Japanese movies - with English subtitles

[Njr Scrawl]

CD Japan have a section of Japanese movies with English subtitles. (http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/movie/jmovie/english.html)

Purely from an artistic & linguistic POV (though subtitle translation accuracy appraisal appreciated), can you recommend any of the titles for sale.
I'm trying to learn spoken Japanese, both speaking & hearing, from hearing it from its native speakers.

I'm also looking for any movie, subtitled or not, with Miki Fujitani in a good part.

[badasscat]

[ QUOTE ]
Njr Scrawl said:
Purely from an artistic & linguistic POV (though subtitle translation accuracy appraisal appreciated), can you recommend any of the titles for sale.
I'm trying to learn spoken Japanese, both speaking & hearing, from hearing it from its native speakers.


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Can't help you with Miki Fujitani, but you might try Casshern, an interesting sci-fi film. I've heard good things about Zatoichi but haven't seen it myself. I actually don't know too many of the rest of these.

[mrgazpacho]

I can't address your criteria for linguistic purposes, but here's a little bit of info for the one's I've seen or heard of that don't have a CDJapan description:

I think Swing Girls is one of those documentary-type things that follows a bunch of musicians on some sort of project/tour.

The Juzo Itami Collection includes some groundbreaking films such as the Taxing Woman movies about an intrepid law enforcement officer (rememebr, they eventually got Al Capone on tax matters, so the Yakuza of course feature).

I think My Secret Cache was shown on TV in Australia under a slightly different title, My Secret Place; anyway, it's an oddly creepy comedy about the obsessiveness with which an ex-hostage pursues the ill-gotten loot of the heist.

Actually, Misuzu might be worth a look; I haven't seen it, but as CDJapan describe it as the biopic of a sogwriter for children, maybe there'll be some easy language stuff for you to try out.

I've seen a trailer for Anno's Shikijitsu and it seemed like an art film. Could be hard to watch, and didn't seem to flow well due to the jumps and cuts (of course, trailers tend to do that).

Afterlife is one of those great contemplative films where death is a given and life is the hard part.

Tokyo Mary Gold is usually rendered in English as Tokyo Marigold. So you may want to look for reviews under that name.

Brother I think was Kitano's explicit attempt to woo the West by doing one of those foreigner-comes-to-our-shores shows.

Gohatto is about yaoi within the Kyoto version of the Shinsengumi. Quite restrained atmosphere. We overdid it here in Oz and it was shown something like 3 times last year /images/graemlins/stunned0.gif

[jerright]

Of the films listed on CDJapan, I highly recommend Tasogare Seibei (Twilight Samurai), one of the best Japanese films I've seen recently. Really more drama than samurai action, if that's what you're looking for.

Zatoichi is a good action flick. However, it's available on R1, so there's no need to import it.

[wrex]

If you want to see a Japanese movie to help learn spoken Japanese, you should pick one that's set in modern times. If you pick a samurai flick or a sci-fi flick, you'll hear a bunch of archaic grammar and vocabulary, or difficult jargon. However, you should also pick a movie that you may enjoy watching (or at least well made) or it might get boring fast.

Of the movies listed, I've seen Casshern, Azumi, Onmyouji, Quill, and Hero (yeah, it's a Chinese movie, but it also has a Japanese dub). Quill's the only one I've seen that's set in modern times and has regular language. It also has a soundtrack that seems to be made by the same musicians who did Azumanga Daioh. If you like dogs, it might be a good movie for you. Other popular movies (that I haven't seen) include: Swing Girls, Waterboys, Odoru Daisosasen, and Sekai no Chuusin de.... Versus was a successful action flick.

