Ghost Cat Anzu (2024) Animation is Film 2024

Karin is dumped at the home of her grandfather, who is a monk at a Buddhist shrine, by her father who is being hunted by loan sharks who already broke his arm. She is intrigued by the Anzu, the giant talking cat. As she settle in to her new home he meets the boy in the neighborhood, some spirits and some other supernatural beings.

This is a film that could never be made in the US. Life isn't neat and perfect, bad things happen and things don't go as expected. The result of the messiness of life creeping in is a film that ends up delighting the audience.

While the film is going to seem gruff and perhaps a bit low brow early on, Anzu loves to fart, the film quickly makes up for it with a cast of characters and situations that worm their way into your heart. You like everyone on screen and they become friends quickly because for the most part no one in this film is like any other character in any animated film. I couldn't help but smile and lean in because these were not people I knew or second guess.

Wonderfully its own thing, sometimes to the detriment of the pacing, GHOST CAT ANZU is film that stands out and warms the heart with real people and real emotion. Yes, some of the character design may remind you of other films, but the truth is the story and the way it unfolds is not like anything else you've really seen in Japanese and especially American animation. The plotting is not really conventional inspite of it being weirdly perfect.

Truthfully this is a film I wish had a real shot at getting at least an Oscar nomination. While I would be hard pressed to call the film the best animated film of the year (the pacing is random and there are some odd tonal shifts), it is special enough and different enough that it should take one of the Oscar slots, especially since the rest of the slots are going to be filled with Hollywood retreads of piss poor cookie cutter formulas.

You need to see this film because it will open your eyes to what can be done with the animated medium.

Highly recommended.

The Colors Within (2024) Animation is Film 2024

Coming of age film about a young girl who can see the "colors" of people who is staying in a Catholic school. She hooks up with two other people and together they form a band.

This is a film that is going to surprise a great many people. Outside of the colors, this is not a mystical anime tale, nor is it a film with contrived narrative peaks and valleys. This is a film about growing up, trying to find friends and deciding what you want to do in life.  Things happen as they normally do. There is no grand tragedies afoot or aliens or bizarre turn. There is simply life.

In a weird way that's a novel concept....

...on the other hand it makes for a uniquely compelling movie. Yes the use of animation allows for the enhancement of mood and feeling, but the fact that we are just seeing life animated is something special. Naoko Yamada has fashioned a film that sneaks up and works you over because the medium of animation draws us in.  We go in expecting something special and we come out feeling that is exactly the case. We see life as lived, which is something we not only almost never see in animation, at least that which gets a wide release, but also it is not something we see in most live action films since most filmmakers feel the need to spruce things up with an unnatural turn.

Never mind the animation, which is wonderful, I love this film simply as a film. This film stand up well with many of the live action dramas I've seen this year.

This is absolute proof that animation is not a genre but a medium for telling a story.

Highly recommended

Burmese Harp (1956) opens at Film Forum October 18

With THE BURMESE HARP opening in a restore version at the Film Forum here is a piece I posted about ten years ago.

One of the first films I wanted to right up for Unseen was Kon Ichikawa‘s Harp of Burma or The Burmese Harp. Despite numerous efforts to do so I never have. The problem for me is that the film is so powerful and so moving to me that I can’t find the words. To me the humanity in the film is so powerful that it obliterates any of the flaws of the film (it’s a tad too mannered at times).

The film is set at the close of the Second World War in the Pacific. As the Japanese rally and try to make sense of what is going on one of their number will keep their spirits up by playing the harp. When the hostilities finally end, the men are placed into a camp by the Allies. However word of the end of the war hasn’t reached all the Japanese positions so they ask the prisoners if one would go into one of the strongholds and try to talk the men into surrendering. A man named Mizushima goes.The meeting doesn’t go well, he isn’t believed and the men think he is a traitor and they elect to fight to the last man. The end comes sooner then they think when the shelling resumes everyone is is killed. Everyone that is except Mizushima, who staggers out into the jungle. Not sure of what to do or where to go he wanders the countryside horrified that the bodies of his fellow comrades have been left to rot and decay where they were killed. Deciding he cannot allow this to be he decides to bury all of the dead where ever he finds them.

Almost five years on at Unseen I still don’t have the words. This film floors me each and every time I see it. And every time I see it I try to explain why it moves me so but I can’t find the words. What I always stumble on is how the film is a near perfect antiwar film, and how it is a touching memorial for those who died. It’s not just Japanese who died but anyone who died. We will remember. We will return you to a place of dignity despite the indignities of war and of your death. This is the return of humanity after the inhumanity of war.

