What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of 5

[HungFist]

Keep Your Chin Up (上を向いて歩こう) (1962) [TV] – 2.5/5
Mitsuo Hama and Kyu Sakamoto star as two youngsters who escape from reform school and go different ways. One dreams of a career in music while affiliating with gangsters, the other finds new home with an old man taking care of ex delinquents. This is a slightly underperforming Nikkatsu youth film. It’s got style, catchy music, and a great cast (Sayuri Yoshinaga is in it too), yet it comes out strangely unmoving. This should have been better, more engaging, and more dynamic.

Detective Bureau 2-3: A Man Weak to Money and Women (探偵事務所23　銭と女に弱い男) (Japan, 1963) [Streaming] – 3/5
A forgotten sequel to Seijun Suzuki's Detective Bureau 2-3. This was a lower budgeted production that had to settle for black and white film stock and a slightly less adventurous director, yet it's an entirely passable Nikkatsu action with plenty of style and a dynamite cast pitting Joe Shihido against deadly Hong Kong gunman Asao Koike! A solid genre film with lots of cool noir imagery, though a tad long and less energetic than its predecessor.

[HungFist]

Gorgeous Leopardess (華やかな女豹) (Japan, 1969) [Streaming] – 3/5
A slightly pretentious human drama set in the world of arts, following a Japanese woman (Ruriko Asaoka) returning from France to Tokyo where her sister (Chieko Matsubara) resides. The storyline with all its attempts at prestige feels fairly irrelevant; however the film is stylishly directed with some stand out moments of visual poetry and urban melancholy. Somewhat comparable to the many nigh ballad films of the era, but with a more sophisticated, less nocturnal feel. In retrospect, although it was still two years ahead, this feels like a dying breath for Nikkatsu prior to restructuring into the nation's largest soft core production line. The screenplay was, perhaps fittingly, penned by future Roman Porno poet Akira Kato, who would carry similar thematic to his own films.

For This We Fight (街から街へつむじ風) (Japan, 1961) [Streaming] – 3/5
Yujiro Ishihara fights both the yakuza and doctors to save a small hospital in this enjoyable programmer. There's nothing exceptional about it, but it's got a sense of fun, the kind that is missing in modern cinema. Case in point: charmingly handsome Ishihara sings a long duet at a colourful night club while gangsters gather around him, everyone keeping each other on an eye, everyone ready to make the first move… and Ishihara just keeps singing. That is cinema!

[HungFist]

The Dragon Lives Again (Hong Kong, 1977) [BD] – 2.5/5
There's no denying this film has one of the best premises in movie history: Bruce Lee wakes up in hell and has to fight his way out. Standing on his way are Zatoichi, One-Armed Swordsman, Emmanuelle, and many others. But the film is a bit of a disappointment. It has moments of genius (and a pool full of topless women), but it's too intentionally silly. There was no need to remind the viewer every three seconds that it’s a comedy – we know it. With a bit more poker face this could’ve been much funnier, and more outrageous.

Tandem (痴漢電車人妻篇　奥様は痴女) (Japan, 1994) [TV] – 3.5/5
Two troubled men travel through the Tokyo night on motorbike in Toshiki Sato and Masahiro Kobayashi's lyrical pink road movie. Both men are deeply flawed and toxic individuals with violent tendencies towards both women and men, but also pitiable losers. Never does the film approve their actions, but rather see them as humans despite of what they do. Nevertheless, viewers with "modern sensibilities” should probably steer clear of the film. This is another interesting work by the Sato / Kobayashi director & screenwriter duo, with Sato documenting the Heisei era cityscapes like and Kobayashi filling people's mouths with often amusing deadpan dialogue. There’s also a great soundtrack with folk songs sung by screenwriter Kobayashi himself – those are his old recordings from 70s under the pseudonym Hiroshi Hayashi! The film would be even better if not for the rather dull ending and being part of the Molester’s Train franchise (if only nominally: that franchise has produced hundreds of theatrical films, some of which, like this movie, were mainly utilizing the title for additional revenue rather than fully committing to groping in trains). Among Sato and Kobayashi's numerous and nearly always rewarding collaborations this film is one of the best known for having enjoyed international exposure via English subtitled releases.

[HungFist]

Kiss to Moonlight (満月のくちづけ) (Japan, 1989) [TV] – 2/5
Initially interesting, but ultimately disappointing idol horror film with a giallo influence. A group of school girls perform a spell to make a handsome young teacher fall in love with one of them, but the spell goes wrong and soon people start dropping dead. There’s a fairly good pop swing and some decent suspense with a giallo vibe at first, but film’s insistence on family friendly and harmless idol entertainment causes it to fall apart. All death scenes are edited in such a way that the viewer has no idea what happened (typically we hear the sound of a wind, hear a scream, then cut to a wall or a floor that has some blood splatters on it; end of scene). The last 25 min gets further bogged down with “human drama” that sanitizes the little horror that had preceded it. It’s a shame as there was potential for something interesting.

