Simple Life

The Cave of the Yellow Dog (2005) - Davaa




Young Nansal comes home to the Steppes of Western Mongolia for Summer break from school in the city. No more than 7 years old, she helps household chores and takes care of two younger siblings in tough, normadic life.

Nansal learns about reincarnation and responsibilities along the way. Their way of life hasn't changed for hundreds of years but there are some hints of modern civilization - they own a motorcycle, and father brings home a green plastic bucket to the appreciative mother who in turn asks, "Oh, beautiful colors, is it heat resistant?"

It also showcases mobile Mongolian adobe - Ger, as Batchuluuns dismantle and move to another area for grazing. And it's specious inside, practical and ingenious in design.

Byambasuren Davaa (Story of a Weeping Camel), a mongolian born, German filmmaker spent a Summer with Nansal and her normadic family and made this quietly observed, lovely docudrama about a stray dog that came into their lives. Makes you question if our lives were way too complicated.

Altitude Sickness

Altiplano (2009) - Brosens/Woodworth

Altiplano opens with the start of the Virgin Mary procession in the town of Turubamba up in the Andes. The statue shatters right outside the church because children get over-excited about silvery liquid in the potholes on the ground. The whole sequence is breathtakingly gorgeous. Then it cuts to a battle field of Iraq, where a Iranian-born, Belgian photojournalist Grace (Jasmin Tabatabai) is forced to take a picture of the death of her guide, Omar. Soon after, she denounces her profession and falls into a deep depression racked with guilt while her husband, a cataract surgeon Max (Dardennes' regular Olivier Gormet) heads for the Andes for the volunteer work.

People in Turubamba get sick from the mercury poisoning and a headstrong girl Saturnina (Magali Solier of Madeinusa) loses her fiancé to the illness. Her blind rage becomes the focal point for the riots against ever present mining companies digging for gold.

Set in otherworldly Andes backdrop, Altiplano is bravura filmmaking at its best- colors, music, camera movements and unforgettable images mixed in with myth and spirituality conjuring up emotions like no other. The filmmakers does take artistic freedom to bring home the message. But it doesn't feel cheap. Their tragic lyricism doesn't feel made-up. And the camera adores Solier, understandably so- she is the definition of exotic beauty. Her defiant martyr carries this otherwise too on-the-nose film. By the end, this stunningly presented tale of reconciliation and fraternity really cuts deep.

Trailer

An Education

Un Prophète (2009) - Auidard



Without ever being showy, Un Prophète is a pitch perfect prison movie that could easily have been called An Education or Life Lessons. The Prophet reference comes late in this two and a half hour film which you don't feel the length at all- Our hero Malik(Tahar Rahim), a young Arab criminal serving 6 year sentence, has a premonition: "The Animals are Coming!", and surely, they do. He could've just easily blurted out, "Arabs are coming!"

The dangerous chess game Malik plays in and out of the prison is almost too coolly and confidentially realized by Auidard. It floats without one false note. As great as he was in The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Niels Arestrup here plays a menacing Corsican Don, César, treading the screen like a caged lion.

The film alludes to the bigger picture reflecting the French colonial history and the changing face of French society. It's like Caché with recognizable face, much less abstract and much more personable with an unobtrusive supernatural flare. Auidard once again demonstrates that he is gifted with a rare combination of Neil Jordan humanism sans drama and rhythmic elegance of a good classical music.

Farewell to the Rights of Man!

Billy Budd (1962) - Ustinov

Set in Napoleonic War era, The film tells a story of an incorruptible sailor, Billy Budd (Terence Stamp) and his sadistic superior Claggart (Robert Ryan). Good natured, always smiling Budd gets recruited from the merchant ship(The Rights of Man) by Royal Navy. Soon, Budd's beauty and innocence wins over weary sailors and officers alike, except for the Master-at-Arms, Claggart who is despised both by shipmates for his cruelty without reason and by officers for being an unwelcome headache during wartime. And he is out to destroy something perfect, something beautiful.

The best part of the film is the two's on deck confrontation - no matter how hard Claggart tries to get a rise out of the angelic kid, he only finds himself defeated by Budd's innocence and straightforwardness. "Oh, no. You would charm me too, huh? Get away." He shouts.

Billy Budd, Melville's the other famous seafaring novel, has been loosely adapted to two highly homoerotic films - Beau Travail and Gohatto, both set within military ranks and holding on to the idea of 'sailor' from the Village People a tad bit too seriously.

No doubt, 22 year old Terence Stamp is gorgeous and fits the title role as the innocence and virtue personified with speech impediment. Robert Ryan gives the performance of his career (even though he's the only one on the ship who speaks with an American accent) as evil Claggart who's just as vulnerable and lonely as anybody.

Things escalate and the film turns in to a Path of Glory like courtroom drama. Ustinov directs, produces, writes and even plays a hammy role as Captain Vere who has to make an impassioned decision on the young sailors fate (he can't veer off, get it?). He solemnly declares, "Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!" Even though it's a little heavy on its biblical notion of the sacrificial lamb for the common good, with a heartbreaking and well deserved ending, Billy Budd is well worth the trip.

Gills

Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) - Arnold
An archeologist down in Brazil finds a puzzling fossil- a quite intact arm of a creature equipped with webs inbtwn fingers. Can such a creature still be around? Band of scientists, including lovely Kay (Julie Adams) aboard the boat named Rita is dispatched to confirm the existence of such a creature.

Black Lagoon plays out like Jaws. The creature is tenacious, smart and deadly. It's a much more dangerous killing machine than a Great White because it can attack you both under and out of water. It's also infatuated with Kay.

I have a thing for the underwater photography and this one features plenty of beautiful underwater sequences. Pretty cool monster wet suit too.

Gullible

So, how is your heart doing?

Well, she didn’t say. She just told me to take off my shirt, turned off the light, put some goop on my chest and prodded me with her magic wand and we watched my heart on the computer together. That was it.

So an echocardiogram is like an ultrasound?

It’s exactly like an ultrasound. But instead of seeing tiny hands and feet, you see this gray image of a pure muscle palpitating. You can hear its sound too.

Wow, really?

And it sounds like a swamp toad. Not graceful at all.

