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

Seven Samurai

I'll say from the off that I have mixed feelings about Seven Samurai. On the one hand, you'd have to be a fool not to appreciate the sublime craft of Kurosawa's direction - the impeccable (and groundbreaking) cinematography, each scene's meticulous attention to detail and the deft handling of action sequences - but on the other hand, I found the film too slow-paced at times and ultimately, over-long. The content doesn't really seem to justify the 3 1/2 hour running time.

The story is actually very simple: in 16th Century Japan, bandits are rife and regularly raid villages to steal their produce. One village resolves to take a stand against the bandits and hits on the idea of recruiting samurai to protect it. The first half of the film, which deals with the assembling of the seven samurai - the prelude to battle - is absorbing, but excruciatingly slow-paced. The second half, which is more focused on the actual conflict between samurai and bandits is, for me, the more engaging. Throughout the film though, the various relationships between key characters (high/low caste, master/apprentice, wise man/fool) are intriguingly developed. Despite being quite a big ensemble piece, there are some memorable performances - in particular, Takashi Shimura, charismatic leader and master samurai to Katsuhiro's raw apprentice, and Toshiro Mifune, who hams it up as the irascible clown of the group.

The film touches on a lot of big themes - the class divide (encompassing both illicit love and the injustice of the peasant's lot within the feudal system), rebellion, war, honour, duplicity. But like the role of Mifune's character, Kikuchiyo, a lot of the themes in Seven Samurai seem quaintly archaic - signposts to forgotten places. It's a film, I think, that will always enthuse movie lovers based on the brilliance of its execution and storytelling, its evocation of a lost time, rather than in the enduring substance of its message.

七人の侍
Dir. Akira Kurosawa, 1954

Drunken Angel

Kurosawa's first collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune, is a Film Noir set in a Tokyo slum. The Drunken Angel of the piece is an alcoholic doctor who is drawn to young yakuza hood Matsunaga - subsequently diagnosed to be suffering from the advanced stages of tuberculosis. When Matsunaga's old boss, Okada, returns from a stint in jail, he pretends to fall back in with Matsunaga but is secretly preying on his weakened condition in a bid to take his territory for himself.

I can imagine this being too slow-paced for some, but I found it to be an engaging insight into a bygone era of dapper gangsters and smoke-wreathed speakeasies, a curious melange of East and West, symptomatic perhaps of the American occupation of Japan at the time of the film's production. The main intrigue lies in the relationship of the doctor and Matsunaga; the way he sees his own failings magnified through his patient's plight and feels compelled to help him despite (largely hypocritical) misgivings about his lifestyle. In a sure sign of the times, the blame for Matsunaga's condition - and the ills of society in general - is laid squarely at the door of the demon drink. No-one, including a man dying of tuberculosis, gives a second thought to chain smoking their way through every scene.

Once again the bleakness of the film and its central theme of Man's inherent vampirism of spirit is mitigated somewhat by a slightly jarring, upbeat ending - although the fact it feels jarring might have more to do with my own taste for dysphoria, typical of the modern viewer, than it does with an excess of sentimentality on Kurosawa's part. That said, American Noir of the same era tends to be darker and more uncompromising.

酔いどれ天使
Dir. Akira Kurosawa, 1948

Dark Water

As is so often the case with tag lines for movies, "the most shocking film yet" is a misleading entry point into Dark Water. While it is undeniably a horror, it's not the scream-a-minute shocker you might be led to expect, but rather a sustained mood piece in the tradition of classic horror like The Haunting. You can tell Nakata is a cineaste: there are direct references here to The Haunting (the sudden, unnatural bulging of the surface of the water tank) and The Shining (liquid cascading through open lift doors), but the main thing he has assimilated from both films is the brilliantly sinister evocation of the supernatural; as a rarely glimpsed but ever-present menace.

Dark Water is almost literally saturated - outside, it's always raining; inside, the grey, dank, mournful interiors threaten to buckle under the weight of turbid water. There's a sense of creeping dread, building drip by drip to an inexorable cascade.

