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Posts Tagged ‘Japanese cinema’

HiGH&LOW: The Movie

Tuesday, March 16th, 2021

“Even scumbags like us could change the future!”

I bet some of you are way ahead of me on HiGH&LOW, and some of you will be hearing of it for the first time here. Either way I’m excited for us to talk about it. No, this is not related to the Akira Kurosawa classic, and I’m honestly not sure what the title even means. But it it’s how they’ve labelled what Wikipedia describes as an “action media franchise” that has been going on in Japan since 2015. I never heard peep of it until the always with-it Twitter-er @HeadExposure raved about it in August.

You can check out that thread for an explanation and some clips, but I’ll try to sum up my understanding from having watched one movie so far. It’s kind of a fun challenge – I feel like one of those people trying to wrap their head around the FAST & FURIOUS series or Marvel or Star Wars way after the fact.

I believe it was always planned to turn into a movie series, but the story began on TV with HiGH&LOW: The Story of S.W.O.R.D., which lasted for two seasons. Those characters and storylines continued into this movie, which has since had two sequels, three spin-offs, a TV comedy series spin-off and an anime. (The movies, but not the other stuff, are all available on Netflix.)

The part that’s definitely way beyond my understanding is that it was created by a former pop star called Exile Hiro, from a group called Exile, and many of the gangs in the movie are various boy bands/music acts that are part of “The Exile Tribe,” so they have albums and tours and stuff related to this franchise. It kind of seems like if the Back Street Boys had an extended family like the Wu-Tang Clan except way bigger and then they all learned martial arts and made violent action movies together. Or is it more like if everyone in the FAST & FURIOUS movies did a concert tour together? I don’t know, but to quote Marge Simpson, “Music is none of my business.” (read the rest of this shit…)

Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance

Wednesday, May 1st, 2019

Recently Kazuo Koike passed away of pneumonia at the age of 82. A legendary and prolific manga writer, Koike’s comics were the basis of several movies I’ve reviewed: HANZO THE RAZOR: SWORD OF JUSTICE, LADY SNOWBLOOD, THE DRAGON FROM RUSSIA, CRYING FREEMAN, and most famously the LONE WOLF AND CUB series (for which he was also a screenwriter). I love his stories, which often combine interesting historical detail with colorful pulp concepts, and are always centered on characters who live casually, confidently extreme lives. Though some are hired killers and outlaws bitter toward a society that has betrayed and rejected them, they live by codes of honor that frequently lead them to fighting for the oppressed against the cruel and the corrupt. This is definitely the case in LOVE SONG OF VENGEANCE, the only sequel to LADY SNOWBLOOD. Criterion released the pair as a set a couple years ago and this sad occasion finally inspired me to pick it up. (read the rest of this shit…)

Kagemusha

Tuesday, December 8th, 2015

tn_kagemushalucasminusstarwarsIn 1980, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola presented a film by Akira Kurosawa, KAGEMUSHA. It opens with a five minute static shot of three almost identical looking characters sitting in a throne room in their fancy robes, two of them talking about the other one. You got the emperor Shingen there in the middle and his brother is on his right telling him about the guy on his left, how he spotted this petty thief about to be executed and noticed that he looked like the emperor and would make a good double for him. Sure enough he’s a dead ringer. It’s a real good find, this could work out great, right? But the double is kind of belligerent and crazy, and also he very reasonably chafes at the idea of being called a criminal by a guy who has killed thousands in wars and executions.

Maybe with some training though?

I guess people compare KAGEMUSHA to that movie DAVE, where Kevin Klein is a lookalike who has to replace the president, but I haven’t seen that one, so I’ll compare it to FACE/OFF, where a cop pretends to be a criminal? I don’t know. Anyway, the job gets more serious when the emperor gets hit by a sniper and before dying makes his boys promise to keep his death a secret for three years. I didn’t get this at first, but I think it’s because his heir is his grandson, a little boy. Gotta let him grow up to be at least 7 or 8 before tossing him in the deep end. (read the rest of this shit…)