The Mad Fox (Japan, 1962)

Amidst a mythically-depicted medieval Japan, a court astrologer foretells a great disturbance that threatens to split the realm in two. His bitter and treacherous wife conspires to have the astrologer killed, as well as their adopted daughter, Sakaki. The astrologer's master apprentice, Yasuna, who was in love with Sakaki, is driven mad with grief and escapes to the countryside. There, he encounters Sakaki's long-lost twin, Kuzunoha, and the pair meet a pack of ancient fox spirits in the woods, whose presence may be the key to restoring Yasuna s sanity, and in turn bringing peace to the fracturing nation.

Wow, what a magical film. At first glance The Mad Fox (a.k.a. Love, Thy Name Be Sorrow) seems to be your typical costume drama although with a much more fierce storyline involving a red sky that supposedly spells doom for man, but it's clear early on that director Tomu Uchida wanted to explore the folklore involving the kitsune, a.k.a. fox. With stunning backdrops and gorgeous sets we're transported back to a time of legends, swaying susuki grass and where shape-shifting beings roam the land. A film rooted in tradition and history, and obviously not a choice for those seeking tons of action but a gold mine for lovers of ancient Japan.

Genre: Drama/Fantasy

Barking Dogs Never Bite (South Korea, 2000)

Ko Yun-ju, an out-of-work college professor, is irritated by the sound of barking dogs in his apartment building and eventually resorts to abusing, kidnapping and killing them. Meanwhile, a young woman (played by Bae Doona) working at the apartment complex decides to investigate the matter after she starts receiving notices from the tenants about the missing dogs.

Barking Dogs Never Bite is now world-renowned director Bong Joon-ho's debut film, so it's very interesting going back to his roots after his latest years of success with films such as Parasite (2019) and Okja (2017). Even at this stage, it's unmistakably Joon-ho behind the camera and you can easily see his personal filming style. The movie flopped at the box office, perhaps because of its odd storyline involving a dog murderer, but even though it's not one of Joon-ho's better films there's still much to appreciate here and every fan of his should definitely watch it. 

Genre: Dark comedy

The Burning Buddha Man (Japan, 2013)

There is a series of Buddha statue thefts in Kyoto. Beniko, a high school girl, gets the Buddha statue at her family's temple stolen and has her parents killed at the same time. Beniko hears from Enju, her parents friend, that a robbery group called SEADDATTHA are the one who killed her parents, and feels the strong urge for vengeance. 

The Burning Buddha Man has got to be one of the trippiest films ever made, that's for sure. It uses a technique called "gekimation", and it involves placing figures in the foreground and background, focusing them appropriately to add depth and scope and shaking them about to imitate body movement and such. It's kind of a primitive film-style but when it's this well made you're enjoying every second of it. 

The artwork on the flat figures are fantastic and gross, the surreal and grotesque nature of the story fits perfectly with the chosen film technique and I'm more invested in this story, played out by tiny pieces of colored paper-craft, than I've been in many big-budget productions. Imagine that. A really interesting and disgusting experience, it gives you something original and wraps it in blood-soaked Buddhistic themes of ultra-enlightenment, levels of Zen that turns us into something beyond human. Something much more slimy. 

Genre: Animation/Fantasy/Horror

The Warped Ones (Japan, 1960)

A juvenile delinquent gets out of the pen and causes reckless mayhem, mostly directed at the girlfriend of the journalist who helped send him up.

The Warped Ones feels like it could have been directed by Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man) if he would have been active in the 60's. The hyperactive and frantic camera style perfectly imitates the morally despicable protagonists of the film. Director Koreyoshi Kurahara spotlights the so-called Sun Tribe subcultures that emerged in the early post-war decades, which gave rise to a  reckless generation of youths who lived carefree lives and survived on jazz, beach life and mayhem. Someone said of the film, that even though it feels like a wild, violent and spontaneous ride it still must have needed a huge amount of preparation beforehand, making it much more complex than you'd first would have thought. 

Genre: Crime/Drama

The Shadow Within (Japan, 1970)

Hamajima is a quiet, hard-working man, whose life changes drastically when he reunites with a lovely childhood friend and her strange little boy.

