The solemn, intent faces of the Japanese schoolboys playing video games in Jun Ichikawa’s “No Life King” bespeak a new type of modern horror. Addicted to their favorite new game (from which the film takes its title), these children have become seriously estranged from the real world. The film’s constant emphasis is on the ways in which this has been allowed to happen, and on how emblematic it is of larger attitudes in a technological society. When a young boy trying to converse with his mother must compete with a home computer for her attention, it’s not hard to see why the boy has retreated into his own computer-dominated world.
Tag: JAPAN
Never one to shy away from uncomfortable topics, Kei Kumai adapted Shusaku Endo’s 1957 novel The Sea and Poison into one of the most complex studies on film of medical ethics. The movie (sometimes graphically) describes the use of eight downed American fliers as subjects of experimental surgical techniques at Kyushu University’s medical school and hospital in the summer of 1945, in the course of which all eight prisoners were murdered.
A strange, homeless motorcyclist named Kaze who is suffering from amnesia finds himself in a Shinjuku slum with no recollection of who, or where he’s from. Impervious to pain and fear he soon strikes up an odd friendship with Yamazaki, a local mid level yakuza having trouble with rivals over drug territory.
Skyward examines the relationship between man, birds, and the environment at Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary in St. Petersburg, FL. Centering on the growth and development of a family of Canadian geese, and restoring nature’s ecological balance.
Tai Katô’s highly stylised & often-seedy tale of revenge is definitely not for the faint hearted! Five women sexually molest a 16-year-old delivery boy & drive him to suicide. Like Oshima’s Violence at Noon & Imamura’s Vengeance is Mine, this legendary exploitation film portrays the disturbing anatomy of a serial killer. Stars Makoto Satô as the revenge-driven killer who sets out to avenge his friend’s suicide by appointing himself judge, jury & executioner.
Yoshishige Yoshida’s first feature follows the lives of young students against a background of jazz, emptiness and boredom. The plot is fairly simple: a “good-for-nothing” from a poor background falls in love with the young secretary of his rich friend’s father. The woman senses good in him and tries to lead him on the right path.
Yoshishige Yoshida returned to feature filmmaking after a hiatus of thirteen years with this brave and moving film about the struggle to maintain dignity in the face of old age and approaching death. The Human Promise reaffirms Yoshida’s ability to deal with difficult and even taboo topics by exploring the question of euthanasia with a profound sensitivity and subtlety. The film’s unusually frank meditation on death is anchored by the restrained performances by its veteran actors.
Based on Kimio Yanagisawa’s popular manga, Shinj Sômai’s directorial debut perfectly evokes the pain and joy of adolescence in its depiction of a high school boy and girl who end up sharing a house after a real estate agent’s mistake. Several techniques that came to characterize Sômai’s approach to direction, such as long takes and long shots, are already abundantly evident in this film.