Gory Japanese war film shocks, thrills Venice film festival

Gory Japanese war film shocks, thrills Venice film festival

This will be the second film adaptation of Shohei Ooka's novel Fires on the Plain.  The first came out in 1959.  I read the novel a few years ago.  It straddled a period when I moved from Japan back to the US, so I read it both here and there.  WWII remains a popular film subject here.  I've avoided all of these movies because, frankly, while I've read extensively about the fighting in Europe, I'm just not that interested in the Pacific theater unless it involves the air combat and aircraft carriers.

Also, it's something of a prickly subject.  Like Ooka, my grandfather-in-law fought in the Philippines.  He's way up in his 90s now and I've met him a couple of times.  I have a feeling there are unresolved issues hanging over our heads.  That may just be me.  If his experiences were anything like Ooka's then he must have some complicated emotions about my being in his family.  Or maybe he's over it as much as anyone could be and hardly gives me a thought.  Actually, I'm pretty sure he rarely thinks about me.  He's got his own world and interests.

Still, you can't avoid entirely that period in the 20th century.  One of the first trips I took inside Japan was to Hiroshima where I saw the chains of origami cranes and took photos of the A-Bomb dome.  The city I live in now was back then-- as it is now-- an industrial center.  So it was a target.  Bombed flat from the air, shelled from the sea.  An older student I had at my first job showed me scars on his forearm he said came from burns suffered as a toddler during an air-raid.  Another student cheerfully told me of being given candy by American soldiers in the war's immediate aftermath and how her mother told her not to eat it.  She hid it in her dresser drawer and simply looked at it from time to time.  One more, one of the most brilliant minds I've ever encountered, asked me what "Hubba hubba" means, as it had puzzled him since he heard our GIs saying it when he was a child.  His older brother was a fighter pilot trainer during the war, but we never discussed whether or not he survived.  One of my junior high-aged students once listed for me his favorite WWII fighter planes, as he was something of a vintage aviation buff.

"I like the Zero and the P-51 Mustang," he said.  I think he added a couple of others, because I remember being very impressed at his ability to remember all the designations and names.  After that he said, "But I do not like the B-29."

"I think I can guess why," I replied.  "And I understand completely."

My mom remembers blackout curtains and watching Franklin D. Roosevelt's funeral train pass through her hometown on its way from Georgia back to Washington, D.C.  She also remembers anti-Japanese propaganda.  And I grew up watching WWII-era Bugs Bunny cartoons with their casual racism and that one episode of Gilligan's Island with the goggle-glasses wearing Imperial Japanese holdout menacing the castaways in comedic fashion, the depiction of which I cringe at whenever I think about it.

You know, like now.

Not a one of my male relatives of the correct generation fought in the Pacific.  My father's oldest brother serviced B-17s in the UK during the last months of the war, but spent most of his stint in the military during the post-war era.  He wasn't a backwards-looking guy by nature, so we only talked about it one time because I asked.  My mom's uncle ripped across Europe under Patton, but he only mentioned it once.  My mom's stepfather, a man she still worships to this day, father to her half-brothers, went over the Channel in a glider on D-Day as an army doctor with the 82nd Airborne.  My dad didn't go into the armed forces until the Korean War, which he spent in the USAF largely in the UK but also, strangely enough, back in Georgia, not far from his hometown.  There's still a huge air base there.  He was in a motor transport squadron so he drove trucks and taught driving.

All Europe guys.

I've never been to war.  Never been in the military.  I only read about it in books and watch it in movies.  But I suppose I think about it way too often.

Watching my hometown on TV in Japan

There's a huge Southern Baptist church in my hometown of Albany, Georgia, and they're not only buying up all the houses in the neighborhood where my old elementary school still stands, they're also  making low-budget message movies with largely amateur casts and the occasional ringer.  You may have heard or even watched the one starring Kirk Cameron, the erstwhile Seaver family member.  For some reason known only to God and the people in charge of programming Star, their most recent effort aired here in Japan yesterday afternoon, and I was home from work in time to catch it from just after the opening credits.

The first thing I saw?  Pine trees.  Even before I knew what I was watching, they created in me a strange sort of deja vu.  Albany is a town with a lot of pine trees.  No matter where I am in the world, I can't look at a pine tree without immediately thinking of home.  I thought, "Huh.  Familiar.  What is this feeling of familiarity?  What am I watching-- a slick indie or a random episode of a crime drama I've seen before and forgot about on the movie channel for some reason?"  

Before any scenes featuring dialogue, it was certainly action-packed enough to be an episode of Bones or NCIS.  A guy gassing up his truck ends up hanging on for dear life when a gang member tries to carjack it.  He falls off, the truck hits a tree, the gangster flees, people stop to help.  They are earnest but amateurish, and there's no mistaking those accents.

I ended up watching about half of it before the novelty of seeing places I know wore off and boredom set in and I had to turn it off and get on with my life.  This well-intentioned little movie wasn't made with an audience of me in mind.  Despite its having the fashionable jittery camera and saturated-colors look of a secular film and pulling off its modest action sequences with a certain panache, the story, dialogue and acting weren't quite competent enough to keep me watching after I lost interest in the backgrounds and yet it wasn't bad enough for me to mock in a Mystery Science Theater 3000 kind of way.  Still, I wished my wife had been with me so she could see the place where I was born and fled as soon as I was able.  Since this is Star, it'll probably be on ten thousand times this month and next so she'll have plenty of chances to see southwest Georgia before she visits in person this August.

