Category: Japan

More Dinosaurs | Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993) Review

November 6, 2023

By this point in the Godzilla chronicles, I feel a bit lost. Our feature tonight, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, is a perfect entry in the Heisei series. It checks all the boxes of everything that worked in the past, so what worries me is that when the boxes are checked, we’re still left with a mediocre film. And “mediocre” might be a funny word to use. I mean, these movies were produced practically nonstop, and for a young audience, whose chief and maybe only stipulation is that Godzilla appears. That’s a big check. But reviewing this movie positively – which I’d fully anticipated, having a brief idea of its general reputation – wouldn’t be very useful. Not that any of the lessons we might pull from Mechagodzilla II can be applied to future films, as they’ve already been made, but goddamn it – or Godzilla it – they could have. … More More Dinosaurs | Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993) Review

Made in Japan

July 26, 2023

In Little League baseball, the best player on each team was usually the pitcher. It was an observable rule of thumb, similar to the one which held that the worst player in the entire league was me. Unfortunately, I was probably the only Asian player that year – or rather, those years, because I played baseball for far longer than I understood why. So, then, you grow up and observe that it’s different in Major League baseball, that the pitcher usually doesn’t even bat! And by that point, mercifully, the Asian kid is no longer playing sports. Enter Shohei Ohtani, widely considered the best player in professional baseball – maybe ever. For starters, when it comes to his upcoming free agency, the number being bandied about for a contract is half a billion dollars, the highest in history. … More Made in Japan

Two Gods

July 16, 2023

It’s news to me that a Godzilla movie is releasing this year. Now, typically, this has been cause for indigestion, being no fan of the Legendary MonsterVerse. Granted, that new movie bears the title Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, which is just goofily sincere enough. Not for me to see, but for something. No, a Godzilla movie is coming down from Toho Studios as well, and it’s entitled Godzilla Minus One. Sounds a lot like the proposed title for the third Jaws movie (Jaws 3, People 0), but there’s a weight behind it. Taking place immediately after World War II, we find Japan at “zero,” and Godzilla’s arrival will bump them down to the negative. I’m not 100% certain, but I believe this is the first Godzilla period piece, and that’s already exciting. … More Two Gods

Insects of Sea and Space | Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth (1992) Review

June 5, 2023

This one is so close. It just needed a little more time in the oven. All the pieces are here, and they mostly fit together, but there’s something missing. Maybe an oomph? Maybe it’s the pieces themselves, each of them chipped in some unique way. Take the characters, for example. I know, this isn’t the place to start with a Godzilla movie, but that would make Godzilla movies an exception. Our protagonist this time, arguably, is Takuya Fujito, an archaeology professor who steals artifacts from tombs. After he’s thrown in jail, he’s visited by government men who want him and the feisty Masako to investigate a meteor on Infant Island. Apparently, this island is in Indonesian territory, making it off-limits to Japan, like an echo of the original Godzilla’s production. Okay, so Takuya is a man of action, unlike the sci-fi writers and journalists of Heisei movies past. He has more immediate personality, but one nevertheless expressed by whining through the bars of his jail cell. Not super appealing. … More Insects of Sea and Space | Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth (1992) Review

Home Movies | Shin Kamen Rider (2023) Review

June 1, 2023

Chances are, if you’ve heard of Shin Kamen Rider, you’re gonna go see it. For my part, I missed Shin Godzilla in theaters and then missed Shin Ultraman. I was determined not to miss Shin Kamen Rider, despite it being my least favorite of the three properties. My experience with Kamen Rider is mostly bafflement. There’s this explosion of light and color, and suddenly, he’s on a motorcycle. Who? I don’t know. The guy who’s running away from the mutants, and he has to stop SHOCKER. Obviously. The difference between Godzilla, Ultraman, and Kamen Rider is a matter of personal taste. I prefer monsters to superheroes, and Kamen Rider is a quintessential Japanese superhero, up there with Astro Boy. Shin Kamen Rider is the 50th anniversary project (adjusted for COVID), and as alluded to, the third in anime maestro Hideaki Anno’s weird revival movies, beginning with the masterpiece Shin Godzilla. … More Home Movies | Shin Kamen Rider (2023) Review

