I viewed "Shower" on DVD and recommend it to all East Asia Seminar participants. It is a story about a young man, Da Ming, who visits his father and mentally challenged brother in a decaying part of Beijing and must choose between the traditional lifestyle of his father and a modern one where efficient five-minute showers are available.

The characters in the film are wonderfully endearing and plausible. Da Ming’s father, Mr. Liu, gives advice to his customers, is cheerfully resigned to caring for his son (Er Ming), and is happy with his life. Many of the scenes take place in Mr. Liu’s bathhouse were the customers enjoy camaraderie, relaxation, and grooming services. The themes of duty, friendship, tradition, and family loyalty are evident and the visual contrasts are engaging: modern efficiency reflected in the shower and car wash; drought stricken Northern China contrasted with plentiful water in the bathhouse; and an analogy of old people and old houses that cannot be repaired. (I have no plans to use this film in my curriculum at this time, but enjoyed the sensitive and honest depiction of family conflicts and turmoil that always accompany change.)

The Twilight Samurai
Director: Yoji Yamada

Actors: Rie Miyazawa, Ren Osugi, Nenji Kobayashi, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Min Tanaka, Hiroyuki Sanada, Hiroshi Kanbe, Erina Hashiguchi.

This is Yamada’s 77th film, a first period drama that depicts the last days of the Edo Period (1600-1867). Twilight Samurai is based on the best-selling novel by Shuhei Fujisawa. Yamada beautifully portrays the daily life of the non-conformist Seibei, a low-ranking samurai, whose wife died of tuberculosis several years ago.

Taking care of his two daughters, Kayano and Ito, Seibei is scraping along on a stipend of 50 bales of rice a year and working as a clerk in the clan office. When his co-workers head for pleasures after work, he goes straight home. Since he disappears every day as the sun goes down, he is mockingly nicknamed Tasogare (Twilight) Seibei.

At the end of the film Seibei is given orders by his clan to slay a Samurai name Yogo, who has broken away from the Samurai way of life. Yogo believes that the days of the Samurai are numbered because western influences have created a world in which Samurai are merely relics of a bygone era.

Yogo’s tale turns into a meaningful conversation about the hardships in their daily lives and the influence of foreign culture. Seibei realizes that his intended victim is a poor man much like himself. How can he kill him with a clean conscience?

In this film Yamada depicts a darker, more tragic view of human nature but this is only after an hour of touching melodrama about “star-crossed” lovers. Above all, he shows that the life of an ambitionless, family-oriented man can be happier and more appreciated than that of an engaged warrior.

Beautiful photography; sublime nature; Confucian philosophy.

You will profit from seeing this film.

-magda ferl

Rashomon

This is a black and white Japanese film made in the 1950’s subtitled in English. Akira Kurosawa, the director tells the story through the various characters from their perspective. A gentleman and his wife meet a bandit while traveling through the forest. The gentleman is dead and the wife possibly violated. The story unfolds through the various characters’ experiences with the couple. The movie opens with three (3) men at a dilapidated gate during a rainstorm. One of the characters (the woodcutter) is disturbed by the incident and unwillingly tells his version of the truth. The movie recounts the incident through the eyes of the bandit, the wife, the dead man (through a medium), and a woodcutter. The woodcutter is the only one who witnesses the whole incident, but it becomes interesting how all the versions are completely different. Since the witnesses only observed part of the incident, their perception of the events is personalized. The movie focuses on what the bandit may have done to the gentleman’s wife and ultimately who killed the gentleman. Who is telling the truth? Is it the bandit, the victim or the dead man? Watching this film, I am not sure who is telling the truth. Although the woodcutter is the only one to see the entire incident, it is hard not to doubt his version. The concept of telling a story through witness accounts places you in the center of the mystery. You become the detective who has to determine who did it.

Larry

Magda,
I can see that this would be an excellent discussion vehicle. Certainly, it was a creative style of storytelling, but it seemed to raise more questions than answers them.

