Departures (Okuributo) has become the biggest winner in the just concluded Japanese Academy Awards. The movie picked up 10 awards out of its 13 nominations including Best Picture, Best Director (Yojiri Takita) Best Actor (Masahiro Motoki), Best Supporting Actor (Tsutomu Yamazaki) and Best Supporting Actress (Kimiko Yo). And Okuribito might yet score an even bigger win as it has been nominated for the coveted Best Foreign Film award at the upcoming Oscars this Sunday. Another big winner is animated feature Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea which won Best Animated Feature and Best Music (me thinks that can't-get-out-of-your-head theme song definitely played a big part in the win ;-P).
Japan Academy Prize Winners:
Best Film: Departures
Best Director: Yojiro Takita (Departures)
Best Actor: Motoki Masahiro (Departures)
Best Actress: Tae Kimura (All Around Us)
Best Supporting Actress: Kimiko Yo (Departures)
Best Supporting Actor: Tsutomu Yamazaki (Departures)
Best Screenplay: Kundo Koyama (Departures)
Best Animated Film: Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea
Best Foreign Film: The Dark Knight
Best Music: Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea
For the full list of prize winners, check out http://www.screendaily.com/ScreenDailyArticle.aspx?intStoryID=43384
Tags: Japanese Academy Awards, Departures, Okuribito, Best Film, All Around Us, Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea, Japanese Movies.
Japanese Academy Awards Results
Three Exciting Japanese Trailers
East Asian movie trailers have been getting more and more exciting lately. And the most interesting ones have been coming from the Land Of The Rising Sun. The Japanese are well-known for their incredibly creative and over-the-top CMs or TV ads and it seems that now they are bringing that CM-making creative genius over to their trailers.
Here are three Japanese language trailers that have been generating much buzz recently:
1. Blood: The Last Vampire Teaser
This live-action adaptation of the popular anime film stars Gianna Jun (a.k.a. star of Korean hit movie My Sassy Girl : Jun Ji-Hyun) as Saya the 400-year old half-human half-vampire with superhuman powers. Just from the teaser itself, this movie looks promising...
2. Yatterman trailer
The live-action remake of 1970's cult anime Yatterman is helmed by acclaimed director Takashi Miike (who directed such classics as Audition and Dead Or Alive) and will be released in Japan in March 09. Really love the campy 70's style and the creative blend of live-action and CGI in this trailer. This should be good.
3. Plastic City trailer
This Brazil/Japan/Hong Kong/China co-production about Chinese and Japanese immigrant gangsters in Brazil combines the acting prowess of Joe Odagiri and Anthony Wong. It could be because of the setting but I suspect it is mainly because of the music that gives this trailer a funky samba-like feel that is rarely seen in Asian film. Directed by Yu Lik Wai who is well known for his cinematography in award winning films like Still Life, expect nothing less than gorgeous visuals. This film is set to be released in Japan in March as well.
Enjoy the trailers and if you have a chance, do check out these movies :-)
Tags: Trailers, Upcoming Movies, Blood, The Last Vampire, Yatterman, Plastic City.
Red Cliff II And Other East Asian Movie News
The East Asian film industry has been pretty quiet lately. But there are still some interesting news tidbits.
1. As expected, John Woo's Red Cliff 2 - the just released second instalment of the two-part epic based on the Chinese classic Romance Of The Three Kingdoms - has been doing exceptionally well in the box-offices in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The movie earned over US$14 million in just five days in Mainland China (incredible!). At this pace, it may become the highest grossing Chinese language movie of all time.
2. Japanese movie Departures (Okuribito) is the only Asian movie to make it to the semi-finalist stage for the Best Foreign Film Award at the upcoming 81st Annual Academy Awards. The final nominee list of five movies will be announced on January 22nd. Starring Masahiro Motoki and Ryoko Hirosue, the movie about the unique Japanese custom of "encoffining", has already won awards at various international film festivals including the Grand Prix des Amériques at the 2008 Montreal World Film Festival. You can find the trailer for the movie at the official site here. Good luck to Departures!
Update 22 January 2009: Departures has made it to the nominee list for Best Foreign Language Film at the upcoming Oscars! See the full list of nominated films here.
3. Donnie Yen's actioner Ip Man - based on the life and times of the legendary kungfu master who founded the Wing Chun school of martial arts - has punched his way to the top of the box-office in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. Here is the short clip of the fight sequence where Ip Man fights ten karate black belts on YouTube. Great action, but like a lot of other fight sequences where the hero dispatches a whole bunch of lesser thugs in less than 5 minutes, you have to wonder why the bad guy fighters somehow always seem to look like they are waiting in line to fight the hero one-by-one... Wouldn't their chances improve tremendously if they all attack at the same time? hmmm...