The Evil Within is a strangely captivating piece of dark family drama, and the titular evil referring to a small boy. Director Yoshitaro Nomura puts a lot of emphasis on personal struggles one can experience in a relationship that's going nowhere, and the complications of when another life is more tempting than the one you have right now. With lovely 70's color cinematography and a subtle palette Nomura frames a troubled love story that's destinied for disaster when Hamajima, who's smitten with the beautiful Teiko, encounters a huge stumbling block in the form of a malevolent child. 

Genre: Drama

Zero Focus (Japan, 1961)

Kenichi and Teiko Uhara are one week newlyweds. Promoted to his company Hakuho Ad Agency's Tokyo headquarters, Kenichi heads on a short business trip back to Kanazawa, where he was that branch office's manager, to wrap up his business there, leaving Teiko alone in Tokyo to unpack their apartment. Although he is reported to have left Kanazawa to head back to Tokyo on the day planned, he doesn't come home on the scheduled day, without anyone in his and Teiko's personal life or his business colleagues knowing what happened to him.

Zero Focus unravels like an Hitchcockian ball of yarn, slowly putting the pieces together and never gives away too much. If this film had been made in the west it would've had James Stewart and Grace Kelly in the lead roles. Director Yoshitaro Nomura is considered as a pioneer of Japanese noir and also worked with Akira Kurosawa on The Idiot (1951), while himself directed as many as 89 films in total.

Genre: Drama/Mystery

Microhabitat (South Korea, 2017)

Mi-So has worked as a housekeeper for the past 3 years and she makes 45,000 won ($40) a day. Mi-So loves drinking whisky and smoking cigarettes. Her boyfriend is Han-Sol and he wants to become a webtoon writer. Even though Mi-So is poor, she is happy as long as she has whisky, cigarettes and her boyfriend. Unfortunately, the prices of cigarettes go up on the first day of the new year. Mi-So has to give something up and she decides to give up her apartment.

In my ongoing search for female directors I discovered this lovely work by Go-Woon Jeon, where she tackles the disconnect in urban society and focuses on a struggling woman, Mi-So. The setbacks keep piling up but Mi-So manages to stay afloat, moving from place to place and taking one day at a time. A film that deals with relatable, modern problems 

Genre: Drama

The Ghost of Yotsuya (Japan, 1959)

This horror tale relates the consequences of a Japanese legend which tells of a man who has to betray his wife in order to achieve power.

Based on one of the oldest ghost stories in Japanese mythology, The Ghost of Yotsuya blends dreamlike  and beautiful visuals with restless spirits and nasty gore. It's director Nobuo Nakagawa's (Jigoku) take on the rich kaidan folktales, and it comes off as not just a spooky ghost story but a strong Edo period film as well. If you love Kwaidan (1964) and want more of that, The Ghost of Yotsuya will quench any thirst for malevolent spirits and vengeful phantoms from beyond the grave.

Genre: Horror

The Inheritance (Japan, 1962)

A dying businessman intends to will two hundred million yen to his three illegitimate children, but his associates scheme to take advantage of the situation.

In 1962, Masaki Kobayashi (Kwaidan, Harakiri) crafted this slick and thought provoking story where everyone's driving force is greed. There's been many films where characters are double-crossing each other for the sake of more money but few treat the lust for wealth as such a natural instinct. Kobayashi's outstanding camera work is present full force and it's obvious how he reached the same heights as his western contemporaries such as Alfred Hitchcock.  

Genre: Drama

House of Hummingbird (South Korea, 2019)

Set in 1994 in Seoul, a touching coming-of-age drama centered around the quiet, unexceptional eighth-grader Eun-Hee. Struggling to make passing grades and subject to non-stop screaming at home, she spends her time finding meaning in the love and friendships of her peers, in shoplifting, and in karaoke bars. It's in her cram school professor Yong-Ji, however, that Eun-Hee finds the answers that she seeks, as the two form an unlikely friendship.

Female director Bora Kim drew a lot of inspiration from her own childhood when writing the coming of age drama House of Hummingbird, and she wanted to highlight the all too rapid modernization of South Korea through the eyes of a young woman going through her own early stages of womanhood. The cinematography was carefully designed to evoke the correct time period and when talking about camera techniques in an interview, Kim gave the following statement: "In terms of camera movement and shot size, we followed her face and emotions and her body movement. Eun-hee’s way of seeing life was our intention and we tried our best to be very honest about camera movement and camera language throughout the film because this film is a realistic film, and we didn’t just want to zoom in and move in the camera to make it fancy". 

