Posted: 7/7/2009 9:14:01 AM EDT
|
Takashi Miike (Japanese) is one of my favorite movie directors. for more than a decade he has cranked out an average of three movies per year (6 each in 2001 and 2004) in addition to tv episodes. the hard work paid off because in the last few years his style has masterfully turned to movies that are something to think about, they're not easy to get it but they're worth the effort. three notable movies are Visitor Q, Izo, and Sukiyaki Western Django.
in Visitor Q, the movie was about a tv reporter who gets bashed on the head with a rock. the rock thrower follows him home and becomes part of the family. it becomes clear how dysfunctional they are. the reporter is a complete loser, the wife sells her body to feed her drug addiction, the son does nothing but beat his mother. after the reporter accidentally kills a newswoman and disposes of the body, things take off from there and get outrageous. amazingly, by the end of the movie (which is quite bizarre in itself) the message becomes evident: happiness can overwhelm dysfunctionality in a family. not much else is important. in Izo, the main character (Izo) stumbles, drops, runs, and falls from every direction into a series of completely unrelated scenes of senseless violence. his only weapon is his katana. he kills attackers and innocent alike, and usually is mortally wounded himself in the process. but he always comes back to life only to stumble into the next scene. as he goes, a mask appears on his face that grows and becomes more demon-like with each scene. a woman appears that follows him around, it's his conscience. he ignores her. halfway through the movie you start to wonder what the plot is, but you discover over the rest of the movie that there is no plot, only scene after scene of more of the same. the swordplay in the movie was criticized as sloppy and crude, but the critics missed the point: the literal senseless violence portrayed in the movie represents what we do to each other on a daily basis. maiming, killing, both attackers and innocents, usually getting mortally wounded yourself, but always picking yourself up only to stumble right into the next predicament, never knowing what's next- endlessly. so of course the swordplay was sloppy and crude. at the end of the movie Izo is finally killed, and reborn by the woman (his conscience). and now to get to the point of this topic. Sukiyaki Western Django is a Japanese cowboy western film. not as in, a cowboy western made by Japanese, but Japanese making a Japanese film that has cowboys (played by Japanese) doing supposedly cowboy things. it's set in Nevada, but the buildings are Japanese. although they look western inside. there's a minimum of swords and a maximum of guns and gunplay, but they all speak English with corny Japanese accents. imagine the old west settled by Japanese and you know how that's going to turn out. having Quentin Tarantino playing cameo parts and influencing the film doesn't help their plight either. 
there is a small town that has a gold rush. the Reds (Heike, a clan) who somewhat resemble cowboys, move in. but the Whites (Genji, a clan) who resemble indians, move in also. the townspeople leave, but one who stays, a lone gunman wearing black, knows where all the gold was hidden. both clans want him to find the gold for their clan. however, a Red woman has a son, who brings home a White woman for his bride. I suppose you could say that's when the shit hits the fan. the movie starts off totally bizarre and slowly but surely becomes a normal movie by the end. the action starts off from the beginning (although slow) and bottle rockets all the way to a pretty good shootout at the end. the middle is splattered with a bit of Kill Bill. Tarantino-esque turns in the plot show up here and there. but, the movie is mostly craziness and you won't get it unless you think like a Japanese and know to wait until it's all over to fully consider what you saw. in this sense Miike is most sublime. when you think introspectively, while watching the movie, considering what the characters are doing and why, you find your mind wandering amidst the bizarreness and mayhem. it can be so mind boggling you become detached and find yourself simply along for the ride, perhaps even forget you're watching the movie at times. but, as said before, by the end of the movie it becomes normal and you come to your senses. at the end, the man in black says two things as he's leaving. one is what you could get from his actions and the other is what to do with it. and you would have to experience the whole movie to appreciate those two lines. that is, if you can. if you're looking for words, you won't get it. even what the title of the topic was referring to. why would he use such a movie to deliver such a message? because life is, after all, crazy. you have to accept that to understand. |
|
nope. far too literal. what would he do in a gold rush town without his sword? he can still wield it. it's no longer what he has in his hands. that's merely what he learned from. |
|
I have the whole comic book series. Excellent read. 30 volumes. |
|
Quoted: nope. far too literal. what would he do in a gold rush town without his sword? he can still wield it. it's no longer what he has in his hands. that's merely what he learned from. I meant after reading the topic... haven't seen the movie in question. |
|
Quoted: I 'rented' Sukiyaki Western Django from netflix a few months ago... Wow, what a disappointment. It was disjointed and there were parts where I nearly nodded off. Don't bother, it's bad. It may be INTENTIONALLY bad but it's still bad. yeah it was bad but not the so bad its good, there were some good parts but it should have been so much better with all the westerns out there to draw off of. |
|
Quoted:
yep. some people aren't going to like it. I can see what this guy said.
I 'rented' Sukiyaki Western Django from netflix a few months ago... Wow, what a disappointment. It was disjointed and there were parts where I nearly nodded off. Don't bother, it's bad. It may be INTENTIONALLY bad but it's still bad. |
|
Django was one of the outright worst lumps of shit movies I have ever had the misfortune of bearing partial witness to.
We turned it off after 20 minutes or so. We were going to turn it off after 10, but we really wanted to give it a fair shot. What a waste of fucking time. If I want to watch a GOOD Japanes movie, i'll watch any of Toshirô Mifunes movies. |
|
Was "how to wield a katana" intended as a statement or a question?
