Watched in 2020
A log of all the films I have watched in 2020. I only give full number ratings on scale from 1 to 5. This means I sometimes have to make difficult calls in whether I round down or up IMDB scores (e.g. 7 becomes either 3/5 or 4/5 feature for the review blurp). But in the first place numerical ratings are only rough indications of film's quality and merit so I think this is fine.
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- DirectorMamoru OshiiStarsYoshikazu FujikiShinji HiguchiMako HyôdôA fictional documentary about changing Japanese eating habits and the colorful thieves that swindle the restaurants which serve them.January 1
Oshii's bizarre "superliveanimation" animation hybrid film is such a peculiar film it could only possibly come from the mind of its creator. No one else would create something like this, an over-the-top cartoony faux-documentary of Japan's postwar history through made-up nonsense about "fast food grifters" (Oshii's favorite comedic staple going back to Urusei Yatsura) exploiting popular fast food restaurants as they explode onto scene one after another, decade after decade, following a presumably historical order of spread of their popularity in Japan.
The cast is colorful to say the least, inside jokes hilarious (Shoji Kawamori cameo as Indian is a favorite), Oshii's barby political asides interesting, and the animation style novel to say the least. So I'm happy this exists, but I don't think there's denying the film is overlong and the joke (the whole project could be thought of as one, really) stretched beyond breaking point. Charm of "superliveanimation" also wears out quickly.
Fast food grifters is a pretty funny short film mistakenly made as a feature. Shame, but I'm still happy it exists.
2/5 - DirectorMamoru OshiiStarsYoshikazu FujikiRinko KikuchiMeisa KurokiIn the aftermath of a global thermonuclear war three battle tested women wage war in a virtual video game against giant mutant sand whales.January 2
If on Avalon Oshii hasn't yet fully surrendered to his inner Last Man, on Assault Girls he has completely given up. Politically, philosophically, artistically - white flag is up. This is unfortunate enough, but even more unfortunately Oshii mistakenly thinks this makes his vidya MMORPG exploits a worthy subject for cinema since nothing matters anyway.
Certainly this film doesn't.
1/5 - DirectorMamoru OshiiStarsLance HenriksenKevin DurandMélanie St-PierreIn a world where clone soldiers from three military tribes are locked in a perpetual battle of air, land and technology, one clone is separated from the battle and finds herself on the run with a group of unlikely companions.January 2
Oshii's big budget international production is the closest thing he has got to making a science fiction epic in live action format. Garm Wars is unfortunately a mess, an incomplete narrative for the most part lacking in thematic interest and compelling characters. It's greatest strenghts are audiovisual, smooth digital cinematography and Kenji Kawai's trademark music. But even formally film's not-animation-but-animationlike boundary hopping is a mixed bag.
Whatever disasters took place behind scenes, it is clear Oshii's ambition clearly exceeded his grasp. The setting is interesting but ain't it, chief. In light of uninspired work like Assault Girls and Garm Wars Oshii's upcoming return to anime is a relief.
2/5 - DirectorMamoru OshiiStarsNana SeinoNobuaki KanekoLilyAi, who is a student at a girl school, is talented and extremely good in the arts. Unfortunately, the implication of this is that her school-mates are jealous and the grown-ups see her as a tool for their own devices. Ai becomes aware of her position and is caught between her gift and her surroundings. She is worn down as a result.January 4
Oshii's first live action work to reach level of "okay" since Avalon is probably that way only because it is Oshii's remake of action short film he liked a lot, and as such there's no chance for it to get mired in the kind of pretentious and digitalized nonsense that has made most of his 21st Century output so dismal.
Tokyo Mukokuseki Shojo works because it doesn't overstay its welcome, and the whole film exists as excuse for one particularly over the top girl-with-guns action sequence Oshii is so good at anyhow. It doesn't pretend to be much more (though to the extent it does it's bad).
So yeah, at least this is honest zero budget indie Japanese action schlock.
3/5 - DirectorAkio JissôjiStarsRenji IshibashiSeiran LiKôji ShimizuA decadent Count in 1920's Japan becomes obsessed with the works of the Marquis de Sade. He creates a theatre to show plays adapted from his novels, and recruits thieves, prostitutes and low lives to act out his fantasies.January 5
If Jissoji's "AV" V-cinema trilogy is a good reason to suspect Jissoji had lost his ability to make good cinema out of ethically suspect sex and dark side of human mind, this film provides ballast of counterevidence.
Prosperities of Vice is as poisonously beautiful and aesthetically seducing as it is disturbing and perverse. The outcome is a provocative study of Taisho decadence and a rare 80s pink film that is worth seeing.