New World Order | Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) Review

April 17, 2023

Opening with a tease is almost never a good idea. It always feels so arbitrary, to show a moment from the middle of the story and then say “One Year Earlier.” When we get back to that moment chronologically, it never feels like anything. “Oh, great, so that’s how we know that happened.” It might not even be inherently bad but that its use is so automated, because test screenings find the beginning too slow. Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah opens with maybe the ultimate tease, informing us we’re in the year 2204 before “flashing back” to present-day 1992. That’s not a good sign, and neither is our ostensible lead, Kenichiro Terasawa, being a science fiction writer. Made famous by a book on ESP, he’s hoping to break into more human interest stories, which is a dramatic need that hardly screams “Godzilla movie.” Fortunately for us, his human interest turns out to be a veteran of World War II who believes that dinosaurs still yet live. Then we cut to a classic government conference room where people in suits discuss The Situation, this time involving UFOs. There’s a lot going on already. … More New World Order | Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) Review

Thespian Equestrian | Ran (1985) Review

January 30, 2023

The horses and the horse riders are put through the wringer in Ran, the final epic of Akira Kurosawa and perhaps his greatest film. I saw horses struggling through water coming up to their necks, soldiers falling off horses, and horses just about to trample a soldier who fell off his horse. It’s a movie entitled “Chaos,” after all! And, well, that’s about as fresh an angle I can manage for this or any Kurosawa title, the director being so widely studied and appreciated. Of course, I’ve come into this one for the first time nearing the age of 30, long after film school let out. I have nothing to add to the conversation, so take this review on a humble blog as a missive – delivered by horseback – that I’d like the conversation to continue. … More Thespian Equestrian | Ran (1985) Review

Beautiful China Doll | Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) Review

January 26, 2023

If you were to accuse me of disliking this film simply because it’s an insensitive American portrayal of an Asian culture, my only objection would be the word “dislike.” I disliked the movie the first time I saw it, in high school as part of AP English Literature – parents, if you were wondering what your kids are getting up to at school – where we also read the book. I didn’t remember much, other than it wasn’t that good but the Spielbergian style was sort of amusing. Well, TVs back in 2011 sucked, especially ones wheeled into public school classrooms. I don’t know what I saw in even the cinematography. This is, quite possibly, the worst movie I’ve ever seen. … More Beautiful China Doll | Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) Review

A Shimmering Vegetable Death | Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989) Review

December 27, 2022

Godzilla vs. Biollante is good. Especially for the Heisei era, it’s held in high regard among Godzilla movies. Surprisingly, it derives a lot of its profitable ambition from being a true sequel to Return of Godzilla, imagining what the world would be like after a giant monster attack. We find that international corporate interests are competing for Godzilla cells, whose magic properties have the potential to shift world power. In the fictitious and ridiculous Middle Eastern country “Saradia,” a nationalized oil firm plans to harvest the cells’ immortality to grow vegetation in the desert, divesting the region of its reliance on a valuable but limited resource. Meanwhile, the American company Bio-Major resorts to terrorism to claim the cells, as their science experiment would neutralize the threat posed by nuclear missiles. Somehow, in the midst of this political spy thriller, a giant rose emerges from the sea, and Godzilla burns it with the heat ray. … More A Shimmering Vegetable Death | Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989) Review

Shiny New Toys | The Return of Godzilla (1984) Review

October 26, 2022

It was, for me as well, a long-awaited return, as this 1984 film truthfully entitled “Godzilla” didn’t see a home video release in the United States until May 2016. By that time, we’d abandoned the term “home video!” I mean, I waited longer than contemporary audiences had between this film and the previous installment, 1975’s Terror of Mechagodzilla, and as such, had viewed 2016’s Shin Godzilla before this one. I knew that The Return of Godzilla was an attempt to take Godzilla “back to its roots” – that old chestnut – and featured American and Soviet politicians arguing with the Japanese in conference rooms. Sure sounds like the 1980s version of Shin Godzilla, but with a little more cheese and vintage effects. What I got was far closer to the 1954 original, a lumbering near-docudrama – with a little more cheese and vintage effects. … More Shiny New Toys | The Return of Godzilla (1984) Review