So when are you gonna know if your heart is okay?

I don’t know. She will give the test result to my doctor and he will call me by the end of the week, maybe.

Why did you have to get an echo in the first place? What’s wrong with your heart?

I had a heart surgery when I was seven. So I have to get it checked regularly. I can’t ever remember the technical term for the defects. Something to do with the wall of my heart having holes. So the-

The blood wasn’t pumping through your body.

Correct. The blood wasn’t sufficiently circulating through my body. I couldn’t really run. I walk, say, from here to over there to the door, I had to take a break. I had purple lips and fingernails.

But now you are all better.

Well, because I had a heart transplant. I have a baboon’s heart.

A baboon’s heart?

Yeah. They gave me a baboon’s heart.

They didn’t fix your heart? They replaced it with a baboon’s?

No, they didn’t fix it. Apparently baboon’s is the closest to human’s they say.

Did they give your heart back?

What do you mean?

You know like in a jar, like when they take your tonsils out?

No, I wish. They probably threw it in a garbage can or fed it to the dogs.

Don’t say things like that.

No. I didn’t get my heart back in a jar.

Too bad.

Well, now I got incredibly warm hands and feet and I sweat a lot. Thanks to my baboon heart.

Why is that?

Because it beats faster than human’s.

Is that why you are always hyper?

Yes.

Do baboons live long?

I detected a real concern in her voice. I couldn't lie anymore.

Tunnel of Love

Subway (1985) - Besson



After blasting through the safe of a rich man at a party, a no good small time thief (Christopher Lambert) takes a refuge underground. At first, he is blackmailing the rich man for 'the documents' but he is infatuated with the rich man's trophy wife Helena (Isabelle Adjani). Down in the metro, he meets a bunch of cooky characters and wants to form a music band. But there are many people who are after him. Blabbity blah...

Neon lights, shoulder pads, hair gel, really bad synth pop, dancing to a Rickie Lee Jones and roller skates consist of most of Besson's Subway- an amour fou taking place in the Paris Metro. The colors, unnecessary steadicam moves, a sax solo, plenty of fog machines- in short, it's got everything. A great 80's time capsule.

Memento Mori

Inception (2010) - Nolan

Can a film in which you are spoon-fed for two and a half hours still be entertaining? Yes. Nolan achieves it here. Inception, a talky, dream within a dream within a dream corporate espionage thriller(?), is a typical Nolan subtext free filmmaking. Dream and subconscious are treated like straightforward science where you can even time them to set up a countdown style thrill ride (which works less and less as it is stretched out). It really doesn't matter. It's only Leo Dicaprio's Dom who has any kind of personality and who's actually running around with any kind of emotions. That doesn't matter either. It's so dense visually and plot-wise you don't have time to think about all that. You are completely sold by the time the ambiguous ending rolls around, thoroughly entertained and exhausted and maybe a little moved too. No harm in that. Supreme entertainment. But it's not going to age well.

Straight Story

Kakera: A Piece of Our Life (2009) - Ando

Haru (Hikari Mitsushima of Love Exposure), a college student is a bit of a pushover when it comes to relationship. Her boneheaded boyfriend hasn't even broken up with his ex and is constantly demanding sex. One day, she meets Riko (Eriko Nakamura), a prosthetics artist at a coffeeshop. She wipes off Haru's cocoa mustache, saying she finds her very attractive. Riko is that straightforward. So begins this girl-on-girl love story based on the popular manga, Love Vibes. Would make a good double feature with Happy Together.

Kakera is not set in Buenos Aires nor features spectacular cinematography. With the muted, soft color palette and James Iha's hazy strumming, Kakera has a nostalgia inducing 70's drama feel to it. I don't know much about Japanese manga culture that's geared toward girl audiences. But I didn't expect this subtle yet penetrating observation on relationship from a manga adaptation. Mitsushima and Nakamura draw sympathy as they portray these well drawn characters who go in and out of love with all the trimmings- jealousy, confusion, loneliness... With its open ended-ness and emotional honesty, Kakera reminds me of a good French drama more than anything else.

I step on Andy Warhol's face!

I got a call from my lady. "Come down quick," she said. "There are cheap shoes sales going on, and I got a pair saved for you." So I met her outside a shoe store on Broadway. It's one of the stores I pass by on the way to work everyday but never thought about dropping in. For those of you who know me, I'm the biggest slob there is. I wear whatever's there. But the fact that I've been wearing same black sneakers my sister sent me a while ago (she works for Columbia Sportswear which is great. Thank you Yoonmee!) had been bothering my lady. She was determined to get a pair of Summer shoes for me for a while.

At a first glance, this pair was not very unusual.

"Aren't they cool?" my lady said. Fragile: Handle with Care? Then I realized there are people's faces inside the shoes.

There were pictures, of Andy Warhol for the right foot and Candy Darling for the left. The pair was on sale for twenty dollars. I tried them on. Squishy! The idea of Warhol and Darling under my heels made me giddy. My lady eagerly paid twenty dollars for them.

I don't care if you accuse me of being hipster-ish at an old age. I'm happy to report that their faces are finally in their rightful place.

Hollow Dance

Mother (2009) - Bong

How far will you go to prove your child's innocence? Kim Hye-ja, the reigning queen of Korean tv drama plays the title character in Bong Joon-ho's Mother. He uses Kim's presence to the fullest here. Those big fawny eyes, raven's nest hair, wiry frame. She has been the mother of Korean collective consciousness for the last 40 some years. And she is a force to be reckoned with.

As he demonstrated over the years, Bong's a very talented director, churning out well polished dramedies (Memories of Murder, The Host) with everyman's touch. As we go through the moral muck of the small town ghetto, filled with poverty stricken swindlers, retards, incompetent police, glue sniffing high schoolers, we recognize right away that we are in Bong's world. Mom yells at her idiot son at a visitation after he gets arrested for murder, "Why did you sign the confession? You don't do that even if you are guilty!"

Like in Memories of Murder, Bong's not in a hurry to reveal the murderer. That's not really what he's after. There are plenty of small details and characters he wants to present first. It's not about child prostitution, not about broken family and not even about ineffective judicial system. Bong's very good at his own brand of storytelling. But I feel that he shortchanges those important elements to do so. Ultimately, it's about celebration of motherhood. But it feels hollow somehow.

