Perfect Days (2023)

Direction: Wim Wenders
Country: Japan / Germany

Acclaimed German director Wim Wenders (Alice in the Cities, 1974; Wings of Desire, 1987; Paris Texas, 1984) returns to Japan - where he filmed Tokyo-Ga nearly 40 years ago - to shoot Perfect Days, a simple and endearing tale co-written with screenwriter Takuma Takasaki. Drawing inspiration from Ozu's filmmaking style, Wenders crafts a narrative characterized by nuanced circularity and a gentle pulse, offering a film that soothes the soul rather than warping the brain.

Koji Yakusho portrays Hirayama, a quiet and hardworking public toilet cleaner residing alone in Tokyo. Despite his solitary lifestyle, he finds joy in nature, photography, literature, and ‘70s rock music, cherishing the beauty in life’s little details. With a sweet shade of detachment from the real world, the humble Hirayama transmits the pure bliss of being thankful for everything he has, searching for beauty in every aspect of his daily routine. However, his tranquil existence is disrupted when his estranged niece, Niko (Arisa Nakano), unexpectedly pays him a visit, coinciding with tensions arising from his young assistant, Takashi (Tokio Emoto), who has fallen in love.

Yakusho delivers a pitch-perfect performance, carrying the weight of the narrative with ease, while Wenders approaches the story with a sense of politeness, eschewing flashy theatrics. Undeniably, the film's power lies in its restraint, opting for hopefulness over heartbreak and exuding a strange yet beautiful gentleness of spirit. Perfect Days unfolds with airy grace and poetic substance, masterfully composed in a minor key that never feels repetitive or aggressive in its narrative cycle. Not seeking to impress you, this amply generous and pure cinematic gesture will probably touch you in the heart.

Monster (2023)

Direction: Hirokazu Koreeda
Country: Japan 

Hirokazu Koreeda (Nobody Knows, 2004; Shoplifters, 2018), an observant Japanese cineast with extraordinary capabilities, confirms his talent as an explorer of the intimate, capturing adolescence, friendship, and family with incisive intelligence. Fascinating in its maturity and storytelling, Monster is a fascinating and mature storytelling experience that provides an involving and exhilarating journey, shaking the audience by surprise and offering a nuanced understanding of reality.

The meticulously constructed tale, written by Yuji Sakamoto (the first not written by Koreeda since his 1995 debut feature Maborosi), revolves around characters such as an overprotective single mother (Sakura Ando) who refuses to hold back emotions, her only son (Soya Kurokawa) who starts acting strangely erratic, his lonely classmate (Hinata Hiiragi) stigmatized by an alcoholic father, and a young teacher (Eita Nagayama) accused of misconduct. The narrative also involves an ineffectual school principal (Yuko Tanaka) deeply affected by a tragic accident. 

This infinitely touching moody tale unfolds with some unfathomable secrets and torments that progressively dilute into transparency. At first very sad in the disconsolate aura that underpins it, then very strange and bemusing, and suddenly very inspiring. In truth, every dose of discomfort will seep into your skin but, if you’re an optimistic, don’t get desperate because Koreeda pulls a rabbit out of the hat with magical refinement.

The film shapes as a provocative, thoughtful, sometimes minimalist dramatic fresco, deliberately illusive in structure and narrative. Nothing is taken for granted, and, all of a sudden, darkness can turn into light when we’re given a different perspective. Koreeda’s masterful control and the compelling performances of a multigenerational ensemble cast elevate the emotions. The late master composer Ryuichi Sakamoto's piano-driven score further intensifies the experience. Monster stands as a product of compelling filmmaking.

Godzilla Minus One (2023)

Direction: Takashi Yamazaki
Country: Japan

If you enjoy adventure films with a combination of intense action and dramatic flair, Godzilla Minus One might be the movie for you. Directed by Japanese filmmaker Takashi Yamazaki, the film offers a visceral and fast-paced fantasy with striking visuals and a strong sense of conviction. Yamazaki employs blockbuster tactics to depict multiple dangerous situations with a radioactive Godzilla wreaking havoc on a postwar Japan. 