Married Woman of the Bento Shop: Another Dish, How About Me? (SEX配達人 おんな届けます) (Japan, 2003) [TV] – 3.5/5
Another surprisingly good pink film that draws from early 2000s Japanese indie dramas and slice of life films. Mika is a former call girl now working in a lunch box restaurant. Her boyfriend is a young man working as a driver for the delivery health company that used to employ her. The guy still spends his days behind the wheel, driving girls around the city and dropping them off to their clients while growing increasingly interested in one of the girls on the back seat. Mika wants to get married, he fears commitment. Meanwhile one of Mika’s regular restaurant customers – the most socially incompetent and not handsome guy out there – asks Mika to marry him out of the blue. The idea is ridiculous, but one platonic date might not hurt... Good characters, restrained screenplay and some lovely handheld street cinematography make this an enjoyable little film, though the ending is less interesting than what came before it. This was the directorial of Teiichi Hori, a former AD to Toshiki Sato and a younger colleague of Mitsuru Meike and Yuji Tajiri, all of whom are given thanks in the closing credits. The apple clearly didn't fall far from the tree. Sadly Hori passed away in 2017 at the age of 47.

Reviewed here is the R15 version of the film, which was released theatrically under the same title with an R18 rating. There’s no mosaic or edits that I could notice, but one or two shots in sex scenes have been re-framed.

[HungFist]

Jidaigeki Special: Shingo's 10 Duels (新吾十番勝負) (Japan, 1990) [TV] – 2/5
An underwhelming TV movie based on the same novel as the famous late 50s/early 60s theatrical series. Those films were essentially disposable programmers, yet filmed with a staggering amount of style and professionalism that existed in studio cinema back then. This 2½ hour small screen version in contrast was shot on video, without a single inspired frame or cut. It even pales in comparison to TV jidaigeki shows from less than a decade before, when they still used to shoot on film. It's quite a shame really, as this is packed with talent from the old days, from co-screenwriter Norifumi Suzuki to composer Shunsuke Kikuchi and a star studded cast featuring Hiroyuki Sanada, Sonny Chiba, Tomisaburo Wakayama and Yoshiko Sakuma. The big name cast, and the brief bits of action featuring Sanada, Chiba and Wakayama, are the highlights. Sadly no one seems be doing more than the bare minimum of what was expected of them. The classic storyline still works somewhat, though amusingly it seems a little censored in places – and this is compared to the movies made in the 1950s!

Peonies and Dragons (牡丹と竜) (Japan, 1970) [35mm] – 3/5
Masahiro Makino remakes his own Toei film Tales of Japanese Chivalry: Attack from 1967. This Nikkatsu version has quite a different flavour, trading chivalrous Ken Takakura for a more temperamental Hideki Takahashi, who plays a single father yakuza trying to make an honest living with an honourable tekiya gang. They are being harassed by Toru Abe’s scumbag yakuza gang who want their share of the market. This is a refreshing change from the usual stoic, low-key ninkyo hero narratives (the premise and tone somewhat resemble Sonny Chiba’s Game of Chance trilogy at Toei, also a bit of an outlier in the genre). A particular highlight is Akira Kobayashi as a flamboyant comrade. He also sings the film’s theme song, which sounds more like a youthful pop song than the kind of old fashioned enka tune that could be expected, and gives an interesting twist to the film’s ninkyo march scene. That being said, this film still follows the repressed ninkyo hero formula, and is even sparser on action than most films of its kind. Director Makino often seemed more interested in period and human drama than action. This one works quite well regardless, with a bit of a different flavour added to the usual recipe.

[HungFist]

Shura no densho: Araburu kyoken (修羅の伝承　荒ぶる凶犬) (Japan, 2014) [Streaming] – 2/5
DTV Chiba. A yakuza is tricked into killing the wrong man by someone who fed his clan with false information, and now has to leave his son and wife behind to go into hiding. 30 years later his son has become a yakuza who is involved in a similar dispute when he stumbles into a restaurant ran by whom he suspects is his father (Sonny Chiba). This is a rare (co)lead role for Chiba in a modern DTV film; he was usually delegated to guest star roles with limited screen time in these kinds of productions. It's nice to see him in a big role, and there's even a bit of interest to the father and son drama. Fellow old man Jiro Okazaki and video cinema king Hitoshi Ozawa show up in small roles as well. But the movie is what it is: a cheap, digital looking, amateurish video flick full of talk and very little action (Chiba throws a couple of kicks and punches at the end). These movies are men's equivalent of TV's soap operas, rather than modern equivalent of old yakuza films.