The story centres around Yoshimi Matsubara, at first as a small child waiting forlornly to be picked up from nursery, then as a young woman, sitting in a solicitors' waiting room, before being ushered in to discuss divorce proceedings. This is a nice cut sequence that lays the groundwork succinctly for the film's recurrent themes of neglect, fear of abandonment and loss. We learn Yoshimi now has a child of her own, Ikuko, whom she is fighting for custody of; together, Yoshimi and Ikuko move into an old apartment block and into the world of Mitsuko Kawai. Darkness, inevitably, follows.

Something that did strike me, as when reading The Amityville Horror was - why didn't they just leave? Sure, there are impediments - Yoshimi being embroiled in a custody battle and trying to hold down a day job, not wanting to unsettle Ikuko again - but there are more than enough warnings early on that this is not a good place to be. The question is facile though; obviously Yoshimi can't leave, a/ because it would ruin the film and b/ because she is subconsciously drawn to the apartment block - she needs to find some kind of resolution for the ghosts of her own past. Ultimately that comes through Mitsuko and not her own child Ikuko. On a logical level, Yoshimi's wilful transition to the astral plane is a bit of a stretch, but taken another way, it's symbolic of a reconciliation with the spectre of her own past - not an altogether uncommon trope in tales of the supernatural.

One small detail remains puzzling - I'm sure I remember a scene in the theatrical release with the ghost of an old man in the lift. This doesn't feature in the DVD release though... it leaves me wondering whether it was simply cut or if I'm making up ghosts of my own.

仄暗い水の底から
Dir. Hideo Nakata, 2002

Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence

An appropriate blog follow-on from Brother in a number of ways - this was Takeshi Kitano's first real break from his "Beat" Takeshi persona and his emergence as a serious actor, starring here as Sergeant Hara. It's also another cinematic miscegenation - East meets West - and Nagisa Oshima's first crossover picture. It's clear that Kitano's involvement was a formative experience in his own career as a director, picking up his rapid, economic way of working from Oshima, as well as an interest in exploring cultural differences. As with Brother, Merry Christmas exposes a seemingly impassable gulf in value sets, that lead the Japanese to prefer death to shame and Westerners to privilege survival over everything.

Ostensibly, Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence is a POW film, set in Japanese-occupied Indonesia, towards the end of WWII. Unlike many previous efforts, having a Japanese director at the helm makes for an intriguing take on an established genre. For a POW film, it's not especially violent: there are sporadic bursts of violence, often cleverly alluded to rather than graphically paraded by Oshima, but Merry Christmas is a essentially a subtle, character-driven movie, full of atmosphere, which is embellished by Ryuichi Sakamoto's brilliant score.

Oshima made the bold move of casting pop icons David Bowie and Sakamoto in the key roles of Jack Celliers and Captain Yonoi. Despite powerful performances from all the main players, it's Bowie's strange, christ-like Celliers who steals the show. The tension between Celliers and the camp, repressed, savagely cruel Yonoi is palpable. And while their relationship is about irreconcilable differences, the relationship between Lawrence and Hara suggests that the shared humanity of the Japanese and the British, arbitrarily cast in opposing roles, could lead to a deeper understanding, and the possibility of friendship in spite of circumstance.

戦場のメリークリスマス
Dir. Nagisa Oshima, 1983

Brother

The tag line, "The Yakuza Takes On The Mafia" promises great things, and Brother very nearly delivers greatness.

The film starts with exiled Yakuza boss, Yamamoto (played by Kitano), ariving at LAX and heading off to find his kid brother. Yamamoto is referred to throughout the film as 'Aniki' (big brother), which assumes a literal and figurative value. Apart from being a damn good gangster film with an impressively high body count, Brother is also a film about fraternity; in particular, its ability to transcend cultural differences. Actions, after all, speak louder than words. This is something Aniki knows from long experience, and even as a stranger in a strange land he is unfazed as he sets about creating a new dynasty. His unflinching brutality and obvious gangster credentials evaporate the misgivings of his younger brother's hood friends instantly, earning Aniki their respect and establishing his place at the head of the new family.

