Yojimbro

This was my first time watching Spirited Away (or any Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli film for that matter) and I definitely enjoyed it. I see why these films are so popular since they have a ton of charm and the animation is beautiful. I feel like the movie had some nice themes in it and is a great film, especially for children, whom I assume is the primary audience. 

The film follows Chihiro and her journey into a spirit world where she loses her parents and is immediately thrown out of her element. She meets Haku, who helps her get her footing and leads her to others within this world who are willing to help her. During her time in this world she learns a few lessons, saves Haku’s life, and saves her parents, eventually being able to go home. 

There are a few themes that are present in this film. Consumerism is one that comes to mind immediately. One of the first fantastical scenes we get is when Chihiro and her family are in the “amusement park” and the parents begin to gorge themselves on the food that is laid out in the only open restaurant. Chihiro asks them not to since no one is around to serve them, but they ignore her wishes and continue to eat, essentially stealing the food. This greed is shown plain as day when the parents are turned into pigs, which we find out later are meant to be eaten by the spirits later on. 

We see this greed again with No Face, and all of the spirits obsession with gold in the bathhouse. Everyone is incredibly eager to get their hands on some gold that they rush to No Face’s side begging to be blessed with gold, to the point where some people are even eaten because of this. 

Another theme that I thought was interesting but only touched on momentarily was pollution. Though while watching the film I only caught one instance of this theme, after looking into it I found a second one. The first and most obvious was during the “stink spirit” ordeal at the bathhouse. This spirit was river spirit that became full of human garbage, as we see when Chichiro removes the stake that was stuck inside of him. Once it is pulled out, loads of human trash flood out such as a bike, a refrigerator, and numerous other pieces of pollution. The second I found after looking into this theme within the film. Haku is the spirit of the Kohaku river, which was destroyed in order for apartments to be built. I must have missed the line where this was discussed in the film, since it also seems like a pretty obvious point on this theme. 

For this blog post I will be discussing Sukiyaki Western Django by Miike. Well, as one of my friends put it, this movie was certainly one of the movies of all time. One of the characters in this movie said it best, “Shit just happens”. A lot of this movie felt like “shit just happens” the movie lol.

The movie was so over the top and silly. It felt like I was watching someone play one of the Yakuza (龍が如く) games because of how ridiculous the fight scenes were. I remember when Yoshitsune was trying to retrieve the machine gun from Kiyomori, he literally was sniping him with a revolver. Considering the accuracy of a handgun, especially a revolver of that type, it’s unbelievably impressive. On top of all of that Kiyomori gets hit like 3 times and is completely fine, unlike all the other characters who die after one hit. Then there was the fight between the gunman (who from what I know has no official name) and Yoshitsune. The gunman duel wielding fires at Yoshitsune who deflects all of the bullets with his KATANA. Then the gunman parries Yoshitsune’s katana with his REVOLVER and pulls out a THIRD gun. These two scenes do a good job of showing how ridiculous the fight scenes were and why they were so much fun to watch. I was always on the edge of my seat waiting to see what thing would happen next.

I also never expected to see otaku Quentin Tarantino. I was wondering why at the beginning of the movie there was just some random white guy in the movie when everyone was Japanese until I remembered someone mentioning that Tarantino was in the movie. When Tarantino said that he liked the name Akira because he was an anime otaku I couldn’t help but laugh a little because it was so random. Since this was a fictional universe, I didn’t think they were going to make a reference to stuff in the real world, plus Tarantino being an otaku is funny to me. The scene were Tarantino yells at Ruriko for making bad Sukiyaki and tearing her dish apart was hilarious to me. It was just so bizarre to see the white and western Tarantino go off at a Japanese lady for her subpar Sukiyaki while actually having a high level of knowledge on the dish.

Another scene that made me laugh was when Kiyomori was reading literature to the Heike clan. Kiyomori comes to the conclusion that because the red roses win in Shakespeare’s Henry the 6th, they would win against the Genji clan, and he changes his name to Henry. It was just the silliest logic, but somehow worked in the context of the movie. Watching the sheriff play dead to avoid dying was also humorous since he survives so many times lol.

I felt like the movie’s greatest strength was it’s visuals. I really enjoyed seeing the fusion between the traditional samurai aesthetic with the stereotypical cowboy western setting. It felt like a weird alternate universe where Japan settled America instead of Europe. It gave me Shin Megami Tensei IV vibes, as they did a similar thing by blending a Medieval European setting with Japanese Samurai. You can really see this in the beautiful set design, backgrounds, and costumes.

