Japan Cuts ’12: Isn’t Anyone Alive?

You might expect the end of the world would get played up more in the media.  Unfortunately, they only have time to report a few train crashes before it is pretty much too late for breaking news bulletins.  Indeed, the end comes swiftly but dramatically for the residents and visitors of a sleepy provincial university in Gatukyu (formerly Sogo) Ishii’s Isn’t Anyone Alive (trailer here), which screened last night at the 2012 Japan Cuts: the New York Festival of Japanese Cinema.

Adapted by playwright Shiro Maeda from his own stage drama, IAA is about as reserved as apocalyptic films ever get.  The darnedest comedy of manners, it takes its time establishing a group of college students, only to start killing them off. 

Evidently, this campus has two specialized fields of study: medicine and urban legends.  Maki is a medical technician receiving an unwelcome visit from her ne’er do well brother.  Nana is the chair of the urban legend studies association, who has been advancing the campus myth that high level military research goes on in the hospital’s third sub-basement.  When people start keeling over, they naturally blame the hospital’s apocryphal black ops projects, but it is all balderdash Maki assures anyone still alive to listen.

Frankly, we never have any real idea what is going on, because nobody has enough time to determine anything.  Yet, when facing the apocalypse, those still living struggle to develop a new etiquette for impending collective death, which is nonetheless ignored as often as it is observed.  There is a lot of razor sharp dialogue and distinctly black humor in IAA.  Frankly, it is rather a bummer when Nana is the first character to go.  However, it is just as well for her.  In Ishii and Maeda’s bleak world, the last one left standing is the cosmic loser.

As Nana, Mai Takahashi exhibits an upbeat screen presence that would ordinarily mark her as the leading candidate to survive a conventional horror movie.  Rin Takanashi, Hakka Shiraishi, and Asato Iida also hilariously play out one of the unlikeliest love triangles, as the world burns unbeknownst to them.  Yet it is Shota Sometani who nicely turns IAA’s defining scenes as the decent work-study café employee Keisuke, through whose eyes the audience ultimately sees the totality of it all.

IAA is one of the oddest end-of-the-world movies you are likely to see.  Yet, cinematographer Yoshiyuki Matsumoto makes it look eerily believable, slowly but surely transforming a sunny afternoon into an ominous Judgment Day.  For those who enjoy their cinema dark and slightly off-kilter, it is definitely worth taking a gander at when it plays at this year’s Fantasia Festival (7/31 & 8/3), but naturally Japan Cuts screened it first, presenting the North American premiere last night.

Japan Cuts ’12: Rent-a-Cat

It is not much of a business, but at least the inventory is cheap.  In fact, Sayoko attracts stray cats like a magnet.  Profits really are not the point anyway.  She is out to fill the holes in people’s hearts, perhaps even including her own in Naoko Ogigami’s Rent-a-Cat (trailer here), which screens as part of the 2012 edition of Japan Cuts: the New York Festival of Japanese Cinema.

In a sleepy corner of Tokyo, Sayoko lives in the picturesque Minka-esque house she once shared with her beloved late grandmother, along with a dozen or so cats.  The woman has become a crazy cat lady at a young age, but there is a method to her madness.  Most days, she pulls her cart through the neighborhood, hawking cats for rent.  Of course, she will not rent to just anyone.  A home inspection is required.

Intentionally episodic, we watch Sayoko repeat the cat rental ritual with several customers, each with a hole to fill in their lives.  For an elderly widow reluctant to buy a new cat knowing her time is short, Sayoko’s service is a godsend.  However, some clients take a bit of convincing, like the desperately unfulfilled car rental agency manager.  Yet, the most intriguing potential client-story arc involves Yoshizawa, the former delinquent middle school classmate Sayoko initially wants nothing to do with.

Rent-a-Cat is a quiet film, chocked full of feline adorableness.  It wears its sentimental heart on its sleeve, deriving gentle laughs from its characters quirks (to use a loaded word).  However, it is more bittersweet than compulsively cute, particularly during Sayoko’s smartly ambiguous encounter with Yoshizawa.

