The debate begins - Will Takeshi Kitano make a sequel to "Outrage"? We say no

by Chris MaGee

Here goes the rumour mill again... It all started with a veteran Japanese film blogger Don Brown (a.k.a Ryuganji tweeting Twitch picked up the rumour and started to speculate the chances of Kitano bringing his latest yakuza romp back to the screen. Apparently Yahoo Japan and Sankei Sports had run similar reports, but then had yanked them froim their websites. I think that move is our our best evidence that the 63-year-old Kitano will not be making an "Outrage" sequel.

Todd Brown at Twitch made a very good point that the same rumours occurred after Kitano's 2003 franchise reboot "Zatoichi" did very decent business at the Japanese box office. Add to that that Kitano continued to support the platinum blonde dye job that he used for his Zatoichi character for a couple of years afterwards and the Japanese media wouldn't let go of the possibility that he'd play Zatoichi in a sequel. In actual fact Kitano had moved on and the blonde hairdo made an appearance in his next film "Takeshis'". Now we have "Outrage" which did very impressive box office for a Takeshi Kitano film, films that normally come and go without ever cracking the Japanese box office top ten. "Outrage" hung in there in the top ten for a month though, which I think is fueling this rumour.

I don't have any inside information on this at all, so my opinion is based on just as much speculation as everyone else's, but I'd say that the biggest reason that Kitano won't make another "Outrage" is the very fact it was such a huge success. Kitano has been quoted many times saying that his films are mainly financed with his own money, while his income from his dozens of TV appearances, newspaper columns, endorsement deals, etc., is kept separate. While I do think that Kitano's much reviled deconstrunctive trilogy of "Takeshis'", "Glory to the Filmmmaker" and "Achilles and the Tortoise" must have definitely put a deep dent into Kitano's wallet "Outrage", despite the mixed reaction it received on the festival circuit, would have remedied that. For that reason alone Kitano doesn't need to make another "Outrage".

It's true that since Kitano's 1997 film "Hana-bi" won the Golden Lion at that year's Venice Film Festival that Kitano has hoped that he'd add some more trophy hardware to his mantle and that it's more than likely affcted his directorial choices. That being said Kitano isn't a filmmaker that hungers for public approval, especially from Japanese movie-goers, a group that has always run more cold than hot on his feature films. At the end of the day I believe that there's simply no reason for Kitano to go back to make a sequel to "Outrage". The chances of that are similar to him making a sequel to "Kikujiro" or "Sonatine"... although Kitano's character would have to come back from the dead. A yakuza ghost story...? Now that might be interesting...

High and Low through Chris Rocks eyes?

by Matthew Hardstaff

Here's a bit of weird and interesting news from comingsoon.net. Whilst we've reported on the impending remake of Kurosawa's classic 'High and Low' back in 2008, that was when it involved Scorcese, Mike Nichols and David Mamet, a team you'd think would be able to put together a solid film. However, it now seems none other than Chris Rock will now be writing the script, or re-writing Mamet's script. Either way, its going to be a Rock infused Kurosawa remake.

This will be Chris Rocks 4th remake, having already remade Eric Rohmer's 'L'Amour l'après-midi' as 'I Think I Love My Wife' and 'Death at a Funeral' as well, 'Death at a Funeral'. He's also optioned Lucien Jean-Baptistes 'Premiere Etoile'. He seems to be on a remake foreign films for American audiences kick, but I ain't really sure how this ones going to pan out. Instead of the tense, seething drama that is 'High and Low', will we be blessed, or not so blessed, with two actors yelling at each other in that oh so not very funny Chris Rock way? Granted, I haven't seen 'I Think I Love My Wife', nor have any intention of seeing 'Death at a Funeral' when I can watch the more than likely far superior original, but I don't imagine its going to have the same amount of wit and moral tension that Kurosawa infused into the original.

However, I could be wrong. It's supposed to be directed by Mike Nichols after all, with Scorsese lending a guiding hand, but we've had a lazy Scorsese his last few outings, and a remake is really the laziest form of filmmaking there is, so, could this be another lazy effort? And will they go back to Evan Hunters novel 'King's Ransom' as source material?

Another Hollywood remake of "Godzilla" stomping our way? Good idea or bad?

by Chris MaGee

Yesterday word spread like wildfire online about how Burbank, California-based production company Legendary Pictures has bought the rights from Toho to produce a new U.S. remake (reboot, re-imagining, what have you) of "Godzilla". Toho "retired" the king of all kaiju monsters after Ryuhei Kitamura's 2004 film "Godzilla: Final Wars" (above), but now it looks as if this new remake will continue the franchise. This news has almost immediately divided folks into the "for" and "against" camps, but I thought I'd try and weigh in with a an opinion that falls somewhere in the middle.

