Japanese movies - with English subtitles

[Eishagishi]

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

Looks good (of course trailers always make things look good [img]/images/graemlins/happy.gif[/img] ). 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).

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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.

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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.

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I enjoyed that movie [img]/images/graemlins/happy.gif[/img]

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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 [img]/images/graemlins/stunned0.gif[/img]

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I found that movie too stylised.

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

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

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

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Recommended
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Azumi - good visuals, a little too long

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

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

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

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

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

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2old2care said:
Recommend the sci-fi romp Returner.

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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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 [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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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.)

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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 [img]/images/graemlins/happy.gif[/img]

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 [img]/images/graemlins/happy.gif[/img]

[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]

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

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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 (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 [img]/images/graemlins/happy.gif[/img]