6 JAPANESE MOVIES I GET EXCITED ABOUT | Abroad in Japan Blog #2

Departures is a superb film, would love to visit the town it's filmed in. A little more conventional but I recommend The Twilight Samurai - absolutely beautifully shot with a much more historic focus than your bog standard samurai film.

Watched Departures on your recommendation last night. What a beautiful film.

Dan Pinder

Battle Royale is one of my all-time favourite foreign films and I would highly recommend it. It has provided inspiration for Quentin Tarantino as well!

David Elliot Johnson

RIP Satoshi Kon, definitely one of the most underrated anime directors in the western world. Unknown to all the Otakus blinded by their One Piece (one piece of what?). I read there was speculation that Black Swan was copied and ripped off Perfect Blue, even in scenes it was almost exactly the same. Which is quite a shame. I have to say Tokyo Godfathers is one of my favourite anime movies, glad it made the list!

Valerie Tan

Nice! I'll be sure to watch some of these after my ear infection comes to pass, Tampopo sounds like a pretty good concept!

Jenna Flynn

I watched Uzumasa Limelite last night...on accident. I say that because I was looking to watch a kung-fu action movie, and this movie's cover image looked good. So I hit play. The opening minute looks amazing, as it is a sword fight between two people. The art style in that opening shot is like they put a cell-shaded overlay on top, and it is beautiful. It then transitions into a regular sword fight action scene, and that is when I found that I was not watching an action movie. It is about the actors that played the villians, or rather, the people that die, in Japanese samurai drama tv shows. Specifically a well known one, who has been doing it for the past 40 years or more. These actors never make it to the big time themsevles, but are so good at dying, they are cast in almost every show. The main actor (played by Seizô Fukumoto - who was in The Last Samurai, and the awesome 13 Assassins), a 70ish old man skilled at dying on the screen, says maybe 200 words total himself, but he didn't have to. Its about how everyone else interacts with him, how some respect (or not) what he does. I almost shut this movie off within the first 10 minutes because it is NOT the movie I wanted to watch. But...there is something about this actor's face, and how he shows so much emotion without saying much. So I continued to watch, and I'm glad I did. It is not an action movie, but about the people in the shows I used to watch when I was a kid on Samurai Sunday. It was simply, amazing. I stayed up till 2am last night to watch it...just so I could comment here. Watch it, it is both heart-breaking, and warming. It is subtitled in English, but since I am learning Japanese, I listened for words I know before reading. I found right away that they spoke waaaay to fast for me to get much, but I was excited when I heard words like mizu, kore, ano, ima...and a few others. But, there were times where they were saying things like "thank you", and while I knew they were saying arigato gozaimas (I can write these in Japanese, not English lol!), the...accent?...I don't know what, made it almost unrecognizable. It made me more determined to learn, and at the same time see how far I have to go. Anyway, I highly recommend this movie. It is gem, and I am glad I watched it.

Jeremy Carlson

Cool article I will defo see to get my hands on a few of these titles. Have you seen the movie Brother at all? Takeshi Kitano character is completely chilled out through all the action. Thanks guys.

Love Exposure is absolutely amazing if you have the time (four hours!)

Calum Gunn

"Tampopo" and "Departures" were both on my list, too. "A Taxing Woman" (also Itami); "Tokyo Story" and the 1934 version of "A Story of Floating Weeds," the only silent film I like, (both Ozu); almost all of Kurosawa's post-WWII films; "Chushingura." Japanese horror movies scare the crap out of me, even the version of "The Grudge" with Sarah Michelle Gellar proved too exciting. I decided not to watch the original.

Yussssss! Departures and Audition! Two of my favoriteJapanese films of all time as well! I'm pleasantly surprised to see them on your list!!

Alexis Weight

Babel and Adrift in Tokyo, are probably two films i enjoy most. Babel is 3 separate stories set in 3 different locations, (Mexico, Colombia and Tokyo) however these stories all have there own separate characters. However with the main story towards the end we start to learn that all 3 are some what connected with each other in way you wouldn't assume, almost in a butterfly effect way. Adrift in Tokyo is rather one of my favorites from the two. A student with no ambitions and goals is stuck with an 800K Yen Debt, when the debt collector comes around to collect his debt, Takemura (Student) cant afford to pay his debt, so the debt collector gives Takemura an ultimatum to pay up the debt, or walk across tokyo with him. You see the bond between Takemura and the Debt collector grow and you learn a lot about the two characters. very heartwarming film. Honorable mention would go towards Lost in Translation. ___ I really didn't know how to give a good synopsis for Babel without giving too much away for the plot!

Aaron Bailey

My favourite Japanese film so far is Hidamari no kanojo. It's a love story with a twist that I really didn't see coming. The french film The Intouchables is definitely one of my favourites, extremely thought provoking. I love planes, trains and automobiles too, Steve Martin is excellent I love him in parenthood. I'll definitely check out your recommendations apart from the horror because I'm a scaredy cat!

Janine Collins

Fireworks is one of my favorite films as well. I got it saved on my external. It's one of those few movies that when it was over, you knew you watched something truly poetic and well put together. I saw Perfect Blue as a child several times and know exactly what you are saying when describing it. I'm going going to seek out Departures and watch it tonight to see what all the hype it is about. Fun list, great read, thank you for the blog. :)

My family used to watch Planes, Trains, and Automobiles every Thanksgiving when I was growing up! Love Steve Martin and John Candy ("Those aren't pillows!!"). I saw Audition about two years ago and wow that movie is definitely messed up haha! That wire scene *shudder* I soon followed that one with The Happiness of the Katakuris, Ichi the Killer, and Gozu (SOOO WEIRD). Takashi Miike has a strange and brilliant mind for sure. I would highly recommend this Thai film called Last Life in the Universe. And as far as Anime goes Princess Mononoke will always be my favorite. Whisper of the Heart is also good in a different way but not talked about as much as... You can't really go wrong with Miyazaki. :)

Laura Beaumont

Grave of the Fireflies - I swear these god damn onion cutting ninjas always seem to know when I'm watching this film.

Romano Basabas

Yes this has just made my time at work better!!!

Benjamin McKechnie

My favourite Japanese movies are by far Akira Kurosawa's work. He's an absolute tour de force and I couldn't pick a favourite out of them. I love the fantastic 'breathless olde Japanese' spoken by samurai and unbeatable attention to detail. Stand out films are Kagemusha and Throne of Blood.

Nick Fletcher

Great post senpai and thank you very much

momothewizard

The only Japanese movie that really springs to mind for me would be Mononoke Hime, a film I remember vividly mostly due to seeing the adverts for it at the start of every Digimon, Beyblade and Pokémon video cassette I used to watch as a kid back in 2000ish. Back then I had no idea what the movie was about an dismissed it but after seeing it again grown up it's a bloody good representation of the relationship between human technology and nature wrapped up in a nicely animated Studio Ghibli film. I watch more series than I do movies.

Mathew Williams-breese

The link is actually below on the app. Patreon must be subverting some YouTuber memes on purpose...

momothewizard

Very well written, I'll be sure to check out a few of these movies very soon!

Preston Farnham

>download link below It's actually above!

Topher Redden