TOKYOMANGO

Richard Gere's new movie about Hachiko

Ever wonder what Richard Gere has been up to? I don't, but I am looking forward to seeing his newest film. It's about Hachiko, the famous Akita dog whose spirit resides in Shibuya Station since the 1930s. He was a smart, loyal doggie who lost his owner at the age of 2. The owner died of a heart attack while he was at work, so the dog never knew of his death. So every day for the rest of his life, he sat in front of Shibuya Station in the late afternoon to early evening, waiting for the owner's return. Other commuters soon caught on to what was happening and started feeding the dog and paying him lots of attention.

Hachiko died of heartworm at the age 11 and the ward erected a statue in his honor. Now it's the most popular meeting spot in Tokyo.

After Hachiko died, they found a whole bunch of yakitori sticks inside his tummy. His stuffed body is now on display at a museum in Ueno.

Boys Over Flowers, the movie made from my favorite manga

One of my favorite manga growing up was Hana Yori Dango, or Boys Over Flowers. It's an unconventional shojo series by Yoko Kamio. The heroine is a girl named Tsukushi Makino—she's neither rich nor pretty, but her parents decide to dig into their savings and send her to a snobby private school. There, Tsukushi has multiple run-ins with the Flower 4—four handsome, wealthy, extremely cocky guys who dominate the school's social life. My girl friends and I loved the story so much that four of us called ourselves the Flower 4 all throughout high school. Stupid, I know.

In the movie—which came out in theaters last month—Tsukushi and the leader of the F4, Tsukasa Domyoji, are about to get married but get sent on a transnational adventure in search of a missing tiara. I watched it on the airplane over to Tokyo (like JAL, ANA has great food and a highly maneuvrable entertainment system). I missed the entire TV series so was super curious to see how they portrayed my favorite manga with real humans. The verdict? It was okay. I was slightly disappointed by the random plot and the nonsensical turns it took (if they're in a rush to get to Vegas, why are they driving idly through the desert and not flying into Las Vegas airport??), but still, I was entertained and I didn't fall asleep. That says a lot, because I usually fall asleep during movies.

Short film: Tokyo seen through a kaleidescope

This neat video by Kosai Sekine, the guy behind that wonderful obsessive-compulsive combini man short that I posted last February, looks at the Tokyo cityscape through a giant kaleidescope. Quite mesmerizing.

via Pink Tentacle

Children of the Dark, a controversial movie about child trafficking

Children of the Dark is a controversial film by director Junji Sakamoto that brings light to the problem of child trafficking and prostitution in Thailand. Too bad neither country is keen about the movie—some Japanese think it's biased against their own country, laying all the blame on the demand side, while the Thai pulled it from the lineup of films shown at this year's Bangkok International Film Festival in late September.

I think both countries should just show it. Human trafficking is a real issue, and just because you don't watch the movie doesn't mean it will disappear.

Why Miyazaki does all his drawings by hand

In the era of stop motion and CGI and Pixar, Japan's favorite anime director Hayao Miyazaki refuses to use the aid of a computer to make his world-famous movies. When interviewed recently for his newest film, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, Miyazaki offered this explanation as to why:

I think animation is something that needs the pencil, needs man's drawing hand, and that is why I decided to do this work in this way. Currently computer graphics are of course used a great deal and, as I've said before, this use can at times be excessive. I will continue to use my pencil as long as I can.

Not the most fascinating explanation, but it's interesting to know that the guy who created the first Oscar-winning animated film ever is so old school.

Sukiyaki Western Django Looks Awesome

Takashi Miike's new movie, Sukiyaki Western Django, looks awesome. The NY Times calls it "a loving and lurid pastiche of the spaghetti westerns that were themselves lurid pastiches of classic Hollywood cowboy pictures."

Quentin Tarantino supposedly makes some cameo appearances in it, disemboweling a snake in the opening scene.

(Thanks, Ryan!)

Sneak Preview of Michel Gondry's Tôkyô!

Tôkyô!, the artsy triptych movie directed by Joon-ho Bong, Leos Carax, and Michel Gondry, is just out in theaters across the city it's named after. Here's a teaser segment from Carax's segment, which is called Merde. Looks awesome, right? It doesn't debut in the US til next month (in Austin), but it's definitely worth saving on your Netflix queue.

