Important Ryuichi Hiroki - Japan's Hidden Gem

[plsletitrain]

Someone pick me up. I think I just fell from my chair after hearing "He was good enough to eat but he ended up consuming me"

===========================

I just finished watching Vibrator and wow, Hiroki is definitely not joining Wong Kar-wai.

What was I saying about the lead characters being lovely. There's just 2 characters in this and they nailed it! Hiroki just used two actors and a trailer van and he nailed it! Their conversations felt so casual and real you'd think you were watching a docu.

What I love most in the film (aside from the music) is the written thought bubbles he made. I love movies that give us homeworks to ponder, but reading her thoughts to herself was a breath of fresh air. Reading her lines of love and doubt was I think much better than her saying it straight from the mouth. There's so many quotable quotes here, if I wasn't too lazy, I'd jot them down.

The lead actress was exceptional. Sitenoise movie elements of long shots of driving and a shaky cam are all present here.

 

[plsletitrain]

I think I just saw a SAK in M. I'll call mom because this requires parental guidance.

 

[plsletitrain]

M [2006] • Japan
Directed by: Ryuichi Hiroki​

A whole lot of twisted psycho-sexual drama going on here. A young woman has this made up story in her head about when she was a kid and her neighbor's father shagged her mom, inducing her to start dating the boy next door as an excuse to get close to the father, but when the boy finds out the truth of her motivation he kills his mom and dad--and she feels complicit. To atone for this Freudian guilt over something that didn't happen she takes on a Yakuza pimp, in that fucked up way that people do, to mistreat and abuse her, in that fucked up way that people do. We are given the possibility that all of these things are just fantasies of the young woman's impotent but well-meaning husband, but so what? What if? Doesn't change much of the experience for the viewer.

Meanwhile, a young man who really did kill his own father, and participated in a gang rape of his mother, wants to save the young woman from the Yakuza pimp so a bunch of drama takes place amongst the three of them. The whole thing comes off less like an exploration of psycho-sexual weirdness or repressed and imagined memories, and more like a director's fantasy of seeing how far he can go in abusing a young actress. Kinda creepy, imo.

Single-name actress Miwon, undoubtedly a pseudonym, is quite fetching as the protagonist, exuding a screen presence that's both strong and vulnerable. This is her only screen credit so I wonder if she has acted, or is acting, under a different name, or if the experience of making this film put a great big damper on any hopes she had of making it a career. Miwon is also known as Yuko Takashima and Yuko Ashizawa. View attachment 6756

Director Ryuichi Hiroki's extensive filmography is all over the place. From soft-core pink films to highly regarded film festival winners like Vibrator and It's Only Talk to innocent young love stories like April Bride and the Love on Sunday films. He's pretty good at what he does but I think he goes a little too far here in heaping on the abuse without enough consideration of real reasons for why it's happening.

View attachment 6757​

I think the movie quite offered a good insight but it got lost and covered behind the pimping and sex scenes. I think the movie had so much more potential when it didn't devote too much screen time on the sex scenes and when Hiroki hired a more appealing actress. Miwon is beautiful, but she looks like a paper. No life. No charm. Just a face. Poster girl, if that's what called of it. Totally the opposite of Vibrator girl (sorry I just can't memorize their names). If the movie doesn't keep you awake, the sex scenes will.

I think I liked M more than you, but I prefer Vibrator. Vibrator is the right mixture of everything. M had potential, but got lost on the execution.

Kudos to the guy who played Minoru. He totally looked the part.

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I spotted several Hiroki trademarks after seeing three of his films:

• I notice he likes to put an alternative, a confusion to the character's stories so as to, I don't know, probably to offer another insight. Not to confuse the viewers because the whole movie negates these lines. For example, in Vibrator, in the end, Rei told the guy that there was no one in the apartment waiting for her. That she was just kidding. He then retorted that he is not married, that he doesn't have a kid, and that he doesn't have a stalker. In M, the story of Tetsu was again belied by the lead girl.
• I also noticed he likes to use the start scene as the ending scene. Like with Strobe Edge which I previously mentioned. In M, in the start scene, there's the two of them in the car, with her monologue. In the end, its the same shot of them in the car, with the same message, albeit different wordings.
• He really likes to capture moving vehicles.
• He uses such cool instrumental music. Most of which is a string instrument, not sure if its a ukelele.

 

[plsletitrain]

Just for the laughs: Vibrator guy is the husband/father in M. It so happens that his role in Vibrator is he's married, and coincidentally, has a child too. (I forgot if he ever mentioned if his kid was a boy or a girl). Did husband/father in Vibrator decide to go blonde and shifted careers to become truck driver?

