Soup That Gained Consciousness

Soup that gained consciousness and then watched too many movies. Kaiju, samurai, snow witches and good films of all kinds. Currently simmering in cinema.

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

Andro, thanks so much for your reply. It's great to chat movies with an actual Japanese movie lover! I can't get over the fact that Beast allows its murdering psychopath to escape at the end. Granted there's a suggestion that his girlfriend might tell the truth but given how thoroughly terrified into silence she is by him that prospect seems unlikely to say the least. When the movie finished I was so impressed my first reaction was to check what year it was made. Surely this was a film from the mid or late 1960's? But no, 1959. Yet It's a film that feels years ahead of its time, as if the makers had anticipated the nihilistic currents of popular cinema to come. As you say, also exceptionally crafted. But then I feel that about every Japanese movie of this period!

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

I believe Under the Mango Tree is a tv series. Kenichi is good in The Promise isn't he. He also made a very amusing film about two mismatched burglars called Doubles (2001). He played the old veteran reluctantly teamed with a young computer nerd and their rivalry - especially once they get stuck in a lift between floors - is very entertaining. Satoshi Isaka directed it. Recommended.

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

@5htU0hLQiI62118 Did you see this at the cinema? I have only ever watched it at home but would love to see it on a cinema screen one day. :-)

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

Agreed, beautiful at any age. I remember how astonished I was when she played in Mango no Ki no Shita de (2019) in dual roles as both an 80-something grandmother/survivor of WW2 and her younger (by about 40 years) self! She appears to have achieved this without any kind of digital de-aging or body doubles. It was just her! There was always something ageless about Keiko. Even in her last years she still looked great. My favourite movie of hers is Yakusoku (1971) in which she played a killer on temporary parole from jail. Her performance pulled me in so deeply I must have rewatched that film about 20 times when I first got it. But her performance is brilliant and so subtle and the film's theme of loneliness and isolation - wanting to connect but afraid of what will happen if you do - is universal. Just watch her expressions as Kenichi Hagiwara flirts with her on their train journey together. She doesn't have much dialogue so it's all conveyed through her facial expressions and body language. I have most of director Koichi Saito's films and I think they're all superb. Why he is not better known outside Japan baffles me.

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

@3aG1sbR1AO12166 She is beautiful.

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

I enjoyed Colony, the third zombie pic from Train to Busan writer director Yeon Sang-ho. For me it's not on the level of the previous two films but it's still slick, inventive and entertaining. Yeon is clearly more interested here in the idea of zombies as a living organism, a group consciousness mutating and adapting to its surroundings in ways that compel the humans to constantly switch tactics to survive. It's this more than anything that keeps the viewer's attention. Otherwise too many of the characters feel underwritten and therefore uninvolving, something not helped by the director's complete lack of sentimentality towards killing them off. You never feel you really get to know or like any of these people the way you did Don Lee or that wonderful little girl in Train to Busan. Colony also feels thematically muddled. Ironically its point about the misunderstandings and inability to communicate between people (which turn out to have a very personal connection between heroine and villain) doesn't amount to much more than a shrug from the viewer when finally revealed. The film has lots of intriguing ideas yet it seems beyond Yeon to combine them all into something above the satisfactory yet standard action beats of the modern zombie film. But I do want to emphasize I did enjoy Colony and there's one genuinely shocking moment in it that's probably as much a homage to George Romero's Dawn of the Dead as anything else. I won't spoil it but if you know the 1978 classic you'll recognise it as soon as you see it.
#ColonyFilm

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

Good evening, just time for one more movie. Which one though? #JapaneseCinema

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

I thought the 1960 Japanese train drama Devotion to Railway was wonderful. 😍😍😍 Have you seen it? What did you think?
#Japanesecinema #KanetoShindo #YoshikoSakuma #HideoSekigawa
https://t.co/kL0UQVak2v

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

https://t.co/wapoeakwcx

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

https://t.co/wapoeakwcx

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

Hello Japanese cinema lovers, anyone know this movie?

"...it's an affectionate portrait of the railway employees who do all the heavy lifting keeping the train running and the passengers happy. It's so successful in this that by the end you almost want to go out and enroll as a trainee conductor yourself."
#YoshikoSakuma #KanetoShindo

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

Hello, Japanese movie lovers — any recommendations? Any genre is fine! I just rewatched Yasuzo Masumura's Seisaku's Wife (1965), the startling tale of a wife's intense love overcoming her husband's mindless patriotism, and still love it. Hope you're all doing well.
#Japanesecinema #YasuzoMasumura #AyakoWakao

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

What a fantastic poster. Absolutely love that. Movie posters for so long now lack any kind of style or imagination. It's all just really boring photo enhanced images and this tiresome obsession with corporate branding, so everything looks the same no matter what country it's from. You see something like this and it's a reminder of what movie posters used to be capable of.

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

In a remote town full of murderous locals, two families fight for their lives in Keisuke Kinoshita's blistering anti-war tale, A Legend or Was It?

"So acutely does Kinoshita nail the turbulent feelings here... that you feel like you're being swept away by a tidal wave of emotion."

My full take:
https://t.co/5LBRnjxzno
#keisukekinoshita #Japanesecinema #MarikoKaga

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

https://t.co/yrCmgRLgGC

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

https://t.co/yrCmgRLgGC

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

@3aG1sbR1AO12166 That's a great poster. English movie title is The Four Roughnecks.

[Soup That Gained Consciousness @ConsciousSoup_]

@yuya0240 Thank you, yuya. The pictures are breathtaking 😍