Los Angeles Film Festival

More than 200 independent American and international films, including works by Japanese directors, were featured last week at the 11th annual Los Angeles Film Festival in Hollywood.

From June 16-26, thousands of industry insiders and fans of independent cinema attended movie screenings and cast their votes on more than 70 titles competing for awards in the best narrative, documentary, and short film categories.

Only a fraction of the 3,700 works submitted from around the world were selected for the Festival, including the 2004 Japanese films ''Tony Takitani'' by Jun Ichikawa, and ''Kamikaze Girls'' (Shimotsuma monogatari) by Tetsuya Nakashima.

Bruce Lee - The Icon

'Bruce Lee's Hong Kong-produced and Hollywood-produced films elevated the traditional Hong Kong martial arts film to a new level of popularity and acclaim, and sparked the first major surge of interest in Chinese martial arts in the West. The direction and tone of his films changed and influenced martial arts and martial arts films in Hong Kong and the rest of the world.' A couple of lines from wikipedia.com and the martial arts style in films. Bruce Lee has actually elevated this style in various films that he has done. 'Enter the Dragon' and 'Game of Death' are two of Bruce Lee's many famous films. Martial arts creates excitement for a Western Audience. They find it completely different to a typical Hollywood Movie. Bruce Lee is a Icon and forever will be a Icon.

English dub over Japanese Movies

Is it because the American film industry can not remake a Japanese film because of the actors used? Or could it be because they can't recreate the fighting scenes, or is it just because the American audience prefer the originals over the remakes? The American film industry could have remade the well known 'Kung-Fu Hustle' but all they did was dub the film in english. It could be argued that theres nothing better than the actual voices of the actors but the main focus wasn't the voice or dubbing but it was the action and the martial art scenes that reeled the audience in. It doesn't just matter whether the American film industry can make a decent remake, but it matters about the audiences reaction to it. Therefore, by keeping the original 'Kung Fu Hustle' and dubbing it in english allowed the audience to enjoy actions of unknown actors to them.

Ringu v The Ring

In my spare time I have done alot of research and I also had the opportunity to watch 'Ringu', the Japanese version of 'The Ring'. 'The Ring' focuses mainly on the story of the curse tape and the girl that pops out of the television and the woman trying to save herself. Maybe this is done so that a western audience can understand the structure of the story and get abit of a thrill. However, 'Ringu' doesn't only focus on the main plot of the crazy girl from the television and the woman saving herself but it also focuses on a sub plot of the woman saving herself and her ex-husband reuniting to help each other and creating bond again. Also in 'Ringu' they explain more of why the girl has been killed and why she kills people and this wasnt exactly straightforward in 'The Ring'. This could have been done because a western audience like to be kept on the edge of their seats. American films have alot of twists because the audience like to keep guessing on why and what happened. 'Ringu' wasn't that complex and the audience find out what happens and why just by listening to the conversations between Asakawa and Ryuji. Finally, the little girl in 'The Ring' was not as creepy as the girl in 'Ringu'. I advise you to skip the part when you actually get to see the little girl in close up in 'Ringu'.

I'm Back

Hello there, it has been quite a long time since I have updated my blog so I apologize for that. Not like people actually check my blog. Anyways, in the meantime I have been researching quite abit on American and Asian Film Industry and I have also chose to change my hypothesis to Japanese Cinema and not Asian because when I carried out my questionnaire, the first thing people associated to Asian Cinema was Bollywood movies. Therefore, I chose to change my hypothesis specifically to Japanese cinema.

Rinne

A interesting film that I came across while I was doing research. The story of 'Rinne' is that a Japanese actress begins having strange visions and experiences after landing a role in a horror film about a real-life murder spree that took place over forty years ago. 'Rinne' was retitled 'Reincarnation' in USA.

American Japanese Movies

The title maybe a little confusing but many American films has had some sort of Japanese setting or feeling to like 'Kickboxer' and 'Street Fighter:The Movie'. If you click the title above it will take you to a website that has a list of American films that have used some sort of Japanese film style in them.