Third Window Films Discussion Thread

[DukeTogo84]

Originally Posted by dex14

Kani will be releasing in Oct in the US.

Wonder if Kani and TWF are working together on this since the release timeframe is very close to each other.

[DukeTogo84]

Is the interview with Yasushi Sasakibara on the Alone in the Night disc the same interview from the Kani release of Freeze Me or an extension of it?

Curious if Kani has plans to release the Nami set in the US now, as I figured Team Error would go after it, but seems like Team Error has been having some shipping issues recently.

[HotRats]

Delighted to see the Hama box. I can finally get rid of my ancient non-anamorphic US DVD set

[ViscountCarnacki]

Anyone here a fan of Typhoon Club?

I grabbed it as a blind buy - one of the greatest Japanese films ever made, said the back cover - and I just do not get it. Pretentious and actually a bit disturbing in places (what the hell is up with the attempted rape scene?).

I am quite happy to be challenged and I don't mind working on a difficult film, so if someone can educate me about why this film is important so well regarded, I'd love to hear about it.

[DukeTogo84]

Originally Posted by ViscountCarnacki

Anyone here a fan of Typhoon Club?

I grabbed it as a blind buy - one of the greatest Japanese films ever made, said the back cover - and I just do not get it. Pretentious and actually a bit disturbing in places (what the hell is up with the attempted rape scene?).

I am quite happy to be challenged and I don't mind working on a difficult film, so if someone can educate me about why this film is important so well regarded, I'd love to hear about it.

I just finished writing a mini essay thinking you had mentioned Suicide Club. The moment I hit submit it hit me that TWF almost released Suicide Club, but never did. I then saw that you had mentioned Typhoon Club and deleted something I felt was a pretty strong writing on why Suicide Club is an important film...

As for Typhoon Club, I actually agree with you. I think it's an ok film and not quite on the same level as others as to why it's one of the best Japanese films. I like Shinji Somai, but don't think it's his best film.

[Yurakucho]

Typhoon Club is a masterpiece. Which other Japanese film offers two great reggae songs, and a great rock song?
The only bit about it that was arty nonsense were the two random people bandaged together rolling back and forth... could have done without that.

[logboy]

Originally Posted by ViscountCarnacki

Anyone here a fan of Typhoon Club?

I grabbed it as a blind buy - one of the greatest Japanese films ever made, said the back cover - and I just do not get it. Pretentious and actually a bit disturbing in places (what the hell is up with the attempted rape scene?).

I am quite happy to be challenged and I don't mind working on a difficult film, so if someone can educate me about why this film is important so well regarded, I'd love to hear about it.

there are multiple ways to undertake a blind buy, and your reliance upon words that happen to have been written, but are not backed-up with quotes or references on that sleeve reverse, is pretty slight. that's fine, it can feel like less is being done than that when you gather snippets of information from across places and apply them when you spot a release of potential interest. it's a bit like creating your own luck - it takes more work than it first appears - but it will very likely be more than just a few words.

i do still think the vast majority of labels fail with providing a range of substantial explanations to support why a films should be of interest. the bare basics are usually missing, the best information behind the paywall and not necessarily used by the people that buy the releases. this said, having dumped my BD and UHD of 'typhoon club' because of transfer (compression?) issues with the master, i only have vague memories of it from years ago.

iirc, it's probably both a matter of the approach to the direction rather than how the results seem now, and the time that has elapsed has ushered in films influenced by it that neutralise how it was a shift in what seemed possible. i would deduce that it's far more impossible for the reputation to be without sincere cause when it's in the hands of people who experienced it upon release, in a greater context of japan's output. that doesn't necessarily transfer to how it will (or should) be perceived now, by a distant audience with far far less experience. doesn't mean there aren't plenty of objective reasons to like it, but i think it is a matter of being in charge of your own sense of how you got there, and not just jumping in with a sudden leap out of nowhere.

fwiw, i think the USA trailer for their rerelease does a better job of explaining the film >

Typhoon Club - 4K Restoration - Official Trailer - YouTube

[ViscountCarnacki]

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

I just finished writing a mini essay thinking you had mentioned Suicide Club. The moment I hit submit it hit me that TWF almost released Suicide Club, but never did. I then saw that you had mentioned Typhoon Club and deleted something I felt was a pretty strong writing on why Suicide Club is an important film...

As for Typhoon Club, I actually agree with you. I think it's an ok film and not quite on the same level as others as to why it's one of the best Japanese films. I like Shinji Somai, but don't think it's his best film.

Okay, now I need to find out what Suicide Club is!

