Some new movie topic

Last night, I went to a standing bar in Shinjuku. One piece of Yakitori is 80yen, one cup of shochu was 380yen. It had pretty reasonable prices. When you have a chance, try it.

Did you read this news? In the U.S. you will be able to watch the TV animation Death Note by download. This is the opening title of Death Note. I am concerned with that news. Almost one year has passed since I wrote about Death Note first in my blog. After that, I picked topics sometimes like this, this and this. But I did not imagine it would be so big in the world.

Masayuki Suo, the director of the movie "Shall we dance?" (Japanese original one), had his new movie "I just didn't do it" preview in New York. A man is accused of groping a woman in the subway and he decides to challenge the crazy Japanese legal system by pleading "not guilty."　Yes! Like I wrote before, molesters and false accusationss became an issue in this country. It's a kind of tragedy. But I read American people laughed to watch the preview. The unreasonable crazy Japanese legal system would look like a comedy. Here is a trailer.

I will pick three Japanese movies today which foreign media won't write about and which won't be released in other countries. The first one is Dororo. Looks like a Ninja drama? It originated from a manga of Osamu Tezuka. Check the trailer.... I had to laugh, it's fiddle. This movie may add its name to the list of worst live-action versions of legendary masterpieces..

At that point, "Gegege no Kitaro" is better. They devote themselves to a light entertainment movie. Gegege no Kitaro is an old comic and TV animation which I like because of the cute eye Ball father..

The last one is "Kowai Onna" (scary woman) which is an omnibus film of three stories. The most scary story would be this one, "Hagane" (steel). A young guy has to date a girl with a bag pulled over her body. Here is a trailer. I don't think this movie will hit, but I suppose the Hagane character will be a toy for geeks. In this page, we can watch spin-off short films of Hagane. It's really crazy. Do you have any movie you want to check?

Comments

[rate movies]

this is a great read.

rate new and old movies

[Mari]

Hi there
brian kill 殺す　and bill 札 has the same sound too. yes Kill Bill, it's intereseting too. Sutanai, I am glad to know you like always. I thought it was very Japanese movie but it has warm and nice movie.

[bshock]

Americans have been able to download the "Death Note" anime since it started in Japan. Plenty of sites offered bittorrents for the raw episodes, and up until the show was very recently licensed in the U.S., several sites offered subtitled versions as well.

I admire how well the anime adapted the manga's style and plot. Of course, the down side of this is that if you've read the manga, the anime may be a little boring to you.

And now a "Death Note" question: does anyone know what inspired the idea for this story? (I'm honestly asking; I don't know the answer.) Some months ago, Mari posted a link to a much earlier story that was very similar, and might've provided the writer with his idea. But I was wondering if anyone had read any articles or interviews on this subject.

Certainly it's a well established idea in Japanese folklore that writing someone on a fuda (a strip of paper) can accomplish magic of a sort. In anime we see many examples where fuda are used to "seal" or even attack evil spirits. Sometimes it even goes beyond this, with fuda used for creating magical creatures or granting wishes.

I was wondering about that word, "fuda." The kanji is 札, which has the "on" pronunciation "satsu." That seems like an interesting coincidence to me, because the word for "to kill," "korosu," or 殺, also has the "on" pronunciation "satsu." I imagine writing 殺札 to mean something like "kill note," perhaps pronounced "satsuzatsu." It almost sounds like the gitaigo words that Mari wrote about a few days ago (though such a combination is not in any Japanese dictionary I have been able to find online). I wonder if this coincidence might have helped to inspire the idea behind "Death Note."

Oh well, I doubt it. But it's fun to imagine.

[Sutanai]

Deathnote is one of the best ever Japanese Manga, even the ending a bit disappointed me. Not only the Manga itself, 2 parts of Deathnote movie are very popular in Thailand.

I love Shall We Dance at my first sight. It is much better than the Hollywood version because Americans perhaps don’t care much about a guy go to dancing class after tired business days. And Japanese salaryman life is typically really touch and under-pressure in a different way with American working class.

I am not surprised why the Yankees laughed when they watch on the preview because they do not understand Japanese social background and/or have the same problems like in Japan.

A few years ago, there are some great Japanese movies hit on Bangkok, Thailand. Such as, Always Sunset on the Third Street (forgot the Japanese name) and Ima ai ni Yukimasu (don’t know the English title). I really love these movies, and they are stored as DVD in my house.

I am not sure about the 3 movies Mari-san have suggested above, will have to check it out :-)