Nobody Knows

Another graduate of the Cannes circuit, Nobody Knows is based on a real life event from the late Eighties where four children were abandoned by their mother and left to fend for themselves in their Tokyo apartment, with tragic consequences.

What I like about this film is its lightness of touch - it's a modern morality tale that resists melodrama, sentimentality and judgementalism almost entirely (the score too, generally eschews emotional manipulation), in lieu of an intimate portrait of the everyday existence of the four abandoned kids. The children all act very well, especially Yuya Yagira as 12-year old Akira, who impresses as the nominal head of the household, struggling to come to terms with his mother's neglect; forced to deal with an inner conflict between wanting a childhood for himself and assuming responsibility for his younger siblings. In the end, naivety engenders a slow descent into unpaid bills, squalor and malnutrition. When I say 'slow descent' though, it's painfully slow and that's really the film's Achilles' heel. It gives you time to really get to know the characters, but not much actually happens (until the bleak finale) - and with a running time of 2 hours 20 minutes, that means it frequently drags.

So despite being commendably realistic and refreshingly subtle in its execution, it's not a film I can imagine wanting to revisit any time soon.

誰も知らない
Dir. Koreeda Hirokazu, 2004

The Taste of Tea

Not exactly what I was expecting. From the title, and the fact it did the rounds at Cannes, I was expecting an Ozu rerun for modern times, but it's actually more akin to a Japanese version of Round the Twist - that gently surreal Antipodean kids show from the early 90s. The story, if it can properly be called a story, centres around an eccentric family in rural Japan; their individual lives and dreams, but also their place in the family unit.

It's not without its charms, and it probably does hit (hit is too strong, gently tap would be more apposite) on some basic truths about human nature, but ultimately Ishii's self-consciously wacky approach to direction left me feeling more irritated than heart-warmed. There's the zany grandpa with his preposterous barnet and bushy unibrow, the zany young girl, Sachiko, with her giant doppleganger (a sort of metaphorical guardian spirit perhaps), the zany boy, Hajime, and his awkward forays into romance. Maybe it's just the cynic me, but there's only so much good-natued zaniness I can take in one film.

茶の味
Dir. Katsuhito Ishii, 2004

Audition

Kiri... kiri... kiri...

Or in English, 'cut... cut... cut...', is the mantra for this groundbreaking psychological horror that brought Takashi Miike to the world's attention.

Of all the Miike films I've seen to date (and I have plenty still to see!), Audition remains my favourite - a great premise, complimented by unique imagery and set pieces which have now taken their rightful place in the horror hall of fame - the sack in the bare room with a ringing phone; the hypodermic needle, poised for unspeakableness... In traditional cinematic terms, it might be argued that it's a flawed film; with an overlong setup and confusing narrative, but I don't think traditional cinematic terms are applicable here. The three act structure, whilst just about discernible, seems redundant given that the whole latter half of the film, from the point where Aoyama first kisses Asami, is a brilliantly disorienting fusion of dream and reality; an exercise in cognitive dissonance.

From one of the earliest scenes, where Aoyama is seen reeling in the big catch, through to the final image of a mutilated man lying prone and helpless on the floor, the transition from hunter to hunted is expertly handled by Miike. I actually think the long setup - the audition process, Aoyama's courtship of Asami, his relationship with his family and co-workers - is a vital component in making his subsequent descent into darkness as effective as it is. It almost goes without saying that the cinematography is gorgeous throughout - typified by the judicious use of colour; from the flat tones of Aoyama's home and workplace through to the vivid colour filters used for the dream-like sequences at the abandoned dancing school and the Stone Fish bar in Ginza.

