Nighthawk’s Top Ten Japanese Films

I will start by saying that I am a film aficionado, a sampler of all things cinema and a man entranced by motion pictures. It wasn’t always this way, of course. It used to be the only thing that would hold me spellbound would be Super Mario Brothers 3 or the supple bosom of Heather Young. I would say it has only been within the last eight years where my adoration of cinema began to fester, bubble and then erupt in a hot volcanic fury that has been raining down upon me every since. Prior to diving into the deep end of the pool my only real foray into the silver screen were the popular Hollywood films of the 80s (read: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, etc.) and horror. Above all else, horror. Sure, I saw Jedi 8 times by the age of 13 but I saw A Nightmare on Elm Street 20 times before I became of age to actually cast my wide eyes unto such guts and gory if one were to adhere to the ratings board. I have fond memories of my brother and I gathering our allowance, earned for absolutely nothing which is the best way to earn money is it not Paris Hilton? Five bucks happily pocketed we were off on a twenty minute walk to the video store. Now, there were at least two video stores closer and one handed out free popcorn until us kids really abused that privilege and would often live on strictly stale popcorn for weeks on end. Though merely a few steps away, these video stores did not have what my brother and eye so anxiously awaited feeding our easily earned money into. They did not have The Gumball Machine. This holy shrine of my youth was housed in a church across the highschool field, down the bike path, through the baseball park and next to the McDonalds. This church was called Video Video.

Video Video was run by a very Norma Bates’ish looking man, thin, neatly cut hair and firm, piercing eyes. This soul slicing gaze was reserved for the big kids, those who stood outside pounding on his window or moseying about inside, eyes darting quickly to the counter, hands read and a pocket just large enough to fit a Nintendo game. These kids never got very far with their commandment breaking intentions as it is my theory, and I am sure my brother would agree, old Norman at the counter could shoot out jagged lines of ice from his eyeballs that would turn any would be thief into an Idiotsicle until proper authorities could arrive to thaw him out. Okay, maybe Normy didn’t have superpowers but there was that baseball bat I once caught a glimpse of behind the counter and I’m pretty sure that at the push of the minus symbol on his cash register the sparse foreign film section would rotate into the wall to reveal an armory of firearms, blades and at least one set of nunchucks. My brother and I were exempt from the scowls and glares because, after all, we were cash carrying constant customers arriving with each weekend, smiling and ready to begin the ritualistic proceedings of feeding the shrine. Norman would never smile back, his brow always furrowed, arms always crossed but deep down I believe this frigid video store shop keep, maybe filled with years of angst over having never pursued a career as a keyboard player in a Blondie cover band, probably divorced twice and seeing half his video store gross going towards child support, cheap beer and cigarettes from the Native reservation, in the pits of his frozen core he might have sort of kind of maybe liked our company for a half hour each weekend as we perused his collection of tapes and video game cartridges.

You see, Norman always turned a blind eye to my eye bathing any movie box cover that showed a hint of the female anatomy usually under the concealment of clothing. I think I obtained about 50% of my knowledge about the shapely female form from looking at the back of boxes for comedies and romance films most people haven’t even heard of and I might be able to jog some memories if only I had thought to take a look to see if this particular film with the large breasted woman on the cover had a title. Incidentally, the remaining 45% would be acquired by watching Saturday night erotic French films on channel 15 and the final 5% would be college. Though Norman and his magical boxes of female wonders were all very important to my budding preteen mind it was the wall closest to the counter where most of my brother and I would spend our time because Norman had the best horror film section in all of the three counties. Blockbuster had not moved into town yet (which is probably one of the reasons why small stores like Video Video were in existence) and the other rental shops could not even call their horror sections sections in comparison to Norman’s six shelves of gore. The usual suspects were present and accounted for. You had your Freddy and your Jason and your Michael Myers and your Chucky but amongst these legends you found such lesser-known films like Slumber Party Massacre, Puppet Man and Fright Night. Yes, we were too young to be renting such films but Norman again did not even question us as we snapped up these goulish tapes to cart home for viewing when our mother was either sleeping, upstairs knitting or reading her woman’s magazines. Our week would be spent watching voluptuous vixens getting stabbed, sliced, chopped and garroted in only the inventive ways a hungry screenwriter on his second pack of smokes and third bottle of whisky came imagine at two in the morning. A dozen tapes would be pilled neatly by the television stand awaiting their turn in the marathon of murder. How did we amass such a collection with our feeble allowance? Well, that brings us back to our gumball machine god, red and Tom Servo like, hovering over us like the deity it was.