As Sayoko, Mikako Ichikawa blends goofy awkwardness and sincere sensitivity quite touchingly.  Indeed, it is a very humane performance, displaying real on-screen chemistry with her animal co-stars and Kei Tanaka’s Yoshizawa.

There might not be a lot of surprises in the unhurried Rent-a-Cat, but Ogigami infuses the proceedings with a wistful atmosphere that is quite beguiling.  Essentially, it is an animal lovers’ indie that well reflects traditional Japanese aesthetics of elegant simplicity.  An effective mood piece featuring several nice turns from its small human ensemble, Rent-a-Cat is recommended surprisingly highly for those who suspect they might appreciate its discreet charms.  It screens this coming Wednesday (7/25) at the Japan Society, as this year’s Japan Cuts continues.

Japan Cuts ’12: Chronicle of My Mother

Kosaku Igami follows the golden rule for novelists.  He writes about what he knows.  In his case, he knows about abandonment and mother issues.  Nonetheless, he and his dutiful daughters will look after his aging mother in her years of waning lucidity throughout Masato Harada’s Chronicle of My Mother (trailer here), which screens as part of the Focus on Kôji Yakusho tribute at the 2012 Japan Cuts: the New York Festival of Japanese Cinema.

In the post-war years, Igami’s family temporarily immigrated to Taiwan, but he was left behind with “Granny Nui.”  There were reasons for this, but they were never adequately explained to Igami.  The beloved Granny Nui’s rather ambiguous position within the family further stoked his resentment.  Despite his painful childhood memories, Igami became a success, filling novels and stories with thinly disguised characters based on his family.  This in turn has led to some resentment on his daughters’ part.

Though Igami was never close to his mother, her well-being becomes a constant source of concern for the entire family after the death of his father.  She has always been difficult and Igami’s sisters start to suspect she is exploiting her signs of senility to say whatever caustic comment crosses her mind.  She is a handful alright, but Igami’s daughter Kotoko is willing to hold up more than her end.

Predominantly set in the 1960’s, Chronicle stylistically and thematically harkens back to the great films of Yasujiro Ozu, even invoking Tokyo Story by name.  Kotoko is definitely a figure in the tradition of Ozu’s Norikos, as is her sensitive sister, who happens to be named Noriko.

Though he is still working through the psychological baggage of his youth, Igami is gruff, headstrong, and manly, requiring the kind of presence Japan Cuts special guest Yakusho specializes in.  While the story, based on Yasushi Inoue’s autobiographical novel, charts a somewhat predictable course, Yakusho’s big emotional payoff is hard-earned and honest.  Likewise, Aoi Miyazaki’s work as Kotoko is exquisitely expressive and sensitive.  Yet, the key to the film might be Kiki Kirin’s Mother Yae.  Rather than a full-throttle descent into dementia, she maintains an ambiguity regarding the matriarch’s state of mind, giving viewers hope for some form of familial rapprochement.

 

Indeed, Harada’s approach is refreshingly earnest yet disciplined enough to spurn cheap sentimentality.  While certainly reflecting the specifics of Japanese society, its themes are undeniably universal.  Lovingly shot in warm tones by cinematographer Akiko Ashizawa and featuring a complimentary chamber music soundtrack by Harumi Fuki (with an assist from Bach), Chronicle is richly produced period drama.  Recommended for those who appreciate nostalgic family dramas and tearjerkers with a sense of restraint, Chronicle of My Mother screens tomorrow night (7/21) at the Japan Society, as part of this year’s Japan Cuts.

Japan Cuts ’12: The Woodsman and the Rain

If you’re wondering where Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones’ fifty-plus mojo went, it’s been in Japan with Kôji Yakusho.  While American audiences might know him best as the salaryman who cuts a rug in Shall We Dance?, nobody working in film today is more credible as a middle-aged man you do not want to mess with.  His hardnosed everyman charm is also perfectly suited to the gently humanistic comedy of Shȗichi Okita’s The Woodsman and the Rain (trailer here), which screens as the centerpiece of this year’s Japan Cuts and a key selection of their Focus on Kôji Yakusho retrospective sidebar.

