I suppose you've been wondering when I was going to write my film reviews as the book reviews have already been posted. Okay, so more than half of the month is over, but it still is May and here they are. The majority of films this time around are Japanese. One Hollywood film, one independent, one from Germany, another from China, and lastly a film from France with a Vietnamese director. In this month's choices, I've discovered a new favorite Japanese film which in my opinion should have been released internationally. Now go and make some popcorn and enjoy the reviews!
アマルフィ ～女神の報酬～ [Amalfi : Megami no Houshu] (2009) - The international English title is [Amalfi : Rewards of the Goddess]. Before this movie debuted at the theaters, it was heavily promoted with an emphasis on it being shot entirely on location in Italy. It stars Yuji Oda (of "Bayside Shakedown" fame) as a diplomat named Kosaku Kuroda, who is sent to Italy to ensure the security of the upcoming G8 summit. While in Rome, a young Japanese woman on vacation, played by Yuki Amami, reports that her child is missing. In fact, her child has been kidnapped. The kidnappers demand a ransom but no cops. However, by Italian law, Kuroda has to inform the local authorities who are not much help is resolving the crisis. But it isn't money that they're really after, it's something else. But you will have to see the movie to find out what happens. Great scenery and a fairly decent story. Although the Japanese media did go a bit overboard with all the special segments in their variety/news programs. The film also features one of Italy's top stars as well, but as I'm an American I couldn't tell you who that would be.
LOLA RENNT (1998) - This is an entertaining movie from Germany and release in the States with the International English title of "Run Lola Run". The movie starts with Lola's boyfriend Manni calling her at home in a panic and says she needs to bring him 100,000 Deutschmarks in twenty minutes or he will be killed. He says he wouldn't be in this predicament if Lola was supposed to be at the arranged place as planned. As a last resort, Manni says he's going to rob the supermarket that he's standing right outside of. Lola tells him to wait and not to do anything rash and she will bring him the equivalent amount of money. Then Lola is off and running. But what makes this film really interesting is that it tells the story in three different ways, all with a different outcome caused by some a minor change in action. Non-stop thrill and a great ending!
RED CLIFF PART 1 (2008) - Against my better judgment, I decided to watch the first part of John Woo's historical Chinese epic. Learning from my past mistake of trying to watch "The Warlords" in its original language, this time I had the DVD set-up to watch it dubbed in Japanese (English dubs and subtitles were unavailable). This features two big Asian stars I'm familiar with - Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro (yes, Kaneshiro also starred in "The Warlords" as well). But to be honest, the first part was long and boring. It was "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" without any action scenes, except for the very beginning. I thought it was the same story as "The Warlords" but found this to be dated even earlier than when "The Warlords" took place. Whereas "The Warlords" took place during the Qing Dynasty, "Red Cliff" takes place at the end of the Han Dynasty which is dated around 208A.D. I imagine all the action takes place in Part Two but it will be a while before I decide to watch it.
南極料理人 [Nankyoku Ryorinin] (2009) - Apparently there was no international release which is such a shame as this is one of the best Japanese movies I've seen to date. The easiest translation of the title would be "South Pole Chef" or "Chef of the South Pole". The story is based on the book written by Jun Nishimura who worked as a chef for the coast guard. He was transferred to Dome Fuji Station in Antarctica which is located on a mountain top at an elevation of 12,500ft and has an average temperature of 50 below. Along with seven other men, the movie depicts their life in one of the world's most extreme environments as the chef tries to make every meal as appetizing as can be using the limited resources available to him. This movie definitely should have played at some International Film Festivals. It's become one of my favorites.
