Only the Brave

Only the Brave screens free on June 5 (Mission from Buddha Productions)

Once again you can find movies for free thanks to another local organization with a cause. On Thursday June 5, The Japan Studies Institute will be hosting a free screening of the award-winning film Only the Brave. The screening will be held on the SDSU campus in the Arts and Letters Building, Room 201. Based on real events, the film portrays the all-volunteer, Japanese American regiment that served in World War II. Actor and director Lane Nishikawa will lead a discussion following the film. The screening is part of the American Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities 19th annual Japan Studies Institute. The Japan Studies Institute, which is part of the National Faculty Development Institute offered by AASCU, allows faculty to learn from scholars, business leaders, artists and journalists about Japanese civilization, history, language, business and education.

The press notes describe the film as follows: "In 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, there were 5,000 Japanese Americans serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. Overnight, these second-generation citizens were stripped of their official duties - simply because they looked like the enemy. On the mainland, 120,000 innocent men, women and children were rounded up and swept into remote internment camps, where they would remain behind barbed wire for the duration of the war. Determined to prove their loyalty, the discharged Hawaiian Territorial Guardsmen of Japanese descent successfully petitioned the U.S. government to allow them to serve. These 1400 Hawaiian Nisei (second-generation Japanese-Americans) became the 100th Infantry Battalion. In July 1943, after rigorous training, they were sent to North Africa, then Italy. Fiercely courageous, they suffered so many casualties the 100th was soon dubbed the 'Purple Heart Battalion.'"

The film is a small independent production so if this subject interests you, this may be your only chance to see it on a big screen.

The Children of Huang Shi

Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Chow Yun Fat in The Children of Huang Shi (Sony Pictures Classics)

All right, I put off reviewing The Children of Huang Shi (opened May 30 at Landmark's La Jolla Village Theaters) as long as I could. The reasons I avoided reviewing this film are twofold. First, it's one of those painfully well-intentioned but badly executed films with a social conscience, and second, it's another English language film that wastes the talents of Hong Kong star Chow Yun Fat. Both things make it difficult to write a review. The former because criticizing a heartfelt film like this just makes you sound like a meanie, and the latter because it pains me to say anything bad about a Chow Yun Fat film. But the one nice thing I can say is that the film looked pretty.

Death Note

Death Note -- the manga, anime and live action film --try them all, they're all good! (Viz Graphic/Viz Media/Viz Pictures)

This week, American audiences will have an opportunity to see a hit, live action Japanese film adaptation of a popular manga (that's a Japanese comic book). Hollywood has taken note of the increased popularity of Japanese manga by optioning a number of them for the big screen. In addition to the recent Speed Racer, there will be live action film adaptations of Dragonball, Akira, and Blood: The Last Vampire. But the film that manga fans are embracing is Death Note (playing May 20 and 21 at 7:30pm only at AMC Mission Valley, Horton Plaza Theaters and Edwards Mira Mesa Cinemas; for online tickets are available). Death Note began as a serialized manga back in 2003. Since then it has inspired a trio of movies, an anime TV series and a spin-off novel. The first live action film was a hit in Japan back in 2006. Now Viz Pictures is giving Death Note a unique 2-day run in U.S. cities. 

Death Note knows how to hook an audience. The intricately written and strikingly illustrated manga by Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata has sold more that 25 million copies in Japan. Last year the anime version of the manga found success in the U.S. on the Cartoon Network. Now the live action film will pose Death Note's intriguing premise on the big screen: what if you found a notebook belonging to one of the gods of death.

Speed Racer: A Fan’s Perspective or Why the C Button Should Activate Mach Five’s Buzzsaws

Speed Racer the anime (above) and the new movie (Warner Brothers)

There's nothing I love more than passionate fans, people who are so into something that know the nittiest, grittiest, nerdiest pieces of information. So when my friend Ramie Tateishi, who teaches at UCSD and who has written about Japanese pop culture, emailed me his thoughts about Speed Racer (opened May 9 thtoughout San Diego) and conveyed the perspective of a devoted fan of the 1960s anime TV series, well I just had to get him to post his own review. So I eagerly but only temporarily hand over my blog for a guest review by Speed Racer aficionado Ramie Tateishi. Go Ramie go!