Brother is a multi-faceted gangster film, drawing on all of Kitano's directorial trademarks; stillness counterpointed with explosive action, subtle flashbacks, artful, unusual shot composition, and his ability to show the lighter side of human nature as well as the brutal - even finding time for a bit of pissing about on a beach (a sure sign that characters are taking time out from the grind of existence in a Kitano movie). Thematically, the film explores loyalty and shame as the key precepts in Japanese hierarchical society, each taking on a meaning greater than life itself. In some ways, Aniki is playing out the shame of his disgraced status from the moment he lands in the US - following a violent path to its logical conclusion. Although he takes his exile in good part for the sake of his sworn brother in Japan, he seems to arrive in L.A. with a death wish.

If there's anything to detract from this enthralling film it's that the non-Japanese characters are too thinly drawn, being little more than ciphers for the most part. You could put that down to Kitano's difficulties with English dialogue, but if you were being more generous you'd say it was designed to give an impression of Aniki's world, the way he sees it.

兄貴
Dir. Takeshi Kitano, 2000

Dead Or Alive

One, Two, Three, Four... GAAAHHHHHHH!!! Dead Or Alive kicks off in a blaze of sex, violence and gastronomic obscenity, tongue firmly in cheek.

By all accounts, DOA was made as a reaction to the studio, who presented the director with two bankable leads, a vehicle for a commercial franchise and told him to drive it wherever he wanted. A dangerous thing to do when your director is Takashi Miike. Miike, being the enfant terrible he is, has made a grotesque parody of a gangland drama, gleefully outdoing himself scene after scene. One pungently corporeal scene, where a girl is drowned in a pool of her own shit and a yakuza boss stamps down on her lifeless body proclaiming "I've done it again!" smacks of wry self-mockery on Miike's part.

Sure it's over the top, scarcely believable and lacking the complexity you find in his best work, but it's a hell of a ride! DOA gives us a turf war between a gang of street punks, led by Chinese immigrant Ryuichi, and a Triad/Yakuza syndicate. It's ultraviolent to the point of lunacy, bodies stacking up like a Jenga tower, and the all-consuming rivalry between Ryuichi and Jojima plays out like a wittier, smarter version of Violent Cop.

And then there's the ending. In typically post-modern style, Ryuichi murmurs "Here comes the last scene", before all hell breaks loose. Without giving the game away, let's just say there's a slight change of, well, reality. It's guaranteed to leave you with your jaw on the floor when the credits roll, in much the same way as the opening sequence does.

犯罪者
Dir. Takashi Miike, 1999

Interstella 5555

Or Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem to give it its full title. There's a fine line between cheesiness and magic, and depending on your view of Daft Punk's Discovery, you'll probably have a view one way or the other on this movie too.

Personally I love Discovery, and this film, featuring animation overseen by legendary Japanese animator Leiji Matsumoto, really brought the album alive for me (no pun intended). The plot is obviously very simple - blue aliens are abducted by humans, brought to earth (nice twist on the old alien abduction), de-alienized, and turned into mass market pop star automatons. Aliens are rescued, evil corporation mogul is vanquished, aliens are returned to their home planet, everyone lives happily ever after in a universe of perfect human-alien bilateral harmony inside the mind of a sleeping child.

But then again, simplicity of plot is what you want from a good music video. Yes, there's a big fat moral here, but it's served up with such a light touch that you hardly notice. Daft Punk just want to teach the world to sing and you can't fault them for that, can you?

Dir. Kazuhisa Takenochi, 2003

Sonatine

The fourth outing as director for Takeshi Kitano marks a growing maturity and a further evolution of his visual style. Sonatine is a relentlessly nihilistic film, about how a man can lose his humanity, even his will to live, through constant exposure to violence and killing.

Kitano is Murakawa, a successful Yakuza boss who is persuaded to leave his patch in Tokyo to go to the aid of a gang in Okinawa engaged in a turf war with a rival clan, only to find he's been duped. After a shoot-out in a bar, Murakawa and his crew hole up in a beach hide out, which comprises the second third of the film. The pace slows to a crawl, and what started out as a gangster film becomes an obliquely humorous exercise in killing time.

