Beyond Godzilla: Blue Christmas

We often hear clichés like “it’s what’s inside that counts” as a bland way to advocate tolerance. Unfortunately, the governments of the near future will pervert such sentiments to exploit fear and uncertainty. It seems those who experience close encounters with UFOs have had their blood turned blue. As a result, their loyalty and very humanity is now questioned in the highest government offices. The combination of fear and power yields harrowing results in Kihachi Okamoto’s Blue Christmas (trailer here), which screens during the Japan Society’s film series, Beyond Godzilla: Alternative Futures & Fantasies in Japanese Cinema.

This might just be the worst Christmas ever. There has been a rash of UFO sightings, but only maverick scientist Dr. Teruhiko Hyodo is sufficiently impolitic to discuss them in public. In a likely case of cause and effect, the researcher is abducted immediately following his controversial conference address. Experienced muckraker Kazuya Minami is assigned the story, but it is unclear whether the top executives at his media conglomerate really want him to find the truth-talking doctor.

Minami will have good reason to doubt the good faith of his superiors. Before he leaves to pursue leads in New York, he passes along a strange bit of gossip to his editor. Apparently, Yuko Takamatsu, the newly discovered star of an upcoming network historical epic has blue blood (and not in the colloquial English sense). Minami’s source is none other than her entertainment journalist lover. Quite suspiciously, Takamatsu is framed for drug possession and forced out of the production shortly thereafter, while Minami is on assignment.

Meanwhile, the taciturn military intelligence officer Taisuke Oki is clearly planning for something unpleasant. Currently in hurry-up-and-wait mood, he often frequents a barbershop near the base, because of his hard crush on Saeko Nishida a shy junior barber employed there. He too has strange experiences with disappearing colleagues.

Much like the way Fassbinder’s World on a Wire prefigured the themes and narrative elements of The Matrix decades earlier, the post-Watergate Blue Christmas eerily foreshadows the conspiracy mythology of The X-Files. However, Blue Christmas is even more paranoid with respects to political institutions and far more brutal in its depiction of the ultimate machinations.

Perhaps most significantly, Blue Christmas features the legendary Tatsuya Nakadai playing Minami, who might just be the classic movie journalist of all time. Sure, he is a virtuous crusader for truth, but he also understands the necessity of discretion with respects to valor. Furthering heightening the tragedy, Hiroshi Katsuno and Keiko Takeshita develop some exquisitely awkward but poignant chemistry together as Oki and Nishida, respectively.

Perhaps because screenwriter Sô Kuramoto was forced to edit his acclaimed script (originally published in a film journal), the loop doesn’t always get closed for every subplot. This is particularly true of “The Humanoids,” a Beatles like western band, whose hit song is ubiquitous throughout the film. Whether they are tools or victims of the shadowy cabal remains open to debate. However, one thing is for sure—any Tatsuya Nakadai is worth seeing—and he’s terrific in this one. Somehow, it feels both perfectly of and ahead of its time. Highly recommended for fans of UFO conspiracy theory science fiction, Blue Christmas screens this Saturday (4/8) at the Japan Society, as part of Beyond Godzilla.

Kurosawa’s Ran

It was a triumph interrupted by tragedy. Shooting was halted three times on Akira Kurosawa’s monumental fusion of Shakespeare’s King Lear and the legend of feudal lord Mōri Motonari, due to the deaths of his regular fight choreographer Ryu Kuze, his soundman since Stray Dog, Fumio Yanoguchi, and his wife and sounding board, Yôko Yaguchi. Nevertheless, Kurosawa still finished the film that would forever cement his reputation as one of the world’s greatest filmmakers. Still as overwhelming as ever, the 4K restoration of Kurosawa’s final straight-up masterpiece Ran (trailer here) opens this Friday in New York, at Film Forum.

