tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-92030891376061905292024-03-18T20:58:54.191-07:00Hollywood Japan FileMatt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.comBlogger129125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-4121853562674528412014-06-29T01:04:00.000-07:002014-06-30T01:37:33.586-07:00Back at the Front<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik8S-godjYSdpgyETRs4ilfY90IUDyKLtj3oPPmLzn0t1k50oVAoIcc3m9JeRfTpzc0HrPmeKU1RAlhepVSmyPNwFNb4DBO-W5EgsNIUa8EvDrcjpbCT0TmPDEeTNF4s36fBlJLg4NgAcP/s1600-h/BackatTheFront.HJF.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik8S-godjYSdpgyETRs4ilfY90IUDyKLtj3oPPmLzn0t1k50oVAoIcc3m9JeRfTpzc0HrPmeKU1RAlhepVSmyPNwFNb4DBO-W5EgsNIUa8EvDrcjpbCT0TmPDEeTNF4s36fBlJLg4NgAcP/s320/BackatTheFront.HJF.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281053840514399170" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 232px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Back at The Front</span> (USA, 1952)<br />
<br />
Bill Mauldin was editorial cartoonist enrolled in the US Army during War II who created a comic strip about two hapless grunts named Willie and Joe that became very popular among servicemen for its accurate portrayal of life in the armed forces. His humorous depictions of soldiers openly questioning authority sometimes angered the brass, including General George S. Patton, who threatened to throw Mauldin in the brink for the irreverent nature of his cartoons. After the war ended, two movies were made about the antics of Willie and Joe, Up Front and Back at The Front. After accidentally re-enlisting in the army, Willie (Tom Ewell) and Joe (Harvey Lembeck) are shipped out to Japan where they spend weeks testing out the endurance of military gear in harsh conditions. Filthy and exhausted, the two men are finally rewarded with a weeklong pass to Tokyo, which they risk losing by visiting an off-limits bathhouse. Willie and Joe enter the steaming bath with the expectation that their aching bones will be tended to by Japanese beauties. Instead, they are manhandled and dunked in water by two lean “scrub boys” wash them with brushes that look like brillo pads on a stick. Willie and Joe avoid the prowling eyes of the MPs by dressing up as geisha girls—a gag that would be recycled over and over in countless films about Japan. The two grunts meet a beautiful Eurasian femme fatale named Nina (Mari Blanchard). She lures them into a meeting with a shady businessman known as Johnny Redondo (Russell Johnson), who tries to curry favor with the clueless GIs by inviting them to a geisha party. One of the geisha plays the shamisen and sings an amazing scat cover of an Andrews Sisters song with new lyrics in Japanese and English: "Sukiyaki meishi meishi/sake ippai nonde/Hyoro hyoro boogie woogie/Bounce me brother with a solid four!" The rapid-fire comic dialog between Willie and Joe still holds up, although at times they come across as an inferior version of Abbot and Costello. Back at The Front was one of the first studio pictures to be shot during the US Occupation of Japan and contains fascinating historical footage of well-known places in Tokyo such as the Ginza.Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-16285817975608284012014-06-28T01:30:00.000-07:002014-06-30T00:54:37.090-07:00Ageha 6<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo3WGprvCqfe_3aHn7jUeMBkh975o114KIu5-A6ZvXggl8R4s2Sew-b3_7SoRpnuv6sbx-faJcTy10SxkyWhmllJYGbVfNCOvTmj-NKk9rlztd3KWdNOhJxa3kms128jvhSwHfA7qVvEED/s1600-h/DontDieAlone3_1_2_tonemapped.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo3WGprvCqfe_3aHn7jUeMBkh975o114KIu5-A6ZvXggl8R4s2Sew-b3_7SoRpnuv6sbx-faJcTy10SxkyWhmllJYGbVfNCOvTmj-NKk9rlztd3KWdNOhJxa3kms128jvhSwHfA7qVvEED/s400/DontDieAlone3_1_2_tonemapped.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5234289449526607714" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
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<br />
<br />
Ageha 6 (2008 Japan, 56 min.)<br />
<br />
Kevin Karn is an Osaka-based writer/director/actor/technical translator who is originally from Denver and first arrived in Japan as an exchange student in 1980. His debut film was Nylon (2003), a futuristic tale about a very angry foreigner in Osaka who declares himself a sovereign nation and produces weapon of mass destruction made of nylon. Viewed today, Nylon still holds up as (among other things) a biting satire of the "bring 'em on" cowboy mentality that was prevalent just after the USA invaded Iraq five years ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5mjD8XVBBQ<br />
<br />
Ageha 6, completed just last month, is another dark comedy with strong dramatic elements that showcases the filmmaker's writing and performing skills. Karn stars as Jeff Kincaid, a middle-aged American man dying of cancer in a third-rate Japanese hospital with mildew on the walls. He's bloated, unshaven and filthy with painful-looking tubes sticking out of his nose and the disease has already taken on of his legs. Kincaid has been divorced for many years and aches for human companionship. He never has any visitors and his only friend won't even return his calls. Kincaid insults the nurses for not being able to speak English properly—even though he himself has lived in Japan for over 25 years and still can't speak the language. The ultimate insult to his last remaining speck of dignity occurs when the hospital decides to replace his regular nurse with a "female" terminal care robot called Ageha 6 that speaks fluent English and comes with built in anxiety reduction software called Super Heart 5.8.<br />
<br />
Kincaid does not plan to spend his last days with a glorified "machine with a rubber head" and takes great delight in hurling insults at the robot. Ageha 6 has seen many humans die over the years and is an expert at handling difficult types who are afraid to face death alone. Fearing that he will be quickly forgotten after his death, Kincaid decides to tell Ageha 6 some very painful things about his life. The rapport between Karn and the Ageha 6 robot works surprisingly well and there's even an undercurrent of weird sexual tension between them. There are trippy flashbacks in which we see Kincaid interacting with several characters from his past, including his ex-wife Hiroko, brilliantly played by Hasegawa Yukari, who shows up at the hospital just to emasculate him on his deathbed with a detailed story about how she slept with another man who was a much better lover.<br />
<br />
Ageha 6 was made in collaboration with Brad Crawford (Brad@terminal-philosophy.com) a young photographer and filmmaker from Winnipeg who has lived in Osaka since 2005. Crawford shot and edited most of the film and also created the psychedelic-tinged dream montage sequences. Andy Gilligan, an American from Ohio was the third member of the core crew, handled second camera duties and helped manipulate the robot.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Interview with director Kevin Karn.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">How was the robot built? </span><br />
<br />
I went through a few different ideas (ventriloquist doll, Noh mask) before I settled on a good design. I went to an exhibit on Bunraku dolls, and looked at those mechanisms. Basically, I tried to copy the look of real-world greeting robots on the internet, like the Actroid robots from Kokoro. Ray Dunlap is a great painter, and a friend of mine. He cut out the skull for me and gave me the body. Guido Saldana is a local artist from Gearhead Studios who fashioned the arms, neck and stand. The rubber face came from the Czech Republic. I put it all together and built the head mechanisms. The robot operators, Andy and Matsui, were the performers and deserve most of the credit there. Her voice is the "Vicki" voice on the Macintosh, although I processed it quite a lot with software and audio tweaks to make it more understandable.<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">What inspired you to make the film?<br /></span>One inspiration was Saikaku Ihara's 1682 novel "Koshoku Ichidai Onna" (The Life of an Amourous Woman) There's a poignant scene where the heroine, a great beauty in her youth, goes to a temple as an old woman, and sees the faces of her old lovers in the Buddhist statues. Another inspiration was chatbots on the Internet such as ALICE and George. I'm interested in Artificial Intelligence and enjoy talking to them. Sometimes they stray into a stream of inspired non-sequiturs and witty nonsense, which reminds me of playwright Eugene Lonesco (or Burroughs' cut-ups). There are stories about chatbots talking to people for years. Just goes to show how lonely and starved for conversation people can be. Another influence was David Cronenberg's early film Crimes of the Future. I love how he takes humble, low-budget materials and turns them into such wild and absurd story with just the verve of his imagination and language.<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Was it easier making a film the second time around?</span><br />
<br />
Ageha 6 was definitely much harder than Nylon. Overall, it took about two years to finish the movie, with shooting and editing taking roughly a year.I wanted a controlled, studio-like environment, so we set up in my apartment. In fact, we set up and broke down the set 30 or 40 times because my apartment is small. The effort was really discouraging, but then I heard about how David Lynch took five years to make Eraserhead, breaking down and rebuilding the set numerous times.<br />
<br />
Watch the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0H3I1AgCtY">TRAILER</a> on YouTubeMatt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-1686787390393964212014-04-17T23:41:00.000-07:002014-04-19T04:11:57.412-07:00Madame Butterfly vs The World: 1915-1995<br />
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<b>Madame Butterfly (1915, USA)<br />Madame Butterfly (1932, USA)<br />Madame Butterfly (1954, Italy/Japan)<br />Madame Butterfly (1995, France)</b><br />
<br />
by Matt Kaufman <br />
<br />
CALL ME AN uncultured slob, but going to the opera ranks very low on the list of things I have to do in this lifetime; it’s somewhere between taking synchronized swimming lessons and reading the collected works of Danielle Steel. But one has to have an open mind, expand one’s cultural horizons as they say. So I decided to track down all four of the major film productions of Madame Butterfly. It wasn’t an easy task, considering that only one copy of the 1915 silent version exists at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and you can’t take it out with a library card. Perhaps some rogue congressman needed the money and bootlegged it, because I was able to obtain a copy from, ahem, a source. <br />
