time to Morita Misato's character who does not exist in the game.

Your job is to copy and paste the game to live action and make the core fans happy and show the casual watchers the miryoku or the appeal of the characters. The story is so freaking simple and what they have created is not Ryu ga Gotoku. I was not happy with Miike Takashi's movie adaptation of RGG but even he did a much better adaptation compared to Amazon's.

The most important thing in adaptations is hiring people who are either fans or who respect the source material. Not people who think they can make the original story better by side-lining the main characters and pushing their own side characters. I wonder if Yokoyama Masayoshi, the head of RGG studios ever gave feedback that the Amazon show does not understand the appeal of the game.

These thoughts were running through my head when Shida Mirai said point blank to the drama writer that he did not understand her characters in Oshi no Ko. If you don't lover or understand why something is popular, don't try to adapt because you are only creating your own frankenstein instead of making sure the core fanbase is happy.

On a related note, I feel like trying the Maison Ikkoku adaptation although I know I will be disappointed.

The Great War of Archimedes jmovie review

 

In the 1930s after WW1, there are two camps among the commanding Japanese naval officer. One camp wants Japan to build a the largest and greatest battleship in the world aka Yamato and the second camp sees battleships as a relic of the past and the future of naval warfare are aircraft carriers.

Both camps submit their initial numbers and the estimated cost for the giant battleship is somehow lower than the aircraft carrier. Camp aircraft carriers suspects camp battleship of fudging their numbers and need to prove it. They enlist the help of Kai Tadashi, a university drop out who is supposed one of the smartest mathematicians in Japan to prove that the estimate of battleship is fake.

I normally like stories about people doing interesting work because I enjoy details of a job but The Great War of Archimedes is not a story with good details. Kai Tadashi's fetish is that he likes measuring everything including women and Hamabe Minami. To each his own but Kai spends the story measuring a battleship that is supposedly 2/3 smaller than Yamato plans because he does not have the actual plans of the Yamato to make and estimate.

I was very bored thinking what is so interesting about this story of a mathematician creating an estimate of a battleship where he does not have the actual plans? What details are there of this herculean endeavour that would make it worth watching like Fune wo Amu?

Nothing. Kai is just a super genius who can read all books on ship building in one night to come up with the perfect plans of Yamato based on some rough sketches. That is the whole freaking movie. Super genius pulls a rabbit out of thin air because he is super genius. Yawn. Do not watch.

Jmovie review: Karaoke Iko! / Let's go karaoke!

 

WHAT IS IT ABOUT?

Karaoke Iko! is a bout a kid, Oka who is in final year of his junior high choir group, facing the prospect of his voice breaking and not being able to sing the soprano part anymore. Oka runs into Narita Kyoji played by Ayano Go, a yakuza who needs to improve his singing so that he does not get last in his boss's annual birthday karaoke event and gets tattooed.

THE GOOD

+ Karaoke Iko! is a feel good music jmovie by director Yamashita Nobuhiro who also directed Linda Linda Linda.

+ You can tell Ayano Go is having a great time hamming up for the camera!

+ Love the choice of music in the movie and the scene with all the yakuza purposely butchering all the famous songs is funny.

+ Yoshine Kyoko is in it as the music teacher.

+ It is a beautiful coming of age story with heart.

+ I love who they cast as Ayano Go's boss.

+ I was wondering how the movie would do an ending with two different performances and then I realised that this movie has been all about making me want to see that one performance.

THE BAD

- Nothing

SUMMARY

Karaoke Iko! is not cinematic perfection like Swing Girls was but it is feel good fun. I guarantee you will be looking for the Little Glee Monster cover of the song as the credits roll. Very watchable. Easily found on the high seas on torrent galaxy etc.

Rokunin no Usotsuki na Daigakusei / 6 lying University Students jmovie review

The premise of the movie Rokunin no Usotsuki na Daigakusei is that 6 uni students are applying for a job at a prestigious IT company. Everyone has their own special skills and they were told to work on a project proposal together and everyone got along and worked together as a team hoping that all 6 would be able to get in the company together.

Half way, the company emails everyone and tells that they only have 1 position open so only 1 of the 6 can get the job. The 6 students gather the next day at a meeting room in the company and are told by HR who are observing that the students have to decide amongst themselves who is the most suitable person for the job within the time limit of 6 hours? (can't remember exactly)

The students decided that they would vote for one person every hour who they thought was most suitable and no one could vote for themself. After the first round of voting, Hamabe Minami notices a huge envelope with 6 small envelopes containing the worst lie/secret of each of the 6 people in the room. 

Rokunin no Usotsuki na Daigakusei is a closed room mystery box as the 6 people try to decide who the vote for and whether or not to open the mystery envelopes. It is a fun movie as each envelope is opened, you try to figure out whether the secret is true and who is the mastermind using the envelopes to win the votes.

Akaso Eiji's super idealistic leader character can be annoying especially when he pleads with everyone not to open the envelopes. The story is about how no one can know anyone from interviews and I know people who are good at interviews but are bad at work but that's why there are probation periods, as long as management has the balls to do it.

The thing about Rokunin no Usotsuki na Daigakusei is that the twist is interesting but the ending got a 'so what?' from me. Nice puzzle box but I do not care about the reveal in that it does not really have any consequence. I don't dislike the movie but I would not recommend anyone watch it. Meh from me.

