Just watched: The Berlin File

This South Korean film was filmed almost entirely in Europe and a lot of the dialogue is in English. This is due to the morass of nations battling through the streets of Berlin: Korean, American, Israeli, and Arab secret agents and terrorists fight and shoot each other in a series of exciting set pieces.

As for the plot, well, don’t worry about that. Something to do with a North Korean agent who may or not be a double agent or who may or not have been set up. And some arms deals. And his wife is pregnant. It doesn’t matter if you can’t follow the story, since all problems are solved by fighting rather than clever logic.

It is reminiscent of The Bourne Identity (a deliberate stylistic choice by the director, Ha Jung-Woo) and its international style also prompts comparisons to The Thieves. But The Thieves is more tongue-in-cheek and its set pieces are more dramatic and more unlikely than The Berlin File, which is played completely straight.

It’s entertaining, even though the lack of clear storyline makes it hard to know who to sympathise with until about half way through the film. For a film that tries so hard to look sleek and sophisticated, it’s actually pretty shallow. Enjoy it for what it is: a beautifully photographed martial arts film, rather than a new kind of spy film.

Currently watching: Toshi Densetsu no Onna 2

Sequels are almost never as good as the originals, so I was quite relieved that this new series seems almost identical to the first series. The set-up remains the same: a murder is committed which has some apparent connection to an urban myth.

The characters, too, are mostly present and correct. Otonashi Tsukiko still strides off in search of the truth behind the myth, Katsuura is still following her around like a doting puppy, and Tannai still shouts and looks exasperated.

The first episode was about the myths surrounding Mount Fuji, and they were pretty interesting. The murder itself was okay. Not too complicated or devious but that's not what the show is about. It's mostly just an excuse to dig up a few folk tales and say “hey, what if this were all real?”

Two long-term storylines were also set up: the fact that people in the police are jealous of Otonashi's sudden success, and also the enigmatic friend of Tsukiko, Haruki, has gone missing.

So a solid, if unspectacular start. If you liked series one, this should suit you fine. If you didn't, this won't convert you at all.

Currently watching: Ando Lloyd

I was going to start off with a joke: Why are Kimura Takuya and this drama so perfect together? Because they’re both good looking but a bit stupid. Trouble is, I’ve no idea how stupid (or clever) Kimura Takuya actually is. I'm not entirely sure how stupid this drama is either, but more about that later.

It starts well. Almost brilliantly. Kimura Takuya plays Matsushima Reiji, an eccentric genius scientist, and his performance made the whole program feel like a sequel to Mr Brain. The story revolves around a “homicide calendar”: a list of people who will die on a particular date and time. We are now down to the last two: Matsushima and his fiance Ando Asahi, played by Shibasaki Kuo.

Unfortunately, Reiji doesn't make it much further than the half hour mark, and after that a mysterious android who looks identical to Reiji appears with orders to protect Ando Asahi from evil robots from the future. Meanwhile, there's a veteran detective who's on the trail of these murders and he suspects something very weird is going on.

On the plus side, it looks very nice and the acting is all pretty good. The trouble is that there's an awful lot of storyline packed into one episode, and it seems quite rushed. At the moment, none of the “rules” of time travel have been established. We don't know what these robots can or can't do, which means the story relies on “with one bound he was free” type devices to get our heroes out of any danger.

How this progresses remains to be seen. I suspect it will become a sort of Zettai Kareshi, and over time the android will slowly be taught human emotions. Except with more fight scenes. And fewer cakes.

Just watched: The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On

Typing “Japan” or “Japanese” into the search engine on the Internet Archive can throw up some interesting results, such as film footage of a Tokyo street soon after the war, or a book written by an English governess working in Japan in 1910.

Perhaps the most surprising and interesting thing I found was this film (note, only the links at the bottom of the page seem to work). Released in 1987, but filmed during a five year period, it tells the story of an ex-Japanese soldier trying to discover the truth about two soldiers who were executed by firing squad a couple of days after the end of the World War Two.

Okuzaki Kenzo is the main focus of the documentary and he makes no apologies for his views or actions. In the first scene, he explains how he’s murdered a man, and tried to shoot the Emperor. As you watch the film, you get a sense of how betrayed he felt by his country during the war: how the ruling classes and the royal family were responsible for the horrors that he saw.

He was part of a unit that was stuck in New Guinea, beyond the reach of any help from home, slowly starving to death. It was during this time that the two soldiers were executed, and Okuzaki considers it his duty to track down those involved in the firing squad to get their testimony to find out what really happened.

At first, he is accompanied by relatives of the deceased soldiers but after a while, they stop participating in the film and he has to ask other people to pretend to be the soldiers’ brother or sister.

As he finds and questions each participant, he does so with a single-mindedness that borders on obsession. On two occasions he physically assaults them when they won’t give him a straight answer. He is certainly fearless, and this makes for some interesting encounters.

In this film, the director seems almost completely absent. It’s very much an old-fashioned approach to documentaries. These days, it is expected and accepted that the director will have a particular point of view, and will edit the story to suit it. But in this film, all shots are hand-made and use natural light with very little opportunity for any stylistic additions. The conversations are edited, of course, but in an unobtrusive way.

