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.

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

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.