If you have seen Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins, you know what a dynamic presence Yakusho can be in an action-driven film.  If you haven’t, the Japan Society will give you an opportunity this Saturday.  It’s kind of awesome, but Woodsman is too, in a very different way.  Here Yakusho plays a sixty year-old lumberjack and you would not want to be a tree in his sites.  He is not a superhero though.  Having survived a health scare, Yatsuhiko Kishi (Yatsu-san) can no longer eat sweets.  The widower’s relationship with his slacker son Koichi is strained at best.  However, he can now predict precipitation with uncanny accuracy.  Given the title, this ability will obviously come into play at some point, but wisely nobody in the film belabors it.

Kishi is pretty set in his routine, until a film crew comes to town.  Much to his own surprise, he finds himself shuttling about a nervous assistant director and a socially awkward twenty-something in search of locations for their zombie film.  That quiet kid turns out to be Koichi Tanabe, the first time director with massive confidence issues.  Yes, he has the same first name as Kishi’s son, but Okita never overplays that card either.

Before you know it, Kishi is deeply involved in the shooting of Tanabe’s dubious b-movie.  Many of these scenes are essentially played for laughs, but in an earthy, understated way.  Still, for genre film fans, how can you resist a film about lumberjacks and movie-zombies?

Woodsman is a perfect film to anchor the Yakusho showcase.  His performance is rich, nuanced, and deeply felt.  He is a good sport, willing to look slightly ridiculous at times, yet he always maintains his dignified bearing.  As the Koichis, both Shun Oguri and Kengo Kora grow on viewers, subtly but convincingly showing their characters grow up as the film progresses.

Not exactly bittersweet, but certainly not compulsively cheerful either, Woodsman is ultimately wholly satisfying, in a rugged, down-to-earth way.  It is a great example of Yakusho’s powerful screen presence as well as a wistfully wise bit of storytelling.  Very highly recommended, The Woodsman and the Rain screens this Saturday at the Japan Society as this year’s Japan Cuts centerpiece (featuring an intro and Q&A with the man himself), but good luck getting in.  It is already sold out, so if you do not have your ticket booked, you’re flying stand-by.  Also very highly recommended, tickets for 13 Assassins and Shall We Dance? are currently available on Saturday (7/21).

Japan Cuts ’12: Girls for Keeps

Japan is the land of the rising Hello Kitty.  Cuteness is a big deal here.  It is all Yukiko Takigawa was ever good at.  However, people are telling her she is slightly less young than she once was and should maybe consider dressing like a schoolmarm now.  Takigawa and her friends will juggle their personal and professional lives as best they can in Yoshihiro Fukagawa’s Girls for Keeps (trailer here), which screens tomorrow as part of the 2012 Japan Cuts: The New York Festival of Japanese Cinema.

Yes, this is a chick flick.  Profoundly so, in fact, but at least the cast is attractive from top to bottom, unlike a certain former HBO show some might be tempted to compare with Takigawa’s fab four (it’s even based on a chick lit novel). 

Though roughly the same age, each is at a very different point in their lives.  Seiko Takeda has just received a plum promotion, but her passed-over chauvinist colleague is determined to undermine her authority.  Takako Hirai works hard at a luxury dealership and even harder as a single parent to her young son.  Sales manager Yoko Kosaka used to just plug away at the office, but when she is assigned an attractive but much younger trainee, she starts losing her cool.  Meanwhile, Takigawa has an opportunity to finally make her mark in the fashion industry, but a dowdy rival is not about to make things easy for her.

Yes, those relationship things sure are tricky.  Careers are no walk in the park either.  This might sound like somewhat shopworn material for Bridget Jones-saturated viewers, but it seems safe to assume Japanese boardrooms remain a far cry from Manhattan publishing offices.  The stakes for Takeda are actually quite high, which is why even the jaded will find themselves rooting for her nemesis’s comeuppance.

