Rashomon

joseph — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:14:54 +0000

It may be debatable which is the best Kurosawa film, but this one is my personal favorite. It’s a work of bold, abstract beauty that questions reality by consensus. A rape and murder mystery is told and re-told from different perspectives (we even get a version of the story as told by the spirit of the murdered man, via medium). Each person has a completely different version of what occurred, and the mystery is never really “solved.” We are left doubting that any of the actors were telling the “true” version of what happened. Man is revealed as a creature who’s self-image is guarded jealously against a cold reality, which causes a Monk to nearly despair against the whole of mankind, until, in the midst of the fog in a desolate town in feudal Japan, a glimmer of hope is found.

Battle Royale

lefrenchie — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:53:24 +0000

Welcome to the dark world of tomorrow, where the Japanese government proclaimed the Battle Royale Act, which is a Life lesson taught to high school seniors; every year a class is taken on a deserted island, and each student needs to survive by killing his classmates, and staying alive. This premise is probably the most sadistic yet brilliant fable of what the world has in store for us… If being in high school was bad enough, this tops it all: it’s time to see the true nature of relationships between classmates, and to settle old rivalries. Brilliantly executed film, with an exquisite Takeshi “Beat” Kitano as the class professor; this movie is really a delectable gore fest, with a cynical sense of humor that not anyone can enjoy.

Cinema Outcasts » Asian

Rashomon

Battle Royale