4. Feng Xiaogang's romantic comedy If You Are The One (Fei Cheng Wu Rao) starring the sultry Shu Qi and acclaimed character actor Ge You has been a surprise box-office hit in Mainland China. It has already overtaken Red Cliff Part 1 in box-office takings and is still going strong now.
5. Japan's very own big-budget screen version of the pandemic disaster movie genre titled simply Pandamic (Kansen Rettou) has just topped the Japanese box-office over the last weekend, which just goes to show that disaster/epidemic type movies are still very much in demand.
6. Keanu Reeves will take on the role of Spike in a Hollywood adaptation of the popular anime series Cowboy Bebop. Err i don't know about you but I feel that Keanu Reeves who excels in playing powerful but rather expressionless god-like characters (e.g. Neo in the Matrix) does not seem all that suited to play the role of the free-spirited space cowboy Spike...
More movie news next time.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ip_Man_(film), http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b79405_keanu_saddles_up_cowboy_bebop.html, http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117998388.html?categoryid=2429&cs=1, http://varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/7837/1/, http://www.screendaily.com/ScreenDailyArticle.aspx?intStoryID=42758&Category=, http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117998705.html?categoryId=19&cs=1
Tags: Red Cliff 2, John Woo, Departures, Okuribito, Ip Man, Donnie Yen, Pandemic, Kansen Rettou, If You Are The One, Fei Cheng Wu Rao, Feng Xiaogang, Keanu Reeves, Cowboy Bebop, East Asian movie news, Best Foreign Film, Academy Awards.
My Thoughts On Japanese Movie 20th Century Boys Part 1
Finally got to watch the the first part of the highly anticipated live-action movie adaptation of Naoki Urasawa 's hit manga 20th Century Boys (20世紀少年) over the weekend. Costing US$60 million and starring Toshiaki Karasawa, Tokiwa Takako, Etsushi Toyokawa and other top names in the Japanese entertainment industry, it's no wonder that I had sky-high expectations of this movie. And the film does not disappoint, the acting was generally superb, many of the characters looked exactly like their manga counterparts and the special FX was good (not Hollywood standard yet but at least I thought that it was better than the special effects in Death Note). However, I felt that something was missing from the movie... Not sure what that "something" was but somehow I just could not become fully absorbed in the story that was unfolding before me on the big screen...
And after thinking about why I have this feeling, I have come up with two possible reasons:
1. Not reading the manga first. The storyline is very complex, no mistake about that, and like a good whodunnit, there were little hints here and there of who the dastardly villain a.k.a Friend is, but to catch these hints, I think one has to be somewhat familiar with the plot first. I did not read the manga from beginning to end, only bits and pieces after I found out that there was going to be a movie adaptation. This could have affected my ability to fully appreciate what was going on. Perhaps, if I had finished reading the whole manga series before watching the movie, I would have had a greater appreciation for the film...
2. Not enough time to flesh out the characters. As they had to squeeze the long and highly complicated plot (22 volumes of manga in total and a timeline that spans from 1969 to 2015) into three 2-hour plus movies, it is understandable that some parts of the story had to be sacrificed... This may have affected the flow of the plot to a certain extent. Also, because of the sheer multitude of characters in the story, many key characters appear for far too short a time to allow the audience to have the chance to understand what motivates them and to feel for them. Without this emotional attachment to the characters, it is hard to become all that interested in what happens to them in the film...
But that is not to say that the characters were not memorable, in fact, some of them (especially the minor ones) have so much character and their personality and quirks were so vividly brought to life that you will remember them even if they just appear for a mere few minutes. Case in point is Naoto Takenaka's short 3(?) minute appearance.
The parts I liked the most were the scenes of Kenji and friends as kids, as these scenes evoked a feeling of sweetness and nostalgia. Also, the scenes between Kenji and his niece Kanna (who will play a leading role in the 2nd and 3rd instalments of the trilogy) were especially touching.
But all in all, for all its faults, this is the best Japanese movie that I have seen this year. and I will be eagerly looking forward to Part 2 early next year. But I think I will go read the manga first hehheh.
And here is the trailer for Part II on YouTube, looks pretty exciting to me! Btw, can't help but notice that 'Friend' sure has a wide variety of masks, he could consider setting up a retail outlet selling masks when he retires from his business of terrorisng his childhood pals and world domination ;-P
Tags: 20th Century Boys, Niju Seiki Shonen, Japanese Movie, Scifi Movie, New Japanese Film.
