Watched December 18 - December 24, 2006

Nothing seen.

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  We love Bae Doo-na; how 'bout you? by Kevin B. Lee and Michael Kerpan Kevin's note from 2008:  Michael Kerpan  informs me that the 2006 article he and I had hocked unsuccessfully around the film magazine circuit before finding a home at  Subway Cinema  is no longer on Subway's site. So I'm re-adopting it here for anyone's enjoyment This article dates from before the release of  The Host  (which didn't offer the big breakthrough role we were hoping it would for lovely Doo-na, but was a thrilling movie all the same). Michael can probably fill us in on our lady's career since then (I haven't seen or heard anything in the past year)... My note from now:  I can't find this on Kevin's archived site any longer.  So, I'm posting it here, to preserve in the event of a hard drive crash.  We were proud of this at the time -- even if it is now quite out of date. “ Like a rat I want to be beautiful Because there is a beauty that cannot be photographed.”
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Watched November 13 - 19, 2006

Chiyari Fuji / A Bloody Spear on Mount Fuji (Tomu Uchida, 1955) Uchida's comeback film (after a long period of self-imposed exile in Manchuria and serious health problems) was produced by his long-time friends and colleagues Yasujiro Ozu, Hiroshi Shimizu and Daisuke Ito. This humanistic, revisionist samurai film looks back to the work of Sadao Yamanaka and forward to the recent work of Yoji Yamada. In my opinion it is a masterpiece. Kojuro (Eijiro Kataoka) is a good-hearted, but undisciplined young samurai on a mission to deliver a tea bowl to Tokyo for his clan lord. He is traveling there, along the Tokaido Road, with his two retainers -- his lance bearer, the middle-aged Gonpachi (Chiezo Kataoka), and his aide Genta (Daisuke Kato). Along the way, they encounter people of every rank -- and even pick up some traveling companions (including an young orphaned boy and a traveling musician with her little daughter). They have various adventures, ranging from comic (a group of noble
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Tennen kokekkô / A Gentle Breeze in the Village (Nobuhiro Yamashita, 2007)

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Seen in early January 2008 The Japanese title of Yamashita's new films seems to translate to "natural cockle-doodle-doo". Although about the first thing one hears in the film is a rooster crowing (and we do see chickens from time to time), the significance of the title is not especially clear to me. The film (based on a popular shoujo manga) is set in Shimane Prefecture (the second least populous prefecture of Japan). Clearly built in the post-war baby boom era, the combined grade school and middle school now has less than 10 students -- and is probably reaching the end of its days. The films primary focus is on the oldest student in the school, Soyo (played by Kaho ) now in ninth grade. While she has had friends in lower grades, she has never had a classmate in her own grade. At least, never until the start of the film -- when a newcomer from Tokyo (who has family ties to the village) arrives as a transfer student. Most of the focus of this slow-moving and sweet
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