Marebito (2004)

No one more personified 21st century J-horror than Takashi Shimizu, who wrote and directed the Ju-on movies. Even when not making Ju-on features, he almost never directed outside the horror genre which Ju-on had helped revive and re-define. Marebito is one of the rare exceptions.* In many ways it looks like a Shinya Tsukamoto movie, …

Villon’s Wife / Viyon no tsuma (2009)

One of several movies made to mark the centennial of the famous Japanese novelist Osamu Dazai, Villon's Wife visits the post-war world in which the novel first appeared, providing a portrait of the perfect wife with a husband who doesn't deserve her. Otani is a famous writer who is also an alcoholic, as famous for …

Summer Days with Coo / Kappa no Ku to natsuyasumi (2007)

Coo is a kappa, a legendary water creature of Japanese folklore. By accident, young Koichi in modern Tokyo finds what looks like an interesting fossil, but as he cleans it in water, the kappa gradually returns to life. The kappa is immensely grateful and, in the way of animated features everywhere, becomes friends with Koichi. …

Noriko’s Dinner Table (2006)

In simplest terms, Noriko is a teenaged girl from the provinces who runs away to Tokyo at Christmas and enters a world that she had never imagined possible. Instead of the story of a run-away drawn into the underbelly of prostitution and drugs that we might expect from such a beginning, Noriko's Dinner Table is …

Tokyo Sonata (2008)

Though it was widely seen and written about on its initial release, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Tokyo Sonata is so full of forgotten detail that it is more than worth a second or a third look. While it is the story of a salaryman who loses his job and almost loses his family, it is far more …

Mourning Forest / Mogari no mori (2007)

One of the characters in The Mourning Forest says, “There are no formal rules here, you know.” That could be used as a motto for Naomi Kawase's movie. On the surface it is a simple story of an old man who wanders away from his young caregiver. She gets lost with him in the forest …

The Foreign Duck, the Native Duck, and God in a Coin Locker / Ahiru to kamo no koinrokka (2006)

The God in the coin locker is Bob Dylan, whose “Blowin' in the Wind” is used as a repeated motif in this most unexpected film. Shiina sings it on the train to his freshman year at one of the several universities to be found in Sendai, and the story itself often seems to be blowing …

Letters / Tegami (2006)

There are many kinds of social prejudice depicted in Japanese films, and not all are based on race or wealth. Within the Japanese-born population, there are two “blood” stigmas that have continued to remain strong even in the 21st century. One relates to the burakumin, who have been social outcasts for so long that no …

United Red Army / Jitsuroku Rengo Sekigun: Asama sanso e no michi(2007)

The Asama-Sanso Incident in 1972, covered live on national TV, essentially ended the student rebellions of the sixties. After a days long standoff involving several gunshot deaths, police stormed a mountain ski lodge, rescued the housekeeper, and arrested the last members of the United Red Army. The story had been told from the view of …

Samurai I Loved / Chorus of the Cicadas / Semishigeru (2006)

Semishigeru follows the unexpectedly eventful life of the young samurai Bunshiro from his teens to full adulthood. Like many of the heroes in movies based on Shuhei Fujisawa stories, Bunshiro is on the periphery of the real action in his clan, knowing little or nothing about the politics even as he is swept up in …