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Reviews by Tom Mes [TM], Nicholas Rucka [NR], Jasper Sharp [JS]

The Devil's Ball
Gomen
The Revenge: A Visit from Fate
The Revenge: The Scar that Never Fades
Revolver
Sayonara Kuro


The Devil's Ball

Original title: Akuma No Temaruita
Director: Kon ICHIKAWA
Cast: Koji ISHIZAKA, Keiko KISHI, Tomisaburo WAKAYAMA, Takeshi KATO, Akiko NISHINA
Running time: 144 mins.
Year: 1977

picture: scene from 'The Devil's Ball'This 1977 film has an awful lot in common with Italian director Dario Argento's 1975 masterpiece Deep Red: both feature the random murders of young women, a mystery whose answer lays in children's songs, and, not to spoil the film, a conclusion that is very similar to Italian maestro's. The story is about a series of random murders of young women in a remote mountain village and our hero, private eye Kindaichi Kosuke, working against the clock to stop the next one with his only clue: the 20-year-old murder of a traveling salesman.

While ostensibly drawn from Yokomizo Masashi's popular book series featuring the humorous private eye Kindaichi Kosuke, the story is a convoluted matter filled with red herrings and typical off-brand Ichikawa humor. The storytelling itself is fairly sloppy and the film has a general slap-dash quality that begins to wear on the viewer. Might only be recommended for the Ichikawa aficionado.

[NR]


Gomen

Original title: Gomen
Director: Shin TOGASHI
Cast: Masahiro HISANO, Yukika SAKURATANI, Shoichi SATO, Takuya KURIHARA, Jun KUNIMURA, Michiko KAWAI, Ayumu SAITO, Megumi KOMAKI
Running Time: 103 mins.
Year: 2002
Website: http://www.shirous.com/gomen/index1.html

picture: scene from 'Gomen'It's easy to see echoes of director Togata's former mentors, Shinji Somai and Hideyuki Hirayama in this rather nice comedy about the emotional growing pains of a sixth grader growing up in Osaka plagued with the hormonal turmoil accompanying puberty, both in the charming, non-patronising depiction of its pre-teen milieu, and the impishly irreverent approach to its mildly risqué subject matter.

An unprompted ejaculation during class marks the turbulent entry of Sei (Hisano) into the world of emotional confusion, spontaneous trouser bulges and stained underwear. Newly awakened to the charms of the swarms of giggling female members who share his classroom world and mesmerised by the gyrations of his teacher Miss Kurata (Komaki) during sports class, before he knows it the rest of his peer group, including the swaggering, worldly-wise Kinta (Sato) and little squit Nyanko (Kurihara) are confessing crushes left right and centre. As Sei is left to fend off the attentions of a balloon-faced classmate whilst weathering out the affectionate teasings of his mother (Kawai), he soon finds his head turned in another direction when one day, on an errand for his grandparents he is visiting in Kyoto, he notices the radiant Naoko (Sakuratani). Smitten, he tracks her down to a coffeeshop run by her divorced father (Saito). But Naoko happens to be two years older, and has enough on her plate without worrying about some infatuated kid trailing her around. Sometimes life just isn't fair…

A low-key yet surprisingly charming drama that remained strangely overlooked by both foreign festivals and critics during its initial release, which is surprising, as despite the occasionally close-to-the-bone belly laughs, both the humour and the situations are sure to prompt sniggers of recognition with foreign audiences of all ages. The only problem, one all too common in Japanese film, is that of pacing, with several scenes left to play slightly longer than they should. But whether huddled in his duffle-coat during that crucial first date, or cycling feverishly in his kendo gear across town to confess his feelings of undying devotion at the coda, Hisano's endearing earnest central performance, not to mention the interplay between all the child members of the cast (reminiscent at times of that of the younger characters in Ozu's Good Morning) make this a film well worth seeking out.

[JS]


The Revenge: A Visit from Fate

Original title: Fukushû: Unmei No Hômonsha
Director: Kiyoshi KUROSAWA
Cast: Sho AIKAWA, Daikei SHIMIZU, Yoshiko YARA, Naomasa MUSAKA, Ren OSUGI
Running Time: 83 mins.
Year: 1997

picture: scene from 'The Revenge: A Visit from Fate'Goro Anjo (Aikawa) is a policeman who refuses to carry a gun, due the trauma of witnessing the shooting of his family as a boy. After the suspects in a murder case kidnap and kill his wife, he changes his beliefs and resigns from the force, taking only his gun on a search for vengeance.

The first of a pair of films starring Aikawa as the wayward cop Anjo, this comes across as Kurosawa's retelling of Dirty Harry, with an origin story added for good measure. Made the same year as his breakthrough film Cure, this has all the Kurosawa characteristics in place (plus a script by The Ring scribe, and regular Kurosawa collaborator, Hiroshi Takahashi), but it still takes him two films to say the things he said in a single film with Cure.

