Some time in the last few years I got a lot less picky about what kind of films I would 
watch. I think it happened when I started massively ramping up the number of films I watch in general. While I might sink tens of hours into a game and would want that time to be well spent, a film is usually over in a couple of hours, and if I didn’t like it, I’d probably be watching another film later that week – perhaps even later that day. And as I’ve written before, even if I walk away from a film disappointed, there’s probably still something that I can take from it. Wolf Guy (1975) is just such a film. I wanted something ‘special’ for the 100th film I was going to watch in 2018 and after spending some time trying to decide on an unseen classic or an old favourite, I decided I’d procrastinated enough on the decision and just grabbed the most bonkers-looking Arrow Video release off my shelf that I’d yet to watch.
Tag: Sonny Chiba
Review: Doberman Cop (1977)
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a small town cop arrives in the big city to help solve a crime with links to his home. Except in Kinji Fukasaku’s Doberman Cop (1977), that rural detective is Shinichi “Sonny” Chiba, and he rolls into Tokyo’s Kabukicho entertainment district with his straw hat and delightful piglet in tow.
What follows is a remarkable police thriller closer in feel to an ‘80s action film that Fukasaku’s earlier jitsuroku work – more Lethal Weapon than Battles Without Honour and Humanity. Only very loosely based on the manga of the same name by ‘Bronson’, it’s an eclectic mix of action, comedy, martial arts, and grisly crime drama; a film that should result in complete tonal whiplash, but somehow comes together into an off kilter but satisfying, cohesive whole.
Bonus Review: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
If I had to pick a movie as a guilty pleasure, I might choose The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) – except I don’t feel guilty at all, because I love this movie. The third 
instalment in the now massive, globe-trotting franchise, back in the mid-2000s the future of the series seemed in jeopardy: Vin Diesel had left after one film, Paul Walker after the second. Tokyo Drift was essentially a Hail Mary soft reboot with an all-new cast that transplanted the action to Tokyo, and swapped street races for suitably Japan-inspired drifting.
While the focus of this blog is, and will remain, on Japanese cinema, my tastes are eclectic. I love all kinds of movies, and sometimes, I’ll feature them here if they have some suitable hook – maybe they’re set in Japan, or from a Japanese director working on a foreign production, or it’s a remake of a Japanese movie. In the case of Tokyo Drift, I’m using the location and a scenery-chewing appearance by Sonny Chiba as an excuse.
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Kino 893 