DrumSonG#2

Anchorsong's 'DrumSonG#2' from 'The Storytelling EP'. Randomly found in Tokyo shop, but now widely available at his gigs, such as his set supporting DJ Krush at The Forum in London on 01/02/2013 where these photos are taken from (apart from one - can you guess which?). Enjoy...

Politic 20

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Kikkake – DJ Kentaro and DJ Krush

Drum Song 2 – Anchorsong

Lights – Adapted A.K.A. Sein

Kuon / Far and Away – DJ Krush

5 Bit Blues – Kid Koala

Get Your Hands Off My Shoulder, Pig – El-P and The Blue Series Continuum

Lost to See – Ryu (DJ Sak) and AH

7 Bit Blues – Kid Koala

Crossfader – DJ Kentaro, Kid Koala and D-Styles (in spirit only)

The Meaning of the Name – Gang Starr

8 Bit Blues (Chicago to LA to NY) – Kid Koala

Bleeding Brain Grow – MC Paul Barman

Brooklyn Zoo – Ol’ Dirty Bastard

You Got Shot – Prince Paul, Breeze and Sha

Beautiful Night (Manic Psychopath) – Prince Paul

Aoi Ame / Green Rain – DJ Krush

Everything You Do is a Balloon – Boards of Canada

Tread water – De La Soul

D.A.I.S.Y. Age – De La Soul

I feel Alright – Steve Earle 

Kid Koala at The Scala (22/02/13)

Kid Koala doing his thing and that at The Scala in London. Probably the best live DJ performance I have seen, packed with dancing girls and puppets. Audio and visual quality assured...

I Wish (Kiseki)

Koichi (the fat one) and Ryunosuke (the ‘on acid’ one) are two brothers separated along with their parents: Koichi now living with his mother and grandparents in Kagoshima and Ryunosuke in Fukuoka with his father. Once a happy family living in Osaka, they are now divided, with Koichi in a sleepy town in southern Kyushu overlooked by a rumbling volcano; and Ryunosuke with his musician father in modern and vibrant Fukuoka to the island’s north. Wanting his family back together again, like Janet Jackson, Koichi comes up with an idea to make it happen.

Each with a group of friends, the brothers makes the trip to Kumamoto: the point they calculate where the new Sakura Shinkansen will meet in opposing directions. When this happens, miracles will follow.

Of course, this idea is childish – that’s why this is a film about children. Kore-eda Hirokazu’s latest feature seems to combine two of his previous releases, ‘Nobody Knows’ and the Ozu-like ‘Still Walking’, looking at the break-up of family through the eyes of a child. Using real-life brothers (well, their family name is the same, anyway) for the leads, Hirokazu again captures the imagination with a film that furthers his place among the greats of Japanese cinema.

Like many of his other films, ‘I Wish’ is simple, but effective in his tackling of subjects in modern society, like an Ozu for a new generation, with the dreams and motivations of all cast members considered.      

Once Upon a Time in Japan

February comes but once a year, and so does the Japan Foundation’s annual touring film programme. ‘But what be the theme this year?’ none of you shout in any kind of urgency. Well, to give it its full title, this year’s programme is: Once Upon a Time in Japan: Reinventing the Past through the Eyes of Japanese Contemporary Filmmakers. It’s just like loads of period pieces.

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. 

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

In the UK, if you’re a half decent chef the pattern to follow is: get a bit good at cooking, open your own restaurant, get your own TV show, open your own range of Sainsbury’s couscous, get caught shop lifting. It’s all become a bit boring and predictable now, with famous chefs becoming bigger television personalities and businessmen rather than ding what their supposed skill is: making bloody good beans on toast.

This is not the case with Ono Jiro, a sushi chef working out of a small bar in Ginza, Tokyo. As with many restaurants in Tokyo, that sit in the basements of building complexes or Metro stations, Jiro’s restaurant, Sukiyabashi Jiro, looks small and underwhelming from the outside. But with three Michelin stars to its name and worldwide fame among the world’s top chefs, this is an exclusive restaurant where only the most fat and/or annoying can dine.

David Gelb’s documentary is one without narrative or particular linear structure. The focus is more on interviews with the man himself and his wider team about their relationship and the fine details that go into the set up. After 75 years in the sushi game, the mentality comes across as keep it simple and stay on top of each and every fine detail. So far, only one other restaurant has been opened: by his younger son in another Tokyo district.

Staying in control is Jiro’s main aim, wanting to still be able to determine what happens in his restaurant each day, rather than relying on others to take charge. Indeed, the most interesting part of the documentary is his relationship with his elder son, Yoshikazu, who by tradition will take over the restaurant when his father is no longer able.

With his father 85 at the time of the filming, Yoshikazu is starting to take greater responsibility for the restaurant under the watchful eye of his father; an eye that makes both chefs and diners nervous.

With his age and masterful nature, Jiro is able to spout various words of wisdom, showing a man that, as Craig Charles will slightly offensively put, is a a ‘happy, slappy, Jappy chappy.’ Complete with various money-shots of freshly prepared sushi throughout, the film, much like the eating experience at Sukiyabashi Jiro is made out to be, is a short but enlightening one. 

The Quartet

This probably isn’t a film that I would typically go and see – it’s not really aimed at me. I, therefore, decided to watch it in Brixton to add some credibility. Essentially, a cast of British ageing British stars have been brought together to be told what to do by an ageing American star in Dustin Hoffman. Cue hilariousness with jokes about being old.

That’s probably a bit harsh, with this more a piece about fear of losing gifts when growing old, a bit like being part of QPR’s squad. Identified at the end for their talents, much of the wider cast are stars of the stage from yesteryear showcasing their talents in a retirement home for elderly musicians.

The titular quartet are star opera singers famed for their foursome that have grown apart by failed marriage and senility. With the fourth member finally being old enough to make residence, the four are reunited and everyone suggests that they should perform at the ‘big show’ which obviously isn’t anywhere near as big as what they would have done in the past. Overcoming their past differences and fears, the four take the stage to have the film end before we realise that Billy Connolly isn’t actually a master opera performer after all.

The addition of Billy Connolly is a wise one, however, as the film is just a bit too twee without him. The film is not particularly long, but seems to drag on a bit, possibly due to the lack of any real event and not too much depth into each of the characters. Connolly provides the comic relief which is welcome, but other than that it’s just a bit too nice. Even the resident doctor, played a bit too emotionally by Sheridan Smith, is nice, with not an abusive word nor demeaning act forced upon the olds. Where’s the fun, or reality, in that?