Indeed, Girls starts a tad slow, but hits its stride as it catwalks along.  Takeda’s office intrigue is rather compelling and Takigawa’s relationship with her slacker boyfriend turns out to be far more interesting than it first appears.  All four co-leads are quite engaging, particularly Kumiko Asô (no stranger to Japan Cuts regulars from films like The Seaside Motel and Bare Essence of Life Ultra Miracle Love Story), who is quite engaging as Takeda, realistically wrestling with sexism and her own self-doubts.   Likewise, Karina’s Takigawa is a sweetly endearing protagonist-narrator (worlds removed from her electric turn in the Japan Cuts favorite Parade).

Despite a small army of characters and a bushel of subplots, Girls’ four primary story arcs hang together fairly well.  Refreshingly, it is maintains both a sense of idealism as well as a responsible level-headed world view.  Takigawa and her friends come to terms with the fact they cannot absolutely have it all, while also recognizing they should not automatically write-off major life options wholesale—to thine own self be true, but don’t kick yourself for making a few concessions here or there.  If Girls is more than a bit manipulative in getting to its morale, well that goes with the territory.  A cut above the genre standard thanks to its ensemble, Girls for Keeps is recommended for fans of Bridget Jones, Lifetime movies, and the talented Japanese cast.  It screens tomorrow night (7/18) at the Japan Society as part of this year’s Japan Cuts.

Japan Cuts ’12 & NYAFF ’12: Gyo

The end of the world is nigh and it smells like feet.  Mutant fish flatulence is a tough way for humanity to go out, but it looks like our number is up, nonetheless.  Prepare yourself for a messy apocalypse in Takayuki Hirao’s Gyo (trailer here), which must be poised on the brink of taking the world by storm after it screened yesterday as a co-presentation of the 2012 Japan Cuts and New York Asian film festivals.

Kaori and her friends are spending their last spring break together vacationing in Okinawa.  This will not be a good time to be near the water.  She is hot but nice.  Erika is hot and mean.  Aki, the third one, is plain and dumb.  They will act accordingly throughout the impending crisis.  It turns out the trio is on the front line.  They are the first to record an encounter with the stinky fish with strange bio-mechanical legs.  It turns out there were plenty more where that one came from and they have already overrun Tokyo.

Fearing the worst from a disconnect with her fiancé Tadashi, Kaori rushes back to the fish-battered city, hooking up with Shirakawa, an only slightly sleazy photojournalist.  Ostensibly acting as her protector, Shirakawa really wants to get a story from Tadashi’s at least partially mad scientist uncle, who has apparently become the world’s preeminent authority on “walking fish” in a matter of hours.

Nothing says End of Days like hordes of walking fish cascading over Tokyo’s boulevards.  However, it is the death stench that is the real poison, mutating humans through their open wounds.  It looks like it is payback time for all that sushi Japanese chefs served up.

By the way, Gyo is not for kids.  As if all the mutant mayhem were not enough of a red flag for parents, let’s just say Kaori’s friend Erika is kind of a tramp.  It did not screen as part of the Anime from Hell sidebar for nothing.  Considering how gleefully notorious it will surely become, Gyo is sure to be picked up by other festivals, so you’ve been warned.

Give Gyo credit—it takes the wild premise of Junji Ito’s manga and runs with it.  There are times it plays like the anime equivalent of a Roger Corman film, but how can that be a bad thing?  To Gyo’s further credit, it features a strong female protagonist, though it would probably be a stretch to call it empowering, unless you’re a fish.  It should also be noted those mutant farting fish seem to be the result of a nefarious Imperial Japanese research project during WWII.  Frankly, North Korean lunacy would be a more likely culprit, but it is just nice to see this one not blamed on the American military, as in Bong Joon-ho’s overrated The Host.

