Forum - View topicINTEREST: Takeshi Kitano is Critical of the Japanese Film Industry and Miyazaki
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Polycell
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[Context-dependent reply to removed post]
Last edited by Polycell on Mon Oct 27, 2014 10:31 am; edited 1 time in total |
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doomydoomdoom
 Posts: 278 Location: Michigan, USA |
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Uh, before this turned into a debate on gay rights and blaming Brazillians for killing all the white people, it was about Kitano.
He's a pretty strange guy, so I don't really take anything he says seriously. I'm not surprised he hates Miyazaki and anime or animation in general. This is a guy who got famous as a sort of Japanese Howard Stern, then decided he wanted to be a serious actor, filmmaker and critic. He has odd turns of thought. Additionally, the way he acts in Battle Royale is how he is in real life. So that should tell you something. |
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mdo7
 Posts: 6400 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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That's the problem, Japanese films today is not as diverse as used to. The list of directors you mention are some of the exception. Katsuhito Ishii hasn't made any film since 2011. I know Naomi Kawase because I heard about her recent films. But other then that, Japanese films hasn't been getting a lot of worldwide media attention and a lot of them that are coming out are not as good as it was few years back. Also Japanese films recently are not being picked up for international market when Chinese and Korean films are getting more global spotlights. That's what I'm seeing coming out of Asia. |
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Alexander55
 Posts: 104 Location: Ontario, CA |
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While Takeshi Kitano is right about Japan's film industry, he seems to be off on his comments on Miyazaki and anime. Instead of bearing resentment against one of the best anime artists/directors around as well as an entire creative medium, he should advocate on fixing Japan's domestic film market. The Japanese film market outside of Japan is a joke. It is no where near viable as perse K-Drama, Mexican/Brazilian telenovelas, and India's Bollywood, where they have all successfully garnered their niche. If the Japanese film market hopes to be competitive outside of Japan, its gonna need to prioritize more new talent as he stated. He should try to gather both new and older actors and form a group/union to try to sway the industry but its going to be tough judging from the history of unions in Japan.
Also
If Anime wasn't creative, it would have never been popular to begin with. It would have never spread outside of Japan, and people wouldn't have bothered learning the language to translate anything out of it. Dragon Ball Z wouldn't have taken off, and Toonami wouldn't have existed to begin with. Nobody would have mentioned anime in American pop-culture, and everyone would not care. But that seems contrary to your assertion. Anime(& manga) are about the most creative thing still coming out of Japan. There's video games too but above all, its Anime & manga that contributed awareness of Japanese culture. Anime is the reason why people were initially drawn to exploring other fragments of Japanese culture. Without Anime, Japan would have been known mostly for ninjas, cars, and video games. Other than that, its actual culture would have been mostly unknown to most people outside of historians. |
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mdo7
Posts: 6400 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Alexander55, I agree with you. I've seen the CGI from Japanese films, it looks like a PS2 generated graphic compared to let say South Korea (it also has gotten Hollywood attention) and China. Also there has been debate why Japan didn't do the Godzilla reboot and leave it over to Hollywood to do it, some people on the forum have brought up Japan's subpar filmmaking as one of the reason. Also about K-drama, I don't think it's becoming that niche, it's gaining more mainstream traction. |
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danilo07
 Posts: 1580 |
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I am gonna disagree about diversity, this year only from Japan we got weird little drama like Little Forest, Yoji Yamada made The Little House, there was bloody thriller Killers, a very provocative film called My Man was made,Katsuhito Ishii made an indie movie this year and so on and so on. I don't know about how Japanese movies do on international market, but I can tell you that they regularly have strong presence at the biggest film festivals ( Berlin, Cannes, Venezia and Toronto). I won't deny that South Korean filmmakers are lately getting more attention than Japanese , but it's not as if the entire country is drowning obscurity. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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There are a few trend stories out there right now about how Japanese films aren't marketable outside of Japan and how, aside from Ghibli output, they perform poorly in international film festivals. It's considered a handicap and something they need to fix if they want the kind of box office and prestige that comes from having internationally marketable product, but I'm not at all sure how the industry itself there is approaching that or if they even care.
