Most important Japanese Movies

I'm an American, and I can list about ten movies that anyone interested in American culture would HAVE to watch & study. So what are ten Japanese movies that are central to understanding Japan & the Japanese? Not the "best" movies... just the most "important." Thanks -- John

any movie from Ozu, especially the ones with Setsuko Hara.

OZU:
late spring, early summer, late autumn, Tokyo story.
NARUSE:
when a woman ascends the stairs, late chrysanthemums, daughters, wiwes and a mother
KITANO TAKESHI
fireworks, Kikujiro, Zatoichi

OZU and NARUSE films are strangely familiar to me. everything is 100 % Japanese but the respect given to the elders,the marriages arranged by relatives, the hard life, even the early 50s, when so many towns still bore the scars of WWII, is the way I was brought up in Western Europe. all the main actors in these movies are great, especially Setsuko Hara. She wasn't conventionally pretty yet can say so much with one look, a small gesture! she is truly an amazing actress, the more so when one knows that it was "only a job" to her and that, at the height of her fame, she just walked away from it all.

Those are some great leads. I did a little research on her and she quit, apparently, when Ozo died. So I guess she didn't want to work for anybody else. Can't wait to see these films.

In no particular order:

Dodeskaden (director Akira Kurosawa)
- Edo style love of the lumpenproletariat

Yellow Hankerchief (Yoji Yamada)
- Japanese sentiment and landscape

The Ballad of Narayama (Shohei Imamura)
- earthiness, Japanese sense of the temporal

Nobody Knows (Hitoshi Kore-eda)
- post-family alienation

Pigs and Battleships (Imamura)
- ethics, cynicism and politics: humorous take

The Human Condition (Masaki Kobayashi)
- ethics, cynicism and politics: literary take

Tales of Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi)
- the spirit world

Ohayo (Yasujiro Ozu)
- ambivalence to modernisation

The Woman of the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara)
- existential anxiety

Seppuku (Masaki Kobayashi)
- pure cinema, making a monkey out of Tarantino

Tokyo Drifter (Seijun Suzuki)
- anti-bourgeois elan, from an era when that mattered

The History of Japan as told by a Tokyo Bar Hostess (Shohei Imamura)

Satomi Hakkenden (Kinji Fukasaku)
- cos I still love Hiroko Yakushimaru

Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (Nagisa Oshima)

Zatoichi (dir. Kenji Misumi)
- the 1962 original

Black Rain (Shohei Imamura)
- the last word on Hiroshima

Grave of Fireflies (Isao Takahata, animation)
- the last word on warfare

Princess Mononoke (Hayao Miyazaki, animation)

and, although not technically Japanese films:
Mishima (dir.Paul Schrader, the heart of the matter)
James Bond: You Only Live Twice (Lewis Gilbert, captures 1960s Japanese sexiness)
Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alain Resnais, profound)
Last Samurai (Ed Zwick, silly scenario but a genuine feel for the Meiji era)

Avoid:
Black Rain (Ridley Scott, stereotype eats stereotype)

sorry, a few more than 10 ....I couldn't stop!
And I could go on and on and on

You've really outlined a japanese film course! Notable exception is Seven Samuari / Roshomon / ran... what's up with that?

Now the next question is where the hell can I get these w/english subtitles?

Again, awesome answer -- just what I had hoped!

How could I forget about Imamura! all the movies from him mentionned in the above post are really great.
I didn't mentionned the Kurosawa movies as I assumed that anyone even midly interested in Japan would have seen them. I forgot that our local cinematheque is perhaps way more open to great foreign movies than many movie houses in other countries. 7 Samourais, Ran, Rashomon, Kagemusha, and many more.. they are all great. I just bought a DVD of "Cafe Lumiere" a 2003 film made by a Taiwanese director as a tribute to Ozu. I saw it during our local film festival a few years back and loved it. it is about ordinary daily events in the life of a young woman in Tokyo but really capture daily life in Tokyo so well!. at the festival screening quite a few young people around us were bewildered, saying : but why does she ride a bike then take a subway then a train, don't they have cars over there?..(I live in North America,on the Pacific West Coast, but not in the USA). as for DVDs with English subtitles...like I said, or didn't, it cost me quite a few $ for one..check on the Internet for a serious dealer, like Indigo

Yasujiro Ozu - Banshun, Tokyo Monogatari. considered the most Japanese of all Japanese Directors.