It's always hard for me to divorce Godzilla the character from the monster that appeared in Ishiro Honda's brilliant 1954 original "Gojira". Despite the obvious limitations of the special effects in Japan circa '54 "Gojira" is not only entertaining but a massive piece of cinema catharsis that only two years after the U.S. Occupation finally allowed the Japanese to work through the horrors they had experienced during WW2, albeit through the use of science fiction metaphor. Godzilla as A-bomb was an ingenious creation, but as the franchise continued at Toho this initial post-war message quickly gave way to sheer entertainment and eventually sheer kitsch.

It was the fact that for many, many years Toho's intention was to simply get ticket buyers into movie theatres and wow them with giant monster fights that made the 1998 Roland Emmerich Hollowood remake of "Godzilla" (at least for me) a little more palatable. Not that it was a good film, far from it, but it had been 44-years since the character of Godzilla had done anything but simply entertain with his marauding adventures.

So, now we are looking at another Hollywood remake (reboot, re-imagining) of this classic character, but is this a good thing? Frankly, with the state of mainstream Japanese films in the past few years, I wouldn't have been that happy had I heard it was Toho themselves who were bringing Godzilla back to the big screen. With Legendary Pictures being the folks behind the about to be released "Clash of the Titans" remake we can at least expect above average CGI effects in this new "Godzilla"... Hell, it may even be in 3D. The problem I have is this whole "remake" thing.

In the past few months James Cameron's "Avatar" showed major studios that an original story can be married up with cutting edge special effects to create a huge money-maker at the box office. Okay, let me clarify - an "original" story that's not a remake, reboot, etc. of a tried and true film or franchise. Yes, I am aware of the similarities between "Avatar" and "Dances with Wolves". Nothing that new under the sun I guess. Still, "Avatar" wasn't a remake, and I'd hope on some level that its success would "reboot" Hollywood creativity and get their writers creating new story ideas as opposed to giving "Godzilla" yet another CGI make over.

In the end I think that despite the characters noble origins Godzilla is meant to entertain. If it's the Japanese or the Americans who want to entertain us with him, then so be it. I just wish someone would finally start telling us new stories.

Nod to Twitch for being one of tyhe first to jump on this news.

Shinsedai Cinema Festival wrap up

by Chris MaGee

If you're a regular reader of the J-Film Pow-Wow blog you'll know that I've spent a solid four months planning and programming a new film festival here in Toronto, the Shinsedai Cinema Festival, hosted by the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre. It's been nearly an all consuming task and it's often been a struggle to balance out my day job, the Pow-Wow blog and getting Shinsedai off the ground in what many people are telling me was record time. Of course I had help in the task from Midnight Eye co-founder, film curator, and author Jasper Sharp, as well as Executive Director of the JCCC, James Heron and his wonderful staff. Still the end of the fest this past Sunday has left me exhausted but immensely satisfied that we got to introduce so many new and independent filmmakers to Toronto film audiences.

When I thought of doing a wrap up of Shinsedai here on the Pow-Wow I thought it would be easy, like covering any festival that I've attended, but in actual fact it's very difficult because when you're working so long and so hard behind the scenes it makes it very hard to be objective about the end festival experience. That was the main reason why I had Pow-Wow book reviewer and now film reviewer Eric Evans handle the Day 2 and Day 3 coverage . He did a fantastic job giving all of you a feel of what Shinsedai was about and how it played out. And of course we can't forget Marc Saint-Cyr who helped with the daily news items (Thanks, Marc!)

For my part I don't have as much juicy inside information as you might think. I do, on the other hand, have really fond memories of being able to spend time with filmmakers like the gentle, but wickedly smart Yasutomo Chikuma, director of "Now, I...", The quiet Touru Hano, writer and director of "Thunderfish" whose polar opposite and cinematic "brother" Tetsuhiro Kato, who shot the film, was a joy to spend time with. How many people do you know who have spent four months traveling around the world on a boat?! I was smitten by artist and animator Akino Kondoh's sincere and and thoughtful manner, bedazzled by our "poster girl" and star of "Thunderfish", Junko Kimoto (above), awed by the filmmaking talent of Yoshiro Ito, director of "Vortex and Others" and was deeply touched by producer Atsuko Ohno, of "Peaches!", and her sincere thanks of being a part of Shinsedai. I honestly do feel like I've made friends with all our guests.

Now that we're all back to daily life I want to let all of you know that I'm recommitting myself to the Pow-Wow blog. Overwork and fatigue has caused our daily coverage to suffer just a bit and for that I apologize, but the blog will be getting back to normal shortly... well at least for a few months. At the end of the inaugural year of the Shinsedai Cinema Festival what I can tell you is that we'll be back... in fact keep checking back for dates for Shinsedai 2010. We're here and we plan to stay!