During the Sengoku Era, daughters were not allowed to inherit—hence, Lord Hidetora Ichimonji’s three sons. His son Saburo loves him best, but the Daimyo cannot see past the young man’s rash, impetuous behavior. Technically, Jiro is the most Machiavellian of the brothers, but even he is no match for Taro’s wife, Lady Kaede. She harbors a deeply-burning grudge against Lord Hidetora for slaughtering her family after their arranged marriage. Ichimonji caught the clan of Jiro’s wife Lady Sué similarly unaware, yet her profound Buddhist faith prevented her suffering from corroding her spirit. Consequently, she is the only person who inspires guilt in the old warlord.

Like Lear, Ichimonji concludes he must abdicate and name his successor to insure long-term stability. Of course, it will have the exact opposite effect. Although Saburo is the most talented and worthy, Lord Hidetora names Taro instead. Understanding the possible ramifications only too well, Lady Kaede spurs Taro to consolidate and codify his new power. This deeply disappoints his father, who finds himself essentially stripped of the emeritus status he had envisioned for himself. War is inevitable and the carnage will be spectacular.

It is almost impossible to recognize the iconically handsome Tatsuya Nakadai (the all business cop in High and Low and Mifune’s very different adversaries in Yojimbo and Sanjuro) under all the make-up transforming him into Ichimonji. Nevertheless, he vividly and poignantly expresses Ichimonji’s increasingly erratic mental state. However, Mieko Harada upstages everyone and everything as the ferocious Lady Kaede (an original character with no analog in Lear or the tales of Mōri). It is a huge ensemble, most of whom labor under dehumanizing circumstances, obscured by rain, smoke, and helmets. However, Hisashi Igawa adds intriguing heft and nuance as Jiro’s general, Kurogane, perhaps one of the film’s few characters with principals.

Frankly, there will probably never be another motion picture that devotes so much time and resources to filming battle scenes that is not first and foremost a war movie. Ran is high classical tragedy several times over, but it also features some absolutely stunning scenes of Sixteenth Century warfighting. It is one of the few films that lives up to and even surpasses its reputation as a career-capping masterpiece. It is sort of incredible that Kurosawa was able look through a camera lens again following the epic production of Ran, but did indeed make three more quite nice, but considerably smaller films (including a contribution to a multi-director anthology). Very highly recommended, the 4K restoration, in all its dazzling color, opens this Friday (2/26) at Film Forum.

Zen and Its Opposite: The Sword of Doom

Swords do not kill people, ronin (masterless samurai) do—a whole lot of people, in fact. Yet, some believe it is the inherent qualities of the sword (or the fighting style) that makes the swordsman, for good or for bad, in Kihachi Okamoto’s The Sword of Doom, which screens this Friday as the conclusion of the Japan Society’s Zen & Its Opposite film series exploring the darker side of Zen Buddhism.

Stopping at a Buddhist shrine, an elderly pilgrim prays for death in a general “deliver me home” sort of way. Much to his surprise a stealthy ronin, answers his call, from behind and without mercy. Hardly compatible with the bushido code, it will lead to some bad karma for the killer, Ryunosuke Tsukue. While the old man’s murder has no apparent motive beyond Tsukue’s sociopathic tendencies, there will plenty of reason for his next killing. Tsukue has an exhibition bout, relatively meaningless for him but critical for his opponent, Bunnojo Utsuki, an aspiring master. However, Tsukue uses the circumstances to corrupt Utsuki’s wife, Ohama. In a fit of jealousy, Tsukue’s opponent turns their contest into a death match, giving Tsukue a perfectly valid excuse to kill.

Of course, Utsuki has many friends, whose bodies quickly litter the road out of town. Somehow though, Ohama becomes his common law wife, an arrangement that makes them both miserable. It is just an inkling of what fate has in store for Tsukue and those around him. Indeed, Tsukue is troubled by the matter of Utsuki’s younger brother, a student of Shimada, a master fencer so heavy he could only be played by Toshirō Mifune.