This is a good film to see with an audience.  Indeed, it is surely fair to say most of the patrons at the Japan Society felt they got their money’s worth, even if nobody will be mistaking it for a Miyazaki film anytime ever.  Worthy of a long run of midnight festival screenings, Gyo was an entertaining bit of strangeness for this year’s NYAFF and Japan Cuts: The New York Festival of Japanese Cinema.

Japan Cuts ’12 & NYAFF ’12: Chips

After the devastating 2011 earthquake, the city of Sendai could use something to cheer about.  An unassuming burglar could too.  He has a girlfriend considerably out of his league and a mentor who cares about him in his own gruff fashion, but he has a lot of issues gnawing at him.  However, redemption may yet arrive through the most unlikeliest of agencies in Yoshihiro Nakamura’s graceful knockout punch of a film, Potechi (Chips), the official closing film of the 2012 New YorkAsian Film Festival, co-presented with the 2012 edition of Japan Cuts: The NewYork Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema (trailer here).

Tadashi Imamura dresses like a gasman, but it is just a front.  He works pretty steadily though, since the ringleader (a.k.a. “the CEO”) of a burglary ring has taken a shine to him.  Earnest to a fault, the young thief is pretty good at his job, having been trained by one of the best—the glacially stoic Kurosawa.  Breaking-and-entering has been good to Imamura.  Through a strange set of circumstances, a job led to his relationship with the attractive Wakaba.  However, Imamura gets an odd sensation of déjà vu when he drags his indulgent girlfriend on a fateful break-in.

Imamura did not just happen to be in a certain baseball player’s apartment when the phone rings.  Ozaki has long been his sports idol.  The player used to be Sendai’s local hero during his high school years, but for several seasons he has been stuck riding the pine for the local pro franchise.  Imamura still has faith though, feeling a certain connection to the player.  As it happens, he and Ozaki share the same birth date.

Potechi (or Chips depending on which website you visit) is driven by a confluence of coincidences, yet Nakamura never bashes the audience over the head with them.  Instead, he allows them to quietly accumulate over time.  What could have been heavy as an anvil is quite subtle and beguiling, until Nakamura dexterously lowers the climatic emotional boom.

As the felonious Obiwan figure, Nao Ohmori (still best known as Ichi the Killer) displays super-heroic powers of understatement, dominating his scenes with his uber-gravitas.  Still, it is Gaku Hamada who truly sets the tenor of the film as Imamura with a performance so sincere, it sort of hurts.  Fumino Kimura’s spirited Wakaba keeps the proceedings nicely grounded, while Nakamura himself steals a few scenes as the CEO.

Potechi (Chips) is a fantastic little film, but the sixty-eight minute running time might make it difficult for some fests to program (fyi, stay for the stinger during the closing credits).  Fortunately, Japan Cuts and NYAFF will screen anything they jolly well feel like, which is why they rock.  In an elliptical way, it is a film about healing that earns its payoff fair and square.  Very highly recommended, Potechi (Chips) screens this Sunday (7/15) as the 2012 NYAFF closes and the 2012 Japan Cuts continues with its independent selections.

Japan Cuts ’12 & NYAFF ’12: Monster’s Club

Not content with the sarin gas cult and the United Red Amy, transgressive auteur Toshiaki Toyoda has also relocated Ted Kaczynski to Japan.  He’s welcome to him.  Toyoda’s takes the audience inside the cabin of Ryoichi Kakiuchi, as he is called in this context, if not necessarily his soul in Monster’s Club (trailer here), which screens as a joint presentation of the 2012 Japan Cuts and New York Asian film festivals.

Kakiuchi likes to send bombs to prominent members of the economic establishment.  Everyone should have a hobby.  If you are wondering why, he’d be happy to explain.  His Henry George-ish ideas on labor and production are the whole point of his terrorism.  He was not always a psychopathic loner.  Viewers will come to suspect his evil evolution was initiated by some profound family trauma, most notably involving the radical brother he idolized, when the mad bomber is visited by either ghosts from the past or hallucinations.