Speaking of movies (and I'm rarely not), the Star Classic channel has an amazing line-up this month.  Casablanca, Sunset Boulevard, Dr. Strangelove, Sabrina and at least one more I'm forgetting.  I really hope my wife and I have time to watch some of these together.  Well, not Dr. Strangelove so much as the other ones.  I hope she wants to watch some of them.  I'm movie-crazy.  She enjoys them, but I'm a buff with way too much trivial knowledge about them and way too many opinions than are strictly healthy.

Where do our tastes overlap?  Disney and Ghibli films ( we both love Spirited Away), West Side Story, Seven Year Itch, Little Miss Sunshine and Sideways.  These are a few we've watched and enjoyed equally.  I have a hopeful feeling we'll find more if we explore the classic together, especially musicals, comedies and romance.

Roman Holiday would be a good one.  My wife likes Audrey Hepburn a lot.  Hepburn maintains an iconic status here in Japan.  I don't know about women below 30, but many women 30 and up-- at least the ones I've talked to-- still love her.  To them, she's simply Audrey.  That name suffices.  Gregory Peck they couldn't care less about, but Audrey still leaves people breathless.

October Is Still Spookey Month: Everyone seems to love Kuchisake-onna!

Why? I'm not not sure. All I know is, this blog gets a lot of Google hits for "slit mouth woman" or "kuchisake-onna," and Youtube features a surprisingly large number of videos describing her legend. As it turns out, she's not only freaky, she's also incredibly popular.



I also find her very tragic, but that's not saying I particularly want to meet her.  One of the most disturbing and therefore effective aspects of a lot of these Japanese horror tales is the arbitrary victim selection.  Few of these people deserve their fates, unlike in most Western horror stories.  You know-- the philandering lover, the know-it-all jerk, the greedy relatives, the kids who willfully ignore societal mores and go skinnydipping in Crystal Lake all receive their comeuppance.



But what about the kid who's just hanging out at home when a ghost comes to call?  Or the young woman who finds herself running a little late and gets stuck in an elevator?  Or the poor woman with the coughing fit in the park, and her child?  When Kuchisake-onna catches up to you, it doesn't matter if you're a nice person or not. And speaking of nice, here's another performance by Toy Missile, outside Shinjuku Station. This is where I saw them way back in August, 2007. Their official website seems to have gone dark, so it may be they live now only in my memories. And on Youtube.

Spookey Month: Kuchisake-onna, the Slit-Mouthed Woman

I love urban legends, and I especially love them when they deal with ghosts.

A while back I did an entry about Toire no Hanako-san. You know, the tale of the ghost Hanako, who haunts a particular bathroom stall in a school somewhere here in Japan. With Halloween coming up this month, I want to write a few entries about supernatural Japan and with Hanako-san already out of the way, it's time to turn to Kuchisake-onna, the woman with the big smile.

About a week ago, during a discussion of Halloween and ghost stories, a student laughingly reminded me of Kuchisake-onna. While it's fun to read about Japanese ghost lore, it's even more fun to have someone here actually tell you a story. Somehow that makes it seem more authentic, more real. And, like all good Japanese ghost stories, there's a movie version:



Kuchisake-onna is a strange apparition-- according to lore, on some foggy night she may approach you wearing a surgical mask. That in itself isn't so strange. People wearing surgical masks are a common sight here, especially these days when everyone's talking about the "new influenza."

But you can tell you're dealing with Kuchisake-onna when, instead of merely passing by and going about her business, she stops you and asks you, "Am I beautiful?" The correct answer, of course, is, "Yes!" To make absolutely certain, Kuchisake-onna will then remove her mask...

Revealing a grinning mouth that stretches from ear to ear, full of wickedly sharp teeth.

"Am I beautiful, even like this?" she'll ask. And here's where it gets tricky.

Obviously, you don't want to say, "No." This is Kuchisake-onna and she will rip you to shreds instantly. You might think to answer, "Yes" again. But this only buys you a short reprieve. Because the Japanese word for pretty is kirei, which sounds a bit like kire, meaning "to cut," Kuchisake-onna will follow you home and slice you into little pieces right in front of your own house. You also shouldn't try to run away without answering, because Kuchisake-onna is a sprinter who makes Usain Bolt look he's like running underwater. She can cover 100 meters in 3 seconds!

What you want to do is say, "Ma-ma," which is Japanese for "so-so." Or tell her she's average. This pleases her enough for her to let you go. Another strategy is to ask her if she thinks you're beautiful as well. That really confuses her and gives you time to flee to safety, and perhaps you can exchange keitai information and go shopping together one day and maybe have crepes or om-rice in some cute little restaurant. You might even toss her some fruit. Carry some blueberries or a pineapple whenever you take a walk alone at night as a safety precaution. If you meet her in Shizuoka prefecture, try strawberries-- they're especially popular here.

While this story may date back to the Edo period-- Kuchisake-onna began as an ordinary woman, punished horrifically by her samurai husband for infidelity-- the modern take became popular around 1979, in a version where Kuchisake-onna preyed especially on children. In other versions, an inept plastic surgeon caused her disfigurement, or a motorcycle gang, or an auto accident. She may not kill you, but may instead simply cut you in the same way she is. And she might possibly attack you if you smell of pomade.