Stray from the status quo? What are you, fucking retarded? You’re going to watch the sixth Digimon movie and you’ll like it.
If you know someone that is a big film buff, you might’ve heard of some Japanese movies that they raved about; or maybe they talked about Akira Kurosawa. Those movies they’re talking about, unless if it’s a recent anime (probably by Miyazaki), then it’s quite old… in cinema standards. Want to know what a Japanese movie is like these days? Trust me, you don’t.
Another movie based on manga? Ha, you bitches ain’t got shit on me.
Japan does have a movie industry that has been making movies of variable quality for some time. It started out quite well with Akira Kurosawa, but towards the end of his career he was smearing the industry and accusing them of making mountains of shit on their dinnerplates (where the aliens would land) and then putting that on film. You could make the case that the reason he said stuff like this is because he was an old man and many old men are cranky fuckers. However, if you really look at what movies are made in Japan, even including Kurosawa’s perfectionism, you can see that he does have a point even if he was overstating his case just a bit.
Not saying that there aren’t any good Japanese movies these days, there are. Hayao Miyazaki consistently makes good films and, to some extent, Miike Takahasi, to give some examples. But given the number of films, you start to notice that it’s a sad state of affairs. Good instances of these affairs are easy to find, you don’t have to dig that deep.
Godzilla is one great example of one of the problems with the Japanese film industry. Now, it’s not that they have made a Godzilla movie, that’s fine. But then they went on to make 27 more. Now, I know that there are some franchises that have been beaten into the ground and are halfway through the mantle, but not to the point where there were 28 movies. Can anyone do anything interesting with a series after 28 iterations? What should the next one be about, “Godzilla takes Satan through the backdoor”? Then again, you can’t blame only the industry for doing nothing more than the same when the audience is clamouring for it.
Another problem in the film industry (everywhere and in everything really) is that they seem to hate taking any risks at all. Big projects like Death Note didn’t come to theaters until December of 06. It only covered half the series, which required it to have a sudden and senseless ending. That’s not really the problem though. The problem is that they always knew that the film was going to make money. That’s fine, of course, but this happens all the time in the Japanese film industry. The Juno’s, the Pi’s, the Waking Life’s, as rare as they are in American cinema, they are that much more rarer in the Japanese counterpart.
Coming soon to theaters: A decent story that you already have read.
Now I know that these problems aren’t just in Japan, they’re in all film industries around the globe. The thing about the Japanese film industry is the ratio. The ratio of good:shit is much lower than one would find in some other places. Japan needs to step out of it’s safe zone and make some films that push boundaries, make people question things, give a different angle on a common theme, show societal discrepancies, something. The best movies of Japan manage to find their way to all corners of the globe. Do you know of any other living Japanese director besides Miyazaki or Takahashi? Didn’t think so.
Note: There are some directors getting meta-success with their horror movies (Ring, Dark Water, The Grudge, etc), but an American remake of a Japanese movie is much different from a Japanese movie making inroads to the western market.
What are you talking about? Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?
Not all Japanese films are Godzilla or Ringu knock-offs. In fact, 90% of them are not even like that.
If your focus is on nothing but Godzilla or Ultraman stuff, of course, you’re gonna get a lot of crappy films. But those films can’t be taken seriously anyways.
Have you seen the actual Japanese films?? The ones where the directors and the actors actually put in work instead of just climbing into some poor monster costume and destroys some random cities??
Because if you did, you wouldn’t have made this post. You would know that the quality of actual Japanese films is much higher than any other country.
And who the hell is Miike Takahasi？ I think you meant Takashi Miike?? The guy who did Ichi the Killer and Audition??
The thing is, compared to some other Japanese directors, he’s not even that good. The reason you don’t hear of the other directors is because they don’t make gory or controversial themes like Miike does all the time, but if you actually watch some REAL Japanese films (I’m not talking about Godzilla or Ultraman, anime live-action nonsense)…you will RARELY come away with a bad film. I’m serious, the Japanese movie industry is probably the best out of any country, and definitely better than Hollywood, Korea, and Hong Kong put together.
Thanks a bunch for writing this. I’m partially happy because you made me realize that I did not talk with enough specificity when talking about movies both made in “Hollywood” (i.e. America) and Japan. The other reason I’m happy is that now I can use this time to make sure that everyone understands what I meant to say.