Larry
[Edit by="lkrant on May 20, 8:59:12 AM"][/Edit]

Fourteen-year-old Yagira Yuuya was named best actor for the Japanese film "Nobody Knows," in which he plays the eldest of four sibling raised in isolation, who must take charge of the family when their mother leaves.
This was in the news account of the Cannes Film Festival. Does anyone know if it is currently being shown in the US or if it's in the video stores?

Godzilla/ Gojira (1954)
Directed by
Ishirô Honda
98 minutes

I am certainly glad I went to see this all time classic. It gives the impression of an old film but there is so much to process. In post-war Japan it must have been shocking to see a young couple kissing on the screen or dancing on the deck of the boat (of course Gojira got them all). The army is certainly no help and science is seen as evil. The scientist who destroys Gojira has to pay the price-he has to commit suicide. The Japanese love of children and the ancient belief in virgin sacrifice are some of the elements of the common cultural film language.
This film reflects many Japanese cultural attitudes that you can discuss with your students. I highly recommend this original un-edited version.

Godzilla refers to a series of kaiju (strange beast or monster), or more specifically daikaiju (giant monster), films made in Japan. "Gojira," is derived from a combination of the words for gorilla and whale, the monster born in a nuclear accident first appeared in director Ishiro Honda's 1954 black-and-white classic.
Godzilla is believed to have originally been intended by Toho to represent the United States of America and took the form of a radioactive prehistoric reptile. Given that his origin was the ocean, Godzilla can be considered not just a monster, but a sea monster. Godzilla died at the end of the original 1954 film. Subsequent films in the series reconnected the first movie by assuming that Godzilla wasn't killed, and that the body of the monster was never found.
The film featured an actor, Nakajima, in a rubber suit emerging from the sea to stomp through a miniaturized Tokyo. For a nation rebuilding from the World War II atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the dark allegory represented the effects of the atomic bomb, and the unintended consequences that such weapons might have on our
Part cautionary tale, part campy fun, the films have shown Godzilla hamming it up while saving humankind from crises of its own making: the Cold War, pollution, nuclear energy and biotechnology.
On a sunny day and calm waters, a Japanese steamer sinks in flames when the sea erupts; a salvage vessel sent to the rescue disappears the same way; exhausted, incoherent survivors babble of a monster. Could it be...? GODZILLA was the biggest budgeted film in Japanese history at that time, costing nearly twice as much as the same studio’s The Seven Samurai, released the same year. An enormous hit, it spawned 50 years of sequels, countless rip-offs, and a new genre: the kaiju eiga, or Japanese monster movie

The original Japanese GODZILLA is one of the great films by a sci-fi master, Ishiro Honda (Akira Kurosawa’s close friend and occasional second unit director). The U.S. cut ran 20 minutes shorter, with another 20 snipped to make room for Burr, so that nearly a third (about 40 minutes) was shorn. The unrelentingly grim American version excised all of the film’s comic relief (including some astonishing Strangelove-like black humor) and censored its strong anti-H-Bomb message, turning it into a run-of-the-mill monster-on-the-loose picture.

In Japan, the original un-bastardized GODZILLA is regarded as one of the great classics of the cinema. In 1984, the prestigious film journal Kinema Junpo rated it among the top 20 Japanese films of all time.

The real (human) star of the movie is Takashi Shimura (best known for his Kurosawa roles, including the leader of The Seven Samurai and the doomed man of Ikiru), as a revered paleontologist who insists that Godzilla must be studied, not destroyed (he’s in the minority). This first Godzilla is truly terrifying — a 30-story Jurassic behemoth intent on destroying an exquisitely detailed miniature Tokyo — a tour de force by special effects genius Eiji Tsubaraya.