Kenji Mizoguchi - Ugetsu Monogatari

Akira Kurosawa - Rashomon, Ikiru, Ran, Stray Dog, Seven Samurai

Nagisa Oshima - Realm of the Senses, Realm of Passion

Don't forget films made by Juzo Itami - Ososhiki, Tanpopo, Minbo no Onna

Here's a list of some MUST SEE Japanese films beyond your sterotypical reccomendations-

Throw Out Your Books, Let's Hit The Streets (Sho o suteyo machi e deyou)- an impeccable piece of art cinema shot during the hippie days of the 70s in and around psychadelic drug-heavy Shinjuku

Funeral Parade of Roses (Baru no soretsu)- also art cinema, probably the best film made in Japan or around the world dealing with homosexuality

Tetsuo The Ironman-
Shinya Tsukumoto's masterpiece that opened the doors for Japanese avant-garde

Branded To Kill (Koroshi no rakuin)- honestly, pretty much any Seijun Suzuki film during this era will settle arguments of best yakuza film.

2LDK/Arakami- These films are great because they involved an agreement made by the directors: 2 characters, 1 setting, 1 character has to die, film has to be shot in one week. To see the results is worthy of your time in and of itself.

That's should do for now, but I have tons more "important" suggestions for ya. Good luck and enjoy.

As long as the subject is Japanese film, what did anyone think of Memories of Matsuko and Survive Style 5+ , both from 2006 ?

I thought they were both excellent, and SS5+ was a visual masterpiece and one of the years best.

Anyone have some ideas on best films for Japan so far in 2007?

----

Also, did anyone see the insane Japanese film called Visitor Q?

Wow.

just Wow.

I recommend "Hula Girl" which is fun, heart-warming, and a real feel-good movie.

Thanks, I'll check Hula Girls out.

I will always reccomend Battle Royale to anyone wanting to watch a Japanese film. It's tragic, powerful, moving... superbly soundtracked and shot. Give it a go (altho if you dislike blood, maybe give it a miss)

Certainly anything by Ozu and I would also like to add the following:
+ Ganbatte Ikimasshoi: http://www.geocities.com/seriallain/Ganbatte/

+ The Bad sleep well (Kurosawa)
+ Only Yesterday (Ghibli: Isao Takahata)
+ Whisper of the Heart (Ghibli: MIYAZAKI)

The point of watching or not watching Battle Royale I by Kinji Fukasaku or the sequel is not about the 'blood'. Far more prevalent is the all important subtext of youth, change and authority. Contemporary issues of society are mirrored in both the film and book. The book is now available in English.

please do not forget the very sociological
VISITOR Q
Takashi MIIKE

"The Burmese Harp"
There are two versions,
both directed by Kon Ichikawa,
one was filmed in the 50s and another in the 80s.

The one made in the 80s was a big hit in Japan, and everybody knows this movie.

neither version is better than the book.

And thinking about it, Ichikawa sure did a lot of good films, with a little cheese thrown in. I find myself comparing him to Ron Howard, for some unfathomable reason. maybe because his style is 'no style' Each film is its own thing.

.. Kurosawa's "High and Low."

I don't knoow ehey I had missed it over the years. But 3 days after my first viewing I felt compelled to watch it again, and 3 days later it has burrowed deep into my skull.

I now think it may be his best. Someone noted above that I had not mentioned the Kurosawa classics. Of course I love them, but something in me gets jaded at the adulation that people heap on classics, obscuring all else.

But then you see one of those again, and remember why they became classics in the first place.

H&L is for me the very antithesis of Tarantino-type cinemasturbation. The following link has some good opinions on it. What a flick!

http://www.amazon.com/High-Low-Collection-Toshiro^-Mifune/dp/0780021509

Laughing Buddha, if you liked 'High and Low', you might also like 'Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru' aka 'The Bad Sleep Well' by Kurosawa as well. I loved it and it is beautifully shot. Whenever I read newspaper stories about scandals in Japan, I think of this film.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0054460/