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Italian composer Giacomo Puccini based the opera on a play by David Belascco, who adapted a short novel by John Luther Long about an American naval officer in Nagasaki named B.F. Pinkerton who marries and abandons a 15-year- old Japanese girl named Cho-Cho-san. The 1915 and 1932 film versions of Madame Butterfly are both based on the novel and do not include singing. Mary Pickford played Cho-Cho in the silent production and upset director Sydney Olcott by refusing to act "Oriental." Olcott was so upset that he walked off the set, but Pickford was America’s Sweetheart and nobody told her what to do; she simply took over directing duties until Olcott returned. The silent Madame Butterfly is a rare and fascinating look at Japan through Western eyes during the early years of Hollywood. Look for actors with exceedingly large noses in key Japanese roles.<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp36VFayspk">Watch the 1915 version here</a> (YouTube)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtyTJbQeWFYTAXTpi2uJk-NRqgbXp1Wa3jrjGUU6sE9xhVSrytOhS2pzW0cMGNSkUs8SHvDBEJU6Pxwitzq2Zuy2Pew657nXmEa8wdSriWPvBxw6UEGVXI7aajtQ6a_haJKHYoukCZnY_o/s1600/MadameButterfly.1935.HJF.JPEG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtyTJbQeWFYTAXTpi2uJk-NRqgbXp1Wa3jrjGUU6sE9xhVSrytOhS2pzW0cMGNSkUs8SHvDBEJU6Pxwitzq2Zuy2Pew657nXmEa8wdSriWPvBxw6UEGVXI7aajtQ6a_haJKHYoukCZnY_o/s1600/MadameButterfly.1935.HJF.JPEG" height="168" width="200" /></a></div>
A very young Cary Grant, who just arrived in Hollywood from England, starred as Pinkerton in the 1932 film, which was directed by Marion Gering, who later made the mondo documentary Violated Paradise). Sylvia Sydney (Blood On The Sun) should have won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Cho-Cho-san. I usually mock Caucasian actors who appear in yellowface (see above), but Sydney gives such an earnest performance that I forgot she wasn’t Japanese. She had me in tears, even though everyone knows how the story ends. Not bad for a gal from Brooklyn! Sydney had a scene-stealing cameo in Beetlejuice as the cantankerous social worker for the dead. Grant also excelled as cad of the century, but this was years before he perfected his leading man persona that would make him an international star.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Roi4q7KasshEHAbW7n7BqGmWg-CyZCnvEjlsXdEoPaXdBF1XRM_FzULB79dLmYX6qkRLGXfRbB4wIUpTef7eaRgwKhtxU4A367mr2n0RRE2rVB1fLlBoFFJwUmAcOs4eJ2r7EsSbpQU3/s1600/MadameButterfly1954.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Roi4q7KasshEHAbW7n7BqGmWg-CyZCnvEjlsXdEoPaXdBF1XRM_FzULB79dLmYX6qkRLGXfRbB4wIUpTef7eaRgwKhtxU4A367mr2n0RRE2rVB1fLlBoFFJwUmAcOs4eJ2r7EsSbpQU3/s1600/MadameButterfly1954.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div>
The opera has been filmed many times, but Madame Butterfly (Cho-Cho Fujin), a 1954 Italian/Japanese co-production was the first to use Japanese actors. Yachigusa Kaoru played Cho- Cho-san, but Orietta Moscucci did the actual singing. Members of the Takarazuka Revue appeared in other roles, but their singing was also dubbed.<br />
<br />
The definitive film of the opera is the 1995 European production, directed by Frédéric Mitterrand (nephew of the former French president). This production of Madame Butterfly has a highly cinematic feel and was shot on location in Tuni- sia, with a seaport made up to look like Nagasaki at the turn of the last century. The cast is a nice mix of Western and Asian actors, all of whom do their own singing this time. Chinese actress Ying Huang gives a standout performance as Cho- Cho-san and American tenor Richard Troxell is memorable as Pinkerton.<br />
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One of the advantages of seeing this film on DVD is that you can watch the opera with English subtitles. I realize that this may be cheating, like using Cliff Notes to read Dostoevsky, but it allowed me to have a greater appreciation of the opera, especially the scene in which Pinkerton gets a much deserved tongue-lashing from Sharpless, the American Consul for his unscrupulous behavior towards Cho-Cho-san.<br />
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<br />Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-47128375824432354622014-04-17T18:26:00.003-07:002014-04-17T19:05:22.471-07:00 The Lost Samurai (2004) / The Lost Samurai (1988) / The Last Samurai (1990)<br />
<b>The Lost Samurai</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwsng5TLrz_9JvGSf8tId_jxBG524bV-6j_fyuQfdGWE6Ki7jYAy-5mKnahL9EyCJGCUSWBhynWByTwemfap73m-GhC7ghempz0jkdxIW5nPPb3SEpt4lnpM0uLrpvZ4WyKvpB8w2KtxBm/s1600/LostSamurai.JaiWest.HJF.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwsng5TLrz_9JvGSf8tId_jxBG524bV-6j_fyuQfdGWE6Ki7jYAy-5mKnahL9EyCJGCUSWBhynWByTwemfap73m-GhC7ghempz0jkdxIW5nPPb3SEpt4lnpM0uLrpvZ4WyKvpB8w2KtxBm/s1600/LostSamurai.JaiWest.HJF.jpg" height="292" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jai West in Lost Samurai</td></tr>
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(2004, Japan/Canada)<br />
<br />
by Matt Kaufman<br />
<br />
The Lost
Samurai is a six-minute Last Samurai-meets-Lost in Translation spoof
directed by Dean Whiteside and starring talented Canadian-Japanese
actor Jai West (Survive Style 5+). West plays a 19th century samurai
named Bob who wakes up and finds himself lost in modern Tokyo. Bob has
trouble navigating the crowded streets of the city and is bewildered by
technology such as trains and elevators. Fortunately, he makes some hip
young Japanese friends and they all go to karaoke together. Filmed in
several of the locations seen in Lost In Translation with ersatz Kevin
Shields/My Bloody Valentine background music, this short was an audience favorite at Resfest <br />
<br />
Watch it here: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mssdSAUefV8">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mssdSAUefV8</a><br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><b>The Lost Samurai</b><br />
(1988, New Zealand)<br />
<br />
An
American Broadcast journalist (Carrie Snodgrass) on assignment in
Auckland uncovers a plot by a sinister Japanese corporation to destroy
New Zealand’s export trade by creating tension with France (say what?).
It’s all part of amaster plan to dominate the global economy by former
soldiers who are still fighting “the 50-year war” against the United
States. Singer/songwriter Paul Williams (remember him?) plays a
mysterious rogue CIA agent (reminiscent of 24’s Jack Bauer), who blows
the whistle on the whole operation. While it’s refreshing to see someone
as short as Williams play a chain-smoking, tough guy, it was also very
traumatizing seeing the man who wrote “The Rainbow Connection” for
Kermit The Frog violently tortured and beaten to a bloody pulp like a
prisoner at Guantanamo Bay.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHsjLxP_ESmqpZOVzE90j1579ni_QDws4DZzoK19y3SEb7NnPUOA_9ksi3Iwt8bFpbB4XHKe2OUbj3wOAYKQEcqCPZP8FDQXAAu5qqDkHyn7HrBrua-echpsyg4XwaDONaoixYTkfD6tcp/s1600/LostSamurai.HJF.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHsjLxP_ESmqpZOVzE90j1579ni_QDws4DZzoK19y3SEb7NnPUOA_9ksi3Iwt8bFpbB4XHKe2OUbj3wOAYKQEcqCPZP8FDQXAAu5qqDkHyn7HrBrua-echpsyg4XwaDONaoixYTkfD6tcp/s1600/LostSamurai.HJF.jpg" height="200" width="152" /></a>Halfway through production,
it seems as though the filmmakers realized that there was no reason to
set the story in New Zealand and moved the project to California. Bing
Crosby’s son Gary is one of the bad guys working for the <br />
Japanese, and
John Wayne’s son Patrick plays a Geraldo Rivera-type reporter named
Jerry Rivers (ouch!). Patrick Macnee of The Avengers shows up as the
owner of the television station that breaks the story and seems out of
place in this low-budget film that was originally released as Chill
Factor. (Apparently, the original plot had something to do with a
machine that controls the weather.)<br />
<br />
The Lost Samurai
could have only been made in the 80s, when trade friction with Japan was
at an all-time high, and is recommended for students who want to see
how the media view of Japan has changed in the past two decades. None of
the actors playing the evil Japanese business- men could speak the
language very well, and this resulted in some unintentionally funny
scenes that beg to be posted on YouTube. The DVD can be purchased from
eBay or Amazon for less than the price of a cheap California roll.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>The Last Samurai</b><br />
(1990, South Africa)<br />
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NOT TO BE confused with the 2003 film starring Tom Cruise, this is the ORIGINAL Last Samurai, made 13 years earlier in South Africa. A wealthy Japanese businessman named Endo (John Fujioka) and his assistant Miyagawa (South African martial arts star James Ryan in yellowface) travel to Africa to track the spirit of a samurai ancestor who traveled to the continent to spread Bud- dhism. They hire a half-crazed Vietnam-vet mer- cenary named Johnny Congo, played by Lance Henriksen (known for his portrayal of Bishop, the android in Aliens) to take them deep into the jungle. John Saxon (Enter The Dragon) sports a horrendous toupee and an even worse accent as an Arab arms dealer named Haroun Al-Akim. Their party is overtaken by an African warlord played by Henry Cele (Shaka Zulu). What could have been an interesting premise is ruined by a dull script by director Paul Mayersberg (who did much better work on the scripts for Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence and The Man Who Fell To Earth). With the exception of Henriksen, who is usually always good, the acting is horribly wooden. John Fujioka, a former high school teacher from Hawaii, who has appeared in trash such as American Samurai, rambles on about the way of the warrior as though he is teaching a civics class at a low-level vocational school. There’s something about Fujioka’s relationship with his devoted lackey that brings to mind that of Mr. Burns and Smithers on The Simpsons. The African landscape is beautiful, but the credits do not reveal where exactly it was filmed; probably because the movie was made at the tailend of the apartheid era. What a stinker!<br />
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<br />Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-26907915446882833722014-04-17T17:50:00.002-07:002014-04-17T17:50:49.719-07:00One Mickey Rourke The Fight (1992)
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">One Mickey Rourke
The Fight </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">Japan 1992
(documentary)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">by Matt Kaufman </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">Japan
is known as the place where a celebrity dilettante can receive a big
payday for their hobbies. Japanese fans who shell out the yen to see
Eddie Murphy sing or Keanu Reeves play bass guitar will also line up
to see paintings by Dennis Hopper and photographs by Vincent Gallo.