Beghrir (Moroccan Pancakes) Recipe:

My first Beghrir (semolina pancakes) experience was at an Isreali joint in my neighborhood called Mimi's Hummus and it was fantastic. The fluffy, chewy stack with slightly sour taste was a nice alternative to chalkiness I usually associate with pancakes. So I had to duplicate this at home. I found that it is also honey butter that makes a big difference.

For 14-16 pancakes, you will need:

3 cups warm water
2 tsp baking powder
1 3/4 cups semolina flour
1/3 regular flour
2 tsp yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
vegetable oil
1/3 cup warm honey
6 tbsp melted butter
half dozen strawberries, cut in small cubes

In 1/4 cup of warm water add the baking powder and mix. In large bowl, mix semolina, flour, yeast and sugar and add 2 3/4 cups water. Add salt and baking powder. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and let rise for 40 minutes to an hour.

Coat the frying pan with small amount of vegetable oil in medium heat. Pour in the batter one scoop at a time. Cook the pancake until bubbles appear all over the surface and the bottom pale golden, about 2 minutes on both sides. I like mine a little more golden than that of the picture above.

Place them on plates, shower them with strawberries. Mix honey and butter and drizzle it generously. Serve right away.

*My experience with Beghrir is that they don't age well. You might have to eat them all once you made them. Share with everyone!

Unleavened

Valhalla Rising (2009) - Refn

I gotta admit, Nicolas Winding Refn(The Pusher Trilogy, Bronson)'s macho posing looks and works much better in this period piece. Hell, any film looks much better if it took place in a desolate, stark, unforgiving nature background. Valhalla Rising almost rises above its thin premise by its beauty- a.k.a.; New World. Not even Mads Mikkelsen's one eyed mute warrior from Sutherland can save this hallucinogenic black metal music video. Granted, Refn's use of wide screen format is impressive and often breathtakingly gorgeous. But like his first and last American film, Fear X, it's muddled in Lynchian (but nowhere as intriguing) trippy-ness. Then again, it's not set in American Midwest and not about a small time security guard.

Soft-Softcore

Moon & Cherry (2004) - Tanada

A nice twist on a typical pinku film premise: it's girl on top, using boy as a sextoy to further her career as a eros writer. A college freshman Tadokoro joins an erotic writing club called "Electric Button(a petname variation for female genitalia)". There he meets the only female member of the group, Mayama who is actually published unlike all the knick-knack of horny losers in a nudie magazine strewn clubhouse. Tomboyish and sleepy eyed, straightforward Mayama blows Tadokoro's cover as a pro at their first meeting- "you are a virgin, aren't you?" and lures him into series of sexcapade to help her writing. There are no strings attached and no feeling on Mayama's end. He soon is at her beck and call.

Tadokoro meets a sweet and cute co-worker Akane at the bookstore and starts having a relationship. Akane is everything Mayama is not and she gets jealous as Tadokoro tries to gain Mayama's approval on his writing.

It's a typical no budget teen roman-porno stuff. But Director Yuki Tanada has a nice, gentle touch to the whole genre. It's nicely shot too.

Veggies!

The Garden (2008) - Kennedy

It's South Central, LA. Shortly after the LA Rodney King riot, about 350 mostly hispanic families took 16 acres of garbage heaped land and started cultivating vegetables for their own consumption. For the next 12 years or so, South Central Farm had been oasis in the middle of the concrete jungle. documentarian Scott Hamilton Kennedy chronicles their struggles to keep the farm from getting bulldozed over. The Garden has plenty of drama- community organizations bickering with each other, corrupt politicians, pc celebrities (then prez hopeful Dennis Kucinich, Daryl Hannah, Willie Nelson, Ed Bagley Jr, Zach de la Locha, Danny Glover, Joan Baez and many others), Kunstler style civil rights lawyers, machetes and other farm equipment, injunctions and several reversals of fortune,etc, etc.

In the end, it's a heartbreaker. They lose the farm to a stereotypical villain- Jewish developer who bought back the land for 5 million from the city in some shady backroom deal and two years later, tries to sell it for 16.5 million. When the farmers raise the money, he refuses to sell it to them because he doesn't like their conduct,sees them as anti-semites and as ungrateful immigrants with entitlement mentality.

I remember this being nominated for the best doc along with the Betrayal, Encounters at the End of the World, Man on Wire and Trouble the Water in 2009. It was a good year for docs for sure. Finally saw it and gotta say this is a doc that is up there with Harlan County USA as one doc that packs the strongest punches for me. See this.

Visit South Central Farmers Website

JAPAN CUTS 2010: Zero Focus

Zero Focus (1961) - Nomura

Zero Focus (2009) - Inudo

I remember watching the 1961 black and white version of Zero Focus a long time ago thinking, 'this needs an update.' The Hitchcockian premise was very intriguing: a man disappears during his business trip leaving his young wife distressed and confused. She travels to the snow country up north to find the missing husband and digs up someugly past while dead bodies turning up around her. But it was visually bland and lacked any kind of suspense. So it was a nice surprise to see the remake on this year's Japan Cuts line-up.

The film is an epic. It begins with stock footage of the destroyed post-war Japan, then seamlessly moves into the economic-boom era of the 50s with impeccable periodic detail. Director Isshin Inudo here crafted a sumptuous picture of the bygone era Japan seldom seen in contemporary films.

The year is 1957. A naïve, young wife Teiko (Ryoko Hirosue)'s search for her missing husband Kenichi (Hidetoshi Nishijima) takes her to Kanazawa, a snow swept beautiful town spared by bombing in WWII (with its dramatic sea cliffs, the town is a ripe setting for the Hitchcock inspired murder mystery). With the help of her husband's colleague from the advertising firm he worked for, she tracks down a client of his, Murota (Takeshi Kaga), a ruthless local businessman and Murota's elegant and sharp-edged wife Sachiko (Miki Nakatani) who is an ardent supporter of a local woman mayoral candidate. If she is elected, she will be the first woman mayor in Japan. But their meetings leave Teiko more questions than answers to her husband's whereabouts.