Last, but by no means least I want to tip my hat to Maki, Yuki, Derek, Masayo, Polly, Trista , our very own Matt Hardstaff who kept things humming in the projection booth, and all the volunteers and hosts who made the very first Shinsedai Cinema Festival such a joy to work on.

We'll see you next year, Toronto!

Yusaku Matsuda 20th Memorial DVD set being released... without English subs?!

by Chris MaGee

Okay, consider this story an open letter to North American distributors like Funimation, Viz Pictures, but especially AnimEigo. All you AnimEigo folks do such a wonderful job bringing lesser known Japanese classics to DVD (I have your discs of Kon Ichikawa's "Revenge of a Kabuki Actor" and "47 Ronin", as well as Hideo Gosha's "The Geisha" on my shelf as I type this) and you're making history by bringing out the first four films in the mammoth Tora-san series this November. You're releasing films that have defined Japanese pop culture for the past four decades, films that most North American audiences either haven't heard of or have only had a vague knowledge before they picked up an AnimEigo release. So, here's just a heads up as to which Japanese pop culture icon you should bring onto your roster next: Yusaku Matsuda.

While tons of people have heard of such Japanese tough guy actors like Ken Takakura and Sonny Chiba there are still quite a few who haven't heard of Matsuda. Not sure how, he's the father of current superstar Ryuhei Matsuda, so most people would have heard his name before even if just as a footnote. Over his 17-year career he starred in two dozen films and TV series and redefined cool with his rockstar looks and no nonsense persona. Sadly his life and career were cut short in 1989 after he lost his battle with bladder cancer. It was really too bad because he'd just starred opposite Ken Takakura and Michael Douglas in Ridley Scott's "Black Rain", a film that was supposed to be his breakout North American debut.

It's been 20 years since Matsuda passed away and now according to Asian Blueray Guide Kadokawa Entertainment is prepping to releasing a four-disc DVD box set to commemorate the actor. Included in the set are "The Resurrection of the Golden Wolf (Yomigaeru Kinro)", "The Beast to Die (Yaju Shisubeshi)", "Proof of the Man (Ningen no Shomei)" and "Detective Story (Tantei Monogatari)", all great films, but as I write this these are onlty available (in Toronto at least) on sub par Chinatown bootleg discs. What a shame! What's really sad is that the Kadokawa box set is coming with no, I repeat no, English subs (?!?!)

So, AnimEigo (or Funimation, or Viz Pictures) please... chase after Kadokawa Entertainment, do what you need to do and make Yusaku Matsuda's films available here in North America. The fans will definitely thank you. Oh, and while we're at it... maybe a Yusaku Matsuda CD? Check out the star belting out "Yokohama Honky Tonk Blues" below to see what I mean.

JAPANESE CINEMA BLOGATHON: Japanese filmmakers who inspire me

by Chris MaGee

The first question that people ask me when they hear that I write about Japanese film is, "Who are your favorite Japanese directors?" It's a logical question, but it's one that I find always has me freezing in mid-conversation. With the full variety and scope of Japanese cinema it's hard to winnow down to a handful of directors and sometimes I find myself relying on the stable of old standbys: Yasujiro Ozu, Takeshi Kitano, Shohei Imamura, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Kaneto Shindo, and of course Akira Kurosawa. When I answer like this I always feel as if I'm cheating, though. Not that these men haven't made some of my very favorite films of all time, but, like so many Japanese film fans, these were the filmmakers that lit the initial fire, but over the years it was a new batch of filmmakers that have fanned it and kept it roaring. So when I was asked by the folks at Wildgrounds to come up with a piece that would introduce people to unknown or unappreciated filmmakers I thought it was the perfect time to give the kind of answer to "Who are your favorite Japanese directors?" that I wish I had always given.

I figure that it's best to start with names people will most likely know and then work down to the more obscure. I'd be afraid that approaching this from the other way around would make me sound like a pretentious bore. One filmmaker who already has a huge fan base, but who was in jeopardy of drifting into obscurity is Toshiaki Toyoda. The 40-year-old former chess prodigy made a shift to film in the 90's penning screenplays for the films "Checkmate" and "Billiken", but it wasn't until later that decade that he made his directorial debut with 1998's "Pornostar", a dark revisionist "Man With No Name" Western set in Tokyo's Shibuya district. The film, although wildly uneven, had all the elements that would one day define his filmography: fully-rounded and often eccentric criminal characters grouped together into a surrogate family, chilling scenes of violence, hints of magical realism, and the use of music to drive scenes forward. Toyoda would hone these elements through his next two films, 2001's "Blue Spring" about a group of delinquents who've taken over a high school, and 2003's "9 Souls" that followed a group of nine escaped convicts as they searched for redemption. By 2005 Toyoda was flowering into full maturity with his take on the domestic drama "Hanging Garden", but an arrest and subsequent conviction for possession of illegal stimulants had him nearly permanently blacklisted from the Japanese film industry. Thankfully he's making a return with a new project, the period adventure "Blood of Rebirth".