[ViscountCarnacki]

Originally Posted by Yurakucho

Typhoon Club is a masterpiece. Which other Japanese film offers two great reggae songs, and a great rock song?
The only bit about it that was arty nonsense were the two random people bandaged together rolling back and forth... could have done without that.

Weirdly I didn't mind the couple with the ocarinas. I was more annoyed by things like five solid minutes of the student stacking the desks up (I knew he would jump out the window). The attempted rape makes no sense, and the victim gets over it surprisingly quickly (enough to then take off her clothes and dance in the rain with her attacker).

I'm going to hold onto the disc and will revisit it at some other time - like I said, I'm happy to be challenged by a film, so maybe a second viewing will go down a bit better later.

The restoration does look amazing though.

[ViscountCarnacki]

Originally Posted by logboy

there are multiple ways to undertake a blind buy, and your reliance upon words that happen to have been written, but are not backed-up with quotes or references on that sleeve reverse, is pretty slight. that's fine, it can feel like less is being done than that when you gather snippets of information from across places and apply them when you spot a release of potential interest. it's a bit like creating your own luck - it takes more work than it first appears - but it will very likely be more than just a few words.

i do still think the vast majority of labels fail with providing a range of substantial explanations to support why a films should be of interest. the bare basics are usually missing, the best information behind the paywall and not necessarily used by the people that buy the releases. this said, having dumped my BD and UHD of 'typhoon club' because of transfer (compression?) issues with the master, i only have vague memories of it from years ago.

iirc, it's probably both a matter of the approach to the direction rather than how the results seem now, and the time that has elapsed has ushered in films influenced by it that neutralise how it was a shift in what seemed possible. i would deduce that it's far more impossible for the reputation to be without sincere cause when it's in the hands of people who experienced it upon release, in a greater context of japan's output. that doesn't necessarily transfer to how it will (or should) be perceived now, by a distant audience with far far less experience. doesn't mean there aren't plenty of objective reasons to like it, but i think it is a matter of being in charge of your own sense of how you got there, and not just jumping in with a sudden leap out of nowhere.

fwiw, i think the USA trailer for their rerelease does a better job of explaining the film >

Typhoon Club - 4K Restoration - Official Trailer - YouTube

Huh, having said I don't like the film, I'm now annoyed to discover I could have been annoyed and bored with it in 4K instead of HD! Dang it!

Interesting point about blind buys. Typhoon Club is a curious case as there seems to be very little analysis of it online (unless my searching completely failed me).

[logboy]

Originally Posted by ViscountCarnacki

Huh, having said I don't like the film, I'm now annoyed to discover I could have been annoyed and bored with it in 4K instead of HD! Dang it!

Interesting point about blind buys. Typhoon Club is a curious case as there seems to be very little analysis of it online (unless my searching completely failed me).

i think you're going to find the vast majority of japanese cinema is not covered to any noticeable extent. most i'd (sort of) guarantee is a handful of japanese databases with user ratings. out problem lies with the lack of western distribution, and, as a self-supporting industry, this was never a big intentional aim of course. any illusion you're going to find information is based on how the internet seems to cover so much we'd struggle to find other coverage for; lots we would have found hard to know about now seems easy, but it doesn't apply to everything.

best i've managed is to note key aspects of each film, names and so on, look at what films they link into elsewhere. i think of things like this as stepping stones. each new minor leap builds your own inner sense of how things fit together. this would be as anyone can do now and would have done at the time in japan. this also feeds into the idea that the effort undertaken by labels to produce extras - commentaries, booklets, interviews - represents how they became convinced about the film, which they somehow expect buyers to injest after buying it and before watching the feature, which is ... very odd.

as for being bored, i often come across the problem that i'm far more versed in what i experience most regularly. in my case, it's comedy on TV and western (UK mostly) shows and then USA films and TV. any watching of a japanese film requires such a shift in expectations and abilities that it can be hard to time and take in what's going on in a way that isn't somehow both perplexing and enthralling. when it's the former, it can feel like boredom. feel free to be bored, in a sense, and always keep in mind this might be a misunderstanding of how it's so out of the ordinary for your relatively familiar viewing.

[JackyJacquard]

Originally Posted by logboy

as for being bored, i often come across the problem that i'm far more versed in what i experience most regularly. in my case, it's comedy on TV and western (UK mostly) shows and then USA films and TV. any watching of a japanese film requires such a shift in expectations and abilities that it can be hard to time and take in what's going on in a way that isn't somehow both perplexing and enthralling. when it's the former, it can feel like boredom. feel free to be bored, in a sense, and always keep in mind this might be a misunderstanding of how it's so out of the ordinary for your relatively familiar viewing.

