Category: Japan

Homemade Gyoza Party | Baby Assassins: 2 Babies (2023) Review

January 23, 2025

I’m so excited that Baby Assassins ballooned into a media franchise, encompassing a trilogy of films, a TV series, a making-of documentary, and a making-of mockumentary, most of which came together in the last two years. Mahiro actress Saori Izawa has been working for a long time, as her action reels on YouTube plainly demonstrate – up to and including slicing a delivery pizza in half with a katana – mostly behind the scenes, even doubling Rina Sawayama in John Wick: Chapter 4. Our dear new franchise, then, is basically her proverbial (if not literal) John Wick moment, and honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her featured more prominently in another American movie soon. It’s weird that American action cinema is currently in a renaissance, but for Japan, movies like Baby Assassins are the exception – kind of. … More Homemade Gyoza Party | Baby Assassins: 2 Babies (2023) Review

A Killing at the Maid Café | Baby Assassins (2021) Review

January 22, 2025

In action movies, there’s always that moment in the final battle when the bloody-faced hero looks up at their opponent, and the line is something like, “I’m not giving up” or “Is that all you got?” In Baby Assassins, it’s more like, “She didn’t tell me about this strong guy.” That’s it. Just another snippet of an internal monologue that’s sometimes spoken aloud. At the start of the movie, this character Mahiro is introduced as a socially awkward teen doing something painfully relatable: bombing a job interview. Only, she cuts it short by shooting the hiring manager in the head (ideally, that’s less relatable). What follows is a frenetic fight scene choreographed by the modern master Kensuke Sonomura, where assailants lifting Mahiro into the air doesn’t stop her from repeatedly stabbing their shoulders and arms. Spoiler alert: this is most of the movie’s action until the final battle. … More A Killing at the Maid Café | Baby Assassins (2021) Review

What Would ‘Ghost in the Shell 3’ Have Looked Like?

June 28, 2024

Meat Loaf once said that two out of three ain’t bad, but he obviously never saw Ghost in the Shell. Two volumes of the original manga – and then an interquel – two original movies and two seasons of the television show, and when that television show finally got a sequel almost 20 years later, it ran for two seasons. Now, each of these examples feels incomplete because the trilogy is such a natural expression of “beginning, middle and end,” and also, because Ghost in the Shell is really good, and fans always want more. I mean, for the most part. The experimental, almost anthological nature of the series means there are misses along with the hits, including an ill-advised Hollywood rendition and the franchise’s latest, a Netflix anime in 3D CG. Only until recently, on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence could arguably be counted among them, having never generated the same enthusiasm as the original 1995 classic. Of course, even if left disappointed by Batou’s adventure, I bet fans still wonder about the follow-up that never was. … More What Would ‘Ghost in the Shell 3’ Have Looked Like?

The Revelation of ‘My Undead Yokai Girlfriend’

June 8, 2024

As a man with an interesting life, one who pursues many hobbies, it’s only natural I’ve had occasion to add anthropology to the list. Sometimes I simply want to understand people who fascinate and repulse. For example, what kind of sicko watches a show called My Undead Yokai Girlfriend? This, friends, is how I came to watch the Amazon original from March of this year. It was purely academic. I swear. … More The Revelation of ‘My Undead Yokai Girlfriend’

Made It

March 4, 2024

It’s March now, so we’re nearing the end of the first quarter of our entertainment year, which is exactly how entertainment is measured. I have to say, of the titles I previewed in this earlier post, not one that I’ve seen has been good. I like Gyeongsong Creature, but it’s so deeply flawed that the flaws become its very substance, for one’s acceptance or rejection — I don’t think it cares either way. I found Echo to be empty, and True Detective: Night Country uneventful. One show I did not list was FX/Hulu’s Shogun, something I’d seen in snippets last year for my job and assumed, when it made landfall, it would be brushed off as hoary-old white-savior nonsense. Wow, how wrong I was. … More Made It

Flower Power Tower | Mechanical Violator Hakaider (1995) Review

January 15, 2024

Over the years, I’ve attempted to watch Mechanical Violator Hakaider three or four times, and only on the third or fourth attempt did I make it to the credits – not intact. I’d fallen asleep every time, so it was just a matter of picking up where I’d left off or deciding it had been too long and starting over. And I’d think, “How is this happening?” One of the strands running through this (strand-type) blog is the film’s director Keita Amemiya, whose career serves the hyper-specific, me-shaped niche of “non-kaiju tokusatsu and also R-rated violence,” with the bonus of an appreciation for action heroines (usually played by one actress, Yuko Moriyama). Hakaider could be the result of the slightest deviation from that formula, but I think its sleep-inducing powers speak to fundamental problems, and ironically may speak to Amemiya’s craft. … More Flower Power Tower | Mechanical Violator Hakaider (1995) Review

Tokyo Story Raids Again | Godzilla Minus One (2023) Review

December 2, 2023

The question isn’t about potentially overstating Godzilla Minus One with hyperbole, but rather which hyperbole to choose from? So far, I have “In terms of improving upon source material, Godzilla Minus One may be the greatest remake of all time,” and “I didn’t expect a Godzilla movie to make me cry, but here we are.” In terms of the first, I’d had the sense that I wanted to go into this one knowing as little as possible. I wasn’t as fixated on the advent of a new Godzilla movie as I had been for, say, a new Predator, because we were just recently gifted with a great installment. So, going in, I knew that Minus One took place directly after World War II – and that was pretty much it! Would this be a remake of the original, down to Serizawa and the Oxygen Destroyer? And most importantly, what would the titular monster mean this time? … More Tokyo Story Raids Again | Godzilla Minus One (2023) Review

The Iron Horse has Lasers | Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995) Review

November 8, 2023

After a surprising bump in quality with Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla, we’re back in business to close out the Heisei era with this, one of several series finales – like Futurama. The Showa era ended with Terror of Mechagodzilla, a return to the darker tone of the original movie, and the disjointed Millennium era had the explosive Final Wars, a special project for the 50th anniversary. Well, is Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, too, a special project? Did the filmmakers take a step back from what they’d been doing and say, “Let’s go out with a bang”? The film’s title might help us out here, bearing the typical “vs.” instead of something like The Final Chapter or maybe The End of Godzilla. No, it’s just another day, another monster. Consequently, this is a pretty low-key send-off, though at the very least, unlike Terror and Final Wars, it is a send-off. … More The Iron Horse has Lasers | Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995) Review

Atomic Superwoman | Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994) Review

November 7, 2023

The previous installment, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, was one movie too many. I’d actually forgotten it existed before embarking on this review journey more than a year ago. After watching Godzilla and Mothra, I was dreading it, while conversely looking forward to SpaceGodzilla, and so the two came to represent a binary in my mind. On one hand, you have a competent but generic Heisei Godzilla movie, one which introduces absolutely nothing new, and on the other hand, you have the movie where the tip of Godzilla’s tail is coming off. What better visual metaphor for a series that’s run its course? Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla is exactly what I want from a long-running film franchise: “We’ve run out of ideas, so let’s make crap up.” It wouldn’t be competent but unhinged, and it wouldn’t be generic but, indeed, unhinged. … More Atomic Superwoman | Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994) Review