The Great Nipponese Subtitle Challenge: Day 1

So, I’ve been in Japan a while now, and despite my love of films, I’ve watched a shockingly paltry amount of the local offerings. In the past nine months, I’ve probably watched less than five Japanese movies. Rather disgraceful.

Of course, one of the main issues here is that DVDs of local movies don’t actually have English subtitles, and with my Japanese not exactly stellar, we hit something of a wall.

But to the challenge: The internet, as we all know, is host to pretty much every film one could ever need (apart from Yoshihiro Hoshino’s Cho Kowai Hanashi, which I rather fancied this weekend, but couldn’t find ANYWHERE), and, when it comes to Asian movies, pretty much every language of subtitle one could wish for. So, having watched the delightful Suicide Club yesterday, I decided to set myself a challenge; one week of only Japanese films, thus hopefully improving not only my submersion into the culture, but also my listening skills.

The rules are simple; at least one film each day, each and every one being made in Japan and in Japanese language. Watching English language films during the next seven days deems the quest null and void. I have some classics picked out already, but if you, fair reader, have any recommendations, just let me know. Here’s the plan so far:

· Seven Samurai
· Ichi The Killer
· Godzilla (1954)
· Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance
· Happiness of the Katakuris
· 20th Century Boys
· Dark Water
· And, just ‘cause I love it, Battle Royale (again…)

Should we have time, I may also revisit some horror “classics” like Ring, Ju-on and Audition, and perhaps treat myself to some more light-hearted Miyazaki fun.

And so to day one, where we have two films, both great in their own way, one of which I’ve been wanting to watch for a long time, and the other I probably won’t be wanting to watch ever again.

Kyuketsu Shojo tai Shojo Furanken
Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl
(Yoshihiro Nishimura and Naoyuki Tomomatsu, 2009)

4.5 Stars

Japan is stupid. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way at all. In fact, I say it rather affectionately. Japanese humour is utterly daft, and their obsession with crazy schoolgirls is borderline weird. That said, when it comes to utterly insane comic book style action movies about schoolgirl vampires, only Japan could have ever come up with the awesome comedy gore-fest that is Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl.

Forget the mopey, whiny teen vamps that have been polluting our screens for all too long now, and make way for the delicious Yukie Kawamura, the “vampire girl” of the title. The new student at what has to be the weirdest school on the planet; a school where wrist cutting is a sporting event, and a group of students black up and walk around trying to be Michael Jackson, Monami the vampire (hehe... Mona the Vampire....) finds herself falling in love with school stud Jyugon (Takumi Saito).

However, when Jyugon’s would be girlfriend Keiko (played by painfully sexy Japanese model Eri Otoguro) discovers her new rival’s true identity, she accidentally throws herself off the school roof, giving her father (who rather inexplicably believes himself to be the grandson of Victor Frankenstein) the opportunity to try out his crazed research. Suffice to say, as you can guess by the title, there’s subsequently some serious monster smack-downs. On the top of Tokyo Tower. Naturally.

It’s stupid, and it’s totally cheesy, with some pretty awful special effects, but it knows it, and quite frankly, what do you expect from a film called Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl? On the positive side, this is one of the funniest, coolest and sexiest movies I’ve seen in a long time, and certainly runs rings around Western horror comedies. A great way to start the week of Japanese movies, and already vying for a place in my all-time top movies.

Nekeddo Buraddo: Megyaku
Splatter: Naked Blood
(Hisayasu Sato, 1995)

3 Stars

If there’s one thing Asian films are famous for, it’s their gut-wrenchingly high levels of gruesome gore that despite their bloody flow over here are generally far too sordid and taboo for Western audiences.

So, as a tentative step in my foray into Japanese cinema, I decided to go full out and throw myself in at the deep end with one of Japan’s most notoriously gory exploits, Hisayasu Sato’s 1995 blood-fest Nekeddo Burrado. Oh golly gosh.

Years earlier, Sato made his name in the exploitation industry with his 1987 film Rape: For Real, a tale of devilish debauchery the world had ne’er seen the likes of, and one that is still under international censorship to this day. Good times.

His 90’s venture is pretty grim, with some of the most nauseatingly realistic depictions of self-mutilation I think I’ve ever seen. The scene in which a young woman, driven mad by the pain-to-pleasure drug “MySon”, removes her own eyeball and proceeds to eat it gleefully is, to my recollection, the only scene in cinema that has ever actually made me feel physically sick. Exactly how it was done, I’m not sure, but it’s pretty darn convincing.

But I’m probably jumping ahead a little, so here’s a run down of the story; young genius Eiji Kure (played with a wonderful innocence by Sadao Abe) concocts a formula that can convert feelings of sadness or pain into joy, with which he hopes to end world suffering. Unfortunately, the drug has somewhat psychotic side-effects, driving his test subjects insane with ecstasy, causing one, in a scene rather reminiscent of many of Takeshi Miike’s films, to turn herself into a human pincushion. The second, as I have mentioned, literally eats herself to death, whilst the third becomes a psychotic serial killer, relishing in the pain of others. It’s all good fun.

Behind all the grotesque, however, there is a rather smart existential message about not only the dangers of “world changing” ideals, but the lengths the human race goes to for pleasure. At least I think there is. If not, it’s just a bloody grim piece of exploitation. I’ll leave it to you to decide. If you can stomach it.