tedg Magical spaces in Hispanically influenced films are easy to locate. We as viewers find it easy to place ourselves there it seems natural. Only Medem challenges.There are three similarly structured magical traditions in modern Japanese films, and I find them tantalizing, sometimes difficult, visceral. This is squarely within one of these traditions, a small unsettling masterpiece. There seem to be many such, films that have not escaped the island. "All About Lily Chou-Cho" is my favorite, but this has a notable reverse fold.A common fold is that of performance in life: we all are acting a role that we are drawn to. "Audition" is a great example of where life performance slakes the life that contains it. This construction goes there and then reverses itself.Imagine a setup where two sisters end up working for a gang which hires out actors to play roles in families for pay. Pretty standard stuff for this tradition, and many of the ordinary girl-sex-angst-parent dynamics are acted out, some symbolically. But now imagine an overlain setup where they are unknowingly hired by their father to play themselves. There's more. Imagine that the film is broken into a collection of first person narratives, each reporting what they discover, and one of these leverages the fact that the father is a reporter- detective (who discovers the gang and sets up the inverted acting gig).The gang, incidentally, is from a previous movie that is not particularly relevant, except in that it occupies the same magical universe of lost girls.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

doublethink03 The movie "Noriko's Dinner Table" is a long movie. And it is not one of those movies that make you forget that they are long because they are exciting, gripping, thrilling, funny,... It's just long, bland, and boring.The main pseudo-philosophical question of Noriko's Dinner Table is a simple one: "Are you connected to yourself?" The question is easily answered: I am myself, therefore I am connected to myself. So why does it take two and a half hours to try to somehow explore this question?The movie is just like the question: pointless. Furthermore it's disturbingly sick because characters act in totally unnatural ways. But not even that in an interesting way. I can't believe that this movie got only favorable reviews. Honestly I expected something special. There was nothing of that sort.

Polaris_DiB Sion Sono follows up Suicide Club/Suicide Circle with this, a telling of the story from a different perspective that, Lost-like, answers some questions from the previous movie while exchanging even more. This movie, however, is more character based, and involves the issue of role-playing in society--rather than being merely a commentary on pop culture, it's a discussion of the nature of being "connected to oneself" or, really, being who you are meant to be, not who society wants you to be or even what you were born into being.A great way in which Sono pulls this off is to have multiple voice-over narrators engage in a confessional storytelling mode. Unfortunately for international viewers, said voice-over often is delivered over dialog of the movie as well, and the sub-titles can tend to fall behind in many cases, resulting in it being difficult from time to time to tell what all is being said. Can't fault the intentions, but this movie is probably not nearly quite the experience it would be in its native language.It also commits the cardinal sin of an unjustified playlength. This movie ran about 2 1/2 hours long, but ten minutes could have been shaved off of the end. Sono attempted to justify it with a repeated motif of running away, this time with Yuka, the younger sister, but the movie had a much stronger ending on the "Let's start over" moment. Due to the introspective nature of the movie, however, it makes sense that sometimes the best ending doesn't necessarily end the idea. It's just that this is one of those movies that fades out tantalizingly several times before finally actually ending, and that gets frustrating to watch some times.--PolarisDiB

tsuchinoko First, I will just state a few things about the movie before I give my review and comments. -Yes, this is a continuation of sorts of the story started in Jisatsu saakuru (Suicide Club). -No, this is not a "horror" film, at least not in the modern sense. -Yes, as is stated, this is a long movie, and requires an open mind, and patienceIt has been stated on several reviews of the first film that it meant to serve as a social commentary on the overly complacent stance taken by the general public in modern Japanese society. Whether that is true or not, the first film had a perfect blend of twisted "horror" imagery, with a stark use of satire. While the first one left many questions unanswered at the end, this entry into the series not only answers some of those questions, but opens new ones. Shion Sono shows one again that not conforming to any convention can be a refreshing thing. This time around, he shows us a new story, not focusing on characters living through the main events of the story, but rather events taking place before, during, and after the events of the first film. This is all done with a much slower pace this time around, and focuses more on emotions and thought of the characters, rather than focusing on the events themselves. Most of the story itself is told though the narration of the four main characters, as they share their perspective of the events they are seeing. This gives a very intimate feel, though some may feel that the characters give a little too much detail. This film leaves the big events of the series and instead focuses on little moments, moments that the characters share with others, or with themselves. The fact that this movie focuses more on emotions is what makes this movie shine. The performances are simply amazing. Using mostly lesser known Japanese actors, Sono has drawn out some of the most emotionally draining and shocking scenes in recent memory, and by the end of the film it is hard to think that these actors aren't all seasoned professionals. The film feels very real, and has a somewhat low budget home movie quality to it. This is the same quality that is given to many TV movies in japan. The effect is a movie that is stripped down to the basics, and is at some points very intense and hard to watch. This is not "Suicide Club 2". There are no pop songs, or flashy Ziggy Stardust-type moments. at times this may feel like it is worlds away from the first film. For those that are looking for a good, emotionally charged film that builds on conventions and story-pieces that were started in the first film, I would whole-heartedly suggest seeing this film. It is not for everyone, and to some it may be frustrating. This is a movie for those that want to ponder a mystery much greater than any murder; inter-family relationships.