The story revolves around Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a former kamikaze pilot turned deserter and sea-mine extractor. His lack of courage brings shame to many of his fellow countrymen. However, when he encounters Noriko Oishi and her rescued orphan baby, he discovers a new purpose in life. As Godzilla heads to Tokyo, Koichi sees an opportunity to redeem himself and prove his bravery and piloting skills.

The film explores strong anti-patriotic sentiments associated with the loss of war, mixed with a sense of unity among a group of civilians led by former naval weapons engineer and strategist Kenji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka). Despite some plot holes and sentimental moments, Yamazaki enhances the film with stylized visuals, well-composed frames, and knockout sequences that blend ferocity with desolation. The director bends the rules of the genre by providing reinforced visual effects and relying on an intense musical score. While Godzilla's new roar is a result of a simple amplification of the original, the overall experience feels fresh and new.

Love Life (2023)

Direction: Koji Fukada
Country: Japan 

Shot with the intimacy and formality that is many times associated with Japanese cinema, Love Life is an emotionally complex melodrama rooted in grief, trauma and patriarchy, but branching out into insecurities, reconnections and family subtleties.

Writer, director and editor Koji Fukada (Harmonium, 2016; The Real Thing, 2020) brings us the story of Taeko (Fumino Kimura), and her husband Jiro (Kento Nagayama). The couple works together at the local social service center and is happily married despite Jiro’s father has never approved of their relationship. Taeko has a bright six-year-old son, Keita, from a previous marriage. A shocking tragedy suddenly shakes this family without warning. All of them will have to adapt to the new reality. Keita’s estranged biological father, a homeless Korean man (Atom Sunada), resurfaces shortly after Taeko finds out that Jiro had a fiancée before her, who happens to be their coworker.

Coping with grief and the role of women in the patriarchal Japanese society are not the only central topics here. Loneliness is also very present, clashing with the constant communication - in three different languages - that occurs among the characters. These people are wounded inside and vacillate in several ways when disoriented. We feel them as they breathe the discomfort of their lives in search of love and resilience. 

Melancholy infiltrates an acerbic story that employs too much composure for a plot that, even fairly unpredictable, is meandering and not as moving as the director would have intended it to be. Yet, the beautiful image composition comes with extraordinary sharpness and is to be praised - director of photography Hideo Yamamoto worked extensively with Takashi Miike and contributed to Takeshi Kitano’s Fireworks look great.

Fukada signs a drama punctuated with strong sequences of muted disenchantment and discreet humanism. They warn us about the impossibility of controlling life as well as the time required to overcome difficult phases.

Plan 75 (2023)

Direction: Chie Hayakawa
Country: Japan

Named after a controversial if imaginary bill passed by the Japanese government, Plan 75 opens with a suicide, which, according to the suicider is a brave act, for the country and toward a brighter future. This pathos-filled drama is about aging, loneliness, exclusion, and death. The film’s depressing tones are ceaseless and the rhythm often crumbles within its schematic structure. 

Co-wrote by Jason Gray and debutant director Chie Hayakawa, the story follows three individuals whose paths cross at some point due to this particular program. We have Michi Kakutani (Chieko Baisho), a lonely widow who is forced to retire at the age of 78 with no means of survival; Hiromu Okabe (Hayato Isomura), a young Plan 75 salesman who unexpectedly connects with an estranged uncle; and Maria (Stefanie Arianne), a Filipino nurse desperate to collect funds for the expensive surgery of her little daughter. 

Japan has the fastest aging population in the world and the idea of not disturbing anyone is especially strong among the Japanese elderly. Working from there, Hayakawa mounts achingly poignant situations, though not particularly memorable as they tend to miserabilism. A quiet intensity and elegiac melancholy pervades the scenarios of a chamber film whose feelings and textures didn’t always resonate with the expected emotional weight. Most likely, the audience will remain at a distance, both physical and emotional, but the inner journeys are made vivid by purely filmic means. 

One can find discreet compassion without condescension; and that’s positive. However, some of the parts are more engrossing than the whole.

A Balance (2022)

Direction: Yujiro Harumoto
Country: Japan

The protracted drama A Balance, the sophomore feature by Japanese helmer Yujiro Harumoto (Going the Distance, 2016), is generally more wobbly than balanced, and not just regarding the handheld camera. Although the film ultimately achieves its function of exposing sexual abuse at school and make the Japanese society alert, its documentary-like representation fails to stir emotions consistently. Unfortunately, Harumoto doesn't touch our hearts as much as he thinks he does, creating a cinematic object that is problematic in various aspects. This story about sexual crimes, cover ups, and lies is not devoid of interest, but following a decent buildup, falls apart in subsequent scenes bathed in inertia, with nothing fresh or exciting about them.