ハイキックガール [High Kick Girl] (2009) - As you know, I like to claim to being an action-movie connoisseur. So when I saw the package and title of this film, it looked pretty promising. Young girl kicking butt - how can you not go wrong? Well, you shouldn't be taken in by the package alone. This was one of the worst, badly acted, poorly choreographed action-movie I've ever seen. It was a cheap version of "The Karate Kid". Wait, I take that back, this flick doesn't even fit in a league with "The Karate Kid". It's as if the director wanted to make a practical karate instructional film. The story is quite lame as well (or pretty standard depending on how you look at it). Brown belt high school girl thinks she deserves to be a black belt but her teacher does not think so. To prove her worth, she seeks out other black belts from different schools and beats them as well. Still her teacher will not make her a black belt (and as well he shouldn't as she hasn't seemed to learn the basic concept of karate, that being self defense and not who's the toughest). However, she is recruited by a gang who run a "kowashiya" - thugs for hire who intimidate and crush businesses for a living. It just so happens that the leader of the kowashiya has a long standing grudge against high kick girls teacher. Girl is used as bait to bring teacher out into the open and blah, blah, blah. In the words of a friend of mine who had this to say about "District 9" - Crap! Crap! Crap!
片腕マシンガール [Kataude Machine Girl] (2008) - If you're a follower of my blog and movie reviews, you know I have a taste for really bad B-movies. This one fits the bill to a tee. The international English title is "The One-Armed Machine Girl" and as you can see on the package, our heroine is a sailor-suited high school girl that has a Gatlin gun attached to her left arm (shades of Robert Rodriguez's "Planet Terror". Ami was a happy-go-lucky school girl who looks after her younger brother. Her parents were labeled as murderers causing them to commit suicide. So when Ami finds that her brother and his friend have been bullied then killed by the son of a Yakuza family she tries to get revenge. Unfortunately, she gets caught and has her arm hacked off in the process. The father of her brother's friend works at a machine shop and builds the gun for her arm. Then Ami goes on gut-spilling, head-lopping, rampage of revenge against all those people who had a hand in her brother's death. Lots of bloods and guts and gore and flying limbs and, and, and...
のだめカンタービレ 最終楽章 前編 [Nodame Cantabile : Saishu Gakusho : Zenpen] (2009) - With the success and popularity of the anime, television drama, and made-for-television movie, the silver-screen version was bound to come along. The title literally translates to "Nodame Cantabile : The Final Movement : Part 1". Thankfully, the movie's storyline picks up where the tv movie leaves off. Noda Megumi or Nodame as her friends call her and Chiaki are still in Europe. Nodame continues to dream of playing the piano while Chiaki conducts. This movie was broadcast on network television the same day Part 2 was released in the theaters. And as I have watched the drama from the very beginning, I had to watch the movie as well. This drama has sparked a renewed interest in classical music as well. But this being part 1, the ending leaves you wanting more. And as Part 2 is not yet available on DVD, I shall have to refrain from expressing my opinion about the film until I've seen the story in its entirety. But, I have been renting more flicks that stars Juri Ueno who plays Nodame - she's so cute. She also starred in the movie I reviewed last month "Killer Virgin Bride" or "The Killer Bride's Perfect Crime" as it was released internationally.
KNOWING (2009) - To reiterate my shortened review that I had written on Facebook - You're better off not "Knowing". Although, a friend did not share my opinion. Lately, there has been a rash of "end of the world" movies, perhaps because of the success of "Armageddon", who knows. There was "2012" and before that there was "The Day the Earth Stood Still", "Deep Impact"...need I go on? Then there are the disaster movies such as "The Day After Tomorrow". Okay, in this flick, which starts out some 50 years previous, a young girl at an elementary school writes a long list of numbers on a plain white sheet which gets buried with the other student's pictures of what they imagine the future would look like fifty years hence in a time-capsule. Shoot forward to the future, where the son of John Koestler (Nicholas Cage) attends the same school that is having a ceremony for the opening of the time capsule. Guess what? The son gets the sheet with all the numbers on it. John thinks it might be some kind of code. And what d'ya know, he breaks the code, it's a message that lists the number of victims of some major disasters along with the location. Uh-huh. The ending was just corny as all heck, but the movie does answer what of life's long-standing debates - that of creation vs. evolution. If you go by this flick, it really was aliens that brought us here!! No God! No Monkeys! Oh, but only the Chosen Ones get to go with the spacemen, which happens to be John's son and some girl. But wait, they're brought back to earth after the disaster (caused by some sun flare, whatever). Adam and Eve? How can they not be as they look upon a large tree that's sprouted in the middle of nowhere - "the Tree of Knowledge"? Of course. I'm sorry, but the build-up to the climax was great but the ending lacked a certain something. Overall, I would say pass on this one.