3/5 - DirectorRyûichi HirokiStarsShinobu TerajimaNao ÔmoriRiho MakiseAfter meeting a handsome truck driver (Nao Omori) in the midst of an urban mini-mart, a 30-something freelance writer (Shinobu Terajima) embarks on a life-changing emotional journey of sexual self-discovery.January 5
Ryuichi Hiroki's raw study in human miscommunication and sexuality is one of the best character studies to come out of 00s Japan, where the very crassness of some of the material is essential to psychological exploration.
4/5 - DirectorAkio JissôjiStarsToshio ShibaKeiko OginomeShingo KazamiThe disappearance of a TV news reporter leads his co-workers to go searching for him. Later, the co-workers discover that a mysterious woman in red and the sudden appearance of a giant monster might hold the key as to the whereabouts of their missing friend.January 5
Jissoji's return to tokusatsu fare is a disappointing crash landing. While it is fun to see Jissoji direct toku again with his characteristic skewed sensibilities this Ultra Q spiritual successor never truly comes alive. The problems are general, ranging from hammy plotting to haphazard pacing and lack of focus.
2/5 - DirectorHideo OnchiStarsJun'ichi InoueMasaya OkiKumiko AkiyoshiA young boy learns he is part of a powerful race of psionic humans who must fight the normal humans determined to keep them from Earth.January 6
This beautiful anime film adaptation of shojo manga SF classic(!) is a great example of the staying power of original otaku youth culture that cropped up around anime and manga in the late 70s-early 80s.
While the film is idiosyncratic both in its story and the way it is told it remains a memorable pop culture artifact quite distinct from space opera that preceded (Yamato) and followed (Gundam, Macross) it. There's something particularly unique about the feel of its key animation.
3/5 - DirectorKore-eda HirokazuStarsCatherine DeneuveJuliette BinocheEthan HawkeA stormy reunion between scriptwriter Lumir with her famous mother and actress, Fabienne, against the backdrop of Fabienne's autobiographic book and her latest role in a Sci-Fi picture as a daughter of a mother who never grows old.January 7
Koreeda gets his post-Palme D'Or prestige picture made in France, featuring the truly magnificent Catherine Deneuve in the main role. As one would expect Deneuve dominates the whole film despite the high quality of the cast on the whole.
All in all La vérité is a finely made, subdued family drama characteristic of both modern French cinema in general and Koreeda's own output, but perhaps due to modesty born out of cultural distance Koreeda's gaze seems less penetrating than in his explorations of Japanese family.
What comes through loud and clear is Koreeda's muted awe and respect for Deneuve.
3/5 - DirectorNoboru TanakaStarsJunko MiyashitaHatsuo YamayaHiroshi ChôJanuary 13
Tanaka's third pink exploration of historic subject doesn't live up to level of Sada Abe or Watcher in the Attic. While this look into life of Seiu Itō and his wife is above the average Roman Porno fair it's lacking in aesthetic interest in comparison.
3/5 - DirectorHiroshi IkedaStarsMasako NozawaAkio TanakaAkira NagoyaHayato's peaceful life with his parents and his dog is brought to a dramatic, terrible end when a giant robot, said to be sent from a flying ghost ship, devastates the city, killing hundreds including Hayato's parents. Shortly before his death, Hayato's father reveals that he is not really their son. Hayato is now alone, struggling in this strange new world left after the disaster, where giant machines and monsters control the world. He sets on a dangerous quest to discover the mysterious powers that be, only to discover that he is directly connected to it all...January 14
One of the most batshit insane anime films I've ever seen, a thoroughly entertaining romp which gleefully smashes together at least 5 different genre pictures together into one friskly paced 61 minute romp.
Not many pop culture artefacts of its time and place are this captivating and earnest. It is a so-bad-it-is-good picture for sure, but it is a *well made* so-bad-it-is-good picture!
60s Pro-Soviet japanese children cartoons were something else.
3/5
edit: Rewatched on 15th May - DirectorYoshimasa HiraikeShintarô ItogaMitsuhiro IwasakiStarsJunnaAmi KoshimizuMinori SuzukiJanuary 19
Macross Delta movie holds up well on rewatch, its combination of repurposed tv series footage and new scenes resulting in far better production than the unfocused series was. As always, Kawamori's reworking of old material is an object lesson in montage theory and his skill as editor.
4/5 - DirectorDavid LynchStarsJack CruzDavid LynchToototabonIn a locked down train station, a homicide detective conducts an interview with a tormented monkey.January 21
Lynch and monkey having a discussion is the very essence of cinema.