Another filmmaker who I think is criminally overlooked is Akira Ogata, especially because I feel his films have the potential to become classics if they were seen more often. The 50-year-old Saga Prefecture native got his start working as a cameraman for punk rock director Sogo Ishii and then as assistant director on Katsuhiro Otomo's 1991 live-action feature "World Apartment Horror". With that kind of resume you'd expect more in-your-face content and flashy visuals, but the two features that Ogata has directed thus far are delicate, restrained character studies. His debut, 2000's "Boy's Choir" followed two teenage boys through a series of vignettes as they come of age in an orphanage where they both sing in a choir. Each stage and scene in "Boy's Choir" reminded me of some of the best short fiction of Yasunari Kawabata and Ryunosuke Akutagawa: keenly observed kernels of experience held together with a whisper of a plot and imagery that borders on the surreal. For his follow-up 2005 film Ogata built on the strength of "Boy's Choir" and delivered "The Milkwoman", the story of a middle-aged spinster who delivers milk in a seaside town and who falls in love with a married social worker. Again, nothing is overplayed, but the drama of the situation comes through loud and clear. I'm hoping that with Ogata's upcoming manga adaptation "Non-chan Noriben" that we'll see yet another insightful film from this magnificent director.

Regular readers of the Pow-Wow blog will know that I'm a big fan of a) documentaries and b) experimental film and video, so it wouldn't seem right that I didn't mention a few names here. With the recent Renaissance that documentary films have seen in the past few years I think that one of its most promising voices is Kazuhiro Soda. Disillusioned by what he perceived as being the cookie cutter nature of the documentaries he was making for such major Japanese broadcasters as NHK Soda decided the best thing to do would be to break all the established rules of these TV docs: cut or the narration that told you exactly what was happening, cut out the talking head interview segments, cut out the emotive music that told viewers how and when to feel. Instead of arriving at a formless mess Soda's two "observational films" "Campaign" about a college friend who runs for municipal office, and "Mental" (above) that chronicled a unique out-patients mental health facility, successfully jettisoned the baggage of documentary filmmaking to present a clear and meditative viewpoint of their subjects. He's also picked up some major accolades, including a Peabody Award for "Campaign" along the way. In terms of experimental film and video... well, where can I start? If I had to pick just one filmmaker to highlight here I would have to pick 30-year-old Takagi Masakatsu. The Kyoto-native has spent the better part of this decade producing simple but sumptuous short films using nothing more than a digital video camera and his Mac computer. Children playing in a park, the light reflected off water, fireworks, amusement park rides, a woman riding on horseback - these are just a few of the singular images that Masakatsu takes and digitally manipulates into... how is the best way to describe it... dream-like mirages of light and colour. His work needs to be seen by many more people.

To prevent my list of names of filmmakers who get me excited about Japanese cinema from dragging on forever I'll touch on just a few more very quickly. Short films provide a perfect jumping off point for young filmmakers, and it's in short filmmaking that I think we're seeing the next generation of truly visionary feature film directors. One who has just made the transition is Tsuki Inoue whose wonderful "A Woman Who is Beating the Earth" (above) has garnered almost universal praise for its unique look at domestic violence. Inoue has now parlayed that success into her first feature film "Fuwaka no Adagio" that is poised to hit the worldwide festival circuit. Another short film director whose vision could easily carry a feature film is Yoshihiro Ito. Working by day making medical documentaries Ito spends his off hours creating surreal, funny, disturbing and inspiring shorts that revolve around such absurd premises as a man who is afraid of the mackerel that his wife is cooking for dinner, or a couple who can't use their arms but attempt to commit double suicide anyway. Another filmmaker who knocked me on my proverbial ass during my recent visit to Nippon Connection 2009 was Aki Sato, one of the filmmakers in the all women collective Peaches. Her film "emerger", about the unlikely alliance struck between an injured woman and a gay man as they search for human connection, ended up delivering more emotional punch and visual power in its short 42-minute run time than did most of the films that I'd seen at the festival and most of the films I'd seen in the months leading up to it.

So, coming to the end of this brief list I realize that there are still a slew of names I could go on about: Masahide Ichii, Maya Yonesho, Masahiro Kobayashi, Yuki Tanada, Hisayasu Sato, Naoyuki Tsuji. Maybe I'll have to revisit this topic in the coming weeks or months... or I could always fall back on Ozu, Kitano, Imamura, and Kore-eda like I do when I get cornered at a party. That wouldn't be a bad thing either.

