Slash And Burn

Three From Nobuhiko Obayashi

Title: Exchange Students
Japanese Title: Tenkosei
AKA: I Am You, You Are Me
Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi
Actors: Satomi Kobayashi, Toshinori Omi, Makoto Sato
Year Released: 1982
Genre: Comedy
See Also: Typhoon Club, Tenkosei: Sayonara anata
Otaku Alert: Etsuko Shihomi tackled one of her first non-action roles as the teacher in Exchange Students.
Availability Note: Import only.

Title: The Little Girl Who Conquered Time
Japanese Title: Toki wo kakeru shojo
AKA: The Girl Who Cut Time
Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi
Actors: Tomoyo Harada, Toshinori Omi, Ryoichi Takayanagi
Year Released: 1983
Genre: Sci-fi, Drama
See Also: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
Otaku Alert: The film's composer, Masataka Matsutoya, appeared in photos as Kazuo's father.
Availability Note: Import only.

Title: House
Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi
Actors: Kimiko Ikegami, Kumiko Oba, Miki Jinbo
Year Released: 1977
Genre: Horror, Comedy
See Also: Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis, Jigoku
Otaku Alert: The watermelon seller was played by the film's composer, Asei Kobayashi, who also did work on Gachaman among other things.
Availability Note: Import only.

I first encountered the films of director Nobuhiko Obayashi in the form of Tenkosei, better known as Exchange Students, at an '80s Japanese film festival which also included two from Shinji Somai, Typhoon Club and Sailor Suit and Machine Gun. Of the three, Exchange Students was far and away the most fun, a playful mix of earthy humor and good ol' teenage angst that deftly captured what it means to be 15 and hormone-addled in a way that I hadn't ever seen. That the film managed to do this while saddled with such a preposterous premise is all the more impressive.

How preposterous? Middle-school students Kazumi (Satomi Kobayashi) and Kazuo (Toshinori Omi) take a tumble down the steps of a temple, and when they stand up and brush themselves off they realize they've switched bodies. Freaky Friday did it first, and plenty of American movies would take the ball and run with it in the late '80s, but Exchange Students does it best. Unlike the American body-switch comedies (Dream A Little Dream, et al), which also go for the obvious metaphors of teenage confusion and body angst, Obayashi's film boldly goes where none of these other films will: below the waist. Teenagers are obsessed with their body parts; it only stands that they'd be even more obsessed if those parts were switched.

Exchange Students was apparently popular when it was released, and it's not hard to see why. The film is extremely funny, with both leads doing a hilarious job of playing the opposite sex. The film is unavailable on DVD as far as I know, but there may be old VHS copies floating around, or ports from television. Nobuhiko Obayashi remade the film this year with the title, Tenkosei: Sayonara anata. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, he's changed.

Teenage confusion also figures prominently in The Little Girl Who Conquered Time, a coming of age sci-fi film that Obayashi released the year after Exchange Students. Instead of losing her sex, Tomoko (Tomoyo Harada) finds herself unstuck in time, experiencing the same day repeatedly and becoming increasingly unmoored from reality. (If the title sounds familiar, it should. The same source novel was remade as the anime The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which apparently follows the exploits of a grown Tomoko's niece.)

Obayashi takes his time getting to the big sci-fi finish, drawing us in to the almost ideal life of Tomoko and her friends in Onomichi, the picturesque seaside town that also served as the location for Exchange Students and part of Ozu's Tokyo Story. But when Tomoko finally falls into the time stream, it's a dazzling sequence, making use of all the Xanadu-like pre-digital effects available at the time. Amidst all the flash, though, Obayashi forgot to make sure the script made sense—it's not only Tomoko that loses her way. But the film's heart and adventurous effects more than make up for its lack of sound science.

And speaking of adventurous effects, Obayashi's debut film, 1977's teen horror romp House has more wild effects than a ride at Disneyland, more insanity than a night at Bellevue, and more spilled blood than an NHL season. That it's also funny, touching and a little creepy makes it one of the most unique films ever made.

Seven teenage girls head out to the countryside to vacation in an old house, which promptly comes alive and eats them all, one by one. But it's not your typical Nightmare on Elm Street or Exorcist. It's way more hallucinogenic than that. Imagine Gone With the Wind as a '70s-era music video invaded by traditional Japanese ghosts, with generous creative input from Jigoku director Nobuo Nakagawa. And lots of blood.

Obayashi was previously a television commercial director and he helms House like a man who's waited a long time to get where he is, yet is afraid it's all going to be taken away at any minute. He's got a list of visual effects he wants to use—fish eye lens, strobe edits, stop-motion, garish background mattes, double exposure—so he makes sure he uses them, in rapid succession, even if there's no dramatic call for it. That he keeps up this dizzying pace of visual effects for the entire film rescues it from pretension and elevates it to a kind of art of excess. You can't help but be caught up in Obayashi's giddiness. He's obviously having the time of his life and that pure joy is translated onto the screen. Even the most delirious Bollywood film pales in comparison to House, and that's saying a lot.

