Bounce Ko Gals (Japan, 1997)

Lisa is 16. She is leaving for New York tomorrow at 11 a.m. She saved some money but she would like to get some more - just in case. As she tries to make money by shooting a video for girls-in-school-uniforms-demanding men she loses everything except her ticket. She meets two highschool girls, Raku and Jonko, professional call-girls, and spends the last night with them trying to make up the money that was stolen from her.

Admittedly, there's no shortage of films dealing with messy teenage life, but spending a night in Tokyo's more perverted societies is quite a trip. Bounce Ko Gals dishes out a healthy dose of social criticism, portraying an underworld where schoolgirls are the merchandise of the everyday Japanese "salaryman".  

Genre: Drama

Kamikaze Taxi (Japan, 1995)

A young foot soldier in the yakuza seeks revenge when his prostitute girlfriend dies after a session with a high-ranking Japanese politician with a taste for torture. He sets out on a 'kamikaze' mission to kill his bosses and the politician; along the way, he acquires the aid of a taxi driver who has recently returned to Japan after living in South America for several decades and is struggling to cope with poverty and the prejudices of native-born Japanese.

I'm a broken record about this but Koji Yakusho makes every film so much better. Here, he lends his hand to a second-rate thug who's trying to tear down a whole crime syndicate. It's a bit on the long side, clocking in at 134 minutes, and yet it manages to never get stale. So grab a beer (or some other beverage of choice) and experience a crazy taxi ride from the wonderful age of 90's Japanese action.

Genre: Action/Crime

Wood Job! (Japan, 2014)

After failing his university entrance examinations and being left by his girlfriend, Yuki Hirano decides to join a forestry training program only to discover that the job is much harder than he expected working under his high demanding boss.

Wood Job! is your typical feel-good story about a young man who tries to gain the interest of a girl, only set in the Japanese wilderness. I've seen a lot of films lately that constantly tried to be funny but fell flat, Wood Job! manages to be both cute and funny by just naturally letting the story play out. Nothing new really, but nonetheless an entertaining trip into the lives of lumberjacks.

Genre: Drama/Comedy

The Ravine of Goodbye (Japan, 2013)

A child's horrific murder brings to light the haunted truth of an affair between her mother and a neighbor. As a magazine reporter investigates the case, he finds that nothing is as it seems.

The Ravine is based on a novel written by Shuichi Yoshida who also wrote A Story of Yonosuke (2013) and Villain (2010), two films I like so much that it basically becomes a principal thing for me to watch this film also. The Ravine deals with characters with secrets, dark secrets which become uprooted in a murder case that takes place in a deep, idyllic valley. It would have benefited from being an half hour shorter, but still, it's a somber drama with a dark portrayal of romance.   

Genre: Drama

Men Behind the Sun (Japan, 1988)

Story of a Japanese terror camp in the end of WW2, where the Japanese are using the Chinese as guinea pigs in terrible experiments to develop deadly bacterial-plagues.

This is a film I easily can imagine being passed around as a bootleg in the 90's between gore and horror film aficionados. Men Behind the Sun (a.k.a. Camp 731) doesn't impress too much in terms of special effect quality but it's the thought of how accurate the events are depicted that's most sickening. The director did years of research and wanted to show exactly what kind of cruelties went on inside of Camp 731. Due to the fact that a special effect industry didn't exist when this film was made a lot of the gore had to be improvised in other ways, for example using real corpses (yes, seriously) and real body parts from recently deceased people. A certain controversial "cat scene" was also a primitive way of making it look like a cat is being eaten by hundreds of rats when it in fact was perfectly safe for the cat. 

So, a lot of disturbing scenes that shows the inhumane experiments the Japanese carried out, and not a happy moment in sight. Though it's an impressive retelling of what happened in one of WW2's darkest moments.

