Round One Resurrection Forecast, Films 11 - 15My Secret Cache (Yaguchi Shinobu, 1997)
Lost to Kids Return (verdict by JokerXgg)Apart from the fact that
My Secret Cache is a comedy with no real laughs, there's not a lot wrong with it. The goofy, slapstick style reminds me more of indie comedies from Australia than from Japan, though maybe the unexpected Celtic soundtrack just threw off my associations. Joker was very, very mean to this movie, and I don't disagree with him all that much. The shenanigans are pretty tedious and the acting is very broad, with a lot of exaggerated facial expressions and sing-song line deliveries, but I still rather liked Naomi Nishida in the lead role. Her deadpan energy (yay for oxymorons?) kept me from hating this movie. She's like a poutier, more energetic version of Audrey Tautou. She's also a former supermodel or something, leading to a running joke in the movie where everyone calls her ugly. Ha! right? I'm curious to see her in something else, especially as I don't remember
Godzilla 2000 much at all. Anyway,
My Secret Cache might actually have something interesting to say about the pursuit of wealth, but that's sort of irrelevant when there are maybe four or five too many jokes about throwing up.
Serpent's Path (Kurosawa Kiyoshi, 1998)
Lost to Sonatine (verdict by Melvil)After watching a string of comedies and anime films for this bracket, I found it so refreshing to reimmerse myself in Kurosawa's textured visual style. Seriously, for maybe the first fifteen minutes of this movie, I was smiling dumbly just over the tone and atmosphere, thinking, "Ahh.... this is nice." Then, starting about halfway through, in the midst of some pretty grim details in the story of father seeking revenge for his daughter's brutal rape and murder, I somehow found myself laughing with more frequency than I did during
My Secret Cache. There are some really wonderful, subtle moments of dark comedy here. This was my third Kurosawa experience, after
Cure and
Pulse, and tone is definitely his strong suit; in fact, the tone by itself is really enough to recommend
Serpent's Path. I agree with Melvil, however, that the film's narrative is ultimately rather underwhelming. In the last lines of the movie, someone asks, "Do you get it?" and another character answers, "No..." That's my answer, too, but I'm not convinced there's much of anything to get. In retrospect, it seems like the filmmakers had the germ of a good story but then started filming without bothering to flesh it out. Kurosawa's style makes it work for a while, but in the end it all just feels like an empty tease. I'm very curious to see how
License to Live and
Charisma compare. Looking forward to those future verdicts.
Sleepless Town (Lee Chi-Ngai, 1998)
Lost to Perfect Blue (verdict by smirnoff)Some cool
opening credits here: a continuous shot, stripped of most of its color, following main character Takeshi Kaneshiro through the city at night as he transacts some minor yakuza business. The credits themselves appear in these bursts of neon that look pretty damn cool against the greyed out background.
Sleepless Town is all downhill from there, unfortunately. It's a gradual descent, but also a steady one. I agree with everything smirnoff wrote in his verdict, but one line is especially perfect: "At first I was intrigued by them, then I was confused by them, and finally I was annoyed by them." Exactly. Even through the one hour mark I thought maybe, after the film was over, I'd go back and rewatch the first twenty minutes to try to untangle the web of criminal relationships; by the two hour mark, I couldn't have cared less. The narrative complexity just feels like one of many ways the film imitates neo-noir tropes for their own sake, without really understanding them. Mirai Yamamoto's manic femme fatale incestuous pixie rape victim dream girl character offers another example. The whole thing is just way too drawn out as well. When the last "cool" moment unfolded, I said aloud, without really meaning to, "Ugh." It's not a horrible film overall, but I admit I was glad for it to be over.
Suicide Bus (Shimizu Hiroshi, 1998)
Lost to Vive L'Amour (verdict by edgarchaput)I paused this film about twenty-five minutes in just to check if it was Japan's official submission to the 1998 Oscars. The style, tone, humor, and themes all just seemed to be perfect Oscar-bait material. Japan went with
Begging for Love instead that year (a film which would be in this bracket if I could track down a copy), and that's probably for the best, given the way
Suicide Bus goes on to sabotage itself after its first act. Sabotage is too strong a word. There are just a few unfortunate moments, really, but they are so needlessly and frustratingly misguided as to sour me on the film. No, that's too strong as well. I still kind of like this film. It's really wonderfully cast and has some good laughs and a touch of beauty, and I wanted to spend a lot more time with all the characters. If I could resurrect just 70% of it and film new scenes to fill out the other 30%, I'd totally do that. I actually wish Hollywood would remake this one. Weird, I know, but this is a film that would actually benefit from being a little more predictable. Every time that I saw the cute girl at the back of the bus (the one character who doesn't realize that it's a suicide mission) sitting near the one cute boy her age (who's not ruining away from debt like all the older men but from the pain of a love lost), I couldn't wait for them to start talking and slowly fall in love. It makes me happy now just thinking about those imagined scenes. The film never goes there, though. It's more concerned with the less interesting, ill-defined, cultish zealotry of the trip's organizer, a role played by the screenwriter, which maybe explains a few of the script's odd choices. I'd love to get my hands on the source novel by Nakahara Fumio to see if it plays out differently.
Porco Rosso (Hayao Miyazaki, 1992)
Lost to After the Rain (verdict by Melvil)There's something very appealing about watching a pig smoke a cigarette. I could almost see that being the starting point for this film. Making the pig a pilot would have been the logical next step because any time Miyazaki renders flight it's one of the most enjoyable things ever. Those two things together are enough for a pretty entertaining movie, but that seems have been the extent of the narrative brainstorming. As Melvil says in his verdict, it's a shame the extent to which the Curtis character dominates the story. I kept hoping he was just a minor subplot, but he kept popping back up like Piston Honda in
Punch Out. The story and the world of the story both feel disappointingly slight, especially for a Miyazaki film. I don't think that's just an expectations thing, either. I mean, this isn't that far removed from a very special two-part episode of
Tailspin, except with a pig instead of a bear. I love me some
Tailspin, sure, but I'm not convinced it belongs in the second round.
DuckTales on the other hand...
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