Along with watching “The Foreign Duck, The Native Duck And God” I’ve also been distracting myself with an old animated show from Japan called Basilisk. It was reviewed recently on AnimeTV and having never heard of it before I thought I’d consider checking it out.

To be honest, I’ve not been especially interested in Animé series other than “Neon Genesis Evangelion” which seems to be a master-work of a lot of the themes and ideas that subsequent series and films have evolved from.

So Basilisk is it any good? Well I would say it definitely, apparently it’s based loosely on the true story of fighting factions in feudal Japan. It’s also produced by the same studio that created “Afro Samurai” which along with the recommendation by AnimeTV encouraged me to give the series a go. So if you like the idea of watching Ninjas flipping out and stuff, you’ll certainly enjoy this. Seriously, Ninjas flipping out!!!

On the three hour train journey back to Sheffield from London, I decided that I’d fill the time with a film. I’ve been sitting on “The Foreign Duck, The Native Duck And God” for a while now. I only picked it up on the loose decision that it briefly features Ryuhei Matsuda whom for the most part tends to be involved in interesting projects.

So I’ve allowed it to sit until an appropriate moment showed up. Like many Japanese films it has a slow pace and a somewhat expected but nevertheless curious turn of events that sets it apart from some of the duller films I saw back in February at the Japan Foundation film tour, ‘Girls On Film‘. For that reason, I would say it’s worth trying to track down if you’re a fan of Japanese cinema. That is all kids!

The Guardian report that Jonny Greenwood from my favourite band, Radiohead will make a return to film scoring. He’d previously worked on “There Will Be Blood”, for which he received a Grammy-nomination. What’s the new film he’s working for, well it’s none other than Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami which is being directed by Anh Hung Tran. The film isn’t due for release until December in Japan. However so far it all looks like it’s going to be a very promising production.

(Thanks, TokyoMango)

The McG, Takashi Murakami and Kirsten Dunst collaboration video has finally surfaced online. I found it through Trends In Japan, check it out (if only to check out Kirsten Dunst, I’ve had a crush on her since forever).

The creative video sharing website, Vimeo compiled a list of their favourite user creations from last year, some of them are absolutely gorgeous. Below are some of my favourites.

Much like the iPhone, I wasn’t quite convinced with Apple’s first attempt although I would still have described it as a ‘game-changer‘. It wasn’t until subsequent iterations and more importantly the App Store that the iPhone really blossomed. Similarly then, although I’m not convinced by the iPad, the promise of unique applications with innovative interfaces certainly appeals to me.

One such application is Panelfly, a digital comic book reader, I’ve already succumbed to reading comic books using my computer but have always found this to be a clunky half-measure interface. I have acquired the seminal Manga series Akira. I love the movie but have been told several times that the original comic book source material expands and clarifies some of the sketchier moments of the film. An iPad running this software to read Akira seems like an awesome way to get through the thousands of pages it spans.

Before I leave you, I’ll leave you some recommendations based on what I’ve enjoyed, Katsuhiro Otomo’s earlier work on Domu is fantastic as is Monster by Naoki Urusawa. I thought Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata was awesome along with The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman and finally if you haven’t already The Watchmen by Alan Moore which Time includes in it’s list of 100 greatest works of fiction ever created.

Akira belongs in my list of top ten films of all time, straddling somewhere near the very precipice, it’s certainly my favourite animation ever created. A lot of people have been inspired by Akira and one fan in particular hopes to set up an exhibition to honour some of the pain staking work to create the film. Watch his video below and sponsor him if you can afford it!

You may vaguely remember me talking about the news that Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, was soon to be turned into a film by Tran Anh Hung.

Since then not much has been heard about the production until now, with Wildgrounds coming to the rescue with some stills from the set.

Visually, Hung seems to have captured the right mood of the time and place of the story, although having never seen any of his previous work I’ve no idea about how good a film maker he is however the consensus generally is positive. I’ll use this as motivation to check out one of his earlier films. Check out the rest of the photos below.

Are you excited, if you haven’t already make sure you read the book first. It reminded me a lot of one of my favourite books of all time, The Catcher In The Rye.

Love Exposure is the latest film by Sion Sono, it caught my attention as it has received quite a lot of praise and won prizes at the Berlin Film Festival. Twitchfilm called it the best film of the year. It’s been released in the UK by Third Window Films.

So onto the film, it runs for almost four hours and it took me two sittings to get through it, it starts off fairly strong but it’s not too soon before it turns frankly ridiculous. Perhaps it’s a sign of my age but where once I found the quirkiness of Japanese films entertaining they’ve quickly lost their appeal. This isn’t to say it’s a terrible film, it’s not bad and brings up some interesting thoughts about love and religion but the second half quickly slips into a drag leading to a very unlikely and unconvincing conclusion.

I would say it’s probably worth watching if you’re a fan of Japanese films and it has an excellent soundtrack but otherwise you’re not missing anything if you skip this.