Ping Pong. <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>YOU CAN FLY!</span>

[ZenAmako]

Of the ones I've seen:


Highly Recommended
--------------------
Love Letter - wonderful modern-day romantic drama
A Snake of June - erotic drama, very atmospheric
The Twilight Samurai - absorbing period drama
Versus - crazy, over the top zombie flick

Recommended
-------------
Azumi - good visuals, a little too long
Fudoh: The New Generation - demented fun
Kairo (a.k.a. Pulse) - relentlessly bleak
Sky High - looks gorgeous, narrative needs work
Swallowtail Butterfly - highly stylized, tends to split people
Undo - a short but powerful film
When The Last Sword Is Drawn - last scene drags on and on, but otherwise very good
Zatoichi - entertaining, further editing probably would've helped

Recommended With Reservations
-------------------------------
Chaos - non-supernatural story from the director of Ring
Jam Films - anthology of shorts, hit and miss
PiCNiC
Shiki-jitsu (a.k.a. The Ritual) - arty, not much plot
Stereo Future
Turn - a bit like Groundhog Day without the comedy and with only two characters

Skip
------
Battlefield Baseball - dreadful horror/comedy
Casshern - cool visuals, muddled story
The Hazard City (a.k.a. City of Lost Souls) - just didn't engage me
Red Shadow - hot ninja chick, the rest is sadly pretty dull
Wild Zero - low, low, low-budget rockers vs. zombies flick, kind of enjoyable in a "bad movie" way

These are only my opinions. I'd suggest going with Love Letter. It has modern-day Japanese you would use in everyday situations, and it's quite good. If you like shoujo manga, that's a bonus, because it has the feel of a shoujo manga brought to life.

[2old2care]

Recommend the sci-fi romp Returner (http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=ASBY-2322).

THE PLOT: Japanese gal from the future arrives in the present to stop evil Transforming aliens from destroying the world. She teams up with this John Woo bishie reject and together they fight for Earth's future &amp; against crazy yakuzas who want the alien technology for themselves. Great flick which rips off every Matrix/Terminator/Clockstoppers/Yakuza movie made...and still manages be one of a kind.

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mrgazpacho said:
I think Swing Girls is one of those documentary-type things that follows a bunch of musicians on some sort of project/tour.


[/ QUOTE ]

Swing Girls is actually just a normal fiction movie, not a documentary. It was directed by the same guy who did Water Boys. It's about a group of HS girls (and a boy) who make a big band-style jazz band. From a learner's perspective, this is probably not a bad movie to learn from as it takes place in modern day. The only problem is that the movie is set in NE Japan so the Japanese is somewhat accented.

I like this movie and recommend it. It's fun to watch despite being so formulaic. I've subbed the preview and ULed it to a Gmail account. The login info is --
login: swinggirlsaod
password: lobato
The size is about 14MB.

[Eishagishi]

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lobato said:
I've subbed the preview and ULed it to a Gmail account.

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None of my players will play it. What player do you recommend?

[Lord Toranaga]

Maybe I can give you some suggestions that you might like.

Tokyo Mary Gold - As someone else said above. Stars (I hope I spell her name right) the ultra cute Rena Tanaka (I'm in lust, er I mean love).
Also from Tanaka-san, check out Drugstore Girl. A very funny comedy with Miss Tanaka as a collage student who comes home to find her boyfreind in the bath..........With another girl! She takes the first train, going anywhere, and winds up in a Tokyo suberb that she's never been to before. There she gets a job at a super drugstore (think of a Wal-mart of the japanes drugstore buisness), while all the middle-aged men in town fall in love with her (a very easy thing to do). When they find out that she likes to play LaCross they form their own team and get her to be their coach.
To watch this bunch of guys who are just a few years older than me try to learn to play LaCross (and make points with the super cute Miss Tanaka) is just to much. Very funny.

If you like horror and/or occult movies check out the 3 Eko Eko Azarak movies available on R1 from Tokyo Shock (I got them from TRSI during a studio sale). They have both sub &amp; dub.

Swing Girls - I have this on pre-order from YesAsia and am waiting for it to come in so I have not seen it yet. It does have two of my favorite things, big-band swing music and cute girls. Looking foreward to it.