Could "Departures" spark another Golden Age for Japanese Cinema?

by Chris MaGee

When Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon" won the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice International Film Festival the cinematic world was surprised. It wasn't because it was an undeserved win. Far from it, but this was a film whose producer Masaichi Nagata (below left) had famously hated, repeatedly admitting that it's story of the rape of a noblewomen and the murder of her husband by a highway bandit as told from multiple viewpoints made no sense to him.

The fact that Nagata didn't like what many view today as a cinematic masterpiece is irrelevant. As a business man he knew that he'd been given a unique opportunity, one that he could capitalize on by giving international audiences more of what they thought Japanese cinema was about: jidai-geki dramas filled with period costumes and sword play. During the next few years Daiei Studios, under the direction of Nagata, followed this strategy and released Teinosuke Kinugasa's "Jigokumon (Gates of Hell)" as well as a remarkable string of films from Kenji Mizoguchi: "Ugetsu", "Sansho the Bailiff" and "A Story from Chikamatsu", and the strategy worked. "Ugestu" ended up winning the Silver Lion at Venice in 1953 and "Jigokumon" took home a honourary Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1955. While "Rashomon" may have introduced Japanese cinema to the world it was a combination of curiosity from international audiences, very high quality filmmaking, and some shrewd business decisions that led to what film historians refer to as the Second Golden Age of Japanese Cinema. What's interesting to note is that no Japanese film had been honoured with a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar since those peak years in the mid-1950s. That is until Yojiro Takita's "Departures" took home the award at this year's Academy Awards.

I can hear you out there now, "But Chris, how can you say that 'Departures' is the next 'Rashomon'?" Well, that's not what I'm saying, but what I am saying is that by some wonderful, dumb coincidence 2008 saw a wave of exceptional films come out of Japan and on February 22nd that wave crested with "Departures" win at the Oscars; a film like "Rashomon" that no one expected would win. Even Masahiro Motoki, who plays the lead role of Kobayashi in "Departures" was quoted as saying "I thought the Israel film was going to win," referring to the odds on favorite Ari Folman's "Waltz with Bashir". With the Academy's sometimes puzzling decisions when it comes to the Best Foreign Language Film category (the snub of Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" in 2006 and Cristian Mungiu's Palm d'Or-winning "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" not even receiving a nomination in 2007) Pow-Wow writer Marc Saint-Cyr, myself and some friends even debated whether "Departures" winning was just a goof, but in the same way that Nagata hated "Rashomon" the question as to whether the best foreign language film won in the category is irrelevant. What's important is that since the win international film critics and audiences have been reassessing and exploring the recent batch of films coming out of Japan.

Thankfully a number of the great films that came out in 2008 will see North American distribution in 2009. Regent Releasing not only picked up the rights for "Departures", but also Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Une Certain Regard-winner at Cannes "Tokyo Sonata", while Disney will be releasing Hayao Miyazaki's latest animated triumph "Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea" in North American theatres this summer. This is very good news, but the question remains: with the J-Horror genre having fizzled and its main distributor Tartan in the process and "Asian Extreme" films becoming a blood geyser parody of themselves with the Media Blasters financed "The Machine Girl" and "Tokyo Gore Police" will the surviving North American art house and foreign film distributors encouraged by the success of "Departures" take a chance on other wonderful Japanese films from last year like Ryosuke Hashiguchi's "All Around Us" (below), Koji Wakamatsu's "United Red Army", Hiro-kazu Kore-eda's "Still Walking", Ryo Nakajima's "This World of Ours" and Sion Sono's "Love Exposure" (to name only a few)?

I think that the chance of this happening now is far more likely than a couple of weeks ago. In these hard economic times it's a no brainer for cash strapped distributors to bet on a winning horse, and with Masaichi Nagata's strategy of "give them more of the same" remaining just as true as it was 50 years ago it will hopefully mean that the equally cash strapped film studios in Japan will put their resources behind projects of equal quality, sensitivity and artistry as the ones I mentioned above. Success leads to success and so on and so forth.

Of course the hope that "Departures" winning at the Academy Awards could potentially spark a third Golden Age of Japanese Cinema may very well be the result of the naive speculation of an overly optimistic film blogger. A more likely scenario would be that Japanese studios would try to give Western audiences more of the same by producing syrupy "Departures" knock-offs while Hollywood will throw its dollars into another ill-advised remake ("Departures" starring Zach Braff and Katherine Heigl????) Personally, I have to hold out hope that what happened in the early 1950s could under the right circumstances somehow happen again. I don't think any of us could deny that 2008 was a high watermark year for Japanese cinema, but now we just have to see if the flood will continue and if the world will be receptive if it does.

