Friday, July 13, 2007
Toilet Break
Taking a rest from the blog to start/work on/finish other projects including the second part of the Kurokawa Kisho video (see my July 3 entry), a cover story I've been commissioned to write about "J-horror" (it's not dead, it's undead) for a Japan-based magazine, and translations for FILMeX (can't reveal who the Japanese retrospective is on yet, but war was a recurring theme in his filmography), among other things.
Speaking of J-horror, there's some interesting promotion in the lead up to Shochiku's Densen Uta (『伝染歌』) in one of Tokyo's most fashionable districts...in its toilets to be exact.
Certain bogs in Shibuya department stores, boutiques and cafés will have QR codes printed in strategic lavatory locations, including on the toilet paper itself (Ikebukuro Parco pictured), so people can access mobile contents for the film such as gory images, video clips and ringtones (natch, the movie is about a killer song). The malicious melody can also be heard when you press the button next to the bowl that emits the sound of flowing water (is Japan the only country in the world with these electronic boxes?).
8 comments:
I think the idea is that Japanese people (in my personal experience, maybe only girls) think it's rude to let other people hear the sounds of them emitting bodily waste, so they block it with said button.
Actually, in some cases, I think I would like these buttons in the man's bathrooms in the States too.
Yes, that's how it works.
The karaoke angle you mentioned is also interesting. Especially since that market is on a serious downward slide here.
We've had killer video tapes, keitais, water, notebooks...They had to come up with something new.
"Densen Uta" looks great... FOR ME TO POOP ON!
Well, for the more sophisticated horror fan, Shochiku also has Kaidan on offer next month.
I was told today that the rakugo it's based on shares some similar elements to Tôkaidô Yotsuya Kaidan, but the melodramatic love story is more front and center.
Actually, I didn't realize Nakagawa Nobuo did a film based on the same rakugo entitled Kaidan Kasane Ga Fuchi, (it wasn't one of the films at the FILMeX/HKIFF retrospective two years ago).
it's worth remembering the perspective of the western fans and how j-horror has been piled on us without going beyond the relatively typical across-the-board interest in certain key films... apparently, and you could talk to them about this, tartan is trying to move on from the stuff as they regard it as having peeked - i've not seen it become so lauded as to be regarded as having done such a thing, it's generally safer to say it's been popular with rental chains and more unsuspecting audiences who've also now seemingly tired of it.
i say it's not the genre that's the issue, it's the portrayal of it, the level of understanding of it, which stops people continuing to appreciate something for which all intense and purposes there can't be an end, because it's a tradition-based genre which will go through it's most natural cycle of interest coming and going at the hands of the primary audience.
it would be a shame to miss on a great j-horror film (despite the downfall in interest in the west) like 'rinne' (reincarnation, by shimizu) as it's a perfectly good twisy turny zombie-filled smartish pop variation on a theme.
logboy
My feeling on the whole J-Horror thing is pretty simple: the budgets don't have to be big, but the production companies need to take a chance on new talent who are not afraid of charting new territory-- the haunted whatever (cell phone, video, staircase, onigiri) is SO over.
The best Japanese horror that I've seen recently? The HAGANE (STEEL) entry in KOWAI ONNA. The other two entries in the film are meh... but that short is amazing. In fact, I'd recommend renting the film and skipping the other sections and just watching it. It's that good.
Why is it good? Because it's a wild story that's very well executed. It's a long way away from the haunted whatever and the stringy haired girls-- and that's a good thing.
(For the record, I didn't really like RINNE that much... I found it to be more of the same: boring. But I did like MAREBITO because that was unconventional-- more Lovecraft-- I felt.)
Haunted onigiri...I like that.
A foreign labourer at a food processing plant on the outskirts of Tokyo discovers his factory is using substandard ingredients, imported from the country where his father was killed in a bloody religious war many years ago. Before he can blow the whistle, he's murdered by the plant's greedy owner, but it's too late...The worker has placed an ancient, fatal curse on thousands of onigiri about to be shipped to branches of the largest combini chain in the country.
Some of you might get interested
Aceface.
【『ABC ブックフェス2007』のトークイベント】
蓮實重彦とことん日本映画を語るスペシャル
Vol.18 「日本の幽霊Part.2」
■2007年8月18日（土）13:30～15:30（開場13：00～）
■会場：東京ウイメンズプラザホール
（青山ブックセンター本店隣）
■定員：200名様
■入場料：1,500円（税込）
青山ブックセンター都内6店舗におきまして前売券を販売いたします。
■前売り券発売開始日：2007年7月20日（金）10：00～
■お問い合わせ電話：青山ブックセンター本店 03-5485-5511
■お問い合わせ受付時間： 10：00～22：00
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