The director, Hara Kazuo (who also directed Goodbye CP) leaves it up to us to decide what we make of the story: whether we admire or abhor Okuzaki’s desire for the truth. After all, he is a murderer accusing other people of murder, and more than once he points to one of his companions and says “the soldier’s brother has come all the way here to hear the truth”, which makes him a liar who demands that others tell the truth.

Although in the end the secret is discovered, the film doesn’t have a happy ending. A series of captions at the end tells us that Okuzaki later tried to shoot the commanding officer who ordered the execution, only he could not, so he shot he officer's son instead. Not fatally, but he was given twelve years for attempted murder. While he was in jail, his wife passed away.

It’s a brilliant film, but not easy to watch and often I found his attitude to violence somewhat disturbing. And the epilogue gives the film a slightly bitter moral: that knowing the truth may not bring you peace of mind at all.

Just watched: The Woodsman and the Rain

Free time? Yeah, I think I remember that. What with thing and another, my TV watching has been reduced to half hour bursts, and if I do have an evening spare, I find myself unable to watch anything more demanding than Running Man or Vs Arashi. I’ve even been reduced to putting episodes of Amachan on my phone so I can watch it during my lunch break, and even then I’m falling way behind.

But I did manage to watch this film. The Woodsman and the Rain is a gentle, humorous tale of a director who’s trying to make a low-budget horror movie, and a local lumberjack who helps him.

It has a Mitani Kouki kind of feel to it, possibly because of the lead actor, Yakusho Koji, and also because it’s a film about making a film and Mitani Kouki often wrote about that kind of thing. But it’s actually directed and co-written by Okita Shuichi who I haven’t heard of before, but I’ll definitely try to look out for his work in future.

It’s a sweet little film, with lots of nice scenes. The performances are great, with Yakusho Koji especially good. He can go from macho indifference to childish glee and it doesn’t look forced. The scene where he sees himself on screen for the first time is a joy. Oguri Shun is also great as the director who is hopelessly out of his depth, but who finally comes out of his shell.

The whole film wanders along, looking quite lovely, and being rather sweet.

Just watched: Vs Arashi and stuff

Since it was a lazy Saturday evening with no football on, I decided to watch an episode of Vs Arashi to pass the time. It was pretty much the same as always, fun but no real surprises. The opposing team was the cast from the new film Gatchaman, a live-action version of the anime that has been released twice in the West: once as Battle of the Planets, and then again some years later as G-Force.

It was light and undemanding. The format hasn’t changed at all in the past few years but that doesn’t seem to matter. You would think that Arashi would have a big advantage in most games with all their practice, but this show has been going so long that most guests are making their second or third appearance. Plus, of course, Arashi has a guest on their team who is usually a complete novice or playing it for laughs.

But anyway, it was nice to see that Gouriki Ayame really is adorable without a script and soft-focus, and the team as a whole were pretty funny. I laughed when one guy, Nakamura Shido, said he’d be good at one particular game because his hobby was bazookas.

After I watched this, I felt like I needed a bit more Arashi before I went to bed. I couldn’t be bothered to wait for a download, so I went on YouTube to see what had been posted up recently. I found an old episode of Himitsu no Arashi-chan which is a TV show I don’t know much about, but it had Nakatani Miki in it. I wasn’t sure how the glacial beauty of Nakatani Miki would mix with the knockabout humour of Arashi, so I watched it.

Part one
Part two
Part three
Part four

I was surprised to learn that Satashi Ohno appears to know about flowers and flower arranging, and they also played a couple of traditional Japanese games. One was particularly interesting (the games are in part four, by the way). Each player has to make a motion in time to some music, according to simple rules. If the object in the middle is still there, touch it or pick it up. If it isn’t there, then knock on the table, or put it back (if you have it).

I’d never seen a game quite like this in England, so I thought I’d pass it on. There are no subs, but the games are easy to follow and it's nice to see how the Japanese entertained themselves before Nintendo.

Currently watching: Hanzawa Naoki

Well, after a summer of nice weather and things to do, I’ve had little time to sit down and watch any TV, and when I do it’s usually Amachan. I only watch about two episodes a week. At this rate, it should last until Christmas!

But then I noticed that one J-drama was getting very high ratings, almost a 30% share. It didn’t seem to have anyone very famous in it, so I started to wonder why it had done so well. I took a look at the first episode, and although I wasn’t hooked, it was an enjoyable slice of drama.

The story is about a banker, Hanzawa, who suddenly finds himself blamed for a loan made to a company just before they went bankrupt. And at 500 million yen, this is the kind of loan that could end a man’s career. It’s up to him to clear his name and get the money back.

It’s nicely made, with some very dramatic music pushing the action along. There’s a lot of meaningful looks and jostling for power in the bank. It’s all very macho, in a way. In fact, there are almost no female characters at all, and perhaps this makes Aya Ueto the surprise highlight of the show, being very good in her role of Hanzawa’s wife.

I shall keep an eye on it. I'll be honest, I'm not sure why it's been such a ratings hit. Maybe because it doesn't have much competition?