Labyrinth of Cinema (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Nobuhiko Ôbayashi (House)
	Actors: Tadanobu Asano, Takuro Atsuki, Yoshihiko Hosoda
	Country: J
	Genre: Drama, War
	Conditions of visioning: 28.06.2020, FEFF2020, 14" screen.
Synopsis: The last cinema in the coastal town of Onomichi is about to be shut down for good, screening one final marathon of old war films. Three young viewers become so immersed in the action that they find themselves on the other side of the screen, chasing through the annals of war and film.
Review: I missed this movie at the Nippon Connection 2020 Festival, but I had a second chance at the Far East Film Festival. I knew it would be hard to squeeze in my schedule the 3 hours of this experimental movie, but I was attracted by it and didn't regret my choice. I am no expert but the movie seems characteristic of its director Nobuhiko Ôbayashi. It is not your normal average movie by any standard, more like a documentary reflection on Japanese wars and their depiction in the local Cinema. Be warned that it it not linear at all, we keep on jumping back and forth in time, and the movie may be 3 hours long but there are only 2.5 hours of footage in it because of many repetitions. Those elements combined make it possible to follow more or less what is going on in spite of a superficial chaos. It also helps that we follow those three characters: a cinema buff (named Mario Baba, haha), a history buff and a son-of-monk-turned-yakusa-wannabe, maybe the closest to a war-time soldier in modern times? They give different perspectives to the action and provide a common thread for us to hold on. Many other figures also also recurrent through the timeline, in particular a little girl (and her three sisters?) which they keep on trying to save. I don't think I got 20% of the references in the movie, it is so packed with them and you have to be Japanese to get much more. Even then, I don't know if this experimental movie fared well on the island. A few things help: some knowledge of the Japanese culture and its cinema, having been there (in Hiroshima in particular), watching a simplified recap on Japanese History before this movie (that one for example), and not hesitating to fact-search on Google as the movie goes, to not get totally lost (for example about the Sakura-tai Traveling Theater Troupe or the forced mass suicides of Okinawa). We always say that Japanese movies which underline in passing the message "War is bad" do it far too heavily, but this message is the whole purpose of Labyrinth of Cinema, it is a kind of anti-War propaganda film. From what I understood, it focuses especially on the two major events of Japan opening to the rest of the World (and the ensuing conflicts with swords vs. guns) and WWII (the last war of Japan, culminating with the atomic atrocity). So it really is about History and War, but all from the point of view of a cinema audience (this reminds of Joe Dante's Matinee) and many directors and movies are quoted along the way of which I knew none but my attention was caught by The Rickshaw Man directed in 1943 by Hiroshi Inagaki, not its many remakes (note for later viewing). Technically the movie looks cheap and contains tons of quickly-done green screen effects, but it is on purpose, the director didn't want to spend the time or budget to show something realistic while a juxtaposition of images suffices to pass the same message. Also it was shot with a Canon digital camera, and not even the best one. I like the message that you don't need money to express your art, partly contradicting what I remember Kevin Smith saying that Cinema is the most expensive Art form (give me 60 million dollars and Ben Affleck!). Of course Smith started with the cheap Clerks. Even though Nobuhiko Ôbayashi's film was done for little money and looks cheap, it doesn't feel cheap as the man knows what he is doing (like a good photographer is supposed to take great shots even with a smartphone). The 3-hour long movie could have been unwatchable but for some reason it incites watching further, even though you don't get the references. I did it in two parts nonetheless. Not an easy watch but I found it worth it.
Rating: 6 /10

Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1994
	Director: Allan A. Goldstein (Raw Deal)
	Actors: Charles Bronson (The Magnificent 7, Death Wish 1-5), Lesley-Anne Down, Michael Parks (Kill Bill, Red State, Tusk)
	Country: USA, CDN
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 28.06.2020, Full HD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: Former vigilante Paul Kersey (Bronson) lives in New York hidden under the witness protection program. His relationship with his future wife's ex-husband (Parks), member of the organized crime, will escalate for the worst.
Review: This is the last movie of the series started in 1974 with the original Death Wish and remade in 2018. Bronson was over 70 at the time, the movie didn't get a cinema release (direct-to-DVD it was called) and you can tell when watching it that it was a last attempt at making some money out of the franchise. After punks and drug lords, the bad guys are now from the New York mafia. The story accumulates all the defaults from the previous ones and none of the qualities: Paul Kersey is yet in another serious relationship which comes with a pseudo-daughter, tragedy strikes him out of the blue (he really attracts the villains), he takes revenge using over-complicated schemes (like in Death Wish 4: The Crackdown) and takes far too much time to kill his victims. Add to that the 80's features (already outdated in the 90's) of exaggerated torture / violence, racism and many female topless scenes (from the opening scene to attract the male audience I guess), and you get a bad movie which doesn't know where to go. Cruelly missing is also the soundtrack that was helping the other movies, even the bad ones. The editing is also hectic. Bronson still plays a good Paul Kersey, although slower, and it is nice to see him facing Michael Parks (Red State, Tusk) but they are both underused. The one good decision in the movie was to keep it in New York which gives it the nice street vibe that the West Coast movies of the franchise don't have. Far from enough to save it.
Rating: 3 /10

Ashfall (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Byung-seo Kim, Hae-jun Lee
	Actors: Byung-hun Lee (G.I. Joe 1-2, I saw the Devil), Jung-woo Ha, Hye-jin Jeon
	Country: ROK
	Genre: Thriller, Action, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 26.06.2020, FEFF2020, 14" computer screen
Synopsis: In a fictional future where North Korea is about the be freed from nuclear weapons, Mount Baekdu, on the border between Korea and China, is about to erupt triggering a super-quake that will destroy half the peninsula.
Review: The big Action movie that opened the 22nd edition of the Far East Film Festival (even though you could watch it anytime as the Festival was online). I didn't have very high expectations of quality so I was not bothered by the poor special effects, the political winks or the absurdity of some story points. Ashfall copied the model of American blockbuster disaster movies like the recent San Andreas, but even more over-the-top, borderline 2012. In particular it starts with a huge destruction scene the likes of which you will not see in the next 120 minutes. It adds to it its own political context which I didn't know was allowed to be shown: the fratricide relationship with the North, the domination of American culture... The disaster story is boring (volcano with perfect timing, nuclear weapons, all on the shoulders of one guy...) so the best in this movie is in fact those political moments that make it different. It is funny that there is more criticism of the USA than of North Korea in fact, the topic of the latter being in fact carefully handled (no bad politicians or soldiers from the North, just a few people among the big empty cities). As often in Asian productions, the soldiers are dumb and unable to follow orders to the point that you wonder how they got the job (it reminded me of  Starship Troopers 5: Traitor of Mars). Brush all of that aside and what is left is the evolving relationship between the two main characters, a father-to-be which is brave but not a leader, and a spy with no attachments looking for redemption. Pretty watchable if you don't expect too much.
Rating: 4 /10

F is for Future (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Teppei ISOBE
	Actors: Yasuyuki SAKURAI, Hiroki SANO, Chido MATSUMOTO, Kei NAKADO
	Country: J
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 14.06.2020, NCF2020, 14" computer screen
Synopsis: Instead of worrying about his future, Takuya aimlessly spends his time with his high school classmates.
Review: I had planned to use this movie as a filler in the Nippon Connection 2020 online Festival, as it lasts only 60 minutes and promised a nice humorous teenagers story. I managed to squeeze it in my programme and am the more glad about it. I was expecting more comedy, and awaiting the funny moments annoyingly described in the movie synopsis (spoiler, highlight to read: one of the friends die and the others honor a pact they made of hiding his collection of porn material). Reading that synopsis gives a totally wrong expectation of the movie. Instead, it is a little Drama representing with apparently great realism the life of high-schoolers that age. I loved to watch them hang around, tease each other and behave like teens, with no exaggerations. We see how they react to the facts of adult life that hit them: what to do of their Future, how to leave their family, relationships, death, what others think of you. I guess this is called a coming-of-age movie, and that's a darn good one in spite of its short length. For me it was just perfectly cut, especially if you don't read the annoying synopsis before (but I have to admit it is what attracted me to the movie...).
Rating: 7 /10

