Japanese Cinema Recommendations

[Leonard Haid]

The last Japanese film I watched was Cold Fish.

It was an excessively depressing and violent film...

Yes and yes, but still an excellent film.

 

[zapataxiv]

im so proud of sherdog today
so many of my beloved films on display, even the bad sleep well (frenchchefs kiss-all toungue )
some bangers that havent been mentioned
Blues Harp
The Bird People in China
departures

somebody mentioned Charisma by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
i cant express how much this movie means to me. it's personal.
but it so quirky
i believe it should be seen, at least once, to have the experience.
also once mentioned but often overlooked is Vital -directed by Tsukamoto and starring Asano. another fantastic movie that is supremely weird. A genius med student works on the cadavar of his one true love

 

[MLarson]

This is for all the best Japanese movies in general. I just read Tarantino mention Battle Royale so I'm thinking of buying it, these are all the Japanese movies I currently have on disc, what greats am I missing?

Drunken Angel 48
Stray Dog 49
Rashoman 50
Ikiru 52
Ugetsu 53
The Seven Samurai 54
Sansho the Bailiff 54
The Samurai Trilogy 54-56
The Lower Depths-Kurosawa 57
Throne of Blood 57
The Hidden Fortress 58
The Bad Sleep Well 60
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs 60
Yojimbo 61
Cushingura 62
Sanjuro 62
Hara Kiri 62
High and Low 63
Kwaidan 64
Onibaba 64
Red Beard 65
The Sword of Doom 66
Samurai Rebellion 67
Kuroneko 68
Lone Wolf and Cub Movies 72-74
Lady Snowblood I & II 73-74
Derzu Uzala 75
Kagemusha 80
Shogun (Miniseries) 80
Ran 85
Akira 88
Grave of Fireflies 88
Princess Mononoke 97
Spirited Away 01
The Tale of The Princess Kaguya 13

Wasn't Hidden Fortress the inspiration for Star Wars?

 

[MLarson]

How about Sonny Chiba's Street Fighter and Zatoichi series?

Are they good?

 

[Nizam al-Mulk]

How about Sonny Chiba's Street Fighter and Zatoichi series?

Are they good?

If you like movies from that era they are good. Zatoichi can get a bit repetitive with similar movies.

With Street Fighter if you hate borderline bad guy / bad guy potags you might not like it.

 

[TheFakeMacoy]

Twilight Samurai (2002) is a good watch. It has Hiroyuki Sanada as a low ranking samurai as the era of samurai is ending.

 

[LangfordBarrow]

Wasn't Hidden Fortress the inspiration for Star Wars?

I think so, it's one of my favorites, waiting for my daughter to be old enough to watch it with her.

 

[LangfordBarrow]

How about Sonny Chiba's Street Fighter and Zatoichi series?

Are they good?

Criterion has the collection of the original Zatoichi films but some are better than others. At one point I started buying digital and have a later remake that I thought was pretty good. Here are some Japanese movies I have on digital that I didn't include in my list.

Shin Godzilla '16
Blade of the Immortal '17
The Naked Island '62
Zatoichi '04
13 Assassins '11

 

[LangfordBarrow]

Twilight Samurai (2002) is a good watch. It has Hiroyuki Sanada as a low ranking samurai as the era of samurai is ending.

I just noticed I had that one on my watch list when I was buying digital.

 

[Bullitt68]

Wasn't Hidden Fortress the inspiration for Star Wars?

I think so, it's one of my favorites, waiting for my daughter to be old enough to watch it with her.

Yep.

How about Sonny Chiba's Street Fighter and Zatoichi series?

Are they good?

If you like movies from that era they are good. Zatoichi can get a bit repetitive with similar movies.

With Street Fighter if you hate borderline bad guy / bad guy potags you might not like it.

To add to what Nizam said, watching the Zatoichi movies is like watching a dramatic series like Law & Order or The Mentalist: If you like the characters and you like the formula, you'll enjoy all the "episodes" with specific "cases." It's what you'd call formulaic but not necessarily in a bad way, just in a descriptive way. And that's why I singled out the novelty installments like when Toshiro Mifune and Wang Yu come through. But even if you don't watch all of them, I'd definitely recommend the first few and the "special guest" ones.

As for Sonny Chiba's Street Fighter films, those are legitimately terrible movies, but they're fun. Bad writing, bad acting. B-movie fare all the way. Chiba is also so cartoonishly over-the-top with his terrible martial arts that it feels at times like he thinks he's in a Kung Pow!-esque spoof and no one told him that they were actually trying to make straight dramatic actioners. But they're iconic and The Street Fighter especially is worth seeing for its twist on the Hong Kong kung fu movie.

 

[shunyata]

Missing the whole Zatoichi catalog.

 

[GSP_37]

Tried to watch Shin Godzilla but had to turn it off after a few minutes since I didn't like the frantic herky jerky way they presented the story with the short clips and unusual zoom aways. It was also one of those movies/shows that didn't really immediately hook you in.