Posts Tagged ‘japan’
Continuing from Part 1 posted yesterday….
Cover pictured is the Japanese edition of the DVD
The Sacrifice (Ônamakubi) – Directed by Koji Shiraishi (of Ju-Rei: The Uncanny
), this is another long one. We start the episode with two office girls talking, and one, Mayu, finds a box on her desk. Her friend Reiko wonders if it’s from a secret admirer, but inside it is a large bug pierced by needles…
Later, Mayu and Reiko are talking, and Mayu tells her that Fukuda, one of their coworkers, asked her out – but she turned him down. Her friend tells her that he’d asked someone else at the company out before and when she turned him down he told her she would be cursed. Later, she returns to her apartment and finds more bugs in addition to sticks, in a strange pattern in front of the door. She finally discovers a circular pattern on the door itself, drawn in blood. The next day Fukuda tells Mayu to fix a problem he found in her work. This is the point where she notices a bandage on his hand. Soon, she takes some time off work to visit her parents… her mother’s sick and she wants to help take care of her. Of course, even outside of town, the curse is still at work… The story shows a good bit of Japanese spirituality… her mother is often praying in the shrine room, even asking Mayu if she’d prayed to the ancestors once she got back. We also get a look at the home of the cursebringer (with all the spiritual things there, I’m surprised they’re able to live comfortably!). All in all, this one earns a 5 out of 5, too.
Blonde Kwaidan (Kinpatsu Kaidan) – Directed by Takashi Shimizu (of Ju-On, Ju-On 2, The Grudge). This episode, the second short story, feels like it might have been filmed when Shimizu was filming some footage in Hollywood for the American Grudge movie. It takes place in Hollywood and the film stock is a bit more like what you see on TV or in movies here in the US. It opens on Yoshio riding in a taxi past the Chinese Theater and making a comment on how Hollywood’s on a downturn, only making "re-runs and Japanese horror movies. What is that called again? Re-makes! Re-make the movie, right?" He also has an obsession for blondes, saying that the ones here are the real thing, not Blondie-wanna-be’s like back in Japan. He’s there to housesit for the executive director of his company while the director’s on vacation with his girlfriend. I’m kind of conflicted on this episode, actually. On the one hand, I love Shimizu’s work. I’ve seen both of the more recent Ju-On movies, The Grudge and Tomie: Rebirth, all of which are excellent movies, in my opinion. On the other hand, the ending to this episode leaves some things unexplained. Of course, if you’ve seen many Japanese horror movies, you know they sometimes tend to do the same thing, so I will rate this one 5 out of 5, also.
Presentiment (Yokan) – Directed by Masayuki Ohiai (Infection), this is our last story taking us out with a bang. In some ways, it seems to homage a few movies, such as Psycho with its imagined voiceovers when someone’s feeling guilty. Fukawa, an office worker, is set to go on vacation with his family… or so he’s told his coworkers – and his family. In reality, he’s about to commit some industrial espionage by copying account names and running off with his mistress afterwards. Unfortunately for him, he steps into the wrong elevator. A good majority of the story is spent with him stuck in the elevator along with three other people: an older couple and a young woman who constantly checks her watch. The tension builds pretty steadily as it gets close to the end of the story. The director even manages to slip in a reference to his earlier movie, Infection. I give this one another 5 out of 5.
There you have it! All 5’s, except for the one story that was supposed to be included as a bumper. Normally, I wouldn’t be this picky since the DVD as a whole is incredibly well-done, but I really wanted to see that missing story, as well. So, my Final Score for the DVD, itself, is 4 out of 5.
Originally published: May 24, 2006 @ 04:35am PST
Gigan
One of Godzilla’s most unusual-looking enemies, Gigan is something of an anomaly.
One night, when a friend and I were watching Godzilla Versus Megalon, which has Gigan as a guest enemy, my friend showed me the movie summary provided by the satellite company, where they called Gigan a “giant, black chicken”. We both cracked up pretty well at this, as Gigan doesn’t generally look that chicken-like, outside of his mouth area looking slightly like a beak.