Japanese Films Rule The Asian Movie Roost At Venice Film Fest
At the recently announced lineup of films in competition for the prestigious Golden Lion at the 65th Venice Film Festival which will take place from August 27th to September 6th, Japanese films are the most represented among all the Asian movies competing this year. Three Japanese movies have made it into the list of 21 films including two of the most anticipated animated features: Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea and Ghost In The Shell director Mamoru Oshii's The Sky Crawlers. The other Japanese movie in competition is award-winning director Takeshi Kitano's Achilles and the Tortoise. Ponyo debuted in Japan recently and has already topped the box-office records there. The Sky Crawlers will debut in Japan on August 2.
Unlike the previous years' La Biennale di Venezia, where Chinese language movies (including Hong Kong and Taiwanese movies) were quite well represented and a force to be reckoned with(3 films in 2006 including Golden Lion winner Still Life and 4 films in 2007 including winner Lust, Caution), this year, only one Chinese language movie made it to the list, Hong Kong director Yu Lik Wai's Plastic City, a Chinese/Brazil/Hong Kong/Japanese co-production about a group of Asian immigrant gangsters in Brazil. Plastic City stars über-cool Japanese star Joe Odagiri and well-known Hong Kong character actor Anthony Wong.
The trailer for Ponyo can be found here and the trailer for Achilles and the Tortoise can be found at this site. And here is the trailer for The Sky Crawlers that I found on YouTube:
Good luck to all the films competing in this year's Venice Film Festival :-)
Source: http://international-animated-films.suite101.com/article.cfm/ponyo_on_a_cliff_tops_japans_box_office, http://www.animationmagazine.net/article/8674, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-07/31/content_8870603.htm
Tags: Venice Film Festival, Japanese movies, La Biennale di Venezia, Ponyo On The Cliff, The Sky Crawlers, Takeshi Kitano, Achilles And The Tortoise, Hayao Miyazaki, Mamoru Oshii, Anime, animation, Yu Lik Wai, Plastic City, Joe Odagiri, Anthony Wong, ponyo, Asian Films, Film Festival
Takeshi Kanshiro's Latest Japanese Movie - Sweet Rain
After appearing in a string of Chinese movies (including the mega-budget hits like The Warlords and Red Cliff), Takeshi Kaneshiro has finally made another Japanese film: Sweet Rain (死神の精度) that is set for release in Japan on March 22 this year. Based on the 2005 novel Accuracy Of Death by Isaka Kotaro, Takeshi Kaneshiro plays a God of Death (and what a very handsome God of Death I must say...) who appears before people who are to die in a week's time, spends the week with them and then makes the critical decision on whether to off them or not. Hmmm... don't know why but the plot somehow reminds me of that 90's television drama series Touched By An Angel (starring Roma Downey, John Dye and Della Reese) and Brad Pitt's Meet Joe Black. In Touched By An Angel, John Dye who plays Andrew the Angel of Death also appears before people who are about to die in human form, spends some time with them (usually) and then takes them to their final destination. And similarly, Brad Pitt's character Joe Black aka Death is also in charge of... er you know what. I am not sure how similar the storylines are but one thing is for sure, Takeshi's God of Death, John's Angel of Death and Brad's Joe Black are all incredibly gorgeous looking hunks ;-)
Sweet Rain also stars Manami Konishi and Sumiko Fuji. Here is the trailer for the movie from Youtube. Looks like a pretty good movie.
Tags: Takeshi Kaneshiro, Sweet Rain, Accuracy of Death, Japanese Film, Japanese Movie, Upcoming Movies.
East Asian Film And TV News & Trends In 2007
It's almost the end of the year and time once again for reflections on what happened in this past year ;-P Wow time flies, it seems that it was only yesterday that I was celebrating the 2007 New Year. I think that this has been a pretty decent year for East Asian films and TV dramas on a whole. Here is a general recap of the news and trends that have caught my attention this year.
1. Chinese Movie Of The Year: Lust, Caution
This film was the most talked about Chinese movie in 2007. With Ang Lee's signature low-key approach, attention to detail, the engrossing storyline and great acting by Tony Leung and Tang Wei in some of the most daring erotic scenes ever seen in an Asian movie, it comes as no surprise that this film enjoyed fantastic box-office takings throughout Asia and won the Golden Lion and seven awards at this year's Golden Horse Awards.