 

[sitenoise]

"I don't trust people I can't touch"

You could watch almost any film with Vibrator Girl - Shinobu Terajima - and you'd probably like it. She's a pretty special actress, but she has been in some bad movies.
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So ... have you had enough Hiroki? He does have a real pancreas movie with fatal disease, marry-me-before-I-die tearjerkiness. April Bride. I think it's his biggest money maker. I didn't like it too much, but you might. And/or ... if you want to know ... I've punted three of his films: The Egoists - Crying 100 Times -Every Raindrop Falls - The Lightning Tree.

I've got one of his latest in queue for this week which I have high hopes for - Side Job

I agree with you on M.

 

[plsletitrain]

So ... have you had enough Hiroki?

I like him, I'm willing to explore him more. But probably after some time. I have this patience of a child that I can't go on a watching streak from the same director or the same actress for the longest time. I think the most I can muster is, around 5 movies.

I think I might like April Bride (I don't know why I still watch those fatal disease, marry-me-before-I-die drama movies when I should just enjoy my time watching My Little Pony where everything is just sunshine and rainbows). Crying 100 times sounds promising too so I might give it a shot.

Side Job sounds good too. I'll watch it after I watch April Bride and Crying 100 times.

 

[sitenoise]

Side Job (Kanojo no jinsei wa machigaijanai) aka Her Life is Not at Fault [2017] • Japan
Directed by Ryuichi Hiroki​

A Fukushima pity party. Can't blame the guy, though, Fukushima is his hometown. And/but, as far as it being a worthwhile portrait of survivors, it's a bit lugubrious.

This is one for @plsletitrain to run far far away from. I loved all the long shots of people in moving vehicles staring pensively out the window. And there's a lot of them. A lot of them. A lot of really long, silent shots of people in moving vehicles staring pensively out the window. I loved them. And Huroki's choice of music is superb--a cross between Brian Eno and Eric Satie. It's only when people opened their mouths I found myself bored. Hiroki's River suffers from this same fate. Again, like Sono, Hiroki makes films that are important to him about stuff ... well, it's not that it isn't important to me. It's just not done well. People screaming, trying to be emo. It's the fog that happens when a writer/director tries to force things onto characters in a film for the sake of making a point or telling a story. "Yeah, farming isn't really an option for you farmers any more. Yes, I can sell you a cemetery plot, but you can't bury your bones here because they are contaminated." I'm so bummed out by this Wikipedia Article dialog.

So how was the lead actress? Kumi Takiuchi. She's great at staring pensively out the window of a moving vehicle, but she doesn't cry well and her eating-acting chops are not worth writing home about. Hiroki has her perform the exact same sex scene as Lee Eun-woo does in Kabukicho Love Hotel. The one where she masturbates a client while riding his balls (because hostess rules prevent them from fucking). Not even close! Lee Eun-woo made you want to download in your pants. Kumi Takiuchi made you want your money back. Her agent should have noticed this and demanded the scene be cut. I enjoyed her for the most part but she basically let Hiroki call the shots to make her look good. She just responded. She didn't bring her A-game and take control of the situation. She didn't force the film to reckon with her the way top-tier actresses do.

So, a bit of a let down. It's a beautiful film. Lovely in so many ways, but it's two hour run time is too much. If all the speeches of sorrow were cut out, and the film were left as a portrait of people in moving vehicles staring pensively out the window, it would have kicked buttocks. As it stands, I'll never want to watch it again. It's an "Oh no, don't shoot! Oh man, that was a terrible shot. What were you thinking?"

​

 

[plsletitrain]

I loved all the long shots of people in moving vehicles staring pensively out the window. And there's a lot of them. A lot of them. A lot of really long, silent shots of people in moving vehicles staring pensively out the window. I loved them. If all the speeches of sorrow were cut out, and the film were left as a portrait of people in moving vehicles staring pensively out the window, it would have kicked buttocks.​

*shakes head* *scratches head*

This is one sitenoise movie characteristic I still have to work on. I know that you've got weird eyes but what exactly is so fascinating about people staring out the window. I really wonder what you see in it, do you see things I don't? Is there a cute puppy she's staring at? The reason why I really can't understand this is because I can't see the character while doing that scene. She's staring outside the window while the vehicle is moving. She could be thinking how deep life is, or what she had for breakfast, or how big is her paycheck in the film, or when's the director calling "cut!". Vibrator girl was excused because she had thought bubbles. And her character was someone who didn't have a voice (so its understandable if all she did whole day was stare out the window). But she had thought bubbles. I love you, I love you, I love you. Don't make me sad. I knew what she felt. But someone staring out the window? The most I can manage is around 15 seconds I guess. More than that, goodbye. There's a greater chance of me thinking about another movie during that time frame than that movie making me think about it.

