Dreams (Japan, 1990)

A collection of tales based upon the actual dreams of director Akira Kurosawa.

Writing about films by Kurosawa at this point starts to feel like preaching to the choir, but whatever! After recently having rewatched it I couldn't go on knowing it didn't have its own entry here. As stated above, it consists of eight short stories all based on dreams that Kurosawa's had once or more times during his long and eventful life. It doesn't take long before it's one of the more beautiful films I've ever seen, with fairytale-like imagery and characters from Japanese folklore all come to life. We're treated to stories about everything life encompasses; childhood, love, suffering, nature and death. The range of the tales told here reaches from innocent youth to burning fields of nuclear war, the sweetness of flowers floating down the river and ghosts of an army platoon. Everything filmed in Eastman color which obviously was a great choice because it looks stunning and rich with life.  

To dissect and analyze what the vastly different dreams actually mean would probably add up to material for more essays than I could ever write, so let's just watch and enjoy the film for what it is, which is also probably what Kurosawa always wanted. 

Genre: Drama/Fantasy

Boiling Point (Japan, 1990)

Two members of a Japanese junior baseball team get mixed up with the local yakuza. After their coach is severely injured by the gangsters, the two boys set off to Okinawa to purchase a gun in order to get revenge. While in Okinawa they get befriended by a psychotic yakuza outcast who is planning a revenge of his own.

What happens if you mix Takeshi Kitano, black comedy, a story of retaliation and some small time Yakuza thugs that stirs up problems. You get Boiling Point, of course, one of Kitano's earliest films. One of his biggest strengths in my opinion is his ability to find humour in the damnedest of places, he has completely mastered the dark comedy genre and makes you laugh while almost wondering if it's okay.

The violence, while not at being the focus of this Yakuza film, is extremely stark and graphic once it surfaces. It's crazy to me that not even billion dollar blockbusters makes gun fights this realistic and tough, the scene where a box literally smashes into the head of a guy is worth more than ten boring fight sequences from the latest, biggest action flick.  

Genre: Action/Comedy/Crime

Days of Being Wild (Hong Kong, 1990)

Set in 1960, the film centres on the young, boyishly handsome Yuddy, who learns from the drunken ex-prostitute who raised him that she is not his real mother. Hoping to hold onto him, she refuses to divulge the name of his real birth mother. The revelation shakes Yuddy to his very core, unleashing a cascade of conflicting emotions. Two women have the bad luck to fall for Yuddy. One is a quiet lass named Su Lizhen who works at a sports arena, while the other is a glitzy showgirl named Mimi. Perhaps due to his unresolved Oedipal issues, he passively lets the two compete for him, unable or unwilling to make a choice. 

Days of Being Wild is one of the earliest movies made by the universally praised director Wong Kar-wai, and even here we get to see his own characteristic film style that becomes more prominent in his later work. 

Genre: Drama/Romance