Lonely Weekend with Japanese Movies

Few weeks ago, I recommended some Brit films and thoroughly enjoyed sharing the movies I liked with you all. This long lonely weekend, I spent quite sometime watching some Japanese movies instead (with English subs of course!).

This reminded me of another set of movies that I'd like to recommend. I'm not sure how old these movies are. Some might have been around for ages already. Nevertheless, I came up with this list of Japanese movies which I found to be really nice.

I know that somehow these days, Korean drama is all the hype. Japanese productions were like out of style or something like that. I, personally have preferred Japanese productions over Korean. So without further ado, here's the selection.

Koizora - This one should be quite recent and famous nonetheless. It's based on a cellphone novel which is all the hype over in Japan. Japanese films and animes tend to be about life in high school. This movie is about all that's got to do with high school life of a teenage girl. Watch this and be prepared to experience an emotional roller-coaster ride. Romance, tragedy, financial turmoil, romance, tragedy and then somemore tragedy finally ending with something warm and heartfelt. I watched this like 3 months ago during my flight to US. Perhaps my condition at that time marred my judgement for this movie. Watch it and give me your verdict.

Taiyou no Uta - As with most Japanese movies, it always revolves around the life of a student. Perhaps that is why young adults like me, who sometimes still reminicense the bliss of student life is attracted to these movies. What really attracts me to this movie is the wonderful theme song. The english translation of the movie title is "A song to the sun". That song and the voice of the singer is truly mesmerizing. The story is not so bad as well.

Tada Kimi wo Aishiteru - This one requires quite a bit of imagination and the lack of critical judgemet on the details to enjoy. Nevertheless, it's an enjoyable film. Started off in a silly and funny tone but ending with a tragedy which was again wrapped up with a warm and heartfelt aftertaste. It was the story of love bound together by photography and a secluded forest.

Waterboys - If you watch any non-horror Japanese films before, you'd definitely heard of this movie before. It's been around for quite sometime. This is the only one which I've watched in the past 3 months which did not involve intense romance and tragedy. It's a crazy, funny film about a bunch of dudes doing synchronized swimming.

After writing this post, I realized one thing. All these Japanese films involve a lame guy. Hmm.... why?

On top of that, too much Japanese movies / anime is not a good thing. IMO, they all tend to go by the same storyline with small changes here and there. Regardless, enjoy these few selections and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.