It's no wonder that actor-turned- boxer Mickey Rourke chose Tokyo as
the site of a high profile fight in 1992, just as his film career
started to hit the skids. Rourke was never much of a boxer; he went
on to destroy his movie-star looks in the ring and had to have
extensive plastic surgery to reconstruct his face. Fortunately his
opponent in Tokyo possessed even less skills and Rourke managed to
knock him out a minute into the first round with an embarrassing limp
jab. The crowd of screaming office ladies who paid ¥7,800 for a
ticket had to be disappointed. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">A quickie documentary was thrown
together to fulfill the usual contractual obligations. After all,
Rourke earned over a million dollars for barely a minute of his time.
</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Mickey Rourke One The
Fight</i></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is a nice
fly-on-the wall look at what it's like to be a visiting celebrity in
Japan amid all the hysteria. See the Hollywood actor wash his greasy
hair in a public restroom like a homeless person and later shop for a
rare samurai sword. Rourke has a reputation for being um, a tough-guy
scuzzball, but he comes across as rather shy and introspective. He
was also very gracious and polite around his Japanese hosts and was
happy to sign autographs for fans. Despite being surrounded by
adoring fans and an entourage, Mickey Rourke in comes across as a
very lonely person and I couldn't help being reminded of Bill
Murray's character in </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Lost
In Translation</i></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">, Bob
Harris, who was in Tokyo for similar reasons.</span></span></div>
Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-44686229661770828912014-04-17T10:03:00.000-07:002014-04-17T10:03:03.150-07:00Pink Lady and Jeff (1980) The Complete Series DVD<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKVKv8x7tyj9UMkwhZi7UDNjfs49w4_SxrUIyniBy68Zf2m8Va5fKpm_YTYDh_9iWymp6fwxpk0N1t1zhCaGez_BzmC561F79LX-8dF1SSiMsHllileYIwKKKD1F_v1jY5nt9C6fL07LMn/s1600/PinkLady_Jeff.HJF.JPEG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKVKv8x7tyj9UMkwhZi7UDNjfs49w4_SxrUIyniBy68Zf2m8Va5fKpm_YTYDh_9iWymp6fwxpk0N1t1zhCaGez_BzmC561F79LX-8dF1SSiMsHllileYIwKKKD1F_v1jY5nt9C6fL07LMn/s1600/PinkLady_Jeff.HJF.JPEG" height="320" width="199" /></a></div>
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PINK LADY AND JEFF<br />PRODUCERS: SID AND MARTY KROFFT<br />
STARRING: NEMOTO MITSUYO, MASUDA KEIKO, JEFF ALTMAN<br />
YEAR: 1980<br /><br />Pink Lady were one of the biggest Japanese singing sensations of all time. They ruled the late 70s with hits like “UFO,” “Last Pretender” and “Pink Typhoon” (a remake of the Village People’s “In the Navy”). In 1980, Fred Silverman, the president of NBC was desperate for a hit show. The network was last in the ratings with drivel like Hello, Larry and Grandpa Goes To Washington that couldn’t compete with popular shows such as Dallas and The Dukes of Hazzard.<br /><br />
Silverman must have gone temporarily insane because he came up with the idea to give Pink Lady their own variety show, even though A) the duo of Mie and Kei were completely unknown in the U.S., B) variety shows were unpopular at the time, and C) Mie and Kei couldn’t speak English. The language problem was supposedly solved by adding up-and-coming comedian Jeff Altman (a lightweight version of Dan Ackroyd) to do most of the talking, with Mie and Kei left to learn their dialogue phonetically. Each show started out with some of the lamest banter ever seen on television. The two Japanese singers seemed to have no idea what the American comedian was saying, and they were better off for it: “You must get turned on by my sexy round eyes.” “Rights, camera, action!” Ouch!<br /><br />
Mie and Kei would then introduce the guests by mangling names of celebrities such as Larry Hagman and Sherman Hemsley. Pink Lady would do a song, but instead of one of their own hits, they had to sing popular songs like Ease on Down the Road and Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?, which sounded forced and unnatural in English. This would be followed by skits featuring Altman and the rest of the cast. Jim “Hey, Vern!” Varney (later of the Ernest movies) was a regular and guest stars included Sid Caesar, who hammed it up as Mie and Kei’s father in a lame ripoff of John Belushi’s samurai character on Saturday Night Live.<br /><br />
Other guests on the show were a hyperactive Jerry Lewis, Bert Parks, Hugh Hefner (who warbled through “My Kind of Town”), Lorne Greene and Donny Osmond, who performed an excruciating version of “On Broadway” with Pink Lady that was rescued at the last minute by Teddy Pendergrass. Each show would end with everyone getting in a hot tub. Believe me, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Larry Hagman, Sid Caesar, Teddy Pendergrass and Pink Lady together in a hot tub!<br /><br />
The show tried to appeal to a younger audience by having hip musical “guests” such as Blondie, Cheap Trick and Alice Cooper, but these acts didn’t come anywhere near the stench of the set and mailed in videos instead. One act who did appear in person was the incredible Roy Orbison, but the producers chose not to make musical history by having him sing with Mie and Kei. Oh, what could have been!<br /><br />
Pink Lady and Jeff was produced by Sid and Marty Krofft, the brothers who were responsible for warping young children’s minds with psychedelic kiddie shows like H.R. Pufnstuf, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters and Land of the Lost. They were also behind The Brady Bunch Hour, another short-lived variety show that many critics consider to be even worse than Pink Lady and Jeff.<br /><br />
Pink Lady and Jeff was put out of its misery after only five shows, and Mie and Kei returned to Japan. The shows were never rerun, not even on cable, leaving many viewers to believe that they must have imagined the whole thing. Fortunately, the good folks at Rhino released a DVD box set of all the episodes plus the “lost” sixth show that never aired (with aging guest stars Bobby Vinton and Red Buttons). It also includes an insightful interview with Jeff Altman, whose career never seemed to recover.<br /><br />
In fairness, Pink Lady were put in a very awkward position, at a time when most Americans had very little interest in Japan. They were absolutely fantastic the few times they were allowed to perform their own material and I became an instant fan for life after seeing them blaze through “UFO.” If anything, they paved the way for another talented Japanese duo, Puffy, who have a hit show on the Cartoon Network called Hi Hi Puffy Amiyumi, which exactly 25 years later is very popular with a generation of kids raised on sushi and anime.Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-59719168797662425402014-04-17T00:44:00.000-07:002014-04-17T00:45:24.665-07:00Young Guy in New Zealand (1969)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgefS8TM0dYITtgIR54MwkWPNex9Yn_uEeujUgJ3y8hyphenhypheneog148hwNzE_VjvfR_GimA1N50DiaLwrJVGL1b5Kszdlss23DXWFnGaZ9UP3tZQWqV3RLY4s7IvCKr0k28hBADlsjmfs1x1u2Z/s1600/YoungGuy2.HJF..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgefS8TM0dYITtgIR54MwkWPNex9Yn_uEeujUgJ3y8hyphenhypheneog148hwNzE_VjvfR_GimA1N50DiaLwrJVGL1b5Kszdlss23DXWFnGaZ9UP3tZQWqV3RLY4s7IvCKr0k28hBADlsjmfs1x1u2Z/s1600/YoungGuy2.HJF..jpg" height="313" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>YOUNG GUY IN NEW ZEALAND</b> (1969)<br />
(NYU JIRANDO NO WAKADAISHO)<br />
DIRECTOR: FUKUDA JUN<br />
STARRING: KAYAMA YUZO, SAKAI WAKAKO, JESSICA PETERS<br />
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<br />
by Matt Kaufman<br />
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The Wakadaisho (“Young Guy”) movies were a beloved series of romantic comedies in the 60s starring singer/actor Kayama Yuzo as a clean-cut, lik- able young man named Tanuma Yuichi who played an electric guitar and was popular with the ladies. There were 17 films in all and audiences watched as Tanuma graduated college, found employment, traveled the world and fell in love.<br />
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Young Guy in New Zealand (aka Young Guy on Mt. Cook) finds Tanuma working abroad in Sydney, Australia. (Young Guy in Australia & New Zealand would have been a better title). Tanuma is being pursued by an Australian colleague named Elizabeth (Jessica Peters), who speaks fluent Japanese and has a major crush on him. Tanuma, however, has his heart set on a woman back in Japan named Setsuko (Sakai Wakako), who works for a travel agency. Their relationship threatens to fall apart after Tanuma is transferred back to Tokyo and Elizabeth shows up suddenly. Things go from bad to worse when Tanuma and Elizabeth are sent to New Zealand on business, and the pair are spotted by Setsuko, who is in Wellington promoting tourism. The situation with Elizabeth is resolved by the last-minute introduction of her fiance (Holy deus ex machina!) and Tanuma finally declares his love for Setsuko on the top of Mt. Cook.<br />