See another review of House at Eigazoku.

Tokyo Zombie

Director: Sakichi Sato
Actors: Tadanobu Asano, Sho Aikawa, Erika Okuda
Year Released: 2005
Genre: Horror, Comedy
See Also: Versus, Battlefield Baseball
Otaku Alert: Prince Akiyama was played by horror manga writer Kazuo Umezu.
Availability Note: Import only.

I can't think of a movie that sounds better on paper than Tokyo Zombie. Tadanobu Asano in an afro wig! Sho Aikawa with a bald head! Director Sakichi Sato wrote Gozu and Ichi the Killer! Zombies in Tokyo! Humor! Blood! Erika Okuda in a short skirt! Unfortunately, the only one of those exclamation-pointed statements that manages to stay consistent until the end of the film is the length of Erika Okuda's skirt.

People are burying bodies at the massive Tokyo dump, nicknamed Black Fuji because of its resemblance to the mountain, and one day they come to life, seeking, as the zombie myth goes, fresh blood to satisfy their hellish cravings. Fujio (Asano) and Mitsuo (Aikawa) are two layabouts who'd rather practice jujitsu than work. Their wrestling skills soon pay off as they take zombie after zombie to the mat, and pick up the aforementioned short-skirted Erika Okuda in the process.

And then the movie goes off the rails.

Had the whole film been like the first 30 minutes, I'd be willing to call it a worthwhile campy satire of horror films, much like Zombie Baseball. But suddenly it's five years later, Mitsuo is long gone, and Fujio and Yoko (Okuda) are living inside a Land of the Dead-like rich person's compound. Fujio fights zombies professionally in the ring but never makes much money because his jujitsu skills are too good—the fights aren't flashy enough.

This is all fine and good, but the film ceases to be funny. In fact, it gets downright boring. Even the (expected) third-act return of Mitsuo isn't enough to save the film. A good idea—and two great actors—wasted.

Sanshiro Sugata

Director: Akira Kurosawa
Actors: Susumu Fujita, Takashi Shimura, Ryunosuke Tsukigata
Year Released: 1943
Genre: Drama
See Also: Sanshiro Sugata 2, The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail
Otaku Alert: Aside from his numerous Kurosawa appearances, lead actor Susumu Fujita could also be seen on '60s TV in various Ultraman shows.
Availability Note: Import only.

Sanshiro Sugata is an interesting film for a number of reasons. One, it's Akira Kurosawa's debut film; two, it's a genre picture, something Kurosawa didn't tackle often; and three, it was made and released in 1943 while Japan was embroiled in war in the Pacific, and thus subject to wartime censors.

Donald Richie, in his A Hundred Years of Japanese Film, reports that a love scene was cut from Sanshiro Sugata. That the film was released at all is surprising given its decidedly Western approach to character. The titular lead, a ruffian rickshaw driver played by Susumu Fujita, begins the film as a wild youth and ends with humility, discipline and control. This is not achieved, however, though the acceptable methods of group participation but through a discovery of self.

It's the Meiji era, a time of great change in Japan, and wild man Sugata wants to learn judo, one of the new forms of martial arts being developed in the country (karate, another new style, will feature prominently in the sequel). He joins a dojo and learns what it means to be disciplined, abandoning his drunken, street-fighting ways as he comes into himself. Fujita is more believable as the transformed Sugata—his friendly face is more suited to inner tranquility than a young man's rage, but he is nevertheless consistently good throughout.

As Sanshiro Sugata is a genre picture, it is beholden to the usual genre picture trappings. Being a martial arts picture, it must have the requisite fight sequences, and they arrive like clockwork: the initial fight, in which the dojo master handily dispatches a group of rival-school toughs; the mid-film fight, in which Sugata reluctantly takes on the aging Hansuke Murai (Kurosawa regular and Toho player Takashi Shimizu); and the climactic sequence, staged on a hilltop field. That Kurosawa has chosen to set the final fight in a field of deep grass, thus obscuring the action—judo is fought low to the ground—he reveals his ambition. Kurosawa, right from the outset it seemed, wanted to make art, not just films, and by down-playing the whole reason for coming to a picture like this—namely, the fighting—he makes a point about violence and the ultimate pointlessness of it.

That Kurosawa is making these kinds of statements right out of the gate—in a wartime martial arts picture no less—reveals the kind of filmmaker he already knew himself to be. Repeatedly throughout the film, Kurosawa adds these kinds of little touches to enrich the story. When a challenger is thrown by Sugata against the wall, a broken piece of screen falls in slow motion, a surprising and stylistic coda to the action, and one that Kurosawa will re-use in Seven Samurai. Even something as commonplace in a martial arts film as the spiritual awakening of the young tough is enhanced by artistic lighting, a lotus blossom bathed in floodlights amidst a night-black pond.

