Japanese Cinema Thread

[imperiouskitten]

Inn of Evil aka Inochi Bô Ni Furô (1971)

Here's a jidaigeki with little of the samurai stuff! You could call it a yakuza film, but it's more of refreshing, original character drama involving small-time criminals.

Sword of Doom star Tatsuya Nakadai is the hippest, baddest-ass of a gang of misfits who hang out at the Easy Inn. He is specifically defined as bisexual in some playful ribbing between thugs at the film's opening btw. Though a public establishment, people who wander in to the Easy Inn, which is isolated on a small isle in Edo, are harassed to leave. The Inn's a front for icy criminal smugglers with a police contact inside the Shogunate to protect them. But their man has profited well from the arrangement, and finds himself transferred up.

One day a young man wanders in and drinks, and unable to pay his bill is taken prisoner by the gang and dunked on day after day. In the end tho, his tale moves the crew, and they take up a very dangerous job to save him, even without their police protection. BUt there's a new, vicious samurai cop on the beat . . .

Really loved this heartwarming tale of criminals. It was nice to watch a crime movie that isn't soaked in cynicism. Their place is somewhere for misfits to gather and find their way in the world. The boss is very loveable. It was very well written. Impossible not to like the brutal queer gangster sword wizard who's really a softie. The film struck me as well shot, too, with some pretty dazzling action scenes involving darkness and lots of lanterns. Hard to put a finger on it but this was one of our favorites despite its humble scope and use of a limited number of sets.

[Lune]

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[imperiouskitten]

i peace sign half my selfies, save me white jesus

[Mblake81]

After the rain

Black belt

[imperiouskitten]

ooo kurosawa writing credit! i'll watch those, thx blake

[imperiouskitten]

Onibaba (1964) [translates to "demon grandma" fyi hehe]

This was recommended by an earlier poster in this thread. SUPER GOOD movie! I thought it would be a straight horror, but it's actually a wonderful character drama that twists amazingly. Fantastic cinematography -- the film takes place mostly in this forest of 8 foot tall grass, which rendered in the wind in black and white is so silvery and striking.

About poor peasants in the sengoku jidai. A young girl's husband has been drafted into war, and they labor desperately at home just to eat. Lots of nice tits, owing to the heat of the setting. The "grandma" is actually really hot and goes topless all the time, she's only like 35 lol. Very beautiful film.

[DoodyLich666]

I’m glad you checked it out! I try to turn as many people as I can onto Onibaba. It’s a truly unique film as far as story the story goes, and almost every frame is a work of art.

[imperiouskitten]

Hello friends, sorry I have not poasted lately. We have watched Zatoichi films 2-13, of I think 27, so I haven't had much to write about. They were Good. Or, Okay. It's a formulaic series by nature and expectation, essentially a series of episodes at film-length. Zato walks into the sunset at the terminus of every film, leaving the girl he made so wet cold in her bed.

But more importantly I have a bone to pick. Somebody recommended us the film The Outsider (2018). I swore it was posted in this thread, as a piece of Japanese cinema. I can't find it now, so this is some elite level maneuvering as I can't hold you responsible. If you were trying to troll me, you succeeded!

First of all, this is NOT a japanese film although it is about Japan, which I noticed before downloading it, but it gets worse than that. Remember why people lol'd at The Last Samurai (2003)? White man carries the burden of the samurai and maintains the honor of the clan as a full-fledged member, inducted because he is just so awesome for 15 minutes that everyone can't resist, and he's also the bestest finest warrior of the whole bunch with the sickest deeds? And the story of the close of the samurai era is really mostly about this White guy? Well, crank that to 11 and you've got The Outsider (gaijin).

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The film starts in prison. It's unclear what year it is, looks like the 80s. Jared Leto is here in jail for reasons never explained. Hehas grown a huge beard and looks exactly like the priest both incarnations of the film Silence, which handled the White-in-Japan material so much more respectfully. He helps a tattooed guy in prison commit faux-harakiri to get to the prison hospital so his boys can get him out of the clink. Somehow they come back for him and he leaves through the front door, beard gone and appearance immaculate, with slicked-back hair, where a 20-year-old twinky Japanese with a 1911 hanging out of the back of his pants ushers him into a car in full view of the guards and officials. We are told it is 1954 in Osaka.