At the center, we have documentarian Yuko (Kumi Takiuchi), who, through her camera lens, seeks the truth about a presumable case of sexual harassment at school that ended in double suicide. She’s impartial and righteous, exposing the truth and the impact that the case had on the victims’ families. But when facing a similar case that implicates her own father (Masahiro Umeda), who runs the cram school where she teaches, her moral consciousness becomes blurred and her behavior questionable. It’s not a dichotomy between fiction and reality that one finds here. It’s more about truth and falsity. 

The performances hit the right notes and both the scenario and the moral dilemma are credible, and yet they lost the battle with 152 minutes of slow pacing and silences that cause a certain boredom. The whole filming technique is also documentary-style but the path that leads to the ending is not as strong as it should be. A Balance seems more like a product of an appalling naivety.

Sexual Drive (2022)

Direction: Kota Yoshida
Country: Japan

Kota Yoshida’s scrumptious comedy, Sexual Drive, is another curious triptych film coming from Japan, after last year’s Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. The film is an amusing sex-food hookup driven with skill, dynamism and humor. Although not always thrilling, it's excitingly cerebral and conveys an effective emotional undertow beneath its complex aphrodisiac food neurosis.

The first segment involves an apologizing man, Kurita (Tateto Serizawa), who visits his lover's husband to confess their passionate 3-year love affair. The second episode follows a woman suffering from panic disorder who accidentally hits Kurita while driving. In the last chapter, the latter character, who bridges the three stories, threats a married man on the phone, making him experience the same solitude his lover felt when he cancelled their rendezvous last minute. 

The menu includes natto, mapo tofu, and ramen with extra back fat, but extends the piquant pleasures beyond the palatable. If you’re into unpretentious, funny films that offer multiple scenarios as a 70-minute escapist entertainment, then the cinematic ingredients of Sexual Drive should be enough for you to have a good time.

Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle (2022)

Direction: Arthur Harari
Country: Japan / France / other 

There’s a certain appeal in the mental confinement of a man devoted to his cause to the point of denying the obvious. The French filmmaker Arthur Harari (Dark Inclusion, 2016) magnificently captures the topic in his sophomore feature, Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle, by telling the true story of a tenacious Japanese soldier who lived in a permanent state of belligerency on a Filipino island for thirty years, after the second world war was over. 

Eschewing any type of unnecessary flourish, this observant epic takes a heartbreaking look at a man’s spirit of duty, resistance, and ultimately delusion. Keen observation bleeds out of many scenes as we follow the incredulous soldier Hiroo Onoda (Yuya Endo / Kanji Tsuda), a man who never surrendered until ordered by the high-ranking official who had trained him, Major Taniguchi (Issey Ogata). Harari captures few battle scenes, almost conveying detached feelings when he does, as if not wanting them to overwhelm the deception and obstinacy of a soldier who fights an invisible war.

Unfolding with the enthrallment of some classics - directors Kon Ichikawa and Masaki Kobayashi are probably influences - the film is a seamless, nearly absurd, and pity-free account of a particular war episode that is, nevertheless, quite touching.

Belle (2022)

Direction: Mamoru Hosoda
Country: Japan

The Japanese director Mamoru Hosoda (Mirai, 2018) teams up for the first time with fellow animator Jin Kim (Moana, 2016; Raya and the Last Dragon, 2021) in Belle, an animated dramatic effort that stresses tyrannical societies, both real and virtual. Despite incorporating topics such as loss, trauma, identity, fame, and abusive parental conduct, the film is a let-down, plot-wise. Its artistry, even demonstrating quality, isn’t especially stirring, and the pop music is off-putting. It was hard to be emotionally involved in this densely brewed Beauty-and-The-Beast universe pulled up from our social media era.

