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Posts tagged “feature film”
Cutie Honey live-action is the best kind of bad
At last: a live-action anime adaptation that doesn’t suck! I picked up Cutie Honey purely for the lulz and on the grounds of being a Hideaki Anno completist, but wasn’t surprised at the hour and a half of over-the-top campness. What was surprising was how entertaining it all was; I haven’t seen any of the old adaptations or the original manga but thanks to those mind-boggling trailers that were going around I only had a vague idea of what to expect.
Good job!
I find the Anno-isms to be a bit wearing in live-action format for some reason but given the old Gainax manifesto in terms of comedy, it’s a fitting choice of director in a roundabout kind of way. The packaging lists the director as he always is (i.e. as a ‘legend’ and the maker of Evangelion) but ominously Eriko Sato is introduced proudly as ‘Japan’s top swimsuit model’ and it raises no defence whatsoever against any accusations of being superficial, mindless fluff. It’s reputed to be one of MVM’s biggest sellers over here, too. No kidding.
Mushishi (live-action)
I was extremely interested in the Mushishi live action film right from the first rumours and announcements; not only is it one of my all-time favourite animated TV shows (I really ought to read the graphic novels sometime), the fact that Katsuhiro Otomo was in charge as director made me preorder a copy without a second thought. Unfortunately it didn’t impress me as much as I’d hoped; if anything the end result was actually quite lacklustre. Considering the quality of the source material and the collective talent on board, I have to wonder how it didn’t manage to realise its potential.
The TV show (and the graphic novel series, from what I’ve heard) was strictly episodic in structure, so any feature-length version has to splice a number of the individual stories together and smooth out the screenplay to make a coherent narrative. This is one thing that the movie does reasonably well: it features several story arcs that fans are familiar with but emphasises the background to Ginko’s childhood and its relevance to his present life in an over-arcing theme throughout the film. The cinematography is also excellent, but beyond that…I’m far from convinced.
High on the Ether of Lily Chou-Chou
All about Lily Chou-Chou is an odd film. I find two types of oddness that run through the Japanese live-action movies in my collection: there’s the energetic, mad type of odd that drives the likes of Survive Style 5+ and the back catalogue of Takashi Miike and there’s the gentle, whimsical oddness of, say, Tony Takitani. Lily Chou-Chou falls in the second category. It’s not frenetic and off-the-wall, but its narrative has a shuffled chronology that jumps back and forth and there are some scenes that are quite shocking; it takes on some familiar issues but the execution is both beautiful and highly unconventional.
I mentioned the film to Bateszi absolutely ages ago; I recommended it to him by reputation before I’d seen it for myself (the same approach has given me a couple of other titles, namely Tokyo Sonata and Audition that are on the ‘to watch’ shelf, and two more in the form of Funky Forest: First Contact and Taste of Tea that I’m planning on picking up). I wish I hadn’t left it so long.
Kara no Kyoukai #6: Boukyaku Rokuon (Oblivion Recording)
I must admit that the premise of this outing didn’t fill me with as much enthusiasm as some of the earlier ones. It sounded like the story was shying away from the hard-edged grittiness that I’ve come to respect so much in the series, what with it being about something as light-hearted as Mikiya’s kid sister Azaka looking for fairies at school. Sure enough, the general tone of this movie is a lot brighter, more humorous and is mostly concerned with Azaka and her personal perpective on things rather than putting Shiki in centre stage.
What pleasantly surprised me though was that this relative levity and the shift in character focus offered so much to enjoy on their own. Azaka has always been a bit, well, overprotective of her elder brother but this is where she is given the opportunity to explain why as best she can. The mystery thriller side of things is still present, of course, but it’s more character- rather than plot-driven. With a some FIRE to spice it up a bit.
Miyazaki’s Laputa (from the POV of my younger self)
I always find the “How did you get into anime?” discussions fascinating. Way before my first proper anime experience I watched an obscure animated feature film that gave me great memories. I mentally filed it under Something I’ll Never See Again and almost fooled myself into thinking I’d forgotten about it, so it was quite something when I spotted a familiar-looking image on the front of a DVD case over a decade later and bought the thing on the spot. The DVD in question was Miyazaki’s Laputa: Castle in the Sky, which I later bought again on Japanese import because that was the edition that contained the older English language dub I remembered so held the real nostalgia value.
I wonder if the quoted value of 5cm per second for sakura petals is altitude-dependent
While I normally blog from the point of view of the cynical 27-year-old I am today the reason why my opinion of it is the way it is stems from experiencing it through a child’s eyes; it is after all a kids’ adventure story so that tack makes more sense to me. I’ve done a very simplified run-down of my favourite bits from my original viewing, with numbered annotations to include the benefits of hindsight. It’s an unusual approach for me, so I hope it works here.
Tony Takitani
[Reposted, with edits, from my old side-blog. Much of the other content on there has now been moved to my revamped front page]
This post is partly inspired by Bateszi’s observation of how little those of us in the English-speaking world hear of drama- and realistic fiction-style Japanese cinema, and partly because a review for the movie adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s short story Tony Takitani is long overdue. The original story, by the way, is currently available in the Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman compilation of his short stories; another book on my ‘To Review’ pile.