Many years ago, there was a tame, innocent, fun little cartoon on TV called Speed Racer. This cartoon somehow spawned the gaudy spectacle of the same name which is currently in theaters, a film that assembles all the colors in the spectrum and leads them in a direct assault on your brain. While the film leaves you with the overwhelming impression of a visual stimulus overload, the old cartoon was nothing like that. In fact, the original 1967 Japanese animated series was produced with a muted, balanced color scheme that would still look good in monochrome, a common production practice of the time, as most television sets were still black and white. In light of this comparison, it's interesting to think of this film as a representation of how the filmmakers might possibly remember Speed Racer, bringing to life their childhood visions and nostalgic memories awash with blazing, vivid colors, rather than a direct referencing and rendering of the actual source material itself.

Planet B-Boy

Breakdancing around the globe in Planet B-Boy (Elephant Eye Films)

Breakdancing has fallen out of the popularity it enjoyed in the years following the 1983 film Flashdance. But for some, the fall from fad-dom may be a relief, clearing out all the wannabes and just leaving the true devotees to practice the art. The current state of breakdancing is explored in the new documentary Planet B-Boy (opening March 28 at Landmark's Ken Cinema), which bears the description: "About One of the Greatest Dance Phenomena the World Has Ever Seen." Well you can see the film and a little pre-show, live entertainment by B-Boys Phobangers and Rock So Fresh at the Ken for the March 28 7:00 pm and 9:45 pm shows.

Shutter

A picture's worth a thousand words... Shutter (20th Century Fox)

This year alone Hollywood is scheduled to release remakes of the Asian horror films One Missed Call, The Eye, Shutter, The Echo, The Addicted, and A Tale of Two Sisters. One Missed Call and The Eye have both come and gone with mostly poor reviews and lukewarm box office. The latest to arrive in theaters is Shutter (opening March 21 throughout San Diego), a remake of the 2004 Thai film of the same name. But since J-horror (Japanese horror) has proven more popular and more familiar, this U.S. remake relocates its Thai story in Japan.

Thailand has a fairly long and increasingly rich collection of horror films. These films may not have the budgets of their Japanese, Hong Kong or South Korean counterparts, but they are invested with an energetic, often over the top sense of the supernatural. Thai director Banjong Pisanthanakun made the original Shutter a neat little supernatural chiller that took The Grudge’s notion of a vengeful spirit in a different direction. Pisanthanakun’s film suffered from excessive melodrama and occasional absurdity (including one character leaping out of a building not once but twice and surviving both improbable falls). But all in all it was a satisfying low-key horror tale with effective use of supernatural elements and a kicker of an ending.

Nanking

Nanking, a new documentary about "the rape of Nanking" (THINKFilm)

In the summer of 1937, Japan began a full-scale invasion of China. The Japanese army attacked Shanghai and launched a massive air raid campaign on the then Chinese capital of Nanking. Within a few months, Shanghai had fallen. By December, the Japanese invaded Nanking. The once bustling, cosmopolitan city was looted and burned, prisoners of war were executed, and the city's citizens were subjected to horrific violence at the hands of the invading Japanese soldiers. The events, eventually referred to as the Nanking Massacre or the Rape of Nanking, lasted some six agonizing  weeks. The new documentary Nanking (opening February 1 at Landmark's Ken Cinema) looks to the events immediately prior to the invasion and the weeks of brutality that followed.

Screen Actors Guild Awards

The Bourne Ultimatum won the first ever Best Stunt Ensemble at the SAG Awards. (Universal)

Over the weekend, many industry guilds gave out their top awards. The Directors Guild of America honored the Coens for No Country for Old Men, and the American Society of Cinematographers bestowed its top prize on Robert Elswit for There Will Be Blood. With a waiver from the still striking Writers Guild, the Screen Actors Guild got to have an awards ceremony with a red carpet and celebrities. No real surprises as Daniel Day Lewis and Julie Christie racked up awards yet again for their respective work in There Will Be Blood and Away From Her. This looks like a preview of the upcoming Oscars. No Country for Old Men nabbed the best ensemble, which bodes well for it to grab the Best Picture Award come Oscar time. You can see the complete list of winners at the SAG website.