While not exactly soliciting sympathy for Kakiuchi, Toyoda expects viewers to appreciate his complexity.  However, the soul-deadened fanatic seems a rather simplistic, emotionally frozen character.  After a few setbacks in life, suddenly everyone is either an exploiter or an unenlightened slave in his judgment and therefore fair game for devices that go boom.

Frankly, patrons are well within their rights if they decide they are disinclined to identify with someone who kills people to serve his extremist ideology right from the outset.  To make matters more daunting, the severe reserve of Eita’s performance and the chilly detachment of Toyoda’s approach do little to pull in the reluctant, in spite of themselves.

A bold stylist, Toyoda creates some striking visuals in Club.  Yet, the epic catharsis of his last film, Blood of Rebirth, is conspicuously missing here.  A metaphysical allegory largely considered a veiled commentary on his much publicized legal trouble, Toyoda dragged the archetypal Buddhist hero Oguri Hangan Daisukeshige through the dark recesses of his soul, ultimately embracing life on the other side.   Conversely, Kakiuchi withdraws from life, while rhetorically berating those who live an unexamined existence.  Rebirth also had some monster drum breaks.  Still, Mayuu Kusakari, who was so devastating in Toyoda’s prior film, again has some finely turned moments in a smaller role, Kakiuchi’s sister, who is alive and well and beginning to understand her brother is out of his mind.

If you are looking for whizbang plotting, this is not the film for you.  If your aesthetic sensibility leans more towards the austere, then maybe.  It is certainly a challenging cinematic statement by any measure, but at least it clocks in at a manageable seventy-two minutes.  Toyoda is a filmmaker who always merits attention and his work has a tendency to appreciate in the viewers’ subconscious.  In retrospect, Rebirth has become one of my most vivid cinematic memories of 2010, so who knows how Club will ferment over time.  Narrowly recommended for hardy and slightly unkempt cineastes, rather than us tragically unhip bourgeoisie, Monster’s Club screens Sunday (7/15) as a co-selection of this year’s Japan Cuts: The New York Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema and the 2012 New York Asian Film Festival.

Japan Cuts ’12 & NYAFF ’12: Scabbard Samurai

What do you get when you combine the labors of Hercules with Make Me Laugh in feudal Japan?  A disgraced samurai with a lot of deep bruising.  Yet, his dignity will take the hardest hit in Hitoshi Matsumoto’s physically demanding Jidaigeki dramedy Scabbard Samurai (trailer here), which screens this weekend as a co-presentation of the 2012 Japan Cuts and New York Asian film festivals.

Kanjuro Nomi is not even a ronin.  He is a deserter, who symbolically emptied his scabbard after his wife’s death from the plague.  He aimlessly roams the countryside with his young daughter Tae, who makes no secret of the higher expectations she had for her father.  Thanks largely to his thick head, they elude three distinctive looking bounty-hunters: O’Ryu the Shamisen Player, Pakyun the Pistol Boy, and Gori Gori the Chiropractikiller.  However, his luck runs out when the Tako Clan captures him.

Rather than a quick execution, Kanjuro will have to face the “thirty day feat.”  Like a Gong Show Scheherazade, Kanjuro has thirty days to make the lord’s emotionally catatonic son smile, or its hara-kiri time.  At first Tae is disgusted by the sight of her father performing belly dances and shoving foreign objects up his nose.  However, when his well-meaning guards start coaching him, she also gets with the program.  As his stunts become more elaborate Sisyphean exercises, the entire town rallies behind Kanjuro, but Matsumoto is not going for the easy Hollywood ending here.

Scabbard’s period details are passable enough, but they are hardly the point.  Frankly, it is hard to think of another film that mixes such liberal helpings of slapstick humor, maudlin sentiment, and high tragedy.  Yet, somehow it all blends together easily in Scabbard.  The impressively straight-faced Takaaki Nomi is quite the good sport, putting up with all sorts of Fear Factor humiliation, while managing to maintain Kanjuro’s dignified bearing.  As Tae, Sea Kumada is truly something else giving the old man what-for, but she is also shockingly good in her big dramatic scenes.  One-named actress-model Ryō also brings an icy charm to the proceedings as the lethal shamisen player.