SWEET RAIN ～死神の制度～ [Sweet Rain : Shinigami no Seido] (2008) - I don't know, I guess I was just on a Takeshi Kaneshiro roll as this is the third film I've rented with him in it. Also released with the international English title of "Sweet Rain" and "The Accuracy of Death" in Canada for some reason but that's beside the point. Unlike the other flicks I rented, Kaneshiro is the star of this film - another "Heaven Can Wait" type of flick. You know the one. Kaneshiro is a shinigami, a God of Death - the Grim Reaper if you like, but doesn't carry a scythe and isn't dressed in a hood to hide his face. As a shinigami he is sent to earth to evaluate his target, is given a week to decide if that person should die or not. This movie was told in three segments with the first one co-starring Manami Konishi (another favorite of mine - she's so darn cute). Anyway, she is the first target but he lets her live. The second episode was just filler and really ruins the flow of the movie. The last episode, the shinigami's target is an old lady. However, we find that the old lady was the young girl (Konishi) that he let live years ago. It's not a bad movie but not something I would recommend.
感染列島 [Kansen Retto] (2009) - This was released internationally with the title "Pandemic". It's like "Outbreak" except instead of one town being affected, the entire country of Japan is infected!! As you can tell from the title, this is movie about virus that's been killing off a major portion of Japan's population. The only difference with other films is that the victims do not return as flesh-eating zombies! Thank heaven for little joys (not that I have anything against zombies mind you). And with the recent outbreaks of SARS or avian flu, it's very timely. Although the scientists and doctors fear that this is another mutation of the avian flu which was spread by some bad eggs from a chicken farm, it starts a panic among the citizens. First the chicken farmer and his family are threatened, then blamed for the pandemic which leads the farmer to suicide. But then it's discovered that this virus was not the avian flu or an offshoot thereof. It is an entirely new virus that nobody has seen to date and it's more damaging then the Ebola virus. In fact, it’s given the name of being the "Satan Virus" - don't you love that? As you watch the movie, you discover the story is set in the near future. More than a third of the population of Japan have died, the streets of Tokyo are barren, and yet the doctors refuse to give up on finding a cure. It's a decent panic movie that might be able to stand on its own against "Outbreak".
I COME WITH THE RAIN (2008) - In the words of my friend who had this to say about what she thought of "District 9" - "Crap! Crap! Crap!" This is so f*&%n' awful I can't believe I managed to watch it all the way through. It had such great promise as it features two of Asia's biggest stars - Byung-hun Lee from Korea and SMAP member (boy idol group) Takuya Kimura, along with Hollywood's Josh Hartnett. What a waste of their talents. My wife said it was crap to begin with if it features Takuya Kimura (which she cannot stand for some reason), even though she does like Byung-hun Lee. OMG, that awful BGM was grating on the nerves as well - it makes you want to rip the director to shreds (I apologize to those of you who are fans of Radiohead). And the story - it sucks as well, it's just crap! crap! crap! How can't believe how crappy this film is. Okay, ex-cop who's now a P.I. (Hartnett) is hired to find the son of some corporate magnate who never shows his face named Shitao (Kimura) who has special powers, (think of the Star Trek episode "The Empath"). Then there is Su Dongpo (Lee) who is a manic mafia boss who goes on a rampage when his girlfriend disappears. Okay and somewhere along the line all three of them are interconnected. Whatever. Had I been aware of the director's other movie, namely "The Scent of Green Papaya" which got rave reviews but I found boring as hell, I would have never rented this piece of dog turd. I nominate this film for a Razzie! Oh, just in case you were wondering, the director's name is Anh Hung Tran. And yes, this was a French movie, directed by a Vietnamese, and starring a Korean, Japanese, and an American. Too bad that international flavor was without taste.