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Having seen so many Western films with unrealistic Japanese characters, it was eye-opening to see how actress Jessica Peters had her Japanese dialog dubbed by a female with a very high voice. This made her character seem overly coquettish and removed all trace of her Australian identity. The film also poked fun at Japanese tourists (shown with humongous cameras around their necks) and mocked their feeble attempts to speak English. It just goes to show that some of the images in Hollywood movies that are often criticized as being “unacceptable Japanese stereotypes” also appear in Japanese films and are not taken very seriously. It’s always easier to laugh at yourself when you are part of the majority, and somewhat harder to take when you are not. Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-16465857584028295212014-04-17T00:26:00.001-07:002014-04-17T00:29:19.395-07:00The Tom Green Subway Monkey Hour (2002)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglFiJz4V9wc3e3APBkRC0eEj5pStJQxw2zMtX0C1yyHd1te3eLoQo7HV2UImOaM-2fPQg75U1DrFe2J4dAF_rpk7knp42EF5jBIpvEslIB4vArhguEO03LBC-NLG8sgTlPMMEz3yLwQVVF/s1600/Tom+Green_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglFiJz4V9wc3e3APBkRC0eEj5pStJQxw2zMtX0C1yyHd1te3eLoQo7HV2UImOaM-2fPQg75U1DrFe2J4dAF_rpk7knp42EF5jBIpvEslIB4vArhguEO03LBC-NLG8sgTlPMMEz3yLwQVVF/s1600/Tom+Green_.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b>The Tom Green Subway Monkey Hour (2002)</b><br />
by Matt Kaufman <b><br /></b><br />
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<b>What?:</b> Canadian shock comic Tom Green, a man with- out any sense of shame or embarrassment brings his irreverent humor to the Land of The Rising Sun and tries to annoy as many people as possible. <b>Most Offensive Scene:</b> Tom places a dild..um, personal massager on the conveyer belt of a kaiten-sushi restaurant in Kyoto. He then asks the enraged staff if the offending object is on the menu. <b>What we learn about Japan:</b> If you ever have the urge to lie down and take a nap on a crowded platform in Shinjuku Station during rush hour, it’s comforting to know that commuters will politely step over you. <b>Best Quote </b>(Tom Green): "There is a lot of culture in Japan...and if we hadn’t just run around and made asses of ourselves, you would have seen some of it." <b>Is it good?:</b> Die-hard fans will find it hilarious, but anyone familiar with Japanese TV knows that it’s difficult to top the wild antics of Beat Takeshi or The Tokyo Shock Boys. There were just too many cheap laughs made at the expense of people who couldn’t speak English. I don’t think our man realized that most Japanese have an extremely high tolerance for obnoxious foreign idiots.Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-11853461553615292742014-04-17T00:18:00.003-07:002014-04-19T18:06:11.280-07:00The Osbournes in Japan (2002)<br />
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The Osbournes in Japan (2002, USA)<br />
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<b>What?: </b>Special bonus feature included on the Ozzy Osbourne Live at Budokan DVD. Aging rocker Ozzy Osbourne, whose brain has been fried by drugs and alcohol, his wife/manager Sharon and their two bratty teenaged children, Jack and Kelly, on the loose and uncensored in Tokyo, Nagoya and Kyoto. <b>Funniest Scene: </b>An exhausted Ozzy hobbling around Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto. Sharon Osbourne: "Look at the view, it’s unbelievable." Ozzy: "What’s unbelievable is that I just walked up these fookin’ stairs!" <b>What we learn about Japan: </b>The curry rocks! (Ozzy): "One of my favorite things about Japan is the curry. I just fookin’ love that shit. I start thinking about it, I can’t stop thinking about it until I finally sit down and eat a really big bowl of it. It’s fookin’ great!" <b>Best Quote:</b> (Ozzy) "Japan is a beautiful place. I was just telling Sharon, the next time she wants me to go sight-seeing in Japan, I’ll go turn on the fookin’ travel channel.“<b>Trivia: </b>Ozzy’stalent- impaired daughter returned to Japan in 2006 to film a reality show called Kelly Osbourne: Turning Japanese (what an original title!).Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-49832372555013253142014-04-16T22:55:00.001-07:002014-04-17T17:52:46.596-07:00A Majority of One (1961)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV9WaAzlHRwt7tfks2EGTMK1NodbUxAB0SmGBF4BA0DMDqjAeVKYMksStXNdFUSy8O9jk2Dr8rV-r9clq8B7UIryNktpKPLt2vNpY_G4wBIq8tI-A4Gc1tuntsF5GaCL9i1e4-4EqJ3PQJ/s1600/MajorityOfOne.HJF.2.JPEG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV9WaAzlHRwt7tfks2EGTMK1NodbUxAB0SmGBF4BA0DMDqjAeVKYMksStXNdFUSy8O9jk2Dr8rV-r9clq8B7UIryNktpKPLt2vNpY_G4wBIq8tI-A4Gc1tuntsF5GaCL9i1e4-4EqJ3PQJ/s1600/MajorityOfOne.HJF.2.JPEG" height="320" width="200" /></a></div>
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A Majority of One<br />
USA 1961<br />
<br />
by Matt Kaufman<br />
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Mrs. Jacoby (Rosalind Russell) is a Jewish widow living alone in the Flatbush section Brooklyn, New York, who is asked by her daughter and son-in-law, a rising star in the state department, to accompany them on a three-year assignment to Japan. Mrs. Jacoby is reluctant to go; she hates Japanese people because her only son perished in the Pacific during the war, but she agrees to make the trip after she learns that her daughter is pregnant with her first grandchild. On the ship bound for Japan, Mrs. Jacoby meets a charming Japanese widower named Mr. Asano who invites her to dine with him at his spacious house in Tokyo. <br />
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This unlikely romance could have been a classic but it is ruined by the decision to cast Alec Guinness in the role of Mr. Asano. With roles in films such as Bridge Over The River Kwai, Ladykillers and Star Wars, Guinness was one of the finest actors to grace the silver screen, but that doesn’t mean he had the range to play a Japanese middle-aged man! Bluntly speaking, Guinness looks ridiculous in yellowface makeup and his accent is atrocious; just imagine Obi Wan Kenobi confusing his L’s and R’s (“rorripop”) and you’ll have an idea of what Mr. Asano sounds like. George Takei, Captain Sulu on Star Trek, played Mr. Asano’s son and seeing the Japanese-American actor interact with the heavily made-up Guinness is surreal. There’s also a sneaky “houseboy” character named Eddie (Marc Marno) who embodies many of the negative Japanese stereotypes found in WWII propaganda movies. <br />
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A Majority of One, directed by Mervyn LerRoy (Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo), was made just sixteen years after the end of WWII and preaches a message of racial tolerance, forgiveness and understanding. Despite its good intentions, the movie is a fine example of the underlying racism found in other highly dated films from the era such as Guess Whose Coming To Dinner?Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-72414498702064550182014-04-16T22:43:00.001-07:002014-04-16T22:46:42.946-07:00Bridge To The Sun (1961)<style type="text/css"></style>
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<span style="font-family: Osaka;"> Bridge To The Sun</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Osaka;">USA/France 1961</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Osaka;">by Matt Kaufman </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Osaka;">Based
on the autobiography of Gwen Terasaki, a country girl from Johnson,
Tennessee who married a Japanese diplomat. She chose to return to
Japan with their young daughter after her husband was expelled from
Washington DC shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Terasaki
experienced racism from both sides. In America she was derided for
marrying a “Jap”; in Japan she was scolded for not acting like a
“proper Japanese wife” and regarded with suspicion because her
husband, Terasaki Hidenari was active in the anti-war movement.
Blonde bombshell Carroll Baker (</span><span style="font-family: Osaka;"><i>Baby
Doll</i></span><span style="font-family: Osaka;">) plays Terasaki and James Shigeta
(</span><span style="font-family: Osaka;"><i>Crimson Kimono)</i></span><span style="font-family: Osaka;">,
the first Asian-American leading man, was cast as her husband. The
two actors have a very strong chemistry and their outstanding
performances help overcome some of the weaker elements of the script.
A scene where the couple and their young daughter Mariko are
physically threatened by an angry mob will send a chill down the
spine of anyone who has bi-racial children. This family was caught in
the middle of a horrible war and came out intact. </span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Osaka;">Terasaki
Hidenari later served as the official liaison between Emperor
Hirohito and General Douglas MacArthur during the US Occupation.
