Hindsight

Viva granted me access to his VCD of Zhang Yimou’s “Hero” so I watched it this evening. It turned out to be a gorgeous film. Fluid fighting (never enough but then again never too much either) and a moving story and soundtrack. The use of slow motion never seems quite overdone – it’s all quite the poetry in motion.

I realized later after doing an imdb.com search that Yimou is responsible for “The Road Home” and “Happy Times” – both are films I’ve been wanting to see.

I just did a double take reading user comments at imdb – someone had the same thoughts and observations that I had while “Hero” progressed: I thought to myself “…Rashomon”.

Rashomon is Akira Kurosawa’s film that was probably recently adapted as a modern tale through Edward Zwick’s “Courage Under Fire”. The same event is told from the three characters involved. Each perspective is different. The same happens similarly in “Hero”.

I suppose after seeing the same, predictable Hollywood movie, seeing recent films like “Solaris” and “Hero” are extremely refreshing and, more importantly, challenging.

While I’m at it, I noticed that imdb lists Wong Kar Wai’s next film, “2046“, as in post-production. I’m curious to see what his next work is – I still need to see “In the Mood for Love”.

It hasn’t stopped with films. I am still addicted to Beck’s “Sea Change” album. Undoubtedly a downer, it’s so beautiful I can’t help but listen to it over and over. Lonesome Tears and Lost Cause are undeniably infectious.

Yesterday when Takashi sensei pulled out a CD to show us I tried to remember why the name on it sounded familiar. George Winston. And then I realized that he was on the Windham Hill records label – publishers of instrumental and piano works.

When I was in junior high school I used to listen to 94.7 on the FM dial. At the time it was simply called “The Wave” and they played new age and ambient music. Although I was 13, some of my friends could not understand why I liked instrumental and new age music so much. They just thought I was weird.

Years later they re-themed the station to play “smooth jazz”. I didn’t listen to the station anymore.

My first memory of seeing Takeshi Kaneshiro was his role in Wong Kar Wai’s “Chungking Express” and “Fallen Angels”. On another occasion I saw him in some experimental, episodic Hong Kong film. I always enjoy Kaneshiro’s performances.

Last September when I first arrived in Japan I noticed a poster for “Returner“. I was willing to fork over the major cash to watch it on the big screen, but I didn’t really know anyone who was willing to plunk down the usual fifteen dollars. Students heard of it but the 3-nensei thought I was kidding.

This week, Fuji-kun at Tahara JHS lent me his personaly copy, the 2-disc special edition. I finally got around to sitting with it tonight – no Yakyuudori (I’ve had my fill for the week).

“Returner” is stylish with fairly two-dimensional characters, but is entertaining and fun-cheese. In other words, it’s like watching a comic book or piece of manga come alive.

The title is not so much about our protagonist Miyamoto (Takeshi Kaneshiro) but more about Milly (Ann Suzuki), who is sent from the future to save the earth from pending, extra-terrestrial doom. It doesn’t sound original, but that really isn’t the point to critique here. My point was to enjoy the film after a week of too much yakitori and surprise classes. And I had a good time watching. The characters are likeable, there’s a good bit of humor and the antagonist of the film, Mizoguchi, is like watching an anime villain come to life. It’s wonderful.

“Returner” was the perfect movie to watch this evening. After the burn of “Tokyo Sora” and “Bounce Ko Gals”, I found this flick to be a fun romp. I sat around to load up the 2nd disc, which was of course the extras DVD. From what I could gather, the original title of the film was “Buddy” and was later changed to “Juvenile NEXT” – director Takashi Yamazaki’s first feature was titled Juvenile and had similar themes.

I read the user comments for the film over at IMDb and I do have to say this: compared to other Japanese cinema I have seen, something like “Returner” is good fun/value in their ranks. In addition, what’s original anymore really and why compare foreign films to Hollywood all the time?

People rant on about how “Returner” copies the Matrix. True with some visual effects sequences, but aspects of the Matrix copied from Japanese animation. Timing and lots of extra money gave the Wachowski’s the edge to do “bullet time” first and do it well. I’m sure several thousand people were thinking about it in their own stories beforehand.

Fuji-kun is responsible over the past year for letting me borrow two anime features in addition to this weeks item: “Patlabor the Movie 2″ and “WXIII: Patlabor the Movie 3″. Though not subtitled, I watched them also for aesthetics (director Mamoru Oshii always manages to arrest me in his films’ visuals). Thankfully, “Returner” featured english subtitles.

Last month I told Fuji that I was going back to the U.S. I asked him right afterward why he was sad about it. That is, there will be another ALT after me after all.

He told me that we shared the same interests. It also got pretty neat – Fuji-kun lends me “Patlabor the Movie 2″ and I turn out to love the music, thus burning him a copy of the movie’s soundtrack that I would later buy. Same for “Patlabor the Movie 3″. Maybe he’ll get a copy of the soundtrack for “Returner” too.

In any case, Thursday was good. Redeeming entertainment, an actually-decent 3-nensei class today and time to rest up.

With a few hours extra of sleep and a “late” wake up time of 10pm, I spent the day doing little, save for watching two films on DVD. “tokyo.sora” and “Bounce Ko Gals”.

Tokyo Sora revolves around six women and their desire for relationship and connection.

Bounce Ko Gals is the story of a high school graduate who is robbed and must get her money back in one night to leave Japan.

Both films are, for lack of a better phrase, all over the place. “Sora” is too slow and “Bounce” cannot be taken seriously. It’s a sad thing because I was hoping to find some gratification from at least one of these features. I wasn’t able to sit still for both – instead I found myself leaving to the kitchen to keep from being hungry.

I think part of it has to do with the subtitling as well – the subs for “Bounce” were so rough that I spent half the time not watching, but figuring them out based on context.

For “Bounce”, the nice surprise was seeing Koji Yakusho, the lead actor in Masayuki Suo’s “Shall We Dance?”, which is one of my favorite Japanese films. In addition to his acting, Hitomi Sato also does a good performance.

While I was able to see these two in a good light throughout “Bounce”, the film’s rough cinematography and inconsistent editing gave me headaches.

With a few hours before the evening is over I’ll have to plug in to something that will make me feel like I didn’t waste my Saturday. Like I said, I’d hoped to enjoy both films. Instead I feel lost thinking about them.