Audition is more disturbing than it is scary, but there are a couple of great jumps, both involving the sack in Asami's unkempt apartment. In Asami, Miike has created a modern day succubus - outward beauty concealing demonic rage; a creature of indeterminate age, identity, corporeality... some kind of sadistic shape-shifting automaton perhaps (surely impossible, but disconcertingly hinted at), with a stock set of lines and gestures she uses to reel in her prey. According to modern psychology, legends of succubi may be ascribed to the hallucinations brought on by sleep paralysis. In the denouement, Asami inflicts a literal paralysis on Aoyama, but he seems to have been sleep-walking into his fate from the moment he laid eyes on her photo, ignoring the warnings of his friend, Yoshikawa. Audition taps perfectly into the primal fear of The Uncanny; the horrible realization that something so familiar can be so strange. Truly insidious.

オーディション
Dir. Takashi Miike, 1999

Tokyo!

Three short films set in Tokyo, linked by a current of surrealism, and also by the fact that none of the directors are Japanese; a sense of being on the outside, looking in.

First up is a typically whimsical piece from Michel Gondry about a woman who transforms into a chair. It starts off quite slowly, with rather a mundane, albeit nicely acted setup - then throws you the curve ball you were expecting (it's Gondry!), before ending on an upbeat note. Slight, but I enjoyed it.

Carax's segment, Merde, is less successful. For all of it's superficial oddness, it fails to engage - the court sequence is particularly tedious. Carax's shock tactics aren't justified by what's on offer - it's not very funny and too lightweight for social satire. Capital punishment and xenophobia in Japan are contentious subjects and potentially interesting material for a film, but their treatment here is heavy-handed - not helped any by the less than subtle imagery of religious martyrdom.

This is counterpointed by an understated, gently satirical film from Joon-ho Bong, further underlining his status as one of the up and coming directors from South East Asia. Bong takes a sideways look at the peculiarly Japanese phenomenon of hikikomori (acute social withdrawal; the act of voluntarily excluding oneself from the outside world). The absurdity of the 'condition' - and on a wider level, Japan's social fragmentation - is highlighted by one man's earth-moving experience with a pizza delivery girl, following 10 years of solitary confinement in his apartment. A little gem.

Dir. Michel Gondry / Leos Carax / Joon-ho Bong, 2008

Virus

This probably doesn't have any place being on here as it's largely a film in English, but it's got a Japanese director and that's good enough for me! I'm not sure, but I suspect Virus was Fukasaku's attempt to make the transition into Hollywood. This rather cheap-looking B movie was never likely to make his name with a mainstream Western audience though. It's true to say that the intervening thirty years have not been kind to the film, but on top of that, it feels like a throwback to the Sixties, both in terms of its style and its themes.

The eponymous virus is really just a pretext for making a cold war movie; a cold war movie whose plot is frankly beyond laughable. After a global pandemic has destroyed most of the world's population, a small band of survivors gather in a scientific base in the Antarctic (the virus is dormant in cold conditions). Yoshizumi, an unassuming Japanese seismologist - and hero of the piece, somewhat predictably - warns that off-shore oil drilling and the weight of the sea has triggered tectonic movement, which will result in a massive earthquake off the east coast of the US. The magnitude of the earthquake will cause it to be registered by the ARS (Automatic Response System) as a nuclear attack (possibly a slight design flaw) and it will retaliate in kind - against the Soviets. The Soviets have a similar system in place, which, ironically, as well as targeting the US, is targeting the base in the Antarctic the survivors are stationed. Apparently oblivious to the fact that an earthquake measuring 9 on the richter scale would probably see the building housing the ARS and everything in its vicinity washed away in a tsunami of biblical proportions, Yoshizumi sets off with Major Carter on a mission to Washington to shut down the ARS before it's too late. But it is too late! The warheads have been launched. So the ultimate irony is that the 863 people who survive a virus responsible for wiping out the world's population are themselves wiped out by good old M.A.D.

If he had left it there, and let the credits roll amidst the billowing mushroom clouds, Virus might have garnered 2/5 for ridiculously audacious plot contrivance and for having some balls. As it is, Fukasaku tacks on a gooily sentimental epilogue, set 4 years into the future, which sees Yoshizumi, hobbling along, Christ-like, somehow having made it from Washington DC to Outer Mongolia, then having the further good fortune (a billion to one shot maybe) to chance upon the last enclave of humanity and be reunited with his long lost love. What a load of ARS.

