Eijanaika/ええじゃないか

Eijanaika (ええじゃないか) is a historical film with the setting right before the Meiji Restoration in 1868. The politics was in a turmoil, because of the changes in the social and economical structures. In this film, the protogonist was Genji and his wife Ine. Genji was a Japanese that had a ship wreck six years prior to the beginning of the film. He was rescued by American sailors, and lived in the United States for several years. He came back to Japan, have plans to take Ine, his wife, to the United States with him. Ina, originally thought Genji had died, was sold by her brother and father to a rich daimyo, Kinzo. Since then, she had lived as a prostitute and entertainer in Edo.

Genji believed that he could live a free farmer in the United States. He tried hard to persuade Ine to go to the United States with him, but Ine, believe that Japan was her homeland, was not willing to go to United States with Genji.

Genji had picked up some American values when he lived in the United States, such as equality between people (Japan was feudalism at that time, where commoners had to obey the samurais and daimyos). Because of political instability, the food price had surged, and many people were fed up on how rich some of the merchants had became. Genji and his brother-in-law led a group of protesters and started to destroy the houses of the merchants. They tried to hide in their old village but someone in the group betrayed them by telling the soldiers of their hiding place. Genji's brother-in-law was killed by the soldiers.

Some of the villagers started to dislike Genji, because they felt that he was an American, instead of a Japanese. Genji fought back on the village chief when the chief tried to talk to him. Because of that, Genji had a criminal record and was not able to go back to the United States. He was stuck in Japan, taking odd jobs from Kinzo, not realizing that Kinzo had other ideas in his mind.

Near the last scene when Genji organized the dance

Near the end of the film, Genji organized a group of jobless people, and formed a large group of protesters-dancers that wanted to march to the Imperial Palace in Edo. Ginzo was ordered to stop the crowd with a group of soldiers, but he did not fire. That was shown to the other daimyos as a sign of weakness. Because weakness was not tolerated in Japanese society, the other daimyos killed him with a firing squad, along with Genji.

Visitor Q

What can I say about this film? This film will probably end up as the weirdest film I've seen in 2009. Visitor Q is directed by Miike Takashi, a renowned Japanese director known for his violent, highly controversial movies.

On the surface, this film will never be appreciated by the public because of its incest, murderous, druggy, sexual, violent content. Out of the six major characters in the film (Yamazaki family, The Visitor, and , four of them were in nudity for more than a brief period. Drug uses, mutilation of dead bodies were portrayed throughout the entire film and certainly Visitor Q is not something for kids.

Under the surface, the film talks about the very commonly seen issue of Japanese society: the lack of bondings between family members. The Yamazaki family was a family that had their issues: the father was a hard working reporter that was sexually abused by street bullys, when he was trying to report a news story; the mother was a drug (possibly heroin) addict that was bullied all the time by her son; the daughter was a high school student that sells her body for money, and she did not mind who the customers are, as long as she gets paid; the son was probably as junior high students who is heavily bullied in school and took his frustration on him mother.

The film began when the father and his daughter were in a love hotel. The father wanted to film a documentary about the prostitution problem of high school girls. He recorded the whole period of the sexual engage. Even though he was trying to resist his sexual temptation, but could not resist the seduction of his teenage daughter and the two had sex. After he paid for sex and ready to go home, he was hit on the back of his head by a mysterious person, known as the Visitor. Then the setting switched to Yamazaki's home, where the mother was whipped by the son, because she bought him an "ugly" toothbrush. The father brought the Visitor home as a guest and the Visitor changed the fate of the whole family...

Takashi probably wanted to talk about the "reunion" of the family by the Visitor. The Visitor was seen holding a camcorder all the time and filmed most of the events from the family members. Visitor's departure at the end of the film symbolized that the Visitor had fixed the family's issue and he was no longer needed to be with the Yamazaki family. For example, the father and mother were happy as a newly wed couple when they helped each other to dispose of the dead body of the father's female co-worker. The mother was much more happier after she was able to lactate from her nipples. This probably meant that the mother had returned to her role, from a heroin addict to the matriarch of the family. The father was able to returned to the role of a father after he decided to kill the bullies that haunted her son. He changed his role from an observer to a father whose main responsiblity is to protect the members of his family. By killing the bulies, the son was freed from bullies and he could concentrate to play his role as a member of his family: to study hard for a good, reputable high school. The visitor was probably an "invinsible fellow" who guided the family back to how it was supposed to be.

