Re-Wind (Hisayasu Sato, 1988)

For Adults Only

If Peeping Tom and Videodrome and Don't Torture a Duckling had a bastard child this might be the sleazy result. 

The plot hinges around a series of snuff videotapes circulating Tokyo's underworld, and both a private investigator and the janitor in a porn video arcade are obsessed with discovering the source. But that's not the film's priority, which seems twofold, pretentious and prehensile both: to indulge the filmmaker's obsessions, which include celebrating his influences (Powell's vivd color palette, Cronenberg's body horror) and attempting to transcend them without a comparable budget; and adhering to the strict conditions of the genre's format-- a sexual encounter every ten minutes, a precisely titrated amount of gore, and (above all) no genital exposure.

That lack of a real budget is frustrating. The videos themselves when viewed aren't all that transgressive with POV footage recording fuzzy imagery and some clumsily executed onscreen mutilation (there's a bowl of spaghetti however that's bluntly effective, easily the most horrifying shock cut in the picture). The sex is more entertaining, and the fact that Sato has to come up with something kinky with the actors not exposing their crotch or even shedding their underwear becomes a real challenge-- just how much pleasure can you get out of sucking at an erection through cottonwear?

The cumulative blueball feel does get to you-- at a certain point you find yourself fastforwarding to the more interesting-looking stuff and rewinding to make sure you've squeezed out all the juices; you also, I suspect, find yourself more susceptible to Sato's more incidental effects. Perhaps his most satisfying moments aren't the scenes of extensive skin contact (or rather skin-through-silk contact), or the faintly risible sight of the killer swinging a spring-loaded knife mounted on a video camera mounted on a tripod like an ax (the weapon seems more threatening when the metal-tipped tripod legs are used as a spear) but the transitional images, the gliding shots through ultramodern cityscapes to end at a chainlink fence, behind which we see an abandoned fridge door gaping wide, inside of which lies a severed hand clutching a videotape (might as well throw in Bunuel as one of the director's sublimated heroes). Perhaps my favorite is a nothing image, a throwaway shot of buildings standing against brilliant sky, the harsh sunlight flagellated by tree branches in a stiff wind. Light me a cigarette, honey, I could use the postcoital smoke. 

(Postscript: pause before the rabbit hole and enter at your own risk. Turns out Criterion Channel only showed one of Sato's more palatable films, and if you do a little googling to specific websites you can see his darker (if still genre-constricted-- no genitals!) work, some of them unabashedly queer. Secret Garden (1987) is a neat reworking of The Story of O with payback ending ingeniously appended, and Silencer Made of Glass is a lurid bit of sadomasochism with flash suppressor attached. Nothing wishy-washy here, only fetishes and fixations being thoroughly indulged)

Cloud (Kuraudo, Kurosawa Kiyoshi, 2024)

Psychospace

I thought Weapons-- Zach Cregger's brilliantly structured supernatural thriller about seventeen children running out their front doors and vanishing into the night-- was hot shit, arguably the best horror of 2025; along comes Kurosawa Kiyoshi saying "hold my beer."

Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)

Burning down the house

Been years since I saw Akira Kurosawa's Ran (1985) and decades since I saw it projected (an unimpressive 16 mm print in an improvised theater). Watching the 2016 4K UHD restoration on the big screen forty years after its premiere is like watching a storm surge approach shore: you're confronted with an unstoppable wall stretching from end to end, and you're not sure whether to run (where to?) or fall on your knees in worship. 

And then you realize, after so many viewings, like a shock of saltwater to the face: damn, but this film is funny.

High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963)

Heaven and hell

Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (1963) may not be on the level of Seven Samurai but it is a great crime thriller, perhaps one of the greatest.

The Munekata Sisters (Munekata Shimai, Yasujiro Ozu, 1950)

Sister act

Ozu working for another studio?! The idea seems unheard of, like the director doing a film noir or shooting an explicitly erotic scene. But in fact Ozu's done at least one gangster flick (Dragnet Girl) and three films outside of Shochiku, of which this one was the first (the other two were his 1951 remake Floating Weeds and his second-to-the-last The End of Summer (1961)). As for The Munekata Sisters, Shintoho studios-- basically 'New Toho,' as the actors there had defected from the old studio due to labor disputes-- needed reputable directors and lured Ozu away by offering him more money: 50 million yen, or $140,000 1950 dollars (around $1.8 million today).

