Drive My Car (Japan, 2021)

Two years after his wife's unexpected death, Yusuke Kafuku, a renowned stage actor and director, receives an offer to direct a production of Uncle Vanya at a theater festival in Hiroshima. There, he meets Misaki Watari, a taciturn young woman assigned by the festival to chauffeur him in his beloved red Saab 900. As the production's premiere approaches, tensions mount amongst the cast and crew, not least between Yusuke and Koshi Takatsuki, a handsome TV star who shares an unwelcome connection to Yusuke's late wife.

I gotta say, author Haruki Murakami has been very fortunate with the movie adaptions of his stories; Tony Takitani (2004), Norwegian Wood (2010, Burning (2018) among others. His short story Drive My Car appeared in the collection Men Without Women (2014) and the film version by Ryusuke Hamaguchi took the world by storm and won a slew of awards. Rightfully so, the look of the film has been praised to the skies. Often we get these long distance shots which places the characters, or the red car, far away and I loved that particular technique. 

The interplay between the characters are the meat of the bone here and being a three-hour long film, there's bound to be small missable details to be found in rewatches. Drive My Car is a celebrated extraordinary work, and a great story with a lot of depth. 

Genre: Drama. 2h 59min.

Blue (Japan, 2002)

An introverted schoolgirl falls in love and starts a relationship with one of her classmates. Set in a small seaside town in Japan, the love of her life eventually leaves her for her boyfriend in Tokyo.

Another great drama film which relies on the acting abilities of fairly young people, and we see the blossoming of their love lives. The dialogue is delivered very thoughtfully and measured, making it much more realistic and emotional at times. You get the feeling there's a ton of weight behind the words, and the director did a great job at also bringing out the characters even when silent. Blue reminded me of another fantastic film dealing with same sex relationships; Like Grains of Sand (1995).

Genre: Drama/Romance. 1h 56min.

Mio on the Shore (Japan, 2019)

20-year-old Mio has lost her parents early and runs a traditional Japanese inn in Nagano with her grandmother. As her grandmother gets sick and hospitalized, Mio is forced to leave the inn and reluctantly comes to Tokyo to live with her father's old friend Kyosuke. Helping him at the bathhouse he runs, she begins to find her way in everyday life.

Mio on the Shore doesn't strive to be the most original film of the year, but its personal scope is one of its biggest strengths. With some breathtaking cinematography, equally dedicated to shots of mountains and landscapes as to people and the smallest of emotions, director Ryutaro Nakagawa weaves a spellbinding story of how Mio is trying to find her way through a new existence.   

Genre: Drama. 1h 36min.

One Day, You Will Reach the Sea (Japan, 2022)

Mana Kotani was friends with Sumire Utsuki for years. She admired Sumire's freewheeling ways and mysterious charm, but Sumire broke off connections with her. Later, Mana hears of Sumire's death, which she cannot get over.

Directly dealing with the effects of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, One Day You Will Reach the Sea is a powerful and well-acted film about the loss in a young woman's life, and the realization of how important a past friendship really was. The director Ryutaro Nakagawa (Mio on the Shore), who himself lost a close friend shortly after the disaster and wanted to explore questions he himself pondered afterwards, avoids all the melodrama clichés and crafts a convincing story of broken bonds with believable actresses in the lead. Well filmed and told with a respectful tempo, it's clear early on that you're watching something worth savoring.   

Genre: Drama. 2h 6min.

To Sleep So As To Dream (Japan, 1986)

An aging silent film actress hires a private eye and his wacky but helpful assistant to track down her missing daughter, Bellflower. The two follow a succession of bizarre, obscure clues, until they track down the location of the kidnappers and the daughter.

With one of the most interesting and imaginative plots I've ever seen, To Sleep So As To Dream feels like a hidden avant-garde classic that's been unearthed from the old days of Japanese cinema. It's a surreal watch and unfolds like a mysterious, grainy silent movie-era fantasy adventure, inviting you into its dreamlike narrative. 

Both an homage to early cinema and a kidnapping drama with a modern twist, director Kaizo Hayashi shows his skills in looking back at film history but doing so through a then present perspective. Movie magic for cineasts. 

Genre: Fantasy. 1h 21min.

Yokai Monsters-trilogy (Japan, 1968-69)

In the mid-60s a "yokai boom" swept across Japan following the successful release of the manga GeGeGe no Kitaro, centered around the spirits from Japanese folklore known as yokai. This prompted film studio Daiei to produce a trilogy of films about these bizarre creatures; Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters (1968), Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare (1968) and Yokai Monsters: Along with Ghosts (1969).

It should be said that these films include a great deal of cheesy special effects but instead of feeling hopelessly outdated they're charming and campy in the right kind of way. The films make extensive use of practical special effects known as tokusatsu. They largely make use of actors in costumes and puppetry. In some scenes, there are even examples of traditional animation. 

If nothing else, these films should garner attention to the fascinating and vastly detailed world of yokai mythology which stretches far, far back in Japanese history. 

Genre: Action/Horror/Mystery.

The Snow Woman (Japan, 1968)

A master sculptor and his apprentice are trapped in a bad snow storm after finding a special tree for carving a statue for the local temple. Finding refuge in an abandoned hut they celebrate their luck in finding the tree but soon they are visited by the Snow Witch who freezes the sculptor to death but takes pity on the apprentice. He must promise to never speak of this or she'll return and kill him.

The story of the snow woman is well known within Japanese mythology, and there are numerous tales where Yuki-onna appears, but The Snow Woman specifically adapts Lafcadio Hearn's version from 1904. It's the same story that's included in Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan (1964), but a bit more fleshed out. 

Although some of the horror elements have faded throughout the years since its release, I thought the image of the yellow-eyed snow witch with her piercing stare was genuinely creepy. The film has a theatre stage quality to it, and that becomes one of its true strengths with how beautiful the set design is throughout.    

If you want a deeper dive into the story of the Yuki-onna (Snow Woman), look no further, the scenes of the film are literally pages from Japanese folklore coming to life.

Genre: Horror/Romance. 1h 20min.