Hm. Kurosawa? Check. Toshiro Mifune? Check. Samurai action? Check. Humor? Check. Hm. Must be the sequel to Yojimbo, Sanjuro. Yeah, but I didn’t get a lot out of this one. Once again Mifune returns as the nameless ronin, this time taking the name of “Tsubaki Sanjuro”…. And pretty much does the same thing here that [...]
The Ramen Girl (2008) No I suppose this isn’t a “Japanese Movie” per se. It does take place in Tokyo, and a great deal of it is in Japanese, so humor me. Abby (the late Brittany Murphy) gets dumped by her boyfriend in Tokyo, and in a fit of desparation, gets taken in by a [...]
Ping Pong (2002) How in the hell can you make a decent, funny movie about ping pong? Well, they’ve done it. Ping Pong chronicles the exploits of two table tennis masters: The timid and reserved “Smile” Tsukimoto” (Arata) and the over-the-top “Peco” Hoshino (Yosuke Kubozuka) as they battle through life and their high school ping [...]
US Title: Big Man Japan Japanese Title: 大日本人 (lit. “Big Japanese Person”) If I have to pick one word to describe Big Man Japan, its “weird.” Another would be “funny”. Yet another would be “AWESOME!” I guess you could say this is kinda-sorta the Japanese version of “Hancock.” Although without the crappy attitude and Wil [...]
US Title: The Machine Girl Japanese Title: 片腕マシンガール (One armed Mashin Gaaru) Continuing on with the Halloween/J-Horror theme, I bring you… well, I’m not quite sure what to make of this. The Machine Girl is a twisted film spanning a few genre’s really, typical Tokyo “splatter” horror, comedy, and action. Although it really doesn’t pull [...]
