Japanese Movie Reviews »
Platonic Sex (2001) Movie Review
It’s really up to you on how much of “Platonic Sex” you want to believe as truth and which parts you want to pass off as either exaggerations for the sake of artistic license...
Read More »
Owls’ Castle (1999) Movie Review
Having more in common with Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator” than the Japanese ninja movie “Red Shadow”, Masahiro Shinoda’s “Owls’ Castle” has the look and feel of a movie “based on true events”. There is a...
Read More »
Junk (1999) Movie Review
Do you know who George Romero is? If the answer is Yes, then can you list all 3 titles of Romero’s Zombies Attack trilogy? If you answered Yes to that question as well, then...
Read More »
Another Heaven (2000) Movie Review
Joji Iida’s “Another Heaven” is a standard “X-Files”-inspired movie about cops chasing a more-than-human killer, but it makes the mistake of spending too much time trying to be deeper than it is capable. The...
Read More »
Gojoe (2000) Movie Review
I am a sucker for Japanese Samurai movies, but lately I’ve been disappointed by what I’ve seen. “Red Shadow” was lacking in any serious credibility, and as a result I loathe calling it a...
Read More »
Tales of the Unusual (2001) Movie Review
“Tales of the Unusual” is essentially a “Twilight Zone”-inspired movie about 4 very different stories linked by a common sequence. But where other anthology movies usually have a constant theme (for example, horror or...
Read More »
Princess Mononoke (1997) Movie Review
I should first say that I have nothing against nature, forests, and all that other good ecological stuff. Hey, plants keep us alive, right? It just so happens that whenever someone attempts to make...
Read More »
Dark Water (2002) Movie Review
It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that you could throw a rock at the present Asian film industry and hit a dozen or so ghost stories either being conceived, are...
Read More »
Waterboys (2001) Movie Review
The Japanese film “Waterboys” is a mixture of “The Bad News Bears” and “The Full Monty,” in which misfits attempt to accomplish something they’re just not cut out for, and in which no one...
Read More »
Kamikaze Taxi (1995) Movie Review
I’ve always found Japanese culture to be intriguing, not by what’s “out there” but rather by what’s hidden “under the surface.” And oh my, there are just so much under the surface when it...
Read More »
Electric Dragon 80,000 V (2002) Movie Review
The most curious thing about writer/director Sogo Ishii’s Electric Dragon 80,000 V is just how well it starts, only to go drastically downhill. Ishii’s Electric Dragon is approximately 55 minutes long, including both opening...
Read More »
Sakuya: The Demon Slayer (2002) Movie Review
I’m not sure how the movie Sakuya: The Demon Slayer came to be, but judging from what I saw, the film certainly looks like an adaptation of either a comic book or an anime,...
Read More »
Cure (1997) Movie Review
The most surprisingly thing about Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure is just how average it is. The film is a crime drama, and like dozens of other Japanese crime dramas I’ve seen in the past, Cure...
Read More »
Kairo (aka Pulse, 2001) Movie Review
Especially for a Japanese film, there’s a fine line between becoming another in a long line of Slow Bore Horror films and just being a Horror film. Luckily for my faith in Japanese cinema,...
Read More »
Shark Skin Man & Peach Hip Girl (1998) Movie Review
Japanese Yakuza films are old hat, and I am dangerously close to becoming overdosed on them. Writer/director Katsuhito Ishii’s strangely titled Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl (or SSMAPHG) is much closer to...
Read More »
Audition (1999) Movie Review
I’ve been hearing filmmaker Takashi Miike’s name for a while now. The man is apparently the biggest thing to come out of Japan since the samurai, and his other movie, Ichi the Killer, is...
Read More »
April Story (1998) Movie Review
The Japanese film April Story, besides having an annoyingly sweet soundtrack, is a 1-hour film. It is a romance film at its core, but has elements of a Fish out of Water movie in...
Read More »
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2001) Movie Review
My memory of the original Vampire Hunter D, of which Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is a sequel to, is a little hazy. The original came out in 1985 and I saw it...
Read More »
Whiteout (2000) Movie Review
Setsurou Wakamatsu’s Whiteout is a Die Hard In A… Movie, with a vehicle, location, or situation put in place of the ellipsis. In this case, we’re dealing with a Die Hard In a Dam....
Read More »
Uzumaki (2000) Movie Review
Uzumaki is the story of highschooler Kirie, who opens the film with a brief voiceover introduction. We learn that Kirie lives in a small rural Japanese town with her father (her mother has passed...
Read More »