Glimpses of Elderly Porn Master, Courtesy of CNN

Last week, I blogged about Shigeo Tokuda, currently the most popular porn star in Japan. Here you can see glimpses of his magic. Um, yeah. He's 74. So what?

Oh, and this video also provides the quote of the day: "Ruby specializes in elderly porn!"
If you've followed this blog long enough, you know that my dog is named Ruby, and that she likes elderly porn. Really.

 

Kamikaze Girls: A Colorful Film about Girls who Don't Fit In

Last night I watched Kamikaze Girls, a movie based on a light novel about two girl friends, Ichigo and Momoko—one who belongs to a motorcycle gang, and one whose mind is in the Versailles-era Rococo-style gutter. It's a couple years old and has been around the film festival circuit quite a bit, but this was actually my first viewing, and here are my first impressions:

- Model Anna Tsuchiya makes a pretty good yanki.
- I have never worn lace before, but Kyoko Fukada looks good in it, and by the end of the movie I understood her taste in frills and florals.
- Director Tetsuya Nakashima has really fun, quirky storytelling skills. I enjoyed the sequence of events and the scenes-within-scenes.

Love My Life: Film Shows What It's Like to be a Lesbian in Tokyo

I just watched a movie called Love My Life. Like many great contemporary Japanese movies, it's based on a manga. This one explores the issues surrounding gays and lesbians in Japan. The main character is a young woman named Ichiko. She has a female lover, and decides one day that she'll come out to her widower dad. He's pleasantly surprised—you truly are a child of me and mom, he says happily. I'm gay, and so was your mom! Ichiko's best friend at school is gay; so is the mysterious girl with the mohawk who frequents her record store.

It's a lot harder to come out in Tokyo than it is in San Francisco. While the characters toy with the idea of coming out, in most instances  it's never really a real option. But the film, directed by Koji Kawano, is full of interesting observations of life in general, about how often the most meaningful things in life come out of the worst experiences, how family influences the person you become as an adult, and why love sometimes has to wait. All themes that are more interesting when explored via an intimate relationship between two pretty girls. And yes, they get naked at the end.

Japan Japan: A Movie about a Gay Israeli Japanophile

Despite its seemingly patriotic title, Japan Japan is not really about Japan at all—it's the first feature length film by Israeli film director Lior Shamriz, and it's about a soul-searching 19 year old boy in Tel Aviv. ("More than a Middle-Eastern movie about Japan, this movie (is) a film from the middle east that would have preferred to have been Japanese," he writes.)

Imri, the protagonist, longs to go to Japan. His mom thinks he's crazy and his friends keep asking him when he's going as he daydreams about shrines and masturbates to Japanese mass orgies. It's a fun film with snapshot scenes of urban youth life in Israel and nostalgic Japanese music that'll make you wish you were watching kohaku in the 70s.

This film was screened at San Francisco's Frameline LGBT Film Festival last month. I drove by the Castro Theater right before showtime, and the line went all the way down the block. 

 

Nana, a Film About Two Unlikely Best Girl Friends

I  just watched a movie called Nana. Based on a best-selling shojo manga that sold over 22 million copies in Japan, it's a cute story about two girls who are total opposites that become best friends. One is a super girly girl who wears lots of pink and will give anything to be with her boyfriend; the other is punk rocker who sacrificed the love of her life for her music career. The two meet fatefully on a train ride to Tokyo, and when they meet again at an apartment for rent, they become roommates. They're both named Nana.

At first, I thought the story sounded really cheesy, but I found myself really enjoying the movie. Both characters are extremely likable despite their shortcomings—Nana the girly girl can be really annoying, and Nana the punk rocker has a bad temper and an attitude but the're both genuine and endearing. You end up falling in love with both by the end of the movie.

Movie: Children of Huang Shi

I just watched a movie called Children of Huang Shi. It's about a British journalist, George Hogg, and his experience in China during the Sino-Japanese War. Pretty early on in the movie, you have this incredible scene where Hogg inadvertently ends up photographing a massacre in Nanking, and then almost loses his head when the Japanese find his film. Shortly thereafter, he gets recruited to go to a town called Huang Shi, which has turned into a giant orphanage for kids who lost their families in the war. Hogg thinks, I don't want to spend my time in China with a bunch of kids! I want to see the real war. And this pretty white lady who works as a nurse there tells him, don't be silly. You want to see the real war? These kids and their predicament are the unfortunate side effects of it. So he sticks around, earns their trust, and ends up being more emotionally invested in saving them than he could have ever imagined. It's a good movie—George Hogg was a real guy, and this was a real war, and the ending is appropriately moving. It's directed by Roger Spottiswoode (Turner & Hooch, Tomorrow Never Dies) and stars hotties Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Michelle Yeoh, and Chow Yun Fat. 

