Why are Japanese films so terrible?

finally watched "Onoda, 10,000 night in the jungle" about hiroo onoda, the last (but one) soldier fighting the second world war (for 29 years after it had officially finished)

was good, from 2021, but was also 3.5 hours long. might still be on all-4 in the uk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSgIj8XaoZk

Picked up a box set of the films of Kinuyo Tanaka in Paris some time ago and have been going through them.

Love Letter (1953) - This is about a dude drifting through the postwar era who finds a job writing English love letters from Japanese geishas to US GIs. Very much the kind of postwar poverty, ppl rising from the ashes of a destroyed country kind of film I'm a sucker for.

The Moon Has Risen (1955) - From a script by Ozu, and the critical consensus seems to be it's Tanaka doing Ozu, though to me it has a lively, youthful feeling that I don't often get from the master. Features future Nikkatsu youth idol Mie Kitahara and, of course, Chishu Ryu as the dad.

The Eternal Breasts (1955) - "You know" I thought to myself "I do sometimes hit a wall with melodrama when they pile on the misery like this". More fool me, this is actually a biopic of a poet who really existed. Most seem to think it's her masterpiece, but it's the one that resonated least with me. But I'm probably wrong, I struggle with Sirk too.

The Wandering Princess (1960) - Another biopic, this time of a member of the Japanese nobility who got married off to the emperor of Manchuria's brother, mostly to stitch things up for the Japanese govt to employ Manchuria as a puppet state. Huge Cinema of Quality vibes, and I can imagine this resonating the way Sissi did it in the West. It's a posho's perspective, so the suffering caused by the Japanese regime is portrayed in the abstract, a troubling news item there, a child complaining about the rude Japanese customers at his dad's inn there, while the suffering of the royal family, much of it of course at the hands of the Communists, is explicit and visceral. Nevermind, I'm an adult, I can contextualize, and at any rate the movie def doesn't paint the Japanese as the Good Guys in all this. Her first colour film and boy is it gorgeous. I figure if David Lean gets to stay in the canon we can get this in there, too.

Girls Of The Night (1961) - Back to black and white for this portrayal of a recovery home for sex workers (shortly after prostitution was outlawed in Japan), but really the focus is on Kuniko (Chisako Hara) in her efforts to return to the working world. Often pretty radical and certainly has a female director's eye for the myriad ways in which men can be The Worst. Disappointingly moralistic and conventional ending but what did I expect.

Love Under The Crucifix (1962) - Tanaka's last film is her sole foray into jidai-geki, Japanese historical cinema, and it dovetails both with the angry revisionism of the samurai films being made around the same time and Tanaka's work with Mizoguchi focusing on female suffering. Somewhat misleading English title - lead character Gin (Ineko Arima)'s romantic interest (played by Tatsuya Nakadai!) is indeed persecuted for his Christianity, but far from being a tract of christian suffering his religious feeling is mostly an impediment to her love, which ofc we are rooting for.

Six movies, none of them bad, quite an ouevre!

The anciliary material confirmed me in some petty prejudices I'd already held: when Tanaka decided to become a director, Mizoguchi, angry at losing his leading lady, went on a press tour saying she "lacked the intelligence" to direct and even had her blackballed from the major studios; contrast with Solid Dudes Ozu and Naruse, who supported her efforts in public and private. Not the first or last instance of a great artist behaving like a total dick of course, but does make me look at his dozens of films about the righteous suffering of the female sex with my eyebrow raised a bit higher.

not sure those are easily available in uk. happy to be contradicted.

had the week off and spent it watching japanese films...

the Battles Without Honour And Humanity box, 5 films by Fukasaku. the first one is well regarded but they were all kinda chaotic. writer changes for the last one too, so it was a bit different.

also Hiroshima, which was good and featured a very handy list of other japanese atomic bomb films, exactly 3 of which i've seen

had a rewatch of 'A Sun-Tribe Myth from the Bakumatsu Era' after it was mentioned in commentary on one of the above, but it wasn't great.

also The Flavour Of Green Tea Over Rice (new BFI version), another rewatch, usual ozu quality.

and the Samurai trilogy, the Musashi Miyamoto thing, Criterion, main antagonist of whom was the love interest from Green Tea.

and picked up Battle Royale in fopp, which is also Fukasaku, albeit 25 years later (and 20 years old itself now).

not sure those are easily available in uk. happy to be contradicted.

Not in physical edition or streaming no, thus my buying the box in Paris - I think they played at the BFI semi recently though, judging by letterboxd reviews. At any rate you could always learn French like a civiliaed person pirate them.

Battles Without Honour Or Humanity felt impossible to watch without an accompanying spreadsheet.

i need to transcribe that list of japanese atomic bomb films, see if i can dig a few more up.

i looked online and found this howler
https://katakurifilms.com/8-of-the-best-japanese-films-about-the-atomic-bomb/
(fireflies is about the firebombing of kobe, nothing atomic about it)

I watched four of those Tanaka films recently and yeah they were all good. Some great cinematography and mise en scene at times... she'd clearly learned some things from working with Mizoguchi.

watched Osaka Elegy just now. it's well regarded but probably one for the heads.

anyway, in one bit they go to the theatre to see Banraku, the classic Japanese puppet plays. i can't remember seeing this in any other film. are there any others?

Takeshi Kitano's Dolls:

The first story is the one on which the film centers. The film leads into it by opening with a performance of Bunraku theatre, and closes with a shot of dolls from the same. The performance is that of "The Courier for Hell" by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, and it alludes to themes that reappear later in the film. Because the rest of the film itself (as Kitano himself has said) can be treated as Bunraku in film form, the film is quite symbolic.

(imdb lists 4, Dolls and Oharu and something Western. i don't remember the bit in Oharu and haven't seen Dolls)

((also puzzled by the fact 'hair-bun' is a thing people tag movies with))

I saw The Courier for Hell when I visited the Bunraku theatre in Osaka, it was heartbreaking!

Not a movie but Tanizaki's Some Prefer Nettles has a lot of bunraku in it iirc

I know there's some films made of bunraku performances, but I can't think of any that are part of the plot. a lot more with Noh plays etc
feel like I should mention Thunderbolt Fantasy here, a Japan/Taiwan wuxia puppet TV show created by Gen Urobuchi of Fate/Zero, Madoka Magica, Psychopass etc. fame. it's as daft as it sounds!

Shinoda’s Double Suicide uses bunraku as a narrative element iirc

a lot of the bunraku plays themselves seen to involve double suicides (based on the list of 10 or so top chikamatsu whatsisname plays i found online)

the bookseller in the film i watched last week had a bunch of double suicide titles too, i wonder if they were the same ones?

I watched A Colt Is My Passport the other day: a superb noir with a lot of western (the genre) touches including a very good Morricone-esque soundtrack

xp yeah the film is a bunraku adaptation

Colt Is My Passport very good yeah, def the highlight of that criterion Nikkatsu set