A Life Turned Upside Down: My Dad’s An Alcoholic (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Kenji Katagiri
	Actors: Tamae Andô, Shogou Hama, Kenta Hamano
	Country: J
	Genre: Drama, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 13.06.2020, NCF2020, 14" computer screen
Synopsis: Saki’s father hasn’t come home sober for years. He prefers to fall asleep in the hallway and she, her mother, and her sister have to drag him into the bedroom. When his friends come to visit and play Mahjong, bottles of whiskey are emptied, while the mother just prays apathetically. Throughout her childhood and adolescence, Saki wonders what’s wrong with this man who seems to care less about his family than he does about the next sip.
Review: The best movie seen at the Nippon Connection 2020 online Festival. We love to see in Japanese movies the characters socializing around food and drinks, be it a a party, a Karaoke or at home. With this movie, everything is in the title. "My Dad’s An Alcoholic" refers to the comedy moments we were expecting from the father, like when he comes home drunk always with the same crackers in his pocket, how he cries "thief" when his family undresses him, how he wobbles his head to fall short of the table (or of any obstacle his two daughters put in between)... I laughed a lot at those moments, emphasized by a nice upbeat little music. "A Life Turned Upside Down" refers to the rest, including big questions like "why does he have to drink so much?", "why does his wife let him do?", or "does he care about his daughters at all?", questions often shown as bubble above the daughter's head, as it probably happens in the head of children facing adults' behaviors they cannot understand. The whole movie is told from the point of view of the oldest daughter, and we can see the destructive impact of her father's lifestyle on her, how she dropped out of school to stay close to him for example. But the magic in this movie is that in spite of everything, he still is her father and her life forever bears his mark (like how she loves to eat the aforementioned crackers to feel at home). The movie also cleverly shows the father as a happy somnolent drunk, he doesn't beat up is family which would have categorized him as a bad guy, instead of maintaining the questions open. A touching but sometimes sad movie about family, with drops of humor at the right moments to relieve the tension. Brilliant.
Rating: 8 /10

Extro (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Naoki MURAHASHI
	Actors: Kozo HAGINOYA, Koji YAMAMOTO, Yuki SAITO
	Country: J
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 14.06.2020, NCF2020, 14" computer screen
Synopsis: The Japanese film studio “Warp Station Edo” serves as an impressive backdrop for numerous historical dramas. 64-year-old dental technician Haginoya is hired as an extra. Not only his own vanity but also demanding directors and the everyday madness on set stand in his way.
Review: In my video review of that movie seen at the Nippon Connection 2020 Online Festival, I was not able to explain the difference between a mockumentary and a docufiction. The Wikipedia page is very helpful with that: "A mockumentary or docucomedy is a type of movie or television show depicting fictional events but presented as a documentary. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictional setting, or to parody the documentary form itself. While mockumentaries are usually comedic, pseudo-documentaries are their dramatic equivalents. However, pseudo-documentary should not be confused with docudrama, a fictional genre in which dramatic techniques are combined with documentary elements to depict real events. Also, docudrama is different from docufiction; a genre in which documentaries are contaminated with fictional elements". At JoRafCinema we love this sub-genre, represented for example by the American This is Spinal Tap which coined the name, or the British more recent Shooting Bigfoot. New Zealand produced Forgotten Silver (by Peter Jackson) and the fantastic What we do in the Shadows. Belgium the dark C'est Arrivé Pres de Chez Vous (Man Bites Dog) and Vampires. But Japan has a special talent for this genre, as we can quote Big Man Japan, and more importantly the memorable Sky Jumping Pairs - The Road to Torino 2006 seen at the Far East Film Festival in 2006. So I couldn't miss this new Japanese mockumentary, and I wasn't disappointed. It contains the typical element that the pseudo-directors of the Documentary get more involved in the events, and end up getting lost in their message. Indeed in Extro we jump from the Haginoya story (paying homage to real-World Extra Kozo HAGINOYA by giving him a role in the mockumentary) to one of cops looking for a drug dealer to a mythical bird, and back to Haginoya. In the process we meet characters which are too natural (and stupid) to be true, but the movie never turns to obvious slapstick comedy. There are so many unexpected turns in the movie that it feels like the directors had several topics they wanted to show and couldn't settle on one, but it just adds humor to the helplessness of the fake directors in controlling their subject. Highly recommended.
Rating: 7 /10

