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I can't find Nakata's debut (Ghost Actress) anywhere. That could change due to the popularity of his most recent films.
I also appreciate films that rely on mystery(thus leave themselves open to interpretation) but in the case of The Others, the "startling revelation" gave the film needed pathos and emotional impact.
BATTLE ROYALE fits this discussion. Along with Ring and possibly Audition, the most popular recent foreign film in this genre. Premise: Anarchy reigns in near future Japan. Society's response is to randomly pick a school class(42 kids) and subject them to a survival game of kill-or-be-killed in a remote island. Takeshi Kitano plays the resentful,cruel teacher who presides over this violent domain. Septuagenarian director Fukasaku still remembers how 15 years olds talk and behave, except for the lack of sex, which I found baffling. Go along with the premise and you'll be consistently entertained by this fascist fantasy.
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I don't think Ghost Actress is currently being distributed in the US, but they show it on Sundance. They also show Audition, Cure, & a mediocre one called Uzumaki (Spiral).
Others didn't show me anything beyond Amenabar could go from making original throught provoking Spanish films to commericial Hollywood formula films. It could have had emotional impact if the story was written to not live and die on the surprise. It didn't have emotional impact because the trick was obvious due to the studios delusion that American viewers need a million clues.
I wasn't sure whether to include Battle Royale because IMO it's more a social commentary action film than anything else. It's kind of applying peak Romero to a different setting.
Mike
Raging Bull Movie Reviews
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>I find his other films:Dead or Alive, Visitor Q, the increasingly popular Ichi the Killer, shocking samplers of abject cruelty, torment and gore, recommended exclusively to nihilists.
I saw Ichi the other day, and I can't disagree. Whatever points Miike might have intended to make came off as half baked at best, drowned in a sea of sadistic action shown through very cheesy techniques/effects.
Mike
Raging Bull Movie Reviews
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I'm a great fan of Miike, but unlike Audition or Visitor Q, which could be described as decidedly ambiguous satires, I don't think Ichi the Killer has a point to make at all. The aim seemed to have been to transfer it from the original manga to a live-action film as faithfully as possible. This is, I think, an interesting exercise in and of itself, partly because Miike often plays fast and loose with his sources, partly because of the obvious differences between manga and live action.
I enjoyed it. It's possibly the most violent film I've ever seen - even Braindead fell short of this sort of excess. But like Braindead, I didn't feel any malice behind it. Ichi the Killer is probably best described in the words of one review I found of it - "born out of Miike's frustration with a PG-13 world."
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The point of "Ichi the Killer (Koroshiya 1)" WAS to make a live-action manga. The manga was pretty violent, as many are (not all, but many). The movie is intentionally cartoonish because it's achieving the affect of being a cartoon. The violence is intentionally over-the-top, the computer graphics intentionally cheesy, it's not meant to look serious at all. They took what they were doing seriously, but it's ultimately a movie that's funny because of its extremity. Miike was daring us to laugh at some brutal and graphic imagery. I know I laughed at this movie, and I love it. Just the scene when Ichi goes into the room crying and massacres all those gangsters, you see all the blood spraying out the door, body parts flying, and then the face hitting the wall. It's so ridiculously bad, it actually had me laughing. Maybe I'm just sick, but Miike is daring us to laugh at something so ludicrous it's funny. It's like "Evil Dead 2," only moreso.
Miike was also challenging the audience. People always complain about not seeing the demon in psychological horror movies, or not seeing enough blood or enough action, or not seeing the knife go in. People seem to think they want more...Miike gave them not what they wanted, but what they thought they wanted with "Ichi the Killer (Koroshiya 1)." Many directors would have been more "tasteful," not showing all the violence, just implying it. Some audiences would complain because not everybody likes or appreciates the power of implication (probably why a good number of people don't like "The Exorcist" or "The Blair Witch Project"...not that the latter was that good, but it wasn't bad either). I've even had friends who complained that they didn't see the chainsaw go through the guy's head in "Scarface."
That's what I think the point of the movie is. There isn't much of a point in the story or the movie itself, but rather in the intentions behind the movie, the reasons why it was done. That's just what I think though, I could be wrong.
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Originally posted by Ilker81x
Miike was also challenging the audience. People always complain about not seeing enough blood or enough action, or not seeing the knife go in. People seem to think they want more...Miike gave them not what they wanted, but what they thought they wanted with "Ichi the Killer (Koroshiya 1).
I assume these "people" you talk about are young males, getting their comeuppance. I'm curious what social psychologists would say about those who produce and seek out this type of film. I am implicated. I admit getting some weird thrill out of the experience and indeed, laughing at the overkill. Which does not mean I'll be watching it again. As far as "challenging the audience", Ichi's not an intellectual or an emotional challenge but a visceral one. An assault on the senses.
Have you seen Visitor Q?
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Yes I have seen "Visitor Q," and I see your point. But every film Miike makes has a different focus. "Visitor Q" is talking about the warped nature of family values and exterior environmental effects on them, and vice versa. It is more of an intellectual shock as opposed to a visual shock. I'll agree that "Ichi the Killer (Koroshiya 1)" is not an intellectual challenge, but even intellectuals need to have some fun once in awhile. And I don't think challenging the audience need always be an intellectual exercise. You're right, it is a visceral challenge, but that was my point.
I don't necessarily mean young males either. I know many women who have said the same thing to me. "I didn't like *insert movie title* because you didn't see anything." Several of my female friends didn't like "The Blair Witch Project" because you never see the witch. The same ones question why I still find "The Exorcist" scary, but not "The Ring." True as it may be that young males in general do get more out of films like that, but "Ichi the Killer" was recommended to me by several females who loved it.
I just think in general Miike likes to push buttons and push the limits. Each film pushes different limits. Some may be the limits of an audience's ability to understand the story, like "Audition (Oodishon)"...even though he says in the commentary that the torture scene in the end is reality and that the dream was the interlude when he is back in the hotel room, it's still a movie open for interpretation...and in the translated commentary, Miike does say "his reality" as opposed to actual reality. Meaning, it might be the reality of the main character, which may or may not be reality at all. So, in the end, the question could still be asked, even though he does give an answer. "Ichi the Killer" pushes the limits of the audience's ability to stomach what many people probably would not expect to like.
