The previous post in this series began off with such a long time favorite of mine who was Yuika, been way too long since I've been able to do any posts for her. One reason could be she's 38 in age, you often don't see women that age appear in many magazines, have photobooks or a lot of modeling pics, mainly they don't do the same activities of those women in their twenties. Not that I want to post about senior citizens but it'd be nice to every now and again have some posts for my long time faves who are 35+ in age, maybe not on a regular basis but don't want to see me or others forget about them. So if I can will begin off these posts of my current drama/movie watches with a forgotten about favorite and am hoping that will inspire me to work on a few posts for them. Sure there must be many like me who are in their thirties who think someone such as Manami ๐ still looks ultra terrific. Next June she'll be hitting the age of forty(!) and will be the first woman who I did a lot of posts for when this blog began to hit that age. Now and again do check up on Manami but it should be more often, she's still very busy appearing in dramas but as I mentioned doesn't do a lot of the activities she did ten years ago.
That previous post had been for what dramas I had been viewing and these days have expanded to also watch American shows. I needed a break from Japanese dramas and should have weened off them a few years back but my stubbornness prevented that but did learn my lesson. Once I view a few more movies will go back to dramas, the two to begin off with will be season two of "Fringe" and also the second half of the tenth season of "Supernatural". Won't be viewing any Japanese series for a while but will partake of some animes, first off will be "Paranoia Agent" and can anyone recommend other shows in that vein? Then will view the mini series "Queen Mantis", that's a Korean drama and have two others I've recently obtained so have plenty to watch for the remainder of the year. It may not seem so but I don't glue myself in front of my TV/DVD player and just watch 2-3 hours before I retire for the night. Back in May 2024 I swore off my imbibing of spirits and it wasn't something I went overboard on but wasted too much time and $$ on that though did have many good times. So by not ingesting spirits these days it left me quite a bit of free time(and cash!) and have used that in a semi positive way, one is viewing so many movies and TV shows I would never have gotten to so to me that's a plus.
Don't know when this will be published and wrote up the beginning and first movie on November 13th. For dramas I can write that post up in one or perhaps two sittings, for movies I add in what I viewed the previous night the following day. What I'm hoping for is that this will be published on November 19th(two days early!) and contain seven(now six) films, it should work out well as long as I update this every day. The first pair of films will be two recent American films which I had never seen before, think it's a two part story and the first film was better than I thought. The other five four will be from Japan, am a bit down on recent dramas but not older movies which I can never get enough of! The five four will be ones I had never seen before, one I had semi viewed but the DVD was in bad shape so never could watch the final thirty minutes. Finally got a new version of the movie so can't wait to see how it ends, the others look like winners to me! For these posts give a quick synopsis, any comments or interesting tidbits I may have about the movie plus some screenshots and a trailer for the movie. You viewers seem to enjoy these kinds of posts much more than regular drama or movie reviews which may get 125 views in a month. These have been getting over twice that amount so at least for the next few months will be continuing this series. More Manami ๐ before we dive into the movies I've recently viewed, don't think any actress has appeared in more dramas than she has over the last twenty years. All of her roles are fairly big and she's been the lead in about five shows, Manami has never appeared in too many regular movies but her 2010 film "Saru Lock" was rather good. As far as dramas go her top one was "Majo Saiban" from 2009, that means Witch Trials and though I've viewed it five times why didn't I ever recap it as it's one of my all time favorite dramas?!
The film opened with a family of three heading to the mountains for a skiing trip, the three were the mother and father with their eight year old daughter Cady. A snowstorm erupted out of nowhere and a plow rammed into the vehicle killing the parents but Cady survived. Her only nearby relative was her mother's sister Gemma who was a high tech toy designer in Seattle. Gemma was about thirty in age and had no clue on how to be a mother, work was the only thing she seemed to do. One current design was the below female which is actually a four foot doll, Gemma had a hard time finishing it but with Cady now living with her rushed to complete it along with her two work mates. Which was a success and the main purpose to Gemma was that the doll which she has named M3gan would be able to watch over Cady which worked but perhaps too well. For the M3gan doll turned into a semi-human, it could think for itself and talk to others as if it wasn't a robot doll. As you can see M3gan does look very similar to a human, it's movements aren't as smooth but there's nothing that M3gan can't do physically.