YouTube, the Japanese and the hazard of dead links

I just wanted to write this quick apology for all of you out there who might try browsing our old Weekly Trailer posts. Since the Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow began I've tried to post trailers for both old and new Japanese films on a weekly basis as a way to promote was hase come before and what is coming soon to Japanese theatres and to North American video stores.

Unfortunately two of my best sources for Japanese trailers have been shut down by YouTube. This has left the blog and Facebook groups with a lot of dead links. To be fair it's most likely not YouTube's doing. Japanese rights holders have been particularly harsh with the video sharing site before and continue to chase down users posting their property illegally, even if it's done as a means of generating interest in Japanese cinema.

So again, my/ our apologies, but this loss doesn't mean that we will stop posting weekly trailers here on the blog. Lord knows, nothing's permanent, so when you check our Friday updates make sure to watch the trailers while they're there to watch. Maybe at some point in the near future I'll find an alternative source for our trailers, but for now we'll all just have to put up with this kind of inconvenience. - Chris MaGee

RANT: One step forward or two steps back? A new Takeshi Kitano jidai-geki film?

by Chris MaGee

Is it true that on the eve of the release of the final film in his loose deconstructionist trilogy that Takeshi Kitano is pondering a return to the safety of the jidai-geki genre? According to Jason Gray that's exactly what the award-winning director and Japanese media phenome has planned.

Just before hopping his flight to the Venice International Film Festival, where he famously took home the Golden Lion for his 1997 film "Hana-bi", Kitano admitted to reporters that the critics and press aren't as excited to see him at the big fests like Cannes and Venice as they used to be. Solution: return to the formula of his biggest commercial success, 2003's "Zatoichi"... but not really. No, Beat wants to create something unique, a "Kitano-style period film."

Don't get me wrong, I love Kitano; in fact I love him so much that this whole story leaves me very concerned in the same way that I would be if I heard that a loved one was going to make a potentially detrimental move just to play things safe. Let me explain.

I think that Kitano was just as surprised when he won the Golden Lion for "Hana-bi" as everyone else was, and I think on some level he bought into the hype and has been chasing the "great filmmaker" tag ever since. Films like Giuseppe Tornatore's "Cinema Paradiso" and Jan Svěrák's "Kolya" had won awards and praise, so let's give the critics a grumpy old man/ cute kid film like "Kikujiro". There's gold (golden statuettes) in those Hollywood hills, so let's go to America with "Brother". Maybe my films are to macho. Maybe I should go more art house, thus "Dolls". This is not to say that these films were failures at all (well, maybe "Brother" was), but that on some level Kitano's motivation was a desire for more praise, more awards, a seat at the table with the likes of Kurosawa, Ozu and Mizoguchi. Don't let Kitano's laissez-faire public persona fool you. You can't tell me that a guy who appears ever five minutes on Japanese TV doesn't just want to be loved.

Sure Kitano's last couple films have been difficult, self-referential and uncommercial, but it makes me a bit nervous that he would want to return to a film that may not be a sequel to "Zatoichi", but would be one cut from the same cloth just for a chance that the critics will applaud. Remember, "Zatoichi" wasn't a film that Kitano even wanted to make. He did it as a favour for Chieko Saitô, the long time friend of Shintaro Katsu. She wouldn't take no for an answer and kept on Kitano about resucitating the famous blind swordsman as a tribute to her late friend. Frankly, I think that "Zatoichi" was the second big surprise in Kitano's career, but why take two steps back in the hopes that you'll get a trophy?

Kitano-san, you are a great filmmaker. You have a place at the table with the greats; and not to trot out old adages and platitudes, but when a kid's getting beat up in the schoolyard sometimes it is true what Mom always used to say, "They only pick on you because they're jealous." Think about that for awhile.

RANT: A Criterion Wish List

by Chris MaGee

Okay, so this isn’t the most original rant topic. Cinephiles across North America whine and complain about what films should be or currently aren’t put out by The Criterion Collection, but The Pow-Wow hasn’t weighed in on this topic yet, so let’s add our two bit opinion to the pile, right?

Now, I want to start out by commending the folks at Criterion for making a huge amount of classic Japanese cinema available with amazing transfers, good subtitling and some truly amazing extras, in fact somewhere out there there’s a Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwanese, or even Korean Film Pow-Wow that should really be ranting about the lack of representation from Criterion. Stanley Kwan, Tsai Ming Liang, Zhang Yimou, Jeong Jae-eun, Hou Hsiao-hsien, none of their films are part of the Collection, but this is the Japanese Film Pow-Wow, so let’s stick with the topic at hand.