Kanjuro is no Sanjuro, that’s for sure.  Yet there is something deeply heroic about him.  It is that unlikely integrity that gives the film such a unique spirit.  Sensitively helmed by Matsumoto, Scabbard Samurai is definitely not for the jaded, but that is what makes it such a nice surprise at the overlapping festivals.  Recommended without reservation for those who appreciate earnest father-daughter stories, as well as the odd pratfall, Scabbard Samurai screens this Saturday (7/14) as a joint-selection of the 2012 Japan Cuts and New York Asian film festivals.

Japan Cuts ’12 & NYAFF ’12: Hard Romanticker

It feels like the 1970’s again, in a good way.  Strutting through the streets of Shimonoseki in a leather coat, slapping about petty thugs like little girls, while some funky soul-jazz s chugs away in the background, Gu Su-yeon’s latest film certainly follows in the tradition of vintage 70’s era exploitation films.  Yet, Gu’s story of life amid the zainichi underworld is reportedly based on real life experience.  His alter-ego namesake should definitely be considered an anti-hero throughout Gu’s Hard Romanticker (trailer here), which screens as a co-presentation of the 2012 Japan Cuts and New York Asian film festivals.

Bleached-blond Gu is a lone wolf freelancer, who treats the North Korean gangs with the contempt they deserve.  He enjoys the limited protection of his childhood friend Shoji, who has risen up through the ranks of the legit Yakuza.  However, when a couple of knuckleheads bludgeon to death the grandmother of an up-and-coming NK delinquent (supposedly with Gu’s encouragement), it ignites a war among street gangs that threatens to engulf the unaligned Gu.  With a crooked cop dogging his trail and his pal Shoji playing a dangerous game with the boss’s wife, Shoji is in for a rocky patch.  Of course, that does not stop him from making enemies among mobbed-up lowlifes or putting the moves on the ostensibly demur Naksuko Chieko.

Romanticker might be intended as a cautionary confessional, but its pure testosterone and adrenaline will key-up viewers to the point many will be ready to grab a length of rebar and jump into the fray.  If you want to see some spectacularly violent street fights, than this is the movie for you.  Yet, despite the wardrobe, attitude, and greasy soundtrack, Gu is no Shaft.  Frankly, there is a decidedly mean-spirited misogyny to the film that Gu the character explicitly contributes to.

An electric presence, Shôta Matsuda is all kinds of intense as the hardnosed Gu.  Sei Ashina looks great in Chieko’s sailor suit and she is quite affecting in her big dramatic scenes, almost completely undercutting viewer sympathy for the ethically challenged protagonist, as a result.  While the large ensemble of juvenile delinquents does not look particularly youthful, they are all pretty convincing when either giving or receiving a massive beatdown.

In Hard Romanticker’s world, life is cheap and sex is cheaper.  The action and attitude are highly cinematic, but the nihilism becomes a tad exhausting over time.  Recommended specifically for those who enjoy hardcore blaxploitation or Yakuza films, Hard Romanticker screens this Friday (7/13) at the Japan Society as a joint presentation of the 2012 editions of Japan Cuts and the New York Asian Film Festival.

Japan Cuts ’12 & NYAFF ’12: Tokyo Playboy Club

Do not think retro-hipness with regards to this Shinjuku hostess club.  Think more along the lines of the quickly canceled NBC TV show, squalidly trading off a rapidly fading brand name.  It is a decidedly low-rent establishment, but that is how small-time gangster Seikichi gets by.  However, a whole mess is trouble is headed towards the seedy night spot in Yôsuke Okuda’s Tokyo Playboy Club (trailer here), which screens as a co-presentation of the 2012 Japan Cuts and New York Asian film festivals.