Cute Japanese Movie of the Month: Honey and Clover

On the plane ride home from Rio, I watched this really cute movie called Honey and Clover. It's the first live action adaptation of a popular manga about a group of art students training under a guy named Hanamoto. One day, Hanamoto introduces his cousin's daughter, Hagu, to the group. She's a super cute, talented artist and all the guys instantly fall in love with her. The story unfolds at a mellow but highly entertaining pace—it really does feel like you're flipping through the pages of a well-scripted manga. But it's not annoyingly girly or overly artsy at all—there's a certain innocence to it that even my gadget-loving boyfriend thoroughly enjoyed. (He won't admit it now, but I overheard him telling my dog that he discovered a new movie that he really liked called Honey and Clover.)

Honey and Clover is available on DVD and sometimes shows in theaters. Check out the web site for more deets.

Win Free Tickets to Death Note: The Movie

The live action film Death Note comes out in select theaters next week. It's a story based on a famous manga about a notebook that can kill people—just write a person's name in it, outline how he's going to die, and it will come true. Two young, strange, good-looking Japanese boys go head-to-head in the hunt for the guy who carries the evil notebook. I saw it a preview screening of it a couple of months ago—it's really good!

I'm giving away two tickets for the Death Note screenings on May 21st here on Tokyomango, courtesy of Viz Pictures. All you have to do is shoot me an email with your name, address, and a short statement on what you would do if the Death Note fell in your hands (remember—you can't just throw it in the bin, because someone else might pick it up and commit crimes with it).

Tix are for Bay Area screenings only. All entries must be in by Thursday at noon PST. Thanks!

War Documentary Causes Controversy, Angers Protagonist

Last month, I blogged about Yasukuni, a powerful documentary about war memory by Chinese director Li Ying. It's a heated, opinionated look at the controversy surrounding ex-prime minister Koizumi's visit to the shrine that holds the ashes of WW2 criminals. It caused a stir when several Japanese movie theaters refused to air it, and again made headlines when several other Japanese movie theaters agreed to air it. Now, one of the main subjects in the film is demanding that he be taken out of the footage completely.

90-year old Naoji Kariya, who makes multiple appearances in the film as a talented sword maker who made WW2 weapons, feels he was deceived by Li and misrepresented in the movie. Kariya told Mainichi:

I was told that the film was a documentary about sword making. I cannot trust director Li Ying any more. I want my scenes deleted from the film.

Li says:

I gained Kariya's approval. If I cut his scenes, the film will be undercut and cannot be screened.

The jury's still out as to whether Li really tricked Kariya into being interviewed, and whether the film will be edited or removed entirely from theaters. One thing's for sure though—all this controversy has put Li on the map.

Wings of Defeat: A Documentary About Living Kamikaze Pilots

We've all heard of kamikaze pilots. They're the infamous troop of martyr pilots involved in a last-ditch effort by Japan's Imperial Army to save face in World War 2. About 5,000 Tokkotai—their official name—died, but what's less known is the fact that some survived. In an excellent new documentary by Risa Morimoto, whose uncle was trained as a kamikaze pilot but never dispatched, explores the experience and psyche of these brave and controversial soldiers of a badly defeated nation.

This documentary was really, really good. It showed many perspectives—those of the pilots themselves, those of American soldiers who survived kamikaze attacks, and expert opinions from people like John Dower—an MIT historian who wrote an amazingly interesting account of post-war Japan in his book Embracing Defeat. Morimoto herself went out and did all the interviews, and she's in a lot of the footage, sitting next to interviewees as they share experiences with her. She manages to extract conflicting emotions from all sides—the kamikaze pilots share their fear and doubt, while American soldiers tell her that they would have done the same thing had they been on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Trailer and screening info after the jump.

Anti-Sex: A Fabulous Short Film About a Girl Who Runs a Love Hotel

One of my favorite short films ever is a 2006 30-minute flick called Anti-Sex, directed by Ryotaro Muramatsu. It's about a high school girl named Ai whose father's death left her in charge of a love hotel. It's always been a family business, and because she's been so over-exposed to sex since childhood, she's totally not interested in it. At all. This is a really cute, hip, fun comedy about love and sex and Japan.

