duncanstewartsblog

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I liked what you had to say about the reflection I've never thought about it that way but that makes complete sense but adds another level to the ending and the character itself.

Spirited Away (2001) by Miyazaki Hayao - Blog 23

Spirited Away (2001) by Miyazaki Hayao is a Japanese animated film produced by Studio Ghibli. The story begins with a little girl named Chihiro, who is traveling with her parents to a new home. They encounter a tunnel and explore through it. The parents turn into pigs as a consequence for eating Yubaba’s guests food. With the help of a mysterious boy, Haku, Chihiro becomes contracted with Yubaba in order to survive the spiritual world by working. She uses this opportunity to find a way to return her parents back to normal and return to their world. Towards the end of the movie, Haku is gravely injured from stealing from Yubaba’s twin sister, Zeniba, and Chihiro ventures by train with No Face, Bo, and Yu-bird to return Zeniba’s stolen good. Then, Haku goes to retrieve Chihiro and Bo after waking up from his short coma. At the end, Chihiro was able to break the contract, bid her farewells, and return home with her parents.

It was my first time watching Spirited Away. I remember vaguely that I might have watched it half way through when I was younger, but I believe it was because I did not understand the film as much compared to being older. So far, I really like the film’s storyline and the art. The music was nice along the way too. When Chihiro was going down the stairs to the boiler room, the moment she broke through the step, it gave me a big jumpscare. The encounters with the susuwatari were very cute. The way that they realized Chihiro could carry the heavy rocks for them was adorable. Despite their job being in possible risk, they quickly enjoyed Chihiro’s presents and defend her against Kamaji. After Chihiro started working, she has a few encounters with No-Face. My thoughts on No-face is he is like a lonely kid. He is always alone until he met Chihiro who showed him a small amount of kindness. Although it was a bit shocking to me to have seen the outcome of him after getting rejected by Chihiro, but watching him become back to normal and follow her just as he used to made me feel like things are getting back to normal again. 

There was one scene I thought was interesting. While Chihiro, No-face, Bo, and Yu-bird are on board the bus. There is one shot where you can see Chihiro facing the side against her reflection in the window. In her reflection, her eyes and skin looked empty. It looked like we were seeing her soul in the reflection, while she is manuevering her somewhat soulless body.  I am pretty content with the ending of Spirited Away. I would like to rewatch the Dub version sometimes eventually. It is not my first time watching a film produced by Studio Ghibli. My childhood favorite film produced by them is Ponyo. I’ve watched it in both dubbed and subbed. I am hoping to watch more of their films in both translations.

[duncanstewartsblog]

Spirited Away

When I entered into this class this was the film I was most excited about. I have already seen Spirited Away and I saw it during the pandemic and I loved it. Not my favorite Studio Ghibli film but still great nonetheless, it is very rare when I actually think one of their films is just okay. Especially not this one though being that it won the best animated feature oscar. The animation quality in this film is one of the best of all time because not only does it actually have something to say about consumerism but also it still shows the quality a film can have when you still draw the films we create. Nowadays we have been so accustomed to 3D animation which, don't get me wrong, is still good when done right but you can never go wrong with some good ol drawings. Going onto the side of consumerism, when I first watched the film I didn’t think much of it but now it is blatantly obvious how it is about this. With characters like that of No Face and the parents turning into pigs is just very obvious. These parents turn into pigs after consuming so much food at the shop and becoming almost grotesque and nowhere as similar looking to their daughter. The same goes for No Face where he seems to be this spirit that at first isn’t welcomed by really anyone but at the same time seems kind of normal and doesn’t cause any harm to our main character. But once they get to that scene of the spirit eating tons and tons of food makes them become once again this grotesque monster that tries to destroy everything around them. It just seems to play in of itself of greed and consumerism, with this constant image of turning into these grotesque monsters it’s obvious what the overall message for the film could be. That at a certain point is okay but when greed comes into play that’s when people start to get hurt and start hurting the ones around you. Lastly, the one thing I did want to mention about this film is just the genuine amount of inspiration this film holds in not animation but cinema in general. Not just from the character design of every single character but how the story itself doesn’t necessarily need to make sense. It's like what a lot of people say about these films and that is once again the beauty of it. They’re like dreams that a child would have where these characters all exist in the same world and that's just kind of unique where we don’t have to make sense of everything. We’re in a mystical world, let's just live in it. 