Daughter Mariko Terasaki Miller settled in Wyoming and was active in
women’s issue as a member of the Democratic National Committee. She
also helped to promote mutual understanding the two nations during
many speaking tours of Japan and was honored by the Japanese
Government. In 1981, writer Yanagida Kunio published a book called
</span><span style="font-family: Osaka;"><i>Mariko </i></span><span style="font-family: Osaka;">about</span><span style="font-family: Osaka;"><i>
</i></span><span style="font-family: Osaka;">the Terasaki family that was made into
a very popular miniseries on NHK.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Osaka;">Bridge
To The Sun was one of the first movies to show how Japanese civilians
suffered during the war (including a scene in which a child is killed
by Allied bombers). Some people took offense and labeled the film as
anti-American. Although it was filmed entirely in English and uses
Hollywood actors, it is technically a French production with a
Belgian director, </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">Etienne
Périer. </span><span style="font-family: Osaka;">It was a released in France as
</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Pont
vers le soleil.</i></span></span></span><br />
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Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-53949934881301779612014-04-16T22:03:00.002-07:002014-04-16T22:03:53.190-07:00The Sakura Killers (1987) <br />
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The Sakura Killers (USA 1987)<br />
by Matt Kaufman<br />
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The Sakura Killers is a fine example of the dozens of low-budget movies that came out during the ninja craze in the 1980s, including such masterpieces as Revenge of the Ninja, American Ninja and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Chuck Connors “stars” as the Colonel (more like a cameo appearance), the head of some top- secret agency that has to retrieve a highly classified video tape that was stolen by ninjas. (The “top-secret agency” has computers that look like they were purchased from the discount bins at Radio Shack.) The videotape, contains information about genetic splicing that could wreck the US economy if obtained by the wrong people.<br />
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The Colonel contacts two of his best agents, Dennis (George Nichols) and Sonny (Mike Kelly), and sends them to Taiwan in search of the deadly Sakura Ninjas. George Nichols and Mike Kelly are stuntmen who should have signed up for acting lessons. They mumble their lines, and every scene looks like it was unrehearsed and shot in one take.The two agents go into a restaurant to investigate a woman named Yukiko, who may have some connection to the ninjas, and we are treated to dialog that makes Ed Wood seem like Shakespeare: Sonny: “So what do you think about that Yukiko girl?” Dennis: “What do I think... I think she wants me!” Sonny: “You think everyone wants you.”<br /><br />
The leader of the Sakura Ninja clan is named Otani and he is played by a Chinese actor who seems to relish playing a Japanese villain. He stabs one of his men in the back for not fighting hard enough. Sonny and Dennis enlist the help of an exiled ninja master named Sugiyama who dresses them in silly Halloween costumes and gives them a crash course in the art of ninjitsu. The fighting scenes are over the top and entertaining, and it’s especially fun to watch Chuck Connors blow away ninjas with his rifle. Connors, who passed away in 1992, starred in the TV series The Rifleman, which was a huge hit in Japan in the 1960s.<br /><br />
The Sakura Killers has developed a cult following on the Internet with one fan claiming to have seen it over 150 times. More information about the film can be found at www.fast-rewind.com Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-67336721627381220822014-04-16T21:47:00.001-07:002014-04-17T09:16:27.125-07:00Irish American Ninja (2005) Tongan Ninja (2002) Black Ninja (2003)<br />
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<b>Irish American Ninja</b> (USA 2005)<br />
by Matt Kaufman<br />
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<b>What?:</b> Low budget Spinal Tap-style mockumentary send- up of cheesy Hollywood ninja flicks that were all the rage the 1980s, such as American Ninja and The Sakura Killers. George McGoogle (director Bill Sebastian) is a ninja-obsessed teenager who runs away to Japan after his father and older brother are mysteriously killed. After training for eight long years under the watchful eye of the White Ninja master, George discovers that his brother is alive and a member of the rival Black Ninjas. Upon returning to America, George learns that his brother Gertrude killed their father in a fit of rage for giving him a girl’s name. McGoogle vows to avenge his father’s death one day. In the meantime, he appears in a smash movie called FBI Ninja that turns him into an international celebrity. But his newfound fame threatens to tear him apart. <b>Was it really filmed in Japan?:</b> Are you kidding? It was filmed in Texas. Who would ever guess that Dallas looks so much like Tokyo? <b>What do we learn about Japan?:</b> Good ninjas wear white and evil ninjas wear black. Write it down. This information could save your life one day. <b>Best quote</b> (sleazy Hollywood agent): "George McGoogle is a great guy, but he’s a ninja, he’s no actor. You can’t come here to Hollywood with just ninja skills and expect to be successful.That’s why these guys like Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme are successful, because they are actors. <b>Is it good?: </b>Hell, yeah! It’s the best Irish-American ninja film ever made! www.intentionalfilms.com.<br />
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<b>Tongan Ninja</b> (New Zealand 2002) <br />
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SHOT ON DIGITAL video in Wellington, this low-budget ninja film stars one of New Zealand’s best cultural exports: Jermaine Clem- ent, one half of Flight of the Conchords, the hilarious comedy/musi- cal duo formed in 2002, who have achieved international success with an award-winning radio show on the BBC and a hit series on HBO. Clement, who describes his heritage as “part Maori, part European” made Tongan Ninja with director Jason Stutter, a young filmmaker who worked as an editor on the behind-the-scenes documentaries for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Setting itself apart from most films in the genre, Tongan Ninja includes some very funny songs and musical and dance numbers co-written and choreographed by the other half of Flight of the Conchords, Bret MacKenzie (who does not appear in the film).<br />
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Sione Finau is a young Tongan boy who loves nothing more than to accompany his father, the pilot of a small cargo plane, on runs between Tonga and New Zealand. The plane crashes on an island somewhere in the Pacific after a bratty passenger named Marvin, a boy the same age as Sione, cuts some wires out of spite. Sione watches in horror as his father’s legs are chewed to the bone by hungry piranhas while helping Marvin cross a river. The two boys get into a fight after Marvin cruelly mocks the fact that Sione’s father was eaten by a fish. A wise, elderly ninja master named Master Magasaki appears out of nowhere and offers to train the boys in the art of ninjutsu.<br />
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Years pass and the two boys have grown up into full-fledged ninja. One day Master Magasaki tells Sione, now known as Tongan Ninja, that a good friend who owns a Chinese restau- rant in Wellington has been badly beaten after being shaken down by a local crime syndicate. Tongan Ninja (Sam Manu) travels to New Zea- land where he is met by Miss Lee (Linda Tseng), the beautiful daughter of the restaurant owner. After the Tongan Ninja uses his ninjutsu skills to easily defeat the first wave of goons assigned to take the restaurant, Mr. Big (Victor Rodger), “the so-called leader of the so-called syndicate” calls in a couple of specialists, Knife Man and Gun Man, to clean up the mess, but they, too, are no match for the only ninja from the Kingdom of Tonga to ever grace the silver screen. This leads to a major showdown with a ninja of equal abilities, his old nemesis Marvin, who now goes by the name Action Fighter, played by Jermaine Clement.<br />
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Tongan Ninja was shot without any sound and the dialog was added later with purposely bad dubbing as a homage to cheap martial arts movies. (In addition to his own role, Clement also dubbed the voice of Tongan Ninja, who was played by the director’s cousin.) In the tongue-in-cheek Official Making of Tonga Ninja documentary (included on the DVD), Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson and Shrek director Andrew Adamson jokingly cite both the character and the film as a major influence on their work.<br />
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<b>Black Ninja</b> (USA 2003)<br />
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OOOH, IT’S GOING to take years of intensive therapy to get the last remaining trace of this incredibly bad film out of my psyche. No, bad is too kind of a word because bad films can be entertaining at times. The Black Ninja was written and directed by Clayton Prince, a TV actor best known for a bit role on The Cosby Show. Prince stars as Maliq Ali, a high-powered criminal defense attorney in the vein of Johnnie Cochran, who has a proven track record in getting not-guilty verdicts for the worst kind of lawless scum. When he was just starting out, however, Ali saw his entire family murdered after he overcharged a Japanese client, Hagiwara Shinji AKA the Red Ninja (Matsuzaki Yuki). Ali went to Japan to study ninjutsu in the hope of getting revenge and the Black Ninja was born! Now Ali defends rapists and murders by day and dispenses his own violent form of justice against these very same clients as a vigilante ninja by night. (No wonder lawyers have a bad reputation!) Can he protect a beautiful witness against a ruthless mobster? Will he ever defeat the Red Ninja? Who gives a flying flip! The Black Ninja has a poorly written script, inept direction, and cringe-worthy acting from the entire cast, which includes several steroid-pumped professional wrestlers.<br />
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<br />Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-84285146370827513382014-04-16T21:23:00.002-07:002014-04-16T21:23:25.035-07:00American Ninja (1985) American Samurai (1993) American Yakuza (1994) American Geisha (1983)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ2A5UFrdqb0tLJU7xBnd-CE0Q0zKA26eyDMU43rg_1pd3BwdmpjXQcVqY8IsHsG4xDoKmpDagBmJQtsJHjQU1YH8YF4KWdDgh5wHn_o2S5BkLdzF5-FQsHmXrIIn_MjUVaU_hl-Z2hAXv/s1600/AmericanNinja.BradHowe.tiff" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> ILLUSTRATION BY BRAD HOWE </a><br />
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AMERICAN NINJA<br />
by Matt Kaufman<br /><br />
DIRECTOR: SAM FIRSTENBERG STARRING: MICHAEL DUDIKOFF, JOHN FUJIOKA YEAR: 1985 American Ninja was produced by Menaham Golan and Yorum Globus of Cannon Films. In the 1980s, Cannon Films was known for making action movies with Chuck Norris (Miss- ing in Action); pointless sequels (Death Wish II, Superman IV); and cheaply made movies that exploited every short-lived trend under the sun (Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo). They also discovered “talent” like Jean-Claude Van Damme, who got his start in a Cannon film called Bloodsport. Cannon had a huge success with Enter the Ninja, the 1981 film that made Sho Kosugi a star and helped jump start the 80s ninja craze. Kosugi made two sequels before moving on, and Golan and Globus came up with a new idea: a film about an American master of ninjitsu. Chuck Norris was supposed to star but dropped out, so Cannon went with an unknown actor named Michael Dudikoff. Watching the sleepy-eyed Dudikoff “act” makes one long for the thespian skills of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone.<br /><br />
