What are you watching lately?
I've watched three movies and one short film in the past few days, all rare Japanese movies obtained in a tape trade. Shitty quality because the guy kind of screwed me and just taped over old stuff. I've actually had the tapes for months but put off watching them because of the horrible quality.
First up was Crazy Thunder Road, a 1982 movie from so-called "punk rock director" Sogo Ishii. I was pretty excited to see this because Ishii's Electric Dragon 80,000V and Gojoe are two of my favorite movies, and this is reputedly one of his most intense and raw movies. I guess it was pretty good, but I just couldn't get into the movie or relate to it until somewhere near the end. Repeat viewings (possibly of a better quality copy) might change that, but that remains to be seen.
Next up was Denshu Kozo, a short film (46 minutes) that was apparently shown alongside Shinya Tsukamoto's Tokyo Fist at it's 1995 premiere. Extremely bizarre stuff. I could barely follow the plot, yet I found it to be entertaining in a very peculiar way. A bombardment of very cool imagery, heavily experimental filmmaking, appealing anime-like plot that involves time travel and vampires, and me feeling sleep deprived at the time of viewing all led to a very unique viewing experience that seems surreal when I try to recall it. Good stuff, a reminder of why I ever liked strange Japanese movies in the first place (something I needed after the letdown of Crazy Thunder Road).
I watched Katsuhiro Otomo's World Apartment Horror last night and I must say I really enjoyed it. It's a live action movie made after the success of Akira, starring director Hiroyuki Tanaka AKA Sabu (who can also be seen as the ex-cop in Ichi The Killer). A young yakuza is sent to an apartment building to rid it of it's inhabitants, but finds it to be inhabited by strictly foreigners, all the Japanese on the first floor having apparently been scared away by a ghost. Elements of Juzo Itami (think Minbo or A Taxing Woman) and horror movies are combined with a cool multi-cultural cast, great comedy, and a heartfelt underlying theme about cultures coming together. Very entertaining movie, I will definitely be watching this again. It's one of those movies where I can watch half of it, go to sleep, then wake up the next morning and still be in the exact mindset to finish watching the movie and be interested in it.
Finally, I watched another Sogo Ishii movie called Crazy Family from 1984. I came into the movie with vague expectations, my opinion of Sogo Ishii having been broken down somewhat by Crazy Thunder Road. I really didn't know whether I was in the mood to watch this or not. Damn, I was taken by surprise. I liked this just as much as World Apartment Horror, if not more. It's all about a Japanese family that is, well, crazy. It starts out nicely enough, with them moving into a new house and the head of the household, a middle-aged salaryman, finally finding himself feeling fulfilled. Things begin to go wrong (and the movie begins to shift to the dark comedy that it is) when his father comes to visit and never leaves, basically moving in without ever asking. Things degrade from there into the final battle royale, which I'm not sure I could accurately describe even if I wanted to spoil the suprises of this movie. The characters in this movie could easily be featured in a fighting game, each one becoming a crazed eccentric anime-like caricature by the end. The father is a salaryman with a construction hat, his father is a military man circa Japan's occupation of China, the daughter is a pro-wrestler/singer, the wife is a cook (with accompanying pot-on-head and knives), and the son is psychotic, pyramid-obsessed, and constantly studies to get into Tokyo University. I think I've spoiled enough, I'll just say that this was one of the best movies I have seen in a long time, and I would recommend it to anybody and everybody. I think this one is a bit easier to find than the other movies I watched, so if this sounds vaguely interesting to you, definitely seek it out. My description can't do it justice, I haven't even mentioned the soundtrack or a million other things.