Utamaro and his Five Women (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1946) in 35 mm

Immortal beloved 

(Warning: plot twists explicitly discussed in detail)

Utamaro and His Five Women begins with a procession-- the camera gliding past men and women in elaborate kimonos with umbrellas held up like banners; cherry blossoms lining the boulevard, arthritic branches holding up tufts of cottony blossoms that suggest a startling depth (you're reminded of Max Fleischer's stereoptical experiments in Popeye). The procession drones on, the men stride forward, the women-- those perched on wooden clogs-- take huge circling steps, their heads bobbing up and down in sinuous waves. It's a fantastic throwaway gesture of virtuosity, as if Mizoguchi had decided to pick up the baton and conduct a warmup passage. 

Evil Does Not Exist (Aku wa Sonzai Shinai, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2023)

Evil never dies

Rysuke Hamaguchi's Evil Does Not Exist grew out of a collaborative project with his longtime composer Eiko Ishibashi, who had asked for a film to accompany her live concerts. The concert film-- GIFT-- ended up running seventy-four minutes long; the source footage however apparently took root in Hamaguchi's head and sprouted into a 106 minute film (relatively short for Hamaguchi-- Drive My Car was 179 minutes and Happy Hour 317 minutes) that Hamaguchi released as a separate but not necessarily independent feature.  

The Boy and the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki, 2023)

Angry birds

Both a pain and a pleasure to write about a new Hayao Miyazaki film-- a pleasure because for some three years after the man's previous last film it looked as if he had really retired and for seven years after looked as if he'd never finish the film before, well, you know. But finish he did, and now pain comes from the possibility this may really be his last-- he's 82, the picture certainly feels like a summation, and as high points go this as good as any to bow out on. 

The Wind Rises (Hayao Miyazaki, 2013)

Skyward bound 

(Warning-- article discusses Miyazaki's film (and his manga Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind) in some detail, including plot twists and surprises. 

In short-- see the film (maybe read the manga) first)

Can't help but feel a sharp pang watching The Wind Rises (2013), knowing this to be Hayao Miyazaki's last feature; can't help but see this as a valedictory work, a summing up of his thoughts and feelings about art and aviation and everything else at this point in his life. 

Godzilla Minus One (Takashi Yamazaki, 2023)

War Godzilla

Takashi Yamazaki's Godzilla Minus One is basically what you'd get if you made a Godzilla movie based on an actual script-- y'know, with a narrative arc populated by real characters having human interactions. Not a completely radical concept-- Ishiro Honda's Godzilla (1954) featured a love triangle between an embittered scientist, his fiancée, and a salvage ship captain-- but for perhaps the first time (or at least one of the rare times) since the original we have a storyline more compelling than just 'oversized radioactive reptile stomps Tokyo.' 

Cowboy Bebop (Shinichiro Watanabe, anime series 1998-1990)

Life is but a dream

(Story and plot twists discussed in explicit detail) 

Shinichiro Watanabe's Cowboy Bebop is I think a bit different from most anime out there ("I think" because anime has over thirty major genres, everything from horror to science fiction to fantasy to competitive Chinese cooking, and one makes a definitive statement at one's peril). Where most science-fiction action anime focus on a hero with a definite goal-- the destruction of an evil power, liberation of an oppressed society, or whatnot-- I can't think of an entire series devoted to the art of doing nothing, or at least as much of nothing as you possibly can.

Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0: Thrice Upon a Time (Hideaki Anno, 2021

End of everything

(Details of plot twists and narrative discussed in detail)

I remember my initial reaction to Neon Genesis Evangelion, from TV series to expanded film versions, ending with the assertion that Anno has "some growing up to do". I take back my dismissive attitude towards the TV finale--no matter how experimental End of Evangelion became (and it admittedly got pretty experimental with money to burn, a tribute to the financial success of the series) that finale only proved how truly radical the series was, almost entirely by accident (a combination of cost and time overruns plus Anno's own indecisiveness as to form)--I mean, an intricate narrative involving mechas that ends with neither mechas nor narrative but a group session in a high school gym? It wasn't fair to viewers (Who shot Kaji? Why kidnap Kozo? What happened to NERV, or for that matter the rest of humanity?) but definitely wasn't run-of-the-mill.  

Kurosawa Kiyoshi: Three Films (Cure, Charisma, License to Live)

Zen and the art of horror filmmaking

The runaway success of Hideo Nakata's Ringu (Ring, 1998) in Manila shows there's an audience for stylish horror out there--the film has been frightening audiences since December, easily outgrossing the poorly made (if more expensive) American remake, with a sequel poised to scare up even more money. Now that we've proven we can appreciate more sophisticated terrors, are we ready for something a little more...well, disturbing?

