Movie Night

I started watching my DVDs and Blu-Ray movies I got in from Amazon.co.jp. I first put in "The Mourning Forest" and found it quite slow and not very interesting throughout the entire movie. This is coming from someone who rarely gets bored in ANY movie. During some scenes I felt the acting wasn't as good as it could have been and actually laughed at some of them where the main actress completely overacted. Pretty much during the first part of the movie it just seemed like the two actresses in the main acted a bit awkward. Sadly, I didn't feel much for the characters and in this type of movie it's kind of required.

By the end I was just kind of mad at having spent $45 on the DVD. It's the Region 2 Japanese import.

The next day I woke up and ate breakfast and watched "A Long Walk" starring Ken Ogata. The movie got me hooked right from the start and let's just say some of the scenes are painful to watch and even a bit disturbing. Half way through the movie I now knew it could be hard to come out with a happy ending, but expected more of a disaster. I was hoping so much that at the end they didn't take the easy way out and have someone die (like in so many Hong Kong dramas). Luckily the ending turned out ok but I had wished a little more had been told, but sometimes leaving something out can make an ending better in some ways. I haven't had a movie affect me so much in several years. Maybe not since Zhang Yimou's "To Live" or "The Human Condition".

After I had watched it I just could not get this movie out of my head. I don't know what I was thinking. It's one where I can think about scenes in my head and even that alone makes me sad. What's even worse is that things that occured in the movie happen every single day around the world and nothing is done about it or nobody even knows.

After being really impressed with this film I went online to check reviews and I later found out the actor, Ken Ogata died last year. He was pretty amazing in this movie to say the least. I think i'm going to try and check out all of his older movies such as "Ballad of Narayama".

I give "A Long Walk" 3.5/4 STARS (note: The Japanese R2 DVD has english subtitles!)

Can I possibly have my next movie be any better? I doubt it.

The next day I put in the newly released Blu-Ray movie "Nabbie's Love". Back several years I saw the director Yuji Nakae's "Hotel Hibiscus" and loved it. I liked it so much that i've seen it several times since. When it came out on Blu-Ray I even bought it again!

Since I really liked the director, I've alwayed wanted to check out his previous film "Nabbie's Love". The only problem is that until the 27th of this month, no version with english subtitles was available. I picked up the Japanese Blu-Ray version from amazon.

Let's just say I loved this movie. Pretty much every single thing about the movie was perfect. Ever see a movie that just seems to make you happy and put you in a good mood? Well this was definitely one of them. It makes absolutely no sense to me and it's a bit different to me, but I even liked the music in it.

Yuji Nakae's films deserve a US release! Along with Pan Nalin, he's one of the director who seems to be unheard of in the west. Their movies need a US DVD release.

Yuji Nakae has a new film coming out in Japan this month. It's called "A Midsummer Night's Dream". It's by far one of the most bizarre looking movies i've seen, but I want to see it really bad. Might be good.

Now all I have left to watch is my new blu-ray of "Hotel Hibiscus". Luckily I ordered some more expensive Japanese import DVDs. Picked up "One Million Yen Girl" and "Still Walking". Both look ok. I need to find more good Japanese movies made in the last 5 years.