 

Genre: Drama/History/Horror

R100 (Japan, 2013)

An ordinary man with an ordinary life joins a mysterious club. The membership lasts for one year only and there is one rule: no cancellation under any circumstance. The man enters into a whole new exciting world he never before experienced where crazy love goes wilder and crazier. Is it an illusion or is it real? Welcome to the world no one has dared to explore until now.

Here's a film that easily can make you wonder what the heck you're watching. Directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto, who's previously made films such as Big Man Japan (2007) and Symbol (2009), there's no doubt he's a man who knows how to capture the essence of all that's strange in Japanese culture. R100 unleashes a whole troop of kinky S&M performers and let them have their way with a worn down businessman. The women all have their own special ability: Whip Queen, Saliva Queen, Voice Queen, etc, and when you first get a look at Gobble Queen... oh my God. A hilariously weird and captivating film. 

Genre: Comedy/Drama

Tag (Japan, 2015)

A girl's life cascades into chaos as everyone around her suffers a gruesome fate while she herself becomes less and less certain of who she is and what kind of a world she lives in.

Tag (a.k.a. Riaru onigokko) is either one of the most exciting films I've seen lately, or one of the worst. Hard to tell. I mean, tons of schoolgirls getting chopped in half by a mysterious force, teachers mowing down students with machine guns and suddenly, traveling between alternate realities? Okay, sure. It was directed by Shion Sono, a director I have talked about before so I don't wan't to repeat myself but let's just say I often struggle to watch his films to the end. Tag, I could at least watch the whole way through and still be entertained by the madness of it. The soundtrack was one of the highlights due to the addition of some song from Japanese post-rock band Mono, which for some reason fit the film really well with their beautiful yet melancholy sound.

Gory, trippy and hopelessly Japanese, Tag should appeal to everyone who's a fan of the bizarre.  

Genre: Horror

Police Story 3: Supercop (Hong Kong, 1992)

A Hong Kong police officer, Ka Kui is sent undercover to mainland China to break up a drug smuggling ring. After breaking the brother of the drug lord out of prison, he and another agent (a beautiful communist policewoman) are taken to Hong Kong to work for the syndicate. The wife of the crime boss has been arrested in Malaysia for drug trafficking and is soon to be executed. However, she is the only person who knows the account number of a secret Swiss bank account containing millions in drug money. While the two officers are in Malaysia preparing for the jail break, Ka Kui accidentally runs into his girlfriend May, who has traveled there from Hong Kong.

It's easy to forget that Jackie Chan has had a career doing tons of crazy films back in Hong Kong, before he went all in with the crappy American comedies. I've written about the first Police Story film before, and the third entry in the series is just as insane. The stunts are unbelievable, with Jackie hanging from helicopters, fights on moving trains and just constantly gets himself in extreme situations. It's quite funny too, and there's a great chemistry between Jackie and his co-actress Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). An exciting shut-your-brain-off-and-enjoy-the ride kind of film, but if action is what you're looking for you can't go wrong at all with this one.

Genre: Action/Comedy/Crime

Chocolate (Thailand, 2008)

When Zin, former girlfriend of a Thai mob boss, falls for Masashi, a Japanese gangster in Thailand, the boss banishes them: Masashi to Japan, and Zin, with her small daughter Zen, to live next to a martial arts school. Zen is autistic, with uncanny swift reflexes. She watches the students next door and Muay Thai movies, absorbing every technique. She's now a teen, and her mother needs chemotherapy. Zin has taken in a chubby kid, Moom, who watches over Zen. Moom finds a ledger listing business men who owe Zin money; he goes to them one at a time to collect in order to pay for Zin's treatment. Zen, with her martial skills, becomes his enforcer. 

First things first, Chocolate is directed by the same man who gave us Ong-ak (2003) and The Protector (2005), and if you know anything about martial art movies that should immediately peak your interest. Awesome action, a  sweet and quirky story but not without emotional depth and the camera work to back it up. Chocolate should be seen by anyone who's looking for a fight-heavy film with a lot of heart. 

Genre: Action/Drama