Video Video (sadly now a print shop having gone under when the Blockbuster came to town) and Norman came up with a crafty way to draw kids away from the larger stores in town. Whereas your Hollywood Video would have a gumball with a star that would earn the lucky person who popped his or her quarter inside a free rental and Bandito Video had that strange tinfoil ball, Video Video had many different ways in which you could claim rental winnings. A blue gumball would get you a new release. A yellow would secure you an old release. Pink would be a video game and the most coveted ball of all, the purple, would get you two old releases. It was not only rentals you could win but also cans of soda with two red gumballs. Usually my brother and I would walk away with seven films, three video games and half a case of Pepsi between us. The gumballs were incidental casualties serving the greater good and would often be tossed into the baseball diamond on our way back home, a dazzling colorful array of candy awaiting the next ballgame.

It was in film school when I started branching out to discover that there was more to film then axes, knives and chainsaws. The first, and really most important AFI Top 100 list before they just started to parody themselves, was my introduction to popular American cinema as I started to collect all of the titles that had been officially released. It was around this time when I started dating a girl who led me into an obsession with foreign films. Now, my area of expertise lies not within global cinema and though I love watching films from other countries, if for nothing else but to get a look into other lands and cultures, my true cinematic lovers are those painted in black and white. Film Noir tops my list along the silent films of Chaplin and Lloyd. Hitchcock, you have to have some Hitch and all those gritty gangster movies. Still, I have watched a great deal of foreign films and it was through the lens of Kurosawa I first saw old Japan and many years later these films would dictate my choice on where I wanted to live when coming here. As mentioned before, there is a thrill for me in watching films within the land of their origin. Japanese film, especially Kurosawa, had a profound influence on the changing shape of cinema in the late 1960s and 70s. Peckinpah and Leone would take much for the Japanese masters with Leone remaking an entire Kurosawa film. Spielberg Scorsese, Coppola and Tarantino have all acknowledged the influence of Japanese cinema on their work. Although Japanese films were produced in the silent era and some notable films like Mizoguchi’s Sisters of the Gion would be released during the 30s, it was after World War II, in the 1950s, where the pinnacle of Japanese cinema would be reached. Three films in this era generally make best cinema lists and one of them would win Japan it’s first Oscar and introduce Japanese cinema on a more global scale. It was also in this decade where a large lizard would stomp his place into history. The 60s, 70s and 80s all saw Kurosawa continuing to produce quality features with the 1990s showcasing animation that would show the world there was more then just Disney out there. In recent years Japanese horror has become popular with many remakes State side unable to rival the Japanese originals.

Nighthawks Top Ten Japanese Films
10. Taxing Woman (1987 / Directed by Juzo Itami): This comedy introduces us to Ryoko Itakura, a female tax inspector who is digging into the books of a handful of Japanese businesses. She begins to develop a sort of fondness for one of the men she has been asked to investigate which complicates matters. This film is one of the better looks at modern Japanese culture, at least from the perspective of the late 1980s.

9. Grave of the Fireflies (1988 / Directed by Isao Takahata): Based on a true story, this animated film takes place at the end of the war as we follow the lives of two orphaned children who have survived the firebombing of Kobe. This is not your typical cartoon feature. There are no singing animals, no happily ever after. This is Takahata’s look at the grimness of war and the horrors found in the aftermath of tragedy. Both children brave through famine, dispassionate family members and graphic animated depictions of the world they now live in. Without giving too much away, this will be one of the most gut wrenching pieces of animation you will see as you follow these children not through a fairytale but through the realities of what these Japanese cities and their citizens endured during the bombing raids. This is not a story about the prince finding the princess but of two kids trying to survive. Roger Ebert said in his review of the recent DVD release: “Because it is animated and from Japan, "Grave of the Fireflies" has been little seen. When anime fans say how good the film is, nobody takes them seriously. Now that it's available on DVD with a choice of subtitles or English dubbing, maybe it will find the attention it deserves. Yes, it's a cartoon, and the kids have eyes like saucers, but it belongs on any list of the greatest war films ever made.” I would also add one of the best animated films to the list of accolades.