She also encounters Murota's receptionist Hisako (Tae Kimura), whose physical attributes and rough pan-pan girl English (pan-pan girls refer to prostitutes for the occupying GIs) don't really add up to how she landed her job. Kenichi knew these people? Teiko soon realizes she knows nothing about her husband's past. Then the bodies start turning up and she begins to understand that her investigation is a threat to someone.

Zero Focus is more than just a murder mystery. It's more to do with however Japan wants to forget the defeat, its shadows haunt the generation from starting anew. Their psyche is forever scarred- Kenichi forever emasculated, Sachiko and Hisako struggling against social, political strictures.

The film is also the stage for three-way acting battle by the best actresses in current Japanese cinema -Hirosue (Departures), Nakatani (Memories of Matsuko, Sweet Little Lies) and Kimura (All Around Us). As the film slowly reaches its lengthy climax, there are mental breakdowns, confessions, sacrifices, stabbings, broken glasses, tears and more tears. They act their hearts out in their respective hammy roles. An over-the-top Sirkian melodrama the film turns out to be. But undeniably well done melodrama for sure, as I witnessed many teary eyes at the end of the screening. The film looks back on Japan's painful rebirth from the ashes of WWII and shines a light on people's resilience.

Zero Focus is screening on July 15th (9PM) at Japan Society as part of 2010 Japan Cuts.

Review at Twitch

Japan Society: Japan Cuts 2010 Website

JAPAN CUTS 2010: One Million Yen Girl

One Million Yen Girl (2008) - Tanada

A 21-year old Suzuko (Yu Aoi of Hana and Alice and Shaking Tokyo segment from Tokyo!) has a criminal record from a minor incident. With this stigma in a strict society like Japan, it's quite difficult to lead a normal life: the neighbors' gossips and constant arguing at home gets too much for her. She decides to make a million yen and move out, go some place where no one knows her, find a job and work until make another million and repeat the process. The trouble started with her wanting to leave home and live independently anyway.

Suzuko first goes to a small seaside town and starts working at a concession stand. It turns out she is pretty good at making snow cones. When a local guy takes an interest in her, it is too close for comfort for our heroine. As soon as she reaches her goal, she takes off to a mountain village where she gets a job as seasonal peach harvester. With her fragile figure and girlish looks she attracts unwanted interests wherever she goes.

One Million Yen Girl is an interesting take on the road movie genre in the age of economic meltdown. Its first half plays out like a practical Japanese cousin of Into the Wild. But Suzuko is not snotty, nor proud. Rather, she is quite unsure of herself. With her bank book as her only friend, she travels, meets people and moves on before things get complicated socially.

The film takes a turn and becomes a standard romance when she gets a job at a gardening section of Home Depot style business in one city where she meets Nakajima (Mirai Moriyama), a serious college student. The attraction is mutual and she finally confides in him. To her surprise, he confesses his love for her. Should she stay or should she move on after accumulating another one million yen?

The strength of the film is in all too humanness of Suzuko. She thinks her journey is more to do with not standing up to her reality rather than about discovering herself. This makes her more endearing to watch (Thanks to writer/director Yuki Tanada's acute observation and maturity). With her fragility and "troubled smile', Aoi encompasses the young woman on the brink of adulthood. With its bittersweet ending, one can only hope for a sequel.

ONE MILLION YEN GIRL is screening on July 8th (8:30PM) at Japan Society as part of 2010 Japan Cuts.

Review at Twitch

JAPAN CUTS 2010: Bare Essence of Life

Bare Essence of Life: Ultra Miracle Love Story (2009) - Yokohama

Yojin (Kenichi Matsuyama, best known as L in Death Note series and an upcoming Haruki Murakami book adaptation, and one of my all time favorite, Norwegian Wood) is a twenty five year old man-child living in a rural town in Aomori with his grandmother. He's not dumb. As he describes himself, his brain is wired differently. He is prone to outbursts and childish behavior. Yojin's daily routine begins with half a dozen alarm clocks and schedule written on the white boards in his room, as he forgets things frequently. He listens to his late grandfather's audiotape instructions on how to grow vegetables and follows through rather unsuccessfully and helps out his grandmother to sell her organic vegetables in town.

Everything changes when Matsuko (beautiful Kumiko Aso) arrives in town from Tokyo. She is a sullen kindergarten teacher who lost her boyfriend in a horrible car accident where his head was decapitated and never recovered. She came to Aomori to consult a medium to see if she can still communicate with him. Yojin is smittened right away but Matsuko's frightened by his erratic behavior. After getting showered by pesticides while playing with a local boy, he finds that pesticides keep his brain calm. Since Matsuko prefers his 'new', less spastic self, Yojin keeps spraying himself with the harmful chemicals in the hopes of her liking him back. The effects actually make him sick and he dies. Then he's alive again, only until he dies the second time!

Okay, on paper, Bare Essence of Life is goofy as hell. Its plot is shoddy and the mix of realistic settings and surrealistic elements doesn't always work. But Satoko Yokohama's film is completely original and fresh. There are lovely scenes of Yojin walking Matsuko home at night. She talks about evolution being stopped as humanity makes its world safer and further controls unpredictable elements like Mother Nature. You have to live freely without fear in order to evolve. Without cutting back and forth, Yokohama lets dialog flow in these natural, intimate one-shot long takes. With its two hour running time, Bare Essence is a leisurely paced contemplation on many elements- new age spirituality, heart vs. brain, nature vs. technology, self-sacrifice, (possibly) autism and cyclical nature of life, all in sunlight drenched beautiful rural Japan. Maybe Yojin with his ability to talk to a dead man with no head is us humans' next evolutionary step? Messy but always engaging with great two lead actors and charming supporting cast largely comprised by the non-professional locals, Bare Essence of Life promises yet another great woman director with unique voice emerging from current Japanese cinema.

BARE ESSENCE OF LIFE: ULTRA MIRACLE LOVE STORY is screening on July 7th (8:30PM) at Japan Society as part of 2010 Japan Cuts.
Review at Twitch

NYAFF 2010/JAPAN CUTS: Dear Doctor

Dear Doctor (2009) - Nishikawa

A man on a bicycle finds a discarded white lab coat on the road at night. Then he puts the coat on. Miwa Nishikawa's Dear Doctor makes clear from the get-go what this film is really about. It's not the looks or the credentials that makes one a doctor, it's one's heart.