Grade: A+

[duncanstewartsblog]

I thought the sets were also very cool and some of the shots were genuinely so beautiful and they were kind of like paintings. So cool and stoic at the same time, glad you noticed this too.

Sukiyaki Western Django (2007) by Takashi Miike - Blog 22

Sukiyaki Western Django (2007) by Takashi Miike is a western and action film. It is played in the English language in a Western-styled Japan. The story revolves between two warring clans, the Heike and Genji, also known as the Reds and Whites. Amidst the turmoil, a lone traveling gunman meets both sides and rejects their requests for him to join them. Eventually he is taken in by Ruriko and later he meets Shizuka, a prostitute, mother of young Heihachi, wife of deceased Akira, and daughter in-law of Ruriko. After Shizuka warns the gunman of one of the Genji’s men revenge for him, he tells her to leave with his son. Unfortunately, Shizuka meets her end when she comes back to retrieve her “heart.” A plant growing with white and red colors. Then, it is revealed that Ruriko is Bloody Benten and she is seeking revenge for her son’s death. She also had Akira with Piringo, another talented gunman. In the end, the gunman has his final battle with Yoshitsune, leader of the Genji’s, and the Heike’s are killed by Ruriko. She is eventually killed by the sheriff.The gunman leaves town and he farewells Heihachi with a handful of gold. Heihachi in turn grows up into a gunslinger named Django. After watching the film, I enjoyed the action filled scenes and the camera work following the fights. I also felt like the story was dark. The death of Heihachi’s whole family was very sad and I believe the gunman had a similar experience as Heihachi and that is why there are flashbacks of a man and lady hung by a bridge. What I did not like was the things that Shizuka had to deal with after her husband’s death. She was raped and others attempted to, and she was constantly suffering from trauma. I felt bad for her as she sought revenge for her family by becoming a prostitute for the Genji and being killed for trying to save the plants Heihachi and she felt dearest to. Other than that, I was also intrigued by how creative the sets were made and the camera work where it shows plenty of headshots to show expressions on the faces of the actors. At the end, when they bring up what happens to Heihachi, I found it interesting how he decides to become a gunslinger in response to the trauma he has faced each time.

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Sukiyaki Western Django

This is a film that I never heard of before this class and would’ve never expected to see Quentin Tatantino in a Japanese film. I swear most of these Japanese films genuinely surprise me so much as I genuinely have no clue what to expect because I could get a film like Sweet Bean the previous week and then this week I get a western that has a famous American director in it and is definitely probably where he got some of the inspiration for his film. This is a film where I could definitely see the inspiration from Spaghetti Westerns like Fistful of Dollars. These overdramatic films that have lots of blood and just crazy effects and characters that are like personalities in of itself but that’s kind of the love of these types of films. I saw that the reviews for this film aren't the best and I can kind of understand that as for some this definitely isn’t their type of film but at the same time look at how cool some of these shots are and you can never beat a cowboy riding off into the sunset. And right off the bat cowboys speaking japanese immediately becomes so much cooler. What’s interesting though is before taking the class these were the kind of films that I expected from Japanese cinema and that is definitely part of me having watched anime as that is a very heightened reality in tons of cases but seeing some of the japanese live actions films or tv before they just seem over exaggerated as well but it just doesn’t translate as well to live action which definitely can happen. However in the case of this film I think it actually more or less works. Some points definitely don’t work because I think the overdramatic parts of it kind of loses the seriousness that it needs overall but at the same time that’s what you kind of expect from it. That’s the beauty but also the badness of the film it's a weird combo that I can’t really understand and put into words like by the end of this blog I’m having trouble putting into words about how I feel about this film but maybe when I have more time I can go back to this film and see what I think about it after another inspection of it because maybe its like one of those films where maybe it gets better with every watch but at the same time I couldn’t really tell you if that was the intention or what I should do but it just feels like one of those appreciate it later kind of films. I am genuinely speechless about this film. 

Grade: B

[duncanstewartsblog]

I thought the same thing about the film. It deeply relates to me in that same as well with being deeply sad while also beauiful. I'm glad someone else has the same feelings towards the film.