Dir. Kinji Fukasaku, 1980

Battle Royale II: Requiem

Another in a long line of sequels that spectacularly fail to live up to the standards set by the original. To say Battle Royale II is a poor film though, doesn't nearly do justice to the massive levels of incompetence on display here. Where Battle Royale brilliantly walks the tightrope between the twin towers of bombast and credibility, BRII plunges headlong into the abyss, pulling the towers down with it. Ultra-violent, yet cloyingly sentimental, it appears to justify its over-long run time by presenting itself as a war epic with a powerful message about humanity at its core. It's the text book definition of overreaching.

The basic premise is that the original BR act passed by the government has led to youth-based terrorist activity. The only way to quell this unrest is to pass a new act, BRII, allowing the evil grown-ups to kidnap another bus-load of wide-eyed urchins and send them off to do battle with the terrorists. Cue a drawn out re-hash of the first film with none of the wit or originality. Aside from a tedious amount of self-referencing, there are a variety of cringe-worthy references to other films as well; from Shuya and Taku's last stand (Butch Cassidy) to the beach landing, shot on patented Shaky-Cam - a Fisher Price re-enactment of Saving Private Ryan's incredible opening sequence.

Riki Takeuchi, who was so good as the enigmatic Ryuichi in Miike's Dead Or Alive, is plain horrible here - hamming it up like pork was going out of fashion. Shuya, who cut a sympathetic figure in the first film, has got to be one of the least convincing terrorists in cinematic history; with his daft robes and airbrushed anime face, he looks like he'd be more at home doing Final Fantasy Cosplay than saving the world. In fact, the whole 'Wild Seven' group (now why does that make me crave a certain brand of Japanese cigarette I wonder) are laughable. Who funds them? Other kids? Where do they get their RPGs and assault rifles? Where do they learn to effect global computer hacks by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete on their Combat Edition iPads?

The idea that the government would send in ground troops to take out a small terrorist faction conveniently holed up on an island also defies belief. But when they do finally go in, we're supposed to believe that a rag-tag bunch of kids with no training could take on Japan's military elite and win. What really sticks in the craw though, is not the foolish simplicity of the film's Peter Pan With Guns ideology, or even its muddled, infantile grasp of politics; it's the glamorization of terrorism (typified by Shuya's gushing about the AK-47 being the universal symbol of resistance as if he were talking about a Pokemon card); it's the staggeringly patronizing attitude it takes to the unnamed Middle Eastern country where Shuya and his gang end up. Even in a country that has suffered war for 20 years, we're told (for the second time), the grass is still green in Spring and the childrens' eyes still shine with dewy optimism. As long as there's hope, everything's gonna be just fine.

バトル・ロワイアル ＩＩ
Dir. Kenta Fukasaku / Kinji Fukasaku, 2003

Raigyo

More often that not, a low rating on IMDb is a sure sign that a film is a turkey, but once in a while it's a sign that a lot of people just haven't got it. I think Raigyo falls into this second camp.

It's sold as 'Pinku Eiga' ('Pink Cinema' - Japan's surprisingly creative take on Erotica) but there's not a lot of sex, and virtually no eroticism to justify the tag. Instead we get a bleak, but engaging journey into mental illness, disconnection and psychopathy. If I'm honest, after watching the yawn-fest that was Kokkuri, I didn't expect much from Zeze, but here he proves himself to be a filmmaker of some skill. Raigyo perfectly captures a sense of desolate liminality - the action taking place in a part-marshland, part-industrial hinterland. The characters too, hover somewhere between intrigue and inscrutability; misfits, like the snake-headed fish of the film's title.

Given its short run time (75 mins), Raigyo, is, if anything, a little too opaque for its own good. The violence is explicit - and shocking in its banality - but the protagonists' motivations and back stories are barely fleshed out at all. We're plunged right into the here and now, and, like the police in the film, left to fill in the blanks. The final CCTV tracking shot brings this point home, as Yanai and his strange companion disappear into the crowd. In a way though, its refusal to explain is a large part of the film's appeal.