Whatever Gemma did to it's brain worked too well as the doll became so attached to Cady and turned into a psycho killer! At first M3gan had only killed the neighbor's dog but soon the neighbor was killed by M3gan using a nail gun and shooting acid into the woman's face! She also killed a bully picking on Cady and later on finished off Gemma's boss who had plans on selling this doll line for $10,000 each! In a final showdown Gemma and Cady were able to take out this evil M3gan doll/creature but what a battle it was! It appeared the doll was destroyed completely however there is a sequel that came out two years later, this first film was released in January 2023. The creator was James Wan who was interviewed in the special features and he also created the "Saw" and "Conjuring" movie franchises. Now it's on to part two of this series and as mentioned sure there will be more in the future, didn't read the reviews too closely but most think the next film was a bit better or at least was much more action packed.
The first "M3gen" film was close to being a horror movie while this second was different as it was a sci-fi flick and must have had ten times the action the first film did. Which ended with the human doll aka killer robot M3gan dying if a robot can do so! Well, the robot's form was destroyed and her creator Gemma figured her brain was too, that wasn't to be as M3gan's brain had slowly evolved into a human one and it was a brain that needed no body to survive! This was set a little over three years after the first movie ended, Gemma had worked for a toy company but after the fiasco with M3gan killing four people and a dog the company went under and she's now an advocate for AI. Gemma isn't quite promoting it but instead warning the public of it's dangers, in the future it'll be a necessary evil and with another man was trying to educate on the dangers of relying so much on AI. Meanwhile Gemma's niece Cady is now twelve in age though acts as though she's in her twenties, she quickly became a computer whiz and also is becoming a master at martial arts. To make this brief synopsis even shorter M3gan came back to life, neither Gemma or Cady knew she had been floating around them for over three years. Before her body been dismantled and brain/computer wiped clean M3gan had made a copy of herself, now after three years her presence was needed to save the world!
For there was another killer robot that the U.S. Army had designed which they dubbed Amelia, it's first mission was a success but in the end the female robot killed the man it had been sent to save. The colonel in charge of the operation visited Gemma and told her of all the gory details, the Army had somehow swiped Gemma's plans of how to create more M3gans. Even faster than M3gan this Amelia doll became very similar to a human, it could think for itself and even resembled a human, much more than M3gan did. In the end there was a vicious showdown between M3gan and Amelia, at first it appeared both had met their end but M3gan survived by having her soul enter the body of Gemma, not a happy ending but the world was still intact! This sequel was twenty minutes longer than the first movie and do recommend watching them back to back. This second film had so much more action and was gorier than the first but to me not quite as good. My biggest negative was how things worked out too easily for Gemma, Cady and M3gan as even in the most dire situations they survived and came out smelling like roses! But I did enjoy the film and I go into these with an open mind for I want to like the movie and seldom do I view one that's too bad to finish. If I look at these two as one long movie of 210 minutes then would give the pair a grade of about a B or 8.5/10, to me they're worth a watch. Be like me and don't depend on reviews as I just use those to understand what's going to happen and what kind of special features are on the DVD, now on to my mini marathon of (mostly)older films from Japan!
While the above two films were rather good and so aren't most of the ones I view from America. After watching this classic it made me realize even more how much better these older movies from Japan are compared to America or any other country! I could watch films that were released from the mid 1950's until the 1990's all day long but would grown tired of that so try not to go overboard with older films these days but they will be the ones which will be featured more than any others in the future posts for this series. When I used the word classic in the first sentence was so correct with that description and it's in my top ten of all time, with a few more watches perhaps top five! Earlier in the post mentioned a movie that I had tried watching a few times but could never finish due to the DVD not being in good shape. This is the movie and bought the DVD used at my local music/movie store a year ago, have purchased hundreds there and this was the only time I had an issue with a film. This is a long movie at just over 140 minutes in length and while viewing it wish it had been longer! At about the 110 minute mark the DVD would freeze or skip ahead and the quality of the video went way down. Four times I watched up until the 110 minute mark and until last night never knew how it ended, it was such a tremendous movie so was naturally quite frustrated.