 

[sitenoise]

... or what she had for breakfast, or how big is her paycheck in the film, or when's the director calling "cut!".

I can't explain it, but if she is thinking about one of those things the scene won't work and I won't like it.

It's just one of those things that some folks can find resonance with while others will not. Like I can't for the life of me understand why people enjoy watching someone drive a car real fast while it makes really loud annoying screechy sounds. Or even worse, how people can enjoy listening to grown men make loud annoying grunting man sounds while pretending to hit one another. It boggles the mind

 

[plsletitrain]

Like I can't for the life of me understand why people enjoy watching someone drive a car real fast while it makes really loud annoying screechy sounds. Or even worse, how people can enjoy listening to grown men make loud annoying grunting man sounds while pretending to hit one another.

Hahahaha! Yeah..............................

Wait, I think I'm one of those people. Hehehehe. To each his own. That's why there should be added another genre of movies, sitenoise movies. There's a pattern.

 

[plsletitrain]

I also can't for the life of me understand why someone I know prefers posters over trailers in judging on whether a film is watchable or not. Trailers are more representative of the film because it gives you an overview of the film in about 3 minutes. The whole 3 minutes could speak of what the film is about, the texture of the film, etc. Whereas a poster could speak a thousand words, you can come up with a million stories based on it, so how does it give you an overview of what the film is. Like for example, this M. Basing on the poster, I would have thought that the story is about a boyband member who saw her soulmate in the person of another cat girl group member and dad isn't too happy about it. Totally not what the film is all about. (I'm just teasing you by the way hehe, no need to take me seriously).

 

[sitenoise]

Trailers are more representative of the film

Trailers, way more often than not, give a false impression of what the film is like/about, what its texture is. Like A Quiet Dream trailer that made it look like a slapstick comedy. False advertising.

I don't look to posters to tell me what the film is about. Mostly I look at them to rule out movies. Two of most the popular genres of movies are action, and dumb comedies. So if a poster has a picture of a guy looking tough pointing a gun I can dismiss the movie. If it has one or more people making a stupid face, like "come see how much fun I'm having acting stupid", I can dismiss it. That's 90% of movies.

I prefer posters (and this is true of music album covers as well) that don't include people. If the poster is artful on its own, all the better. It's not trying to sell you fakery, acting!

You could say that a photo of someone looking pensive, staring off into space is stupid--and that it suggests a kind of movie you wouldn't like. That's what I'm saying. It's pretty easy to judge what kind of movie you're going to get by the poster.

If you go look at the posters pages for my favorite movies at letterboxd , out of hundreds of movies there's ONE gun (Men in Black doesn't count), maybe two or three stupid faces (it took me many years to get around to watching 40 Year Old Virgin because of the almost stupid face).

 

[plsletitrain]

Trailers, way more often than not, give a false impression of what the film is like/about, what its texture is. Like A Quiet Dream trailer that made it look like a slapstick comedy. False advertising.

I don't look to posters to tell me what the film is about. Mostly I look at them to rule out movies. Two of most the popular genres of movies are action, and dumb comedies. So if a poster has a picture of a guy looking tough pointing a gun I can dismiss the movie. If it has one or more people making a stupid face, like "come see how much fun I'm having acting stupid", I can dismiss it. That's 90% of movies.

I prefer posters (and this is true of music album covers as well) that don't include people. If the poster is artful on its own, all the better. It's not trying to sell you fakery, acting!

You could say that a photo of someone looking pensive, staring off into space is stupid--and that it suggests a kind of movie you wouldn't like. That's what I'm saying. It's pretty easy to judge what kind of movie you're going to get by the poster.

If you go look at the posters pages for my favorite movies at letterboxd , out of hundreds of movies there's ONE gun (Men in Black doesn't count), maybe two or three stupid faces (it took me many years to get around to watching 40 Year Old Virgin because of the almost stupid face).

Point well-taken. I understand what you mean, although I really don't get it or can't accept it as my own basis. To each his own. :( I told you I was just teasing, you didn't have to explain yourself. I could question your tastes and judgment all the time but you shouldn't feel obliged to explain yourself. Its good though, at least I know where you're coming from. And I would know how you feel. Not just you staring out the window pensively.

 

[clayton-12]

... by sex movie I mean they center on a woman where sexuality is a large part of what occupies them ... More or less this is how I would break them down (of the ones I've seen):
Sex movies: Vibrator, ...

Okay, so I finished Vibrator early last week, but I haven't come back and posted anything, because it's been so damn hard to work out where I should begin to try and express my thoughts. Even to try and explain what little of a plot there is - a schizo chick hooks up with a trucker at the bottle shop, then on a whim decides to go with him on a cross-country trip to get some tyres, and along the way they talk endlessly about CB radios - just sounds facetious.