Sweet Bean (2015) by Kawase Naomi - Blog 21

Sweet Bean (2015) by Kawase Naomi is a Japanese film that centralizes on freedom and joy. The story centralizes on a man, Sentaro, who runs a small Dorayaki shop in order to pay off a long-term debt. One day, an older lady named Tokue is attracted by the scent of the Dorayaki and is interested in his part-time hiring sign. Due to the possible liability from her old age and crippled hands, Sentaro rejects each of her attempts to become hired until she leaves a carton of An, sweet bean paste, that she made for him to try. Their next encounter, they begun to work together and the new serving of An blossoms Sentaro’s shop. Soon after, the wife of the deceased owner of Sentaro’s shop comes by to discuss firing Tokue because of her case of leprosy. Eventually, Sentaro does begin to lose business and Tokue quits upon noticing the occurrence. This was not the last encounter for Sentaro and Tokue. Sentaro and Wakana, a school girl and close friend, visits Tokue a few time at her home in the quarantine for those with leprosy. A few months Tokue passes away from Pneumonia and Sentaro opens his own stall with the equipment passed down from Tokue. 

This film was very beautiful and sad. I really enjoyed watching it and would recommend family and friends to watch at least once. There was not a lot of music present throughout the film. Only the sounds of the environment and the interactions between people. I believe there was only one incident where music was played. The shots of the scenery and the camera work was clean and the film overall felt very realistic. In the beginning of the story, I thought it would be similar to Tanpopo, whereas the owner of the little shop works to improve on a recipe. Although it was not the same, it was similar in the aspect that both shops wanted to change their a part of their food. I did not expect the amount of sadness the film would have brought, and listening to how patients from leprosy longed for freedom from quarantine and illness. Especially Tokue’s statements throughout. She would mention how lucky and it must be nice to be young like the school girls. Due to her illness, achieving her dreams were deemed impossible and her freedom was taken away since she was young. Tokue is a very loving and kind spirit. She just wanted Sentaro to feel joy and feel free just like the birds and the trees. I really enjoyed the ending despite the death of Tokue. Sentaro looked happier compared to the beginning of the film and receiving Tokue’s care, equipment, and recipe allowed him to step out from his past.

[duncanstewartsblog]

Sweet Bean

Going from horror to this film was an absolute trip and a half but at the same time that’s what’s great about cinema and how the two can coexist with one another. But to start getting into the film I just wanted to say how crushing it was to see Tokue be fired from the job purely because of her past with leprosy. This kind older woman reminded me a lot of my grandmother so it made me think a lot about her throughout and I’m happy I still have her around but I can’t imagine not knowing I could visit her or she didn’t get to do everything she wanted to do in life. The ending of Tokue saying that she was just happy for the time that she got to spend doing what she liked made me really sad and grateful for the time I have on earth as well. It sounds kind of cheesy but I truly do feel this way as I really do think this movie had some good messages about enjoying the place you are in even if it may be hard. Especially as a college student the world can seem caving in on you sometimes but you have to take a step back sometimes and realize it's not all about me and there’s more to life than this. Do what you want to do in life and enjoy it, it will take effort and lots of hard work to get there but at the same time that’s something to look forward to. I really liked this film a lot more than I expected to and I think these types of films get overlooked a lot because there is quite a few of them that may teach the same message over and over again but at the same time why is it a bad thing to learn the message of kindness and to enjoy life necessarily a bad thing. My one negative to the film though however was the inclusion of the school girl because I think she did have some importance to the overall story but at the same time I just felt like she wasn’t absolutely needed and was more brought in to just move the story along and find story details out which is yeah I guess understandable but at the same time it just seemed unneeded, I don’t know. Overall, this was a nice palette cleanser before getting to the final films of this semester but it’s nice to feel all kinds of warm inside after a film after feeling kind of hopeless after the last two films and especially after watching those god awful American remakes. So, definitely go watch this film.

Grade: B

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Pulse (2006)

This is another case of Hollywood just missing the entire point of the original film because holy crap what the heck happened here. First off, I actually had high hopes for the film with having a pretty good cast and an amazing horror writer Wes Craven. But then I saw the reviews and was like okay maybe it’ll be alright because critics don’t always like horror films even though the fans like it but then I saw fans didn’t like it and I was like oh I’m about to be in a shit show aren’t I. And I can confirm that is the truth. As someone who didn’t really care for the original film I was surprised how much I liked that one better than this. It just became all of this saving the world nonsense and hacker stuff which really wasn’t the point of any of it so I was just confused about what I was seeing more than anything to be honest.I think there’s some good effects in there as some of the ghost effects were cool but I once again think that if they held back kind of like the remake of Ringu, it would’ve been so much better but by doing all of these intense scenes with the ghosts it just fell apart for me and I wasn’t a big fan of how the ghosts were executed it just seemed like a computer hacker version of Ghostbusters which sounds ridiculous but that’s how I would describe the film which somehow still doesn’t justify what I saw. I think the film also misleads on saying it’s written by Wes Craven because once I saw it I was like there was no way he directed this. I really don’t have much to say about the film because it genuinely just made me upset that I was watching the film overall. However, the one main thing I can say that made me happy was that it made me have newfound respect for the original. What I can always respect a film for is when it is original and that it tries something new and that’s what Pulse (2001) did and that this one absolutely did not do that. I’m really trying to figure out what to say more about this film because I believe it deserves to be in that same bag of films that had tons of remakes in the 2000s and early 2010s because man they all just start to pile in together and its not even like fun bad it is just a slog to sit through and I am sorry that the work of a lot of good people got wasted on this film but overall poster is cool.

