I dropped by in Tokyo for some extreme movie watching again last week.
First up was a race
Jimbocho Theater, with first screening at 12:00. I had booked an early as motherfucker flight, only for it to be 30 min late. I missed the cheap Keisei train as a result, and had to ride an expensive Narita Express... which was also late because of some "trouble" (probably train suicide). Finally arriving Ueno, I made a desperate run to the metro even though I was one train behind my schedule, only for the train doors close right in front of my face.
With Plan A and Plan B down the sewer, I improvised a taxi drive to Jimbo. The driver didn't know where the theater was so I just told him to drop me off at the station, and proceeded to talk about Tsunehiko Watase and Etsuko Shihomi with him for 15 min. Finally I did a 300m run to the theatre and sat down 11:59!
I was wondering if it was worth it at all, the film in question being
Crazed Beast (1976), which I hated when I fist saw it on DVD. This time I enjoyed it almost thoroughly, seeing it as the amusing action farce it is, rather than the action thriller I expected upon my first viewing. Favorite line in the film (an old woman to scared children in a hijacked bus): "Don't worry, that uncle will be caught and get death penalty".
Jimbocho is not a theatre I visit awfully often because they focus on 50s and 60s dramas, comedies and musicals, but this time they had a dynamite program:
Japanese Hot-Blooded Men 2 (にっぽんのアツい男たち2, which I'd love to translate as Japanese Hot Guys 2!
).
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https://www.shogakukan.co.jp/jinbocho-t ... ml#movie01
Battles Without Honor and Humanity
Misumi and Katsu's Tomuraishi tachi (1968), Oshima's Cruel Story of Youth (1960)
Lost Love (1978) and The Mosquito on the Tenth Floor (1983)
Kumashiro double: Africa's Light, which I saw in Jimbo a few years ago, and Failed Youth (1974)
I finally got to see Failed Youth after missing it so many times. I plays in Tokyo in 35mm at least once every year. Below is my mini review:
Failed Youth (青春の蹉跌) (Japan, 1974) [35mm] – 4.5/5
Tatsumi Kumashiro's legendary youth film. This was his first movie for Toho, a departure from Roman Porno. The politically conscious script by Kazuhiko Hasegawa (The Youth Killer, The Man Who Stole the Sun) follows indecisive university student Ken'ichi Hagiwara and hopelessly in love younger girlfriend Kaori Momoi in the midst of young confusion, violent student radicalism and an era where modern and traditional clashed. It's a slow-burner, but excellently acted by Hagiwara and Momoi (also look out for Meika Seri as a street beggar) and filmed with loads of meaningful long takes, including an amazing love scene in the snowy mountains near the end. And the score is just beautiful! Kumashiro's masterpiece, no doubt! The film's obscurity shows just how little Toho cares for their own catalogue titles: chosen by the nation's best known film journal Kinema Junpo as the 21st best Japanese film ever made, Toho has not even bothered putting the film out on DVD (though it’s finally coming in December 2019).
I also caught
The Mosquito on the Tenth Floor (1983), which I still thought was a pretty dull and boring life-is-shit picture despite a convincing Yuya Uchida performance as a policeman in debt (to the bank, not the yakuza, unfortunately), and the much more fun, if messy action epic
Resurrection of the Golden Wolf (1979), which is my favorite Yusaku Matsuda film.
Some of the other films in the 16 movie program (all 35mm) included Kitano's Sonatine, Gosha's Four Days of Snow and Blood, Suzuki's Fighting Elegy and Ichikawa's The Wanderers.