You may want to check out YesAsia as well they have some items that CD Japan does not and CD Japan has some that YesAsia does not. I use both (there is a link to yesAsia above)
Also TRSI has a live action section that has many R1 sub &amp; dub releases of Japanese movies.

Hope this helps you.

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Eishagishi said:
None of my players will play it. What player do you recommend?

[/ QUOTE ]


Hmmmm...strange. It (obviously) plays on all my programs. It's encoded with DivX 5.0. When in dount, you may wanna try VLC media player at http://www.videolan.org since it comes with many codecs and can read most files. Failing that, I'll reencode the file when I get home from work.

[tablesalt]

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mrgazpacho said:

I've seen a trailer for Anno's Shikijitsu and it seemed like an art film. Could be hard to watch, and didn't seem to flow well due to the jumps and cuts (of course, trailers tend to do that).


[/ QUOTE ]

I loved it; it's no more artsy than anything else Anno's done (although some consider all of his stuff confusing) His first live action movie, Love And Pop is out in R1.

Another movie I was recently is Hana and Alice. The R2 doesn't have subs, although the Korean R3 does (I think the HK version does as well.)
Beautiful movie about two high school girls, Director Shunji Iwai.

Sorry that I can't help you recommending films, I don't watch them to learn Japanese. But I can help you save your wallet.

Since those are not region 1 discs, I assume you have a multi-region player. In which case, you can save yourself a huge pile of money by going with the Hong Kong, Korean or Thai releases of the same films. All should have the same original Japanese track and most will also have English subs along with subs in the local dialect(s) - just make sure you check the description of the disc on the site to see if it mentions english subs.

For example - Love Letter is about $45 from cdjapan, I just bought it last week from thainetcity.com for $5. Similarly, Casshern and Azumi are also about $45 from cdjapan, but are about $13 from hivizone.com and $7-$9 at thainetcity.com. Waterboys, cdjapan- ~$55, hivizone- $5.

All of those sites sell legit releases, no bootlegs. Other good places to look for cheap japanese films are koreandvds.com and ethaicd.com.

[ThomasBellman]

I don't know about how good they are for learning Japanese, but I can absolutely recommend "Ame agaru (After the Rain)" and "Amidado dayori (Letter from the Mountain)". Wonderful movies, with a calm, somewhat lazy, atmosphere. They make you feel good, and leave you with a content smile on your face.

I don't actually remember how the language was in them, but "Ame agaru" is a period drama, and might thus have some archaic language in it. "Amidado dayori" is set around now, but it takes place in a village/small town way out in the boondocks, and some of the people are pretty old, so they probably speak with a heavy accent.


I also liked "Eureka" when I saw it. A long (3h40m), very slow movie, but at least I never found it boring. This movie is available on British DVD, so you don't need to import it from Japan, though.

[ QUOTE ]
lobato said:
[ QUOTE ]
Eishagishi said:
None of my players will play it. What player do you recommend?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmmmm...strange. It (obviously) plays on all my programs. It's encoded with DivX 5.0. When in dount, you may wanna try VLC media player at http://www.videolan.org since it comes with many codecs and can read most files. Failing that, I'll reencode the file when I get home from work.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry for the delay. I'm going to the US tomorrow (first time in 5+ years!) and I've had a *ton* of things to do!

Anyway, the problem was that I ULed the files after I RARed them and Gmail doesn't like this, apparently. Gmail is the best way I know of to deliver a 15 MB file so I'll split the avi when I get home from work today. It should be easy to reconnect with any number of programs like Virtualdub.

[beatmania]

Another recommendation for Love Letter.

Once again, I've ULed the subbed preview of Swing Girls to the Gmail account. They are two avi files. I recommend joining them with Virtualdub (http://www.virtualdub.org/download) or other similar program before watching (but they can be watched separately).

https://gmail.google.com/
login: swinggirlsaod
password: lobato
Each file is about 7 MB.

