Until Next Year...

Just a quick note to say I'm taking a break from the blog until sometime in January.



I posted 130 entries this year which averages out to approximately one post every 2.8 days. I stuck to my plan of focusing on content rather than things like box office -- I was glad to shine a light on films and filmmakers, as well as offering up some of my own creations. The profile of the blog increased a fair amount, with visitors from a much wider variety of countries.

Unfortunately it was a sad year family-wise. On the bright side, 2008 is already shaping up to be a banner edition.

So, to my regular visitors and those dropping in for the first time, enjoy the rest of 2007 however you may celebrate it. The picture at left is of Mode Gakuen art and design school's Cocoon Tower in Nishi-Shinjuku, adorned with lights in the shape of a Christmas tree. Only 11 months ago it wasn't much more than a hole in the ground. Tokyo never stops morphing...



日本の皆様、良い御正月をお過ごしください。

Until next year!

4.5 Tatami Mat Room of Dreams

On the heels of Miki Satoshi's indie hit Adrift in Tokyo (see my Nov. 12 entry) being given an extended theatrical run comes another idiosyncratic comedy from distributor Stylejam with Fine, Totally Fine (Zenzen Daijôbu, 『全然大丈夫』). I saw a screening of the film the other day ahead of its late January release at Shibuya's Cine Quinto (to be followed by other dates across the country) so I thought I'd share a few thoughts.

First, Ryuganji has interesting background skinny on director Fujita Yôsuke (藤田容介監督), star Arakawa Yoshiyoshi, as well as the latex creatures that appear in the film.

If you've ever been to Tokyo's Kanda or Jimbochô districts, or along pretty much any aging shôtengai then you've seen old furuhonya (used book shops) with never more than one or two dawdling customers and you wonder "How do they pay the bills?" That's the world of Fine, Totally Fine, where Teruo (Arakawa) works part-time as he dreams of building the most horrific haunted house ever made, practicing his scares on friends and little kids alike. His buddy Hisanobu (Okada Yoshinori) has a real job in a hospital's administration department, but still begrudgingly takes part in Teruo's fright experiments. They're both approaching thirty, unmarried and still basically doing what they did as kids.

At first I couldn't buy lovely Kimura Yoshino as a chronically fumbling, chikuwa-gobbling geek who gets hired and then fired at the hospital. But as the movie progressed I did believe that there could exist a person clumsy enough to snap their finger while pressing an elevator button. It's not as much of a transformation as Cameron Diaz in Being John Malkovich, for example, but it's a stark contrast to her over the top sexuality in Sukiyaki Western Django (see my Sept. 16 entry). Though it takes over an hour for the three main characters to actually hook up at the bookshop, which is too long in any screenwriting book.

For Eguchi Noriko fans (Tom you know who you are), she plays Okada's jealous co-worker at the hospital. Also good to see veteran Nikkatsu actor Kanie Keizô as Teruo's depressed dad.

Co-produced by Tohokushinsha, Stylejam and Pony Canyon, Fine, Totally Fine is a colourful little film with a lot of care put into the look of the characters and the production design. The aforementioned creatures and gore gags that populate Teruo's room are funny becuase they're so meticulously made. There are also some fantastic old school mock Daiei/Toho-style horror posters on his walls which were designed by the people at Viemo, who also do the Tokyo FILMeX posters.

There's a good supply of visual gags and dialogue yuks throughout, but overall I didn't find it as memorable as Adrift in Tokyo. But it's a matter of taste really -- I prefer stories about non-sexual romance between men than hormone-driven love between men and women.

I've lived in my share of fusty, musty tatami rooms and the movie really captures that feeling of lying on your futon imagining great things while it pisses rain outside. Kimura's character even has an old TDK cassette tape of rain sounds she plays. I'll keep my dry modern apartment, thanks, but I like this trend of depicting a much slower, less materialistic side of Tokyo that doesn't often get seen overseas.

Like a bad gag at a haunted house, I'm pretty sure this film will pop up at your favourite Asian/Japanese film festivals, wherever you might be dreaming.

Podcast: Set Visit to Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Tokyo Sonata

I recently mentioned that Kurosawa Kiyoshi's latest film, Tokyo Sonata is now in production. I had a chance to visit the set at Nikkatsu Studios the other day and took along my iPod recorder, so I put together a little podcast. Everything is explained within.

Jason Gray Podcast, December 2007: Set Visit to Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Tokyo Sonata (stereo mp3 file, 14:41, 9.4MB)

You can also subscribe to the podcast's feed in iTunes. Just right click or ctrl-click on this link, copy it and go to the "Advanced" menu in iTunes where you can subscribe. I've had a bit of trouble with this myself -- let me know if it works.

By the way, the song is "There's A Ghost In My House" by R. Dean Taylor, a very talented Canadian musician who went to work in Motown in the 60s.

You can read previous entries that mention Tokyo Sonata here.

Japanese media reports Chinese media reports Sammo Hung has died...

I was shocked to read this news on Yahoo! Japan yesterday regarding the sudden death of famed Hong Kong actor Sammo Hung Kam-bo (official site, wikipedia entry). The article was syndicated from Japanese-language Chinese news site Record China (original article here).

It hasn't been reported anywhere else on the internet as far as I can tell, and the Chinese-language HK media apparently didn't pick up the story, although the information supposedly came from someone high up at Emperor Entertainment. It states that Hung died suddenly on the night of the 8th.

Also in the article, the famed martial arts star's oldest son (Timmy Hung Tin-ming) refutes the claims, saying that his father is in the middle of filming a new Shaolin-set drama.

It was followed today by this article, which they categorize as a 「横顔」(profile) rather than a 「訃報」(obituary), but other than not mentioning a date of death it sure reads like the latter.

