TOKYO TRIBES: Four More Japanese Musicals

Sion Sono's hip hop tribute to West Side Story screened last night and screens again tonight. If you've developed an appetite for Japanese musicals here's five more from directors you might not associate with musicals: MM Alumnus Takashi Miike, Kenji Fukasaku, Seijun Suzuki and Tetsuya Nakashima.

Happiness of the Katakuris (2001)

Takashi Miike adapts Kim Jee-woon's The Quiet Family (1999) as a musical. Kim's movie is a dark and very dry comedy about a family who run an inn and end up with a lot of bodies to dispose of. And yeah, it stars both Choi Min-sik (Oldboy) and Song Kang-ho (The Host; The Good, The Bad And The Weird), who between them star in nearly every Korean movie ever. Miike's is colorful and exuberant adding very Miike touches like a woman crushed during sex with a sumo wrestler. Most of all, he adds musical numbers.




Shanghai Rhapsody (1984)

Fukasaku is best known among fans of the Madness for Battle Royale (2000), but he had a long career that includes films as diverse as The Green Slime (1966), the Japanese portion of Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), The Black Lizard (1968) and graphically violent yakuza movies that practically reinvented the genre. He made Shanghai Rhapsody the year after he made the fantasy chanbara, Legend Of Eight Samurai (1983) starring Hiroyuki Sanada, Sonny Chiba and Chiba's martial arts protege, Etskuko Shiomi. Shanghai Rhapsody is set during World War II and also stars Shiomi. I could not find a clip, but I could find a poster and a dvd cover. Behold...

Never forget that Sue Shiomi is a beautiful, beautiful bride and ninja.

Princess Raccoon (2005)

Seijun Suzuki is most famous for his amazing 1960s yakuza pictures for Nikkatsu studios including Tokyo Drifter (1966), which isn't exactly a musical, but comes close. And it stars singer and actor Tetsuya Watari as the drifting, whistling yakuza. But that's not what I'm planning sharing because Suzuki made a straight up operetta. In Princess Raccoon, Amechiyo falls in love with a tanuki princess (Zhang Ziyi). His father Lord Azuchi Momoyama does not approve. It's orgeously stylized with lovely sets and costumes. There is also rapping.




Memories of Matsuko (2006) 

Tetsuya Nakashima's Confessions (2010) disturbed and distressed many, but he has an earlier film about a schoolteacher gone wrong. After his aunt Matsuko is murdered, Sho cleans out her apartment and discovers the story of her life as a neglected little girl, a school teacher and as a disgraced family member. It sounds gloomy, and Matsuko does have a rough life, but it's also candy-colored and, in the words of the Japan Society, "An unlikely cross between Moulin Rouge, Citizen Kane and Amelie, Memories of Matsuko is a magical realist descent into the suppressed history (both farce and tragedy) of the most unfortunate woman you've ever seen on screen."

Or, it's kinda like Mame, if Auntie Mame were dead at the beginning like William Holden in Sunset Boulevard.



Catch Tokyo Tribe tonight! And see Tetsuya Nakashima's newest film, The World of Kanako, as well as Takashi Miike's Over Your Dead Body in the Vanguard Program!

TOKYO TRIBE screening times:
Fri., Sept. 5th, 10:00 PM, SCOTIABANK 8
Sun., Sept. 14th, 3:30 PM, LIGHTBOX 3

WORLD OF KANAKO screening times:
Sunday, Sept 7th 9:15 PM ISABELLA BADER THEATRE
Tuesday, Sept 9th 11:30 AM THE BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA
Saturday, Sept 13 9:00 PM THE BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY screening times:
Thurs., Sept. 11, Ryerson 6:00 PM
Fri., Sept. 12, The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema 9:00 PM
Sat., Sept. 13, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2 6:30 PM

WHY DON'T YOU PLAY IN HELL: Yakuza Movies

With the final screening of Sion Sono's yakuza film coming up, it seems like an excellent time to take a look at some classics of WTF yakuza film!

Fudoh: The New Generation (1996) directed by Takashi Miike

Takashi Miike was one of the first directors MM Programmer Colin Geddes brought to Midnight Madness. Riki Fudoh (not to be confused with Riki-Oh) takes over the action at his high school before taking over the whole island of Kyushu. His gang of adolescent assassins cut a swathe through the gangster community. But Riki isn't just looking for power, he's looking for revenge.




Branded To Kill (1967) directed by Seijun Suzuki

Jo Shishido is a very peculiar leading man. Deciding he was too blandly handsome, he got cheek implants (since removed) and his career as an antihero took off.  In Branded To Kill, Shishido plays, Goro, a hitman given a mission by a mysterious woman. Goro becomes a target when he fails to fulfill his contract. It sounds straightforward, but it's anything but, as the hitman hunting him psychologically torments him first. The mysterious woman has a thing for dead butterflies. And Goro himself has a fetish for the scent of steaming rice.  In short, Sono and Miike didn't come out of nowhere.



Tokyo Drifter (1966) directed by Seijun Suzuki

What can I say? I'm a sucker for Suzuki. Tokyo Drifter is an incredibly stylish and stylized portrayal of Tetsuya Watari as a yakuza hitman trying to leave the life. And just try to get the theme song out of your head.




Battles Without Honor Or Humanity (1973) directed by Kinji Fukasaku

Fukasaku is probably best known now for Battle Royale (2000), and he will always have a special place in my heart for The Green Slime (1968), but he sure made his mark on yakuza movies. In Battles Without Honor Or Humanity is part of a series of five films, The Yakuza Papers. Bunta Sugawara plays a veteran in Post-War Hiroshima whose loyalties are torn when his boss and his sworn brother's yakuza family feud.  and all of the films portray a brutal, highly unromantic view of the yakuza



Minbo: The Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion (1992) directed Juzo Itami

In Itami's comedy, a hotel is troubled by yakuza in their lobby, frightening off guests and generally being an intimidating nuisance. They hire Mahiru Inoue, played by Nobuko Miyamoto, who specializes in getting rid of the yakuza. But she doesn't shoot or stab them, she uses the law and yakuza tradition against them. While the film itself might be seen as mild to non-Japanese people, Itami reportedly was murdered over it.


If you are curious about real life yakuza, check out Jake Adelstein's journalism and books.

WHY DON’T YOU PLAY IN HELL Final Screening:

Saturday, Sept 14th, 3:45 PM SCOTIABANK 1