Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Revolution+1 2022

  ★★★★★ Watched 05 Mar 2025

  A beautiful boiling pot of rage and sharp political commentary. Tamoto’s performance is enchantingly visceral, with each angry scream or bitter utterance brimming with a lust for vengeance. The abstract vignettes are clever, and work to sink us deeper into Kawakami’s/Yamagami’s psyche.

  The main challenge with the work is that while Adachi is sympathetic to Yamagami, he pushes his agenda with nods to the Red Army and takedowns of the LDP in character monologues. But this extreme point of view helps it come together as a groundbreaking piece of revolutionary cinema.

  My full review here: analoghousou.com/2024/03/20/sticking-it-to-the-man-with-a-doohickey-revolution-1/

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  Break Out 1988

  ★★★ Watched 24 Feb 2025

  The peak of Murakawa's hardboiled aesthetic. Everyone speaks with buckets of gravel in their mouth, all problems are solved with fists and bullets, and every location is dusty, dim and busted. The bold usage of exclusively diegetic music also works to further soak you into the world.

  That said, it's basically all style this time around. The story is your typical bad cop tale, and the characters and their relationships aren't quite there. Great if you love Murakawa's hardboiled style, though.

Popular reviews

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  Too Young to Die 1969

  ★★★★ Watched 24 Feb 2025

  Nishimura Kiyoshi delivers a nail-biting little bottle movie in his directorial debut. Tensions remain high throughout, while increasingly bizarre happenings occur that drive the characters further into madness. At just under 90 minutes, it's the appropriate length for its material.

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  Violent Panic: The Big Crash 1976

  ★★★½ Watched 05 Jan 2025

  Fukasaku delivers another down and dirty gangster tale. Opens strong at a breakneck pace, but loses its way in the middle with perhaps three too many subplots. It brings it back at the end though, culminating in an extremely chaotic, but expertly coordinated, "big crash."

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