A stoic hardnose like Katsutoshi does not belong at Seikichi’s dive, but after sort of accidentally killing someone at his last straight gig, the not really reformed gangster needs to lie low in Tokyo for a spell.  He ought to be at the right place for that, but this is a chaotic time at the TPC.  Seikichi’s goofer Takahiro made off with the petty cash, only to be double-crossed by a pregnant lover.  Now he and his live-in girlfriend Eriko are stuck working off the debt.  Katsutoshi does not help matters much by picking fights with Yakuza lieutenants.  This means more tribute must be paid.  At this point, things really start to get complicated for the TPC proprietor and his staff.

Nao Ohmori of Ichi the Killer fame is all kinds of bad as Katsutoshi.  He looks like existential alienation walking.  Yet, he slowly develops some hard-earned chemistry with Asami Usuda’s Eriko.  Despite being required to spend about a third of the film in near catatonia, she also nicely handles some intriguing moments of deep self-awareness.  Raising sleaziness to new heights, Ken Mitsuishi’s oily turn as Seikichi is also certainly effective, in a contempt-inspiring way. 

Unfortunately, Okuda’s pacing is not nearly as breakneck as it ought to be, while he is hell-bent on undercutting any lasting sense of emotional payoff.  Frankly, it seems like he is too enamored with this sordid world, refusing to allow any of its characters to escape.  Ultimately, TPC is a film with several wickedly clever scenes that all hang together rather awkwardly.  Recommended more for committed aficionados of Japanese Yakuza and crime films than general patrons of Japanese cinema, Tokyo Playboy Club screens this Saturday (7/14) at the Japan Society as a joint presentation of the 2012 Japan Cuts and the New York Asian film festivals.

Japan Cuts ’12 & NYAFF ’12: Asura

Never nurtured, a ferocious young beast-child is entirely the product of his environment—a desperate feudal Kyoto where many resort to cannibalism to survive.  Frankly, the boy has hardly known any other food, tearing through the countryside like taboo-shattering Pac Man.  However, there are those who are able to reach his scarred soul in Keichii Sato’s Asura (trailer here), which screens as part of the Anime from Hell sidebar of the 2012 Japan Cuts, co-presented with the 2012 New York Asian FilmFestival.

Born into a world not of his making, it is minor miracle Asura lived through his first day.  Somehow he was not eaten by the rabid wolves or his hunger-deranged mother.  Those first hours will set the tone for his young life.  The juvenile berserker will inspire the wrath of the local lord when he kills and subsequently chomps down on the only heir.  However, a wandering monk tames Asura’s wild spirit with a mantra the boy cannot even understand—at least temporarily.

You will be hard pressed to find a more hardcore Buddhist than Asura’s occasional companion, but he is a decidedly ambiguous figure, apparently more content to watch the world descend into flames than to actively engage with it.  It is the kindly village girl Wakasa who has a more lasting and profound influence on Asura.  Yet, Asura remains a dangerous figure, despite or perhaps because of his growing emotional attachment to the innocent beauty.

Based on George Akiyama’s controversial manga, Asura is absolutely not for children, under any circumstances (unless parents feel like this is a good time to have the old eating-human-flesh-is-wrong talk).  Beyond the cannibalism and violence, it paints an unremittingly brutal portrait of human nature.  Indeed, the film clearly implies the line separating humanity and overt savagery is rather tenuous at best.

Though soaked in blood, the animation of Asura has a lush, painterly look.  It also features some top anime voice talent, including Madame Masako Nozawa, the seventy-five year old Dragonball veteran, viscerally expressing the title character’s existential anguish.  Yet, it is commanding tone of Kinya Kitaohgi as the monk that really packs a punch.

Again, Asura is completely inappropriate for young viewers.  A lot of adults will have trouble with it too, but for those looking to plum the depth of humanity through animation, it is rather bracing, in an uncompromisingly naturalistic way.  Recommended for patrons of extreme anime, Asura screens this Thursday (7/12) at the Japan Society, as a joint presentation of the 2012 Japan Cuts and New York Asian film festivals.