On a side note, the movie I wanted to watch during this trip was Umi no Chinmoku starring Motoki Masahiro and plenty of my favourite actors but I think there was only 1 noon show. I like going to an early morning screening, have early lunch and can do whatever I want instead of not being able to do anything in the morning having to kill time for a noon showing.

Another thing is the cinema showed the trailer for the Oshi no Ko movie so I know what happens in the tv series and it is seriously WTF. I don't think I want to try the series anymore.

Jmoview review: Shoutai

Shoutai is the movie version of the  Kame WOWOW series that showed he could actually act if he had a good script. This time the star of the story is Yokohama Ryusei who was in The Journalist. Like the WOWOW series, Shoutai starts off with a prisoner escape except this one is a lot bloodier with more action with the main character Kaburagi stabbing his tongue whereas in the WOWOW one he just climbed out the window at a public toilet.

Anyway, Shoutai is about a young man Kaburagi falsely imprisoned who escapes to prove his innocence. It is basically The Fugitive with a young man instead of a doctor. The first thing that really stood out to me was the disguise for Kaburagi as this labourer aka his first job after escaping was really, really bad. 

He looked almost comical, like someone purposely wearing a bad disguise whereas the WOWOW disguise was convincingly dirt and unkempt. The story was about Kaguragi helping out his fellow labourers with his knowledge of the law.

I was ready to hate on the movie for the first bad disguise and proclaim the WOWOW series victorious but I started enjoying the movie more and more. Yoshioka Riho is good as the editor at the magazine where Kaburagi finds work.

The actions scenes are much better than WOWOW with a higher budget of course. I really like the one shot where Kaburagi escapes from Yoshioka Riho's apartment by jumping from the balcony onto the top of a car, limping to a bridge and jumping down a river. It looked very good.

Yamada Takayuki is the stern faced Tommy Lee Jones character; the police officer chasing Kaburagi who starts to doubt Kaguragi is guilty. Yamada's performance is just OK and his role is nothing to write about. Kaburagi keeps moving from job to job trying and helping people who believe in his innocence.

The only thing missing from the movie is the one where Kaburagi infiltrates a religious organisation but everything else from the WOWOW series is there. The cinema was filled with female viewers and you could hear the sniffling during the strong ending.

I took a quick look at the WOWOW series again and the movie just looks so much better. The story is an excellent one about a convict trying to prove his innocence. I prefer Kame's acting for Kaburagi but everything else, the movie does a better job. Watchable, crowd pleasing movie. Watch the WOWOW series if you have not first.

Japan trip 2024 day 21+21 : Samurai Time Slipper jmovie review and last days in Tokyo

 

There was one movie that I wanted to watch and that was Samurai Time Slipper. I had seen the trailer in front of Last Mile and I thought it looked like fun. The premise if Samurai Time Slipper is as the name suggests, a samurai goes time slips into modern day Japan. The gag is that he lands on the set where they shoot jidaigeki or samurai tv shows and gets a job as the stunt performer who gets killed in jidaigeki shows.

Samurai Time Slipper is very low budget. They did not even have a big poster being displayed on the wall for it at Toho cinema in Kinshicho. There was not even any poster leaflets and there was only one show at 1pm that Sunday but luckily it was a full house.

Samurai Time Slipper is a feel good comedy. The gags are the usual stuff about the samurai being amazed by modern things and tasting ice-cream for the first time. Everyone assumes that he was an extra who had just lost his memory and was always acting in character. The samurai is skilled at cutting people down but he has to learn fight choreography which goes against his fighting instincts and of course how to get slashed and die,

Samurai Time Slipper is fun because it gives the audience what they want, the story of a character out of time finding his place in life in a story that is a love letter to jidaigeki. It is a very simple story, the jokes are very familiar but it has heart. There is a nice revelation in the middle of the movie that sets up the final battle. Better than It's a Summer Film but not as good as Uzumasa Limelight. Watchable especially if you want a basic, feel good show.

Ichikatsu for dinner. 

Woke up last day 30 September and it was the first day of Asadora Omusubi with Hashimoto Kanna. The story is set in Fukuoka which I miss.

Met up with Micchan and Gran Bleu's mama for my farewell lunch at yayoi sushi. This is the first time I have noticed this kanji 鮨 which is a super fancy way of writing sushi.

Mama ordered the set for both of us.

And finished off with some maguro and I think it was iwashi. Thanks to mama for paying for Micchan and I. Those two really took care of me. The chef was hyping up the iwashi saying it was better than maguro. It was still pretty good but nothing beats maguro. He said it was better in terms of costpa, lol.

I still had time to kill so mama said she knows a place with a nice view and took me to Tower Hall Funabori in Edogawa City.

This place actually had elevator girls and you get great views!

You can see the sky tree straight away which I still haven't gone up.

That is the area where they have the boat races. So many places that I have never been to like Edogawa. I have still not been to Takanawa Gateway, the new station on Yamanote. Didn't get to go Tachikawa, Koenji, Saitama etc. 

Last meal was karubi teishoku from Matsuya at the airport. Should have had the double. It was such a stressful trip to plan but everything went better than expected and nothing bad happened. The 3 concerts and catching up with people were the highlight of the trip. It was a busy trip that was to much gogogo for the first two weeks. Next one is going to be no plans and super slow.