I guess the opening has to be the title. If it wasn’t for this forum, and this thread, I doubt I would have ever sat down and watched a film called Vibrator, if for no other reason than the title sounds, at the best, tacky. I mean, c’mon, is that supposed to be the name of a film or a genre? Most reviews I've read have felt obliged to tackle the title, mumbling something about the vibration of the phone that doesn't get answered, or the vibration of the engine of the truck - but I think it's meant to be exactly what everyone thinks of when they see the title. It's a confronting title (and all the more confronting because there's nothing of the sort actually in the film) that brings into sharp focus the difference between physical pleasure and physical intimacy. "I don't trust people I can't touch" wasn't about having sex, it was about the depth of a relationship.

You said Hiroki never sets out to make a masterpiece - well, if that's the case, he damn well stumbled into an accidental one here. It was hard slog getting through, not because it's difficult to watch, but because every 15 minutes or so I thought to myself, "Wow, that was so good I want to watch it again. Now."

 

[sitenoise]

@clayton-12 I'm really happy you enjoyed Vibrator. I think it's the film most would rate as his 'masterpiece', whether it counts as a real masterpiece or not. I think it has a lot to do with Shinobu Terajima. She's something. As the title of the thread "Japan's Hidden Gem". I don't think many (anyone?) would describe Hiroki as an 'auteur' director. And he escaped the radar of someone as well-versed in Japanese cinema as comrade @Daniel Larusso.

I'm going to keep posting reviews of his films that I've seen, maybe another will intrigue you. As you probably can surmise, I think he's ... well, I've seen 21 (plus three punts) of his movies. I'm still surprised by that.

 

[Daniel Larusso]

I saw 3 movies... I Am an S+M Writer, Vibrator and Tokyo Trash Baby,

My opinion so far is that Hiroki knows how to write about troubled characters and each of these films have a very unique feeling. He reminds of Sion Sono. I found his films slow at first, but I'm warming up to his style now. I'll definitely watch all his movies.

My ratings (in order of watch):

Yellow Elephant - 6/10
Tokyo Trash Baby - 6/10
Vibrator - 7/10
I Am an S+M Writer - 7/10

Vibrator is my favourite so far. Beautiful relationship between main characters.
I Am an S+M Writer is so funny.
Tokyo Trash Baby has interesting ideas, but I'll forget it in a few weeks.
Yellow Elephant felt generic, saw it years ago and can't remember anything,

 

[Daniel Larusso]

I just finished Last Words (2007) and so far it's my favourite movie from this director. Horikita Maki wandering around in countryside Japan+relaxing music is a wonderful combination. The fact that I just left my hometown again to work outside got me in the right mood to watch it. On top of that my hometown is near the ocean as well. I only noticed that it was a sequel after watching it, so it works on its own. 8/10

And yesterday I watched M. What the fuck! This is such a psycho drama! It's crazy fun and my 2nd favourite movie from this director. I've finally warmed up to his style to watch his entire filmography. 7/10

A few weeks ago I watched Girlfriend and L'amant, but none of those had any impact one me. Rated both 5/10 and 3/10.

 

[sitenoise]

Last Words is my favorite of his "Pure Love" films. It's not really a sequel, nothing connected about it. I believe he was hired up, along with a bunch of Directors to make films with "Farewell" as the theme. It's just so easy for him to make films, he made two of them. :)

I liked Strobe Edge but I don't think you'll find much to enjoy in the rest of his pure love offerings

M is some crazy stuff.

 

[Daniel Larusso]

Seen a few more!

It’s Only Talk
Didn't have much impact on me. Felt a bit too long.
6/10

Strobe Edge
Pretty cute teen romance. Made me care so much for these caracters, Everything is so pretty to look at.
8/10

River
VERY interesting concept. Following the character walking around in Akihabara brings me back memories.
8/10

Love on Sunday
At this point I can say that I enjoy Hiroki's style a lot. He puts so much emotion in his characters, they feel so real.
With that said, I was really curious to see how Hiroki would handle a pre-teen romance/drama and I was amazed.
Hiroki cares about these kids as they were adults and gives them the time to express everything they feel in their world.
On top of that, the kids' acting is so good.
I'm so happy that I've seen this. One of my favourites from Hiroki and also my favourite film in this genre.
8/10

 

[sitenoise]

You've hit the two things I think make Hiroki a gem:

1. He's a master craftsman in that he knows how to frame shots and how to light a film and make it (and the females) look good.
   
2. He cares A LOT about giving characters DEPTH. Seems way more important to him than plot. And he seems able to get it out of both kids and adults

I'm on pins and needles how you are going to respond to Kabukichô Love Hotel. It's his Love Exposure, imo.
@plsletitrain didn't like it :(