Dudikoff plays a character named Joe Armstrong, who was shipwrecked on a deserted island in the South Pacific as a young boy and raised by Shinyuki (John Fujioka), a former Japanese soldier who had been hiding out for the past 30 years. Shinyuki teaches Armstrong the secret art of ninjitsu and the boy becomes adept in the ways of the ninja. He is eventually rescued and ends up losing his memory. Forced to enlist in the US Army after getting into trouble, Armstrong is sent to the Philippines, where he stumbles on a plot involving corrupt army officials and evil ninja. Some of the fight scenes are done well, but the rest of the movie is painful to watch. Surprisingly, it was a hit and spawned not one, but FOUR sequels. Cannon went bankrupt a few years later after the dismal failure of Dolph Lundgren as He-Man in Masters of The Universe, and Golan and Globus ended up making competing Lambada movies that opened on the same day.<br />
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AMERICAN SAMURAI<br />DIRECTOR: SAM FIRSTENBERG<br />
STARRING: DAVID BRADLEY, MARK DACASCOS, JOHN FUJIOKA<br />
YEAR: 1993<br /><br />
The director of American Ninja and some of the crew regrouped to try and create a new samurai franchise. American Samurai features David Bra- dley, a very dull actor who looks like Al Gore on steroids. American Samurai borrows heavily from the origins of American Ninja. Bradley plays Drew Collins, an American who was raised by a modern-day samurai after a plane crash on a remote mountain in Japan killed his entire family when he was a baby. His adoptive father, Tatsuya<br />(John Fujioka) loves him more than his own son, Kenjiro (Mark Dacascos). When Tatsuya gives Drew his sword (a precious family heirloom), Kenjiro rebels by forsaking the samurai in favor of the yakuza. Drew later becomes a journalist and is sent to Turkey, where Kenjiro forces him to participate in a deadly martial arts competi- tion. What we have here is Bloodsport meets East of Eden. Needless to say, there weren’t any sequels. Maybe someday they’ll make a movie about a baby raised by sumo wrestlers and call it American Sumo. <br />
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AMERICAN YAKUZA<br />DIRECTOR: FRANK A. CAPPELLO<br />
STARRING: VIGGO MORTENSEN, ISHIBASHI RYO<br />
YEAR: 1994<br />
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Toei is famous for their straight-to-video releases called V-Cinema in Japan. Walk into any video store in Japan and the shelves are filled with dozens of films about yakuza, prostitutes, gamblers, loan sharks, motorcycle gangs and a host of other misfits living on the edge of society. In the 90s, Toei took advantage of the strong yen and starting making V-Cinema movies overseas in America and Australia using a combination of popu- lar Japanese actors and veterans like George Kennedy and Jacqueline Bissett. Some of these movies featured well-known actors before they became famous, such as Russell Crowe, who starred in a V-Cinema production called No Way Back in 1995. American Yakuza, features another talented actor, Viggo Mortensen (Lord of The Rings) as an undercover FBI agent named Nick Davis who infiltrates the yakuza in Los Angeles. Nick saves the life of the leader, Sawamoto (Ishibashi Ryo) and becomes the first American to become a full-fledged member of the yakuza. Nick is a loner and he starts to realize that the yakuza is the only family he has. He becomes very close to Sawamoto and falls in love with a Japanese woman who has ties to the organization. Nick’s loyalties are torn when he learns that the FBI has a ruthless plan to use the Italian mafia to wipe out the yakuza. American Yakuza is fairly entertaining, but it does glorify the yakuza with a bunch of nonsense about duty and honor.<br />
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AMERICAN GEISHA<br />DIRECTOR: LEE PHILLIPS<br />
STARRING: PAM DAWBER<br />
YEAR: 1983<br />
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American Geisha is an early 80s made for TV movie starring Pam Dawber (Mork & Mindy) based on Geisha, the highly-acclaimed book by Liza Dalby. In the mid 1970s, Dalby was given permission to enter this mysterious world and was the first Western woman to become a geisha. Dalby’s experience as a novice in the Pontocho teahouses of Kyoto helped to dispel the widely-held notion that geisha are “Japanese prostitutes.” Her work had a profound influence on Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha. American Geisha is a somewhat watered- down version of the book and adds a cheesy love story involving Dawber and a famous kabuki actor, but the subject matter is still fascinating. Pam Dawber gives a convincing performance as a woman who is so obsessed with Japan that she believes her “soul is Japanese.”<br />
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<br />Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-61525668838175833342014-04-16T20:59:00.001-07:002014-04-16T20:59:32.582-07:00Bondi Tsunami (2005)<br />
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Bondi Tsunami (2005, Australia)<br />
by Matt Kaufman<br />
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BONDI TSUNAMI IS a highly-stylized film by Australian director Rachael Lucas about a group of Japanese surfers who embark on a hallucinogenic road trip through the land of Oz. Shark (Abe Taki) is an ultra-cool Zen cowboy; a young traveler questioning the meaning of his own existence:“Life is a dream/ A moment of perfect emptiness/Nothing means anything, Nothing is real/ But what you imagine it to be/Like sand on the ocean floor I exist/ Or a wave that forms on the horizon/ I begin and end in my imagination/ I am nothing, an illusion.”<br /><br />
Abe Keita (no relation) plays Yuto, a hyperactive poster boy for the iPod generation of otaku who is into all the latest gadgets and fads. Yuto wants to experience all that he can on his very first day in Sydney. He gets a tattoo, has a few pints with the locals at the pub and dances into the wee hours with beautiful women (and a transvestite) at a trendy nightclub. Shark has already done it all. He’s been in Australia a while and Bondi Beach feels more like home than Tokyo. One of the nice things about this film is that it is not another tired “fish-out-of-water” story, but shows people who are totally comfortable in a different culture.<br /><br />
After hitting the beach for some morning surfing, the two old friends hop into Shark’s 1961 EK Holden and head north towards the Gold Coast. They meet up with Kimiko (Sasaki Miki), a gorgeous Harajuku princess with a unique sense of fashion who flirts with Yuto to make Shark jealous. The car is mysteriously drawn towards Gunja Man (Ikeda Nobuhisa), a ghostlike figure who has forgotten the ways of the mortal world and can no longer speak Japanese. Gunja Man shows the others how to appreciate Australia’s giant roadside sculptures (“Big Things” like the Big Pineapple in Nambor) on a much higher level of consciousness. On their way to the Emerald City, they drive through Crescent Heads, Coffs Harbour, Nimbin and stop for milkshakes at the Moo Moo Café in Mooball.<br />Bondi Tsunami was shot on the road, guerilla- style by a crew of four people, none of whom had any experience making a feature film. It was financed using twelve maxed-out credit cards, yet the result is atypical of low-budget indie films with poor lighting and shaky cameras. Despite being made with a DIY, punk attitude, Bondi Tsunami goes to the opposite extreme and looks better than most Hollywood films. It has a mesmerizing array of organic and syn- thetic colors, kinetic MTV-style editing and one of the best soundtracks in recent memory; an eclectic mix of dub, electronica, sampled jazz breaks, Japanese pop, Hawaiian, rockabilly and country.<br /><br />
The four young Japanese leads of the film were discovered in Australia while on working- holiday visas and had never acted before. They were given a great deal of freedom to improvise and use their natural comedic skills.They were also responsible for translating the script from English into natural-sounding Japanese and received rave reviews for their performances. The legion of Japanese teenybopper idols in television dramas and films could improve their meager skills by watching Bondi Tsunami: sometimes less is more. Abe Take has become something of a sex symbol in Australia and has already received offers to appear in other Australian and Japanese films.<br /><br />
Bondi Tsunami is a multi-layered film that is open to different interpretations. Some people might see it as a minimalist road trip movie and watch it to get lost in the music and beautiful scenery of Australia. Others have described the movie as a live-action, manga satire of pop culture, a Zen mindtrip or a nostalgic homage to classic surf movies such as Endless Summer and Morning of the Earth.Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-43952732133011373092014-04-16T19:08:00.001-07:002014-04-16T20:46:15.409-07:00Sakura no Kage (2007)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Sakura no Kage (France/Japan 2007) <br />
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by Matt Kaufman<br />
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Toda Hiroshi and Guillaume Tauveron are unlikely collaborators separated by distance and age who have managed to make an independent film shot on two continents. Toda is a 54 year old part-time film director and full-time male nurse originally from Fukui who is the manager of a psychiatric center in Kyoto. When he was young he dreamed of working for Toei Studios as a director but his father strongly objected so he made 8mm films on the side and has gone on to make over a dozen independent films. Toda met Tauveron, a self-taught 28 year old filmmaker from France with a strong interest in Japanese culture, at a film festival in Nice. The two friends teamed up to make Sakura No Kage a haunting minimalist film shot in France and Japan (Fukui & Kyoto) about a French assassin named Pierre (Tauveron) who is assigned to kill the daughter of a yakuza boss he once worked for in Japan. Unlike the suave, cool-headed French killers in other movies, Pierre has become highly-disturbed by his chosen profession. Rather than glorify the foreign-assassin-in-Japan angle with stylish camera work and music, the directors chose to show the ugliness and horror of being gunned down in cold blood. The camera lingers on the faces of innocent by-standers who have just witnessed a killing; perhaps Toda’s work in a psychiatric clinic made him acutely aware of the trauma of seeing death up close. There are also bits of humor that work well such as a scene in which the hitman is hit on by a coquettish Japanese woman who tries to impress him by speaking fluent French. She asks him what he does for a living and he tells her he’s an assassin. She just laughs and tells him how much she loves the French sense of humor.. www.guillaumetauveron.com or www.skeletonfilms.com<br />
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Watch it here <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8ksuv_sakura-no-kage-part-1_shortfilms">Sakura no Kage Part 1 </a><br />
<a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8m4ia_sakura-no-kage-part2_shortfilms">Sakura no Kage Part 2</a> Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-25945284236250215662014-04-16T18:27:00.000-07:002014-04-19T20:26:44.949-07:00Rock 'N Tokyo (2007)<br />
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Rock ‘N Tokyo (2007, France/Japan)<br />
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by Matt Kaufman<br />
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Tokyo has some of the best rock and roll bands on the planet, bar none. Hometown heroes Guitar Wolf and the 5678s, who have been around since the early 90s, will blow any of these wimpy emo bands like My Chemical Romance off the stage any day of the week. Guitar Wolf has toured the world several times and are more popular abroad than most of the J-Rock bands who sell out stadiums in Japan. The 5678s paid their dues for years and received a big break when Quentin Tarantino cast the band in Kill Bill. Brazilian/French filmmaker Pamela Valente has made an incredible 90 minute documentary that examines the above bands plus lesser-known veterans Jet Boys, who are fond of exposing themselves on stage and an upcoming group called Nine. Valente has a wonderful eye for detail and masterfully captures the intensity of the garage rock scene in vivid colors. There’s a wonderful scene with Jet Boys leader Onoching in his tiny apartment crammed to the rafters with records, toys and assorted junk. The 5678’s, first seen in the Australian documentary Hell Bento show how success hasn’t gone to their heads. They perform a tearful tribute to Guitar Wolf bassist Billy, who tragically passed away suddenly at the height of the band’s popularity. Rock N Tokyo has a strong cinema verite style; its natural flow is not ruined by the usual talking heads that pop up in other rock documentaries. Look for a cameo by cult director Ishii Sogo. Contact: pamkipam@yahoo.frMatt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-44229051284832619252014-04-16T18:19:00.001-07:002014-04-16T18:19:03.741-07:00Homesick Blues (2005)<br />