MATT ZOLLER SEITZ – an Interview

The 75-year-old Nakajima became a national icon (albeit of a minor and curious sort) by playing Godzilla, Japan's nuclear-breathed answer to King Kong and one of the longest-lived recurring characters in world cinema. Nakajima played him for 18 years, from the original in 1954 through Godzilla vs. Gigan in 1972.
It is now possible to appreciate Nakajima's efforts in a new, serious way. The restored film—originally titled Gojira, and mispronounced for decades by American marketers—is a much darker affair, an attempt by creator Tomoyuki Tanaka to depict Japan's postwar anguish in fairytale form.
An actor, martial artist and stuntman, Nakajima divvied up city-stomping duties with actor Katsumi Tezuka. After the first film's release in 1954, Nakajima became the role's principal actor. He was chosen mainly for his endurance—the suit weighed about 220 pounds and was poorly ventilated—yet he brought more to the role than mere strength. Like all intelligent actors, Nakajima approached the part as a part.
As any sci-fi geek knows, Godzilla is a mythological creature kept at bay by human sacrifice, then unleashed on Japan by nuclear testing. The character started out as a cautionary symbol of imperial arrogance begetting nuclear destruction, but he eventually mutated into a hero and a proud symbol of Japan's inextinguishable warrior spirit.
Nakajima reveals himself as a craftsman who thought hard about what sort of creature Godzilla was, how he might move and why.
"I knew it didn't make sense for Godzilla to move like a human being," Nakajima said. "I observed animals in the zoo for a week. What I did bring home was the bear and the elephant. Actually, I tried to mimic the way an elephant walks."
He says the monster did not deliberately wreck buildings, but damaged them accidentally because he was a giant beast trying to navigate a man-made environment.
"I tried to walk naturally and not seem conscious about my movements," he said. "As an actor, you have to be realistic. That's what I was trying to do."
That's no mean feat when you're wearing a 220-pound rubber suit with a tail suspended on wires. "It was really tiring," he said. "I needed three or four men to help me put on the suit."
There were other hazards as well, including small explosive charges that detonated around Godzilla as he trampled buildings, cars and telephone poles.
Nakajima was rewarded with steady employment and the affection of his countrymen. Nakajima is especially proud of Godzilla's popularity among Japanese children—a natural constituency courted early and often by Toho.
"I never thought it would achieve this level of popularity," he said. "Fifty years—that's a long time."

Just for fun…Godzilla Filmography

1. Godzilla, King of the Monsters
2. Gigantis the Fire Monster
3. King Kong vs Godzilla
4. Godzilla vs The Thing
5. Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster
6. Monster Zero
7. Godzilla vs The Sea Monster
8. Son of Godzilla
9. Destroy All Monsters
10. Godzilla's Revenge
11. Godzilla vs The Smog Monster
12. Godzilla on Monster Island
13. Godzilla vs Megalon
14. Godzilla vs The Cosmic Monster
15. Terror of Mechagodzilla
16. The Return of Godzilla
17. Godzilla vs Biollante
18. Godzilla vs King Ghidorah
19. Godzilla vs Mothra
20. Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla
21. Godzilla vs Destroyer
22. Godzilla
23. Godzilla 2000
24. Godzilla X Megaguiras
25. Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: All-Out Monster Attack!
26. Godzilla X MechaGodzilla
27. Godzilla X Mothra X MechaGodzilla

Ron, thank you for the additional information on Godzilla. Yes, this is an anti nuclear energy film. I was also interested in and fascinated by the underlying cultural elements (interpreting culture as construct).

The Red Violin
Director: Francois Girard
The Red Violin is an interesting film that follows the “life” of a violin as it travels from Italy, to Vienna, to England, to China, and finally to Montreal, where it is being auctioned. The violin makes its way from England to China thanks to a Chinese servant who supplies opium to the English owner of the violin. The film shows a China in Mao’s time that is anti-Western in many ways, but especially as it concerns music. A Chinese music teacher is brought before a town meeting and humiliated for teaching violin and Western music. One of the party officers makes her way back to her home where she has hidden the red violin and some Western music records. She takes it to the music teacher, and he reluctantly agrees to take it and keep it safe after she is about to smash it. When he dies years later, the red violin is discovered and it joins a huge shipment of instruments that are being auctioned in Montreal.

This is an interesting film that succeeds on many levels. The Chinese segment is potent in communicating a side of China that many of us haven’t “seen.” I believe this segment would be good to show to students for the following reasons:
1) It is not a long segment.
2) It would open up a lively discussion about censorship.
3) It is subtitled, and would cause the students to read the translation.

WARNING: While the Chinese segment is acceptable for school viewing, the sexual content of certain scenes (especially the time in England) would get you in major trouble if you showed them in class.