We recently ran a DVD giveaway contest that asked our Facebook group members what film they most wanted to see come out on DVD and I was pleased to see people mentioning films by Nagisa Oshima, Hideo Gosha and even Sekichi Taniguchi… pleased and confused because you’d think that a company like Criterion would jump to get these directors works on DVD. It also got me jotting down a wish list of films that I’d personally like to see come out from Criterion, so here goes:

“A Page of Madness” and “Crossroads” – Teinosuke Kinugasa

Two silent films that hearken back to the beginnings of modern Japanese cinema and show us how German Expressionism had a strong impact on Kinugasa and other Japanese filmmakers.

“Tange Sazen - Dai-ippen” and “Oatsurae Jirokichi goshi” – Daisuke Itô

Not a well known name these days, Itô was one of the most important and popular directors in Japan during the 1920’s and 30’s. He was the first director to use close-ups and fast editing to bring a heightened excitement to his jidai-geki films and subsequently became the grandfather of all samurai films that followed.

“The Human Condition Trilogy” – Masaki Kobayashi

It’s been long rumoured that Criterion is working on a box set of this monumental trilogy. Kobayashi focuses his camera on Kaji (Tatsuya Nakadai), a man out of step with the time he’s living in. A conscientious objector and socialist during a time of fascism and nationalism Kaji tries to hold true to his values while serving as a soldier in the Imperial Army.

“Eros Plus Massacre” and “The Affair” – Yoshishige Yoshida

Two classics of the Japanese New Wave. From the fictional exploration of real-life Japanese anarchist Sakae Ōsugi and the women in his life to the beautifully told story of an extra-martial affair these films are perfect for Criterion’s cinephile clientele.

“Moe no suzaku” and “The Mourning Forest” – Naomi Kawase

Criterion has made some really strange choices when including contemporary filmmakers in the Collection (I’m still not sure that Wes Anderson belongs in there), so to have an award winning director like Naomi Kawase on their roster would be a real boon. It just doesn’t make sense that the films of one of the most important voices in Japanese cinema today are still unavailable to the North American general public.

So, that’s my wish list. Granted there are a ton of runners up: Eclipse box-sets of Nagisa Oshima and Shohei Imamura, Susumu Hani, “Dodeskaden” by Akira Kurosawa, more Mikio Naruse, etc., etc. If you have some suggestions for Criterion then by all means leave them in the comments.

RANT: Only two Japanese films on Newsweek’s 100 best list?

Newsweek’s Japanese edition rounded up their movie critics to assemble a list of 100 best films for their special Golden Week edition. Broken down by decade the list features such Hollywood heavy hitters as David Lean’s “Lawrence of Arabia”, Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” and Alan J. Pakula’s “All The President’s Men” which are phenomenal films, but what really surprised me were the number of Japanese films on the list. Only two were selected: Juzo Itami’s “Tampopo” and Satoshi Kon’s “Paprika”… okay they also listed Clint Eastwood’s “Letters from Iwo Jima” so let’s nudge that up to 2.5 films… but seriously!

Out of curiosity I checked some of the other prominent top 100 lists to confirm what I already thought, that Newsweek is all out of whack. The prestigious Sight and Sound top ten list that is published every ten years has consistently featured classic Japanese titles like “Tokyo Story”, “Seven Samurai” and “Ugetsu” while Newsweek’s competition Time Magazine lists four Japanese titles on its list: “Ikiru”, “Yojimbo”, Ugetsu” and “Tokyo Story”. Hell, even the highly suspect IMDB top 250 best films list features six Japanese titles including works by Akira Kurosawa and Hayao Miyazaki.

So, Newsweek (and Newsweek Japan for that matter!) while I praise that you chose two lesser known, but very worthy films to put on your list I have to ask why not more? What gives?

Thanks to Anime News Network for the story: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-05-06/newsweek-japan-lists-kon-paprika-among-100-best-films

RANT: "Battle Royale" overrated?

CHUD.com is running a series called “You Got It All Wrong!” in which it takes a hard look at some of our most beloved cult favorites and asks the questions, “Is this film really that good? Has it been overhyped? Overrated?” Well, according to Chud’s Russ Fischer and Nick Nunziata it is. They say that, “Teen angst and violence are conjoined to push soap opera ennui instead of the thin line between society and savagery,” and, “…two hours of attractive Japanese kids killing each other induces sleep like a bottle of Tylenol PM dissolved in Kool-Aid.” Ouch! Countering the criticism Justin Waddell defends Fukasaku’s film by saying, “The movie manages to be a blast to watch, hard to stomach, and just plain heartbreaking all at the same time.”