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Homesick Blues (2005, USA)<br />
by Matt Kaufman<br /><br />
Osaka and Chicago are Sister Cities so it’s fitting that Junko Kajino and Ed Koziarski, Japanese and American co-directors from the Windy City chose…does Osaka have a nickname other than the horrid “Big Slope”? Let me start again. Homesick Blues is a 15 minute film about an 18 year old girl named Hiroko (pop singer Zoey) who cannot get enough of singing the blues, much to the chagrin of her cranky neighbors, who don’t appreciate her soulful interpretation of Nina Simone while they are trying to watch TV late at night. Hiroko has been saving money by working at a convenience store and one day she decides to leave Osaka to pursue her dreams of singing onstage in Chicago, home of the blues. Zoey’s performance hits all the right notes and Homesick Blues is a fine introduction to the full-length movie the filmmakers plan on making soon. In the meantime, Kajino and Koziarski have been busy wrapping up their first feature, The First Breath of Tengan Rei, about a young Okinawan woman who flies to Chicago and kidnaps the teenage son of a U.S. Marine who raped her ten years ago. Much more than a standard revenge thriller, Oda Erika, star of Koreeda Hirokazu’s After Life, plays the title role. www.homesickblues.com<br />Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-42985588458016081532014-04-16T18:10:00.001-07:002014-04-16T18:10:11.794-07:00Nipon e Yokoso (2005) <br />
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Nipon e Yokoso (2005, Mexico) <br /><br />
Filmed entirely on location in Japan during the 2002 World Cup by director Pablo Aldrete, Nipon e Yokoso is a 75 minute feature about a Mexican soccer fan named Daniel (Nacho Sanchez) who confronts a young Japanese woman named Naoko (Honaga Yoko) after she steals his wallet on the subway. Daniel surprises Naoko by inviting her to go out for a meal, but she has other things on her mind: a yakuza boss assigned her to steal the wallet of an Asian man and she completely bungled it by targeting a Mexican guy, who is now asking her for a date. Is he out of his mind? Realizing that the yakuza is closing in on her, she agrees to go with Daniel to buy herself some time. It’s a simple plot with minimal dialogue, but set against the backdrop of the World Cup—an exciting time to be in Japan—the film works well as a love story and travelogue/road movie, that is, if you like slow-paced films. The two talented young actors have excellent chemistry and Honaga, a butoh dancer, is a real discovery. She could be a real star someday. Perhaps Mexican directors just have a knack for guiding young Japanese actresses (See: Babel). www.mantarraya.com<br />www.honagayoko.com<br />Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-74146353671408244322014-04-16T08:57:00.001-07:002014-04-16T09:04:07.687-07:00Let's Do Talk (1998) <br />
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Let's Do Talk (Japan 1998)<br />
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Let’s Do Talk is a mockumentary about the eikaiwa English conversation industry in Japan that has much in common with Waiting For Guffman and Best in Show, both directed by Christopher Guest, who also starred in This Is Spinal Tap, unquestionably the most well-known and beloved film in the genre.<br />
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Let’s Do Talk is an English conversation school in Tokyo that becomes the subject of an expose by a reporter (Rene Duignan), What he discovers in the course of his investigative reporting is truly shocking:highly unqualified teachers, unmoti- vated students, ruthless salesmen and management that cares more about filling the company coffers with yen than teaching students English.<br />
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Let’s Do Talk claims that all of their teachers have degrees from Harvard University, but the motley crew of instructors include a Trekkie space cadet (George Lekakis), a strung-out smelly hippie (Benjamin Beardsley), an illiterate GI (Sean Mahoney) and an Australian ex-stripper (Nerida O’Shea) who moonlights as a hostess. We also witness a nasty power struggle between the manager Desmond (Michael Gosman), a clueless 1960s Beatles-obsessed relic who has lived in Japan for 30 years but cannot speak the language, and his assistant Gaston (Jean Gabriel Dupuy), a cunning Frenchman who wants the school to use "sexier" textbooks, meaning less grammar and more skin. The only teacher with integrity, Sue Briggs (Caroline Pover, author of Being A Broad), is ridiculed by both students and teachers for doing the unspeakable: actually attempting to teach English.<br />
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Let’s Do Talk was directed by Inomata Toshiro and has a very funny script by Paul Davies and John Collick. This low-budget film should have become a cult-classic among eikawa teachers in Japan, but there is very little information about it. Could this mean that the "powers-that-be" suppressed it? After all, it’s only a movie, nothing this absurd ever happens in real life, does it?Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-28809724300603726282014-04-16T08:42:00.003-07:002014-04-16T08:49:27.054-07:00Karate Fists and Beans (1973)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT_R82QsvYuZAvlrw9xkrDh9g3Bmn8CmwFPgZOhRLjMcj79PA9MJhyphenhyphenovzxLLjrwxeZxGVzyebMDYXeqVp5_GDBRfV418jZLhyphenhyphen3qT5XPBrolSqpR_ixPBFwaxBcU10cOhSg9-gIvURB-8Gy/s1600/KarateFistsBeans.JPEG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT_R82QsvYuZAvlrw9xkrDh9g3Bmn8CmwFPgZOhRLjMcj79PA9MJhyphenhyphenovzxLLjrwxeZxGVzyebMDYXeqVp5_GDBRfV418jZLhyphenhyphen3qT5XPBrolSqpR_ixPBFwaxBcU10cOhSg9-gIvURB-8Gy/s1600/KarateFistsBeans.JPEG" height="320" width="227" /></a></div>
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Karate Fists and Beans (Italy/Spain) 1973<br />
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HERE’S A SPANISH/ITALIAN spaghetti western starring an American singer who defected to East Germany. It was originally released on video in Sweden, but I had to order a DVD-R from a company in the UK. About a month later I received a package from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (I hope this helps illustrate how rare and obscure this film is). Despite the convenience of the Internet, not all movies are just "one click away". Karate Fists and Beans, directed by Tonino Ricci, stars singer Dean Reed (see sidebar) and Cris Huerta as Sam and Buddy, two very incompetent highway robbers who just want to fill their empty bellies. The portly Buddy lives to eat and wants nothing more than to chow down on a plate of his beloved baked beans. Sam is much leaner and has more smarts but most of his get-rich-quick schemes end up in the dust. Sam and Buddy join up with a seasoned outlaw named Col. Quint to help find the daughter of a local banker who has been kidnapped by a real nasty dude name Espartero. Along the way they are joined by a Japanese cook named Fujibashi Mokaiko (Yoshioka Iwao),who just happens to be a karate expert. You could say that Karate Fists and Beans is the action comedy version of Fritz Lang’s 1931 classic M but that would be too much of a stretch. The English dubbing is pretty hilarious, Yoshioka’s character sounds as though he just inhaled helium. Huerta and Yoshioka returned in the 1977 sequel Robin Hood...Arrows Beans and Karate.<br />
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COMRADE ROCKSTAR:THE SEARCH FOR DEAN REED<br />
by Johannes Schonherr<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN3RwaUgGp1BlNokaoKk62HsNXYV2Vr3LAPgrfFNfyrNcTfhlAVF0ksIoIUBFQdYtDYkprmjBoTYYUN4HJr0n4I8yZMGTtmW1peQUUM-CrnZ6APl-cIdSoO-1hDZ2e2S9CX9_-2shDrYnr/s1600/DeanReed.ComradeRockstar.JPEG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN3RwaUgGp1BlNokaoKk62HsNXYV2Vr3LAPgrfFNfyrNcTfhlAVF0ksIoIUBFQdYtDYkprmjBoTYYUN4HJr0n4I8yZMGTtmW1peQUUM-CrnZ6APl-cIdSoO-1hDZ2e2S9CX9_-2shDrYnr/s1600/DeanReed.ComradeRockstar.JPEG" height="200" width="130" /></a><br />
When I grew up in East Germany in the 1970s, music shows on TV had a rather exotic character to offer among the usual bunch of dull agitprop singers: an American who had chosen the German Democratic Republic as his new home. According to the announcers, he was a “big star in the Soviet Union and among all the peace- loving people of the world“. My counterculture friends and I however, totally ignored him, just as we ignored the rest of the dummies dancing around on Commie TV. For us, the only Reed in music was Lou.<br />
Many years later, though, I read Reggie Nadel- son’s 1991 book Comrade Rockstar: The Search for Dean Reed. The story of the“Red Elvis“ turned out to be much more fascinating, twisted and tragic than I had ever expected.<br />
Starting out as the singing son of a chicken farmer in rural Colorado, Reed made his way to Hollywood and into the American music indus- try, and had a few local hit songs in the early 1960s. Some of his songs went big time in South America, where he received a hero’s welcome, playing giant soccer stadiums. At the same time, he witnessed a lot of poverty and injustice there. His politics turned leftward. After attending a peace conference in Helsinki in 1965, he was invited to sing in Moscow and tour the Soviet Union, and “bring Rock ’n’ Roll to Russia“. He acted in spaghetti westerns in Italy; he sang for Arafat in Lebanon. Eventually, he married an East German actress, moved there and the government was all too happy to be able to present him as their socialist pet American. Until 1986, that is, when he was found dead in a lake near East Berlin.<br />
Nadelson’s book is set to be republished soon by Walker & Company under the title Comrade Rockstar: The Life and Mystery of Dean Reed. It tells an incredible and true Cold War story not even a John le Carre could dream up. (www.deanreed.de)Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-84041971409159791032014-04-16T08:27:00.001-07:002014-04-16T08:27:18.161-07:00The Turns of The Wheel (1998) <br />
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The Turns of The Wheel (Germany, Japan, 1998)<br />
<br />
by Matt Kaufman<br /><br />
A woman preparing dinner is impaled by razor-sharp spaghetti; a man visits a seedy S&M club in Tokyo and hangs pictures of his dead parents on the wall before getting whipped; an old man walks up the stairs to a mysterious bar where the only other customer is missing half his face; A fish with legs runs past a restaurant that serves the best seafood in town. These are just some of the comical, bizarre and disturbing images in The Turns of The Wheel, a 25-minute short film by German director Karl Neubert, a long-term Tokyo resident who currently works as a professor at Temple University Japan. According to Neubert, "This movie is created in the likeness of hankasen, a form of Japanese poetry which is made up of 18 verses in a chain. The spirit of each verse is very close to the idea of an individual haiku." Neubert has an astute understanding of the grotesque imagery, eroticism of Japanese art and the non-linear black humor (sometimes referred to as "nonsense gags") often found in certain types manga and manzai comedy routines, which can be very difficult to translate. A perfect example of this is a scene where a young stranger shows up at the home of a mother and daughter just as they are about to have dinner. They ask him who he is and he simply answers "okyakusan" (guest). At dinner the man silently chews his food in an exaggerated manner that causes the daughter to run from the table in disgust. After dinner he torments the older woman by opening the door several times while she is sitting on the toilet. Neubert assembled a fine cast, including veteran actor Tomorowo Taguchi, and the film has a surreal dreamlike feel that brings to mind the work of David Lynch and Salvador Dali and Japanese experimental filmmakers like Tsukamoto Shinya (Tetsuo) and Terayama Shuji (Emperor Tomato Ketchup). Email the director at tkpk@nifty.com <br />
