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JAPANESE MOVIES
WE'D LIKE TO SEE
By Ed Jacob and Doug Breath
Art by Wayne Wilson
Reproduced with permission of the Japanzine.
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TOURIST BUS DOWN
Based on actual events, Tourist Bus Down is the heroic account of a group of
Japanese tourists in Honolulu on October 3rd, 1993. Their mission: to save
money on brand name goods by buying a $4000 package tour to Hawaii.
Thirty-five salary men and OLfs were taking a shopping trip when their bus
broke down leaving them stranded more than three blocks from their hotel.
For 18 harrowing hours, they cowered by the side of the road, afraid to ask
directions, until a rescue convoy could be mounted to retrieve them. The
trip was supposed to be so routine that some of the women had less than
100,000 yen in their purses. Outnumbered by gaijin and surrounded,
tensions flare, friends are lost, alliances are formed and tourists learn
the true nature of internationalism. |
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UMBRELLA CLUB
The first rule of umbrella club is you don't talk about
umbrella club. The second rule of umbrella club is you don't talk about
umbrella club. Third rule: when you forget your umbrella, you take someone
elsefs. Fourth rule: When someone else forgets their umbrella, they take
yours. An epic journey of self-discovery and cultural awareness. |
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AWAKENINGS
A true story about a passionate and somewhat unorthodox English teacher who
struggles to cure students of eEigolepsyf, a speaking disorder which strikes
many students rendering them motionless and seemingly catatonic. Using an
unconventional teaching technique, he succeeds in eawakeningf several of
them. At first he is buoyed by the success of his treatments and several
exciting encounters occur as the classroom is brought back to life. But
later he is saddened when he finds that eventually they all suffer a relapse
of the disease and he loses interest in trying to communicate with them. |
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NOVALYPSE NOW
"Kagoshima,
shit. I'm still only in Kagoshima." The journey into the heart of darkness
begins in a Nova classroom in Kyushu. Newly promoted head teacher Willard is
waiting for a mission. He receives orders to infiltrate the
Kagoshima
branch of a renegade former Nova teacher named
Kurtz, who
is worshipped as a gaijin by the local people and is said to have
gone totally insane. Kurtz spends
hours each day planning
bingo parties, organizing karaoke contests, and discussing the finer points
of cake sets with his students.
Willard's mission is to put the rival English school out of business. But
will he succeed or will he succumb to Kurtz's charismatic power?
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THE MATRIX
Set in the
not too distant future we find a young
English teacher
named Neo who is told by his
school
that he is "The One" and is sent
to teach a class of office workers in the middle of
an
industrial Japanese city. Neo encounters numerous difficulties navigating
this strange universe where all the buildings look alike and there are no
road signs. Will he find his way there or will he get lost in the maze of
streets and lose all sense of direction... and ultimately begin to doubt
reality itself.
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A CONCRETE
RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT
A lyrical and nostalgic film
chronicling the evolution of a once bucolic waterway into an open sewer in
which naively optimistic fishermen search for signs of aquatic life. The
story comes to a dramatic conclusion when a large construction company
convinces a corrupt governmental official to just pave it over completely.
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A CLOCKWORK MIKAN
Fifteen year old Sayaka and her droogs spend their nights terrorizing the
citizens of Tokyo with eutra-cutenessf, until one night she is arrested and
forced to undergo a mind-altering, eaversion therapyf treatment. Locked in a
Purikura (print club) booth, she is forced to watch images of people
being eviscerated by Hello Kitty, sodomized by Doraemon and machine gunned
by Sazae-san, all accompanied by her favourite Morning Musume songs. After
the treatment, she can no longer bear the sight of character goods or listen
to J-Pop. This challenging and thought-provoking movie asks the question,
gIs a person necessarily cute if she is incapable of choosing cuteness?h
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ROAD OF THE
RINGU
As the evil power of the dark lord Sauron looms over
Middle-Earth, it is discovered that in a land called Japan, a ring has been
discovered whose destruction would allow the forces of good to defeat the
evil necromancer. The wizard Gandalf rushes to the isolated land, and urges
the Japanese hobbits to leave their homeland and help him destroy the ring.
The hobbits, however, just decide to ignore the problem and hope that it
will go away, as they do not trust the outsider Gandalf.
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BEING DAVID
BECKHAM
A young British English
teacher in Japan is given the opportunity to experience the life of David
Beckham when hundreds of Japanese women start telling him he looks exactly
like the famous English soccer star even though he is a 200 pound 5f1 man
with long brown hair and a beard."
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9 1/2 WEEKS
This remake of the sexy Kim Bassinger/Mickey Rourke film
starts Kimura Takuya and Noriko Fujiwara. To make it more palatable to the
Japanese audience, however, the strawberries, whip cream and ice cubes that
Mickey Rourke used while making love to Kim Bassinger have been replaced with
natto, umeboshi and seaweed.
Coming soon:
Japanese History
X
Do you have a 'Japanese Movie You'd Like To See'? If you do, send it in to:
edjacob@quirkyjapan.or.tv.
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