Seijun Suzuki, Midnight Eye and KimuTaku

I have been excited to see more Seijun Suzuki movies making it to DVD. Criterion has been great at getting the ball rolling, and for the uninitiated I really recommend Branded to Kill. Tokyo Drifter is another great place to start. The interviews included are worth watching to see how, unlike some of the great Japanese directors, Suzuki had to bend the rules, scratch, fight, and sneak in his artistic visions to the carbon-copy scripts he was forced to make. Branded to Kill led to the director's firing from Nikkatsu, but thankfully not to the end of his career. More recently three of his later films have been released by Kino as the Taisho Trilogy. I actually was really disappointed by Suzuki's most recent Pistol Opera, so I am a little hesitant with these films (from 1981-1991), but will give them a look and let you know.

I really don't know how the folks at Midnight Eye do it. For the uninitiated, Midnight Eye is THE place to go for news, interviews and reviews of the latest in Japanese cinema. They are seeing the newest movies as they are released in Japan, not on the festival circuit then in limited release sometimes years later.

I always kind of chuckle when people talk about "the new KimuTaku movie". I say, "Which one?" and they reply, "You know, 2046." That movie came out in Asia in May of 2004! Though Kimura hasn't been in any movies since...