I am beyond words. This film places me to somewhere that is all emotion and nothing else.

I don’t know what to say beyond just see it other than to say this is on my list of the greatest films ever made.

HAPPYEND (2024) NYFF 2024

HAPPYEND was the first film in the first 10 screened for the press at NYFF where everyone was joyfully happy with the film. It was, in the words of several writer, the first truly good film. As I write this I've seen 15 films from the festival and it's one of  5 I would recommend.

The film follows five friends in high school in Japan. They love hanging out, each other, playing pranks and music. As their last days of school wind down everyone is worried about earthquakes, government intrusion in their lives and the new security system installed in the school.

While the film has serious undertones such as the growing oppression of government (literally the Japanese government and figuratively the school) as well as racism and xenophobia, the film is most certainly happy. Its a celebration of the joys of having friends. While there are ups and downs there are no artificial tragedies, just life moving along.

I was delighted. 

This is a film full of life and joy and love. It's like hanging out with your best friends. Yes it is very bittersweet, the film brings up to high school graduation and everyone's paths are headed in other directions, but they are still upright and still friends.

When the film was over there was some discussion about why other New York festivals like New York Asian or Japan Cuts didn't grab it and the conclusion was whomever saw it from NYFF wasn't stupid enough to let it go.

This is a magical film that will make you feel good.

See it ASAP

Ghost Killer (2024) Fantastic Fest

GHOST KILLER has a young woman with a messy life  ending up having the ghost of a murdered assassin attached to her. He won’t leave until she gets revenge for him.

This good but odd mix of horror, action and humor is entertaining but at the same time isn’t as satisfying as it should be. Blame the uneasy mix of genres that doesn’t always blend as perfectly as it should.. It’s never fatal but it’s bumpy.

And as good as she is I think part of the problem is Akari Takaishi in the lead. She’s fine but the role and her performance is played much too close to her one in the Baby Assassin’s Franchise. Watching her I kept waiting for bigger laughs.

My quibble aside, GHOST KILLER is worth a look.

I WILL BE YOUR MIRROR (2022) aka blood

 After the death of her husband Chloe travels to Japan on a photo assignment. There she reconnects with Toshi and his young daughter. 

This is a sweet little romance which originally had a poor choice for a title (blood, all lower case). It's a lovely story about nice people who find each other. It's a beautifully shot to the point that you will want to disappear into the landscape. Rarely has Japan ever felt so inviting.

I love this film a great deal. I love that it doesn't reinvent the wheel, it simply does what it does extremely well with the result being a film we want to curl up with.

If there is anything wrong with the film, aside from a poor choice of a title, it's that the romance between Chloe and Toshi is pretty much a done deal from the first frame. We know it's going to happen; we just have to wait for the inevitable, however, it's so well done you won't care.

Recommended 

House of Sayuri (2024) Fantasia 2024

After years of living in a crowded apartment a family moves into a nice spacious  house. The trouble is the house contains the spirit of a bitter young woman who was murdered and she begins to take steps to remove the family from the world of the living.

Creepy haunted house, is for most of its running time a solid haunted house thriller. It is film that tweaks the genre in interesting ways  to give us some scary moments that aren’t just the result of sudden loud noises. This is one of the few recent haunted house films that I can really recommend.

That said the you really needs to know that the film foes have some tonal problems. The grandmother of the family is supposed to have dementia and for a good part of the film she’s played for laughs. It runs counter to the mood of the rest of the film.  It’s a move that results in a WTF moment in the latter part of the film as she steps up to be the one spearheading the fight against the ghost. It, like the rest of the humor, diminishes what is an otherwise tense film. While it doesn’t kill the film it takes what should have been a truly great film and makes it just a good one.

Regardless of my quibbles this film is ultimately a lot of fun.

Recommended

BABY ASSASSINS: NICE DAYS (2024) NYAFF 2024 Fantasia 2024

The third in the Baby Assassins series world premiered at the New York Asian Film Festival.  For a while it didn't look like it was going to happen because the digital file had issues. After an hour they substituted a screener copy and held the event. They also managed to give the Daniel A Craft Award for Action to director Yugo Sakamoto, hold off the next screening long enough so that people who had tickets could go, and a 15 minute Q&A.

Bravo to the staff.