Grade: C-

[duncanstewartsblog]

It truly is whichever film you watch first is the one you're going to like more because its that nostalgia factor and it is also because probably that theater experience enhanced it so much more for him.

The Ring (Extra Credit 4/8)

Bruh.

Maybe I've become spoiled with this class, but I really enjoyed the original film "Ringu" SO MUCH MORE than the American adaptation.

The Ring itself is a fine movie, but because it is a remake of such a film, it had some very large shoes to fill. To some extent, it absolutely did fulfill its task, however, in some aspects, it fell very flat.

For some of the positives, the effects and physical presentation of The Ring are really cool. The blue-gray filter overtop the film helps set the mood, and the way Samara climbs through the TV and just *TV statics* around is SO COOL, and she's like, spilling water everywhere...omg heckin' good.

The lore of Samara's ghost was really nice, it felt more flushed out. (The horse scene was crazy)

HOWEVER, a lot of the nuance and themes were either partially ignored or completely removed from the American film, and because of that, the remake feels so much more...empty.

The American version focuses more on the logistics and causes of the curse, rather than the existential dread that the original derives most of its horror from. Analog horror was usurped for more jump scares, and while still "scary," it's much less fun.

Removing the dead cousin's spirit from communicating with her son to watch the tape was pointless in my opinion. in The Ring, the son had watched the tape because he was bored, but in the original, he was visited by his cousin's ghost. I don't understand why they did that, considering they made the child a psychic in this version, and not the father. Having the son see the ghost would make more thematic sense in my opinion (but hey what do I know I'm not a director)

I also think having Samara's eyes visible as often as they were removed the overall intensity of her as a monster. In Ringu, you only see her eyes once, and because of that, it's so much more dramatic and intense, rather than in The Ring where they try to recreate that emotion, but because you had seen her eyes in the interrogation and in other scenes, it's less impactful.

This is not to say that the film itself is bad, stand-alone The Ring is really good and an interesting way to depict lingering dread. However because it is a direct adaptation to Ringu, it loses a lot of it's charm.

//I wanted to cry because I had my dad watch Ringu with me on Friday and he told me that The Ring is better. He's totally allowed to think that, but like, i disagree

[duncanstewartsblog]

This is why I think the horror genre is so good because I really didn't like this film but some people like yourself did and that's so great! I agree it was a slow burn but that is entirely okay I just think it switches too often for my liking.

回路！

In Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 2001 horror film "Pulse" (known in Japanese as 回路かいろ "Kairo"), the internet isn't just a place to connect – it's a yawning abyss of loneliness, threatening to swallow any user whole. The story unfolds in Tokyo, the most populous and densely-packed city on the face of the Earth, yet where our characters feel utterly alone. This isolation fuels a supernatural horror unlike any other, where ghosts aren't confined to graveyards, but slither through the very cables promising connection.

Pulse follows several characters, their paths converging as a strange phenomenon grips the city. Many residents begin inexplicably taking their own lives, and those left behind are plagued by disturbing visions – pale, faceless figures appearing on computer screens. This imagery isn't just jump scares; it's a slow, creeping dread. The faces represent a surge of loneliness, a hollowness that spills out of the internet and into the real world.

Michi, a young woman working at a computer help desk, witnesses this firsthand. People call in, their voices laced with terror, describing the spectral encounters. The internet, supposed to bridge distances, has begun its transformation into the existential garbage disposal we know today. Meanwhile, Ryosuke, a hacker, stumbles upon a disturbing website promising a connection so complete, it erases your very existence. This website embodies the film's central fear: the internet as a Faustian bargain: it can connect you to anyone in the world instantaneously but at the cost of your sense of self and reality.