It's playing tomorrow as part of a shorts series at the SF Int'l Asian American Film Festival.

Yasukuni: A Documentary Explores the Ethics of War Memory

War memory is a super touchy subject. When a country fights a war, and does things that are not very cool at all in the process, and then that country loses the war, do its people still have the right to worship the dead? A new documentary called Yasukuni explores this topic by documenting the extreme emotions that surround the controversial shrine in which ashes of Japan's war dead are kept. Some think it's okay to honor those who fought and died for the country; others think it's not cool at all to pay homage to those who caused suffering, shame, and death to countless civilians abroad.

The war in question is WW2. The ashes causing the controversy are those belonging to the higher-ups in the Imperial Army, including a couple who famously commanded the Nanking Massacre. The worshiper that brought the name Yasukuni to international fame was former prime minister Koizumi, who chose to make his annual visit to honor the dead despite cries of protest from pretty much everywhere in 2005.

New Documentary Explores the Origin of the Fortune Cookie

Did you know that the fortune cookie might actually be Japanese? A new documentary, directed and produced by Derek Shimoda, explores the origins of this staple dessert at Chinese restaurants across the world, and finds that there's a high possibility that Japanese immigrants closely tied to a rice cracker shop may have first made and distributed these cookies in San Francisco. (Incidentally, most people in China have no clue what a fortune cookies is.)

It's a fun documentary—really well put together, with some classic characters and some really interesting scenes from 20th century Asian American history—that premieres March 15th in San Francisco at the SF Int'l Asian American Film Festival.

Genghis Khan is Not Japanese.

The story of fearless Mongolian leader Genghis Khan has been told in many different ways over time, but one of the more recent adaptations was done in Japanese, with Japanese actors. My friend James Lee reviewed it for the SF Weekly:

The film shows the sensitive side of Genghis Khan, as he sheds more tears than blood. However, the horrible directing, diarrhea dialogue, and laughable acting makes the whole thing seem like a war reenactment made for TV. In one scene, a brave enemy asks Genghis (actually pronounced “Chingis,” and the one thing the movie gets right) that he wants an honorable death and doesn’t want any blood spilt, so the soldier requests to get strangled by Khan’s own hands, and I wanted to form a line behind him.

I have to agree, it really wasn't that good. I walked out about 3/4 of the way in. I just think that movies about a certain nationality/people should be represented to the extent possible by their own people. Same deal with some of the "Japanese" actors in Heroes.

In Fair NeoVerona, Where We Lay Our Scene

Peter Payne, the entrepeneur behind the import portal j-list.com, has done for Hello Kitty vibrators what Marco Polo did for noodles. He has a professional interest in keeping abreast of what's hot and cool in Japan, and he's clued us in on many new trends, from Haruhiism to Alibi Buddy. His latest tip-off involves the anime-ification of Shakespeare's most famous tearjerker.

"Romeo x Juliet" (that's a sort of yaoi thing there, the x meaning 'versus') is quite cool. It's basically a remix of the famous story, so you've got Juliet as part of a team of (sort of) sentai fighters who resist the Montagues who killed all the Capulets. It's fun for the English major geek in me, since they add in other Shakespere characters, like Hermione from A Winter's Tale (Romeo's fiancee), Shylock from The Merchant of Venice, Titus Andronicus, and so on.

No US version has been announced, but we're keeping our fingers crossed. Wired recently reported on a British publisher who're releasing a manga Hamlet. Is the Bard becoming an otaku icon? I can't wait for a giant mecha version of Measure for Measure. 

Movie: Last Life in the Universe

I just finished watching Last Life in the Universe, a 2003 film directed by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang and starring Tadanobu Asano (of Ichi the Killer fame). OK, I admit. It was late at night, and I fell asleep for a few minutes in the middle. But I actually really liked the film. Here are a few reasons why:

- It's a neat collaborative effort by Ratanaruang, Asano, Christopher Doyle, and Takashi Miike (who directed Ichi the Killer). The four often ran into each other in the film festival circuit, and talked about doing a movie together frequently. Finally, they dug up an old script that Ratanaruang had written years ago, modified it, and the end result is Last Life. It wasn't meant to be a blockbuster—it was just four super-talented friends who wanted to work together.