A Silent Voice (Naoko Yamada, 2016)

Deaf note

(by Alex Vera and Noel Vera)

Naoko Yamada’s A Silent Voice is about bullying the disabled, in this case a boy named Shoya bullying a deaf girl named Shoko, a practice few people have heard of outside Japan. Officially laws prohibit it, unofficially it’s an open secret; Yoshitoki Ooima’s original manga experienced immediate blowback--apparently this is dirty laundry people didn’t want aired. 

Japan Sinks (Masaaki Yuasa, 2020)

Japan rises

Once again Masaaki Yuasa put out an anime series (Japan Sinks 2020, available on Netflix--actually his second after the delightful Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!) and once again he flouts the expectations of both fans of his work and fans of disaster movies. This time though Yuasa may have fashioned not just a quietly subversive disaster epic but the fictional narrative summing up our feelings about this disaster of a year 2020.

Where the source novel (by Sakyo Komatsu) focused on government efforts to cope with the cataclysm Yuasa (with co-director Pyeon-gang Ho and writer Toshio Yoshitaka adapting) focuses on the common folk struggling to stay alive. Where the novel had mostly Japanese characters the series makes an effort to include a more diversified cast: wife and mother Mari Muto is from Cebu, Philippines; popular YouTube celebrity KITE is from Estonia; hitchhiker and amateur magician Daniel is from Kosovo; submarine pilot turned research scientist Onodera--who predicted Japan's downfall--is a paraplegic (a source of unspoken embarrassment in everyday Japanese society). 

Kaiba (Anime TV series, Masaaki Yuasa)

Total recall

Calling Masaaki Yuasa the new Miyazaki would sound tired, not to mention inaccurate--he's a little wilder, a little less restrained; calling him Makoto Shinkai's contemporary would be unfair--he's so much better (more subtle less sentimental) than the blockbuster director of Your Name and Weathering With You.

Late Spring (Banshun, Yasujiro Ozu, 1949)

Father knows best

(Warning-- plot details openly discussed. If you haven't seen this (and An Autumn Afternoon) see em first!)

September 19 marks 70 years since Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring (Banshun) was released in 1949-- the first entry in his 'Noriko Trilogy' (quintessential Ozu muse Setsuko Hara playing a character named Noriko) and generally considered the first masterpiece of his final period (rigorous pared-down style, softspoken focus on domestic tensions).

Kuroneko (Black Cat, Kaneto Shindo, 1968)

Catspaw

Kaneto Shindo's Kuroneko (Black Cat, 1968) is a horror film whose single most horrifying act occurs in the opening minutes. 

A hut surrounded by a grove of great wavering bamboo; a band of men stepping out of the treeline to approach the hut. The men enter, see two women huddled by a fire. Their eyes meet; the men step forward.

Shoplifters ( Manbiki Kazoku, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2018)

Family business

Hirokazu Kore-eda's film begins with as unremarkable an opening as possible: a father and his son enter a grocery split up to walk down separate aisles. Only father and son keep throwing each other sidelong glances and hand signals; only son does a little finger twiddle that we'll see from time to time; only when a clerk working nearby glances at son father walks up to block the clerk's view while son drops several packets of instant ramen in his backpack. Graceful bit of choreography made casual by long practice, understated yet captivating in its intricacy.

Mary and the Witch's Flower (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2017)

Reprise

Here's a pretty pickle: how do you follow after the work of arguably one of the greatest animated studios in recent decades? With the retirement of Hayao Miyazaki and the shuttering of Studio Ghibli (actually old news: he has come out of retirement and the studio has since unshuttered) many of the people who worked there have established their own outfit, Studio Ponoc, and this film--Mary and the Witch's Flower (Meari to Majo no Hana) helmed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi (When Marnie Was There, Secret World of Arrietty) is their debut offering.

On first glance you'd think they simply stepped right into the problem: the opening is an escape as wordless and thrilling as the opening of Castle in the Sky: young girl cradling some blue and precious object flies away in a broom stick, closely pursued by creatures not unlike the glutinous henchmen in Howl's Moving Castle (Miyazaki among other obsessions has his gleefully scatological side); an explosion of unknown origin the broom blown out of control the girl plummets to an unknown fate below.