[TM]


The Revenge: The Scar that Never Fades

Original title: Fukushu: Kienai Kizu Ato
Director: Kiyoshi KUROSAWA
Cast: Sho AIKAWA, Shun SUGATA, Ren OSUGI, Chikako KOBAYASHI, Kunihiko IDA
Running Time: 81 mins.
Year: 1997

Aikawa returns as the former cop Goro Anjo in this follow-up shot back-to-back with its predecessor. Anjo has now entirely left his old life behind and lives under an assumed name, working as a hitman for a minor yakuza outfit (which consists of only five men!). But when an ambitious young detective starts gleaning his true identity, Anjo can no longer deny his past.

Centering around the question of what constitutes a person's identity (a question that runs throughout Kurosawa's best work), this film is a further step closer towards the director's masterpiece Cure. Often very funny, the Revenge films can be watched independently from each other, but watching both will only enhance the viewing experience. This second film is therefore not a sequel as much as a continuation of the first instalment.

Kurosawa would repeat a similar pattern (and subject) with even more intriguing results in Serpent's Path and Eyes of the Spider the following year. Although making two films back to back is fairly common practice in the lower budget end of Japanese cinema, in Kurosawa's case, making two flipsides of the same cinematic coin is an ideal way to explore the question that has formed his motivation as filmmaker since his amateur days: "What is cinema?"

[TM]


Revolver

Original title: Revolver - Aoi Haru
Alternative title: Revolver - Blue Spring
Director: Takeshi WATANABE
Cast: Hiroshi TAMAKI, Ryuta SATO, Mirai MORIYAMA, Ren OSUGI
Running Time: 97 mins.
Year: 2003

picture: scene from 'Revolver'Toshiaki Toyoda's Blue Spring, adapted from Taiyo Matsumoto's manga Aoi Haru, is one of the best Japanese films of recent years. Takeshi Watanabe's Revolver, based on the same manga series, is one of the worst. Indeed, so little does it have in common with Toyoda's film, that this DV-shot, straight-to-video pseudo sequel is best considered entirely unrelated.

The story, written by Ichi the Killer scribe Sakichi Sato, involves three high school students who find a gun buried in the schoolyard, then set off for a night on the town, during which they get involved in a variety of episodes whose level of interest ranges from slight to non-existent. The three leads (too old for their roles) are members of a group of young idols that are popping up in a lot of films and TV series of late, including Kisarazu Cat's Eye and Rockers, young men whose acting styles seem to consist mainly of mugging, yelling and posing. So far, only Rockers director Takanori Jinnai has succeeded in curbing their hyperactive urges and have their performances serve the film rather than the other way around. No such qualities are apparent in Takeshi Watanabe, a V-cinema veteran and former assistant director to Takeshi Kitano and Takashi Miike who clearly possesses only a minor fraction of the talent of either of his mentors.

Revolver wants to be cool and stylish, but instead comes off pathetic and cheap, directed, written and performed like an overstretched episode of a mediocre TV comedy series. Best ignored, lest it cheapen the impact of the real Blue Spring.

[TM]


Sayonara Kuro

Original title: Sayonara Kuro
Director: Joji MATSUOKA
Cast: Satoshi TSUMABUKI, Ayumi ITO, Yuta KANAI, Hirofumi ARAI
Running Time: 109 mins.
Year: 2003
Website: http://www.sayonara-kuro.com

picture: scene from 'Sayonara Kuro'One of the more curious developments of Japanese cinema in the early 21st century has to be the revival of that quaintly dated sub-genre, the "cute animal movie" so prevalent during the 80s. Drastically scaled-down from such epics as Antarctica (1983), The Adventures of Chatran (1986), and Hachiko Story (1987), the new wave of canine-themed tearjerkers consists of more intimate pieces coming from such unexpected sources as Takahisa Zeze (Dog Star, 2002), Yoichi Sai (Quill, 2004) and Makoto Shinozaki (Walking With The Dog, 2004).

High-schooler Ryosuke first befriends the soot-coloured Kuro on his way to class. After emptying his lunchbox to feed her, the forlorn-looking pooch follows him to school where she is soon put to service in a school open-day parade as a stand-in for a squashed papier mâché prop for famous historical figure Saigo Takamori. Ryosuke has the hots for Yukiko, whose attention seems to be equally divided between him and his best friend Koji. Kuro is not so easily discarded though, and after wandering into the classroom the next day, despite the protestations of the teacher, she is taken in by the janitor and adopted as the school mascot. As Yukiko takes to double-dating with Ryosuke and Koji, the rest of the school are united by the calling influence of the lovable pooch who nonchalantly roves the corridors. Ryosuke magnanimously stands aside to allow Koji an open goal, but is the final decision really up to any of them?

It's easy to take cheap jabs at a shaggy dog tale such as this, but, though almost painfully earnest in its approach, Sayonara Kuro is not quite the sickly mush of sentimentality it could have been. For the most part the film adequately serves the purpose of a small-town high school drama using a dog as a linking device, with several effective developments having the power to catch even the most cynical of viewers off-guard as Kuro waits in the wings. It is only when the sickly hound takes centre stage in the final quarter that things begin to dive shamelessly. By the time of the final funeral eulogy at the school assembly, there will no doubt be many wondering about the psychological state of a nation that is still prepared to descend to such depths of soppiness over, what is after all, only a bloody dog.

[JS]