Blog Archives

Only Yesterday (1991)

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Posted on March 11, 2007 by Ching Yee

This is indeed a surprise – a Ghibli film that is underwhelming. However it is not necessarily a bad thing. Let me explain. When I watched the first two thirds of this film, I found it sufficiently compelling but strangely uninspiring. Dull even, something I don’t associate with Ghibli films. However the last 40 minutes turned it around for me. Undoubtedly the Ghibli magic has worked its charm again, but how? I suspect the leisurely pace of Only Yesterday is … (read more)

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One Missed Call (2003)

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Posted on March 11, 2007 by Alison

I can imagine director Miike lecturing a group of open-mouthed students: “Just because a film has a supernatural evil killing people in grisly (and gristly) ways, doesn’t mean it can’t be fun.” And this is, both grisly (and gristly) and fun.

The central theme of this film is the cell phone warnings of impending death, which comprise a message, from the doomed to themselves, containing their last words. Now I don’t know about you, but if I received a message … (read more)

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Nobody Knows (2004)

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Posted on March 11, 2007 by Deni

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s docu-style drama Nobody Knows is something of a study in human devolution and flawed society. Based on the true story of a family of four abandoned by their mother, it’s perhaps not as shocking as something you might see on the nightly news, but then that wasn’t really the director’s intention, to shock. Instead, with a subtle hand, Kore-eda questions. His subtle, almost-there commentary about the state of the modern family, social and individual responsibility and the intrinsic … (read more)

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New Fist of the North Star (2004)

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Posted on March 11, 2007 by Andy

Fist of the North Star takes me back. I saw it in a Los Angeles cinema in 1992 where I marvelled at the mango-sized heads atop bodies of Arnold Schwarzenegger proportions. The plot unfortuntely is lost to me behind a veil of crimson spray and body dismemberment. I exited the theatre feeling like an extra caught standing too close to Sissy Spacek in Carrie.

Hero Kenshiro (well, in the movie anyway), was in fact left wandering the wastes searching … (read more)

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Neon Genesis Evangelion: Resurrection (1995)

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Posted on March 11, 2007 by Andy

Forget Mel Gibson’s The Passion. For true Easter spirit check out Neon Genesis Evangelion: Resurrection. This is the first of the two ‘directors cut’ volumes featuring brand new, never-before-seen footage. Resurrection, the first of the two volumes, hosts episodes 21-23.

This is Hideako Anno’s third go at finishing the Evangelion series, after two post-series movies; Evangelion: Death & Rebirth and End of Evangelion he’s still at it.

Up front I want to get off my chest that … (read more)

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Neighbour No. 13 (2005)

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Posted on March 11, 2007 by Deni

Usually something that walks like a duck and quacks like a duck can pretty much be considered a duck. The same can be said for genre films. Neighbour No.13 walks and talks like a horror movie, but in this case I suspect it’s actually a psychological thriller in disguise. There’s just too much symbolism in it – right from the outset – to be a conventional horror flick, even a Japanese one, and lonely houses on hills with one door … (read more)

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Negotiator Mashita Masayoshi (2005)

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Posted on March 11, 2007 by Deni

Surprisingly perhaps, Negotiator Mashita Masayoshi is a good film. I say surprisingly, because I am of the long held and regularly confirmed opinion that Japanese action films don’t really know how to be truly good. Cult, yes. Cool and crazy and somewhat quirky, sure. But there’s either too much comedy, or not enough. Or they take themselves too seriously, or they wouldn’t know serious if it hit them with a stick, or the characters are too one-dimensional, or the acting … (read more)

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Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)

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Posted on March 11, 2007 by Andy

Miyazaki’s first creatively controlled project is based on his own hugely successful manga series, which itself was produced to prove to financiers that the project was viable as an anime. All this tends to suggest Miyazaki could have got cold fusion to work if he put his mind to it.

Nausicaä combines traditional elements of high fantasy: a war, a prophecy and a princess with a Japanese post-apocalyptic wasteland: a world being inexorably consumed by a poisonous forest spread by … (read more)

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