But finally got a new copy of the film and that was the best decision I made this year as it's a film I'll be viewing many more times. Won't give this film a grade of 10/10 as I've never done that but my my rating wouldn't be much below that. This is the second film in the 'My Current Watches' series that was directed by Akira Kurosawa, the other was close to being as terrific and was "Ikuru" from 1952. "High and Low" was released in 1963 and was the highest grossing film in Japan that year, doubt if films like this would be such a hit this day. I've seen a few other Kurosawa films such as "One Wonderful Sunday" from 1947 and "The Quiet Duel" from 1949. That second starred Toshiro Mifune who just may be the most respected actor of all time in Japan, he had the lead in this film and was in fifteen others that were directed by Kurosawa. Mifune has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and I'm curious on how many other Japanese actors have been honored? Will give a brief breakdown of what took place in this must see movie, need at least ten paragraphs to go into all of the details and there are plenty of reviews of this film already. You don't need to read any and instead your mission is to view this film! Mifune played an executive at National Shoes named Kingo Gondo , he had started at the company's factory and over thirty years had moved way up to being about third in command. Gondo really cares about the company and the quality of shoes they produce, he puts quality over profits which didn't make his peers on the executive board too happy as they wanted to join up with Gondo and take control of National Shoes.
But Gondo had his own plans and with the purchase of another 19% of the company's stock he would be up to 47% and could become the company's sole president. All it would take for Gondo to do so was to pay those others who have 19% of the stock 50 million yen and within two days, his assistant Kawanishi was planning on leaving Yokohama that night to travel to Osaka to pay off these shareholders. But right before the assistant left Gondo received a phone call, his ten year old son Jun had been kidnapped and the culprit is demanding 30 million yen!!!! It was just a coincidence the kidnapping and of Gondo paying off the other stockholders happened on the same day, of course Gondo would use that money to save his son and not take control of his company. But shortly after the call ended walking into the room was Gondo's son Jun, was that kidnapping a prank? No, for it was the son of Gondo's chauffeur Aoki who had been kidnapped as the creep had nabbed the wrong boy! So now the dilemma for Gondo was would he pay the 30 million yen ransom for Aoki's son and under most circumstances he would have. But Gondo had to mortgage everything he owned to come up with the money to buy off that 19% of National Shoe's stocks, if he paid the ransom and the police couldn't recover the money Gondo would be wiped out!
The police were eventually called in and what an efficient group they were. My favorite of the cast was Tatsuya Nakadai who played the chief inspector in this case, Tokura. He was always so calm even when things were not going smoothly which did happen often as the kidnapper was such a clever young man. His name was Takeuchi who was played by one of all all time top actors Tsutomu Yamazaki, he's still alive and will be turning 89 in three weeks. The next film will the first one he ever had the lead role in. We didn't see much of Takeuchi until the final thirty minutes, those were the ones I had never been able to see until last night!!!! Have never used four paragraphs for any of these reviews as two is my norm so let me wrap this up quick. Gondo did pay the ransom and the boy was saved at about the seventy minute mark but that was only the halfway point of the movie. The second half was of the police trying to nab the kidnapper, Sherlock Holmes had nothing on Inspector Tokura and his team. In the end the culprit was nabbed and was facing the death sentence, the scene where Gondo paid the ransom may have been the most intense scene I've ever viewed. It took place on an early version of the Bullet Train, it was all filmed in one take as the train had been rented for only one run so that may have helped increase the intensity! That finishes off this longish mini recap and there aren't enough superlatives to describe this movie and it truly is a must watch, will be viewing it several more times. Did say that Yamazaki has the lead role in the next film for today and it's one I've never seen. EDIT: There aren't many screenshots of her below and am referring to Kyoko Kagawa who played the wife of Gondo and her name in the film was Reiko. What a classy beauty she was who I've seen in a few other films, I still think women from the 1950's-60's looked the best and in three weeks she'll be celebrating her 94th birthday!