The plot of the film has Chisato and Mahiro sent to the city of Miyazaki on a hit. The pair are using the trip to site see and to celebrate Mahiro's birthday. The plan is to kill a nebish because he embellished a large sum of money. When they find their target they also find another hit man there about to kill him. A battle ensues... and when all is done the girls are in trouble because they didn't make the kill and because there is freelancer on the loose. Hooking up with another team, they now have to take out the freelancer and their target.

While this film isn't as good as the first film, it is light years ahead of the second. This is a film that's worth seeing, despite the fact that it is also a mess because the bits that work are great.

I'm not going to lie; the narrative is a wildly uneven. After an unfunny silly opening the film shifts into action mode when they go on the hit. This introduces the villain, a lone wolf killer who is looking for his 150th kill. He's a psychotic nutjob with near superhuman ability. He is a chilling foe... who quickly disappears for large chunks of the film. This would be fine if director Sakamoto managed to make him have a presence in the scenes he's not in, but it never happens. Even when he is spoken about, and even when the girls are going through his house, there is so sense of him hanging over the proceedings.  He is either a danger on screen when he is battling with the girls or gone from the film's memory. It's a disastrous move that leaves us with no one to fear. The film is so bad at making the villains menacing (there are other assassins) there is no sense of danger. Well, okay, in the fights there is a sense of danger because the girls get their asses kicked but when there is no action there is no suspense. Frankly there is a great villainous performance here looking for a script up to that level.

The plot also doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense. Plot threads jump. We often don't know how we get from one part to another. For example at the end everyone is fighting outside when suddenly the girls are in a building and battle their nemesis. How did they know he was there? More to the point how did the bad guy get from the cars to the building?  We don't know. The film looks like Sakamoto and his crew cut out all the connecting material.

You can't think about you just have to go with the action.

Speaking of action, I don't know why Sakamoto got the Daniel Craft Award for Action.  I say that in part because Sakamoto hasn't done enough careerwise to warrant it. Yea the fights in the first film are great but the rest of the films aren't that great. Here the fights are serviceable but not great. Part of the problem is that they are wickedly uneven. In some moments there is copious amounts of blood, and in other moments there is none. In some moments things have effects on the combatants there is none.  Worse a lot of the fights feel a half step slow. Yea there are some great moments, but mostly it's a lot of good. (Compare the action in this film with the action in TWILIGHTS OF THE HEROES: WALLED IN which closed the fest or WOLF HIDING which played earlier in the fest and you will be scratching your head about the award.)

What works and what makes the film worth seeing is the development of Chisato and Mahiro. The girls are arcing, as are the characters around them, with the result that this film sings despite its flaws and the Baby Assassin series is something you want to see. We are watching how the girls grow up. their relationship deepens. The characters around them are growing too. Even the assassins the girls work with in this film arc. It's fantastic- I mean truly fantastic to the point that you want them to lose the stupid humor and some of the action nonsense and instead give us more time with the characters caring for each other and being real people. It's this growth that makes this third film worth seeing not the okay action. 

While not as bad as the last film, and not the equal to the first, it's still worthy follow up to the first film.

Recommended for the fans of the series.

KIZUMONOGATARI -KOYOMI VAMP-(2024) Fantasia 2024

KIZUMONOGATARI -KOYOMI VAMP is a prequel to the series MONOGATARI containing three early stories for the characters that were cut together from three unavailable in North America feature films.

This is more a pointer than a review. The problem is that while very often prequel stories are good starting places for a film or series, this one doesn’t function all that well. There is an assumption that you know the characters and their world and if you don’t you are going to feel lost. I did.

While I liked the visuals, not connecting to the characters and the world made this a very long two and half hours.

Recommended for fans only.

A brief take on Ichiko (2023) NYAFF 2024

A woman hears a news story concerning an accident and decides to bolt from the apartment he lives in with he fiance. He is left to sort out what happened and why ala ROSHOMON or CITIZEN KANE.

I'm not sure if this films work. A good romantic drama is made convoluted by the addition of the elements of a mystery. Why the mystery is there is kind of a head scratcher to me since any themes related to that, such as we can never know anyone, kind of is obvious and doesn't need this sort of telling. I was with the film until almost the end when I suddenly realized no matter how it ended I wasn't going to be happy.

I think it's a miss.

Let's Go Karaoke! (2024) NYAFF 2024

Manga based tale concerns a yakuza soldier who forms a friendship with high school boy whom he wants to teach him to sing.

Off kilter story never really worked for me. I shouldn't be asking questions  from the opening minutes when the yakuza essentially kidnaps the kid and takes him to sing karaoke. The kid was with a school group and no one says boo?  I was wondering why no one noticed the differences between the real world and the manga source.

