Japanese Film Series to be Shown in Brattle, USA

The Brattle Film Foundation (BFF), the non-profit organization that
programs and operates the Brattle Theatre, is thrilled to announce
their new film series, No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action & 60s
Japan, running from Friday, April 18th through Thursday, April 24th,
2008.

The label said it all: "Nikkatsu akushon!" Nikkatsu was a Japanese
film studio that had been around since the silent days and akushon
meant "action," written in the katakana syllabary for foreign words.
During their peak in the late 1950s and 1960s, Nikkatsu Action films
evoked a cinematic world neither foreign nor Japanese. It was a mix
of the two, where Japanese tough guys had the swagger, moves, and
even the long legs of Hollywood movie heroes. It was a place where
the Tokyo streets, Yokohama docks, and Hokkaido hills took on an
exciting, exotic aura, as though they were stand-ins for Manhattan,
Marseilles, or even the American West. Where one guy with guts,
smarts, and a pair of quick fists could beat a whole gang of baddies.
One of the most famous progeny of the Nikkatsu Action moment is the
idiosyncratic and colorful director Seijun Suzuki whose bizarre
yakuza tales Branded To Kill and Tokyo Drifter have made him a cult
hero in the US.

In a celebration of these rare and overlooked gems of international B-
movie-making, curators Outcast Cinema have put together a series that
runs the gamut from strange, New Wave-ish youth films to yakuza
epics, and even includes a real Eastern-Western! Eschewing the more
well known Suzuki, Outcast has assembled an exemplary and exciting
batch of films from some of the most outrageous directors and stars
that you've never heard of!

As a complement to the special prints from Nikkatsu, the Brattle is
presenting a brief selection of other films being produced in Japan
in the 1960s… because what would a Japanese action series be without
a Tokyo-terrorizing monster and a samurai or two? Or three?

The lineup features five of the best and most bizarre movies from the
infamous Nikkatsu studio, none of which are available on video in the
US:

A COLT IS MY PASSPORT (1967) A noir-ish thriller, where a hit man and
his buddy whack a prominent gang boss. Deadly complications ensue!

PLAINS WANDERER (1960) Akira Kobayashi plays a traveler on Japan's
back roads with most of the accoutrements of a Western hero – from a
horse to fringes, to a guitar and even a trusty bullwhip.

RED HANDKERCHIEF (1964) Kind of like a Japanese C.S.I. episode, a
disgraced former detective revisits a years-old case to resolve his
doubts about not only his own actions, but the true motives of his
former partner.

VELVET HUSTLER (aka LIKE A SHOOTING STAR) (1967) Velvet Hustler stars
Tesuya Watari as Goro, a Tokyo hitman who likes his women like he
likes his cars: fast and dangerous. Lookout!

THE WARPED ONES (1960) A frantic, black-and-white portrait of youth
culture gone wild. Two ex-cons and their prostitute friend go
completely off the deep end in this stylistic and amoral high-point
of 60s cinema.

DVD SCREENERS W/ENGLISH SUBTITLES ARE AVAILABLE BY REQUEST

The series also includes these other Japanese classics:

BLACK ROSE MANSION (1969) A wealthy playboy installs songbird "Black
Rose" in his elegant private men's club to bolster business - but he
gets more than he bargains for… A feverishly perverse, campy and
baroque freak-out.

DEATH BY HANGING (1968) A bleakly black comedy; a criminal is
sentenced to be hanged but mysteriously survives and, as the guards
and officials present soon find out, has lost all memory of his
crime, trial and eventual fate. Not on video!

HIGH AND LOW (1963) Akira Kurosawa, the seminal Japanese director,
takes us from the spacious hillside apartment of a hotshot Tokyo
businessman, to the lower depths of the city in this neo-noir
thriller.

MOTHRA (1961) Sort of a trippy version of King Kong, featuring a pair
of foot high singing divas whose song is a telepathic call for help
to their island goddess, the gigantic moth creature, MOTHRA.

THREE OUTLAW SAMURAI (1964) A wandering samurai is swayed into
helping some starving farmers who have kidnapped a local lord's
daughter in protest over unfair taxes. In the process, much blood is,
of course, shed.

WOMAN IN THE DUNES (1964) A disquieting examination of power and
sexuality fueled by stunning visual imagery. An entomologist stays
overnight in a small town, only to awaken the next morning to find
himself trapped by encroaching sand dunes. An essential big-screen
experience.