Kurosawa's cinematography is absolutely on point for the whole film. We see characters dwarfed by empty apartments, their faces illuminated by the cold glow of computer screens. The sterile hum of technology underscores the lack of human connection. The ghosts themselves are unsettling – distorted figures with vacant eyes, mirroring the emptiness they represent. The hollowness of their eyes showing clearly the yawning gap between reality and internet simulation they experienced before dying.

The film doesn't shy away from the dark side of human connection in the digital age. We see people using the internet for fleeting moments of intimacy in online chatrooms, only to be left feeling more isolated afterward. The characters yearn for connection, yet their attempts through technology only push them further away. Like a digital Chinese finger trap: the harder you try to force it, the worse you're stuck.

Pulse isn't a film that relies on gore or jump scares. It's a slow burn, a meditation on the anxieties of a hyper-connected world. It forces us to confront the chilling possibility that the very tool designed to bring us together might be driving us apart (honestly "might" isn't even necessary). Even today, the film feels eerily relevant. Social media can be a breeding ground for loneliness, with carefully curated online personas masking the emptiness underneath. A neologism for this phenomenon is "parasocial". Pulse serves as a stark reminder of the importance of face-to-face human connection in a world entirely dominated by screens. It's a film that will stay with me like Ghost in the Shell or Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade have.

[duncanstewartsblog]

Pulse (2001)

Going into the film I’ve never actually heard of Pulse. I didn’t know what to make of it at first because I thought it was scarier than that of Ringu but wondered why it didn’t have as much staying appeal as that of Ringu. But then we came to the execution of the film and I was like “oh I now understand why this film isn’t as widely known.” I have never been so slapped in the face with an ending like the end of this film, it truly shocked me because I was like oh a lot of people are dying from these spirits that’s crazy and then as soon as they left the building the world had just crumbled into pieces in a matter of seconds and a whole plane crashes down exploding on impact. It just took me completely by surprise and I just didn’t even know what was happening at this point in the film. Like I do understand that the whole point of this was really kind of saying that technology bad and how it can bring our destruction but at the same time I think it comes off as mad at change and to be skeptical at technology which I think it completely fair but at the same time this was not the way to go about it. Because even films like Ringu where technology is used against the character’s I think it's done right as it makes a tape scary but with Pulse I literally couldn’t tell you why the computer screen was there in the first place. I think there were good scares throughout but it just made me think there are tons of other films that have done a similar plot that could have done it better than them. And that’s no offense to the director because he probably had a good idea for what he wanted to portray but at the same time it just didn’t land for me. This will be an interesting film to talk about in class as many people I think may have the same experience as me with this film while also some may love it and I think that’s what is amazing about the horror genre is that you can find people who will die for a film and others who absolutely despise it and that is just awesome. For me the overall main issue is just the pacing and the execution of the film because I did really want to like this film but in the end I just wasn’t a big fan. I know there’s another American remake so I’ll be looking into that but from what it seems it will be another bad movie sadly.

Grade: C+

[duncanstewartsblog]

The Ring

So when comparing the two films of the English remake and the original Japanese film, there is one notable difference that immediately stood out to me and that is the case of mystery. When Sadako is finally introduced to us at the end of the film through the very famous scene, in the original remake she makes an entrance that is creepy yet completely shrouded in mystery as we don’t see her face at all. However, in the American remake her face is completely shown and the mystery of what the film is hiding from us is so terrifying that it kills people. It’s the mystery that makes Ringu in the first place and I think that’s what a lot of these films that get remade don’t understand is that hiding away details is almost always scarier than showing what we should be scared of. They really never get this point. Hollywood pretty much thinks that if we don’t see it, it didn’t happen and that always bugs me because that is just genuinely not the case. The original Ringu is a classic film that holds its place in the horror genre and has been parodied to death by this point and that shows its relevance to this day. Whereas in the case of The Ring it tries to encapsulate the film with adding more rules that it has to follow and showing a lot more with better graphics than the original had but that sometimes once you put all of these rules that need to be applied to a monster it makes them so much less scary. I was terrified of Sadako because I didn’t know what she was capable of, could she kill us at any moment or does she kill us because of what she shows us I don’t know but in The Ring rules are set for the characters and it feels like okay if I just do this and that then I’m pretty much safe. I think too many horror films follow this narrative now of needing to explain themselves when they shouldn't. It's so terrifying not knowing how to stop them or what’s coming next. The point of horror films is to scare you and they can succeed at that by giving us a not happy ending and showing no end in sight to the misery that is caused by Sadako. One last thing is taking away the Japanese origin of Sadako and how she is essentially an Onryo but for Americans all of this context is thrown out in favor of a more American film that could translate more to “us.” But in the end that was really the 2000s to be fair, they just remade remakes of almost everything and they were almost always worse then the original and the same seems to be true for Pulse. 

