Saturday, June 17, 2006

Movie Night: Japanese Noir

Brendan thought Noir might be swell this week. I kinda shrugged thinking about all the classic films that've been programmed that you all ignored due to slow pacing. Then Brendan said, "How about Japanese Noir". Well if you guys have to read subtitles you're more likely to pay attention so I said, "Sure".

Mon. Jun. 19th

7pm Stray Dog (1949): Toshiro Mifune is a young detective who on a hot summer day in a crowded bus has his gun stolen by a pickpocket. Rather than report the missing weapon he sets out to find it himself. On his search he discovers an entire criminal underworld. A tense Post-War noir in Akira Kurosawa's and Mifune's third collaboration.

Driest write-up by me ever.

9pm The Most Terrible Time in My Life (1994): Both sending up and honouring western noir conventions in this, the first part Mike Hama Private Investigator trilogy. Hama is suave, macho, and cold. Unlike his American counterpart, Hama is a total klutz. Hama works out of a projection booth in a Yokohama movie house. Before his clients can see him, the theater owners make them buy tickets. During his first on-screen case poor Hama must protect a Taiwanese waiter from an irate customer in a mah-jong parlor. Of course he finds himself embroiled in the middle of a gang war.

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