殺しのブルース
Wow, my last post really took off. And yes, LJ has a Repost feature, don't you guys follow news? *sigh* kids today .... (Reposting was re-released back in June, but I'm pretty sure it's been around longer than that).
ANYWAY.
What I really meant to post about back when these LJ news hit me, was about my latest Cinemateket adventures. The Nikkatsu celebrations are not over, so Christian and I went and saw two more films; Love Hotel, and Branded to Kill.
I was kind of excited about Love Hotel .... until I read Cinemateket's description. For those unfamiliar, a love hotel in Japan is a hotel where you can rent a room by the hour ... no further explanation needed. These hotels are typically known to feature elaborately themed rooms and other weird things so that people can get their ... fun on. So of course, I figured this film would surely feature a love hotel of some sort, right? Lots of playful sexiness, surely?
Wrong.
So that was disappointing. It was interesting to get a peek into a whole genre of films that I've previously been oblivious of, though (and it might just be a Japanese phenomenon). Nikkatsu had a whole series of films that they dubbed ロマンポルノ (romance porn), basically soft porn for the big screen. In addition to belonging to this the genre, Love Hotel also breaks from the genre by not really being fapworthy. There was lots of naked skin and sex scenes, but also extremely tense and uncomfortable atmospheres, and (attempted) rape (which had a strange complexity to it, call girl with man who wants to "do something crazy before killing himself", man shows remorse and guilt and leaves before finishing what he started - the experience ended up saving the man's life, he didn't kill himself). So that was... intense. And definitely weird watching in a theatre filled with strangers. I had an old dude to the right of me eating oranges during the rape scene. I don't even know. I don't want to know.
Weirdly enough, Love Hotel drew the largest audience yet during this Nikkatsu celebration. I guess regular Cinemateket-goers are just a bunch of pervs. Hm. Noted for future adventures.
The soundtrack to this film was absolutely amazing, though. I'm going to have to track down some of these songs. But I wouldn't recommend this film. And I don't want to watch it again :|
Branded to Kill was a completely different matter. It's a surrealistic action thriller type deal following some yakuza hitmen. I've seen this film once before, but oddly enough the only thing I could remember was Joe Shishido and his near sexual obsession with cooked rice. True, that's in the film as well, but there is so much more. This film is absolutely worth a watch if you're at all interested in... films 8D
I've also come to realise that Joe Shishido is on my very short list of weirdly attractive people. My list goes:
Steve Buscemi
Joe Shishido
... I mean, they look weird, but I still totally would.
For those unfamiliar with Joe Shishido, here he is:
He had plastic surgery done to make his cheeks look like that (so that he would have an interesting face and be offered more acting parts), he's starred in some 300 films, and is known in Japan as Joe the Ace.
ANYWAY.
What I really meant to post about back when these LJ news hit me, was about my latest Cinemateket adventures. The Nikkatsu celebrations are not over, so Christian and I went and saw two more films; Love Hotel, and Branded to Kill.
I was kind of excited about Love Hotel .... until I read Cinemateket's description. For those unfamiliar, a love hotel in Japan is a hotel where you can rent a room by the hour ... no further explanation needed. These hotels are typically known to feature elaborately themed rooms and other weird things so that people can get their ... fun on. So of course, I figured this film would surely feature a love hotel of some sort, right? Lots of playful sexiness, surely?
Wrong.
So that was disappointing. It was interesting to get a peek into a whole genre of films that I've previously been oblivious of, though (and it might just be a Japanese phenomenon). Nikkatsu had a whole series of films that they dubbed ロマンポルノ (romance porn), basically soft porn for the big screen. In addition to belonging to this the genre, Love Hotel also breaks from the genre by not really being fapworthy. There was lots of naked skin and sex scenes, but also extremely tense and uncomfortable atmospheres, and (attempted) rape (which had a strange complexity to it, call girl with man who wants to "do something crazy before killing himself", man shows remorse and guilt and leaves before finishing what he started - the experience ended up saving the man's life, he didn't kill himself). So that was... intense. And definitely weird watching in a theatre filled with strangers. I had an old dude to the right of me eating oranges during the rape scene. I don't even know. I don't want to know.
Weirdly enough, Love Hotel drew the largest audience yet during this Nikkatsu celebration. I guess regular Cinemateket-goers are just a bunch of pervs. Hm. Noted for future adventures.
The soundtrack to this film was absolutely amazing, though. I'm going to have to track down some of these songs. But I wouldn't recommend this film. And I don't want to watch it again :|
Branded to Kill was a completely different matter. It's a surrealistic action thriller type deal following some yakuza hitmen. I've seen this film once before, but oddly enough the only thing I could remember was Joe Shishido and his near sexual obsession with cooked rice. True, that's in the film as well, but there is so much more. This film is absolutely worth a watch if you're at all interested in... films 8D
I've also come to realise that Joe Shishido is on my very short list of weirdly attractive people. My list goes:
Steve Buscemi
Joe Shishido
... I mean, they look weird, but I still totally would.
For those unfamiliar with Joe Shishido, here he is:
He had plastic surgery done to make his cheeks look like that (so that he would have an interesting face and be offered more acting parts), he's starred in some 300 films, and is known in Japan as Joe the Ace.