Grade: B-

[duncanstewartsblog]

It definitely has that analog horror feel to it but weird that I didn't even pick up on that but seriously such a great shout out that definitely points towards that and probably was an actual inspiration for some people.

3/5/24 "Ring" JPT3391

This movie was super fun to watch. A lot of the films we have been analyzing so far were ultra fine-arts type stuff, so getting to sit back and watch something that was made with the intention of having little to no major social value and commentary was kind of refreshing!

But still, it has commentary and value. Funny how things are!

Anyways, everybody knows 'Ring', a.k.a. the girl crawling out of the TV- but nobody knows her story. Ring is one of the most famous Japanese horror movies, and by extension, horror movies in the world. Personally, I consider Ring to be a 'denpa' movie because it deals with themes of electronic connection and societal reject with an air of goofiness, but it caps that off at the horror aspect, which is why I consider it to be 'analogue horror' too! Which was definitely not as explored then as it is now. I genuinely believe this movie inspired so many analogue horror trends and eventually the content that we see today.

A lot of the "Japanese spooks" we see on the net actually also follow a similar pattern, involving cursed electronics, train stations, etc. But the 'electronics' feel kind of follows new-age horror into America simply because we have technology too! You can see lots of modern day creepy pastas revolving around similar themes, such as evil mario romhacks, etc.

Below is an illustration of "Kisaragi station", which is another Japanese Urban legend/creepypasta, and the right is the "Mario Romhack Face", which is another modern Ubran legend famous in the gaming community.

We've actually seen a lot of American spinoffs and parodies of Ring as well, showing just how influential this modern-day take on technological horror was! I believe what made it so scary was its immersiveness (I mean, she literally crawled out of the TV and it looked so real...) and it's ability to be easily replicated made it a popular form of horror as well.

Aside from the horror aspect, Ring also features a very unique set of character relationships in it! A working woman who is also a devoted mother, and her divorced husband who works alongside her. It's rare enough nowadays to see a film that has a female MC, but one who is also a mother!? that remains unsexualized?! It is so refreshing to see. I was half expecting something bad to happen to her the entire time, but the film itself ended on a bittersweet note, with the death of her husband and her own survival. I also thought the scene regarding the old man's illegitimate daughter's death was really cool, because it showed the story behind the seemingly unrelated imagery that plagued the evil tape.

I felt like this movie displayed an unconventional family life while still refusing to paint the mother or father in a bad light. They had a bad marriage, yes, and they separated, but neither of them were villains. Of course the divorce wasn't portrayed positively, but neither the wife or husband were really at fault. I saw good people in a bad situation, just like the situation the Ring girl herself was in. The Esper situation did catch me by surprise however, I found that more fantastical than the idea of evil tapes, haha!

[duncanstewartsblog]

Ringu

This was one of the films I was most excited to watch when we first started this class. I am a big fan of horror and this is a classic in the genre. However, after watching the film I actually would classify it more as a thriller because of how it really isn’t scary but it is more on the mystery of what is going on and who the actual killer is. Obviously in the end the killer is Sadako, who is so well known now. I think why the film was different than what I expected was because of the American film where they just added more scares and made it a lot less about the suspicion of what’s going on. The one thing that I will always give credit to a film for doing is that of holding back and what I mean by that is the final reveal of Sadako at the end of the film. When she is revealed we do get what is a legendary scene and rightfully so but also of what she looks like and with the only thing that we see of her face being that of her eye when she kills our main  character’s husband. The one thing that I can also say about the film is that of the feminist approach to the film where as I wrote in my essay that in a lot of horror films the final person in the film will be the girl or the final girl as she triumphs over evil however in this case it’s actually not just that but also the killer. They showed multiple women throughout the film who had a lot of power. Not just Sadako but also her mother who predicted the volcano erupting. These women were all banished by the media and their own caretakers. When women were put in power they were seen as monsters or witches. When Sadako kills yeah that was a bad thing to do but the whole mob mentality they had against her mother was totally uncalled for they just wanted to not see someone like her have this sort of power over them. And the film also doesn’t have a good ending. It literally ends with our main character killing her dad to make sure her son survives. It’s a sad but good ending in my opinion because it wasn’t as simple as trying to get the bones of Sadako’s body and all that. The film holds its place in horror history and Japanese film history and I can’t wait to see more films like it and just more of J-Horror in general as I’ve heard its a crazy time and I’m all here for it.