2. Ancient Is Golden 
Period movies and drama serials continue to be popular in Korean and Chinese dramas and films in 2007. Big-budget period movies with star-studded casts and state-of-the-art CGI like The Warlords performed very well at the box-office. The period drama boom was also seen in Korean drama serials with period dramas like Jumong and Taewangsasingi snaring the top positions in television ratings. This period boom looks set to continue in 2008 with the release of the most expensive Chinese film ever made - Red Cliff during the Beijing Olympics.
3. More Pan-Asian Co-productions
Co-productions between different Asian countries seem to have become the norm in 2007. From arthouse productions like director Kim Ki-duk's Breath starring Taiwanese actor Chang Chen to Japanese hits like Hero with Korean actor Lee Byung-hun in a cameo role to big-budget Chinese flicks like The Warlords and Red Cliff that are financed by investors throughout East Asia, filmmakers are cooperating in more ways than ever to expand a film's appeal to a wider pan-Asian audience.
4. Quest For New Themes
To counter the whimsical and fast-changing tastes of viewers, movie and drama makers must come up with new themes at an ever-increasing speed. This is especially apparent in the Korean TV drama market where it seems that viewers have become increasingly tired of the same romantic drama plot used countless times in the past. To maintain viewer interest, TV stations and production houses have had to come up with new themes for their dramas. This has resulted in the type and range of drama serials expanding considerably this year. From dramas about money lenders to police action thrillers to romantic comedies with "cross-dressing"themes, this aggressive search for new themes have already yielded gems like War Of Money, Time Between Dog And Wolf and First Shop Of Coffee Prince. It remains to be seen if this exploratory approach will continue into 2008...
5. International Recognition
East Asian films continue to perform well in international film awards in 2007. Lust, Caution took home the Golden Lion and Korean actress Jeon Do-yeon won the prestigious Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine, only the second time an Asian actress has won this award in the history of the Cannes Film Festival.
All-in-all, 2007 has been a good year for Asian films and dramas. Let's hope for an even better 2008 :-)
Have A Happy New Year!
Tags: Lust, Caution, Asian Movie Trends, Chinese Movie, Korean Movie, Japanese movie, Drama Serial, Drama Series, Korean Drama Series, co-productions, Pan-Asian Films, Asian Drama Themes,
Make A Date With Takuya's Kimura's Hero On September 8
The much anticipated Japanese movie Hero starring Takuya Kimura, Matsu Takako and South Korean heart-throb Lee Byung-hun will be released in Japan on September 8. Hero the dorama serial was pretty entertaining and had one of the highest ratings in Japan when it was shown a few years ago. I think the movie should be just as good if not even better so try to catch the movie if you happen to be in Japan during that time :-)
A super clear wide-screen version of the trailer (no English subtitles) can be found on the official website of the movie: http://www.hero-movie.net/index.html
Just select "Trailer" on the menu at the website.
And Takuya Kimura and Lee Byung-hun will be collaborating again in another major production, this time with Josh Hartnett in the US-French thriller I Come With The Rain. Hong Kong actor Shawn Yue will also have a role in the movie. Seems that more and more East Asian actors are participating in Hollywood movies (or more precisely international co-productions), for example, My Sassy Girl Jun Ji-Hyun and Japanese actress Koyuki in Blood: The Last Vampire and Korean superstar Rain (Jung Ji-hoon) in Speed Racer .
The time of the Made-On-Earth movie is almost here, I think... ;-)
Information from:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117971132.html?categoryId=2663&cs=1;
http://yummycelebrities.com/;
http://www.tokyograph.com/news/id-1549
Tags: Hero, Takuya Kimura, Lee Byung-hun, I come with the rain, Josh Hartnett, internation co-productions, Japanese movie, thriller.
Japan's Scariest Horror Movies
According to this survey (in Japanese) conducted by Oricon Research, the Japanese horror film or film series that is regarded as the scariest of all time by the Japanese people themselves is the Ringu series. This is followed by the One Missed Call series and the Ju-on series.
The Top 10 scariest Japanese movies based on the survey are:
1. Ringu Series (Rasen/Ringu/Ringu 2/Ringu 0)
2. One Missed Call Series (One Missed Call / One Missed Call 2)
3. Ju-on (The Grudge) Series (Ju-On 1 / Ju-On 2)
4. Dark Water
5. Scary True Stories: Ten Haunting Tales from the Japanese Underground Series
6. Gakko no Kaidan 学校の怪談 (Haunted School) series (Gakko no Kaidan 1 / 2 / 3 / 4)
7. Kansen (Infection)
8. Shikoku
9. Junji Inagawa (稲川淳二) series
10. Kuroi Ie (The Black House)
Actually, from this list, the popularity of horror films is clearly shown by the number of films that have been made into "series" with each series comprising of a few successful and not so successful sequels. In the above list, I think only Dark Water, Kansen, Shikoku and Kuroi Ie do not have sequels (yet).