This is a bit of an unknown film from 1964, it was difficult to find even those above two pics but below did take many screenshots from the movie. Did see one comment of the movie which stood out to me and why it's been a bit of an unknown classic. Starting in the late 1950's and continuing for about 25 years Japanese movie studios could churn out too many films to count, a dozen or so a week! Even with that high amount the quality was good for those flicks and I've rarely seen a dud out of the thousand(?) I've viewed. With the point being a film such as this one was easy to overlook, while to me it was a terrific film can understand why it wasn't a huge hit or more well known. The plot(s) was a bit complicated and I'm going to view this again to tie up a few loose questions but all in all this was another movie I highly recommend, seems I do that for most older Japanese films. Mentioned Tsutomu Yamazaki above and this was his first time having the lead in a film, I've seen him in about a dozen and all are winners in my book. This movie was filmed in September and October 1963, it was released on May 29, 1964 with the timeline of the story being late Summer, early Autumn 1963. In this film Yamazaki played the role of a detective named Kikuchi and in 1961 he had been working on a murder case of an unknown woman found floating in Tokyo's Tama river. Kikuchi ended up making progress but perhaps too much as the murder did involve a politician and some wealthy businessmen, to get this detective off their backs they framed Kikuchi for taking a bribe to help a Yakuza thug smuggle in drugs.
Which of course never took place but Kikuchi was sent to prison for two years and upon his release could never work for the police again. Revenge was the number one priority for Kikuchi after his release in August 1963, he got a job with an old friend at a detective agency and changed his name to Inamura. Which did help him when he started up his private investigation into who murdered that woman two years ago plus what was her name? Also on Inamura's mind was revenge upon those 3-6 corrupt men who framed him for smuggling drugs, on the outside Inamura was cool in front of others but his insides were raging with intense fire. Not a lot of action as Inamura didn't look like much of a fighter but he did brutalize an ex-Yakuza leader once and that was one intense scene. As a matter of fact most of this movie was quite intense and at times mysterious, the major problem with describing a film in 2-3 paragraphs is that there's not enough time for all of the details. Which isn't a bad thing as who wants to know all that happened if you're planning on viewing the movie or drama? In the end Inamura did nab the men who were responsible for his demise, he made two commit suicide. One was a woman named Setsuko who is in the seventh screenshot below, she and Inamura became close by accident so what a blow it was to him when he learned Setsuko was a part of the plan to frame him and sent Inamura to prison! That wraps up this mini synopsis and of course much more happened, though not a well known film it's easy enough to find and when I plan on doing rewatches of movies that usually means it was a decent watch. Think this was the first film I could not find a trailer for, searched high and low on YT with no luck. So after the screenshots have the trailer for Yamazaki's 2002 film "Doing Time" which was set in a prison and was another below the radar yet stupendous movie. If you're also a movie fan like me you would recognize most of the cast and it's another film I highly recommend.
Not that three paragraphs or on occasion four is a lot to describe movies over two hours in length but have gotten away from having only two medium sized paragraphs so will only include six films for today instead of seven. That's okay as I want to have a part two for November movies and think the next one should be similar to this, four older Japanese films and for the American ones was finally going to start on the "Chucky" boxset though that's not written in stone. The last two for today are extremely old films, this first one "Home Sweet Home" was released on March 21, 1951!!!! This and the next star my second favorite actress of all time who is Hideko Takemine, have mentioned her in some other of these posts. As a matter of fact the next two posts in this movie series may both contain a pair of films she starred in. For the decade following 1945 Japan was still feeling the after affects of the war, most people were working but most were living from paycheck to paycheck. Plus the film movies were shot on wasn't top notch quality so to many viewers that may be a turnoff to watching these movies but to me the subpar film quality is a plus. For "Home Sweet Home" the screenshots don't look all that terrific and they're not but the quality of the film is much better watching on a regular TV which I did. The story revolves around the Uemura family, the time span was early 1951. The father Kosaku was played by Chishu Ryu, when you view a film by the acclaimed director Ozu it's hard not to notice Chishu as he was in 52 of his 54 films!!!! Playing the mother Namiko was the actress Isuzu Yamada and she was one of Japan's top actresses of all time, like so many she lived to the ripe age of 95!