Overall, I liked this movie, but I would not say that it is one of the best movies we’ve watched in this class. It was honestly hard to take this movie seriously, especially with how over the top it was. I also couldn’t help but notice how unnatural the English sounded in the movie, which was understandable considering that English was probably not the first language of the director or actors. However, odd phrasing and bad line delivery did take me out of the experience from time to time. Despite its flaws, Sukiyaki Western Django is a fun watch.

“Boss smile when something is delicious”

Post Y2K and in the midst of the internet explosion, Pulsedocuments the inherent dangers of new technology through the lens of the scariest and most expansive thing in the universe besides the universe itself: the internet. But wait! There are ghosts too! A more accurate moniker for these beings would be spirits, anywhere from amorphous blobs to humanoid forms with fleshed out faces. I enjoy the though that ghosts and the dead don’t need to be this whole big thing in Japanese horror. Pulse posits the question of what if the dead were all around you all the time? Ultimately, this becomes the downfall of society as the spirits realize that they can have real influence over the living.

Kurosowa, in interviews, was very open about Ringu and its subsequent success being a major catalyst for his creating Pulse.Again, highlighting the importance of Ringu for Japanese horror and horror in general. Both dealing with ghost and curses, just in different ways. Kurosowa goes on to highlight the fear of the unknown, whether that being about new technology, the future, or the world at large. Pulse in my opinion is more worldly and depressing than Ringu. Kurosowa wants the viewer wallow in their self and come to terms with their own loneliness.

I actually enjoy scary films. It is hard to find good horror films besides your basic invincible murder or ghost possession story. This film was not even scary. In western horror films, all they do in attempt to scare the audiences are jump scares, that’s when something jumps into frame/screen and surprises the audience. Given the fact that this film was released before the end of the 20th century, it was a good horror film.

The story begins with these high schoolers that watched the film. The reporter begins to unravel these mysterious deaths. She located and watched the haunted film (of course she had to watch the film, what kind of horror would this be if the protagonist did not purposely cause her own misfortunes). So then, the countdown begins! After someone watches the film, they will die in 7 days. There are elements in the film that one doesn’t really see in other films. I enjoyed the supernatural elements of the film; for example, when Yoichi felt Tomoko’s presence and how Tomoko told Yoichi to bring and watch the film. Takayama’s “special abilities” are another supernatural element that is never explained. I found the fact that he was the ex-husband of the reporter to be quite the coincident! Lastly, I like how the cursed film provided hints. Like “Sada” on the eye and the person pointing with a cloth on their face.

Asakawa, the reporter, and Takayama agree to this supernatural death bond for if they don’t solve the mystery behind this haunted tape they die. I also enjoyed the 7-day countdown. It reassured me that the film is progressing because you know how sometimes films feel slow. Little by little, day by day, Asakawa and Takayama were putting the puzzle pieces together. I found it interesting that the plot of the film was not about the current timeline but instead about the past. The audience, along with Asakawa and Takayama in the film, figures out that it was not the woman they believed but the daughter. The “troubled” daughter was murdered and thrown into a well. Asakawa and Takayama find her body thinking that uncovering her body would release the curse but when Takayama is killed we realize that that wasn’t the case.

I find it quite idiotic that the reporter forgot what the children said to her about giving someone a copy of the tape. How would they even know that? I assume she used her father to take Yoichi’s cruse.

Anyways, I enjoyed the film. Like I said, there was no jump scares; there weren’t even any suspenseful shots where one is expecting a scare. I think that the ending where Asakawa was trying to find Sadako’s body was sweet in a creepy way. Asakawa was probably the only person to show Sadako any affection but I don’t know if it mattered because she was dead. Before Takayama died, I thought the film’s curse was like Sadako’s vessel to be “reborn” into the world. That is why she came out of the screen. She couldn’t before because her body was stuck in a well.

              Like the last film we watched, Swallowtail Butterfly explores how those who are different are treated poorly in Japanese society. The people of Yentown are not given the same rights as a Japanese citizen; when Feihong and Glico buy the Yentown Club, it is signed under someone else’s name. The people are also under constant police scrutiny and experience violence when under arrest. The Caucasian band members who were born in Japan, therefore Japanese citizens, also complain about their treatment.

              Though poor, the ragtag team of friends seem to have a good time. They are close-knit and seem to have fun doing whatever to earn money. However once enough money has been accrued, it drives the people apart. Glico, for such a central character, seems to go missing for a large chunk of the film once she becomes a pop star, which emphasizes how far removed she is from Ageha and Feihong now.