Now, I have to admit that “Battle Royale” isn’t my favorite Japanese film. While Takeshi Kitano is entertaining every second he’s on screen I find the overall film kind of juvenile, sensational, and the Battle Royale Act is a bit of a heavy-handed metaphor for the suffocating academic and social pressure that Japanese teenagers go through (my money is on Shunji Iwai’s “All About Lily Chou-Chou” on this count); but before I have all of you coming after me with machetes and machine guns let me add a big BUT…

I can’t tell how many people in The Pow-Wow I’ve talked to and corresponded with who have said that “Battle Royale” was the first Japanese film that they saw, and it was through that that they began exploring other Japanese films. Now how can my personal opinion or the opinions of the folks at CHUD change that very important fact? Exactly, it can’t. Whether or not the film has been worthy of all the hype it has introduced teenagers and adults around the world to the name Kinji Fukasaku, one of the most important directors to come out of Japan in the past half century, as well as introducing them to a string of other directors and their films. I’m good with that any day.

You can read the original article at CHUD here: http://chud.com/articles/articles/14198/1/YOU-GOT-IT-ALL-WRONG-DAY-TWO/Page1.html

And you can let the slings and arrows fly in the comments.

RANT: Zatoi-she???

I didn’t know if I should categorize this piece as news or a rant… I decided to go with a rant so that I wouldn’t get people freaking out in the comments saying “Everyone knew about this in January, dude!” Well, the Pow-Wow blog wasn’t online in January and I thought that there would be a lot of you out there who hadn’t seen or possibly heard of this yet.

So… like I said it’s been known for quite a while that Fumihiko Sori, the producer of “Appleseed” and the director behind the much loved “Ping Pong” and the futuristic anime “Vexille” was going to be bringing a restart of the Zatoichi franchise to the big screen. What? More platinum blonde Kitano? Nope. This time around we’ll be getting actress Haruka Ayase of “Crying Out Love In the Center of the World” fame as the blind swordsman… or swordswoman.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with a radical restart to a movie franchise, and I don’t have a problem with a little gender-bending of a classic male character as long as it’s done in an intelligent, feminist way.

Even though this one has Sori behind the camera, a director who showed a really interesting visual style with “Ping Pong” I get more than doubtful when I see the screenplay was written by Taeko Asano, yes, a woman, but the screenwriter of the shoujyo manga inspired “Nana”. Add to this Ayase, the subject of millions of jiggly T & A shots posted online as “Ichi” and I start to worry that we’re going to be getting something more akin to Ryuhei Kitamura’s “Azumi” films (I know… a lot of you really liked them. I’m sorry!) or even worse something targeted at men ages 18-45.

Call me old fashioned, but I‘ll take a line of tap dancing villagers over katana wielding teenaged girls in mini skirts any day. Judge for yourself though by taking a look at the teaser trailer and official site below:



Official site: http://wwws.warnerbros.co.jp/ichi/

UPDATE: Petition to bring No Borders, No Limits to Toronto

Here's an update to my rant about Mark Schilling and Marc Walkow's "No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema" series to Toronto. I spoke with Marc and it turns out that they have tried from the very beginning of the tour to bring it to Toronto, specifically to Cinematheque Ontario. The strange this is though is that Cinematheque has declined on two seperate occasions due to “technical requirements for the digital subtitle projection” (?!)

Well, here's a chance for you to help in bringing this fantastic series of films to Toronto. The Pow-Wow is starting up a petition to bring the "No Borders, No Limits" series to Toronto and all you have to do is head on over to the Facebook group we've set up, join and leave you name on the wall.

Here's the link:http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=11820176142

Let's see what a little grass roots movement can do, folks! Thanks in advance for your support!

RANT: Nikkatsu! Hell-oooo!!!!

Anyone into Japanese cinema knows that Mark Schilling and Marc Walkow have put together an amazing touring retrospective of films titled No Borders, No Limits: 1960’s Nikkatsu Action Cinema, which is also the title of Mark Shilling’s latest book. It’s going to be in Wisconsin, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, and Columbus Ohio just within the next couple of months, but it won’t be until July when it will be part of the Fantasia Film Fest in Montreal. For all you Torontonians it’ll be just a five hour drive to see films like “Gangster V.I.P.”, “Plains Wanderer”, “Roughneck” and “A Colt is My Passport”…but what about a stop in Toronto?!?!? Hell-oooo!!!! We’re just the home of the biggest film festival after cannes! You’d think that someone would be able to pull the cash together to bring this fantastic series home to T.O.! And don’t look at me… The Pow-Wow has some lint balls and a coupel subway tokens in it's slush fund.

So, I guess here’s throwing the gauntlet down to someone at TIFF or Cinematheque Ontario or one of the great independent theatres in the city: You’ll have a sure fire hit if No Borders, No Limits is booked here in Toronto, a city that is crazy for it’s cinema.

Anyone? Anyone????