A lot of film makers definitely has a very pretentious way of shooting their films so it's great knowing Kim didn't want to overthink it but instead rely on the characters to express themselves. House of Hummingbird won a slew of awards at film festivals around the world and hopefully paved the way for not only Bora Kim but other female directors as well in a male-dominated industry.  

Genre: Drama

Pom Poko (Japan, 1994)

As the human city development encroaches on the raccoon dog population's forest and meadow habitat, the raccoon dogs find themselves faced with the very real possibility of extinction. In response, they engage in a desperate struggle to stop the construction and preserve their home.

I've mentioned it before, but Pom Poko is my favorite film from animation giant Studio Ghibli (Spirited Away), as unconventional as that may be. The amount of heart and soul in this story is staggering and by the end you desperately want to see all the tanuki's live happily in peace. Director Isao Takahata shows the real life expansion of  Tama New Town in the 1960's, only it's through the eyes of those we rarely think about when a new development project takes place. Takahata's love for Japanese history and folklore shines through in every nook and cranny, and the huge number of references to iconic Japanese spirits makes it seem like a real-life fairytale. 

Genre: Animation/Comedy/Drama

Butter Lamp (China, 2013)

A young itinerant photographer and his assistant photograph Tibetan nomads in front of various backgrounds.

Short films can always impress me with how much they manage to express in a very limited amount of time. Butter Lamp may have a lot people wondering why we're watching a bunch of people getting their pictures taken, but others may find a lovely portrayal of a rich foreign culture, capped off with an ending which effectively comments on how the old meets the new and urbanization.

Genre: Short/Drama

Taipei Story (Taiwan, 1985)

Lung, a former member of the national Little League team and now operator of an old-style fabric business, is never able to shake a longing for his past glory. One day he runs into a former teammate who is now a struggling cab driver. The two talk about old times and they are struck by a sense of loss. Lung is living with his old childhood sweetheart Ah-chin, a westernized professional woman who grew up in a traditional family. Although they live together, Ah-chin is always weary of Lung's past liaison with another girl.

Hsiao-Hsien Hou, director of films such as The Assassin (2015) and Café Lumière (2003), stars in this gorgeous film made by the late Edward Yang (Yi Yi) which lay bare a not-so-perfect relationship between two people in their thirties. Yang is a master at portraying the emotional weight the lovers carry, and making the characters speak without words. We also get the chance to revel in his beautiful cinematography which is a constant reminder of his ability to look at people, urban landscapes and the smallest but most intimate moments.

Genre: Drama

Scattered Clouds (Japan, 1967)

A husband and wife's love for each other and plans for the future are shattered when the man dies in a car accident. Misery is compounded when the man's parents disinherit his now widow and their former daughter-in-law. In the meanwhile, the chauffeur who accidentally killed a man is racked with guilt. In the melee, the driver and the widow begin to develop feelings for another.

Scattered Clouds (a.k.a. Two in the Shadow) explores the complex feelings following a tragedy and how we humans are not always driven by our minds but by our hearts even when it's not logical. I appreciated the very focused storyline and lack of unnecessary characters and side-plots, director Mikio Naruse (When a Woman Ascends the Stairs) knew exactly what he wanted to tell and he did it. Naruse is known for mostly making films centered around women, spotlighting their struggle and setbacks in a patriarchal society. Director Akira Kurosawa once described his films as "like a great river with a calm surface and a raging current in its depths."

Genre: Drama/Romance

Heat Wave (Japan, 1991)

A woman follows in her late father's footsteps and becomes a gambler, only to meet her father's murderer at a game.

Heat Wave (a.k.a. Kagero) doesn't bring a whole lot of new twists to the world of cinema but it's still a tense thriller which after a fateful confrontation ends in a flaming and well-choreographed brawl. The setting of a suspenseful card game is definitely reminiscent of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale, and I think it's a brilliant concept when two adversaries have no choice but to fight each others wits when there's people and witnesses around. I also enjoyed the surprise of seeing Tatsuya Nakadai in a prevalent role. 

Genre: Crime/Drama