The car takes him to a fancy room. In the room is a whole yakuza mob. For helping his prison bro, they offer him a job beating a man to death with a typewriter. He does great. He's now a yakuza affiliate.

Next, the gang's drinking at a titty joint soon after when the rival gang shows up to sneer. Jared Leto smashes one of them in the face without being prompted by anyone. For this, he is given a fancy apartment and given a suit. He starts banging a high-ranking mobster's sister against orders, but nobody seems to care very much. He's offered one more job, a scarier one, which he pulls off with some retarded gun-kata where he oh-so-skillfully reverses a bad situation after staring down the barrel of a man ordered to execute him's gun for 6 seconds. In so doing he kills two members of the rival yakuza, again unordered, in a job unsanctioned by the boss.

Know what they do for this? Starting a shitstorm that ends in a gang war? Make him a full-blooded yakuza, complete with ceremony where every Japanese in the gang kneels while he walks before them to the boss. He begins getting many hours of yakuza tattoos all over his White body. He impregnates the sister of the top lieutenant with an unauthorized hapa baby, for which the lieutenant gives him his father's katana and wakizashi -- "you protect my family now. I have no balls. You are the man, White man, the ultimate man."

With this, the movie becomes a hypnotic montage. The montage goes on for about 60 minutes. He lives his mob life. Does his mob things. A few lines of dialogue in an hourlong desert of hypnotic storyboarded drawings rendered cinematically develop the plot. In the end the boss dies and Jared Leto has to kill the mob traitor with a sword in front of the enemy boss. The enemy boss and a roomful of rival Japanese yakuza let him go, to exit the life. Truly they have accepted his status as Yakuza.

He returns to a room full of the remnants of the old gang for his adulations, the hero. The best gangster. The only woman in the film, his love interest, is in the room. He is the only man who gets pussy. The WHite man. The Yakuza. The credits roll.

THANKS for this one whoever posted it. 1/10

[imperiouskitten]

Zatoichi 21 (Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival (1970)) was maybe the best one yet.

A Japanese Capo de tutti Capi emerges, creating a yakuza council. but guess what, HE'S BLIND TOO. Ichi and blind guy develop a rivalry. Also features a fan favorite, the lead hotguy/wild maniac from Sword of Doom making his incredible trollface: [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

By this point in the series of films, Ichi is pretty well a mary sue who walks into any danger without consequence. However this is rather a burden off the film which moves at a very modern pace -- and also the fight choreography has gotten very slick by this point. Watching and comparing to the laborious American cinema of the day, I can't help but think US popcorn & action movies learned from Jap cinema. This one feels 15 years ahead of its time.

These later films have pretty baller production value, contrary to the natural suspicion arising for any 25-sequel film series thanks to their being produced by Katsu's (ichi's) own production company. This one in particular has some pretty amazing musical / pastoral scenes of Ichi wandering around observing children and wildlife. Very pretty movie.

Also, it has a plot arc involving an extremely pretty twink trying to enroll as a yakuza. He is as confused as I was at his age in a similar situation, and is insistent he wants a yakuza boss to "make him a real man". At one point Ichi, established as being able to soundly detect beautiful women with his sixth sense, mistakes the boy for the female lead (one of the very rare women Ichi has fallen for, so the logic of the movie rates the twink as a very beautiful woman). In pursuing Ichi's sponsorship the twink offers himself to Ichi. I was bracing myself for a really homophobic punchline but it never comes. They don't fuck, but have a rather passionate parting scene. This was the first overt brush with queerness since early in the films, where it was implied then retconned that Ichi's gay. This kid is the prettiest person in the movie, so slender and stylish omggggg.

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Anyway the leading ladies are all pretty amazing in this one too and the movie is very funny. I would compare it to something like big trouble in little china as to the viewing niche it fills. I feel pretty comfortable recommending this whole series now; it doesn't crap out like I was suspecting it would. 6 to go!

[Snortles Chortles]

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