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Watch some of it here <a href="http://www.behance.net/gallery/The-Turns-of-the-Wheel/1540075" rel="nofollow">http://www.behance.net/gallery/The-Turns-of-the-Wheel/1540075</a>Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-78185610454843182832014-04-16T08:17:00.001-07:002014-04-16T08:17:20.903-07:00Stratosphere Girl (2004) <br />
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Stratosphere Girl (Germany, 2004)<br />
by Matt Kaufman<br /><br />
Angela (Chloe Winkel) is an eighteen-year old Belgian girl living in Germany who meets a handsome Japanese DJ named Yamamoto (Jon Yang) at her high school graduation party. She has a talent for cartooning and longs to see the world and decides to go to Japan on a whim after Yamamoto gives her the address of a Swedish hostess he knows who is working in Tokyo. Angela wakes up in crowded apartment with five beautiful European women who work in an exclusive hostess club for salarymen who favor young blondes. The days of the bubble economy are long over and foreign women are no longer guaranteed ridiculous sums of money for just chatting and flirting with customers. The competition is steep and there is a great deal of animosity towards women who perform sexual favors for money (Russian and Eastern European hostesses are called "babushka sluts").<br />
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Angela may be young and naïve but she also has a very strong resemblance to supermodel Claudia Schiffer and the other women immediately see her youth and voluptuous beauty as a threat to their livelihood. Angela is told that Japanese men enjoy arguing with hostesses since they never argue with their wives and this false "advice" later comes back to haunt her on her first day of work. The cruel hazing ritual, apparently common among foreign hostesses, also has a dangerous element: Angela discovers pieces of glass in her ramen noodles and glue in her shampoo but the other women cannot break her spirit. She's a dreamer who sees these experiences, good and bad, as part of a larger manga-inspired adventure that she is illustrating as it unfolds. Angela soon becomes obsessed with solving the mystery of a missing Polish hostess who used to live in her apartment and she's convinced that the prime suspect is a shady European businessman named Kruilman, expertly played with sinister charm by Flemish actor Filip Peeters. Has Angela solved the mystery or are her observations a series of unrelated "clues" that come from not fully understanding her new surroundings?<br />
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Stratosphere Girl began filming in Tokyo shortly after the disappearance of British hostess Lucy Blackman and many people incorrectly assumed that the film was somehow related to that tragic case. This well-made film by German director/writer M.X. Oberg is a reminder that not everyone who comes to Japan gets to experience the beauty of the country or the warmth of the people. The Japanese DVD is titledトウキョウ アンダーグラウンド (Tokyo Underground). Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-81614712994621531002014-04-16T07:50:00.001-07:002014-04-16T07:50:31.705-07:00The Slanted Screen (2006)<br />
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The Slanted Screen (USA 2006)<br />
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THE SLANTED SCREEN is an informative and entertaining one-hour documentary about Hollywood’s portrayal of Asian-American men in film and television from the silent era to the hit series Lost.<br /><br />
First-time director Jeff Adachi is better known for his day job. He’s the current Public Defender of San Francisco who oversees 23,000 cases a year. (Adachi was the subject of another acclaimed documentary on PBS in 2002 called Presumed Guilty).<br /><br />
The Slanted Screen starts off by re-examining the career of Hayakawa Sessue, whom most people know from his Academy Award- nominated performance as Colonel Saito in The Bridge on The River Kwai (1957), but few people remember that the Chiba-born actor was one of the most popular actors in silent films, a romantic leading-man whose success predated Rudolph Valentino. Hayakawa’s second film, The Cheat (1915), is often cited as an early example of the Asian stereotype in Hollywood, but author and playwright Frank Chin points out that Hayakawa was a pioneer who started the first English-language theater in Little Tokyo in the 1920s, where he directed and starred in his own productions, often portraying characters from many different ethnic backgrounds.<br /><br />
Hayakawa paved the way for other Asian- American actors who later found success in Hollywood. James Shigeta starred in movies such as Bridge To The Sun, Crimson Kimono and Flower Drum Song, but audiences were simply not ready to accept an Asian-American leading man so soon after WWII. The actor, still handsome in his 70s, recalls what a producer once told him decades ago: “If you were white, you’d be a helluva big star.” Academy Award-nominated actor Mako (who passed away earlier this year) recalls meeting with television executives who wanted his input for the 70s TV series Kung Fu. Mako insisted that an Asian actor should be cast in the main role (which went to David Carradine), but was rebuked by a producer who told him,“If we put a yellow man on the tube, the audience would switch off the TV in five minutes.”The actor they rejected for the role was none other than Bruce Lee, who had to go overseas to become an international superstar.<br /><br />
For decades Caucasian actors in yellowface played evil characters like Dr. Fu Manchu or bumbling idiots used for comic relief such Mickey Rooney’s buck-toothed portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961). Many of the actors interviewed spoke of how hurt they felt seeing such blatantly racist caricatures onscreen. Korean-American comedian Bobby Lee (Mad TV) said that his nickname in high school was Donger, the name of the oft-mocked Asian exchange student in the John Hughes film 16 Candles (1985). As a response, Lee developed a very funny character on Mad TV called the Average Asian, which pokes fun at the ignorance of people who still believe the stereotypes. Watch it here: http: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=awmGpTWSw-w).<br /><br />
Although action-stars such as Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-Fat and Jet Li have found mainstream success, there seems to be several unwritten rules about Asians in Hollywood that have become accepted as the norm. Producer Terrence Chang relates that the villains in the Chow Yun Fat thriller The Replacement Killers (1998) were changed from Caucasian to Asian because certain executives felt that audiences did not want to see an Asian hero killing a bunch of white baddies.The onscreen kiss between Jet Li and Aaliyah was cut from Romeo Must Die (2000) after it tested poorly with African- American audiences. Filmmaker Gene Cajayon notes the irony of having a remake of Romeo & Juliet that doesn’t include any romance.<br /><br />
One thing that the actors and filmmakers agree on is that nothing will change in Hollywood unless Asians start writing and producing more films. In the 80s, directors Steven Okazaki (Living On Tokyo Time), Peter Wang (A Great Wall) and Wayne Wang (Chan is Missing) proved that Asian- American filmmakers could work outside the Hollywood studio system. Their work has inspired a whole generation of young filmmakers including Justin Lin (Better Luck Tomorrow), Eric Byler (Charlotte Sometimes), Chris Chan Lee (Yellow) and the aforementioned Gene Cajayon, who directed one of the first Filipino-American films called The Debut. All of these independent films are highly recommended and worth seeking out. For more information, please see www.theslantedscreen.comMatt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203089137606190529.post-39669875440750716672014-04-16T07:39:00.004-07:002014-04-16T07:39:58.948-07:00Milk (1997)<br />
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EDGAR HONETSCHLAEGER IS an Austrian artist/filmmaker who has lived in New York,Tokyo, and Rome. One of his best-known works is entitled 97-(13+1). In 1993, a group of Viennese archi- tects rescued 97 beat up and broken chairs from the streets New York City and shipped them to Vienna. Honetschlaeger selected 14 of the chairs and brought them to Tokyo for a performance-art piece and photography exhibition. After traveling with the chairs for three years, Honetschlaeger brought his objects of art back to New York to meet their original fate: the trash heap.<br /><br />
Honetschlaeger and Tokyo-based author/ translator Leza Lowitz collaborated on a script that would become the director’s first feature,Milk.The film starts off in New York, where a quirky young Austrian artist named Simon (Serge Pinkus) is staying after living in Japan for many years. Simon is a man-child who dresses in a black Japanese high school uniform. He meets an equally strange Japanese woman named Rika (Kudo Yukika, the director’s girlfriend), who invites him to stay with her at the famed Chelsea Hotel. Allowing the film to begin outside of Japan shows that any foreign culture–even a city as “international” as New York – has elements that are just plain baffling. Take the common practice of giving a tip. Simon asks a couple of people on the hotel staff to look for Rika’s beloved teddy bear.They clearly want a tip, but instead of asking for one, they shuffle their feet, cough, and stick their hand halfway out to get the point across. The whole ritual comes across as archaic and ridiculous – so much for American “directness.”<br /><br />
Simon and Rika return to Tokyo, where they struggle with self-identity and alienation in a rapidly changing world. Simon is obsessed with visiting the grave of an obscure courtesan named Choshoin, who was the mother of the fifth shogun. Rika has a much darker side that is slowly revealed. She’s trapped in an unhappy marriage and hates her body for reasons that are hinted at later. Unable to fit in, she takes a job as an elevator girl in a department store, so that she will only have two choices: up or down. Kudo Yukika gives a fantastic performance and without her contribution, Milk would have been a much different film. She’s photogenic to the extreme and can go from giggly-cute to seductive and mysterious just by letting her hair down. She complains that a Western diet, most notably milk, has made her breasts too big and she no longer looks good in a kimono. Milk represents the Westernization of Japan, hence the title.<br /><br />
Simon has a friend named Helen (Sherri Weiner) who intellectualizes everything about Japan, but most of her observations are simply tired clichés such as how the “old Japan” was better. A lot of Western filmmakers and writers present their views on Japan as fact without giving a single Japanese person a voice to respond. In this film, Rika is highly opinionated and often reacts to inane comments by her foreign friends with extreme sarcasm disguised as praise. When Simon compares Tokyo to Disneyland, she compliments him profusely for being “so smart.”<br /><br />
As a director, Honetschlaeger has a very strong visual style. There’s a great scene with Simon in a fast-food restaurant trying to eat an orange while Japanese young men on either side of him take bites of their hamburgers in unison like synchronized swimmers, mocking Western stereotypes of Japanese conformity. In another funny scene, Rika goes to the porno section of a video store and boldly asks a middle- aged customer to recommend a film. The look of embarrassment and shame on the man’s face as he meekly points to a video is priceless – no method actor could ever pull it off.<br /><br />
Upon its release a decade ago, noted film critic Donald Richie praised Milk for its unconventional style and stated,“Honetschlaeger might well have made something like a cult classic.” In many ways, Milk was ahead of its time and pre- dated the recent slew of Hollywood movies set in Japan. Hopefully it will be released on DVD one day. See www.honetschlaeger.com or www.lezalowitz.com for more information.Matt Exilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518244421249402196noreply@blogger.com0