What the hell kind of reporting is this? As a long time fan of Sammo, I hope it's not true. Does anybody on the ground in China or HK know more about this?

Update: Good news. Grady over at Kaiju Shakedown posted an update saying that Sammo Hung is alive and pissed. Someone somewhere is going to get clobbered SPL-style.

Official Site for Miyazaki's Ponyo on a Cliff Open

Just a quick note for Studio Ghibli/Miyazaki fans -- there might be a few of you out there -- the official site for Ponyo on a Cliff (Gake no ue no ponyo, 『崖の上のポニョ』) is now open. Check it out here (Japanese only). They'll be adding content in the coming weeks.

Related Links

Wikipedia entry
Anime News Network entry
English coverage of the Dec. 4 press conference regarding the film's soundtrack

Ian Curtis and Will Smith walk into a bar...

I had been waiting to see the film Control since it premiered in Cannes, so I was very glad to see a press screening of it last night at Imagica. It exceeded my expectations, with fantastic b&w imagery (no surprise, considering the director), naturalistic acting and of course the music of Joy Division. The recreations of the concerts and TV appearances are phenomenal. But more than a music film, it's a heart-wrenching depiction of a man who married too young, became emotionally mired between two women and was gripped with fear about his worsening medical condition (epilepsy).

The film is distributed by up-and-comer Stylejam, who are doing well with their in-house productions such as Adrift In Tokyo (see my Nov. 12 entry) and Sad Vacation (see my Sept. 2 entry) as well as their acquisitions. Control just added five BIFA awards to its pile.

Those in Tokyo will be able to see Control at Shibuya's famed Cinema Rise next spring, followed by screenings at other theaters around Japan. I feel a bit guilty for not having been to Cinema Rise for years. I have good memories of seeing Buffalo '66 there in '98 as my first Tokyo art house outing.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I was surprised to see key Japanese involvement in the credits -- Ishii Akira (石井晃) as executive producer, eclectic investor Iseki Satoru (井関惺) and Fukasawa Megumi (深沢恵) as co-producers.

Last night's sobering cinema experience was contrasted by today's flashbulb city press conference at the Grand Hyatt for I Am Legend. Will Smith made jokes throughout and had the whole room laughing. Some photographer fell asleep and Smith comically berated him. He then walked right off the stage and took a photo with the guy, pretending to be asleep himself. I got some okay pictures (see one above) but I need a longer lens.

Maybe the two films aren't that far apart after all. Both deal with one man's isolation -- Ian Curtis (played by Sam Riley) with his bag slung over his shoulder, Smith with an automatic rifle over his...Whose records would you play if you were the last person on earth?

Nouvelle Tsunami

I wrote a comment in the previous posting and decided it deserved to be reworked into its own blog entry.

I, and many others, have mentioned the increased involvement of foreign filmmakers and writers in Japanese films as of late. There have been many one-off ventures, big and small: Lost In Translation, The Last Samurai, Letters From Iwo Jima to name some recent examples.

There are foreign writers with scripts being helmed by Japanese directors: Eric Heisserer's based-on-a-true-story homicide script Inhuman is to be directed by Nakata Hideo and Max Mannix's Tokyo Sonata (see HAF project profile) is getting the deluxe Kurosawa Kiyoshi treatment, going before cameras this week (hope to report on that soon).

As you know, there are also a select few directors like John Williams (who runs his own production company 100 Meter Films) and Michael Arias who are longtime residents making films in Japanese. All three categories look to expand.

Within that, Nouvelle Tsunami refers to the growing wave of French directors who are coming over to make movies. The cultural bonds between France and Japan obviously run very deep, especially through fashion (Louis Vuitton, anyone?), cinema and manga.

Here are some of the latest projects:

Three-segment omnibus film Tokyo! (see Twitch article and Japanese official site) features two segments by French directors Michel Gondry and Leos Carax, in addition to star Korean director Bong Joon-ho. Carax's just wrapped shooting -- look for Tom Mes as an extra (production company Bitters End put out calls for bodies for all three shorts).


Regular reader Aceface mentioned that veteran French director Barbet Schroeder (born in Tehran?) is in pre-production on an adaptation of Edogawa Rampo's "Blind Beast," with location work here in Japan. It'll be hard to top Masumura's version, but he's welcome to try. Edit: Tokyograph informs us it's actually　Rampo's "Injû" / 『陰獣』 not "Môjû" / 『盲獣』 that Schroeder is making. There's some interesting facts about it in this October interview. Aceface provides recent Japanese link here. It will star Harada Kana (原田佳奈) from Babel, who's a rare case of an actress telling directors at home and abroad to cast her. Looks like it worked.

Then there's Japanophile Jean-Pierre Limosin's Young Yakuza (see here) documentary. I know there are some reviews out there, but has anybody seen this?

French filmmaker Yves Montmayeur told me he's going to shoot a documentary on the history of yakuza movies. His previous topics include Christopher Doyle, Korean cinema and Miike.

Finally, l'enfant terrible of French cinema Gaspar Noé (born in Argentina)is now shooting his long gestating project Enter the Void. The project started life in the late 90s and is finally before cameras in Tokyo. I found a translation of a blurb that appeared in the French ed. Premiere magazine: "After 5 years away from the screen, Gaspar Noé the director of Irreversible is awaited at the beginning of September in Japan to shoot Enter the Void. For the moment, the plot is still confused: it is known that it will be a very freely adaption of "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" and that it will be focused on drugs trafficking. Noé considers the film "really psychedelic, beyond reality - like Ken Russell- and "Jacob's Ladder". The team and the production are ready, but there's a continuous problem: the casting is still not defined!" There is also a French-language site with a dedicated news page for the film.

Anything I'm missing? Let us know.

À votre santé!