雷魚
Dir. Takahisa Zeze, 1997

One Missed Call

Miike phoning it in.

Sorry, couldn't resist. As it happens, it's only partly true - One Missed Call is a slickly effective J-Horror with scares in all the right places. The basic premise is that people receive a call on their mobile phone, apparently from their own number, which leaves an eerie voicemail message foretelling of their imminent death. As one person is killed, another number is called from the victim's phone and so the 'virus' propagates.

In a post-production interview, Miike reveals that he doesn't particularly like straight-up horror films; that he wants a bit more from his ¥1800 cinema ticket than a few scares. Nevertheless, a straight-up horror is pretty much what he delivers - yes, there is a decent back story, centering around child abuse (the abused becoming the abuser) and Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy, but not in the kind of depth that would elevate it into another genre.

Essentially, One Missed Call is derivative of the best J-Horror: if you put Ring, The Grudge and Dark Water into a blender and pressed Go, this is pretty much what you'd expect. Except that with most directors what you'd end up with is a grey sludge, rather than the smooth, vivid cocktail of elements that is One Missed Call: the acting is good, the sets and lighting immaculate (it's hard to imagine a creepier setting than an abandoned hospital), the story coherent, and the script taut. It's also a lesson in manipulating atmosphere - for all the (very effective) supernatural goings on, I think the scene that made me jump highest out of my seat involved a couple of crows banging into the window of a gloomy apartment block. Miike is a hugely accomplished filmmaker, capable of so much more than this, but as J-Horror goes, it's probably still in the top 10%.

着信アリ
Dir. Takashi Miike, 2004

Hana-Bi

Hana-Bi (Fireworks) didn't have quite the impression it had on me when I first saw it at the cinema some 13 odd years ago, but then I've seen a lot of films in those 13 years, not to mention most of Kitano's back catalogue. It's not quite the existential odyssey I remembered it to be, but its quality still shines through.

Hana-Bi is a bridge between Kitano's earlier yakuza films like Boiling Point and Sonatine and artier fare like Dolls. It still has moments of explicit violence but is essentially a subtler, more meditative film - albeit a less focused one. Once again, Kitano is lead actor as well as director, here playing Nishi; a cop who leaves his job to go away on a road trip with his dying wife, Miyuki. Running parallel to this is the story of Horibe - his old partner on the force, who was shot in the line of duty and is now semi-paralyzed; wheelchair-bound and alone. Horibe tries to find new meaning in life through painting, taking a different path across the wilderness to Nishi but ultimately arriving at the same bleak point.

In the scenes with Nishi and his wife, there's a convincing sense of long-abiding intimacy, but little dialogue between them - perhaps because there's nothing left to be said at this point in their lives. The comfortable silences and Nishi's compassion (made all the more striking by his violent run ins with the yakuza loan sharks who haunt his final days) have an emotional resonance that doesn't really need any exposition. Hisaishi's elegiac score has its own pull on the heart strings as well.

As is always the case with Kitano, the imagery of the film is deliberate and meticulous. The lingering stills of his own paintings are mysterious signifiers. What exactly do the stamen-headed creatures symbolize? The painting of fireworks, echoing the bittersweet sentiment of the film's title, seems to be about the lives of the protagonists - transient, vibrant, exploding into oblivion.

花火
Dir. Takeshi Kitano, 1997

Brave Story

It's obvious a lot of time and effort has been invested in Brave Story to make a new Sprited Away. In terms of the visuals, it's not a bad effort - slickly animated, impeccably well-drawn with some nice 3D modelling. In terms of the story though, it's a million miles away. Despite drawing liberally on a Miyazakian pallette of temporal loopholes and funny wee beasties, the magic ingredient just isn't there.

What starts out as a (massively implausible and sketchy) story about a boy whose parents have separated and who is looking for a fantasy world in which to take refuge, quickly morphs into a typical dumb quest anime.

ブレイブ・ストーリー
Dir. Koichi Chigira, 2006