Film Suggestions for Home Viewing
Happy Mondays Everyone!
We’re continuing our theme of making every Monday night movie night.
Unfortunately, we can’t screen a film at the venue this week, so we thought we’d do a quick round up post of some brilliant movies that are available to watch online.
We’ve included at least 1 suggestion from each of the major streaming platforms in the UK, as well as a number of films that can be rented from sites like BFI Player or Curzon Home Cinema.
Finally for those of you who might use VPN services there’s some selections from The Criterion Collection that aren’t available to UK viewers normally.
As with all our films this season, we’re exploring cinema Japanese cinema over the past 100 years, including some fantastic animation for adults and young people.
From beautiful period pieces that explore important moments in Japanese history, to action adventure blockbusters, through samurai, yakuza, shoguns and otaku – these selections of films deal with the collision of the ancient and modern worlds of Japanese culture, seen through the lens of some of the most prolific and exciting directors in world cinema.
Subscription Services
Amazon Prime
Two Portraits of MIYAGINO
In Edo-era Japan, a ukiyo-e artist languishes in his master's shadow. Creatively stifled, he finds consolation in the company of a prostitute, and becomes entangled in a love triangle. A mystery emerges involving two portraits and the sudden disappearance of the artist Sharaku. Helmed by Cannes-selected director Tatsuji Yamazaki, the film employs kabuki-inspired sequences and stylised sets. 1 h 53 min 2010 13+ Director: Tatsuji Yamazaki
Impossible To Imagine
The story of a traditional, Kyoto woman who runs a failing, kimono business and the biracial entrepreneur who comes to help keep it solvent. Along the way they fall in love but his need for change clashes with her desire for the world to stay the same. 1 h 28 min 2020 16+ Director: Felicity Tillack
Netflix
Your Name
Two strangers find themselves linked in a bizarre way. When a connection forms, will distance be the only thing to keep them apart? 1hr 46 min 2016 12 Director: Makato Shinkai
Romance Doll
Love came naturally for married couple Sonoko and Tetsuo. But his secret profession as a love doll designer clashes with her deeper, darker secret. 2h 3m 2020 15 Director: Yuki Tanada
Also note: Almost every animated film produced by the amazing Studio Ghibli is available on Netflix at the moment. Perfect for all the family - catch Totoro at The Place during half term!
Mubi
After last week's screening of 'CURE' we recommend catching the newest film by acclaimed director Kiyoshi Kurasawa
Wife of a Spy
It’s 1940, and the population of Japan is divided over its entry into World War II. Satoko, the wife of a fabric merchant, is devoted to her husband but is beginning to suspect he’s up to something. Soon she allows herself to be drawn into a game in which she enigmatically conceals her intentions. 1hr 56min 2021 16+ Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Rentals
Curzon Home
13 Assassins
Bad boy of Japanese cinema Takashi Miike delivers a jaw-dropping spectacle with this celebrated and gleefully visceral samurai epic. In Shogun-era Japan, the powerful and sadistic Lord Naritsugu threatens to shatter the country’s fragile peace and plunge it once more into war. Determined to stop him at all costs, an elite group of renegade samurai plot his downfall. Absurdly outnumbered, the baker’s dozen of fearless warriors must face Naritsugu’s lethal army in a monumental and bloodily violent showdown. 2hrs 6mins 2011 15 Director: Takashi Miike
BFI Player
The Mysterians PG rating
The team behind Godzilla (1954) reunites for Toho’s first colour widescreen sci-fi, an arresting spectacle about the arrival of an alien race and their giant, destructive robot. 1hr 25mins 1957 PG Director: Ishiro Honda
Shoplifters
Hirokazu Koreeda's modern masterpiece is dark yet touching account of an unorthodox family that relies on shoplifting to make ends meet. 2hrs 1min 2018 15 Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
YouTube
One Cut of the Dead
Things go badly for a hack director and film crew shooting a low budget zombie movie in an abandoned WWII Japanese facility, when they are attacked by real zombies. 1hr 36mins 2019 15+ Director: Shin'ichirô Ueda
VPN
The Criterion Collection
For anyone who joined us for Ryushi Lindsay's short film: Kokutai, this 2019 documentary digs deeper into the fascinating world of high school student baseball
Koshien: Japan’s Field of Dreams
Baseball is life for the die-hard competitors in the hundredth annual Koshien, Japan’s wildly popular national high-school baseball championship, whose alumni include MLB stars Shohei Ohtani and Hideki Matsui. But for coach Mizutani and his players, the tasks of cleaning the grounds and greeting their guests are just as important as honing their baseball skills. Director Ema Ryan Yamazaki’s dramatic and intimate journey to the heart of the Japanese national character asks: Will these acts of devotion add up to victory or prove to be relics of the past? 1hr 34mins 2019 Director: Ema Ryan Yamazaki