SUNSHINE CLEANING (2008) - To get the bad taste of the previous movie out of my head, I rented this, from the makers of "Little Miss Sunshine". Now, this is how a movie should be made. It should be made to entertain you, not put you through untold agony. As I truly enjoyed "Little Miss Sunshine", I was not disappointed with this flick either. A single mom working for a maid service and having an affair with a police officer is struggling to just get by. Her policeman boyfriend suggests to her that instead of cleaning people's houses, she could make a lot more money cleaning after crime scenes. With absolutely no experience, she dives into the business along with her unreliable younger sister. This is by no means a thriller like "Cleaner" in which the main character also cleans up after crime scenes. This is quite heartwarming even if the subject matter is a bit heavy. Highly recommended.
ヤッタマン [Yattaman] (2009) - Released with the international English title of "Yatterman". This movie is based on the popular anime series of the same name. It also stars popular boy idol member of Arashi - Sho Sakurai with Saki Fukuda who's nemesis the Doronbo gang, with popular actress Kyoko Fukada playing Doronjo. As I'm not too familiar with the anime, I only watched this because it was aired on network television and because Kyoko Fukada looks so sexy in the costume she wears. In fact, the anime itself is pretty risqué with Doronjo and her gang failing in their exploits, only to try again the next episode. I suppose if I was a fan of the anime I may have enjoyed this even more. But hey, you can't go wrong with a film that also features Sadao Abe as well, but my American friends wouldn't know who the heck that is!
のんちゃんのり弁 [Nonchan Noriben] (2009) - There apparently was no international release for this title. I rented it because it stars Manami Konishi, who I mentioned in "Sweet Rain". She's just so darn cute. I must admit that I thought this film was going to be a lot funnier. This is based on a manga by Kiwa Irie which ran in "Morning" magazine from 1995 to 1998 but ended without a proper ending. Anyway, Non-chan has just left her no good husband and has taken their daughter to live with her mother. But now that Non-chan is out of work and raising a child, and not receiving any money from her husband, she must do something to make a living. Non-chan is great at one thing, making nori-ben for her daughter, but that doesn't bring in any income. Meeting up with one of her childhood friend's from the neighborhood who is now a photographer who invites her to come along on a job he has. To change the pictures of a neighborhood izakaya. When Non-chan eats the meal there, she has an epiphany - she wants to become the restaurant's apprentice so one day she can open her own bento shop.
剱岳 ～点の記～ [Tsurugidake : Ten no Ki] (2009) - Released with the international English title of "Mt. Tsurugidake". This is the story of a group of men who climbed Mt. Tsurugidake in 1907 in order to make an accurate map of Japan. What makes this movie is so great is how the director made the film using only equipment that would have been available at the time. However, before making the ascent of Mt. Tsurugidake, the group had to set 28 markers around the mountain to get as accurate a measurement. While the Japanese Imperial Army continue to nag them to be the first to climb the mountain. At the same time, there is a mountaineering expedition also set on being the first to climb Mt. Tsurugidake. Beautiful cinematography.This month (meaning May), I have already watched quite a few films. A music DVD, animation, a couple of action flicks and some really awful B-movies. In fact this month is B-movie month at Chez Ernie's for the simple fact that a friend of mine had just given me about 20 DVDs of low-budget B-movies, and not all of them are from Hollywood (although there is a Troma title in the batch). But you will have to wait for those reviews next month or whenever I finish watching them. I also have a couple of major Hollywood blockbusters to check out to that are sitting around waiting to be watched - "Julie & Julia", "X-Men Origins : Wolverine" and "Year One". Well, I don't know if you would call "Year One" a blockbuster though. And the Japanese film industry made a remake of "Sideways" which I'm looking forward to watching. That's about it, until next time.
Happy Movie Watching!!
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