Grade: A

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Swallowtail Butterfly

This probably is the most genre bending film I’ve ever seen because at times I was getting excited because I thought it would be like a crime/thriller type film with the crime boss being taken out by the three men. But right after that we’re right into like a sappy love story and while also doing like a career film with Glico doing her musical career and the hardships of that. This is a film where I can’t decide if I like it or not because there is a certain scene that I’m like that was awesome with the giant rocket launcher being shot at the very end but at the same time I found scenes that just dragged on for way too long. I do also find it interesting to hear so much English in this film because at first it was genuinely surprising but at the same time it was happily accepted. It kind of made me think the film was trying to go for a broader audience other than just the Japanese audience that may have seen it because we know there is plenty of people in this world who just won’t watch subtitled films which is a travesty but it is what it is in the way of the world. However I don’t think that was the only intention with the use of English as I believe as someone said during the screening that this is a fictional place so it’s supposed to make this narrative of a place with many different walks of life that all end up in some place. With most characters I believe ending up there by just being there because of the wrong time wrong place. Most characters I would say had an okay fate and that just hurt because all of them were just trying to do their best with what they were given. Overall I genuinely don’t know what to say about this film. I saw the film but once again couldn’t really tell you what the hell even happened, like so much happened but at the same time nothing really happened. This can be a really divisive film for people because someone might really like this film as I know some of my friends in this class really liked it but I don’t know I just think it’s somewhere in the middle because it’s just not my type of film. But I guess I did like what it had to say about the collaboration of different types of people from different walks of life and maybe it was just me but I did like what it had to say about sex work as they are just people they’re not just objects that can be mishandled by guys like who flew out the window, which by far was the best scene. 

Grade: B

[duncanstewartsblog]

This is why I find it so interesting as I thought it was an okay film but some people really liked it and that's what I love about the films we've seen in class is that some can be great and others can be just okay to others. Glad you liked the film so much!

Iwai's Swallowtail Butterfly Blog Post 4/1

I really loved Swallowtail Butterfly, despite it being really chaotic with A LOT of plot. Being a bit proficient in Chinese, I was glad I was able to understand the language spoken to an extent and see how it compared to the subtitles. A small thing that did slightly upset me throughout the film was how some parts of the Chinese subtitles did not really translate properly, and I noticed that some things spoken in Chinese offered a lot more context and emotion and were not really reflected well with the subtitles. However, I like how it showed how in Yentown, there are a variety of languages that blended together and showed their own dialect, showing how Yentown is its own little enclave rich in its own culture. However, it was sad to see how they are isolated tremendously in society, and we can see this in several countries, such as the U.S. My favorite part of the movie was seeing the diverse backgrounds of all the characters, such as Glico and Feihong  are native Chinese, there’s a character that is white but speaks fluent Japanese, and more. They for the most part can use the medium of English and Japanese, being very impressive and displaying the blending cultures of Yentown. 

I loved seeing Ageha’s growth and character development throughout the film. Although she was Japanese, she was rejected by mainstream society as she was impoverished and orphaned, initially displaced with no community to fall back on. She’s a little bounced around by several people in the former half of the film, finally making her way to Glico, who is the first person she seeks refuge with and offers her compassion and kindness (granted she initially was about to sell her into prostitution). From then on, she begins to create community within Yentown. We see her at her lowest, but then watch her slowly but surely build up her independence, comfort, and confidence as the movie progresses. But the means by which she and other members must survive in Yentown often was saddening to watch, reflecting on their including scams and forged money. However, this does show the perseverance of the community to make ends meet, and I believe it strongly highlights the capacity and ability of humans to grow and triumph against hardship in any situation. 