8. Battle Royale (2000 / Directed by Kinji Fukasaku): "At the dawn of the millennium, the nation collapsed. At fifteen percent unemployment, ten million were out of work. 800,000 students boycotted the school. The adults lost confidence, and fearing the youth, eventually passed the Millennium Educational Reform Act AKA: The BR Act..." This is how the brutal film that is Battle Royale begins. A mixture of Lord of the Flies, The Most Dangerous Game and Friday the 13th, the story unfolds on an island where a large group of children have been kidnapped and forced to due battle with one another until only one remains.

7. Gojira (1954 / Directed by Ishirô Honda): In the fury of a flash of lightening, a great beast rises from the bottom of the ocean to become Legend. Gojira, better known in the western world as Godzilla, is Japanese answer to Kong Kong and though it seems like a million cheesy guy in rubber suits films were spawned by this first and best in the genre, Gojira is far from cheesy. This is the first time we get to see the giant lizard in all his glory, the first time he rages of Tokyo but in a country that was still rebuilding from the bomb, Gojira had an underlying message about the dangers of nuclear weapons. Avoid the Americanized version with footage of Raymond Burr popped in and stick with the original rampaging Japanese monster.

6. Ugetsu (1953 / Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi ): Fable, history lesson and ghost story, Ugetsu takes us into Medieval Japan on a epic journey of greed of man and the suffering of women because of it. Two men set out to make their fortune in the heat of the Japanese civil war. One becomes a warrior while the other becomes seduced by a spirit bent on revenge. The camera seldom pauses to allow you to reflect but the cinematography is nothing short of stunning. This is a Japan where spirits walk the earth, where war ravages the land and were dreams can become nightmares in the haze of seduction.

5. Branded To Kill (1967 / Directed by Seijun Suzuki): Japan’s best crime film centers around the third greatest hitman in the country who runs into beauty and soon finds his luck shifting. In the flutter of a butterflies wings the entire film turns us upside down and the hunter is now the hunted leading us through a series of thrilling action sequences to bring us to a rousing climatic finale in the center of a boxing ring. With it’s B-movie aura and hints of noir, it would be a crime itself to not have Branded To Kill on a list of the best in cinema coming from the land of the rising sun.

4. Tokyo Story (1953 / Directed by Yasujiro Ozu ): It is after the war. The world is changing, the modern face of old Japan is being transformed as the population rises and more and more homes are built flooding cities into countrysides. This is the current that flows through Tokyo Story, a film depicting a journey of two elderly parents from their small town home to visit their children now residing in the metropolis that is Tokyo. The parents are astonished to find that their children have no time for them despite the long trip in the days before bullet trains and near instant arrivals. The family structure has fallen apart as they were looking away and much like the country itself the ideals of family have shifted. Often called one of the best ten films ever made and at times even usurping the great Kane for the top spot, Tokyo Story is a plateau for Japanese cinema. Rashomon had cast a light the world noticed in 1950 but Tokyo Story, three years later, would ensure that such brightness would not dim.

3. Spirited Away (2001 / Directed by Hayao Miyazaki): It has been called the best Japanese animated film of all time and if we were to go strictly on box office gross then, yes, being the only film to be able to sink the mighty earnings of Titanic in Japan one could say Spiritied Away could be called the best. However, earnings aside, this delightfully engrossing animated tale has become a beautiful story embrassed not just by the Japanese but by the world over. It is the second animated film to ever win an Oscar and marked the return from retirement for Japanese animated film director Miyazaki. With films like Princess Mononoke, Kiki’s Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro Miyazaki had gained acclaim in the world of animated films. Surly his name could be uttered in the same breath as Walt Disney or Chuck Jones. The story leads us into a mysterious town where a lost ten year old girl is trying to save her parent’s lives as she wanders around with the spirits of Japan’s past. The animation is some of the best you will see and the story touching and often times very humorous. This story could be called the Japanese Alice in Wonderland as there are many parallels to the classic work of children’s fiction.