              The movie also seems to be shot mostly using handheld, which reminds me a lot of watching a music video or a recording of a live performance. Various colored lights are used to set the mood as well, the most apparent to me is how spotty light can be, like when a scene is shot under a swinging light or near a fan. It’s an interesting way to make the scene more cluttered to stress the messiness of the setting, like in Rashomon with its concept of justice.

              Since there are so many different cultures in Yentown, it makes sense that the characters speak multiple languages. I really like that the film does this, because I feel like it adds another layer to analyze. For example, at the end Ageha speaks Chinese to Ran and also tells him that she runs a shop with Glico. I interpreted this as a sign that Ageha has continued to practice Chinese, probably as a way to connect with Glico and honor Feihong, who initially teaches her the language. I also think that her speaking Chinese in combination with mentioning Glico is a way to hint that Ageha knows of Ran’s relation with Glico but chooses not to reunite them, maybe as a way to protect her since Feihong was killed after getting caught with the fake bill, which was a strategy invented by Ran. Switching between languages midsentence was a nice touch as well, however I wish the subtitles somehow indicated this. Watching this movie with the subtitles felt like I was watching a dubbed anime on Netflix with the subtitles; what the characters say do not always match the subtitles word for word but still meant about the same thing. It was also a little tiring to hear Chinese but read English. Sometimes the subs cut out completely too. While Mao Fu charged to attack right before his whole crew gets wiped out, he lets out a war cry of sorts. He is telling his opponent to basically “come at me bro,” but there were no subtitles in this short segment.

Those damn shades, pretty cool.

I really enjoyed viewing this one, and I think it’s the actual viewing experience that’s key here, rather than the narrative itself which felt mostly peripheral. What was really keeping my attention throughout the film was the atmosphere that was being established, very melancholic and almost surreal at times, certainly in its depiction of violence with the amount of blood getting thrown around. Some of the violence does feel a little absurd, like the amount of blood a guy spits up after a single kick to the face with no other visible bruising or scarring from it, or the jarring cuts from a lunge with chopsticks to the guy being stabbed with them in his eye. While I think it was a bit heavy handed, I’m thinking now that it may have been an intentional effect meant to really draw attention to the moments of violence and death, and these moments felt like they were mirrored by the splash of red paint on Horibe’s suicide painting, showing what all these moments of violence were building up towards. The violence stands in stark contrast to the moments of care and tenderness. Nishi is a main who is haunted by his past, but still feels no greater desire than to see his sick wife happy in her final days. The ways scenes are depicted show his mentality and resolve perfectly, minimal dialogue and obscurity, and all of the motivations are shown through actions rather than words.

As for the ending, I think this was the least ambiguous part of the film, and it’s obvious what actually happened here: Nishi and his wife end their own lives on their own terms. It’s heavily symbolized by Horibe’s last painting at the end of the film, which on one hand shows his abandonment of the desire to kill himself with the splashing of the red paint, while also showing what Nishi and Miyuki are about to do. There’s no point in Nishi continuing his struggles since his wife is already on death’s door, and the Yakuza are set on tracking him down while the police have him pinned for the robbery he committed. He was able to enjoy one last trip with the woman he loves, and the last thing he’s going to do is kill 2 people that still clearly care for his well being and have done nothing to wrong him or the people he cares for. It’s a somber ending, but ultimately one that left me at peace knowing that him and his wife could both see the end together in mutual happiness. I have to admit, the 2 lines from Miyuki really hit me like a truck, and my eyes got a bit misty in it all. I also want to mention that I think it’s pretty clever that a man who was painting surrealist art has his final painting of the film directly foreshadow the reality of the ending.

The film itself had a distinct rhythm that helped everything flow together, and this was all punctuated with a fantastic score, making what could have been otherwise dull scenes really mesmerizing for myself. A couple of things I read up on that I thought made this film much more personal for the director was that the pointillist paintings that Horibe made were made by Kitano himself in reality, in particular while he was recovering from a motorcycle accident that left his face partially paralyzed, and that Kitano’s own daughter shows up in the film as the girl flying the kite at the end.