- There are some phenomenal scenes of the most mundane objects. Stacks of Japanese dictionaries. A clutter of bottles. Shoes. Keys. Two dead bodies amidst a tatami mat floor. They're shot so beautifully that you're like, wow. Cool. It's artsy without being too pretentious.

- The sound F/X. Music or silence or suicide attempts are always interrupted by the ringing of a bell—either the door, or the phone, or the door, or the phone.

- The girl is pretty.

- You learn a lot of Thai and Japanese phrases.

- It plays non-offensively on some cultural stereotypes, like the Japanese man who wants to commit suicide and the Thai girl who works in the sex and entertainment industry.

 

Movie: Linda, Linda, Linda

In 1987, a rock band called The Blue Hearts recorded a song called Linda, Linda. I don't think there are that many Japanese people who don't know this song. It's been featured in video games, TV dramas, hundreds of karaoke rooms across the country, and, most recently, in a 2005 movie about an all-girls high school rock band called Linda, Linda, Linda.

I saw this movie this past spring, which is when it was released in the US. It combines high school drama, multiculturalism (the lead singer is a Korean foreign exchange student, played by popular Korean actress Bae Doona), and relentless work ethic as the 4 bandmates prepare for a performance at the annual school festival.

Most of the music from this cool film was composed by James Iha of the Smashing Pumpkins.

This video is an excerpt from the movie.

New Uncensored HBO Documentary on Hiroshima

Hiroshima, August 6, 1945. It was hands-down the scariest, most traumatic day in Japanese history. White Light, Black Rain, a new HBO documentary film by director Steven Okazaki portrays an honest, down-to-earth take of the atomic bomb and its impact on some of its most resilient survivors. I watched this last night with co-producer Taro Goto, who conducted all the Japan-based interviews with the hibakusha (and the Harajuku street kids who have no idea what 8/6/1945 signifies). Pretty intense. The survivors' testimonials combined with entrancing music (the score includes tunes by Mogwai, Brian Eno, and Sigur Ros), eerily beautiful explosion scenes (like the never-before-seen footage of a hydrogen bomb experiment), and uncensored raw footage of the gruesome aftereffects of radiation make this film a must-see for those who can handle it.

Catch it on HBO to commemorate the 62nd anniversary of the disastrous bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or get it on DVD (it came out today).

A Must-See Documentary About Host Club Workers

The highest paying profession for Japanese men in their early 20s? A host club worker. These charismatic paid womanizers make up to $50K a month if they're good at what they do, and at least $10K even if they're not that great. And all they do is sit in bars, talk to women, and make them happy. The Great Happiness Space is a documentary that explores the revenue-generating, highly twisted world of host clubs where love is for sale and sex is taboo. Very interesting—and now, luckily for us, the entire full-length documentary is now available online.

Watch the documentary (in full) (Thanks, Angel!)

Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust (Movie)

How do you make failed economic policy into a funny, futuristic comedy? Bubble Fiction, a new movie by Yasuo Baba, does it with a fake funeral, a time machine, and a cast of silly happy characters. In 1990, the Ministry of Finance announced a new fiscal policy that led to the infamous bubble burst that drove Japan into a long recession. 17 years later, research reveals that things are getting to bad that the country will be driven into the ground within two years. Not good!

Luckily, a woman scientist accidentally modded a yellow Hitachi washer into a time machine—and she's gone back to the days preceding the doomsday announcement to try to prevent it from happening. But when she disappears after a couple of days in the past, her daughter goes back to investigate what happened.

The best thing about this movie is the exaggerated depiction of pre-recession Japan. The girl, who was buried in debt in the 21st century, finds herself hundreds of thousands of yen richer after just one night in the 90s. She ends the evening saying to herself, "I love the bubble!"

Bubble Fiction was fun in that uniquely Japanese way, positive, silly, and amazingly good for an airplane movie.

Sukeban Deka Movie Comes to the US

If you came of age in Japan in the 80s, you'll remember a popular manga series called Sukeban Deka. What's not to remember about a hot delinquent bad-ass teenager who infiltrates high schools to solve crime? Boys loved her short skirts and girls loved that she was stronger and smarter than anyone around. The protagonist, Saki Asamiya, doesn't carry a gun or a samurai sword or anything, just a yo-yo and a whole lot of attitude.

