MIFF 2023 Monster / Kaibutsu jmovie review

 

The movie I had been waiting for since I saw it was Koreeda Hirokazu movie from a Sakamoto Yuji script. Ando Sakura is a single mother who notices something weird with her son. She find his hair in the bathroom, there is soil in his water bottle and a wound on his ear and he says that his brain has been switched with that of a pig. Ando Sakura presses her son for answers and he says that he was being bullied by his teacher Hori played by Eita.

Ando Sakura goes to the school looking for answers and all the principal played by Sakamoto Yuji regular Tanaka Yuko can do is give the most generic and lifeless apology ever. The teachers see Ando Sakura is an overprotective parent rather than get to the truth, they want to get rid of the parent.

More things happen and when Ando Sakura goes to the school a second time, Eita says that her son is actually bullying another boy called Yori. We then see the series of events from Eita's perspective and the final act of the movie is showing the audience what really happens. Kind of like Rashomon.

The tagline on the movie poster says 'who is it?' which refers to the title of the movie Monster or Kaibutsu. Monster is a mystery movie told from different perspectives and the Monster in this movie keeps changings according to whose perspective the story is told from.

I wonder if Mitsushima Hikari fought for the mother role with Ando Sakura? Only 3 actresses are worthy of a Sakamoto Yuji script, and that is the before mentioned actresses along with Matsu Takako.

It is hard to talk about Monster without spoilers but it is very well written and acted movie about bullying and being kids and the adults trying to make sense of them. I 100% did not expect the story to unfold the way it did. The ending is very vague but not in a good way like shoplifters. Very watchable and well done, just not must watch for me.

MIFF 2023 Perfect Days jmovie review

 

The Melbourne International Film Festival is here and when I saw it was a Yakusho Koji movie, I clicked buy. I did not know that it was directed by a German director Wim Wenders and that Yakusho Koji had won best actor at Cannes!

Yakusho Koji plays Hirayama, a professional toilet cleaner who cleans public toilets in Tokyo. When I say professional I mean his van is loaded up with all sorts of equipment and he has a hundred keys strapped to his belt to open all locks in public toilets along with a lot of cleaning tools.

Hirayama takes pride in his toilet cleaning job. He is thorough, does not half-ass it like his useless kouhai and checks every nook and cranny. Hirayama lives a simple existence with his plants, books and cassette tapes but what he has is dignity and pride in his work even though everyone looks down at him from the mother with the lost child to his sister. I recommend not watching the trailer below because it spoils so much of the movie including the memorable lines. It is best to watch it with no knowledge at all.

Perfect Days is a slow movie about someone doing a manual labour job that comes with interesting challenges but I was captivated all the way through because the acting was so good, most of it from Yakusho Koji. I never thought watching Yakusho Koji cleaning public toilets would be so interesting. Hirayama barely speaks in Perfect Days but he is able to convey so much with his acting.

I won't spoil what happens but there is a very nice cameo from someone playing the mama at Hirayama's usual bar. I thought she looked very familiar but it was only after she sang that I figured out who she was. 

Perfect Days is a well done artsy movie that appeals to most people because the acting is so strong and it is a simple movie that will stay with you long after watching. I've seen artsy movies try this slow artsy style but fail most of the time. *cough* Koibitotachi *cough* A must watch movie for me because it is so simple yet so deep. I love that Perfect Days does not fully explain Hirayama's past but offers enough glimpses that you can surmise why he come to chose his current life. I recommend you seek it out at your nearest film festival. 

I feel like visiting the toilets featured in this movie especially the glass one and it looks like they are part of this Tokyo Toilet Project.

MIFF 2018 Shoplifters / Manbiki Kazoku review

Its been a while since I've been to a movie festival. Skipped the Japanese Film Festival Last Year cause I was too lazy and was busy with JLPT study, but when I found out about Koreeda Hirokazu's latest movie was coming to the Melbourne International Film Festival, I knew I could not miss out on this.

Shoplifter feels like Koreeda taking his experience of making Nobody Knows about abandoned kids and infusing it with the warmth of his family movies like Like father, like son and Our Little Sister.

Koreeda takes you on this journey with this family of thieves who take in this abused little girl who they later named Yuri. They are a family that does bad things, albeit in order to survive and little by little we learn the backgrounds of the characters in this family and their complicated relationships and most of all, we learn to love them as human beings, flaws and all.