But there was one surprise at the otherwise predictable SAG awards, a new category for Best Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture. The nominees were 300, The Bourne Ultimatum, I am Legend, The Kingdom, and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. And the winner was The Bourne Ultimatum. Are you kidding me? I don't want to belittle the hard work that went into those films but what about Zoe Bell's phenomenal stunts in Grindhouse's Deathproof? Grindhouse deserved a nomination just for paying tribute to all the stuntmen of the industry's "all or nothing" days" as Kurt Russell's Stuntman Mike put it.

And what about the insanely over the top stunts in Shoot 'Em Up? And were all Asian films excluded? They must have been or there is no excuse for overlooking work from Hong Kong (Exiled and Flashpoint just to name two), South Korea (City of Violence had breathtaking stunts), Japan and even Thailand. Heck even Live Free or Die Hard had more impressive stunt work than Bourne. Only 300 brought anything new or fresh to the action genre among those films nominated. As an action film junkie, I just had to get that off my chest. On the plus side, it's cool that SAG created this award. In Hong Kong, they have a category for Action Choreography. So it's nice to see the U.S. begin to pay respect to this particular cinematic craft.

More awards to come. The Oscars -- if the writers' strike ends or they get a waiver from the WGA -- is scheduled for February 24.  You can get a printable ballot for your own Oscar event, or join Scott Marks and I at the Museum of Photographic Arts' Oscar Party. And the winner is...

10 Best of 2007

Choosing the top ten films of 2007 is like choosing which of your children you like best. I love them all but in different ways. This year the family grew larger than expected and was all over the map. You can listen to my rundown of the 10 best of 2007. I'm also including here some other noteworthy films of the year.

First, I'll mention a few films that might have made my ten best if studios had only decided to release them in San Diego. The trippy anime Tekkon Kinkreet; David Lynch's mind bending Inland Empire; the slyly ironic Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days; the abortion documentary Lake of Fire; and a pair of Johnnie To Hong Kong actioners Exiled and Triad Election (known as Election 2 in Hong Kong) all dazzled in their own unique ways. But none were deemed worthy of release here. I'm particularly irked by the fact that Johnnie To repeatedly fails to get his films released here. In these two films he served up gangster tales that were darker and more existential than what American audiences probably expect from Hong Kong actioners. He manges to mix action elements with a French New Wave freshness and Wong Kar Wai's lush stylish flourishes. To delivers consistently stunning work yet has failed to convince U.S. distributors to give his films an art house release that extends beyond a few cities. This needs to change.

Manga Mania

Manga distributor and publisher TokyoPop celebrates its 10th anniversary. (TokyoPop)

Variety Asia Online just did a series of articles about Japan-based manga distributor TokyoPop celebrating its tenth anniversary and how mangas (Japanese comic books) may be the next big thing in Hollywood. Tom McLean writes: "Comic books and graphic novels have been hot stuff at the box office the past few years. But as studios work their way through the superhero pantheon, the need for new properties to adapt has put manga -- the Japanese-style cousin of American comics -- on deck to be the next big thing."

Well, as a fan of manga and as someone who runs an anime and manga club at a middle school, the news is promising. But if it does prove to be the next big thing, Hollywood will be behind the curve. Mangas have long been the source of inspiration for popular anime (Japanese animation) series, movies and live action films. TokyoPop manga favorites like GTO and Lupin III have inspired popular anime series as well as a live action films, while their mangas Bleach, Fruits Basket and Trinty Blood are among the many highly successful anime series. There's plenty of material out there and TokyoPop is just one of many publishers. The challenge, though, is that many of these mangas have developed very loyal followings so whoever adapts them to the screen had better take care.