[Aiia]

Highly recommended:

Swallowtail Butterfly ("near future" film with english/chinese/japanese dialogue. It mixes genre elements like humour, drama, music film and action.)

Eureka (possibly one of the best movies I've ever seen! Don't let the slow pacing turn you off, it's intense in its own way and tells the story about three people trying to deal with the trauma of being the sole survivors of a buss hijacking.)

Gohatto (no it's not really yaoi like people say and a very complex story that will teach you a lot about japanese symbolism and culture and of course it's starring Beat Takeshi so what are you waiting for?)

Kikujiro no Natsu (Beat Takeshi plays a good-for-nothing who for some reason or another finds himself taking care of a boy looking for his mother.)

Quite recommended:

Odoru Daisosasen 2: Bayside Shakedown (stand-alone feature based on a popular TV-series. This is the movie that broke the office record of Titanic and Sen to Chihiro no Kamukakushiro by the way. Very funny and good action.)

Doppelganger (Starts out quite funny, gets darker. Tale about a man who finds out he has a doppelganger. The best part is a scene where they beat the crap out of eachother.)

Haven't seen but planning to see myself:

Yomigaeru (starring the only member of SMAP with talent, Kusanagi-san.)
Kagen no Tsuki (based on a manga by the author of Paradise Kiss and Nana)
Seikai no Chuushin de, Ai wo Sakebu
g@me
Sky High
GTO
Mizu no Onna (music by Yoko Kanno)
Love Letter (after seeing all the recommendations here)

I'm sad to see that Unagi (The Eel) isn't available. It's very good and its starring the same lead as Doppelganger and Eureka.

[jmarken]

Got the files. I have to say, I never thought of using gmail that way, but it does work pretty well. Thanks!

Edit: Oh yeah, and I meant to say, have fun in the States! /images/graemlins/happy.gif

[Eishagishi]

I was able to D/L and play those files for Swing Girls.

Looks good (of course trailers always make things look good /images/graemlins/happy.gif ). I'm always looking for J-films to screen at school that have cross-departmental appeal.

Thank you Lobato! m(_ _)m

[Natsume_Maya]

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mrgazpacho said:
The Juzo Itami Collection includes some groundbreaking films such as the Taxing Woman movies about an intrepid law enforcement officer (rememebr, they eventually got Al Capone on tax matters, so the Yakuza of course feature).

[/ QUOTE ]

The other Itami Collection includes Tampopo, which is my favourite of Itami's movies. Single mother running a ramen shop aims to cook the perfect bowl of ramen with the help of a truck driver.

[ QUOTE ]
I think My Secret Cache was shown on TV in Australia under a slightly different title, My Secret Place; anyway, it's an oddly creepy comedy about the obsessiveness with which an ex-hostage pursues the ill-gotten loot of the heist.

[/ QUOTE ]

I enjoyed that movie /images/graemlins/happy.gif

[ QUOTE ]
Gohatto is about yaoi within the Kyoto version of the Shinsengumi. Quite restrained atmosphere. We overdid it here in Oz and it was shown something like 3 times last year /images/graemlins/stunned0.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

I found that movie too stylised.

[ QUOTE ]
Sensuifu said:
Ping Pong. <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>YOU CAN FLY!</span>

[/ QUOTE ]

Ping Pong wasn't bad. I saw it on a flight. Not something I've bothered to buy on DVD though.

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ZenAmako said:
Of the ones I've seen:


Highly Recommended
--------------------
&lt;snip&gt;
The Twilight Samurai - absorbing period drama

[/ QUOTE ]

I could be wrong, but didn't this movie win some award...?

[ QUOTE ]
Recommended
-------------
Azumi - good visuals, a little too long

[/ QUOTE ]

Good action scenes, but I felt Ueto Aya didn't really look like a hardened swordswoman.