Anyway, Magnolia Pictures picked up the latest movie version for US release, and it comes out today in at the Opera Plaza Theaters in SF under the title Yo-Yo Girl Cop. Aya Matsuura, cute pop singer, plays the part of Saki, who is sent on an undercover assignment to a Japanese high school after being detained at an Immigration holding center in the US for overstaying her visa. Her mission? To find out who's behind the Web site Enola Gay, which is linked to a teenager who exploded in the middle of Shibuya's Scramble Crossing.

Yo-Yo Girl Cop features hot girls in school uniforms and leather beating each other up, otakus with bomb, mysterious Web sites, bombs, bullies, and deadly yo-yos. If you love campy fights scenes and Japanese girls, you'll love it.

More screen shots after the jump.

Genius Party, Collection of Manga Genius Shorts, Coming Soon

Genius Party, the much-anticipated series of short mangas produced by animation group Studio 4°C, debuts in Japan on July 7th. To create this anthology—which will be released as two separate feature-length films (the second one comes out in early 2008), is a collection of works by 14 manga "geniuses"—animators, writers, directors, etc. Each was given the theme ENERGY, and pretty  much everything else was left to the producers' discretion.

Link

Ichi the Killer—Bloody, Gory, Artsy, Cartoony Fun in a Movie

Last night, I convinced a friend to watch the oh-so-violent and wonderfully comical movie, Ichi The Killer, with me. What can I say? I didn't know if I had the stomach to watch blood and guts and brains and the slow slicing of an attached tongue all by myself. OK, so that said, the movie was really awesome.

Based on a manga created by Hideo Yamamoto, the main character is a sadistic, totally calm and crazy yakuza named Kakihara. He is a ruthless and creative torturer (cooking shrimp tempura, and then pouring the oil over a man who hangs from the ceiling by long hooks wedged into the backside of his body) with a fucked up face—he has huge gashes on both sides of his mouth so he can literally smile from ear to ear. There's only one thing that truly intimidates—and excites—him, and that is the prospect of coming face-to-face with Ichi the Killer. That's because Ichi single-handedly killed a roomful of yakuza, slicing each one's body parts with speedy precision, leaving the room full of intestines and blood. It's shot beautifully—looked at with a different mindset, it actually looks like modern art.

The thing I loved the most was that Ichi the Killer was NOT the prototypical heartless scary-looking serial killer. He's a disturbed, brainwashed, emo kid-type who cries as he slices people into pieces with his bladed shoe. I remember muttering to myself as I watched him split a pimp in half: "This movie is really good."

Voluptuous Boobie Mound Mouse Pad

Check out these mouse pads with real fake silicone boobies to caress your wrist with as you surf the Web. Who doesn't want that? If you're more into booties, there's the buttcheek one, too, after the jump.

Hana: Samurai Movie with Pop Singers and Poop Jokes

What happens when you mix a post-modern Japanese film director with a classic samurai plot?

Even though I've never been a big fan of period films, I was curious enough about this that I went to see Hana Yori Mo Naho, the new Kore-eda flick that was showing at the SF Int'l Film Fest a couple nights ago. Kore-eda's the director who made Nobody Knows, that awesomely depressing, inspiring, and beautiful movie about three young children abandoned by their mother in an apartment complex with little food and money. Plus, the cast former boy band (V6, to be exact) member Junichi Okada and 80s superstar Rie Miyazawa as the two main characters.

Anyway, the movie was really good. The set was amazing. It depicted a poor tenement neighborhood in old Tokyo (Edo), a kind of poverty you don't really see anymore. People who can't pay their rent but are having a heck of a good time living there anyway. They have jobs that were considered to be substandard at the time, like collecting garbage or working in Yoshiwara, the infamous Tokyo red light district that dates back to the 17th century. The residents are all illiterate, and there's a mentally challenged man named Mago who doesn't stop hopping and loves to talk about poop. (Yaaay poop jokes!) They have fun and are like one big family. It's part of the history of Tokyo that you don't see or hear about much.

And then there's the lone samurai Soza, played by Okada, who descended from the higher ranks to live amongst these people to find the man who killed his father. His mission is revenge, but his weakness is his timidness. It's 1702, and Japan is at peace: not a great thing for the samurai, because they have nobody to fight and people are questioning their purpose. Soza would rather teach the kids how to write than how to sword-fight, and while his samurai heritage tells him that he must seek out and kill his enemy, a part of him hesitates. His ultimate resolution to this dilemma is definitely worth watching for.