Doom might be considered high art cinema, but there is enough hack-and-slash action to make a fanboy swoon. Even for more upscale Jidaigeki (Edo era costume drama) enthusiasts, watching Mifune (in a relatively small part) and Tatsuya Nakadai lining up on opposites sides of some grand conflict is a pretty foolproof premise (coming after Kurosawa’s Yojimbo and Sanjuro, but before Kobayashi’s Samurai Rebellion). Intended as the first (and ultimately only) installment in a projected series of films adapting Kaizan Nakazato’s serial novel, Doom is somewhat notorious for its inconclusive freeze-frame ending. Still, what it lacks in closure it makes up for in manic bloodlust. Hinting at the supernatural, Okamoto’s visually stylish climax bears comparison with that of Welles’ Lady from Shanghai.

Nakadai plays Tsukue so stone-cold, he is practically the anti-Christ. Likewise, Mifune is all business as Shimada. In a welcome contrast, Yôko Naitô is believably sweet and endearing as Omatsu, the orphaned granddaughter of the ill-fated pilgrim. Adding memorable color and ambiguity, Kô Nishimura keeps viewers consistently off-balance as Omatsu’s mysterious “Uncle” Shichibei.

Frankly, Doom offers the best of both movie worlds, carrying the Janus Films/Criterion Collection seal of approval, while delivering several scenes of lone swordsmen standing amid mountains of their vanquished foes. What’s not to like? Thoroughly entertaining, Doom screens in all its black-and-white glory this Friday (2/18) at the Japan Society.

Asia Society: Age of Assassins

In the 1960s, Japan was quite embarrassed by its World War II affiliations. One mad scientist was the exception. He is only too happy to lend a few of the specially conditioned killer-inmates from his mental asylum to a Neo-Nazi with grand plans in Kihachi Okamoto’s Age of Assassins, which screens this coming Sunday in New York at the Asia Society as part of their ongoing Japanese Cinema 1960s free film series.

Get ready to be played. It is the swinging sixties, but Shinji Kikyo does not swing. A vision-impaired criminal psychology professor with an unpleasant case of athlete’s foot, he hardly seems the type to get mixed up in international intrigue. Unfortunately, his name is one of three randomly picked out of the phone book by Herr Bruckmayer to test the mad Mizorogi’s loony-bin assassins. The first two die easy as pie, but somehow Kikyo overpowers his would be assailant through sheer dumb bumbling. Of course, nobody believes Kikyo’s story, not even Keiko Tsurumaki, a correspondent for a true crime magazine, but she smells a good story.

Needless to say, subsequent attempts on Kikyo’s life convince her there might be something going on here after all. To better play his role, Tsurumaki gives him a James Bond makeover. The game is on now, as it becomes increasingly clear Kikyo’s involvement is not so random after all.

Perhaps the definitive Japanese leading man for western audiences, it is frankly bizarre to see Tatsuya Nakadai geeked-up and slapsticky as Kikyo. Still, he handles the nutty humor like a good sport. As Tsurumaki, Reiko Dan definitely has a saucy Bond Girl appeal that never goes out of style. Most of the rest of the cast realize they are playing caricatures, so they just go with it, without any sense of restraint.

With its groovy soundtrack and whimsical animated titles, Assassins has a similar spirit to contemporaneous American spy spoofs. Perhaps the WWII twist gives it a bit of historical-sociological significance, but everything is plainly played for laughs, which is fine. Naturally, the story makes no sense at all. In fact, whenever the film backtracks to explain itself, it digs itself a deeper hole. Yet, that is part of the charm of the genre.

Who knew Nakadai could play a Clouseau role? To be fair, he and Toshiro Mifune developed a nice comedic rhythm in Kurosawa’s Sanjuro, but nothing like the broad high-jinks seen in Assassins. An energetic cinematic exercise in cross and double-cross, it is goofy departure from the high tragedy that is often programmed for Japanese film retrospectives. It screens this Sunday (12/5) at the Asia Society and again, admission is free.