This is why Kurosawa - in particular his two samurai movies that were made as westerns - is one of the most approachable Japanese filmmakers, because he’s arguably one of the most ‘western’. Also yakuza movies because they have obvious similarities with gangster movies.

[ViscountCarnacki]

Originally Posted by logboy

i think you're going to find the vast majority of japanese cinema is not covered to any noticeable extent. most i'd (sort of) guarantee is a handful of japanese databases with user ratings. out problem lies with the lack of western distribution, and, as a self-supporting industry, this was never a big intentional aim of course. any illusion you're going to find information is based on how the internet seems to cover so much we'd struggle to find other coverage for; lots we would have found hard to know about now seems easy, but it doesn't apply to everything.

best i've managed is to note key aspects of each film, names and so on, look at what films they link into elsewhere. i think of things like this as stepping stones. each new minor leap builds your own inner sense of how things fit together. this would be as anyone can do now and would have done at the time in japan. this also feeds into the idea that the effort undertaken by labels to produce extras - commentaries, booklets, interviews - represents how they became convinced about the film, which they somehow expect buyers to injest after buying it and before watching the feature, which is ... very odd.

as for being bored, i often come across the problem that i'm far more versed in what i experience most regularly. in my case, it's comedy on TV and western (UK mostly) shows and then USA films and TV. any watching of a japanese film requires such a shift in expectations and abilities that it can be hard to time and take in what's going on in a way that isn't somehow both perplexing and enthralling. when it's the former, it can feel like boredom. feel free to be bored, in a sense, and always keep in mind this might be a misunderstanding of how it's so out of the ordinary for your relatively familiar viewing.

I appreciate your well thought-out comments, but I'm very familiar with Japanese cinema (which I collect) and Japan in general (which I have been to several times).

[Yurakucho]

Originally Posted by JackyJacquard

This is why Kurosawa - in particular his two samurai movies that were made as westerns - is one of the most approachable Japanese filmmakers, because he’s arguably one of the most ‘western’. Also yakuza movies because they have obvious similarities with gangster movies.

Yes, and don't we bloody know it, nary a week goes by without one of the other labels releasing yet another bloody yakuza/samurai film.

[Yami]

Typhoon Club has a massive reputation in Japan; it was the most recent film to appear in the top 10 of Kinema Junpo's (Japan's oldest film magazine, think Sight and Sound equivalent) poll of the 100 greatest Japanese films of all time - though, intriguingly, that was the critics list and I don't think it appeared on the equivelent readers' poll.

I love it, though I don't think it is as easy to enjoy as some other Somai films, notably P.P Rider, Sailor Suit and Machine Gun, and Moving. It's a picture about the madness of youth - the typhoon is obviously an allegory, but it also serves as the plot device that maroons them where they are, turning the school into a Lord of the Flies-in-miniature for one night. Without adults and external judgement (apart from, we, the viewer), the characters are liberated - except they're not, because they are still weighed down by the confusions of their own adolescence and the baggage of their psychological traumas to that point. I don't think that it is a coincidence that, in the scene with the attempted rape, as Ken kicks the door down he repeats the same lines that he said earlier when entering his home. "I'm home. Welcome back". Is he recalling behaviour that he has previously witnessed?

(As an aside, I wonder if there is also some commentary on the Japanese film industry and the pink film / roman porno which often used rape / sexual violence as a trope. After Typhoon Club, Somai would direct what some consider to be the best of the roman porno films - Love Hotel.)

-

I actually think there's a decent amount of English-language commentary and criticism of Typhoon Club out there, almost all of it since Third Window led the way by bringing it to the West, but it's probably the most written about Somai film.

[JackyJacquard]

Originally Posted by Yurakucho

Yes, and don't we bloody know it, nary a week goes by without one of the other labels releasing yet another bloody yakuza/samurai film.

Yeah and they’re all around 3.5-3.7 on letterboxd with positive reviews by a bunch of people who also positively review a bunch of stuff I already like, which makes it really hard not to FOMO-buy them all!

[Ben_C]

Originally Posted by Yurakucho

Yes, and don't we bloody know it, nary a week goes by without one of the other labels releasing yet another bloody yakuza/samurai film.

Yep, and it’s bloody brilliant.

[Fabhui]

Originally Posted by Yurakucho

Yes, and don't we bloody know it, nary a week goes by without one of the other labels releasing yet another bloody yakuza/samurai film.

And long may it continue.

[Yami]

I'll vote for whichever candidate makes a law that we need to get at least one Nobuhiko Obayashi film for every 7 yakuza films released