crafty mcgee

Miike

Next up in my Asian directors series is Miike (pronounced 'Me YEK ee'), named for the Japanese director Takeshi Miike . Known primarily for gore fests and prodigious output (he once directed five feature films in one year!) I've never actually seen any of his ultra-violent films. In the horror trilogy film Three...Extremes his contribution "Box" was the only one I could get through, and wasn't the least bit gory...Anyway, it's a couple of his quirkier films that put him on my tribute list. The Happiness of the Kataruris  is a zombie musical - the stand out song being "Don't Be Discouraged 'Cause You're Dead" (sung to the zombies, of course). It's got lots of humor, and even claymation! Another of my faves is a lovely little film called The Bird People in China, a fantasy about a group of Chinese descendants of Scottish ancestors high in the mountains. I would recommended these two highly to anyone who likes unusual movies. He's even made a good J-Horror (what I refer to as "ghost girl" movies) called One Missed Call. The other films of his I've seen like Gozu, Audition, and Andromeda can best be described as "David Lynch meets Quentin Tarantino".  I don't think Miike is a great filmmaker. Not surprisingly, most of his films seem unfinished. But he's prolific, and always interesting. I tried to make the little monster reflect all of that.

Ozu

Another in my homage to Asian director's series, this time it's for Yasujiro Ozu. Ozu's films were all about people, small dramas about folks just getting by in the world. They say that his earlier films were much more Hollywood-like and funny, but I'm only familiar with the post-war stuff. They are all about people coping with the Westernization of Japan after World War II, from the grandparents mourning the changes to their lifestyles, to the little kids scheming for their first TV, and all the ages in between. Perhaps the most famous, and they one I would recommend, is Tokyo Story. I usually shy away from family dramas, but Ozu's films are fascinating. He is credited for introducing "new wave" film techniques, such as long still shots, elliptical scene transitions, and having the actors speak towards the camera, instead of in head shots with each other. The scene behind Ozu is a famous shot from the film Floating Weeds. This lighthouse and bottle were the only thing in the frame for nearly a minute, at several different points in the film. Sometimes you could hear dialogue, sometimes music, other times just the sounds of the sea. Interesting stuff (to a film geek like me, anyhow). I chose a cat because of the filmmaker Ozu's fond, but somewhat distant treatment of his characters. You know, cat-like.

My Ozu is another tiny piece, he is just shy of 3" at the top of his ears. I based him loosely on a pattern from one of my mame wanko books. I tried to get him to pose with the newest member of the household -

our little Neko, but neither of them would have any of it. Cats! What are you gonna do?

Akira

Alice (aka futuregirl) has created a set of stuffed characters based on great German film directors. Duly impressed, I vowed to create my own set based on my current obsession with interest in Asian film. Here's the first, Akira, namesake of the grand master of Japanese film, Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa made films from the 1940's until the early '90's covering many genres, from his famous samurai films  Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, and Sanjuro; film noir detective stories in Stray Dog, The Bad Sleep Well, and High and Low; covers of classics like Throne of Blood (the best ever version of Macbeth), The Idiot, and The Lower Depths, and lovely slice-of-life films (Ikuru, Madadayo). All amazing, all exquisitely written and shot. Kurosawa made relatively few films in color, but in the ones he did make  the colors are almost painfully vivid, in vibrant reds, magentas, and turquoise.

I made my Akira a crow - since crows are sharp-eyed, curious, intelligent and mysterious. All words I would use to describe Kurosawa himself. Thus ends your first lesson in Asian Cinema 101.

The still in the background is from one of my favorite Kurosawa movies, The Hidden Fortress, which was a major inspiration for the subplot of Star Wars. The little guy is the master himself. Yet another reason to admire the Japanese - they make action figures of their artists!