3 Dolls Go to Hong Kong (お姐ちゃん罷り通る) (Japan, 1959) [35mm] – 3.5/5
One of the joys of Tokyo’s still vibrant film distribution scene is being able to walk into a 35mm screening of a movie that you know little to nothing about, that has never been released on video, and often it turns out to be the most enjoyable 90 minutes. All I knew of this film was it being a Toho comedy shot on location in Hong Kong, and the 3rd in the 3 Dolls series. The film opens in glorious color widescreen with a gangster and his woman firing a Tommy gun at the police against the silhouette of a big city. This turns out be a scene in a theatre play, with our heroines being a musical actress and her friends. They get an offer to go on a world tour, which starts from Hong Kong. A couple of noteworthy actors come across in the city, including Ryo Ikebe as a Chinese-Japanese businessman, and a load of Shaw Bros actors from Yiu Kwang Chao to Paul Chang Chung and Pat Ting Hung. This is an all around funny, energetic comedy with a nice musical touch and loads great footage filmed on the streets of Hong Kong in 1959. The characters are also allowed to speak in their native tongues, with lots of Chinese dialogue for the Chinese cast. Also, I never cease to be amazed by how good many of the Japanese films from this era look: it’s not just the sunsets and night clubs, but even scenes set in random apartments look more stylish and colourful than anything in modern digital cinema.

[grim_tales]

Being able to see an obscure film like that in 35mm sure is something

[HungFist]

Being able to see an obscure film like that in 35mm sure is something

It sure is, and not just the joy of seeing these films from beautiful film prints, but being able to see them at all. This and so many other films that screen in 35mm in Tokyo have never been released on video, perhaps never aired on TV, and you wouldn't even be able to pirate them since they simply don't exits in any other form than on 35mm prints, and hopefully the original negative in the studio vault. And many of them are very good films that have just been forgotten in the vaults, perhaps because of the vast number of them (each major Japanese studio used to produce about 50 new movies per year, so the leading Toei, Toho, Nikkatsu, Daiei, Shochiku alone would put out about 250 new films every year... and all the other studios would release another couple of hundred...).

[HungFist]

Seishun toruko nikki: Shojo suberi (青春トルコ日記 処女すべり) (Japan, 1975) [35mm] – 3.5/5
Toei found themselves in hot water when their ad campaign for this film (“the youngest eros star ever”) proved a little too successful. The production was halted in 1973 when 80% of the filming was done. Toei waited till star Reika Yamakawa was 18 and released the film in 1975 with the same tagline! The controversy is really a quite shame, as what we have here is a rather exceptional coming of age tale that turns into a bloody Scarface gangster tragedy by its end. The first 25 min is incredible: a breezy musical ballad narrated with pop / folk songs, depicting the main character’s path from small village to Tokyo Turkish Bath, intercut with gritty documentary footage of the Vietnam War, violent student protest, and Yukio Mishima. A string of comedic sex scenes follows, by the end of which she has secured a sugar daddy (Taiji Tonoyama) to lend her money to open her own business. Meanwhile collateral damage keeps accumulating as bankrupted customers commit suicides, leaving their orphaned children craving for revenge. It all leads to a bizarre demolition derby car chase / death match climax, filmed through distorted lenses. By the time the film ends, all you can think is how the hell did this get from that coming of age opening to this mad gangster action ending? It goes from funny to melancholic, socio-political to lowbrow; it’s a documentation of bathhouse practices, and a prelude to Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs, as well as a genuinely heartfelt youth film, and a hippie era time capsule. It’s also an uneven and problematic product of its own time that probably won’t be released on video... ever. Regardless, one of mediocre director Yukio Noda’s most inspired films.

Tokyo Untouchable (東京アンタッチャブル) (Japan, 1962) [Streaming] – 3.5/5
This hard boiled thriller is another proof that Shinji Murayama, a director without much personal touch, could nevertheless deliver good films in various genres. Written by former Tokyo police coroner Kimiyuki Hasegawa (best known for the long running Police Department Story series of police procedurals), this film follows a ruthless killer thief (Tetsuro Tamba) as he escapes from prison and gathers together his old gang, while the detectives (Rentaro Mikuni and Ken Takakura) are trying to trace them down. Murayama delivers a stylish, nihilist thriller that sustains its tension from start to end. Two sequels followed.