Adapting from her own novel, Nishikawa, a pupil of Hirokazu Kore-eda (Maboroshi, Nobody Knows), skillfully plays out a story of an imposter. In Kamiwada, a small rural village, the sudden disappearance of their beloved doctor, Dr. Ino (Tsurube Shofukutei), who's been serving them for the last three years, leaves its mostly elderly residents in shock and disbelief. Detectives are soon frustrated with conflicting information given by the villagers with no clear picture of who Ino really is.

The film jumps back and forth between the police investigation in to the disappearance and the happier times with Dr. Ino. We backtrack a few months: a young city intern Soma (Eita) shows up in his convertible one day to assist Dr. Ino. The intern is not happy about being there but is soon impressed by how Dr. Ino conducts himself. He is everything the city doctors are not- personable, humble and caring if not a little unorthodox. It becomes apparent to the viewers though that Ino is a fraud. He's been getting by as a doctor with tremendous amount of luck and the help of his loyal and non-judgmental nurse (great Kimiko Yo).

Things get a little hairy when Dr. Ino makes a house call to an old widow Kazuko (Kaoru Yachigusa) who's suffering from ulcer. They both have inkling that it is something more serious. But Kazuko doesn't want her daughters to know, especially the one who is a doctor in the city. She doesn't want to burden her grown up children like her late husband did in his later years. But it is a matter of life and death, and it puts Dr. Ino in a precarious position when the city doctor daughter shows up and disputes his diagnosis. Though his life is a lie, Ino is torn. He wants the old widow to get proper treatment, even though the truth may come out.

For some, it might be a little hard to swallow that these villagers are that gullible even after the police exposes Ino as fraud, especially considering the distrustful state of modern medical care system. Dr. Ino in that sense is a metaphorical figure, not to the extent of Chance the Butler in Being There, but nonetheless an illusion, a wishful thinking that's a little more tangible in the society with its rapidly aging population.

With pitch perfect stellar performances from everyone involved, including Teruyuki Kagawa (Tokyo Sonata, Tokyo!) as a smarmy pharmaceutical rep and gorgeous cinematography by Katsumi Yanagijima (Dolls, Battle Royal), Dear Doctor is a great, if not a little old-fashioned dramedy with a big heart. Just like her mentor Kore-eda, Nishikawa doesn't have one cynical bone in her body. Layers of nuanced visuals, great acting and fitting laid back bluesy soundtrack by More Rhythm are all masterfully put together. But the film belongs to Shofukutei, a rakugoka performer and tv personality, resembling the late Takashi Shimura (Ikiru)- Akira Kurosawa regular, his good-natured pretender is a gleaming projection of our wishes in a cold, impersonal world.

Dear Doctor is screening on July 3rd (1:00PM) and July 4th (4:15PM) at Japan Society as part of 2010 New York Asian Film Festival/Japan Cuts.

Review at Twitch

Director Yu Irie Interview

Director Yu Irie has two films represented at this year's New York Asian Film Festival: 8000 Miles and 8000 Miles 2: Girl Rappers. In Japan, as in the US, rap music has become an outlet for young people facing an uncertain future. These films are not simply about hip-hop culture in Japan. They are more to do with the blank generation and suburban ennui. Irie, coming from the same background as his characters, understands well the frustrations of these lovable losers in suburbia and portray them with warmth and care. I had an opportunity to talk to him about independent films and hip-hop in Japan.

There are quite a few films at New York Asian Film Festival this year labeled as "indie" film by "indie" filmmakers. Do these labels apply to you in Japan?

Yes, absolutely. There are two criteria I fit in. First, in Japan, anything that's not a major production, it's considered independent. On top of that, when a film is entirely funded by the director himself and made with bunch of friends like mine, it's an indie indeed. So definitely yes.

How influential is hip-hop culture in Japan? Did it influence you growing up?

Hip-hop arrived in the late 80s and really took roots in the early 90's in Japan. I was a teenager then, and there were many great Japanese rap artists who had huge influence on me.

You did two films now about hip-hop groups, first and second one separated by gender (Boys and Girls). Was it a conscious decision?

Yes, that was something I was very conscious of. I knew they would obviously rap about different things.

I noticed the differences how the boys and girls approached hip-hop. The boys seemed more interested in the idea of being a hip-hop artist whereas girls were more enthusiastic about actual music.

Oh, sure. Me being a male, like the characters, I had motivations about being famous, being rich, how girls will like me and all that while making the first 8000 Miles. (Laughs) The second one, with the women with where they are (age-wise), they can really focus on the joy of music. That was something I was interested in showing.

How did you go about selecting actors for the both first and second one? Probably because of the first one's success, you must've gotten more money and more resources for the second. I noticed some known actors in Girl Rappers.

In reality the budget didn't change that much making Girl Rappers. I didn't have much interest in the first place to get well known actors. Even the second one, my focus was on using unknown actors. It just so happened that there were some actors who saw the first one and really loved it and approached me, so they really wanted to be part of the second film. Some of the known actors happened to be right for the parts.

Wow, that's great.

Sure I want people coming out to see the film in theaters but without any famous actor in the film, it would be understandably difficult. But these are people who are out in the countryside trying to be rappers, so the important thing to me was getting believable looking people as those characters. I don't think I could have achieved that with known faces.

Did you know Shingo, Ryusuke and Hakushu beforehand? And is DJ TKD really a musician?

Yes, we all went to same school and we were classmates later on. Yes he is a musician but he can't live off being a musician so he has a business on the side.

In the US, hip-hop comes out of specific conditions- poverty, racism and violence. What issues drive Japanese youth to get involved in hip-hop?

Japan in the 90's, that's when hip-hop became big, mimicking American artists and they were trying to figure out how to make it their own. It's different though. Like the first 8000 Miles film, they started to rap about where they are from. The lyrics were still mellow compared to poverty and things like that. 8000 Miles came out just before the Lehman Brothers scandal and global recession, which have been affecting Japan as well. I think there will soon be edgier, harsher lyrics to reflect that.