Hosoda tells the story of Suzu (voice of Kaho Nakamura), a shy, motherless 17-year-old high school student who enters the gigantic virtual world of U and rises to stardom as a singer. In this cyber world, she can lead a new life and be who she really is, but her popularity as Belle becomes secondary when she meets a destructive Dragon. From that moment on, she only wants to find out the identity of the person behind this avatar. Meanwhile, in the physical world, she counts on the support of Shinobu, an admired sports guy and childhood friend who protects her since her mother died, as well as her best friend Hiro and the popular Ruka. 

More humdrum than fascinating, the film is nothing more than a soppy teen-pleaser that, growing dull (the way they unveil and  locate the Dragon in the real world is so naive), is liable to strain the patience of adults. I found myself yawning way before the ending.

Under the Open Sky (2021)

Direction: Miwa Nishikawa
Country: Japan 

Japanese writer-director Miwa Nishikawa (The Long Excuse, 2016) worked for three years on the script of Under the Open Sky, an adaptation of a novel by Ryûzô Saki, the author of Vengeance is Mine, made into a cult film by Shohei Imamura in 1979. However, and despite an interesting premise, the object of this review fails to satisfy as Nishikawa’s inspiration dwindles with time. The film periodically descends into cloying while the tough and sweet sides of the protagonist come to the fore. 

Speaking of protagonist, the multifaceted actor Koji Yakusho (13 Assassins, 2010; Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai, 2011) is the underlying cause for most of the film’s appeal. He plays a short-tempered former yakuza who, released from prison after 13 years, has trouble integrating the society. This man, abandoned by his geisha mother at the age of four, spent his childhood in an orphanage and worked for crime families since his teens. Now, in his fifties, he’s determined to get a decent job despite being seen as an outcast. Some old and new friends are his hope. 

Mired in forced sentimentality, the film never really builds up a great deal of steam but infuses some bursts of anger and humor here and there, leaving a meaningful message to the community and a glimpse of hope for the ones looking for an opportunity to change. Anyway, it’s all too patchy to be classified as a prime work.

Drive My Car (2021)

Direction: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Country: Japan 

This strangely affecting drama directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi produces a flash of quiet brilliance that resonates steadily throughout the engrossing three-hour session. Slowly mesmerizing, Drive My Car brings many rewards in what is an interesting adaptation of a short story by the Japanese writer Hakumi Murakami. Hamaguchi, who co-wrote with Takamasa Oe, modified it with cleverness and gave it extra depth by virtue of delicate gestures and a timeless grace. 

The self-aware and fluid storytelling is at the base of huge moments of cinema, bringing personal life drama and professional theater together, as we follow the sad path and ultimate liberation of Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a theater director and actor consumed by loss and guilt. This man lost his beloved wife (Reika Kirishima), a respected screenwriter, shortly after finding out she was betraying him with a younger actor, Koji Takatsuki (Masaki Okada). Two years later, the director takes the latter as his student during a residency in Hiroshima. Chekhov’s play Uncle Vanya is to be performed. Despite the painful memories this situation brings, he finds some relief in his competent new female chauffeur, Misaki (Toko Miura). She is a 23-year-old from a small village in Hokkaido with a complex past and a similar trauma to heal.

This is Hamaguchi’s 2021 double achievement, after having drawn attention with the anthology romantic drama Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy. Despite of the possible traps in the material, he was able to maintain a rigorously unsentimental tone here, and mounted each scene like a virtuoso of restraint with the assistance of cinematographer Hidetoshi Shinomiya.

The film won the Best Screenplay award in Cannes, a totally deserved accolade for setting an incredibly subtle example of cinematic virtuosity and poetry.

Labyrinth of Cinema (2021)

Direction: Nobuhiko Obayashi
Country: Japan

The idea for Labyrinth of Cinema, the swan song from the late Japanese helmer Nobuhiko Obayashi (House, 1977; Sada, 1998), was stimulating but the results, not always consistent over the course of its 179 minutes, may leave some viewers grappling with a sense of disarray. This is a direct consequence of the film being a mixed bag of ideas and genres (musical, romance, drama, animation, yakuza film and slapstick comedy are some examples) assembled with insouciant gestures and a frenetic pace. 

Guided by the poems of Chuya Nakahara, Obayashi found a jocular way to discuss serious matters, creating an anti-war manifesto that also shows his deep fondness for cinema. The first part was too pathetic and wacky to get my appreciation, but the film improves gradually, and despite prolonged beyond the reasonable, ends up within satisfying limits. 

