Tokyo Blog

Tokyo rapper Chinza Dopeness’ unique style is new to my ears, but I’m going to get the album as a result of listening to this. Via Shane Lester’s Vimeo.

It’s pretty amazing what Google has done in a relatively short time, and Nick Scott Studio’s animated story of the companies rise to ubiquity is a great way to visualise it for yourself. What next indeed?

Musical Interlude. I couldn’t find any videos worthy of showcasing the fine electronic music produced by Susumu Yokota, so I made my own. The track is Azukiiro No Kaori by Susumu Yokota from his Sakura album. All of the footage was shot Autumn/Winter 2008 and Autumn 2009.

Romance Car VSE 50000 to Hakone from Stephen Smith on Vimeo.

But, this time, I’m riding the weird Romance Car from Shinjuku to Hakone. In this train, passengers see through the front window and not the driver. Actually, he’s in a cockpit on the roof, not dissimilar to the shape of that on a fighter jet. If you go onto my vimeo now, there’s a bunch of other videos taken from the train. More views of the outlying areas of Tokyo and beyond.

There’s a new Tron movie coming out from Disney Pictures and I can’t wait to see it. It’s going to be released at ’selected cinemas’ - which probably means iMax. Whatever, I want to see it, not least because Jeff Bridges is back, but also because the bikes are back. Check out this teaser scene. My only gripe so far is that the bikes don’t turn at right angles any more and the filmmakers missed out on a golden opportunity to bring together modern special effects and a retro aesthetic. Instead, it’s all smooth and shiny and reflective with no repeated geometric patterns to mention. Via Motionographer

Train Through Tokyo II from Stephen Smith on Vimeo.

This is a video I shot during a train ride from the center of Tokyo to the airport (1hr 20mins or so away). It gives a good impression of the Tokyo cityscape, the buildings, logos and colours of the city rushing by. There’s also a few more videos from this series on my Vimeo.

I watched Okuribito last night. I don’t know why I hadn’t watched it before really considering all the hype - and I love Japanese cinema. It’s actually a hugely satisfying movie with a score by Joe Hisaishi, for which he delivers his masterpiece. I’m not going to go on at length about the poetic, philosophical and uniquely Japanese qualities of the movie, but just recommend it to everyone as a film you have got to see (before you die).

Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company are now planning a live action Ninja Scroll to accompany their existing anime adaptation of the epic Akira. He’s looking to get SMAP (a J-Pop all boy singing group) to act in the movie, so it’s looking positive in the sense that he actually wants to cast Japanese actors in the roles of actual Japanese people - seems obvious to most of us I guess, but not to Hollywood’s casting agents it would seem judging by the recently released Dragonball Evolution movie. I’m semi-positive about this, but it still baffles me how they are going to match the provocative, ultra-violent, psychedelic qualities of the 90’s original. Time will tell I guess.

I saw the first of these trailers for this new Japanese B-movie featuring Rina Takeda but never posted about it, but since then, several new promos have surfaced - this one being my personal favourite! Enjoy, and then be sure to catch the movie when it comes out!

This 1985 documentary by the writer, photographer and filmmaker, Wim Wenders is particularly relevant I think. My blog is named after the seminal 1953 movie, Tokyo Story by Ozu Yasujiro. In this documentary Wim Wenders goes in search of Ozu’s past collaborators, friends and family and tries to trace the cultural meanings of his films in what was then modern Tokyo at the beginning of the Japanese economic bubble in 1983. Despite the film being almost 25 years old, I can still identify with some of the experiences and, other than the urban landscape, little seems to have changed in Tokyo: Rockabillies still dance in the park on Sundays, salarymen still load balls into pachinko machines and Japanese customs and traditions continue to pervade society. It also struck me that the age of the film only seemed to increase the poignancy of the subject matter. What you see above is only a short excerpt of this masterpiece documentary, but the full version can still be found in places other than YouTube for those determined enough to seek it out. I thoroughly recommend doing so.

Happy Up Here from Röyksopp on Vimeo.

The norwegian electronic music duo Röyksopp have a new video directed by Rueben Sutherland. It involves pieces of a city coming together and arraying like pixels to form a game of space invaders in the night sky. Sweet.

My friend Trent McBride sent me a link to this new animation by Japanese Motion Graphics Company, Wow. It’s an exploration of typography and the Japanese art of Ikebana, or flower arranging. For me, it’s a load of really nice zenned-out visual effects set to a soothing backing track. I’m a sucker for such things, and definitely a new fan of Wow.

There’s been some new output from Tokyo Plastic recently, in the form of two short animations. I wasn’t keen on The Electric Koi, but there was something satisfyingly 90’s about their other offering The Praying Machine. It’s a piece of animation set to decidedly Photek-inspired music. There isn’t much meat to the plot, but it’s good visual nourishment in the Tokyo Plastic style rendered in a mix of cell-shaded 3D and illustrations. Have a look.

It’s been out since July 22nd on DVD, but I still haven’t seen it, and yes, it’s yet another film about Tokyo! I have no idea how good the film is, but it seems to have received a few positive reviews and the clips I’ve seen look promising. Now I’m living in Tokyo, I have less of an urge to watch films about the city. Before, I used to scour the TV guide in the UK for anything relating to Tokyo, Japanese design, etc., and I’d always enjoy watching movies featuring Tokyo. Lost in Translation is the obvious example, but I love watching Kitano or Miike flicks too, because they were often set in Tokyo.

UPDATE: As andersdu points out below, this film is not set in Tokyo at all, but set in Japantown in San Jose! Still wanna watch it though.

Tokyo! is a new film recently released about, well, Tokyo.

I don’t know why I didn’t post about it before. I’ve known about it for a while, forgotten about it, and was reminded of it when it launched in cinemas across Japan recently. A friend of mine went to see it, but struggled with the fact that there were no English subs. Our Japanese is OK, but not good enough to understand dialogue in a Japanese film. I’ve yet to see it. I might wait until it comes to DVD so I can get the English subs.

To whet your interest though: the film consists of 3, half-hour segments, each one directed by a different director. The three being Bong Joon-Ho, Michel Gondry and Leos Carax. I won’t go into the individual storylines. Instead, I will direct you to PingMag’s excellent article on the film.