I have not seen all the films in this list but to me, the scariest Japanese horror film is still the first Ringu movie, it not only set the standard for subsequent movies like Dark Water, One Missed Call and Ju-on, it also revived the Asian horror film genre and set the stage for Korean, Hong Kong and Thai horror movies to capture a big piece of the box-office pie in Asia and beyond.
Tags: Japanese horror movie, Japanese horror film, Ringu, The Ring, One Missed Call, Ju-on, The Grudge, Dark Water, Scary True Stories: Ten Haunting Tales from the Japanese Underground, Gakko no Kaidan, Gakkou no Kwaidan, Haunted School, Kansen, Shikoku, Junji Inagawa, The Black House, Kuroi Ie, Top 10 Horror Movies.
Japanese Movie - Love And Honor
After watching Love and Honor (Bushi no Ichibun), the final instalment of Yoji Yamada's samurai trilogy, I could not help but be extremely impressed with Yoji Yamada's attention to detail and his ability to create highly realistic depictions of life in Japan's samurai era.
Yet although the setting was realistic, while watching the movie, I could not help but feel that even if the whole movie (excluding the samurai fighting) was transported to a modern setting, the dialogue and storyline would not be out of place at all. This feeling was especially strong in some scenes early in the movie when samurai Shinnojo Mimura (played by Japanese pop idol Takuya Kimura) was teasing his wife Kayo (Rei Dan) and his elderly servant Tokuhei (played by Takashi Sasano) or when Shinnojo was complaining of his dead-end job to his wife. At such moments, Shinnojo could very well be a modern day newly-wed Japanese salaryman feeling very dissatisfied with his dead end job at a major corporation...
Takuya Kimura played the role of Shinnojo much better than I expected. He was particularly impressive in depicting Shinnojo's change in character and inner struggles after becoming blind. But I have to say that somehow I felt the role of Shinnojo was just too similar to the types of roles that Kimura has played numerous times before in TV doramas - that of the rebellious and playful young man who meets with a cruel twist of fate but somehow overcomes his insurmountable difficulties with sheer willpower and becomes a wise adult at the end. So much so that Shinnojo could just be Kimutaku in Long Vacation or Love Generation but with a much more cruel twist of fate - Shinnojo looses his eyesight whereas the others just had difficulties in their careers and relationship troubles.
Rei Dan was also impressive in her role as the Shinnojo's stoic wife Kayo. Besides somehow maintaing a quiet dignity even under the most difficult circumstances, I felt that she exuded a certain purity and luminosity that is quite rare in actresses today. (In fact, she actually reminded me of Tanaka Yuko, the actress who played Oshin...)
In the end, Yoji Yamada's attention to detail made all the difference between an excellent film and a so-so film. Minor details like the state of Shinnojo's house was not forgotten - at the beginning of the film when Shinnojo had a happy family, the house was bright and squeaky clean. At the end when Shinnojo was struggling with blindness and marital troubles, the house became dingy and old. A true reflection of our hero's inner struggles :-P
Tags: Love And Honor, Bushi no Ichibun, Yoji Yamada, Kimura Takuya, Rei Dan, Japanese Movie, Japanese Film, Period Movie, Samurai Movie.
My Thoughts On Made-In-Japan Horror Movies
The release of The Grudge 2 recently made me realise what an impact Japanese horror movies have made on the horror movie genre this last decade or so.
When Ringu
But when The Ring
Actually I feel that the Japanese approach to horror movies is very different from Hollywood. There is usually very little special effects if you compare it with horror films from Hollywood but there is always a sense that something mysterious and terrifying is lurking beneath the surface. The atmosphere is almost always very still and quiet, with a minimum of dialogue which makes the horror, when it comes, even more shocking and unexpected.
When I first watched The Ring at the cinema, I had such a shock from the infamous TV scene that I left the cinema shivering with fright. And I was actually worried that something will happen to me on the seventh day :-P Some people even shifted their TV sets out of their bedroom after watching the film... haha...
However, with more and more directors churning out Ringu style horror movies like a production line, I feel that the quality of horror movies these days have really fallen tremendously. For me, even Hollywood remakes of movies like The Ring and Ju-on really cannot compare to the original versions. I guess movie goers are tired of seeing the same techniques being used again and again... Could a horror movie slump be on the horizon again?
Technorati tags: horror movie, scary movie, Japanese movie, Japanese film, The Ring, Ringu, Ju-on, The Grudge, The Grudge 2.
