Recommended: The Great Passage

Sometimes watching a TV show prompts certain needs in me. For example, I have to be drinking white wine when watching Saikou no Rikon, or drinking beer when watching Match of the Day. While watching this film, I had a sudden urge to get the largest dictionary I own (the Kenkyusha New Japanese English Character Dictionary) and watch the rest of the film with it on my lap, like some kind of weird substitute cat.

The film that inspired this burst of bibliophilia is set in an office where they are making a new dictionary. An odd topic for a film, but one that works surprisingly well. People leave and join the team, they fall in love and get old. It’s a gentle character-lead comedy, full of people discussing things that normally never get discussed, such as how do you define the direction “right”?

Despite being miles away from a Hollywood blockbuster, the film still seems to think it needs some kind of climactic event: some last minute danger to overcome. In this case, it is the discovery that a word is missing, meaning some last-minute list-checking is needed! It’s not exactly defusing a bomb on a speeding bus.

The acting is great. Matsuda Ryuhei is miles from his more usual slacker-type roles, and Miyazaki Aoi is perfect as the love interest. But it’s Odagiri Joe who really makes an impression. His character is someone not suited to dictionary work, and he provides a lot of the comedy, but in a sensitive way: never so overt that it seems out of place.

It’s a great little film, made all the more remarkable by the peculiar subject matter. The subs, by 8th Sin are excellent, and so are the translation notes. I’m a sucker for this kind of story, and I think that these people are heroes, too. Fitting an entire language into a book, however imperfectly, is still an amazing achievement.

Looking forward: The Great Passage

This film, whose Japanese name is Fune o Amu (舟を編む, which means “Knit a Boat” or something like that. No. I don’t get it either), is about a publishing house that decides to make a new dictionary. It doesn’t sound like much of a story at all, but that stuff fascinates me.

The story follows the progress of the dictionary, and the people who write it. The main character, played by Matsuda Ryuhei, joins the team as an assistant and slowly rises to be its manager, while falling in love, battling the publishers etc. Odagiri Joe is his co-worker, and Miyazaki Aoi is the love interest.

Although, really, the main love interest is language, and the obsessive perfectionism that goes with trying to pin it down. It is the fate of all dictionaries to be out of date by the time they’re published, so I think there’s a doomed romanticism to expending that much effort into something that can never be a definitive work, only a snapshot of an ever-changing subject.

Unfortunately, I can’t find an English subbed version, only a hard-subbed Chinese/Japanese copy, which is barely enough for me to follow the conversations which are, as you’d expect, all about the nuances of language. To be honest, I have doubts that even a fansub of this would be able to do it justice. I think you'd need some serious translating skills to get this done. Luckily, it’s already done the film festival circuit, so English subs exist out their somewhere, and it’s the Japanese entry for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film which means a DVD release is almost certain.

I struggled through the first half an hour, but to watch any more without really understanding it would be a crime, I think. The directing and photography are excellent, considering how much of the action is in a musty old office. In the meantime, I shall scan the local listings of Art House cinemas and search in vain for subs on the web, until the DVD is confirmed. It’s going to be a long wait.

Recommended: Mahoro Ekimae Bangaichi

This TV series is perhaps the closest thing to rock 'n' roll that Japanese TV has achieved in the five years or so that I've been watching. It manages to look low-budget but also made with care.

The acting was great throughout, with some notable performances from the supporting cast including, in episode eight, Kuroki Haru. I'd never heard of her before, but she stole every scene she was in which, up against Eita and Matsuda Ryuhei, takes some doing.

In the end, the stories took a turn for the dark. Since the story was about two people who'd do any job, this would invariably attract the attention of the criminal underworld. While this meant there were fewer jokes, it did at least give some kind of climax to the show. If they'd just remained bumbling idiots on the lowest rung of society, I don't know how entertaining it would've been.

The writing was excellent too, covering the sort of stories that you just don't find in other dramas. The dialogue was sharp and witty and natural. I'd certainly recommend this to anyone who wants to learn Japanese slang.

It really felt fresh and different. Very funny, very inventive and very well made.

Currently watching: Mahoro Ekimae Bangaichi

In the weird version of Japanese showbusiness that I keep in my head, I like to pretend that when Kiruma Kaela is out making pop music, her husband, Eita, gets on the phone and invites his good friend Matsuda Ryuhei to his house where they drink beer, smoke cigarettes and talk about girls.

An image which is based almost entirely on this TV series. In this series, Eita and Matsuda Ryuhei play two slackers who run a company that does whatever work it can find. And it's the interplay between these two that make the show worthwhile.

Eita is rapidly turning into Mr Quality when it comes to dramas. His ability to change almost completely according to whatever the role demands is once again on show here. Meanwhile, Matsuda Ryuhei is the apathetic heart of the show. His slack-jawed disinterest and rudeness is pivotal to the stories.