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mdo7
Posts: 6400 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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No, but many of the Japanese films are not being picked up for international distribution from what I've heard. Also even though Japanese films are shown at international film festivals they're getting sidelined by Korean and Chinese films meaning South Korea and Mainland China are gaining more attention then Japan. Also some of the Japanese films you listed well most of them are not really diverse, the Japanese film, Killers, is a co-production between Japan and Indonesia, and directed by an Indonesian duo not a Japanese one, So I would make that an exception. The other Japanese film that got my attention the most is Pale Moon which the premise is interesting, but I don't know if this will be shown outside of Japan. Unless Japan can make films that can rival Gangster Payday (a Hong Kong film first shown at Busan film festival), The man from nowhere, A girl at my door, A hard day, Manhole, and Tazza: The high rollers. Then Japanese films are going to continue to not be taken seriously on a global market. I'll agreed Japan can make some decent rom-com, some good drama films, and some passable film adaptation of manga. But when it comes to action and serious film, Japanese films really lag (remember Lupin the 3rd, yeah it was really bad). J-horror seem to be losing it's touch, like Monsterz got mixed receptions. But when it comes to Korean and Chinese films, they know how to make diverse genre other then rom-com, and drama and know how to make serious films. Last edited by mdo7 on Mon Oct 27, 2014 12:53 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Ryo Hazuki
Posts: 370 Location: Finland |
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Drama isn't serious? We have a winner. |
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mdo7
Posts: 6400 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Depend on how serious it is, the drama I've seen coming out of Japan are not quite as serious as what I've seen from Chinese and Korean films. |
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danilo07
Posts: 1580 |
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Not only that bu he seems to think that movies ranging from daily farming life to a deeply disturbing incestuous relationship aren't diverse enough. And mdo07 if it is action or thriller films that you want you could see this year's Tokyo Tribe, World of Kaneko or The Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji. All of them opened up to positive reviews. |
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REDOG
Posts: 37 |
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You mean in japan,yes? also off the context of the message, in various documentaries i've seen people claim things from "anime/manga are the national treasure of japan that most japanese indulge in" to "anime and manga are niche subculture who aren't as obvious as it seems to be". So, excuse me for the ignorance, but what is the "true" situation?
Creativity is not the main concern, especially not in anime. It is first and foremost popular entertainment. It is true that in terms of creativity and sophistication it dared to tread new areas that in western animation are the target of the underground, at best, but i think that most people who watch anime are watching it first for the emotional connection/aesthetic of the characters and the plot/narrative and only then for the intellectual message and artistic merit. First style then substance. All this should be obvious though.
I was going to ask you, but you just explained it. Thanks. Question left is , what about the underground? Shozin Fukui (for example) seems to still release a film here and there, and all the sublayer of z type, sometimes half 3d horror movies?(these horror films don't have a touch from the beginning so...). Yes there is a recent avant-garde thriving of directors in thailand (apichatpong weerasethakul and a team of others), and chinese and korean cinema seems more creative in these areas, but the japanese underground have some success recently, or not even a little? |
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mdo7
Posts: 6400 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Those are exceptions, but nice to see Takeshi Miike has made a comeback. But this is nothing compared to how many actions films from China and South Korea are churning out, that's what I mean by lack of diverse genre from Japan. But Japan still lag behind action films.
What do you mean by "Japanese underground film"?? Is that the reason why there's lack of action films in Japan? Last edited by mdo7 on Mon Oct 27, 2014 1:12 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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REDOG
Posts: 37 |
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The line is pretty vague, but by "sublayer of z type horror movies" i mean something like that:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374076/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_11 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0287205/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_33 And many such as these. And by underground i mean not necessarily action, but artsy surrealism in general, and less familiar than miike, shinya tsukamoto and seijun suzuki(again, shozin fukui comes to mind). Japan has a tradition of these also. I am not up to date, that's why i ask. |
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mdo7
Posts: 6400 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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To be honest, I'm not sure about these lesser known niche Japanese films, they're not advertised the same way like the mainstream blockbuster Japanese films are shown and they're definitely not shown at film festivals around the world. Also I don't know what happened to those sub-genres of film, it's like nobody outside of Japan pay attention to them anymore. |
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