Reunion (2012)

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Posted on October 20, 2013 by Deni

No one with a television and an internet connection is unfamiliar with the events in March 2011 that resulted in the deaths of roughly nineteen thousand people in the Miyagi prefecture on the east coast of the main island of Honshu, Japan. On a scale of disasters, the 40 metre tsunami that levelled the area is an image that will not be soon forgotten, but for those of us lucky enough to be watching from afar, there is of course … (read more)

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Real (2013)

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Posted on October 20, 2013 by Deni

Reminiscent of a Shinya Tsukimoto film, where reality is not always quite as stable as one would like, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Real similarly deals with the delineations between reality and fantasy, and subsequently life and death. Mildly creepy, this somnambulistic thriller packs a few small punches but for the most part fails to get its heart rate above resting.

Koichi (Takeru Satô, Rurouni Kenshin) is a young man with a girlfriend in a coma. All Smiths song references aside, he’s … (read more)

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Gatchaman (2013)

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Posted on October 20, 2013 by Deni

I suppose the first thing most people will want to know about the 2013 live action version of Gatchaman, better known outside of Japan as Battle of the Planets or even G-Force, is “does it make me wish I’d never seen it?”. After all, childhood memories are precious things, and if you were anything like me as a kid growing up in Australia (and you know, if you’re close to my clearly elderly years) you would have been … (read more)

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Thermae Romae (2012)

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Posted on October 19, 2013 by Deni

Unless you’re Japanese, it’s difficult to really understand what makes the onsen, or public bath, so popular. To even begin, you need to have been to Japan and gone to one, and even then you’ll probably never really grasp the significance the bath holds for the Japanese. After you get past the fact that you’re naked (except for a tiny towel) with a bunch of people you don’t know, sure, it’s an unbelievably wonderful experience. Think a bath tub the … (read more)

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Library Wars (2013)

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Posted on October 19, 2013 by Deni

In a refreshing change of pace (at least lately, it seems) Shunsuke Sato’s (Princess Blade, Gantz 1 & 2) Library Wars looks to something other than terrorism for its narrative inspiration. Based on a relatively recent light novel series by Hiro Arakawa (there’s also a manga adaptation and an anime series produced by I.G.), Library Wars instead addresses the topic of reading censorship.

Censorship is neither an invented issue nor a new one, particularly in Japan. Only … (read more)

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Japanese Film Fest: Full Syd/Mel program

Posted on October 9, 2013 by Justin

Just a quick update: as noted on their Facebook page, the Japanese Film Festival has now released their full extended program for Sydney and Melbourne — that’s twenty extra films from all sorts of genres.

And they’ve programmed some free screenings of five black-and-white classics in all cities, from Misumi’s original Zatoichi film (full English title The Life and Times of Ichi the Masseur to Kawashima’s Elegant Beast (which has a wonderful still on the JFF website).

See the … (read more)

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009 Re: Cyborg (2012)

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Posted on October 4, 2013 by Deni

If a term for the way in which a single anime is capable of flipping seamlessly and without warning between heart-racing action and mind-bending existentialism hasn’t been invented yet, I propose that we call it 009 Re: Cyborg. Of course, the problem there is that once there’s a term, we’ll have to name the condition of being utterly unable to grasp it, because watching this animated feature, I’m pretty sure I was suffering just that.

All the elements of … (read more)

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Ghost in the Shell: Arise (2013)

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Posted on October 3, 2013 by Justin

Here at Heroic Cinema, we’ve got a lot of love for the evergreen Ghost in the Shell universe. It seems to sprout a new variation every few years, and they’re always worth watching.

Akira and the original Ghost in the Shell film were my personal introduction to anime, many years ago, and I remember how refreshing it was to find cinematic visions of cyberpunk science fiction that just dumped you headlong into the mirrorshades-and-AI future, posing the sort of questions … (read more)

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