A whooping ten films are on offer this year, including the first
animated offering the Japan Foundation has put forward. But are films looking
at old-fashioned times in Nihon any good? I went to take a look at four
examples…
Hula Girls (Hura Garu)
Being that this is a film with ‘girls’ in the title, but not also
featuring the words ‘nudey’ or ‘wrestling’, this is clearly one that will
require tissues for other reasons. Set in a Sheffield-equivalent, but nowhere
near as depressing, ‘Hula Girls’ looks at the change in post-war Japan in the
1960s, focusing on a small mining village that is soon to see its mine closed
with the company looking to move into the spa and entertainment market in-line
with changing times.
She was only the coal miner’s daughter, but she knew a lot about
shaking her ass. Looking to keep the community alive, a Hawaiian-themed spa is
set to open, and for that we need girls dancing, with some locals signing up,
much to the village elders’ dismay. Fighting their parents and lack of talent,
the girls work hard to find a new place for themselves in a changing Japan.
Sang-il Lee’s ‘Full Monty’ has a lot of tears and maybe a little too
much sentimentality in parts, demonstrating why you shouldn’t always go to see
films with ‘girls’ in the title. But with enough good focus on changing ways
and big town vs. small town differences, the film glides along nicely enough in
two hours.
Ninja Kids (Nintama Rantaro)
Anything involving youth and the ninja must be good. ‘Teenage Mutant
Ninja/Hero Turtles’ for example. Add the direction of one Miike Takashi and
you’re on for a hit. Silly title (in the Western world, anyway), mental
director: you’re in for 100 minutes of stupidity.
Based on the manga ‘Nintama Rantaro’, this is Miike for kids, once
again switching styles and techniques from one film to the next. In a plot that
doesn’t really hold much purpose, hero Rantaro must race against some bad-ass,
but naturally incompetent, ninjas with the help of the rest of his ninja
academy bitches.
Based on a manga, Miike chooses to go for a cartoon style, with fake
bruises and repetitive background scenery. Fun is the aim of the game, and the
film features an impressive adult cast for some downright silliness. Showing
that he can appeal to kids as well as sweaty teenagers wanting blood and guts
and some occasional tits, this is another box for Miike to tick on his ‘yeah, I
can do that’ CV.
Mai Mai Miracle (Maimai Shinko to Sennen no Maho)
I’m not sure if I was fully in the mood for ‘Mai Mai Miracle’ when it
came round. Feeling a bit worse for wear, I wasn’t quite ready for the
inevitable screeching that comes with a nostalgic anime.
Running around a field all day, mental nine year-old Shinko imagines a
past with a lonely girl that lived in the village a thousand years previous. Roping
another girl to join in with this fantasy world, the pair run around all day in
the small village.
Directed by Miyazaki protégé Katabuchi Sunao, it is easy to compare
this film to ‘My Neighbour Totoro’, so easy that it almost seems a bit
unnecessary having made this film. A lot of similar ideas and style are taken
from it with little much added over 20 years. Not enough seems to be made of
the ‘trips’ to the past, making it feel like a little side rather than a main
focus of the film. But, like I said, I wasn’t probably quite in the right frame
of mind when watching and could have easily said the same about Totoro if shown
that at the time.
Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust
(Baburu e go! Taimu mashin wa doramu-shiki)
To end, something silly. The year is 2007 and the Japanese economy is
about to collapse, again. In order to try and prevent the original bubble burst
at the start of the 90s, inventor Mariko goes back to the year 1990 in her
time-travel washing machine that she accidentally invented (no questions asked)
to try and get the Finance Ministry to change its policy and thus prevent
economic disaster for years to come. With her mother trapped in the past, Mariko’s
daughter steps into the washing machine to bring her mother back and save the
day and all that stuff.
‘Back to the Future’ style stuff all round, with wacky kids dancing to
the latest hits, like MC Hammer’s ‘Can’t Touch This’ and having crazy haircuts.
It’s a light-hearted, mainstream comedy that never takes itself too seriously
despite tackling a serious subject.
The fourth (I think) Japanese Foundation Touring Film Programme I have
attended, there were no great films on
show this time around, but a good standard overall, with the ones seen of the
more comic variety.
The tour now moves on to Sheffield, Birmingham, Belfast, Edinburgh,
Newcastle, Bristol and Nottingham, where you’ll all like films set in the past,
you backward sherbet-sniffers.
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