If you are referring to technical/historical sword use, movie swordplay is almost never, ever even remotely realistic. Nearly every western or oriental treatise written by masters included anecdotes about duels and combat, and the actions were typically over in a matter of seconds. 2 second fights consisting of single feint-strike-counter actions don't make for good movies. If you are making a statement about how a particular director throws swords into a movie to make a point like a chef throwing some Tony Cachere's into a pot of gumbo, well, if it got you to watch the movie, obviously it worked. |
|
You can't talk about Miike and not mention "Audition." Consistently ranked among the most terrifying movies in film history, even though there is very little screen time devoted to gore. And speaking of gore, you must also mention his film "Ichi the Killer," a quintessential example of Japanese splatter cinema. |
|
I didn't like Audition. the second they killed the dog was the second I hit the stop button and tossed the dvd.
Ichi The Killer is a cult classic, yes, but being one of his older less intellectual movies I didn't go over it to explain what he's doing now. but yes, those are two other popular movies he made worth mentioning. Quoted:
Was "how to wield a katana" intended as a statement or a question? If you are referring to technical/historical sword use, movie swordplay is almost never, ever even remotely realistic. Nearly every western or oriental treatise written by masters included anecdotes about duels and combat, and the actions were typically over in a matter of seconds. 2 second fights consisting of single feint-strike-counter actions don't make for good movies. If you are making a statement about how a particular director throws swords into a movie to make a point like a chef throwing some Tony Cachere's into a pot of gumbo, well, if it got you to watch the movie, obviously it worked. neither of those if's. there was a reason for calling it "how to wield a Japanese sword" instead of "how to wield a katana". |
|
that said "embedding disabled by request", had to use the link ObuvfQKPCsA |
|
Quoted: I didn't like Audition. the second they killed the dog was the second I hit the stop button and tossed the dvd. Ichi The Killer is a cult classic, yes, but being one of his older less intellectual movies I didn't go over it to explain what he's doing now. but yes, those are two other popular movies he made worth mentioning. I'm not trying to pick a fight (really!) but you stopped watching "Audition" because they killed a dog, yet you liked "Visitor Q," with all its deranged anti-social mayhem? You are one sick and twisted individual. I can respect that. 
|
|
Django is a word that many chinese, Japanese and Italian directors put in their spaghetti flicks in the 70s. I saw an Italian documentary on the IFC channel a month ago and there were at least 20 flicks with django it in. some with Japs playing Mexicans and other hilarity.
ETA I think I understated it a bit. A search of IMDB for Django revealed 9600+ hits for movies and articles. WOW. |
|
Sorry 
|
| This is as close to real sword use by a Samurai as Clint Eastwood is to cowboys using revolvers. I did Kendo for a good while and have two very nice L6 swords. Granted I have never taken 400 men on with a sword so maybe I am wrong but this is pretty fanciful compared to reality. |
|
Let's see...
He's not flying through the air... No fake swishy swooping sounds when swinging sword He projects alpha-male superiority from the first sword-stroke and the first word out of his mouth He strikes to kill without extended fight choreography He expresses anger at good swordsmen being killed May not be reality, but a helluva lot better and less cartoonish than most modern sword fight examples in cinema.... |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
I'm not trying to pick a fight (really!) but you stopped watching "Audition" because they killed a dog, yet you liked "Visitor Q," with all its deranged anti-social mayhem?
I didn't like Audition. the second they killed the dog was the second I hit the stop button and tossed the dvd. Ichi The Killer is a cult classic, yes, but being one of his older less intellectual movies I didn't go over it to explain what he's doing now. but yes, those are two other popular movies he made worth mentioning. You are one sick and twisted individual. I can respect that. that's a good observation. why are some ill things acceptable to me but others aren't? what makes the difference between them? |
|
Ah Lone Wolf and Cub...great comic series also 
|
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
I'm not trying to pick a fight (really!) but you stopped watching "Audition" because they killed a dog, yet you liked "Visitor Q," with all its deranged anti-social mayhem?
I didn't like Audition. the second they killed the dog was the second I hit the stop button and tossed the dvd. Ichi The Killer is a cult classic, yes, but being one of his older less intellectual movies I didn't go over it to explain what he's doing now. but yes, those are two other popular movies he made worth mentioning. You are one sick and twisted individual. I can respect that. that's a good observation. why are some ill things acceptable to me but others aren't? what makes the difference between them? Audtion....I kinda kept watching that because I was too...mortified?...to stop the DVD. Just wanted to see what happens. |
|
Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: I'm not trying to pick a fight (really!) but you stopped watching "Audition" because they killed a dog, yet you liked "Visitor Q," with all its deranged anti-social mayhem?I didn't like Audition. the second they killed the dog was the second I hit the stop button and tossed the dvd. Ichi The Killer is a cult classic, yes, but being one of his older less intellectual movies I didn't go over it to explain what he's doing now. but yes, those are two other popular movies he made worth mentioning. You are one sick and twisted individual. I can respect that. that's a good observation. why are some ill things acceptable to me but others aren't? what makes the difference between them? Most people have emotional attachments to certain material objects (any person who doesn't is probably a soul-less killer or, at the very least, a sociopath.) When those objects (pets, family, expensive automobiles, etc.) are threatened (or threatening,) we feel emotionally threatened ourselves. You feel physically sick when you see a dog being killed, because you are emotionally attached to the dog. For me, threats to other things provoke that same response. Why some cultures - and by corollary it's people - revere certain things, when another culture's do not, is a mystery. Why do Americans tend to treat dogs as family members, and some people threat them as food? Some horror directors, like Miike, Carpenter, Fulci, Raimi, Romero, and of course, Hitchcock, are masters at presenting us with on-screen threats to the things we hold most dear, forcing us to face our fears, or, in some cases, get up and walk out of the theater. Steven King is masterful at taking those objects and making them frightening. Pet Sematary (child as killer,) Cujo (dog as killer,) Christine (car as killer,) It (clown as killer.) I think the purpose of horror films is to help us test the limits of, and master our responses to fear. Audition pushed me to my limit. Anyone who's seen the ending knows what I mean. |