Hence, we have heavy topics such as noxious patriotism, misogyny, the massacre of Okinawans by the Imperial Japanese army, guns vs. swords, numerous references to Japan’s warfare, and the Hiroshima atomic bombings, all contrasting with the beauty, power and magic of the cinema, often summoned through stylized images that resemble 3D collages.

There’s an experimental vein here that is more than welcome, but it’s not by chance that the word labyrinth is in the title. At least, it was all engendered with a better future in mind, which was Obayashi’s noble last wish and intention.

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021)

Direction: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Country: Japan

This talky, almost action-less anthology drama film directed by the up-and-coming Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi consists of three unconnected stories centered on female characters and their romantic dilemmas, choices, regrets, memories and feelings. 

It’s all quite captivating, even when something familiar is put in front of our eyes, as is the case with the first episode - titled Magic - in which a young model realizes that her producer and best friend is dating with her ex-boyfriend, whom she hasn't seen in two years. Despite that, will she act, moved by jealousy? If this is the most unexceptional story, the one that follows - Door Wide Open - is the most daring, mixing academic revenge and bitter romantic crush. Yet, the most extraordinary episode is the last one - Once Again - which, set in a technologically convoluted time, follows a woman who thinks she recognizes her teenage love when attending a High School class meeting in her hometown. All the stories’ conclusions are left open and shades of Eric Rohmer and Hong Sang-soo’s styles are detectable. 

Excerpts of classical piano music accompany this warming cinematic experience where apparently banal situations can lead to unpredictable outcomes. In a demonstration of grace and occasional wit, Hamaguchi reflects on the nonlinearities of love with an eminently companionable triptych that relies on engaging plots and a marvelous ensemble cast to succeed.

If you have a thirst for a pleasurable and quirky love story, this one offers you three refreshing gulps.

Prisoners of the Ghostland (2021)

Direction: Sion Sono
Country: Japan / USA

Taking in consideration that Prisoners of the Ghostland arrives by the hand of Japanese director Sion Son (Love Exposure, 2008; Suicide Club, 2001; Cold Fish, 2010), who worked from a demented script by Aaron Hendry and Reza Sixo Safai, you should be more than prepared to find punishing environments, brutally insane characters, dark humor and gory scenes.

Admittedly, the film - Sono’s English-language debut - is a psycho neo-noir western with spectacular dystopian visuals, extreme plot absurdities (this is your chance to see a testicle exploding), deranged massive shootings and hyper-stylized Japanese sword fighting scenes, among other eccentric peculiarities. Another attraction is Nicolas Cage, who returned in big this year with Pig, but here seems to have extra fun as Hero, an imprisoned outlaw forced into an inescapable, dark region called Ghostland to rescue the Governor (Bill Moseley)’s missing granddaughter (Sofia Boutella).

More derisive than clever, the film manages to reach the minimum accepted levels of entertainment even without revealing a dash of emotion. The strongest aspect here happens to be the cinematography of Sohei Tanikawa, who had previously worked with the director in six of his works.

Wife of a Spy (2021)

Direction: Kiyoshi Kuroswa
Country: Japan

Yu Aoi and Issey Takahashi star in Kyioshi Kurosawa’s historical espionage drama, Wife of a Spy. They are wife and husband living in Kobe during WWII, an actress and an import/export businessman, respectively, whose marriage grows disgruntled after he takes a trip to Manchuria. She begins to suspect he has a lover there before considering he might be betraying the Japanese nation by spying for the Allies. Prior to these events, she reconnects with a childhood friend, Taiji (Masahiro Higashide), now a stern squad leader in the Japanese army. 

Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Tokyo Sonata; To the Ends of the Earth), who got a hand from emergent filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car; Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy) in the screenplay, offers us an exercise in subtlety built with a striking cinematography by debutant Tatsunosuke Sasaki - stressed by a very beautiful work on the light department - and qualified set decorations and costumes. In spite of the qualified performances, one is given the impression that the packaging is more alluring than the contents since the filmmaking elegancy often takes up the emotional part of the story.