After watching Koreeda movies for so many years, shoplifter feels like Koreeda's magnum opus.  Its the movie with everything that he wants to say about how people can and cannot choose their families, how giving birth does not make one a mother and how bad people are capable of doing good and bad things at the same time.

I have no idea how to review this movie except to say its a movie about being human. Absolutely must watch. Be careful as you will get attacked by onion ninjas when watching this movie especially the scene in front of the burning drum.

If Lily Franky and Ando Sakura don't win all the acting awards, there is no justice in this world. Manbiki Kazoku is still showing in Japanese cinemas so it will be a while before its available on the internet so your best best to catch it is a movie festival near you or go to Japan.

MIFF 2017: In this Corner of the World / Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni

The Melbourne International Film Festival is back and the movie that I wanted to watch is 'In this Corner of the World' which I have read good things about. Its a poignant movie about a young woman Suzu who lives in Hiroshima during WW2 and its about the world through her eyes.

In this Corner of the World is a beautifully painted anime with a water colourly feel. When the story gets dark in the second half, it will definitely pull at your heartstrings especially in regards to the suffering of the normal people and their attempt to survive during the hardships of war and rationing.

However, I thought the movie had pacing problems and could have easily shaved 15 minutes from its 2 hour runtime and no vital information would have been lost. There were scenes that went too long or were not necessary and I got a bit bored in the first half.

While the movie is certainly moving, it doesn't do anything that I've not seen from many movies and doramas about WW2 and I don't feel like it does it well enough to warrant a recommendation. Its ok but no Grave of Fireflies.

MIFF 2015 : Our Little Sister / Umimachi Diary

My third and final movie from the Melbourne International Film Festival. Our Little Sister is yet another feather on Koreeda Hirokazu's (Like Father, Like Son) cap. I went for this movie for Koreeda and Kaho but its Ayase Haruka who steals the show as the oldest of 3 siblings who finds that their recently deceased father has a daughter from his second marriage being left with his widow from his third.

Ayase Haruka has the hardest job as the stoic, motherly oldest sister who is having an affair with Tsutsumi Shinichi although her family was torn apart by her father's adultry which lead to the birth of the half sister Suzu. Its nothing  we haven't seen before in jdoramas but its done with such subtlety and deft touch that I could feel every conflicted emotion on her face.

For sukebes like me, Nagasawa Masami shows a lot of skin and legs as per her contract but not having to carry the movie, she does a great job as the sexy sister who keeps getting mixed up with the wrong guys and loves alcohol. Kaho plays the youngest sister with weird interests and is mostly there for thejokes. Masami and her legs should never be asked to carry a movie/jdorama by themselves. Our Little Sister is a slow, well paced movie about sisters living together and the emotional scars they carry that barely show.

I just love Koreeda's directing. To me, he is the actors' director. He allows the actors to breath and for the moment to simmer. Never too long, never to short and always capturing every subtle change in facial expression. The camera work is absolutely striking and really makes me want to go Kamakura. The best thing about Our Little Sister is the chemistry between the sisters and that it never descends into melodrama.

I'm giving it a must watch with the catch that you've got to enjoy his brand of nothing exciting really happens. Koreeda is just interested to capture the magic of people reacting to certain situations. Sometimes its awesome like in Like Father, Like Son and sometimes its just a complete bore like I Wish. I'm glad it turned out to be the former and the crowd at the Comedy Theatre applauded at the end.

MIFF 2015 : Journey to the Shore / Kishibe no Tabi

Journey to the Shore is my second Japanese movie for the Melbourne International Film Festival. This was the movie I was most looking forward to not just because Fukatsu Eri and Asano Tadanobu are in but also because Kurosawa Kiyoshi (WOWOW's Shokuzai) directed it and won best director at Cannes. I was surprised to see WOWOW films at the beginning credits.

Fukatsu Eri's husband Asano Tadanobu died 3 years ago and all of a sudden he reappears, saying that he want to take her on a journey to meet the people who have helped him. Its your basic dead person comes back to say goodbye movie with hints about their relationship and what actually happened scattered throughout.