Hideko played their 22 year old daughter Tomoko, there were three other children who were 18 year old Nobuko, the only son Katsuo was about ten and eight year old Mitsuko. The family wasn't in poverty but not far above that, the father Kosaku has had a decent job for 25 years working in an office but at the time wages were so depressed. For most of the film if something could go wrong for the family it did, Tomoko was an aspiring painter but couldn't sell any of her works and her boyfriend Saburo was in the hospital with TB, he eventually died. The father did get a bonus at work but somehow lost the money while out drinking with his wife Namiko, soon after the family was given an eviction notice for the house they had been renting. But by the end of the film things were looking up a bit for the close knit family, Tomoko had finally sold some of her paintings and was able to boost the family's income so they weren't evicted from the small house.
There were a few other bright spots for the Uemura family, it wasn't an extremely happy ending to this 91 minute movie but the future did look a bit brighter for the family. Movies such as this that were made in that era are kind of a snapshot on how people lived back then, it's so nice viewing films where people interact face to face with each other. Unlike today when films are dominated by cellphones, computers, TV and other high tech gadgets, in a way I may have preferred living back in those times but maybe seventy years from now a blogger may say the same things about how we lived! Up until today had been able to find a trailer for all of the films I've discussed so about 25+ in all. But this makes it two films in a row for this post where there wasn't one and that may happen again in the future for obscure movies. You can see plenty of fabulous screenshots below of Hideko who was such a classic beauty and was 26 in age when this film came out. Later in 1951 she starred in Japan's first color film "Carmen Comes Home", seeing as how there was no trailer for this movie have the one for that film after the screenshots.
Final film for this longish yet to me very interesting post, this makes it nine of these kinds of posts done in eleven weeks and they've turned into my favorite kinds of posts to do. But I don't write the entire thing up at once, will watch a movie at night and spend five or so minutes the next morning adding in the section for the movie. But in this case watched these two Hideko films back to back, the above was 91 minutes in length and this was 54 minutes. As you can see above this movie was written and directed by Mikio Naruse, he's one of Japan's more noted directors and will be talking about more of his films in the future. His top actress was Hideko as she starred in seventeen of his films, how come so many decades ago such classic films could be completed in two or so weeks while these days it takes over a year to create such duds???? This movie was set in the Spring of 1941, Japan hadn't gone to war with America and nothing was ever mentioned about the current war(s) against China and a few other SE Asia countries. The filming took place in Kofu which is 75 miles west of Tokyo and is the capital of Yamanashi prefecture. On a side note I've been interested in that area since viewing the two seasons of "Yuru Camp", that would be the place I could see retiring to!
Though the title is "Hideko the Bus Conductor'" in the film her character is named Okoma, instead of conductor Conductress was the term mainly used. These days Kofu has a population of 187,000, back in 1941 it was 100,000 so it's almost doubled but when you view this film it looked like a farming village. Okoma worked for the Kohoku bus company but very few passengers used the service as most chose the newer line Kaihatsu as their buses were bigger, cleaner and ran more often. The only reason the Kohoku bus service survived is that Okoma and the driver Sonoda would work for cheap wages and did truly care about their jobs. The owner Katsumi was a shady character and not sure why he didn't cease the bus service moons ago but it was a front for his under the radar business dealings that were never mentioned. One day Okoma heard a radio show about bus conductors and an idea she got was to have their route be an educational one as she would tell the passengers all about the history of the areas the bus was passing but did it ever become a success? For at the end while Okoma and Sonoda were on the bus route it appeared the owner Katsumi had sold his company and was going to flee Kofu before the pair returned to the office!
Of course more happened but it was only a 54 minute film and one that was fun to watch. This was the only movie of the six for today I had seen in it's entirety before, think this now makes it five times I've watched it. But had been under the impression it had been set much near Tokyo and because of the war so many people lived in poverty. Which could be true to an extent but also realized in 1941 so many parts of the world were still recovering from the Great Depression so years before this movie was made things may have been a lot worse. Hideko was seventeen when this film was made, she first appeared in a movie back in 1929 at the age of five and back then films made were silent ones. Though I've seen Hideko in about a dozen films have acquired many more recently which I've never seen so some of those will be in these future posts. Will admit the quality of this film was also subpar as it was only available on VHS but often you don't notice that while you're enjoying a film. There was no trailer once again but after the screenshots is a clip of the movie's first 3 1/2 minutes. Will try have one more of these posts by the end of the month, should have six films again and as mentioned many times would be nice to hear from you viewers.
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