Admittedly, I’m a sucker for a good coming of age story, and Go fit the bill for that pretty well. The story itself didn’t seem remarkable to me, but at the same time I don’t think it was super generic either. I think the film touched on some good themes such as the discrimination of Korean-Japanese (which I wasn’t aware of), as well as some issues with family and being emotionally open. As much as I did enjoy the film, I found that it dragged a bit in the first half. Up until about an hour in I did find myself checking the timestamp a few times to see how far I was, and I think that’s just a symptom of setting everything up being inherently slower than when actions start to take place and things fall apart. 

I think the most obvious and main theme that was touched on in this film was discrimination, and in the case it was prejudice against Korean-Japnese within Japan. This issue is addressed directly and is a driving force for the plot, so it’s not exactly subtle with it’s undertaking. While I think this is an important topic to address, I think with how open the film was with it there isn’t much I can say that would be insightful, so instead I want to mainly talk about a different theme that stood out to me, which is the idea of emotional openness (or lack there of). 

When we see Sugihara’s father teaching him to box, he mentions that while you’re within your circle you are safe. This to me stood out not only in terms of boxing, but from the idea of being open as a person. Sugihara’s father is a great boxer, and the only person in the film we see Sugihara lose to, and when he does, he loses terribly. Sugihara’s father also seems incredibly closed off emotionally. He keeps people out of his circle, and in turn, keeps himself safe. We get the sense that Sugihara himself is pretty closed off, only allowing a few select people in, and in each case, we see that this ends up hurting him. In one way or another, the two main people he lets in (Jong-Il and Sakurai) end up as a source of grief. By the end of the film, we see both his father and him start to be more open and accepting with a willingness to “let their guard down”. 

The Family Game (1983), which was directed by Yoshimoto Morita, is definitely a movie that I found very strange and had a hard time following in terms of themes. The general plot was simple enough to follow, The father of the Numata family hires a tutor (Yoshimoto) to help his youngest son (Shigeyuki) get better grades in order to get into a good high school. During the film we see this happen despite Yoshimoto’s strange methods and behavior, and eventually Shigeyuki gets into the top school. However, the movie itself is anything but simple. 

The only thing I could come up with theme wise is the lack of true connection between the family. It seems that the only thing they ever talked about amongst each other was school, whether it be parent to child talking about grades and class, the parents talking about their kids going to good schools and having poor grades, or briefly the two brothers discussing high school. This is practically the only topic ever covered. We also see a sort of stereotype in Shinichi (the older brother) being a star student and Shigeyuki failing to live up to the expectations set for him by his older brother. The father is mostly absent and when we do see him he is either alone, drunk and/or drinking, or talking to his family about school. The mother seems to just be doing her motherly duty and rarely does anything else. 

The only time any of the family members have any kind of meaningful conversation is with someone outside of the family. Yoshimoto seems to be a sort of outlet for the family in some aspects. Shigeyuki and him talk about hobbies, relationships, interests, and other things not related solely to school. Yoshimoto and Shinuchi also have a conversation not related to the topic of school. We see that the mother struggles when she is presented with a topic of conversation outside of her standard life (granted, dealing with her distraught neighbor about the death of her in-law isn’t exactly an easy topic to approach). I did find that scene very interesting because we get assaulted with numerous sounds such as the phone, her son, the neighbor, and the tea kettle all rising until it cuts to silence. 

Another theme that might be present is the Numata family being stuck in the past. As I mentioned there is this idea of the family only existing through their family status as mother, father, brother, etc. I guess the best way to describe it would be like the idea of the nuclear family. We see them eat dinner in relative silence with maybe a bit of conversation. However, when we look at the family of the girl that Shinicchi starts to date/hang out with, they sit around in a circle and also watch TV at dinner. The entire feel and setting of their house was so much different than the Numata household. 

There are so many things about this film that confused me. Why did Yoshimoto occasionally act like a creep? The kiss was weird and him putting his hand on the thigh of a mostly naked child was unsettling, but then it never seemed like anything was off other than that. Why did he chug literally every beverage he was handed? I really wasn’t sure about the ending dinner scene where Yoshiomoto starts throwing food everywhere. It was like no one noticed until it got to a certain point of chaos, which I’m assuming is commenting on the families lack of awareness, but it was very strange. I also don’t know what the ending with the extra loud helicopter and the boys passed out, followed by the mom sleeping at the table was. My brain wants to tell me that there was a gas leak and they died, because I can’t make sense of it. 

In terms of the cinematography I did really like the use of sound building up to cut into silence. This was done multiple times throughout the film and I think it worked well each time. I also really like the shot of Yoshimoto chasing Shigeyuki down the stairs from a distance with Yoshimoto one flight behind.