It didn't help that the kid was rather uninteresting to be around and seems to mostly just be the excuse that we are seeing things happen.

I was disappointed

BRUSH OF THE GOD (2024) NYAFF 2024 Fantasia 2024

 

BRUSH OF THE GOD was written when director and special effects legend Keizo Murase​ was working on MIGHTY MIGHTY PEKING MAN back in the 70’s. The film  was worked on but never went anywhere until Muase published his memoirs and people started to say that he should make the film. Managing to pull together a willing team of people  the film went into production. It is billed as Muase's first and last directorial effort.

The film is the story of a young girl whose grandfather was a special effects wizard. After he passes she wants nothing really to do with him or his work. However a mysterious person appears and tells her and a friend that she must complete the quest and save the world from disappearing. The girl and her friend are then transported into the world of her grandfather’s passion project “Brush of the God”. While there they make friends with a rabbit like creature that uses it’s ears to fly and can make what we desire real, weird insects, a couple of outlaws and some giant monsters.

The film is a sweet little delight. Very much geared toward being family friendly the film is an unscary but smile producing romp where giant monsters of the practical effects variety battle and tear up some buildings.  It’s far from high art but it is damn entertaining especially if you like giant monster movies.

My brother Joe and I went to the NYAFF screening just to see the film on a big screen and we, along with the rest of the crowd, had a wonderful time.

The NYAFF Q&A was very good. Daisuke Sato, the producer spoke at length about his career, he is a director and special effects master in his own right, and how he became a producer when no one else was able to do it.

With BRUSH OF THE GOD done at NYAFF you should look to try to get to Fantasia to see it where it plays soon, it’s a lot of fun.

Director and Producer

Bushido(2024) NYAFF 2024

Don't go into BUSHIDO expecting clashing swords and a high body count, this is another sort of film.  Yea, swords are drawn but this is a film more about characters, and the game of Go, than it is about sword fights.

The basic plot has a samurai turned engraver getting into trouble again when some gold goes missing. He had been framed and sent off years earlier for theft and now everyone thinks he did it again.

This is a mannered tale focused on the characters and not an action film. I'm sure if you've seen films like AFTER THE RAIN, SWORD OF DESPERATION (2011), LAST RONIN, TATAR SAMURAI and others, you'll know what you are getting into.

I liked this film a great deal. I think I would have liked it away from the festival mix, where I could see the film on it's own terms and not as part of an endless line of films. 

It's a solid film that is worth a look.

A pointer toward FLY ME TO THE SAITAMA: FROM BIWA LAKE WITH LOVE (2024) Fantasia 2024

This is just a pointer toward FLY ME TO THE SAITAMA: FROM BIWA LAKE WITH LOVE. This is only a pointer because the film really requires that you have seen the first film. There is no set up, no introduction to the characters, it just goes.

The film is set up in an alternate time line where one of the province of the country  has broken off and won its independence. It now wants to set up a beach resort.

Wildly crazy and off kilter the film requires you click in with its sense of humor and reality. 

Yin Yang Master Zero (2024) NYAFF 2024 Fantasia 2024

Abe no Seimei was an actual Yin Yang master. By the time he died he had become do famous all sorts of legends were written about him.  Those legends formed the source for a series of novels by Baku Yumemakura’s. Those novels were then turned into a couple of earlier films.

This time out we are going back to Seimei‘s days in the academy. He is learning to perform the rituals needed, as well as the psychological tricks that help him be the great wizard like master. He is of course much more advanced (even more than his teachers), the craft running in his family. Hooking up with a fellow student with whom he forms a Holmes and Watson like partnership, he gets involved with a princess in trouble and a series of murders taking out teachers in his school.

The film is a weird mix of magic and mystery, this feels like the set up for a period detective series. More focused on the characters then magical set pieces  the film makes us care about what happens and worry about what is going to happen next. While  there are some cool “magical” sequences they aren’t the film exists. There aren’t huge set pieces like in Hollywood film but something else, which actual makes the magic more magical. One I realized that I fell under the spell of the film and enjoyed myself that I am hoping for a series.

Recommended

KINGDOM:RETURN OF THE GENERAL (2024) NYAFF 2024

Before we start you don't need to have seen the first three films. The brief piece to get you up to speed at the start is enough. I say this because I haven't seen parts 2 and 3 and I have no memory of the first part. 