2. Rashomon (1950 / Akira Kurosawa): It is 12th Century Japan. A woman has been raped and her samurai husband murdered and for the next 88 minutes Kurosawa will takes us down a twisting path in this who done it. The plot is pretty straight-forward and this film might have not had such an impact on the medium if told in the common liner fashion of the time. Orson Wells demonstrated that stories could unfold on the screen in various ways through the use of intersecting cinematic paths and narrative flashbacks with Citizen Kane. Kurosawa took this a step further and made the flashbacks almost a character within the film as the entire narrative (narratives, if you will) is based around them and this is what makes Rashomon a fantastic piece of cinema. The story is told from the perspective of the five main characters, The Woodsman, The Priest, The Bandit, The Samurai's Wife, and the deceased Samurai himself, with each adding new pieces to the unfolding puzzle and all with different motives. Contradictions, revelations, concealment and lies all paint a confusing picture of the crime leaving questions that remain long after the final shot. What is truth? Reality? In the end the viewer must examine each piece, each story told, and ultimately decide for themselves. This film single-handedly launched Japanese cinema into the global spotlight. Though the Foreign Language Oscar did not exist at the time the Board of Governors issued an honorary Oscar to Kurosawa siting Rashomon as the most outstanding foreign language film released in the United States in 1951. The popular belief is that the category would be created because of this film as a way to honor cinema produced outside of the United States. Another interesting fact is that this film marks the first time in cinema history that a film camera was pointed directly at the sun. The studio nearly passed on the film not knowing exactly what it was about and even during the shooting the cast had problems comprehending just what they were shooting. They approached the master filmmaker and asked him "What does it mean?" Kurosawa explained that the film, in essence, is a reflection of life and life does not always have clear meanings.

1. Seven Samurai (1954 / Directed by Akira Kurosawa): Some might sight Roshamon as the best in Japanese cinema and they certainly have a valid argument and whereas the uniqueness in it’s story telling makes Roshamon a top contender to the throne I believe it is this film, Seven Samurai, that deserves to hold that honor. It is cinema perfection, not a spot or a blemish. The story unfolds around a band of seven samurai, well fancy that, hired by a small town as perfection from the bandits that are aiming to attack and rob them when their crops are worthy of the crime. This type of film has been made multiple times since, a band of heroes gather together to save a small lot of hapless folk who can’t defend themselves and together they all vanquish the enemy and learn a little bit about themselves. Seven Samurai was the first to use it, however, and some claim it to be the father of action cinema as much of what was created in this film has permeated what now is a genre unto itself. At the time this was the largest undertaking in Japanese cinema and there was no better director fit for such a task then Kurosawa who was riding on the fame generated by Roshamon. At the film’s core are questions regarding morality, shifting traditions and honor. Yes, there are great battles and spectacular swordplay but the brilliance of Seven Samurai takes place in conversation or anticipation of action as Kurosawa pauses just long enough to bait us for the drama to follow. Clocking in at over 200 minutes, this film is an epic that hits all the marks. There is even a love story tossed in there but, of course, in Kurosawa’s world, this subplot is not your typical tale of lovers in conflict but rather, in the end, central to theme of the film. Due to it being released in America two years after it was released in Japan, Seven Samurai would be disqualified as a Best Foreign language film but would obtain two nominations for art direction and costume design. One can only assume that if released two years prior Kurosawa would be polishing off another Oscar for the mantelpiece.

The amount of quality cinema coming from Japan (although, let’s be honest, this country did and currently still releases a heck of a lot of cheese…Gamera I’m looking at you!) places many of the films of Japan amongst the very best. Selecting ten was not easy, especially when I had to overlook Hiroshi Inagaki’s Samurai Trilogy as it is best viewed as three films and not one and I also could not populate the list with strictly Kurosawa films as there are at least six that belong in any top ten list of Japanese cinema. I also wanted to span a few decades and a couple of genres to give the list a more sweeping prominence instead of focusing on the zenith that was the 1950s as a whole (although half of the films in the list were released in this decade). I urge all you readers, even if you are not too keen on reading your movies, to seek out some of these titles and see for yourself how films like A Fistful of Dollars, The Magnificent Seven and Kill Bill may not have come to be without the filmmakers of Japan.