The Journalist (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Michihito Fujii
	Actors: Eun-kyung Shim, Tôri Matsuzaka, Tsubasa Honda
	Country: J
	Genre: Thriller, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 12.06.2020, NCF2020, 14" computer screen
Synopsis: A newspaper journalist receives an anonymous fax with explosive information. As she follows the trail, she comes across questions that also concern the official Sugihara. The two uncover a scandal that reaches up into the highest circles of the Japanese government. But the closer they get to the truth, the more dangerous the situation becomes for both of them
Review: I was disappointed by this political thriller. I was expecting something better soon after watching The Pelican Brief, and thinking about All the President's Men from the same director. The story is a bit confused (to me), the stakes not that high, and neither the journalist nor the government employee very charismatic. The movie is better replaced in the Japanese context, a country where "there is an informal agreement between mainstream media and the government that is hardly ever questioned: Journalists are not too persistent in their criticism, in turn representatives of the government grant direct access to select information through press conferences" (description given on the website of the Nippon Connection 2020 Festival at which the film was shown). The novel from which the movie is adapted apparently made a fuss in Japan, and maybe watching the documentary shot around the movie (i -Documentary Of The Journalist, shown at the same Festival but which we haven't seen) helps under the context even better. But for an outside audience and from a pure cinematographic point of view, the movie is forgettable. It contains all the tropes you would expect from such a movie: the journalist digging old newspapers and bothering victims, the mole, the bad guys and the too-powerful governmental organization... but it doesn't take. At least it didn't for me. You can hear more about this movie in our video review.
Rating: 5 /10

Me & My Brother’s Mistress (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Takashi HAGA, Sho SUZUKI
	Actors: Nanami KASAMATSU, Yui MURATA, Satoshi IWAGO
	Country: J
	Genre: Romance, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 11.06.2020, NCF2020, 14" computer screen
Synopsis: Yoko, a high school student, lives with her brother, Kenji.  Since they lost their parents early, they have been supported each other.  One night, Yoko witnesses Kenji, who is planning to get married, having an affair with Misa.
Review: A Romance/Drama is usually not the kind of movie I watch, in this one I was expecting some Comedy but didn't get much. Nonetheless, I re-adjusted my compass and enjoyed the movie anyway. It could have been a menage-a-trois Romantic Comedy but that is over-done. Our link to the characters is not in the trio but outside with the character of the sister. The mistress barely interacts at first with the main couple. And we get to wonder why does the man stick to the tradition of staying with a woman which agrees to give him a family, rather than with a woman he loves, or at least feels good with. As the movie goes, we also wonder about the motivation of the other characters: why is the mistress content with her position, and what does the bride has to say, her who seems very shy. The sister acts as a catalyst in a situation where the status-quo would have normally remained. I like the approach of showing us real-life couples under the pressure of society, instead of over-the-top romances or melodramas. Nicely done. We have done a video review of this movie seen at the Nippon Connection 2020 Festival, which can be found under this link.
Rating: 7 /10