He really does have a unique place in J-dramas. While many young actors are placed into roles that require them to be rude, surly or rebellious, they barely manage more than looking a bit pouty as if they've done quite badly on a spelling test. Ryuhei's apparent lack of effort in his acting is a rare sight on Japanese TV. The fact that he doesn't get acted off the screen by the more technical, exact style of Eita just shows how perfect his is for the role.

The series is a comedy. The format allows them to do a different job each week, so hopefully no chance of it becoming stale after a while, and it is pretty funny. Certainly, it's funny enough that I didn't realise at first that episode one actually has a sad ending. I'm very glad this is being subbed by earthcolours and danburi on d-addicts (who do an excellent job) so now I can rewatch the earlier episodes and know what's really going on.

Just watched: The Foreign Duck, The Native Duck and God in a Coin Locker

This is a smart piece of non-linear storytelling from the director who brought us Fish Story. And, like that film, it's has a song central to the story: "Blowing in the Wind" by Bob Dylan, which keeps cropping up throughout the film.

We begin fairly near the end of the story, when a student enrols in a university. He meets his new neighbours and then gets involved in a hold up at a book store. But the reason for the robbery is slowly revealed in a series of flashbacks.

It's cleverly structured, and kind of difficult to explain without ruining it. Perhaps it's a little too clever, as everything that happens in the first half of the film is referenced in the second half. The trouble is that you find yourself admiring the storytelling rather than the story.

Eita, as always, puts in a high quality performance, and the rest of the cast, too, don't disappoint. I was surprised to see Matsuda Ryuhei in the film, since the two of them have just worked together on a TV drama. I suppose it's possible that this is coincidence but I like to imagine that they got on so well when making the film, that they just decided to make a TV series too! Isn't that how showbiz works?

It's a good film, funny and likeable, if perhaps a little dry.

Just watched: Koi no Mon

After "Ashita no, Kita Yoshio", I started looking around for other shows involving the same actors and found this surreal comedy from 2005. Starring Ryuuhei Matsuda as a drop-out manga artist with some odd ideas about manga and rocks, and Wakana Sakai as a cosplaying manga drawing admin assistant. They meet, fall in love, and stumble through a series of unlikely situations before the credits finally roll. That's more or less the closest this film gets to a storyline.

It's Sakai who steals the show, though. While Matsuda is likeable as the Dylan Moran-esque mumbling buffoon, Sakai is either perfect for her role or a great undiscovered talent. Undiscovered by me, that is. She's done stuff apart from this, including an episode of Lost Time Life (one which, sadly, I don't have). Undeniably cute, she sets about the role with great energy yet also with some subtlety so it doesn't become overbearing.

The film relies on the two main actors to hold your interest as without them, the series of odd things happening to odd people in odd ways could run out of steam before too long. And perhaps this film is a bit too long, as every scene is ultimately disposable and you may find yourself wondering why certain things made it past the final cut. But in the end, it's more hit than miss and an enjoyable diversion while it lasts.

Recommended: Ashita no, Kita Yoshio

It’s always a relief when a series that starts so strongly doesn’t fall to pieces by the end. In this series a man decides to kill himself in eleven days’ time and, after telling his plans to a slightly shady character, he falls into a whirlwind adventure involving TV talents, night clubs, assassins, multiple personalities and life insurance fraud.

After eleven episodes our hero has acted selflessly in front of enough people for them to beg him to not to kill himself, and the message finally gets through to him in the final scene.

It’s a heart-warming story, and nicely shot as well. The recurring theme of Andrew Wyeth’s artwork surprisingly plays a major part in the closing scene, which I didn’t see coming at all. This twist, albeit a small one, makes up in some way for the predictable (but satisfying) end of the show.

This drama has some great performances but most plaudits have to go to the directors (mostly Shimoyama Ten, but a few others too). This is perhaps the first j-drama for a long while where I’ve found myself appreciating the photography and composition of some of the shots.

Currently watching: Ashita no, Kita Yoshio

Over the long Easter weekend a bad knee kept me from any healthy outdoor walks I may have had planned, and so I spent the four days sitting down watching TV. I took the chance to catch up on a few things I’d always wanted to see and, of those, this was by far the most interesting. Five episodes in three days are usually enough to make me thoroughly sick of a series, but this one is keeping me intrigued.

In this series, a man – Kita Yoshio – decides to end his life in eleven days, and immediately is plunged into the most eventful eleven days of his life. In this mix is an ex-wife who hates him and who possibly murdered her second husband, a guy who’s helping him out while at the same time trying to bump him off for the insurance, a TV talent who’s trying to get out of the business, and a detective investigating the first wife but then gets sucked into following the ill-deeds of everyone else, perhaps thinking they’re all interlinked.

The improbable storyline is nicely written and genuinely funny, with some great performances. In fact, the acting is gold all the way down, with even minor characters catching the eye. It’s based on a novel, so I’ve got high hopes that it’ll have a decent ending. But it’ll certainly have to be terrible to ruin what is, so far, a splendid story.