3 Best Movies to Watch From Shochiku

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, 2008

In 2009, Departures surprised everybody by winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, instead of everyone's favourite, Ari Folman's Waltz of Bashir. This is even more surprising since this Japanese comedy almost never saw the light of day because many distributors refused to release it at first for its humorous treatment of a very human, but weirdly taboo subject: what happens when you die. Daigo Kobayashi (played by former boyband member Masahiro Motoki) just bought an expensive cello when he learns that his Tokyo-based symphony orchestra is going bankrupt. Daigo and his wife Mika, played by Ryôko Hirosue, decide to move back to his hometown, where he applies for an opening at what he thinks is a travel agency, hence the departures. You might have guessed by now that what he was applying for was, in fact, the job of an undertaker—a profession considered unclean in Japan. It's one of those rare movies that will make you laugh, to making you cry, and laugh again. It's dead-on!

Genre: Drama

Actor: Justin Lukach, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Kimiko Yo, Maisie Williams, Masahiro Motoki, Nina Dobrev, Ryoko Hirosue, Ryosuke Otani, Sanae Miyata, Scott Wilson, Takashi Sasano, Taro Ishida, Tatsuo Yamada, Tetta Sugimoto, Tōru Minegishi, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Tyler Hoechlin, Yukari Tachibana

Director: Yōjirō Takita

Rating: PG-13

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, 1995

Best known for landmark cyberpunk anime Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo crafted strange and terrifying visions of a world that has not yet come, imagining technology that surpassed that of today, but in much pessimistic light compared to that of the genre. Three of his manga short stories are depicted in Memories, with Otomo partnering with Kōji Morimoto and Tensai Okamura to direct each segment, and with Satoshi Kon in writing, just before Kon’s own iconic surrealist films. Kon-written Magnetic Rose has been universally acknowledged as the best of them, being much more emotionally poignant, but the other two does have its charms, as Stink Bomb takes a relatively silly premise to its fairly logical, but scary conclusion, and Cannon Fodder takes the beauty of Otomo’s art into such a hollow and ugly world. All three deliver terrifying omens of death through technology used against the everyday man, whether by accident or design.

Genre: Animation, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Actor: Ami Hasegawa, Gara Takashima, Hidetoshi Nakamura, Hideyuki Hori, Hisako Kyoda, Hisao Egawa, Kayoko Fujii, Keaton Yamada, Keiko Yamamoto, Kenichi Ogata, Koichi Yamadera, Masato Hirano, Michio Hazama, Nobuaki Fukuda, Osamu Saka, Ryoichi Tanaka, Ryuji Nakagi, Shigeru Chiba, Shozo Iizuka, Takkô Ishimori, Tetsuya Iwanaga, Tomoko Ishimura, Tsutomu Isobe, Yuu Hayashi

Director: Katsuhiro Otomo, Koji Morimoto, Tensai Okamura

Rating: PG-13

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Shot from the movie

, 1998

Written like a stage play, directed like the viewer is a fly on the wall, and shot with a love for deep shadows and warm candlelight, Flowers of Shanghai is about as immersive a chamber drama as one could ask for. Having most of the "action" take place off screen, director Hou Hsiao-hsien draws our eye instead to how his characters (including one played by an exceptionally stoic Tony Leung) continue to negotiate for their own freedom against patriarchal norms, pushing against cultural notions of proper decorum. It's a film brimming with repressed emotion, but without ever raising its voice. The vibes, as the kids say, are immaculate.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Annie Shizuka Inoh, Carina Lau, Jack Kao, Michelle Reis, Michiko Hada, Moon Wang, Pauline Chan, Rebecca Pan, Stephanie Fong Shuan, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Vicky Wei

Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien

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