Tag Archives: Japan

Touch (Snerting) – Movie Review

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TL;DR – This is a stunningly beautiful portrait of a man’s life that feels both deeply personal and universal in what drives him. It is profoundly moving and full of narrative grace that could have been all melancholy but is instead full of heart and joy.   

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a screening of this film.

Kristófer looks out over a city scape.

Touch Review –

I know this is only August, and there are many films I will see this month, let alone by the end of the year, but today, can I say that we are looking at one of my films of the year. If not, the film of the year. This is such a stunning work that it has sat with me the whole time since I first watched it. I mean, Touch is such a beautiful film that I am getting emotional from writing about it now.

So, to set the scene, Kristófer (Egill Ólafsson) is going through the motions of his life in Iceland at the start of the COVID pandemic. He is a famous restaurateur on the island, but he has now closed his restaurant and is spending time at a local choir and trying to invoke his past diaries. But as the world starts to close up, Kristófer sets on a mission to answer one of the great questions of his past when he (Palmi Kormakur) was a young student in London and one day, he walked into a Japanese restaurant and met Miko (Kōki).

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Shōgun: Season 1 – TV Review

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TL;DR – This is a polarising show in that it will either suck you into its world or create barriers that make it hard to be connected. I was the first, but I could understand why you could be the latter.  

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this series.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

Samurai salute.

Shōgun Review –

When you hear that an American studio is going to take on a Japanese story, that raises some alarm bells, but then it is a story about Japan written by an Australian in the 1970s. Well, you take a moment to have a grave concern. However, the more I heard about the series and the role of Japanese creatives like lead Hiroyuki Sanada, the more I had to check out, and I am glad that I did.  

So, to set the scene, it is the year 1600, and only Portugal has been able to make inroads into the closed society of Japan. But there is a change in the air, with the reigning Taikō dying and not clear succession. This is an opportunity for both those within and those without to change up the status quo. But in all times of change comes chances for great riches and terrible defeats. One such entrant into this Dutch merchant led by Englishman navigator John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), whose convoy was hit with storms, starvation, dehydration, and despair when it crashed into the Japanese coastline, with only one ship of five remaining. But Blackthorne arrived in the Japans at an exciting time. For there is a power vacuum, and many people are trying to fill it, one of which is Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), the local bushō and lord over Kantō. Blackthorne cannot speak a word of Japanese, but he is fluent in Portuguese. This is good because Lord Toranaga has a Portuguese speaker in his entourage, Lady Toda Mariko (Anna Sawai). The bad news is that the Portuguese are Blackthorne’s enemies. In religion, in regional competition, and can control if Blackthorne lives or dies. Now, from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.        

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Mapping Jet Lag– Map-It

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TL;DR – We chart all of Jet Lag as they galivant across the globe.

Jet Lag Map of New England

Mapping Jet Leg –

As we continue our project to Map Pop Culture, I thought I would step away from the video games and movies of the past and into new territory. One area of Pop Culture that we have yet to explore is the world of Internet Culture. However, what would be the first step into this new space? Well, it needed to be something that respected maps, and I knew 100% who that would be.

If you have never watched Jet Lag, can I tell you that you are missing out on some joy as Ben, Sam, Adam, and often a guest run across the world playing games like tag across Europe. There is a frantic, joyous energy to everything when someone looks dead into the camera and states, “Of course I brought a disguise!” It is that joy that we present our maps today.

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Mapping Bullet Train

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Brad Pitt punching a life sized mascot.

Mapping Bullet Train –

Back in 2022, there was this odd film that popped into the world, Bullet Train, which took place on a Shinkansen travelling from Tokyo to Osaka. For some, it was their film of the year, but I ended up being much more mixed on the movie. However, there was one thing I was thinking about when I sat down to watch the film – is it geographically accurate? This is what we will look at today.

I have taken the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka before, so I thought this was something I could tick off in the cinema, but some of the station locations are shown very briefly or only in part. It took seeing it on digital release to nail this map down.