Family Romance, LLC. (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Werner Herzog (Into the Inferno, Lo and Behold - Reveries of the Connected World, Aguirre the Wrath of Gods, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Fitzcarraldo)
	Actors: Miki Fujimaki, Umetani Hideyasu, Shun Ishigaki
	Country: USA
	Genre: Documentary, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 10.06.2020, NCF2020, 14" computer screen
Synopsis: A man is hired to impersonate the missing father of a young girl.
Review: This docu-fiction is directed by Werner Herzog, known for the classic Aguirre Wrath of Gods and Fitzcarraldo with Klaus Kinski, more recently Queen of the Desert with Nicole Kidman and the Documentaries Grizzly Man, Into the Inferno and Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World. He also recently acted in the Disney Star Wars TV-series The Mandalorian. Family Romance LLC doesn't feature his soothing voice as it is not a pure Documentary that he narrates, but you can watch this interview if you miss it. You will also learn a bit about the genesis and production of this project. In particular how he learned about those companies in Japan which rent people to pass as friend or family member for a period of time. From the movie synopsis it sounds weird (and it may be in our Western countries), but in Japan it is just normal. The main actor of the movie, Ishii Yuichi, is not professional but in fact the CEO of the real-life company named Family Romance LLC, and manages over 1000 employees! Werner Herzog shot the movie himself using a reduced crew and a small camera. The non-pro actors were mostly left to improvise around guidelines that he provided via his interpreter. This all translates into a strange-looking docu-fiction, sometimes leaning towards South American TV-novella, but still under the control of its experienced director. Indeed the structure of the movie gives it cohesion: scenes of a main story about the fake father, interleaved with several examples of application for such services as the company provides, all inspired by real ones. On top of the structure, you notice that the movie is going somewhere, unlike in more experimental movies like Kinta and Ginji that we have seen just before at the same Nippon Connection 2020 Festival (link to the article with video review of Family Romance, LLC). Werner Herzog has a message to pass (spoiler, highlight to read: the man of a thousand faces looses grip on what is real or what isn't), and in fact it could have been the arc of a big-budget Sci-Fi or Anticipation movie made on the topic (a-la-Blade Runner), had Werner Herzog chosen to do so. Instead of this hypothetical blockbuster, we have a real quickly-produced, cheap-looking but close to the heart project that shows to the World an unknown side of Japan. Totally at its place at the Nippon Connection Festival.
Rating: 5 /10

Nippon Connection 2020 - Day 6

For the sixth and last day of the Nippon Connection Festival, we have attended a panel and watched one movie each. The topic of the panel discussion was: "The Post-COVID Future Of Japan’s Film Industry" and we definitely didn't want to miss it.
The movies we have seen are the interesting Documentary Ainu – Indigenous People Of Japan by Naomi MIZOGUCHI and the very funny Mockumentary Extro by Naoki MURAHASHI, reminding us of others in the sub-genre like Ski Jumping Pairs: Road to Torino 2006 or Big Man Japan.
You can find below our video comment on those three events, as well as some pictures.

Nippon Connection 2020 - Day 5

The fifth day of the Nippon Connection 2020 was our busiest day with two movies and an event.
The first movie was The Journalist by Michihito FUJII, based on the book with the same title by journalist Isoko MOCHIZUKI, who is also portrayed in the documentary film i -DOCUMENTARY OF THE JOURNALIST-, in the Docu Section of the Festival, and also present at the Far East Film Festival where we will try to see it at the end of the month.
The event was a demonstration of Rakugo: Japanese Comedy With Katsura Sunshine. It was nice to discover this 400 year-old form of Japanese Comedy, performed in English by maybe the only non-Japanese doing it in the World. To discover this Art like we did, you can have a look at Katsura Sunshine's Rakugo YouTube channel, his Facebook page or the page for his Broadway show.
Finally the second movie, A Life Turned Upside Down: My Dad’s An Alcoholic by Kenji KATAGIRI, turned out to be the best we have seen in the Festival so far. Dramatic, sad but with some hilarious moments.
You can find below our video comment on those three events, as well as some pictures.

A Life Turned Upside Down: My Dad’s An Alcoholic

Nippon Connection 2020 - Day 4

In lieu of event on this fourth day of the Nippon Connection Festival, I watched a collection of short films directed by women and gathered under the title Constant Metamorphosis – Independent Animated Shorts By Women.