Set during the wars that unified China, this manga based film is the story of a young man named Shin who is working to be the greatest general ever. As this film begins Shin and his men are waiting to battle the enemy. One of the enemy generals, known as the God of War, appears and decimates the band. Shin is wounded and is carried off by his friends. They are fleeing into the night because Shin lead is small force to victory and the enemy fear them. Re joining the main force the Shin and his men end up in a huge battle.

Trust me it's infinitely better than it sounds. This is a film of grand spectacle and perfect performances. For all the war this is a film about the characters. Seriously this is a film where we fall into the characters and are brought to tears by their trials. Unlike Hollywood and the Marvel films no one gets lost and everyone shines.

This is a staggering achievement. It's a film that moves our hearts. Details are filled in in such away that give new details to those  who know what went before and enough detail that new comers like me can follow along.

No film series with a continuing story ever has had a fourth film this readily accessible- nor has a fourth film been this good.

I need to go back and watch the earlier films.

This film is one of the best of 2024.

Highly recommended

Brief thoughts on THE MAKING OF A JAPANESE (2024)

Closing film of this year’s Japan Cuts is a good look at 1st and 6th graders in a Japanese school as the new year begins.

Playing as a kind of Frederick Wiseman film for the younger crowd. The film is several slices of life as we watch the various kids as they learn the skills and are molded into proper Japanese.

I enjoyed the film a great deal, an I kind of which it was a series more than a single feature because I would have tuned in every week to see what happens next.

If you are wondering why this piece is short it’s more that since the film is the closing film for Japan Cuts I was expecting something meatier. This isn’t a knock against the film, which I enjoyed the hell out of, rather I was ready and primed to see a film full of ideas and thematic threads and instead I got a light, but informative and entertaining film. All of my desire to attack the film and really discuss it disappeared in the cute faces of a bunch of kids I wanted to hug.

Most definitely worth see THE MAKING OF A JAPANESE closes the 2024 edition of Japan Cuts

Following the Sound (2023) Japan Cuts 2024

 

For a film that has sound in the title it may seem odd that there are so many silences, but that is the case.

The film is the story of two women who have a chance meeting and who end up circling in each other. The film is moment of their lives  apart and during their meetings. It’s a film that has its own rhythms. It’s a film you have to go into and just let it happen. You can not go into the film and expect it to be something, you simply have to take it for what it is. I say that because I spent the first fifteen or so minutes fighting with it. I wanted something to happen other than what was happening. It wasn’t until I went Zen and let it happen that I clicked. It was only then that the silences hit me with their power.

If you like small quiet gems of a film seek this film out when it plays Japan Cuts this weekend.

ICE CREAM FEVER (2024) Japan Cuts 2024

The lives of four women intersect at a local ice cream shop.

Director Tetsuya Chihara adaption of  a short story by Mieko Kawakami is a nixed bag. A moving story with a great cast the film is undone by a filmmaker who doesn’t know what to do with the camera.  While the film is shot in a kind of verite style, the images seem to alternate from jiggly hand held shots that feel like the camera person couldn’t get a grip on the camera or in ultra tight  close ups of faces.  It feels like the work of a young  filmmaker making his first film, but while this is Chihara’s first feature he has been working in design and advertising for years so one would think he would know how to frame a shot.

After a while I stopped looking at the images and just focused on the subtitles.

Call me an old fart for not getting it, but I’ve always been one to argue that that the images we see should have a reason for existing, especially with in the context of a film. Why are you showing us this image in this way. Most times I know, but I’m not certain here, with the over riding decision seeming to be we shot it this way because it will be cool, or hip or happening or whatever the kids say these days.

This is a good story with good characters messily told.

Blue Imagine (2023) Japan Cuts 2024

 

An actress is sexually abused by a film director  and left shaken. Her brother, a human rights lawyer, suggests letting it go because of lack of evidence. She eventually drifts into a women’s safe place called Blue Imagine. There she finds support and meets another actress  who was also abused by the same director.

Damning look at the treatment of women in Japan and the film industry in particular. It's a film with a matter of fact and non-histrionic presentation that does more than move the emotions but gets you thinking and  seriously considering how we behave.

This is a film which quietly rattled my cage. I can only imagine how this played in Japan.

I'm going to be honest and say that while I really like the film a great deal, I am going to need a second viewing down the road away from the festival crush, and some recent similar incidents that occurred around me where I can more carefully consider the film and it's low key approach.  That's not a knock only a suspicion that perhaps on a second viewing this film may kick me to the curb.

Recommended.