What are your expectations on audience reception for your films both here and Japan?

It's really hard to imagine how it will be received but it's not really about hip-hop culture but more about youth trying to achieve their dreams and so whatever hip-hop represents to the characters, they can replace it themselves with whatever their dreams are so they can relate to characters that way.

The other thing is female Japanese rappers haven't achieved any success in Japan. Hopefully it will change when they see Girl Rappers.

My French friend was very adamant about French language being most suited for rap, do you think about Japanese that way?

(Laughs) I think English is more suited for rap to be honest. English has harder sounding words than French or Japanese.

I think many Shogung fans will disagree with you.

(Laughs)

So what's next for you?

I think I'll continue the series with a film about DJs.

Yu Irie talks about hip-hop at Twitch

NYAFF 2010: 8000 Miles 2: Girl Rappers

8000 Miles 2: Girl Rappers - Irie (2010)

This sequel starts with Ayumu (Maho Yamada), as she wakes up at home in Gunma Prefecture- another suburb of Tokyo right next to Saitama where the first 8000 Miles took place. We notice the slogan hanging from her desk in her cluttered room, perhaps the remnants of a New Year's resolution from god knows when: "Be a cooler person this year". Living at home with her single father, helping family business- making and delivering konjak, a traditional green gelatin, she is an aimless twenty-something, like the heroes of the first movie. But she once was a vibrant member of an all-girl high school group, B-Hack, with her friends Mittsu (Love Exposure's Sakura Ando), Mamie and Beyoncé. It was the legendary local DJ TDK (the same Takeda-san from the first movie) who inspired them. The girls are struggling with ups and downs of grown-up world - getting old, debts, boyfriends, unwanted pregnancy and lame jobs. At the mention of regrouping, Mittsu barks, "Rap music is not cool anymore." But their passion for music once again ignites when they encounter two b-boys from Saitama (Ikku and Tom from the first film), who make a pilgrimage to where TDK's life altering concert took place- a riverbank in Gunma. After their hostile free-styling battle, the girls are motivated to pick up their act one last time.

Similar to Shogung, B-Hack goes through an ultra embarrassing gig in the middle of the film. Taking place in a public swimming pool, their reunion performance doesn't even remotely resemble gangsta rap, but is closer to a Spice Girls act. With their bubble gum lyrics and matching bathing suits, it's pretty pathetic and they know it too. Without any close ups, director Yu Irie goes for a wide, single long take for the entire performance, as if to spare the girls from further embarrassment.

The differences between the first 8000 Miles and Girl Rappers are not only in far superior production value and acting, but in the characters themselves: they are much better drawn out and their struggles much more heartfelt. Even the stereotypical characters here have redeeming qualities and are likable. What sets these girls apart from the boys is their genuine passion for music, not the put-on act that comes with the rap culture.

In the end, like Ikku and Tom, the girls realize what rap is about. You rap about what you know. It's a confession of sorts. It's a way to vent your anger and frustration. It is, ultimately, a therapy. With Girl Rappers, Irie has matured to a patient, observant filmmaker representing the blank generation of Japan and I expect great things from him in the future.

8000 Miles 2 is screening on June 29th (8:45 PM) at the Walter Reade Theater as part of 2010 New York Asian Film Festival. Director Yu Irie will be at the screening!
Review at Twitch

NYAFF 2010: 8000 Miles

8000 Miles - Irie (2009)

A sleeper hit of 2009 in Japan, Yu Irie's 8000 Miles is a no budget tragicomedy about wannabe b-boys in Saitama, a Tokyo suburb. A chubby NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training) Ikku and his farmboy friends Mighty and Tom(u) are members of Shogung, a hip-hop group, lounging around empty warehouses and practicing their freestyle rap, dreaming of big success. Decked out in gangsta gears of their idols (2pac and Notorious B.I.G.), cocky attitudes and made-up slangs (bro, here stands for broccoli), it's pretty clear from the get-go, these ne'er do well, twenty-somethings are more interested in the idea of being rappers than actual music. Ikku tries to be relevant though- he collects clippings of newspaper headlines for lyrics.

The trio (because the rest of the group bailed at the last minute)'s first gig takes place in a local PTA meeting about youth problem. Shogung performing in front of the completely unresponsive audience and the Q & A session that follows are the most uncomfortable yet funniest scenes in the film. Irie's penchant for long takes works well here to catch all the awkward moments.

The subplot includes a sickly legendary DJ Takeda-san(TKD) residing in seclusion in their neighborhood and Ikku's high school flame turned porn star to stir things up inside the group.

All in all, this small movie is not really about rap culture in Japan. It's more to do with the blank generation and suburban ennui. Irie, a native of Saitama, understands well the frustrations of these lovable losers in suburbia and portray them with warmth and care. Hidden behind all the oversized parkas and dark shades, 8000 Miles is an ultimately a tender bromance between Ikku and Tom.

8000 Miles is screening on June 29th (6:30 PM) and June 30th (3:30 PM)at the Walter Reade Theater as part of 2010 New York Asian Film Festival. Director Yu Irie will be at the screening!
Review at Twitch

New York Asian Film Festival 2010: Ip Man 2

Ip Man 2 (2010) - Yip

Wilson Yip's saga continues, this time it's Hong Kong, 1950. Having just arrived and penniless and friendless, Ip Man, the master of Wing Chun style martial arts, faces first the complex local martial club hierarchy, then yet another abusive foreign power, this time, the British empire.

After losing a number of hard earn pupils to tuff wars, ever stoic and dignified Ip Man reluctantly enters to a test to earn respects and rights to open his own martial club, under the watchful eye of a respected and rich local honcho, master Hung (Sammo Hung). Against one master after another on the ricketty round tea table, Ip Man shows them he is much more than enough to be called a master. The fights are heavenly, especially between Sammo Hung, who choreographed all the fight sequences in both Ip Man movies and Donnie Yen.

Then the film goes into Rocky IV territory with the corrupt, racist British police force arranging the West-East boxing match to show who the boss is, with an obnoxious boxer named Twister. Sammo Hung, at the tender age of 58, gives the most heart wrenching performance here as the master who abides to the rules to survive, but not to the insult to Chinese. Ip Man 2 belongs to Hung as much it does to Donnie Yen.