It's unusual for sure, and more thoughtful than your average Yakuza flick, but at the same time, impenetrably cold. Murakawa has a certain jaded charisma, but on more than one occasion, when the camera lingers on his emotionless face and the faces of other yakuza, you realize you're watching a film about gruesome banality; hollow men, past the point of no return. And if that's the intention, then you would have to say Sonatine is a success.

ソナチネ
Dir. Takeshi Kitano, 1993

Ghost in the Shell

A much feted anime and in many respects it's not hard to see why. At the time of its release, in 1995, it was groundbreaking on a visual level, using cutting-edge technology to deliver animation of unparalleled depth, with a truly filmic quality. The fact that it still has the ability to impress today is testament to the painstaking work of a talented animation team. Everything from the realism of reflective surfaces and the naturalism of movement, down to the details like the different physical effect of bullets striking different materials is stunning to behold.

Kenji Kawai's score is equally effective, capturing the mood of the film perfectly - its haunting, traditional sound works better than a futuristic electronic score would have done. It has a timelessness - the main theme is bordering on legendary.

The story is perhaps less impressive: exploring the implications of AI is not new in sci-fi, but it's easy to overlook the prescience of Oshii's vision of the net. Self-mutating digital viral strains travelling an invisible global network, the association of computer programs with DNA - these ideas are very familiar today, but the world wide web was barely in its infancy when this film was made. Despite owing a lot to Blade Runner, visually and thematically, Ghost in the Shell will rightly go down as a landmark anime.

攻殻機動隊
Dir. Mamoru Oshii, 1995

Visitor Q

Well... where do you start? Not just with this film, but Takashi Miike generally. This is our starting point on the blog for Miike and it's a hell of a weird one to kick off with. But in a way, it's perfectly representative of the work of one of Japan's most prolific and imaginative directors.

"How am I supposed to feel?!" yells the father of the household, wild-eyed, filming fireworks crashing through the windows of his house on a handheld. It's the question you're asking yourself while watching Visitor Q and the question Miike refuses to answer - you watch the film by turns revulsved, amused, shocked, touched. There are no easy answers with Miike films - he wants to make you think. On one level, that's what Visitor Q is: a reaction to the disingenuous and emotionally manipulative doctrine of so-called "reality" TV. From the first scene, which you later learn is incest between father and daughter, the artifice of the film is laid bare: a film crew filming actors filming each other. Somewhere, the reality of what's being filmed gets lost. And if reality and fantasy can be so easily blurred, what's the point of morality? Where do you draw the line?

On another level it's the simple heartwarming story of how a benificent stranger helps a dysfunctional family to bond through murder, necrophilia and lactation. You get the feeling that Miike, like Lynch or Bunuel, or any true artist, revels in breaking taboos and challenging expectations. I'm not going to say any more, just watch it. More than once.

ビジタ Q
Dir. Takashi Miike, 2001

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade

Quite simply one of the best anime I've seen outside of Studio Ghibli. Maybe not so surprising when you consider it's written by Ghost In the Shell creator Mamoru Oshii, at a point when he was still on fine form, before the pompous excesses of Avalon and Ghost In the Shell 2.

Jin-Roh is a poignant, poetic anime set in a future Japan where militarized state control is a day-to-day reality. The film centres around a terrorist cell, suicide bombers, known as Red Riding Hoods, and their attempts to destabilize the military regime. Gritty action melds with dream sequences, drawing on imagery from the Grimm fairy tale (the proper, savage version of the tale), and follows the life and doomed romance of "Fuse" to its bitter conclusion. As with Ghost In the Shell, Oshii's writing is full of subtlety and sub-plots making this quite a complex, involving watch.

The animation is excellent and the soundtrack understated yet evocative, in sync with the downbeat tone of the film. This is a grim and at times depressing piece of work, punctuated with moments of beauty - If you're a fan of anime it's one you don't want to miss.

人狼
Dir. Hiroyuki Okiura, 1998