NO BORDERS, NO LIMITS will kick off at the Brattle Theatre on
Friday, April 18th, and continue until Thursday, April 24th. The
Brattle Theatre is located at 40 Brattle Street, in the heart of
Harvard Square. Tickets are $9.50, $7.50 for students and $6.50 for
seniors.

To learn more about NO BORDERS, NO LIMITS, visit the official Brattle
website at http://www.brattlef ilm.org, email info@brattlefilm. org or
call the Brattle Film Foundation office at (617) 876-8021.

Donate to a Worthy Cause in the Philippines

You can donate English books that you have read and are just lying around your home, or you can donate money if you`d like to this school in Zamboanga, on the island of Mindanao. They require English books
and a monetary donation is always appreciated.

Most Filippinos can read and speak English and have studied it from the first grade, so English books are always appreciated.

Donations accepted thru:

Child Development Foundation Inc.
Bethany Child Development Center
Brillantes Compound, Governor Ramos
Zamboanga City, Philippines 7000

Bank of the Philippine Islands
BPI Peso Act. #2121-0108-47 or
BPI US Dollar Act. # 2124-0138-39
Bank Access # BOPIPHMM
Zamboanga City Branch
Philippines

Reasonably Priced International School in Kanagawa

by Clarence Collins

For all you foreigners looking to get your children a good education but can`t
afford the Yokohama International school, have a look here:

http://www.globalindian.org.sg/Default.aspx?alias=www.globalindian.org.sg/jp-yok\
ohama

We went and checked out the open house at the main school in Tokyo today, and it
seems like a very good school at a reasonable price.

The thing is, there doesn`t seem to be enough interest to open the Yokohama
school yet.

My thinking is, get some other foreigners to express interest in this so they
are able to fill the classes and we can all send our kids to get a good
education without taking out a second or third mortgage to pay for it.

Check it out if you have kids, call the school and ask about it... the more we
get in Yokohama that want this, the better chance they will open up.

Clarence Collins

Japanese McDonald`s Tasty Morsels

These McDonald`s delicacies are available in Japan.
Check the video out here.

JAPANESE DOLLS: Boy's Day Festival in Japan

by: Helen Vanderberg

Who wouldn’t be fascinated by the concept of having a whole
festival dedicated to dolls? Dolls are shown in Girl’s Day and Boy’
s Day festivals in Japan, and cherished over the generations. Boy’s
Day dolls can consist of anything from a healthy-looking Sumo
wrestler to a samurai warrior or his armor.

The dolls are usually set up in a hierarchal arrangement in the
family home, meant to show, perhaps, the emperor and empress,
courtiers, handmaidens, and warriors in a social hierarchy in a way
a child can understand. The same approach may ring true with the
carp-shaped banners ranged according to size either on a pole
outside the house. The big fish is daddy, next size down is mother,
the next smallest is elder son or daughter. In the countryside, on a
rope across a river, the fish banners represent the villagers.
Everything has a hidden meaning.

Beside the obvious link with Japanese doll festivals, collecting
dolls has a much deeper psychological basis. It is believed that
ancient Japanese samurai warriors tied cloth mascot dolls underneath
their clothing before going into a particularly ferocious fight.

Whether this is true or not, try this experiment. Walk through the
Cairo Museum in Egypt, turn right, and just beyond where the yellow
flowers were found, still colorful after 2500 years in a pyramid
tomb, you’ll come on the figure of a scribe. He’s almost life-
size, seated cross-legged, and as you swing around the corner his
quartz eyes stare out at you across the centuries, and your heart
turns over with a jolt of recognition.

Further north in Istanbul, touring the museum on Topkapi grounds
above the Bosphorus, you come across the statue of Sappho and the
same sense of recognition hits you. This woman lived. And loved, and
wrote amazing poetry. A human response across the centuries since
Ancient Greece.

Dolls give you this leap of recognition, albeit on a much smaller
scale, and you don’t have to be a rabid doll collector to account
for it. Perhaps it is the human miniature that grabs our
imagination. To find out more about a broad range of Japanese dolls,
go to : http://www.welcome.city.yokohama.jp/eng/doll/4010.html.

To explore these connections further brings us up against questions
of identity. Is it the samurai spirit residing in the young boy’s
heart that needs nourishing? To make a connection with a samurai
doll go to www.boonsby.com.

About The Author


Helen Vanderberg is a novelist, technical writer, copywriter, and an
art appreciator enchanted with things strange or foreign. This
article may be reproduced, provided the author's name and
boonsby.com are included in the reproduction.

hevanderberg@boonsby.com