4/5 - DirectorSam MendesStarsDean-Charles ChapmanGeorge MacKayDaniel MaysApril 6th, 1917. As an infantry battalion assembles to wage war deep in enemy territory, two soldiers are assigned to race against time and deliver a message that will stop 1,600 men from walking straight into a deadly trap.January 29
Sam Mendes's World War I pseudo-real time, pseudo-one take picture is one of the best modern war movies. The film is all around excellent, but what really impresses is how 1917 manages to make these often gimmicky formal and narrative choices serve the movie on the whole in a natural way. Carefully considered breaks prove film's audacious style never becomes an end in itself.
Superb.
5/5 - DirectorMikio NaruseStarsHideko TakamineYûzô KayamaMitsuko KusabueAfter a bombing raid destroys the family store and her husband, Reiko rebuilds and runs the shop out of love stopped short by destruction.February 1
Yearning ranks among the highest echelons of Naruse's sorrowful love stories - and as such among masterpieces of Japanese cinema. Everything about this film is just superb and the final scene one of the most haunting from the 60s.
5/5 - DirectorTerrence MalickStarsAugust DiehlValerie PachnerMaria SimonThe Austrian Franz Jägerstätter, a conscientious objector, refuses to fight for the Nazis in World War II.February 10
Malick returns with his first genuine masterpiece at least since Tree of Life. A Hidden Life is not a pacifist paean or a hippie celebration of non-conformism as mispresentations go; mispresentation that correspond to how Jägerstätter has been appropriated by the '68 Generation since 60s.
No, this is a movie about sainthood and crucible of suffering and renunciation necessary for becoming one. Of all Malick's films A Hidden Life is perhaps most openly Christian in subject, theme and even style, a veritable The Passion of Joan of Arc or Diary of the Country Priest for the 2010s.
One of the best films of the decade.
5/5 - DirectorTatsumi KumashiroStarsJunko MiyashitaRenji IshibashiAkoAt his working place, Kozo and his colleague gangrape the boss' teenage daughter. Then, on the highway, he picks up a red-haired woman walking on the road back to his home. She ends up staying the night. Later, the woman reveals that she has left her husband and son, but refuses to divulge her name. On the other hand, the boss' daughter informs Kozo's colleague that she is pregnant. They decide to elope but, before that, he demands Kozo to let him have sex with the red-haired woman...February 29
Junko Miyashita stars in one of the more dramaturgically strong and famous pink films of the 70s. Woman with Red Hair surpasses the norm through Miyashita's superb performance, naturalistic lower class drama and director's Kumashiro's delightful use of music. The film is only hindered by some excesses, even if most of its 'skin' scenes serve a purpose.
Not really a consideration that is pro or con, but I also find it amusing how much a JK character (who gets raped early on) looks like Rino Sashihara.
3/5 - DirectorMakoto ShinkaiStarsKotaro DaigoNana MoriTsubasa HondaSet during a period of exceptionally rainy weather, high-school boy Hodaka Morishima runs away from his troubled rural home to Tokyo and befriends an orphan girl who can manipulate the weather.March 13
Shinkai could've played it safe after historical mega success of Kimi no na Wa, but instead he opted to make this. I don't think I've ever seen a 'mainstream' anime feature so full of bizarre or downright questionable details and plot points before. Shinkai is clearly doing whatever he wants to do, and what he wants to do is early 00s eroge sekai-kei story adapted to Kimi no na Wa aesthetics and targeted at 10s teens.
I love the sheer audaciousness of it all, its subtle retro feel, and stunningly gorgeous animation and art. In many ways Tenki no Ko is more interesting and original production in comparison to Kimi, and it is certainly (even more) stylistically overwhelming.
On the other hand, somewhat scattershot and (even!) morally ambiguous nature of this anime keeps it below Kimi, as fun as I find it.
3/5 edit: rewatch on July 18 - DirectorKon IchikawaStarsKazuo HasegawaFujiko YamamotoAyako WakaoYukinojo, a Kabuki actor, seeks revenge by destroying the three men who caused the deaths of his parents. Also involved are the daughter of one of Yukinojo's targets, two master thieves, and a swordsman who himself is out to kill Yukinojo.March 14
Kon Ichikawa directs a period piece about Kabuki actor out for revenge as if it was some strange modernist Kabuki in itself. An Actor's Revenge must be one of the most stylistically original and formally impressive jidaigeki to ever come from Japan, and pathos of its intense story never devolves into bathos either.
5/5 - DirectorNobuhiko ÔbayashiStarsTadanobu AsanoTakuro AtsukiMickey CurtisThe story centers on a group of young people who travel back in time when they are in a movie theater just before closing time. They witness deaths during the closing days of Japan's feudal times and on the battlefront in China before they are sent to Hiroshima just before the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing of the city.March 14
A Hidden Life may not have been a a pacifist paean, but that might be the simplest description one can give for Obayashi's final film. Labyrinth of Cinema is a wholly singular work and experience even by standards of Obayashi's own experimental filmography.