In 1945 Kurosawa made Sanshiro Sugata 2 at the request of the studio and, it would seem, the government, creating a moderately entertaining if flat piece of propaganda. Sugata fights an American boxer and gets a lecture from his sensei on the importance of fighting, an odd message considering the previous film. But Kurosawa still shows himself: one of the antagonists, the mad younger brother of the man defeated in the previous film's climactic sequence, is outfitted in makeup and a noh wig, a bit from classical Japanese theater, a well which Kurosawa would return to often in his film career.

Five years later, Kurosawa would release Rashomon and everything would be changed. But here, in the midst of a war, we can see the artist on his way up, testing and experimenting yet fully confident in his abilities.

Who Says Zatoichi Has To Be A Man?

Apparently all bets are off. Now that Beat Takeshi has played Shintaro Katsu's iconic Zatoichi as a bleach-haired sourpuss, apparently it's OK to run with the series and do whatever the hell. Not that I'm against a woman playing a blind swords—um, person. Zatoichi is just so synonymous with Shintaro Katsu.

OK, so it's called Ichi, it stars cutie-pie actress Haruka Ayase, and it's being directed by Ping-Pong helmer Fumihiko Sori for a 2008 release.

From TokyoGraph.

Viva Chiba! The Assassin and The Bodyguard

Title: The Assassin
Japanese Title: Yakuza deka—Marijuana mitsubai soshiki (Yakuza Detective—Marijuana Smuggling Operation)
AKA: Kamikaze Cop Marijuana Syndicate, Yakuza Deka: The Assassin
Director: Yukio Noda
Actors: Shinichi (Sonny) Chiba, Jiro Chiba, Shohei "Giant" Baba
Year Released: 1970
Genre: Action, Comedy
See Also: The Executioner, The Executioner 2
Otaku Alert: Co-star Jiro Chiba is Sonny's otouto (younger brother).

Title: The Bodyguard
Japanese Title: Bodyguard Kiba
AKA: Viva Chiba The Bodyguard, Karate Kiba
Director: Tatsuichi Takamori/Simon Nuchtern
Actors: Shinichi (Sonny) Chiba, Jiro Chiba, Eiji Go
Year Released: 1973
Genre: Action, Comedy
See Also: The Streetfighter, Karate Bearfighter
Otaku Alert: The US version of this film opens with the same quote from the Bible (Ezekial 25:17) that Quentin Tarantino has Samuel L. Jackson recite in Pulp Fiction.

Sometimes you get lucky. When combing through the dusty racks of a local video rental place that was going out of business, I found a 1983 CBS Fox Video VHS release of The Assassin, the 1977 US dub of Sonny Chiba's 1970 action/comedy flick, Yakuza deka—Marijuana mitsubai soshiki. Why did it take seven years for this movie to make it to US shores? For the same reason it took three years for Sonny Chiba's Bodyguard Kiba to be released in the US (with extra, non-Chiba footage, no less!) as The Bodyguard: after The Street Fighter hit it big in late 1974, every cheapo distribution company with a phone, a file cabinet, and a dodgy loan decided to cash in on Sonny's sudden marketability.

Directed by Yukio Noda, who would re-team with Chiba in 1977 for Golgo 13: Assignment: Kowloon, The Assassin is your typical low-brow action comedy, complete with burnt bare asses and shameless mugging. Think a less flatulent Executioner 2. Unlike that series, however, The Assassin is neither funny enough nor action-packed enough to sustain interest, despite Chiba's running around in a giant black floppy hat obviously borrowed from Meiko Kaji, and lots of dope smoking. By the halfway point I had given up and was searching You Tube for Eiko Koike bikini videos.

When Bruce died in 1973, he left a huge void in the schedules of grind houses from Times Square to San Francisco's Market Street. Unscrupulous distributors and filmmakers rushed to stop up that leaky gap with all sorts of crappy films starring alternately spelled Bruces, but it wasn't until Shinichi Chiba arrived with his unintentional hipster-drug-speak last name and manic, Bruce-like intensity in The Street Fighter that the hole left by Bruce could be properly filled.

Of course, Sonny Chiba (as he would come to be called) is not Bruce Lee, and his general fighting style is very different from that of Bruce's. Aquarius Releasing played this up big time when they recut Chiba's 1973 manga adaptation Bodyguard Kiba into The Bodyguard aka Viva Chiba The Bodyguard aka Karate Kiba, effectively making the main character into Sonny Chiba himself a la Jackie Chan in his American films, and having real-life martial artists Bill Louie and Aaron Banks debate the skills of Bruce and Sonny in a hastily added intro to the film. And then there's the obligatory training montage, the karate-kicking students inexplicably chanting, "Viva Chiba!" Bizarre to say the least.

The plot, such that it is, involves the mafia trying to muscle in on the Japanese drug business, with Chiba single-handedly trying to take them down. But that's not why you watch The Bodyguard. With the atrocious video transfer quality and full-screen cropping on the Vintage Home Entertainment quickie DVD release, it's hard to see what's going on. This is made worse in the film itself by the cameraman, who starts shaking the camera whenever Chiba works up any kind of sweat. No, you watch it for all the insanity that Aquarius added. Viva Chiba indeed.

—Adam Douglas