I have to warn, this film is only for mature audience only, due to its gore, disgusting content. However, those contents were treated with light msuic, and the effect was that it became more like a black comedy by suggesting the audience not to take those content literally. The film is not for those people does not like to think when they watch films and will take every single content literally. Remember, this is just a movie, so do not take its contents too literally and start to condemn in its moral issues. Finally, even though this is a heck of a strange film, it is deserved to be watched. 7.5/10

Okuribito (Departures)

Okuribito is a Japanese film that is known for the "Best Foreign Film" in 2009's Academy Award. After hearing the film from a friend, I've decided to take a shot. This is a film about an introverted married man named Daigo Kobayashi (played by Masahiro Motoki) pursuing his life long dream. After Daigo felt he failed as a celloist, he decided to move from Tokyo to Yamagata, where he grew up in. After realizing that Yamagata was a hard place to find a job, he saw the ad from a newspaper and interviewed for a job that he thought he would become a travel agent, but only end up as an encoffiner, a job that takes care of the funeral service. Although it is a relatively high paying job, it is considered as a dirty job in Japan (from the reaction of Mika and Yamashita), as death is considered a taboo in most Asian countries. This film is loosely based on an autobiography from Aoki Shinmon, a real-life encoffiner who wrote a book about his job.

The thing I like about this film was the idea of making a film that talks about people after their lives. As death is considered a taboo and dirty in most Asian countries, the film gave another perspective to audience how people view the death of their love ones. The film also talked about how conservative people are, when Daigo's old friend and wife, Yamashita and Mika, felt the job Daigo has was not a "real" job that normal people should have. Daigo felt happy and satisfaction when he noticed the death's relative gave gratitude of his work. He realized death is a part of life for everyone, and it should treated respectively.

I found Mika's role (played by Ryoko Hirosue) kind of boring in the beginning, because she was opposed to Daigo's job, probably afraid to the fact that Daigo would be discriminted by other people, or that she could not accept a husband that has a "dirty job". She was basically an obedient house wife that tried her best to make her husband happy, as her own happiness comes from Daigo. At first, she could not accept Daigo's job, until Tsuyako died in the bath house. From that point she started to understand Daigo's feeling about the job. Her support has made Daigo open his heart to other her, as he felt that he has something to be proud of. There is a lot of stuff that I did not talk about, you should go watch the film if you are interested. (7.8/10)

Review on Noriko's Dinner Table

After watching Suicide Club, I have decided to watch its spin-off film directed by the same director, Sion Sono. Unlike the "action-filled" Suicide Club, Noriko's Dinner Table was a lot different as the only thing that two films had in common was that Noriko's Dinner Table was looselybased on the mass suicide event in Suicide Club.

The films' main protangist, Noriko was a normal high school girl who was living a normal life in Toyokawa, Japan. She found her life boring and meaningless in the countryside of Japan. She did not have a boyfriend and she had an authoritian father that tried to tell lecture her in a way that she did not like. She seemed to live in a life that forced herself to be a happy normal girl but she was more adventurous than that. Her boredom with her life led her to make internet friends through the computers in school. She eventually ran away from home to Tokyo, hoping to persue a happy life.

I would not like to spoil the rest of the plot as it was unpredictable and I would certainly like you to enjoy the film yourself. Noriko's Dinner Table went more depth than Suicide Club as it talked about the lack of communications between family members, lonely teenagers, and lonely elders that could spend much time with their family. The film was very emotional as both daughters showed different attitude toward their father when they reunioned. The ending was not told explicitly and was left for the audience to speculate.

The film was a good example to show the hidden bomb behind a seemingly-happy family. Tetsuzo was a responsible and protective father on the surface. He loved his family so much that he moved into a peaceful place in Toyokawa. The film showed its sacarsm when Tetsuzo neglected his daughters' feeling and eventually cause them to runaway from home. The peaceful place of Toyokawa was the boring place that caused his daughters to runaway. This problems in the film are realistic to the problems in Japan. Japanese men usually work for long hours and are only able to spent little time toward their family. As a result many Japanese teens are emotionally distant with their father. I would definite this film to those who are interested in psychological films and films that reflect family problems. 7.5/10