Any Japanese movie fans on ATS? What to watch?

If you've seen The Ring...Go for Ring-O *Birthday*. It's the prequel.
Never before have I cheered a so called film baddie on so much.

Ichi The Killer

Audition

Suicide Club

Uzumaki

Marebito

Survive Style 5

Kurosawa is of course always good. My favorites being Yojimbo and Ran. Also I would suggest pretty much anything Takeshi Kitano does specifically: Violent Cop, Sonatine, Hana-Bi, Zatoichi, Glory to the Filmmaker and his latest Outrage.

Here is a list of other Japanese movies I enjoyed:
-The taste of Tea (comedy/drama)

-Goemon (CGI epic with ninja battles)

-Lone Wolf and Cub 1-6 (Bloody saga of a ronin and his child in the worlds deadliest pram)

-Pornostar aka Tokyo Rampage (disaffected kid takes on the yakuza with a duffel bag full of knives)

-The Yakuza Papers (Five movies following the rise of a yakuza clan from just after WWII until the late 60's/early 70's)

-Youth of the Beast (Basically an updated Yojimbo. A hitman arrives to play the local yakuza clans against each other)

-Graveyard of Honour (After saving the boss of the local yakuza, a bartender is inducted into the gang with terrible results)

-Party 7 (Comedy. Can't really describe this one but I found it entertaining.)

-Happiness of the Katakuris (Comedy/Wackness. A family tries to protect the name of their resort by disposing of the bodies of dead guests. It's wack.)

- Blue Spring ( centered on a highschool on the wrong side of town. Blue Spring follows the exploits of the gangs of students who attempt to 'run' the school)

-Funky Forest (Comedy. A series of increasingly weird vignettes. I don't entirely get it but it has some scenes which are funny in any language.)

Ichi the Killer, Audition, Graveyard of Honour, The Crows Zero movies and 13 assassins have been mentioned. Just for the hell of it lets dive into Takashi Miike's stuff.

-Full Metal Yakuza AKA Full Metal Gokudo
-Gozu
-Izo
-Fudoh: The New Generation
-The Black Society Trilogy

Also check out Seijun Suzuki's movies. I've only seen Tokyo Drifter and Youth of the Beast but I hear he is considered somewhat of a master of his genre.

Most of my favorites have been posted already, but here are two that haven't been posted as far as i can see.
They are both on the comedic side, but well worth the watch.
Samurai Fiction.


AkaKage(Red Shadow).

reply to post by FEDec


I had to get that blue spring soundtrack, Especially the song Drop by Thee Michelle Gun Elephant (Last scene of the movie with Aoki clapping). Even posted it onto my profile page wall.

Originally posted by Serizawa
reply to post by FEDec

 

I had to get that blue spring soundtrack, Especially the song Drop by Thee Michelle Gun Elephant (Last scene of the movie with Aoki clapping). Even posted it onto my profile page wall.

edit on 24-9-2011 by Serizawa because: (no reason given)

It's one of those combinations you can't imagine being apart. They compliment each other so well. Bleak music for a bleak highschool in a bleak area. Perfect.

I'll be keeping an eye out for the movies you suggested they look pretty funny especially the ninja one. I love slowly getting the in-jokes and obscure cultural references after watching enough movies from any country.

reply to post by FEDec


Looks cool. I just got that to watch for tonight.

reply to post by FEDec


If you like Blue spring you will love Crows zero's 1 and 2. The soundtracks are amazing in my opinion.....I'll inbox you some info.

I can relate so much to Blue Spring.....Living reckless and rebelling. I miss the good old days, Friends came and left and some sadly missed due to silly accidents. I still see myself as a sort of rebel or the odd one out, I just call it like it is.



Wish I could find the lyrics but in the song he basically talks about how they used to drink cheap beers and ride their motorcycles at full speed in the rain like they didn't care. They used to curse at everything and thought they were in power but now they know better, Spring is the saddest time of the year (That's because I guess it's the time for lovers and they were fighters...So they were lonely and came from broken homes). Pretty good song, Good old memories, Makes me wanna cry when I hear it.

A few other songs from the second movie.


You will love the guitar in this.


Edit: I didn't post any ninja movie! Heavenly forest is some sad s***, Has no fighting. Also check out drop it's really funny with lots of fighting.

I can relate so much to Blue Spring.....Living reckless and rebelling. I miss the good old days, Friends came and left and some sadly missed due to silly accidents. I still see myself as a sort of rebel or the odd one out, I just call it like it is.

Yeah I hear you man. Highschool just seems like a hazy mist out of reach. Blurred by booze, drugs and one too many punches to the head. I feel pretty at home these days because I have a small group of great friends. It is sad to think of the ones lost to overbearing girlfriends and stupid crap. But lately I've just been remembering the good times. I'm just glad that even though I still feel lost I am amongst others just like me. I'm with my people now.

I haven't watched a lot of Japanese movies, but Tokyo Drifter is pretty interesting. I watched it when I was really tired, so I had a little trouble keeping some characters straight but it's basically a highly stylized yakuza/revenge movie. Crazy sets and color schemes and the main character sings his own theme song.

Uzumaki is an okay adaptation of a crazy, crazy manga. It's about a town where spirals kind of...start acting strangely. I suggest you read the comics first, because they're insane and pretty frightening, but the movie still does good work.

I've also been told Big Man Japan is a good comedy.

If you're into really weird movies, you might hear people throw out Tetsuo: The Iron Man, but I wouldn't recommend it. I love surreal, strange, nightmarish movies but Tetsuo is just kind of loud and dumb. Some cool imagery, but everything else is lacking.

Here's a site that lists a bunch of horror movies from Asian countries with links to where you can see them.