Nightmare Detective / Akumu tantei (2006)

We first meet Kagenuma, the Nightmare Detective (Ryuhei Matsuda), with an in joke about J-Horror itself. He has entered the nightmares of Oishi, an old man who keeps a long black wig on the wall and seems to be haunted by it. Kagenuma explains the nightmares, but Oishi prefers to stay in the dream world …

An Adolescent / Shojo/ Shoujyo (2001)

Shojo is one of the most passionate love stories to come from Japan since Manji, but at the same time it is one of the most disturbing movies of an era that produced many disturbing movies. Its story is simple – Yoko is a young woman who propositions Tomokowa like a prostitute but she refuses …

Another Heaven / Anuzahevun (2001)

Tokyo has a serial killer on the loose, but there seems to be no rhyme or reason behind the killings. Grizzled veteran detective Tobitaka (Yoshio Harada) and handsome young detective Manabu (Yosuke Eguchi) are on the trail of a gruesome killer – we first see them with a body whose head has been cut open …

Swallowtail Butterfly / Yentown / Suwaroteiru (1996)

The swallowtail butterfly appears as tattoos on two young women and in a dream/memory that makes it a metaphor for the aspirations of all the characters in Shunji Iwai's disjointed but epic attempt to depict the immigrant experience in Japan. Swallowtail Butterfly is set in some undefined city but could apply equally to almost anywhere …

Nightingale / Bush Warbler / Uguishu (1938)

Uguishu, Shiro Toyoda's most highly-regarded pre-war movie, has just appeared on YouTube and despite the occasionally murky print and less-than-idiomatic subtitles, it is a fascinating and humane look at pre-war Japanese society. Like Policeman's Diary, one of the first movies I posted about and based on a novel by the same writer, it is centered …

Violent Cop / This Man is Wild / Sono otoko, kyobo ni tsuki (1989)

Japan had seen the American-style rogue cop movie before, but Takeshi Kitano's Violent Cop strips the cliches to their bare-boned essence, in the process making a movie that often looks like a very traditional bit of Japanese film-making yet feels like a major turning point in Japanese cinema. As a detective, Azuma is strange, to …

Breakout / Ikidomari no banka (1988)

A year before Takeshi Kitano's Violent Cop appeared, Breakout re-introduces to Japan the good bad cop who had already become a clichéd but still standard figure in western movies and TV since introduced by Dirty Harry in 1971. Until its downbeat ending, the movie hits so many of the American clichés that I had to …

Did the Redbird Escape ? / Akai tori nigeta? (1973)

Made between Trail of Blood and The Assassination of Ryoma,  Akai tori nigeta? cements Yoshio Harada's position as the ultimate Japanese screen Outsider. As Hiroshi, he is, in his own words, about to become a “29-yr-old scumbag,” but he has somehow formed an unlikely friendship with the younger Takuro (Masaaki Daimon). After a scam I …

Creature Called Man / Jaga wa hashitta (1970)

The Creature Called Man is an interesting illustration of Japan’s attempts to compete with Euro/American imports. It starts like a Bond movie and soon turns into a hit-man film, but just can’t resist Japanese tradition and thus ends as a samurai movie. The dictator of Southnesia has been overthrown. The dictator is being pursued by …

Big Boss / Kaoyaku (1971)

In his first directing job, Shintaro Katsu managed to produce a genre masterpiece in a genre that, in most senses, did not yet exist. Katsu directs himself in a script that the credits say he co-wrote with the great Ryuzo Kikushima, playing a rogue cop, that most clichéd of movie and TV characters during the …