The man of the film’s title is a graphical artist with a solitary life and an unconventional childhood. His mother died when he was born and his often-absent father is a travelling jazz musician; a man “as unsuited to being a father as Tony was to being a son,”. Tony Takitani is skilled and successful professionally but despite an agreeable personality and lucrative career he is something of an introvert. This life of solitude changes when he marries a woman with a passion for clothes and understands the true meaning of loneliness.
The Clannad movie, Key’s forgotten child
Now I’ve finished Clannad ~After Story~, with the exception of Kyou’s episode which is currently in my ‘to do’ folder, I felt I could finally watch the feature film adaptation. This turned out to be a good idea spoilers-wise since the movie covers events from both seasons of the TV show but in retrospect I think it’s a better introduction to the franchise than KyoAni’s effort. I’m not implying it’s the better of the two full stop, but it would probably be more rewarding to sit through the more heavily edited hour and a half version before the longer one; although I daresay the subset of ‘people who have not seen any Clannad before but plan to in the future’ is very small at this point in time.
The feature-length film covers the same ground as its younger counterpart but inevitably leaves out the side-stories and, interestingly, wraps it up with an alternative ending. Most noticably the art style and direction are different thanks to a Toei production crew, although the only change in terms of casting is that of Tomoya’s VA (i.e. Kenji Nojima as opposed to Yuuichi Nakamura). The result is different for sure, but I’d hate to think a KyoAni bias would stop you giving it a fair chance.
Anime as Serious Business part 1: anime and the silver screen
First: my expansion of the point I raised with Gaguri, initially touched on during my second Kara no Kyoukai post. It stems from the time when I became an anime fan proper which, to get what follows after the jump into perspective, happened at a relatively late age when I was already a general film/TV nerd. Second: to clarify on my stance on this issue I dropped English language and literature in favour of a more science-orientated timetable post-GCSE, in the hope that it would improve my employment prospects. Long story short, it didn’t, which meant I abandoned my favourite subject to make a gamble that I regret to this day. Just so you know I’m not trying to be clever here, because I couldn’t even if I wanted to.
Just for the record I stole this pic from a blog called, appropriately enough, Serious Fucking Business, which is well worth a visit
So then, I’m an academic without being an intellectual, watching anime as a layman but one who likes a decent movie in addition to the typical box office blockbuster. I hope I’m not insulting your intelligence here in pointing out that the term ‘anime’ is merely an umbrella term for a set of artistic techniques (animation) and the geography (Japanese in origin); except my own set of standards and definitions need something a bit more specific than this to differentiate a certain type of anime from the rest. No, I don’t have higher education qualifications in this area, but I still want to talk taxonomy. Please hear me out, ‘kay?
Survive Style 5+: “What is your function?”
Or, “What is the function of cinema as an entertainment medium and expressive art form?” Or, more simply, “What the hell was that?”
I’m a little reluctant to endorse the marketing strategy of some distributors of Japanese cinema titles, beyond the fact that they bring the said titles to would-be viewers’ attention. Y’see, I don’t want originality and thoughtful film-making to be mistaken for some “Hey, look at those crazy Japanese people and their crazy movies!” sales pitch. The Happiness of the Katakuris was an artistically innovative demonstration of the importance of family (I’m not kidding) and if you watch Battle Royale purely for the shock value of sixteen-year olds killing each other, you’re missing the point of the exercise by a mile. I’m more interested in seeing what their film industry as a whole has to offer beyond this cultural stereotyping, but I digress.
Gen Sekiguchi is probably better-known as the director of the imaginative and offbeat Supercar music videos but here he makes his feature-length debut with some well-known names in Japanese media…along with a special appearance by British footballer-turned-actor Vinnie Jones. This movie is unlike any other I’ve seen and as such has ‘cult hit’ written all over it but my question to Survive Style 5+ is: What is your function?
Dolls (Takeshi Kitano)
Being the ignorant pleb that I am I haven’t actually seen any of the films that the multi-talented cult figure Takeshi Kitano has directed; all I know is that his films frequently involve crime thriller-type themes, striking instances of humour and a distinctive and individual style. As a first experience of Kitano the director then, Dolls is a surprising one because it’s a very experimental piece that defies mainsteam classification. It takes a very unusual approach to storytelling in comparison to those I’m used to: the stories may come across as clichéd at first glance but in terms of execution a conventional romance it certainly isn’t.
The allusions to bunraku puppet theatre were lost on me since I know nothing about the medium but I don’t think it’s necessary to be familiar with the details to appreciate the movie as a whole. The film relies heavily on symbolism and metaphor, which extends from the puppets that make the ‘dolls’ of the title to most of the movie overall. It is very stylised so the narrative shouldn’t be taken literally and at face value; those who prefer their drama more realistic might find it odd that the events portrayed are shown like some sort of stage play. It could also be argued that the characters are indeed like emotionless puppets playing out their roles but that I think is missing the point.