Japanese Film
 

please share suggestions of directors/films to check out.
i think everyone who knows anything about jp films will know the famous (outside of japan) directors like takashi miike, beat takeshi, etc. so lets try and let each other know about some less known ones.

here are a few films ive watched recently that i really liked.
himitsu no hanozono (my secret cache)
cha no aji (a taste of tea)
samehada otoko to momojiri ona (sharkskin man peach hip girl)
swallowtail butterfly
all about lily chu chu

i warn everyone not to watch a film called pornostar. its absolute shite.

The Japanese film Versus is the best action film I've seen by a long way.

Korean films is where it's at, I reckon. Public Enemy, R-Point, Real Fiction etc etc.

where's iain? he's an expert on the subject

wild zero
branded to kill
nobody knows
versus

my friend writes reviews for a website called midnight eye which is a pretty good source of info on japanese cinema

here's his review of nobody knows
http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/nobody-knows.shtml

don't go for calimari wrestler, it's pretty rubbish

I haven't seen many but here goes.

Anything by Akira Kurosawa
Hidden fortress
Throne of blood
Drunken angel
The seven samurai
Stray dog
Rapsody in August... to name but a few.

Boiling point - Takeshi Kitano
The flavor of green tea over rice - Yasujiro Ozu
Nobody knows - Hirokazu Koreeda
Violent cop - Takeshi Kitano
Queer boys and girls on the shinkansen - Ten different filmmakers
The samurai trilogy - Hiroshi Inagaki
Suicide circle - Sion Sono
Tatsuo & Body hammer - Shinya Tsukamoto
Tokyo Decadence - Ryu Murakami

Godzilla movies kick ass too.
I don't really like the manga stuff(animation).

oh no, suicide cirlce?
its one of the worst japanese films i ever saw.
but thanks for all the other suggestions. ive heard of alot of them but never seen most of them.

ghibili animation is pretty good, spirited away, laputa, totoro and all those.

for anime definitely check out

the cowboy bebop movie & series
porco rosso
ghost in the shell
akira
steamboy's meant to be good too

We have periods with quite a lot of eastern films on our 3rd channel here in Holland. Mostly on sunday afternoons.
Some good and some bad.
Suicide circle wasn't that great for me either.

ah, i thought you were recommending those films.

Most are recommended for sure.
Only Suicide circle and Rapsody in August are a little weak.

If you haven't seen the Tatsuo films, then check those out first.
Fracking hardcore visuals!

Wow...Midnight Eye is more than just pretty good. It's the best website for Japanese film by far...that I have come across anyway.

Indeed Branded to Kill is a mighty film and one of my favourites of all time. Also, Tokyo Drifter, Youth of the Beast, Tatooed Life and Pistol Opera by the same director.

Any Shinya Tsukamoto is well worth watching. Tetsuo 1 and 2 if you haven't already seen them and Gemini, Bullet Ballet and A Snake of June are also great (especially Gemini)

If you want a heady mix of radical left wing politics, sex and violence and bleak nihilism then you can't go wrong with anything by Koji Wakamatsu. I have only seen a couple of his films but Go Go Second Time Virgin was pretty good.

You've probably seen some Takashi Miike films perhaps but he's done loads and a lot of them are good. Audition, Dead or Alive 2, Bird People of China and Visitor Q are all really good. Audition is fantastic.

And if you like really fucked up shit then see Naked Blood.

ive seen tetsuo 1 and 2. i didnt like them at all. not my kinda thing.
i saw another film by that director which i also didnt like, i think it was called either loved gun or bullet balet, i cant remember cuz i think i watched both of these on the same day. one is not bad and the other is not good.
its a matter of taste though, so if you like the tetsuo films you should maybe check this one out.

if anybody knows any good japanese comedy films then let me know! i watched my secret cache last night and ive got a thirst for it now.

Isn't pistol opera a remake of some other film?

well, yes, it must have been bullet balet then. its the one with the guy who's girl shoots herself then he hooks up with the gang and the wierd girl?
takashi miike is great. visitor q is ridiculously fucked up. its great.
as you say, audition too. ichi the killer, gozu, happiness of the katakuris..... some are shit though. i went thru a stage of watching his films, i saw about 20 and probably half of them are great and half are pretty bland.

iwai shunji is a good director. swallowtail butterfly, picknick, lily chou chou, hanna and alice.

its gonna take me a while to see all these, but itll be good fun.

koji wakamatsu has 100 films listed on imdb.
thats alot of films

Oh, Eureka by Shinji Ayoyama is pretty ace if you can stand 3+ hours of film.

I've never seen it but I've heard great things about it, I'm quite curious about the film.

I really haven't seen many, but I think Beat Kitano makes anything and everything worth watching. I love that guy.