Nippon Connection 2020 - Day 3

On this third day of the Nippon Connection Festival, we couldn't follow any event, so let us talk straight about the movie we watched: the docu-fiction Family Romance, LLC by Werner Herzog, director of the classics Aguirre Wrath of Gods and Fitzcarraldo with Klaus Kinski, more recently Queen of the Desert with Nicole Kidman and the Documentaries Grizzly Man, Into the Inferno and Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World. He also recently acted in the Disney Star Wars TV-series The Mandalorian.

Kinta and Ginji (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Takuya Dairiki, Takashi Miura
	Actors: Takuya Dairiki, Takashi Miura
	Country: J
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 09.06.2020, NCF2020, 14" computer screen
Synopsis: Kinta and Ginji are best buddies. Sometimes they get on each other’s nerves, but they don’t hold a grudge for long. They are way too straightforward for that. Every other day, they meet up and roam the fields and forests, lie around in the grass, or make music. Just two normal guys – but one of them is a tanuki (racoon dog), the other a robot. Things get even more curious when other talking entities and objects appear!
Review: This is a very experimental movie presented in the VISIONS section of the Nippon Connection 2020 Festival. Basically two friends shooting scenes with a miniDV camera. This explains the lack of everything and the poor image quality. But that's not the point, in fact the image quality is irrelevant. Early on, this movie reminded me of Quentin Tarantino, because of the dialogs about small things in life, and which will have no impact on the main story whatsoever. This is something which is lacking in most movie, because every dialog has to contribute, but this characteristic made Tarantino's success. The whole of Kinta and Ginji is small talk in fact, and a weakness is that it doesn't have a main story, which makes it harder to watch as it goes. There is some conclusion (spoiler, highlight to read: they enter a fog so they think they died and then they come back), but it hardly makes a difference. But there are some hilarious scenes, I will come back to that later. The second connection I made is with the French Electro band Daft Punk (Dog and Robot costumes, the Homework album someone?), in particular their 2006 arty movie Electroma, which they released at the top of their fame, has a big budget and looks good, but is even less entertaining than Kinta and Ginji and not funny at all. So the concept of the movie is funny, as are the cheap costumes, but the best are the dialogs and sometimes juxtaposition of scenes. I have collected the favorite two scenes from each of the viewers from our group: Jo: the little song about peaches and insects made me burst of laughter, as did the little dance the dog does. Raf: the discussion about turtles and the Rocky movie (do their really breathe from their butts?) and the unexpected apparition from a stray rhinoceros, apparently filmed through the bars of a zoo Rudi: the static and narrow shots composing 95% of the movie, and the fact that there is just a handful of scenes depicting some kind of civilization. The rest takes place in deserts or forests. Alex: the dam scene, and ow they insult each other while keeping the same tone. In the end, we concluded that the movie is as if it were made by children: enjoying little things in life like polishing rocks or climbing trees, lying to each other to appear better, and telling more or less interesting stories one after the other with no precise goal. Warning: for hardcore fans of Japanese experimental Cinema only!
Rating: 4 /10

Nippon Connection 2020 - Day 2

For this second day of the Nippon Connection 2020 Festival, the event we wanted to follow was a Lecture by Goro KOYAMA entitled: The Secret Of Sound In Cinema, dealing with the art of Foley, creating and recording the sound of many things you hear in movies, but also TV-series and video games. Not to be confused with the movie's soundtrack (watch the 2016 documentary Score: A Film Music Documentary for more on that one).