Fukatsu Eri is very good in this one but the script is oh so generic. I have no idea how Kurosawa Kiyoshi got the directing award cause I've seen much better stuff from him. (see the first episode of Shokuzai) The movie is way too lethargic and could have used a lot of edits. Actually I think it would have been so much better as a 3 episode WOWOW dorama than a movie.

I feel like Fukatsu Eri really kept the movie from being a total bore through the force of her acting. Watching the movie I was thinking I've never put her on the top echelon of Japanese actresses but the best thing about the movie was watching her character react to various situations and reading her emotions.

As a dorama, Journey to the Shore would have been not bad but as movie, it was kind of meh and dare I say boring. The last movie for me will be Koreeda's My Little Sister. Fingers crossed. Oh yeah, Aoi Yu has a nice cameo as well.

MIFF 2015 : Yakuza Apocalypse / Gokudou Daisensou

Fuck Miike Takashi. I went in with super low expectations and just wasted two hours of my time. Whatever happened to the director who made Ichi the Killer? Seriously, why cast Mad fucking Dog from the Raid if you don't even use him properly. The final 'fight' was so goddamn disappointing. Why cast Mad Dog in the movie at all if you just want him and Ichihara Hayato to stand next to each other and punch each other in the face ten times?

Why shoot the fight scenes for most of the film so up close you can't see shit? I get it for the fights with Lily Franky's character since it was all stuntman but wtf. Somehow he remembered to pull away a bit for the frog fight scene. The frog saved the movie from having no redeemable qualities.

B-movies are inherently stupid. I love Ichi. I love Versus. I love Machine Girl and all of them had a coherence and pacing to their stupidity while Yakuza Apocalypse does not. The sad thing is The sad thing is Miike could have made it pretty funny but didn't. He introduces so many stupid elements into the movie but non of them pay off.

Just repeating the line about yakuza being like vampires feeding on the katagi (civilians) does not give the movie meaning. If you have to spell the point of your movie out to your audience, what's the point of watching a (non-existant) story then? Seriously, Yakuza Apocalypse makes Tokyo Tribe look like Zebraman. Do not watch.

Jmovie review: Ace Attorney / Gyakuten Saiban

Everytime I review a Miike film, I always start of with how much a hits and miss director he is. In terms of videogame adaptations, I am still angry at him for wasting the potential of Ryu ga Gotoku movie. Instead of adapting a hard boiled yakuza movie with some absurd situations, he turned it into an absurd movie and with a yakuza story that wasn't built up properly. Still, Ace Attorney is my most anticipated jmovie this year besides the Berserk movies and word from the festival screenings has been good. I wanted to see at the MIFF but unfortunately, tickets for two screenings were already sold out.I played Ace Attorney for a bit a long time ago and finished the first game this year in anticipation of the movie.



Ace Attorney is undoubtedly the greatest video game to movie adaptation ever. Miike has embraced the absurd in this one and cut down the 6 cases into 3 with a 2 hour and 15 minutes runtime. Instead of grounding it in 'reality' Miike has taken all the elements of the game and made them real. The three cases though are inserted into the movie in passing. Most importantly, the movie takes itself seriously. The actors are really the game characters come to life and there's no winking at the camera.



From the beginning, I had a huge smile on my face because the movie is as faithful to the source material as Watchmen. I can't believe the actors actually succeeded in making the facial expressions from the game. Its the first time I've seen real live action actually look like drawings. It shows Miike has actually played the game, unlike Ryu ga gotoku. The only thing missing were Mia Fey's cleavage.



For people who have played the game, Ace Attorney movie is a blast to watch. Most of the time I'm just goes oohhh I remember this or ahhh, I can't believe that appeared in the movie! No idea who it would play for people who have not played the game but I suspect they mind find it a bit long. With 3 court cases and not much character stuff. Must watch if you've played the game. If you have not, I recommend the game more than the movie.



Just ran out of upload space on blogger. WTF. Uploading from photobucket is a pain. Sigh. I wonder if there's a way to store pictures on gmail and upload it to blogger? One complaint though is that the subtitles used the English names from the game which doesn't work in a Japanese movie. Its like watching Macross and Hikaru is translated as Rick. I understand its for fans of the game but I'm pretty sure the fans will recognise the characters even with Japanese names. It was very jarring for me with different names being spoken and written and some of the puns with Naruhodo's name didn't work with the subtitles saying Wright.






Kita Yoshio had to show up somewhere. :)