Memories Of Matsuko

[pro-bassoonist]

PRE-ORDER



Tetsuya Nakashima's Memories of Matsuko (2006) has a received a preliminary release date: February 14. Winner of three Japanese Academy award - Best Actress (Miki Nakatani), Best Editing (Yoshiyuki Koike), and Best Music Score (Gabriele Roberto,Takeshi Shibuya). The film also won a Kinema Junpo award for Best Actress.

Synopsis:

Shou's father Norio finds his son in a rather meaningless existence in Tokyo dominated by alcohol and porn videos. Having left home two years earlier to pursue life as a musician, Shou has left his band and his girlfriend has left him. His father asks a favor, that Shou clean out the apartment of his aunt Matsuko, who he says led a meaningless life until her murder at the age of 53. The apartment is filled with garbage bags and is even more unkempt than his apartment has become, and he becomes intrigued with his aunt as details of her life are supplied by a tattooed neighbor and others. Her feelings of neglect by her father Tsunehiro, who favored her chronically ill younger sister, Kumi, translated into becoming a dutiful junior high school teacher devoted to her students until being forced to resign after being blamed for the theft of some money by one of them. Leaving her family due to the disgrace...

Pro-B

[zombeaner]

Third Window I presume?

[pro-bassoonist]

Update:

PRE-ORDER



Pro-B

[razor81]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

Update:

PRE-ORDER



Pro-B

It looks like you put wrong year in the database system (2014)
Supposed to be 2011

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by razor81

It looks like you put wrong year in the database system (2014)
Supposed to be 2011

Thank you (it came out very late last night). One of my colleagues corrected it.

Pro-B

[AnimeOnBlu]

Looks like this has a lossy DD 5.1 Japanese track (source). Really worried now "Confessions" will get the same treatment.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by AnimeOnBlu

Looks like this has a lossy DD 5.1 Japanese track (source). Really worried now "Confessions" will get the same treatment.

That source is wrong. We will have a review shortly. Third Window Films have provided a strong Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. The transfer is also very good.

Pro-B

[AnimeOnBlu]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

That source is wrong. We will have a review shortly. Third Window Films have provided a strong Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. The transfer is also very good.

Pro-B

And you made my day Pro-B

[zombeaner]

Dang it! I'm still waiting on mine. Must've gotten on that slow boat from the UK. I should've had it last week.

Good news, though.

[pro-bassoonist]

Review:


One more correction, unlike what is claimed elsewhere, the disc is BD50, not BD 25.

Pro-B

[Azyiu]

Never heard of this movie before, but I am VERY interested after reading the synopsis. Thanks Pro-B.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by Azyiu

Never heard of this movie before, but I am VERY interested after reading the synopsis. Thanks Pro-B.

Hey, the Lakers fans are in the house

You are welcome

Pro-B

[Azyiu]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

Hey, the Lakers fans are in the house

You are welcome

Pro-B

Right on!

Hey, slightly off topic, do you know if any studio would release this 2003 film Collage of Our Lives (恋愛寫眞) on BD? I absolutely love this movie!

[toddly6666]

It's a bit better than Kamikaze Girls, but Matsuko is still a pretty awful film. Before I had seen Kamikaze Girls or Matsuko, they both looked like fun visual-eye candy films. But without a well-written story in both of them, they just come across as boring, shallow, and empty. The director has excellent skills as a director of commercials, but not for movies. Tetsuya Nakashima ain't no Japanese David Fincher or Jean Pierre Jeunet, that's for sure!

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by Azyiu

Hey, slightly off topic, do you know if any studio would release this 2003 film Collage of Our Lives (恋愛寫眞) on BD? I absolutely love this movie!

Unfortunately I have not seen any preliminary info for a possible Blu-ray release.

Pro-B

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by toddly6666

It's a bit better than Kamikaze Girls, but Matsuko is still a pretty awful film. Before I had seen Kamikaze Girls or Matsuko, they both looked like fun visual-eye candy films. But without a well-written story in both of them, they just come across as boring, shallow, and empty. The director has excellent skills as a director of commercials, but not for movies. Tetsuya Nakashima ain't no Japanese David Fincher or Jean Pierre Jeunet, that's for sure!

I am going to have to strongly disagree with you. I thought that the film was very well made, and certainly a lot more inventive than anything Fincher and Jeunet have made (Amelie included, because you knew well what motivated the heroine, as well as the type of emotions the main protagonists dealt with). Memories of Matsuko is next to impossible to predict as far as emotions are concerned; it really is a strictly Japanese affair, which makes it so fascinating to behold.

Pro-B

[PGW]

I also think Toddly6666 is about as far off the mark as you can get... but, then again, I can only imagine what MoM would do to someone going into it for "fun."

Personally, it's one of my favorite films - and after a half dozen viewings I'm STILL picking up things I missed. Far from "lacking a story," it's a film whose story (and emotions) can be followed at a variety of different levels. I would imagine there are people out there who might consider it a musical. In reading people's reviews, it's clear that some find it the most depressing film they've ever seen. Some, however, find it uplifting. Almost everyone agrees it's a visually spectacular, brazen, highly original and incredibly emotional piece of film-making.

[Azyiu]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

Unfortunately I have not seen any preliminary info for a possible Blu-ray release.

Pro-B

Darn it! It is one of my all-time fav Japanese films...

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

I am going to have to strongly disagree with you. I thought that the film was very well made, and certainly a lot more inventive than anything Fincher and Jeunet have made (Amelie included, because you knew well what motivated the heroine, as well as the type of emotions the main protagonists dealt with). Memories of Matsuko is next to impossible to predict as far as emotions are concerned; it really is a strictly Japanese affair, which makes it so fascinating to behold.

Pro-B

I will still definitely blind buy it. If I don't see it in store here in HK, I will order it from Amazon UK.

[PGW]

I watched the blu-ray last night.

It's difficult to evaluate the picture quality because so much post-processing and saturation has been done, but I A/B'd it to the HK DVD and there's a big improvement in sharpness and detail.

I was a little let down by the subtitles, to tell you the truth. It appears they simply used the same subs as the HK release. It's not that big a deal because those were generally pretty good, but there are spots where song lyrics aren't translated, and there are many instances during the songs where there are superimposed Japanese and English lyrics on the screen, and the blu-ray subtitles are plopped right on top of them, making them hard to read (it would have been nice if they could have moved the new subs to a different spot).

[nightcrawler]

I watched this last night - and really enjoyed it. Strong Blu-ray transfer with eye-popping colours throughout. I can see how this is somewhat a "marmite" film in that it polarizes opinion. The bright, strong colours and music numbers juxtaposed against a story of domestic violence and murders makes for an interesting contrast. The lead actress was captivating, and I liked the visual style of the movie - sort of a Jean-Pierre Jeunet style filmed in Nintendo-vision!