Super Mario Bros. (1993)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1993
	Director: Annabel Jankel, Rocky Morton
	Actors: Bob Hoskins (Who Framed Roger Rabbit), John Leguizamo (Land of the Dead), Dennis Hopper (Easy Rider, Speed)
	Country: USA, GB, J, F
	Genre: Comedy, Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: 07.06.2020, Full HD, 14" computer screen.
Synopsis: The Mario brothers (Hoskins and Leguizamo) are plumbers in New York. They rescue a young archaeologist bullied by one of their rivals, and while doing so end up in a parallel dimension.
Review: After recently watching Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog, it was time to discover the first even live action movie adapted from a Video Game. There has been just a handful of animated direct-to-videos before that (source: Wikipedia), but this was big first: nothing less than a big budget Hollywood movie for what is probably the most famous video game of all times. But if you are expecting some colorful worlds and cute animals (like I was), you are in for a surprise, as this movie rather quotes as reference Ghostbusters and Tim Burton's Batman... Wait, what? Yes, I had to do some research after watching the movie to understand how it got there: the movie rights were bought from Nintendo but they had zero supervision on it. And the writers found their inspiration in weird places like the aforementioned films, the very first appearance of Mario as a plumber in a Nintendo Arcade game where he is indeed chasing animals in the sewers, and one level of another Mario game featuring dinosaurs. But I am pretty sure the audience of 1993 didn't go to see a movie entitled Super Mario Bros. for that, and I am then not surprised that the movie bombed like it did. In itself, it is a weird Sci-Fi / post-apocalyptic violent story which is funny to watch if you like that type and that period. But the juxtaposition of elements from the Mario games make it weirder than tolerable: everything is dark, the Fantasy world is a polluted dump, King Koopa is Dennis Hopper... this is all very confusing. In fact it is easier to list the few Mario elements in that otherwise totally unrelated movie: the main characters (with strong Italo-American accents and cliches) and their job, the princess in distress, the name of the game characters including the boss, fireballs... I am grasping at straws now. The worst of all is I think the rational trade of a colorful Fantasy world for a parallel dimension where dinosaurs survived and evolved into humanoid creatures. What a lack of ... Fantasy. Following that on the list are: the character of Toad (a mushroom in the game) being a human later de-evolved into a reptilian (!?!), the cute Yoshi now a Velociraptor lookalike being stabbed after trying to eat someone (!), the icky mushrooms everywhere (not your colorful Mario World green pastures), the bad jokes, the nonsensical story, the punks everywhere, the fact that there is no sound effect or music taken from the games. One good thing? How I kept on watching how Dennis Hopper played with his arms after learning he had evolved from a T-rex. Don't take me wrong, it is easy to watch and I didn't get bored by this profusion of crazy ideas, even when they make no sense, but please don't call this movie Super Mario Bros.
Rating: 3 /10

An Ant Strikes back (2019)

	Also Known As: Ari jigoku tengoku (original)
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Tsuchiya Tokachi
	Actors: -
	Country: J
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 08.06.2020, NCF2020, 14" computer screen
Synopsis: The case of a moving company sales agent who decides to no longer accept illegal employment contract clauses and a humiliating work environment.
Review: This is the first movie we watched at the Nippon Connection Online Festival, and in that case it is a nice re-immersion in Japanese culture. A documentary that shows us a life far from what we know in the Western Countries. People working hard for the love of their company. But what happens when this company follows the principles of American ones like Wallmart or McDonalds? This leads to abuses that few people other than the Japanese would take: unpaid extra-hours (and I mean 40 hours a week extra!), holidays only if compensated with extra-hours, you have to pay for anything you break like a paper shredder but even a car, and not mentioning the racism and discrimination. It is hard to understand why the guy just doesn't quit, but in fact this is what is noble from him, not simply accept the situation, give up and leave others suffer after him. The main character that we follow is an example of courage and determination, even facing an adversary much bigger than him. One also wonders: what does the law do against such obviously illegal abuses? In the end it does its job, but it wouldn't have happened with years of fight from a supportive Union. I hope not all companies in Japan are like that. The Documentary itself is more of an advertisement for this story, something the main character promised to do to a friend who died from overworking (like one person a day in Japan as we learn). Nothing special about the editing or storytelling, rather straight-forward, and it could probably have been shortened to 1 hour for the same impact. So I cannot rate the movie-making skills very high, even though the topic is heart-breaking, and deserved to be broadcasted more, in Japan and outside.
Rating: 4 /10