The fight between Twister and Ip Man is way over the top. It was the ruthless but dignified opponent Miura that gave the first film weight and integrity, a worthy opponent so to speak. Twister, a thick headed foreign devil, comes across as Hugo Weaving on steroids. I kept expecting him appearing in flip-flop dress as in Adventures of Pricilla Queen of the Desert. Ip Man 2, with the political urgency gone, is lighter and sillier than the first one, but still great fun to watch. It even squeezes in little Bruce Lee at the end.

*Prior to the screening, Sammo Hung received Asia Star Lifetime Achievement Award from ever enthusiastic Grady Hendrix of NYAFF. As Hung introduced this Opening Night Film of the NYAFF 2010, his good humor and grace didn't go unnoticed by star-struck audience that packed the sold out screening.

Ip Man 2 is the Opening Night Selection screening on June 25th (9:30 PM) and is screening June 27th (8:45 PM) at the Walter Reade Theater as part of 2010 New York Asian Film Festival Sammo Hung will be at the screening
Ip Man 2 Review at Twitch

Same same...

A State of Mind (2004) - Gordon






With the US's Iraq invasion looming therefore the North Korean Gov't attention being elsewhere, Daniel Gordon, a BBC documentarian gets an unfettered access into the lives of two North Korean school girls as they prepare for 2003 Mass Games for eight months. Families of these two girls are at first stand offish, but as the time goes along, we get to see how the people in Hermit Kingdom lives, granted they are among 2 million privileged people living in the capital, Pyong-yang. What's surprising about this non-judgmental documentary is how similar and ordinary the girls are to the rest of the world's. They laugh a lot, want to sleep more rather than go to school, have tit-tats with their families.

As they prepare their moves on concrete schoolyard for grueling 20 day, two times a day performance for the 55th anniversary of founding of the republic, we get to see how this small country managed to scrape by (not very well, but nevertheless) for all these years by the power of collectivism. The mass games, an astounding display of discipline and devotion are necessary conditioning from an earlier age (later military service) to have people always at odds with the sworn eternal enemy the US, the imperialists to keep the regime going.

The girls seem to be happy as they make pilgrimage to the sacred Baek-du mountain, the supposedly the birth place of the eternal leader, Kim Il-sung and preparing for the mass games in the hopes of their great General, Kim Jong-il making an appearance at the stadium. He never does, breaking girls hearts everywhere.

Fascinating, intimate and beautifully shot documentary that shows that these people aren't that different.

Turning Back

180° South (2010) - Malloy




These rugged boys got it good. A surfer/climber Jeff Johnson and friends try to duplicate the journey to Patagonia by Ben and Gerry of outdoors world(Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia Sportswear and Doug Tompkins, founder of North Face turned environmentalist) in 1968. Johnson hitches a yacht ride, making a detour to Rapa Nui(Easter Island) when the mast of the ship breaks, picks up a hot surfer chick Makohe(she sings beautifully too) there, then arrive in Patagonia to climb the revered Corcovado. It is then, a total surprise for the crew(including Chouinard who's fast approaching his 70) that the peak is not snow-capped anymore, due to climate change and thus unclimbable.

The environmental message here mixed with 60's idealism is pretty strong. Tompkins apparently bought 2 million acres of lands in Chile to conserve it and is fighting alongside the locals against the development down in Patagonia.

Cutting back and forth between stunning nature photography and 16mm footage of 68' journey with soundtrack featuring James Mercer, Isaak Brock, Mason Jennings constantly in the background, 180° South plays out like a pretty North Face commercial at times. The cutesy animation is also too hipsterish for its own good. But the beauty of visuals is too overpowering for me to be cynical about this crunchy granola of a film.

Private Healthcare

Britannia Hospital (1982) - Anderson

The esteemed Britannia Hospital is in frantic mode because they are expecting a visitation from HRH(Her Royal Highness). But the Unionized kitchen staff are on strike, refusing to serve rich patients their caviar and lamb shanks. And there are demonstrators outside shouting 'down with the privilege' and protesting some cannibal African dictator who resides in the hospital.

This third in Mick Travis Trilogy(If.... O Lucky Man!) is a biting satire where no one is safe from Anderson's criticism- private-run health care, deal-making Union bosses, silly upper-class, irrelevant nationalism... Even though it's from different era, Britannia Hospital is just as relevant as it was then. It's funny as hell and much more coherent than messy O Lucky Man. Malcolm McDowell has a minor role as an investigative reporter who unwittingly becomes a subject of a medical experiment of manic, messianic Dr. Miller. Anderson's absurd and prophetic open ending is a right fit to conclude the trilogy. Oh, Mark Hamill makes an appearance as dope smoking news crew who gets overrun by the angry English protesters.

Subway Grate Plants in Williamsburg, Brooklyn

I looked down today and saw:

Gym Shorts

The recess was ending. Playing in the sandlot, you lost track of time. You were nine years old. You had to go to the bathroom really bad. The field cleared as the bell rang. Peeing in the corner of the building while no one was watching, at the time, seemed like a pretty logical thing to do in your mind. It was either that or wetting your gym shorts. You quickly looked around and pulled your shorts down. As you relieved yourself, someone tapped on your shoulder. It was a hall monitor. You knew you were in trouble. You were escorted to the teacher’s lounge, to Mr. Lee, who happened to be your favorite teacher. The hall monitor told him what you were up to. Mr. Lee dismissed the monitor and looked at you with a cigarette dangling in the corner of his mouth.
“Peed on the school property eh?” He tsked, shaking his head.
“Come closer,” You obliged.
“You pulled your wee-wee out in front of everyone?” You were too mortified and embarrassed to speak.
He took a deep drag from his cigarette. You remember the red hot of the cigarette to this day. He pulled the front of your gym shorts toward him. Then he flicked the ashes off his cigarette in to your pants. Snap.

Your wife left you. Took the kid too. Things weren’t going well for a while between you two. The love was gone if it was there in the first place. Business school, MBA, night classes, 2 years of out-of-state training, overtime, business trips, junior lender at 33, two cars, house, bigger house… for what, you thought. She left. With the kid. 35 years old. You are on meds. Clinically depressed. Bipolar. Whatever.