Touching back on the isolation and rejection of mainstream society, I wanted to touch on Glico. When we see her singing career take off, her marketing strategy was initially as the Yentown singer. However, when she was about to sign onto an agency, they asked her if she was willing to give up her Chinese identity for a Japanese one to make herself more favorable and attractive to the audience. They told her that Chinese singers do not really prosper in Japan, and this would be a way to become more successful. Feihong, acting as her manager, enthusiatically agrees to her being marketed this way, as well as Glico. This shows that they are conscious of the status of Chinese and other minorities in Japan, and are attempting to assimilate in order to be more accepted. 

Overall, I loved this movie, and it might be a contender for my favorite film in this class. 

[duncanstewartsblog]

The cinematography in this film was truly masterful and I did like it quite a bit, I think that tied in with the music was just a masterclass tho of different sights and sounds together.

HANA-BI

Just to preface, I really liked the shots that Kitano used in this movie to establish the scenery. The shots overlooking Tokyo (I assume) in both the day and night look super nice to me, and then I remember there being a shot of Mt. Fuji as Nishi and Miyuki are going on their trip together.

HANA-BI starts off with a guy who sees two men on his car and then he starts to beat one of them up. So far, so good. The guy is revealed to be Nishi, a retired cop, and the two guys who were messing with his sick Camry were part of the yakuza. From the start, you could tell something was wrong with Nishi, as things weighed on his mind and he barely spoke, if any (it was also interesting that the wife didn’t speak as well, because usually when you have a quiet husband/guy, there is usually a talkative wife to balance it out). There is a bit of jumping around at this point, from past to present, but once the movie progresses it is easier to tell the order in which the events happened. I remember the cut from when Nishi is talking to one of his cop friends, and then it changes smoothly into him talking with the yakuza, I was able to catch that there was something going on in the structure of storytelling. The movie then goes on to show the traumatic events that pop up in Nishi’s mind, being the death of a cop and the injury of his detective partner Horibe (who he still keeps in touch with, which I found very sweet of him to do). When they were describing his old partner Horibe as being the harsh one while Nishi tried to hold him back, I had to do a double take as we know Nishi from the start as being the rough one, but the movie builds up on this point later in the story as well. You get a sense that Nishi took up Horibe’s battle tendencies as he could no longer do police work with him, and that he feels regret for what he did, or rather failed to do. The movie goes on with Nishi successfully robbing a bank to pay back his debt to the yakuza, and then to pay back the people that he loved and wanted to take care of as well (Tanaka’s widow and Horibe). But most importantly, he takes the trip to spend time with his dying wife. We get glimpses of Horibe’s paintings, and one of them we see the word suicide, which ties the whole movie together as both Horibe and Nishi attempt it. The old couple take their time traveling together, but at the end, when he gets found by his Nakamura, he chooses to commit double suicide with his wife, thus ending the story of HANA-BI.

[duncanstewartsblog]

Hana-bi

This was a film that I liked quite a bit actually as once again I thought just the visual style was very unique and I loved that about. One thing that quickly caught my attention was that of the music or the soundtrack as it reminded me of Studio Ghibli films, which are on the other side of the spectrum. That’s when I did my research and found out that it’s the exact same composer, Joe Hisaishi. The music is this perfect balance of soothing yet feeling like there is no end to the pain. Joe perfectly fits this narrative and I think and film that he works on has this balance which I love. Brings a tear to people’s eyes in an instant and I think an emphasis should be put more on his work over the years in the states at least where I haven’t heard much of him otherwise but maybe that’s just me being ignorant about the subject.

Once again going back to the visual style of the film, it just took be by surprise as I saw a lot of similar styles in that early 2000s setting something about that style and I guess aura is very interesting to me. One thing as well is that of the gritty-ness of it all. With the multiple serious injuries and/or death it’s crazy to me how we keep getting so many Japanese films that are just very brutal like all the time. It seems to be a reoccurring thing with the films we’ve been watching to get that sort of craziness but once again that may just be from the films that we have chosen for this particular class. I’m not sure if a lot of directors just prefer that in their movies as that allows the people to get a more realistic look at the brutality of it all. Another aspect is that of endings in Japan, I find it quite rare that we ever actually have a good ending necessarily as I think back to the films like Cruel Story of Youth or even family game like so much of these films just have an ending where you’re like damn now I feel miserable after because what the hell. Overall, I can’t say it’s one of my favorites of the class but it’s definitely still good and I’d be happy to rewatch it one day as there are some great scenes and visually great scenes that would be lovely to watch again.

I think overall my grading of the film would have to be below the A tier as it’s fun but not great and I’ve seen others do this sort of premise quite well where I think this sort of does but not greatly and that’s ok.

Grade: B