Because what the hell is this thing, really? An essay film? Metafictional drama? Documentary with historical re-enactments? Study of Japanese war films - or is it a study of Japan and its wars? Obayashi's semi-autobiographical final lecture to the youth? Groovy hippie dramedy? Tragedy about horrors of war? Science fiction epic?
I could keep listing questions like this without supplying clear answers forever, but this suffices. Labyrinth of Cinema truly lives up to its name in form, content and artistic intention. Thankfully this labyrinth is one where you want to get lost in.
Obayashi finished his long career as maverick director with two masterpieces in a row. I didn't see it coming, but I'm deeply grateful.
Requiescat in pace
5/5 - DirectorKôji WakamatsuStarsMaki SakaiArata IuraAkie NamikiThe film outlines Japanese students movements in the 60s, then shows the formation of the Japanese United Red Army, a communist armed resistance group.March 30
Wakamatsu's brutal and brutalizing account of United Red Army in Japan is one of the most singular films of 21st Century. It is a drama that stays clinically close to historical record and has the feel of re-enactment heavy documentary in some respects, but no re-enactment is this visceral and dramatically compelling.
URA is no easy watch, imposing in its lenght, style and subject, but those willing to make an effort find Wakamatsu's late career epic is his masterpiece.
5/5
edit: Rewatched on 11th September. Still kino. - DirectorKôji WakamatsuStarsShinobu TerajimaShima ÔnishiKen YoshizawaThe story of a village woman given the grueling task of looking after (and fulfilling the sexual needs of) her quadruple amputee husband, a Japanese soldier in the Second Sino-Japanese War who has been decreed a "War God" by the Emperor.April 1
After URA Wakamatsu took to adapting Edogawa Ranpo short story about a war veteran who returns home after having lost all his limbs. Wakamatsu takes the premise and basic outline from Ranpo and combines it with hysterical anti-war WWII drama, with mixed results. Everything owing to Ranpo's original eroguro grotesque is compelling, but Wakamatsu's cheap histrionics about WWII and evils of imperial Japan during the war are difficult to take seriously.
3/5 - DirectorKinji FukasakuStarsBunta SugawaraHiroki MatsukataKunie TanakaDuring the violent chaos of post-War Japanese black market, a young gangster called Shozo Hirono has to keep up with the rapid shifts of power between unscrupulous bosses.April 3
Kinji Fukasaku's rapid-fire, punishingly realistic five-part Yakuza epic is the pinnacle of jitsuroku eiga and yakuza films in general. Powerfully directed, staged and acted, it just doesn't get better than this. Bunta Sugawara would go down as one of the coolest leads in film history even if he had no other roles to his credit.
The first film of the series is probably the best of the bunch as it is the most dramaturgically self-contained. The quality of the series is so uniformly high quality gradations are ultimately just hairsplitting, however.
5/5 - DirectorKinji FukasakuStarsBunta SugawaraShin'ichi ChibaMeiko KajiA young criminal joins a yakuza family to kill the gangsters who beat him up, but falls in love with his boss' widow's niece, piling up enemies and corpses along his wayward way.April 4
Kinji Fukasaku's rapid-fire, punishingly realistic five-part Yakuza epic is the pinnacle of jitsuroku eiga and yakuza films in general. Powerfully directed, staged and acted, it just doesn't get better than this. Bunta Sugawara would go down as one of the coolest leads in film history even if he had no other roles to his credit.
The 2nd film in the series gives us the definitive side story of young cannon fodder yakuza experience. The finale is perhaps the most haunting part of the series.
5/5 - DirectorKinji FukasakuStarsBunta SugawaraAkira KobayashiTsunehiko WataseYakuza boss Shozo Hirono must choose his alliances carefully as the local gangster family affiliations prove themselves to be wildly unstable, causing gang conflicts to slowly escalate.April 5
Kinji Fukasaku's rapid-fire, punishingly realistic five-part Yakuza epic is the pinnacle of jitsuroku eiga and yakuza films in general. Powerfully directed, staged and acted, it just doesn't get better than this. Bunta Sugawara would go down as one of the coolest leads in film history even if he had no other roles to his credit.
The third film in series features escalating conflict and brings larger scale to the conflict as expies for Yamaguchi-gumi and Kyosei-kai bring war with shifting alliances to Hiroshima. Proxy War also continues the focus on young members who fight and die without any rela reward for the big shots.
5/5