[ QUOTE ]
Recommended With Reservations
-------------------------------
&lt;snip&gt;
Shiki-jitsu (a.k.a. The Ritual) - arty, not much plot

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed. Pretty simple plot. You can see Anno's touch in this movie.

[ QUOTE ]
Skip
------
Battlefield Baseball - dreadful horror/comedy
Casshern - cool visuals, muddled story

[/ QUOTE ]

Casshern looks like a music video (director's prior work is as a photographer and music video director), but shame about the plot.

[ QUOTE ]
2old2care said:
Recommend the sci-fi romp Returner (http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=ASBY-2322).

THE PLOT: Japanese gal from the future arrives in the present to stop evil Transforming aliens from destroying the world. She teams up with this John Woo bishie reject and together they fight for Earth's future &amp; against crazy yakuzas who want the alien technology for themselves. Great flick which rips off every Matrix/Terminator/Clockstoppers/Yakuza movie made...and still manages be one of a kind.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, not great. Not very believable. A few good scenes though. The version I saw in a small cinema, the English subtitles of the English dialogue were incorrect in parts, which leads me to question the English subtitles of the Japanese dialogue /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[ QUOTE ]
Aiia said:
Highly recommended:
&lt;snip&gt;
Kikujiro no Natsu (Beat Takeshi plays a good-for-nothing who for some reason or another finds himself taking care of a boy looking for his mother.)

[/ QUOTE ]

Another title I thought was okay, not great. Music by Hisaishi Joe was great (although it mainly relies on one main theme).

Other movies:

Onmyouji - seemed silly to me /images/graemlins/happy.gif

Andromedia - even sillier sci-fi. But get it if you want to watch Christopher Doyle in front of the camera instead of behind it (he was cinematographer for the Chinese movie Hero). He's a bad actor, but so's everyone else in this movie.

Cha no Aji - I've got this DVD on order. Anno Hideaki has an acting role - he plays an anime director /images/graemlins/happy.gif

[Mahlernut]

Samurai Fiction is a great samurai-era film released back in 1998 (and available on R1). Great soundtrack, beautifully filmed in (mostly) black &amp; white, and with sufficiently straightforward dialogue that I could follow a lot of it without any trouble.

[Natsume_Maya]

[ QUOTE ]
I said:
Cha no Aji - I've got this DVD on order. Anno Hideaki has an acting role - he plays an anime director /images/graemlins/happy.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Finally got around to watching this. I enjoyed it a lot. I've had this DVD for a while now, but wasn't sure what to expect, so it was on my "to watch" pile for a while. But once the movie started, I was drawn into it.

Basically, it's about the members of a family. No overall story, just little, light stories about each family member. A fair bit of fantasy and comedy involved, with stuff for the anime/manga fan as well. The mother draws genga or douga, and the father's brother is a manga artist. Anno Hideaki has a bit part as an anime director, and the staff of Madhouse appear in one scene as, well, anime staff. We get to see the 3 minute anime Super Big which is produced as well. This movie is directed by Ishii Katsuhito, who directed the anime part of Kill Bill Vol. 1.

I got the "standard" edition (which comes with "making of" disc), but there's a limited edition version available as well. If I'd seen the movie before buying the DVD, I may have been tempted to get the limited edition version.

[mrgazpacho]

Something I noticed on the front page of CDJapan the other day - a movie that I had just happened to catch on the plane from Tokyo back in April: Warai no Daigaku (http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=TDV-15185D) (University of Laughter). (For some reason, CDJapan's home page still displays the more zany cover of the standard edition, rather than the limited edition to which this link points, but the text on the homepage now promotes Kaela KIMURA's latest release)

A darkly amusing set-piece about a comedy scriptwriter in WWII struggling to overcome the censor's objections to his work.

Rather enjoyable for fans of very talky movies (it was based on a stage play, and looks like it too).


And, Happy Birthday to Njr Scrawl /images/graemlins/happy.gif