It’s Friday night. Here you are at the City Central, a bar near the office. Drinking with your so-called co-workers. Larry, your boss is talking with some skank on the other side of the bar. He throws glances at you and smiles. You smile back lifting your Chivas on the rocks. You haven’t told him about your wife leaving him. You haven’t told anyone. The glass is empty. Do you want another shot? The barkeep says. You nod, then shake, then nod again. Fuck it, you say.

Larry called you in to his office two weeks ago. You’ve known him for ten years. He took you with him from the previous job. Bigger company, better pay. Linda and Damien, you know the names of his kids. You drank his homebrew. You play with his dogs. You are forever grateful to him. But the current financial crisis made you jittery. Made everyone jittery. The company’s cutting back. That means your job is on the line too. “Jung-bum came to see me yesterday,” Larry said.
“You know what he said to me? He said you were on anti-depressants?”
That little shit backstabbed me, you thought.
Jung-bum is that ambitious Korean kid who just got out of his MBA. You liked him. You took him in under your wings. In private, he called you brother in Korean affectionately. Now he tells Larry, your boss, of your defects, your Achilles Heel so to speak.
“He wants your job. “Larry Said.
“I didn’t have to tell you this. But you and I go way back. I guess the kid didn’t know. All I’m saying is, get your shit together and trust no one.”

Jung-bum approaches you from the other side of the bar with a drink in his hand. Fuck it, you say as you down your fifth Chivas.
“Great crowd huh?”
“Yes.” It pains you to see the kid in the face.
“Something wrong? You look pale”.
You don’t answer him right away. You ask the barkeep for another shot.
“My wife left me. She took the kid. Soon she will take the house, cars and all my money. I’m a mess.” You gulp your drink down.
“What?”
“I’m bipolar, too.” You let him have it all.
“I’m so sorry, bro.”
“No, you’re not. And don’t call me bro!” With that, you walk out of the Central Station.

You notice something in the alley as you look up from puking your guts out. It’s a homeless person sleeping. He’s an old Asian man. And he seems very familiar to you. Can it be Mr. Lee? You go closer to inspect. Certainly the man looks like him. You squat down next to him.
“Mr. Lee. Remember me?” No response.
“I didn’t expect to see you here today. A nice surprise.” The bum twitched in his sleep.
“You were my favorite teacher, you know?” Your smile is lost in the night.
“I don’t suppose you’ve ever thought I would turn out this way, have you, all broken and sad….” You sigh.
“I did everything by the book, everything I was supposed to do, studied hard, went to good school, worked hard, got a good job, got married, a house, kid, cars….” You fight tears welling up in your eyes. You lay yourself down next to the bum.
“Mr. Lee. I really don’t know what to do. And I’m scared.”
The bum opens his eyes and gets up, grunting. The man is too drunk to stand up straight by himself. You get up to help him. He touches his groin area, grunting.
“You have to go, is that it?” You ask him.
You undo his fly and get his penis out just in time for the bum to start urinating. The steam rises. The bum releases a sigh of relief. You feel better, standing next to him, holding his penis, looking out into the darkness.

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies...

Che: Part 1 & 2 (2008) - Soderbergh

With Jon Lee Anderson, the author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, as a primary consultant, Soderbergh presents perhaps the most dispassionate biopic I've ever seen, in two parts. He cherry picks from the revolutionary's life, first the Cuban Revolution up to the takeover then jumps to Bolivia where Guevara meets his untimely end- It should've been dubbed as The Rise and Fall of Che.

Soderbergh's approach is all reasonable and sound. Given its heady subject matter, the more I think about it, his all out objectivity is/should be the only logical conclusion for anyone's attempt at the screen adaptation. Benicio Del Toro seems comfortable in the role who was the disciplinarian and the moral core of the cause rather than personable human being. But for the true revolutionary who exclaimed the love for the common men, the film lacks any kind of emotional resonance. Not that it's not compelling: each part devotes itself to a long grueling combat scene- Bolivian part more so as Asthma stricken Che struggles to keep up with the rest of the group.

I never quite understand Soderbergh's infatuation with technology. Throughout his spotty filmography, his insistence on trying new 'look' never worked for me. I hated the look of Che, especially the second one. It's not as ridiculous as Traffic's blue and orange dichotomy, but the bluey, dreary exterior comes across as amateurish at best.

Che was not quite the disaster I was expecting. But it was far from satisfying experience. Parts of his life I was interested in the most- his Congo campaign and his role in after-the-takeover of Cuba were excluded. It's interesting to see what's going on in Latin America right now, especially Bolivia where his failed attempt at igniting its people to the revolutionary cause, with its almost biblical implications.

Grand Master

Ip Man (2009) - Yip

I'm happy to report that after the awful wire work/FX ridden wuxia swordplay period, Hong Kong cinema is once again enjoying bare-knuckle kung fu boom. Wilson Yip's biographical film on the Wing Chun School grandmaster Ip Man, trailing him through the Japanese occupation, the big battle and his flight to Hong Kong is a sumptuous experience. Master Ip is a humble aristocrat who doesn't want to show off his skills. He only receives guests who wants to 'practice' with him occasionally in his big mansion where he lives with his wife and young son. But the words get out that he beat every master in Fo Shan, a southern Chinese city famous for its numerous martial art schools. But the Japanese occupation begins and Ip goes through hardships just like any of his fellow Chinese. After seeing his friends beaten to death in a martial arts match set up by a Bushido practicing Japanese captain while working at a coal factory, Ip once again picks up the trade he had to abandon in order to feed his family in desperate times.

Master Ip story has been loosely adapted to martial arts films many times(after Bruce Lee and Jet Li, now it's Tony Leung as Ip Man in Wong Kar-wai's latest, Grand Master). But nationalism and heavy handedness aside, Ip Man is every martial arts fan's dream. Donnie Yen brings righteousness and stoicism that fit the role well. Sammo Hung's fight choreography is stripped down to basics, but it's a glorious one. I can't wait to see Ip Man 2 in which Sammo Hung co-stars.