japanese movies

Clyde Mulroney Patrick Noonan Japanese Cinema II 5/1/2020 Fireworks: Expressions of Pain through Violence and Paint Kitano Takeshi’s acclaimed Hana Bi is one of the stranger movies I have seen in a long time. The first words that come to mind when describing this movie are that it held an aura   both ominous and almost confusing. From the outset, we are already met with not one but two near-speechless protagonists, a violent detective, Nishi, and a now paralyzed one, Horibe, who both are now caught in the serious throws of self-doubt and depression after narrowly escaping a shootout with their lives. The majority of the director’s filmmaking perspective is from the eyes of Nishi, but he makes very clear to compare and even mirror these two men all the time to show that they are part of the same force of good, hope, and beauty, even with Nishi’s habit of violence. The cerebral and ethereal aspects of this movie's visual style and temporality through montage serve to p

The protagonists of  Cruel Story of Youth , Kiyoshi and Mako, represent a vast population of Japanese youth following the Second World War. This youthful strife was attributed greatly to a newfound generational gap and sense of democracy following the war. The now reckless and confused urban youth was on full display beginning in the 1950s, and the image was not one of composure and conservatism as it was with the previous generation. These kids wear their pain on their sleeves, setting them drastically apart from the generation above them. They see themselves as true victims, even if that is never expressed directly in the movie – though they are victims of a chaotic and transforming society, they inevitably victimize those they are closest to. The pain felt by Mako and Kiyoshi, among others, is more often than not expressed in abuse and manipulation of each other. However, Oshima makes a clear distinction here between gender roles in this pattern of abuse: not once do we see Mako or

Yoshimitsu Morita's classic fifth picture, Family Game, displays a profound, extreme sense of rigor and organization in family life in postwar Japan. It accomplishes this satirical and comedic feat through stylistic and narrative elements, making a mockery of the "interdependency" – as Keiko McDonald writes – of education and home life during this era in Japan. Stylistically, the movie uses many techniques that clearly mock the very structure that the family, and thus the film, is based on. Specifically even, symmetrical, and organized camera angles make one feel as if they are trapped within this cycle of pressure and overbearing control. Similarly, Morita uses zooms when focusing on the protagonist, the younger brother of the family in focus, to further this sense of entrapments and distinguish his mindset from that of the rest of the family. The protagonist is a failing student whose progress and accomplishments are continuously dwarfed by those of his overachieving

One aspect of this movie that struck me almost immediately is the director's focus on race relations in both Japan and the United States; he accomplishes this in a very unique fashion. Sato is able to contrast the experiences of both Black and Japanese people in regards to their subjugation at the hands of "the man" – militarized, policing white people. He accomplishes this most effectively through his examination of both police departments in New York and in Tokyo. Each department handles the crimes committed in the film in a very different manner. In Tokyo, there is a large meeting between all those detectives involved in the case regarding the murder of Johhny, whereas in New York, the one detective assigned to the case couldn't care less about it nor could his commanding officer. Even in Japan, the life of a Black person is taken more seriously than in the United States, where there are far more Black people. However, Black people are not the only marginalized g