Gigan was, in his original appearances, 65 meters tall and 25,000 tons. He lacked hands, instead having large metal hooks at the ends of his arms, plus a series of spikes up and down his abdomen that would spin like buzzsaws. He first appeared in the movie “Godzilla Vs. Gigan” (1972), (which I also found an MP3 of) where invading aliens used him and King Ghidorah, to try to take over the Earth but they met with resistance from Godzilla and Anguirus. Once the heroic daikaiju started winning, Gigan turned tail and ran, followed quickly by Ghidorah.
His next appearance was in 1973’s “Godzilla Vs. Megalon”, where he teamed with Megalon against Godzilla and the fighting robot Jet Jaguar. Once again, the evil monsters start out winning against the two heroes but when the tables were turned, Gigan fled once again. This would be Gigan’s last movie appearance for 31 years (he appeared in an episode of the Japanese TV series “Zone Fighter,” which I hope to acquire someday soon).
Fast forward to 2004 and Toho Studio’s big 50th anniversary film “Godzilla: Final Wars”. The movie features Godzilla and Mothra, as well as new looks for Ghidorah, Rodan, Minilla aka Minya and Anguirus. It also featured several daikaiju that hadn’t been seen since their film debuts: King Caesar, Ebirah, Kamacuras, Kumonga, Manda and Hedorah. The star returning monster, though, in this monster mash was Gigan who also got a major upgrade to his looks. When first shown, Gigan is a recently discovered corpse that nobody knew anything about, save that it showed traces of similar DNA to mutant humans that had appeared shortly before. When the villains attacked Earth Gigan shook off its decrepit remains and became a lean, mean fighting machine. This new version of Gigan stood at 120 meters tall and weighed in at 60,000 tons. Ordered to destroy Tokyo, the enemy quickly changed its orders to follow the airship Gotengo and try to destroy it as it was flying to awaken Godzilla.
As the airship reached the South Pole, where Godzilla was hibernating, Gigan started firing on it and took it down. As Gigan was about to unleash the final blow, Godzilla awoke and blasted him with his atomic fire. A short fight later and Godzilla blew off Gigan’s head, then started chasing after the Gotengo who was leading it to Tokyo.
Gigan wasn’t finished yet, though. The invaders brought him back and reactivated him, replacing his hooks with large buzzsaws and the ability to fire razor disks from his shoulders. This new version of Gigan was sent to take on Mothra, who had defeated the original version of him centuries before. In the end, both adversaries were defeated, as Gigan’s eyebeam set Mothra on fire, his razor blades slicing off his own head once again… the burning Mothra flew into Gigan to finish the job.
Who knows what lies in store for the big G in the future, once Toho Studios begins making new Godzilla movies again (after Final Wars, they put the movies on hiatus to try to build up interest again). Maybe we’ll see Gigan return for further adventures. He really is one of Godzilla’s most unique adversaries and one that I, myself, would like to see on the screen again.
Originally posted: May 20, 2006 @ 11:45pm PST
Don’t mean to start this on a downer note but I just found out that one of my favorite Japanese actresses passed away last week. Machiko Soga, known to most United States Power Rangers fans as Rita Repulsa (She’s mentioned here!)
from the first season of the series (in Japan, she was known as Bandora), passed away May 7th, 2006.
Many sentai fans will miss her. I first came across her on Power Rangers and always wondered what she was really saying (since she was dubbed with a voiceover) as well as anything else I might have been missing. So I did everything I could to research into the original shows and learn as much as possible. This led to my interest in sentai and I quickly sought out a place where I could acquire the original Japanese shows. Luckily I found a site that hosted four Zyuranger episodes (If you can believe it, I found the soundtrack!), a Carranger (And a soundtrack to that, too!) aka Power Rangers Turbo episode and the Ohranger/Kakuranger movie (Yet another soundtrack, folks!!) (what American audiences got as a two part episode of Power Rangers Zeo).
I encourage anyone who’s interested in these series to search as much as you can for them and anything else you enjoy (or enjoyed) as a child. There might be a whole side of your favorite series that you might have missed out on, not knowing any better. I almost forgot to put this in – it’s a video of Machiko Soga as Bandora, singing a song as she’s going down to the beach to meet the Dragonranger on Zyuranger. Some of the footage was used in Power Rangers, but naturally the song was cut out:
Sorry.. the video’s gone now 
The song is really fun and upbeat. Makes me wish I knew what she was singing. 
Update: Red Hawk found us a new video! You can find it by clicking: THIS LINK