There’s a film inside a film - with references to the eternal Japanese filmmaker Kenji Mizoguchi -  that infuses a certain noir touch in the slow-burning intrigue. The characters’ ambiguous behavior plays a central role, and even if the film never materializes in a taut espionage thriller, it provides slick entertainment through baffling betrayals, conspiracy and some satisfying twists along the way. Actually, this period film works better if you think of it, not as a spy thriller, but as a story of love and sacrifice for a greater cause.

The Real Thing (2021)

Direction: Koji Fukada
Country: Japan

This prosaic Japanese rom-com directed by Koji Fukada and adapted from a comic book by Mochiru Hoshisato is a four-hour soap opera that, in the end, showed to have more limitations than qualities. Teaming up with Shintaro Mitani in the script, the Tokyo-born director somehow brings to mind Truffaut’s fictional character Antoine Doinel as his lens focuses on Tsuji (Win Morisaki), a flirtatious young employee of a toys-and-fireworks company. Bored with life, the latter maintains two simultaneous relationships with female co-workers, Ms. Hosokawa (Kei Ishibashi) and Minako (Akari Fukunaga), and even promises to marry them. However, after saving the life of Ukiyo (Kaho Tsuchimura), a secretive woman with an erratic behavior and suspicious connections, he starts to obsess with her and his life is turned into hell.

Fukada tries a new angle but doesn’t reinvent the formula, stretching the plot of a volatile tale that plays as a tiresome game of seduction, lies and fragility. The filmmaker, most known for his 2016 Cannes-awarded drama film Harmonium, arranges everything with plenty of betrayals and reconciliations, jealousy and retaliation, dreams and disappointment, while the chain of characters - fluctuating between allies and enemies that whether support or depend on each other - is uninteresting in its essence. 

Even the final twist feels calculated and overcooked, making The Real Thing a frivolous, wishy-washy cinematic experience.

To the Ends of the Earth (2020)

Direction: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Country: Uzbekistan / Japan / other

Written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure; Tokyo Sonata), To the Ends of The Earth follows Yoko (former J-pop idol Atsuko Maeda), the dissatisfied host of a Japanese travel TV show who dreams of being a singer. Arrived in Uzbekistan to shoot another installment of the series, Yoko only takes pleasure in exploring the capital, Tashkent, by herself. The small crew that flew with her from Japan is not particularly amusing, especially the inconsiderate director, Yoshioka (Shota Sometani); and only a hired local translator, Temur (Adiz Rajabov), sparks off some genuine empathy.

During her staying, Yoko gets involved in many episodes - she's blamed for the non-appearance of a mythical Uzbek fish, forced to eat uncooked rice in a local eatery and pretend it’s delicious, rides multiple times in a giddying pendulum ride, pities a goat in captivity and sets it free (an unconscious projection of her own situation), gets lost in the city at night, visits the beautiful Navoi Theater by chance, and ends up being chased by the police for a frivolous incident. 

This culture-clash drama is rooted in a painful realism but occasionally slips into cloud-land through fabricated musical moments. Although it may get you hooked in its loose narrative sphere and gentle pace, some episodes are peripheral, with Kurosawa showing some indecision about if he wants to explore the austerely dramatic side of a phony travelogue or extract a breezy jocularity from certain situations.

Expect a strong central performance by Maeda, whose character completely transfigures while working in front of a camera, and an interesting shift into the minor key from Kurosawa, who typically embraces a tension-filled style.

First Love (2019)

Direction: Takashi Miike
Country: Japan

The filmmaking style of Japanese auteur Takashi Miike doesn’t fit standard molds and conventions. However, and despite the classically twisted backbone of his latest work, First Love, he takes a more archetypal approach as he tells the story of a promising, if hopeless, down-on-his-luck boxer (Masataka Kubota) who bumps into a fragile woman (Sakurako Konishi) turned into a prostitute by the Yakuza. Inspired by the idea of Muneyuki Kii, who also produces, deft screenwriter Masa Nakamura (The Bird People in China) devises an exhilarating one-night ride into the mundane circumstances of contemporary Tokyo. There, you will find Chinese and Japanese triads clashing for power, greedy gangsters (Shota Sometani, Seiyo Uchino), a corrupt cop (Nao Omori), and a determined female assassin (Mami Fujioka).