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Bullet Train – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Several interesting ideas are going on here, but they never coalesce into something worthy.    

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid to see this film

Brad Pitt punching a life sized mascot.

Bullet Train Review –

When you are making an action film, there are many different styles that you could employ. There is the grizzled machismo of movies like Rambo, the high-octane yet safe for families action of the Fast and the Furious films, or the grimy rawness of films like The Northman. But one of the more recent action styles has been this smooth, free-flowing, and fast-talking style of cinema that was thrown into the spotlight with Deadpool. While that style has been divisive, I have generally enjoyed it, and today we see another example of it in the form of Bullet Train.       

So to set the scene, it has been a long road of recovery for ‘Lady Bug’ (Brad Pitt) since he got shot doing a job in Johannesburg. But he is finally ready to take on a new mission, and his handler (Sandra Bullock) has picked an easy one for him. He must go on to a bullet train stationed in Tokyo, Japan, retrieve a briefcase with a train sticker on the handle, and remove it before the train reaches Kyoto. The only issue is that ‘Lady Bug’ is not the only operative working a job on that train as “Lemon” (Brian Tyree Henry), “Tangerine” (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), “The Wolf” (Benito A. Martínez Ocasio), “The Prince” (Joey King), “The Father” (Andrew Koji), and “The Hornet” (Zazie Beetz) all have their own plans in how this will go.     

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Movie Review – NiNoKuni (Ni no Kuni/二ノ国)

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TL;DR – A really good film up until the point it gets bogged down in its own worldbuilding   

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a post-credit scene

NiNoKuni (Ni no Kuni/二ノ国). Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

It has been a long road trying to adapt video games to the big screen and so far there have not been many (if any) that have actually pulled it off. Some have got close and today we take a look at one that also is very close, even if it just does not quite get there.  

So to set the scene, in Japan, there are three good friends Kotona (Abby Trott), Haru (Alejandro Saab), and Yu (Max Mittelman). Kotona and Haru are a couple and Yu is the third wheel, but not really, though he is confined to a wheelchair after a childhood accident that killed his parents. Life is great, school is good, however, all is ripped apart when one-day Kotona realises that she is being stalked by a creep. Yu and Haru rush to help her but they are too late when they arrive a masked figure stabs Kotana with a weird blade. They rush to try and get her to a hospital when in the middle of the street they are ripped into another world and now Kotona is missing, their phones are compasses, and everything is different.

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Movie Review – The Forest of Love

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TL;DR – Starts of being a look in how people explore trauma and then becomes a case study in abusive relationships    

Score – 1 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – I don’t know if there is a no post-credit scene

Warning – This film has extensive depictions of abuse

Review –

I have watched a lot of films in my life and I have review hundreds of them over the years on this site. There have been a number of films that had I not been watching them for review I probably would have turned off the TV or walked out of the theatre but I haven’t because of a sense of professionalism. However, today we view a film that finally broke me. I have not seen the end of this film before writing the review, nor do I care to find out what happened.

So to set the scene, we open in on Japan, beset by news of a serial killer, as we see a certain Joe Murata (Kippei Shîna) being creepy as hell. Elsewhere there is a guy that is new to Tokyo and quickly befriends a bunch of filmmakers. They find out he is a virgin and so they take him to their friend, who then takes all of them to help get an old classmate to appear in their next play. That same classmate who Joe Murata has just set his eyes on.

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Exploring The Past – Neon Genesis Evangelion (Shinseiki Evangerion, 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン) (1995)

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TL;DR – An ambitious series drawing inspiration from multiple religious and mystical frameworks that while pioneering in many respects, completely fails to stick the landing

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Neon Genesis Evangelion (新世紀エヴァンゲリオン, Shinseiki Evangerion). Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

Today I get to finally explore the third pillar of 1990s sci-fi anime with the massively influential Neon Genesis Evangelion. For me, this was almost a form of closure given how much I have watched the other two pillars Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell but I never got to see Evangelion. It was also interesting to see a show that has been massively influential to the genre but watching it with 20 years of extra context on top of it. Well if nothing else, the ending stinger to last year’s Desert Bus now makes sense. With that in mind, let’s dive in and explore Hideaki Anno’s work of gods, and angels, and science, and man.