I love that poop jokes date all the way back to 1702, maybe even earlier. They're immortal.

If you're in the Bay area you can catch this movie tomorrow night  at 5:45 at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley.

High Shool Girls Kung Fu Fighting

This extremely silly short film features two Japanese schoolgirls walking and arguing about whether Tezuka Osamu's famous manga character, Black Jack, is Japanese or not. First they're just wondering out loud; then they start yelling; then they break into this all out back-flipping, panty-flashing fake kung fu match.

And then this guy on a bicycle shows up with a giant QR code on his head. (QR codes are 2-dimensional barcodes that usually link to web sites.) And he goes "Scan me, and you'll find the answer."

This video commemorates the kick-off of a new QR code product that incorporates moving video. Cool product, but it's Japan only, so those of us living abroad can just enjoy the school girl cat fight.

Link

Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story

I just spent a teary hour and a half watching Abduction, a documentary by Canadian journalists Chris Sheridan and Patty Kim about the handful of Japanese people who were abducted by North Korea in the late 1970s. It was really, really well done. I think I like well-made documentaries about important subjects more than chick flicks. And that's saying a lot.

I say handful, but by some estimates over 100 Japanese were abducted by the North Koreans. The reason? To serve as trainers who would teach North Korean spies not only how to speak Japanese, but how to BE Japanese.

Megumi Yokota was by far the youngest abductee. She was only 13 when she disappeared. The North Koreans presumably made a mistake, because the rest of the people they kidnapped were in their twenties. Kim Jong Il's report to Koizumi said that she had committed suicide in a mental hospital in the early 90s, but her parents aren't buying it. I don't blame them for being skeptical. The ashes the North Koreans sent back in a little cloth-wrapped urn were declared a mismatch after a DNA test.

Megumi disappeared on her way home from school one fall evening. There were absolutely no clues to here whereabouts until an investigative journalist from the Sankei News published an article entertaining the idea that people were being kidnapped by North Koreans off the Sea of Japan coast. The reason for his suspicions? A young couple was jumped, covered with sacks, and thrown into a bush in preparation for transport late at night, but were discovered by a man walking his dog on the beach before they were shipped away. When the kidnappers told the couple to be quiet, they said: "Please be quiet" (Shizuka ni shinasai) instead of "Shut up!" (Shizuka ni shiro)

Miyazaki's New Film: Ponyo On A Cliff

Studio Ghibli just announced its newest Hayao Miyazaki Film. It's called "Ponyo on a Cliff." Guess that kid in the tube must be Ponyo. His character is based on pictures of Miyazaki's kid, Goro, as a child.

Read more here.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a really cool anime movie based on an adult novel from the 60s. I just watched it this weekend at the SF Int'l Asian American Film Festival. The director adapted the original story by 1. making the main character of his film the actual niece of the original girl who leapt through time; and 2. changing details (she's superfast at text messaging on her cell phone, for example) to make it more applicable to modern-day Tokyo.

Besides the fact that happy, time-traveling Japanese fictional characters (think Doraemon, or Hiro from Heroes) have the awesomest adventures ever, this girl is just sooo likable. She's lazy--always late to school, spends way too much time in the bathtub, groans when she has to get up to answer the phone--and a total tomboy, but is also the biggest sweetheart. She spends a whole bunch of her time-traveling power trying to get couples together, for example, or not hurting someone's feelings, just trying to set things right. It's cute.

I don't know where it's showing next, but I highly recommend it.

Zatoichi Was The First Man In My Life

I just came back from eating pizza and am now watching The Tale of Zatoichi. Zatoichi is a cool, calm, and very skillful blind masseur-turned-samurai who can kick anybody's ass with his sword and super hearing+sixth sense. The movies were made in the 60s, but this classic warrior with superhuman fighting skills despite his handicap has inspired many modern-day movie heroes, like the ones in Blind Fury and Daredevil.   

I'm usually not one to understand movies that happened before WW2, but apparently, my mom used to watch Zatoichi movies obsessively when she was pregnant with me. What does this mean? It means Zatoichi is quite possibly the first man to have ever entered by subconscious. Maybe even before my dad did. So he's special. These movies are special. Plus they have fucking awesome fighting scenes.