Japanese Movie Reviews »
The Suicide Manual (2003) Movie Review
The origins of director Osamu Fukutani’s “The Suicide Manual” may be more compelling than the feature itself. It was derived from Wataru Tsurumui’s non-fiction book “The Complete Manual of Suicide,” a bestseller that’s moved...
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Kamikaze Girls (2004) Movie Review
Sometimes animated, sometimes strange, but always entertaining, “Kamikaze Girls” belong with recent Japanese fare such as “Swing Girls”, “Waterboys”, and “Ping Pong”, and considering the international success of those three films, it’s not bad...
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Godzilla: Final Wars (2004) Movie Review
The last five years have seen the “Godzilla” continuity “re-imagined” no less than four times. While this likely resulted in much hair pulling and teeth gnashing on the part of the more obsessive, “Trekkie”-ish...
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Infection (aka Kansen, 2004) Movie Review
“Kansen” is the first release in the J-Horror series, a 6-film package deal that was the brainchild of producer Takashige Ichise, who saw the sudden surge in popularity for Asian horror and decided to...
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Hana to Hebi (aka Flower and Snake, 2004) Movie Review
Japan has always had a long running tradition of extreme cinema. Be it gangster films, period dramas, or horror, there has always been a renegade group of filmmakers that have relentlessly pushed the boundaries...
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Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) Movie Review
With Disney and Pixar firmly entrenched on the side of CGI for their animated efforts, it looks like Japan and the FOX Network are the last bastions of hand drawn animation. Perhaps the most...
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Voices of a Distant Star (2003) Movie Review
“Voices of a Distant Star” is a movie unique in a number of ways, starting with its creation. You don’t think of animation as a one-man operation, but writer/director Makoto Shinkai created his short...
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Azumi 2: Death or Love (2005) Movie Review
If “Azumi 2: Death or Love” does anything, it’s convince fans of the series that Ryuhei Kitamura, the director of the 2003 original, was one heck of a director. Surely, we thought while watching...
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Steamboy (2004) Movie Review
It’s Manchester, England, and the year is 1866, sometime during the Industrial Revolution. Our hero, mechanical whiz kid Ray Steam, toils as a mechanic at the local textile plant, when one day a package...
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Bright Future (2003) Movie Review
“Bright Future” is a recent effort from acclaimed Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, best known for horror films such as “Kairo” and “Cure”. Kurosawa’s films have always had an appeal beyond the genre, mainly due...
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Izo (2004) Movie Review
It’s tough for me to approach a Takashi Miike film without certain preconceived notions that may color my view. I’m not really a fan of his work, and generally find them to be puerile...
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Swing Girls (2004) Movie Review
You would have to be incredibly incompetent as a director, writer, and actor to go wrong with a movie like “Swing Girls”. This is the type of film that has equal combinations of fluff,...
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Dolls (2004) Movie Review
“Dolls” is a film which represents a change of pace for legendary Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano, a man best known in the West for his violent, often abstract gangster epics. “Dolls” represents the first...
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Longinus (2004) Movie Review
If you look at “Longinus” as nothing more than a slight, “no need to bother” detour for Japanese filmmaker Ryuhei Kitamura, there’s really nothing wrong with it. Of course that still doesn’t mean there’s...
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Pistol Opera (2001) Movie Review
Abstract – adj. Having an intellectual and affective artistic content that depends solely on intrinsic form rather than on narrative content or pictorial representation. Artwork that falls into the category of ‘you either get...
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Shinobi: Heart Under Blade (2005) Movie Review
If you were to make a live-action anime, you couldn’t do any better than what director Shimoyama Ten (“Muscle Heat”) has done with “Shinobi: Heart Under Blade”, a film that is parts superhero comic...
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Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) Movie Review
(Movie Review by Oshram ) It’s always difficult to put a stamp on any film as being ‘the best,’ whether of all time, a certain genre, or what have you, but I believe a...
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Nin X Nin: Ninja Hattori-kun (2004) Movie Review
“Nin X Nin: Ninja Hattori-kun” belongs in the recent trend of Japanese cinema translating popular manga and anime properties to the big screen with a wink and a nod. Unlike their American counterparts, the...
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Kunoichi Lady Ninja (1998) Movie Review
Hong Kong period action films have long been notorious for over-the-top combat sequences involving plenty of wire-fu and head-spinning camera moves. Japanese period pieces, on the other hand, tend to be more uptight and...
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Ichi the Killer, Koroshiya: Episode 0 (2004) Movie Review
Takashi Miike’s infamous splatter-fest “Ichi the Killer” has proved to be a controversial cult favourite, and so it comes as no surprise that it has inspired a spin off in the form of an...
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