And this boundless universe of crime is enriched with guns, swords, punches, and a furious driving scene where “trust in Japanese cars” is advertised before a brief yet colorful animated section appears before your eyes. The humor is taken to the limit and the film is infused with hilarious pranks - can you imagine a dying guy having to deal with an unexpected hard-on?

Thus, Miike’s inventive genius is still present, including his obsession for violent and dark contexts to satirize a sickening society, but the film doesn’t match the brilliant weirdness of some of his previous flicks. As expected, the romance was not as wild as the action, and the lurid aesthetics never compensate the overstuffness of the plot. It’s a visceral experience, nonetheless.

One Cut of the Dead (2019)

Direction: Shinichiro Ueda
Country: Japan

Shinichiro Ueda’s low-budget One Cut of the Dead is an uneven, cunning, and riotous zombie parody conceived with obsession and commitment. It's possibly a new cult movie for the gorehounds,  These characteristics are also shared by the director within the film, Mr. Higurashi (Takayuki Hamatsu), and his family: actress wife Harumi (Harumi Shuhama) and perfectionist daughter Mao (herself). 

I confess I almost stopped watching the film during its nonsense 37-minute opening sequence. Yet, after that bloody B-movie premise shot with a dizzying handheld camera, the hysterical horror farce started to make sense, following a clever structure and displaying occasional hilarious situations.  

A brand new TV channel dedicated to zombies hires Hirugashi to create a one-take-only episode to be broadcasted live. He can only use one single camera and his personality suddenly transfigures from kind-hearted to iron-handed. With limitations in both resources and time, he then goes into the process of gathering the possible cast and crew, including the actor Mr. Hosoda (Manabu Hosoi), who has an alcohol problem and lives in a happy-sad state, and sound technician Mr. Yamago (Shuntaro Yamazaki), who struggles with severe intestinal disorders.

Starring unknown actors, One Cut of the Dead is progressively enjoyable and it works, in part, because it doesn’t. After all, the whole movie is built on failure.

Shoplifters (2018)

Direction: Hirokazu Koreeda
Country: Japan

The imposing filmography of Japanese Hirokazu Koreeda just became richer with the addition of Shoplifters, an intelligent, fully formed piece of cinema conceived with as much filmic art as emotional insight. The family topic is recurrent in Koreeda’s explorations, with dramas such as Nobody Knows (2004), Still Walking (2008), Our Little Sister (2015), and Like Father Like Son (2013) being very much recommended. It was precisely the latter film that inspired the director to write Shoplifters, based on the question ‘what makes a family?’

Set in the suburbs of Tokyo, the story follows a quirky family struggling with poverty during the peak of the Japanese recession. The father, Osamu Shibata (Lily Franky), hates to work in the freezing cold and spends time with his son Shota (Jyo Kairi), instructing him safe techniques to shoplift goods in small grocery stores. Shota is not his real son; he was taken from a car at a very young age. Osamu and his wife, Nobuyo (Sakura Andô), a laundry employee, say they saved him from negligent parents. The family lives under the roof of a goodhearted elder woman, Hatsue (the late Kirin Kiki), who, additionally, helps them financially via her late husband’s pension. Rounding out the group of misfits is Aki (Mayu Matsuoka), a club hostess who is very close to Hatsue.

The limiting economical factor doesn't refrain Osuamu and Nobuyo from ‘adopting’ Yuri (Miyu Sasaki), a little neighbor girl psychologically traumatized by abusive parents. Without notice, their happiness is suddenly at risk due to several agents. The girl’s disappearance is somehow reported on the TV; Hatsue dies suddenly right after the couple becomes jobless; and Shota starts to inquire in his head about what’s wrong and what’s right.

Stressing family bonds, Koreeda expands his realistic vision, procuring a dichotomy that is equally complex and questionable. Genuine moments of rapture and love found within the improvised family oppose to the stressful atmosphere the kids are subjected in their real parents’ households. In the case of Shota, the uncertainty about his real past and family persist after the credits roll.

Beautifully shot and brimming with precious humane details, the film is always gentle in tone. Nothing surprising here since Koreeda is a creative storyteller that doesn’t need to make a fuss to clearly bring his point of view. The strong social consciousness elevates a story that kind of disturbs in its final phase by exposing some shocking dark secrets. This near masterpiece made me think for long periods of time, meaning that its message and purpose were conveyed with a glorious sense of accomplishment.