When talking in such expansive terms that puts everyone that is part of a particular industry in a particular country into the same descriptive box you’re going to run into some trouble. A strategy such as this will ultimately lead to denunciations; these are quite interesting when you half agree with the person making the denunciation. If I was a serious writer, trying with the utmost care to express my thoughts onto html, I would have felt some shame that such a comment had to be written towards me. However, I am not a serious writer; I have a jumbled mess of a brain and little talent for writing, yet I still like to talk about ideas.
When I wrote the post in questioned, I did a little ASS-U-MEing. When I was mentioning both “Hollywood” and Japan I was never taking into consideration all movies made in each country. For the most part, I was talking about what most would call mainstream. Are there good mainstream movies from the US or Japan? Yes. However, outside of Oscar season (and even in it), there are, in my opinion, way too many movies that do nothing original (be it a sequel or not), rehash an old concept/movie without doing enough to set it apart from the source material, or take a book/play/comic/etc and produce a movie from that.
Now, all of these things aren’t equally bad in my eyes. Movies that take a source material can range from bad (Catwoman) to OK (300) to Good (The Dark Night), just because everything in the movie is not original doesn’t mean it isn’t good. However, the number of movies that tend towards Catwoman / Elektra are far too numerous than one would hope. This phenomenon is not region specific; look at Bollywood, Korea, Japan, France, Britain, USA, you’ll see it in all of these places. So, yes, there are wonderful and awesome movies made in Japan. There are also many great movies made in other locations as well. This does not mean I cannot lament the fact that the number of crappy Japanese horror films or the number of [Insert Genre Here] Movies is increasing for some unfortunate reason.
Now why did I say Miike Takahashi instead of how one would say it the way it is usually said in Japan? Mostly because that is how we speak in English; it was a conscious decision to put his first name first.
I have to say that, even while making some good points, you do sound a little bit like a Japanese fanboy. Sure, there are many good movies that come from Japan, but I have to question your statement that the Japanese movie industry is best out of all other countries. By what metric? Screenwriting? Reviews? Box office receipts? Use of the camera? I can understand one liking Japanese movies over films from other countries, but that doesn’t make movies from Japan better except for the person in question. You also use the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. Why wouldn’t I come away liking most movies from Hollywood if I watch a REAL movies from Hollywood?
Anyways, thanks for the message.
Happy New Year
So you were talking about what would be considered mainstream in Japan. You’re in Japan, I’m not, so I can’t say anything about that. But I highly doubt that Godzilla and Ultraman stuff would be considered “mainstream”. Maybe “mainstream” as far as iconic symbols of pop culture in modern Japan, but in film…..I’m not so sure. Do those corny low budget Ultraman films get released in theaters monthly with people flooding to go see them? Maybe, but I highly doubt that. Me personally, I don’t know what the “average” gajin thinks of Japanese cinema, but if is indeed Ultraman nonsense, then it isn’t very insightful. But then again, I don’t think the average Japanese moviegoer knows much either if they are flooding to go see them
Maybe the marketing of films in Japan is different from the US where Hollywood emphasizes that it is the most powerful form of entertainment. You see movie trailers every 10 minutes when you turn on the TV screen. But when I was in Japan, I don’t remember seeing any trailers for films, and even if I did, I wouldn’t remember because they were just so subtle, either that or they were for American films. Hell, the only time I went to the theater in Japan was to see Spiderman 2, and not some Japanese film.
And the reason I say that I think that J-Cinema is better is because I’m a fan. Because I have seen a lot, and I have rarely seen a bad Japanese film that didn’t fall in the category of live-anime adapation, horror, Godzilla, or Miike’s nonsense. I just think that they are extremely good or careful storytellers and they can take a simple premise and make it into something amazing (even if overdramatic at times). You rarely see a big budget action bonanza coming out of Japan, I think most of their films actually are about something that I can relate to or understand. It just boils down to what each individual’s viewing experience, and in my experience the good Japanese films outweighs the bad.
Here’s where I get my info on new Japanese films:
http://eigatirashi.com/2007gazou/2007gazou2.html (listed by year)
There are a lot of foreign films listed as well, but out of the Japanese films, there isn’t any Godzilla or Ultraman to be found.