So to set the scene, in the year 2000 a great calamity arouse across the world when the second impact occurred in Antarctica blasting the icy continent to ruin and melting all its ice causing extensive flooding across the world. The UN authority declared that the cause was a giant meteorite impact, hence common term of it being ‘the second impact’ (okay sort of, but also sort of not, it gets complicated). However, this is all a cover, because what really happened is that a creature of great power was discovered under the ice, this Angel was called Adam and something the researchers did trigger him destroying everything. 15 years later, Shinji Ikari (Megumi Ogata/ Spike Spencer/ Casey Mongillo) is running through deserted streets to a pick-up location. The whole area has gone into emergency lockdown for some unknown reason, and that reason turns out to be a second angel that everyone kind of expected was coming. Just before he is crushed, Shinji is rescued by Captain Misato Katsuragi (Kotono Mitsuishi/ Allison Keith/ Carrie Keranen) and taken to Tokyo-3 where a secretive organisation Nerv has their headquarters. The leader of Nerv is Shinji’s father Gendo Ikari (Fumihiko Tachiki/ Tristan MacAvery/ Ray Chase) who is at best distant, but a more fair description would be icy or even abusive. However, Shinji does not have time to process that because he is announced to be the Third Child, and one of only a few people that can pilot an Evangelion which he has to do like now.

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Exploring the Past – Your Name (Kimi no Na wa, 君の名は) (2016)

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TL;DR – Beautiful and yet also a bit melancholy. It takes what is a quite tired trope of cinema and breathes new life into it.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Your Name (Kimi no Na wa, 君の名は). Image Credit: Madman.

Review –

Last week I managed to catch a showing of a new anime film Weathering With You. It was beautiful, bittersweet, visually stunning, and emotionally resonate. Well after having such a profound experience with that film I had a look back at director/writer Makoto Shinkai’s filmography and came across Your Name. I had missed it when it can out in cinemas, so I made sure to check it out as soon as I could. Well one week later and what would you know, here it was live on the SBS Movie channel here in Australia and boy was it worth the watch.      

So to set the scene, Mitsuha Miyamizu (Mone Kamishiraishi) lives in a quiet village in the mountains of Japan’s Hida region. Itomori is a town with a long history of tradition but also of tragedy with fires destroying much of the town’s history. Mitsuha is a Miko (shrine maiden) in the Shinto temple that her family runs under the watchful hands of her grandmother Hitoha (Etsuko Ichihara). Mitsuha is frustrated with her life and where it is going and dreams of leaving her small town and moving to the big city in Tokyo. Well one day she gets her wish, but when she wakes up in the body of Taki Tachibana (Ryûnosuke Kamiki) a high school boy living in Tokyo, things don’t quite go the way she plans.     

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Movie Review – Weathering with You (Tenki no Ko, 天気の子)

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TL;DR – There is a lot I could say about this film, but the most important thing is that there were times when I became overwhelmed with its beauty.    

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Weathering with You (Tenki no Ko, 天気の子). Image Credit: Madman.

Review –

Oh wow, just wow. I have seen a lot of films in my time, and a lot of animated films, but rarely do they have moments that just take my breath away. Today we get to take a look at a film that does just that by exploring a new world and mythology that might not be as familiar to people.

So to set the scene, we open in on Hina (Nana Mori) as she holds the hand of her mother in the hospital. Outside is nothing but rain, with the weather matching her life at that moment. But out of the corner of her eye, she sees one ray of sunshine and she runs to it. About a year later Hodaka (Kotaro Daigo) arrives by boat to Tokyo, he has run away from home and is looking for a new life in the big city. But life is tough and he ends up on the street where he relents and starts working for Keisuke Suga (Shun Oguri) who runs an occult magazine of dubious quality. However, while working he hears of a girl that can bring the sun, which given that it has already rained for a month is something that a lot of people are interested in.    

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