2020 is nothing more than a baptism for Japan, whether it is international or virus raging, and even in the second half of the year, "Ghost Blade Theater Edition: Infinite Train" continues to rewrite records; however, as early as the first wave of the epidemic in February, when the Korean movie "Parasite" dominated the Oscars, Japan still began to reflect on itself rarely, "How can the former Asian film power be caught up?" "Japanese cinema in the second decade of the 21st century is facing unprecedented challenges.
If you look at Japanese films from the foreign market, during the epidemic, in the face of the domestic film market that also has no Hollywood attack, in addition to animation films, the box office of Japanese films is still not improving, and even has become a loss of money in the mouth of film dealers. But interestingly, when we foreigners began to lose confidence in Japanese movies, the Japanese film market rebounded against the trend, and in September this year, "I Am Big Brother" soared to 5 billion yen at the box office, becoming the most live-action film of the year, even if it is only a TV drama film version of ordinary quality.
Japan has evolved from a large Asian film country to a "Galapagoization" with different standards from the world and only caring about the domestic demand market (Note: It refers to the "optimalization" alone in an isolated environment, and the loss of interchangeability with the region, in the face of varieties with high external adaptability and viability, and eventually falling into the danger of being eliminated), can be said to be more and more serious every year. When South Korea was already ready to make blockbuster, art- and entertaining films, "Why did Japan become what it is now?" This sentence may begin with the first decade of the 21st century, known in Japan as the 00s, and is also the beginning of Japanese cinema's entry into "chaos".
▲ Stills of "Nobody Knows About Summer Morning". Online pictures
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the chaos of the first decade: The List of The Movies</h1>
As a fan of Japanese movies, the top ten of the year selected by the "Movie Magazine" every year is definitely a must-see and must-see list. Until one time when I was studying the "Movie Magazine", a Japanese teacher gave an unbelievable expression and said, "The works they selected are too non-mainstream, and basically they will not pay special attention to them." ”
In fact, this also points out the gap between Japanese film art and mainstream audiences, which is large and deepening. This phenomenon can be seen in Japan's two major award ceremonies" "Film Shunpao" and "Japan Film Awards", the former emphasizes credibility and artistry, it is difficult to see mainstream blockbusters in the list of winners; the latter attaches importance to public support, especially the list of large film companies, ignoring independent films is the most criticized. In particular, in recent years, the annual winners of the Film Magazine and the Japan Film Awards have become increasingly divergent and different, which highlights the fact that it is increasingly difficult for Japanese films to produce both entertainment and art.
This year' Film Magazine celebrated its 100th anniversary and selected the "Top 10 Japanese Films of the 1900s" from 2000 to 2009:
▲ Shunji Sakamoto's "Yan". Online pictures
1. "Yan" Shunji Hanmoto / 2000 No.1
2. "Artificial Paradise" Masaharu Aoyama / 2001 No.4
3. "Unrestrained Youth" Wellbore kazuyuki / 2005 no.1
4. "The Exposure of Love" Yuan Ziwen / 2009 No.4
"Swing" Mikazu Nishikawa / 2006 Report No.2
6. "The Unknown Summer Morning" is Kore-eda/2004 Shunshi No.1
7. "Three Hearts and Two Sexes" Ryosuke Hashiguchi / No.2, 2001
8. Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki / 2001 No.3
"All About Lily Week", Shunji Iwai / 2001 No.7
10. "Battle Royale" Fukasaku Shinji / 2000 No.5
In this list, Shunji Sakamoto's "Yan" defeated Kore-eda and Miyazaki hayao who have a high reputation in the world to become the top ten, and this film is brilliantly interpreted through the stage drama goddess Naomi Fujiyama, a journey full of luck and misfortune, bringing out the sorrow of women after the Great Hanshin Earthquake, as well as the bondage and vitality between people. In the voting mechanism of 70 film critics and one vote per film, it successfully obtained 24 votes to become the first in the 00s.
The rest of the selected Japanese films are mostly derived from crime and social violence, full of themes transformed from the big times and personal pains, and most of them are films that depict how they survive in the adult world from the perspective of teenagers, such as "Everything About Lily Week", "Battle Royale", "Unrestrained Youth", "Exposure of Love", and "Summer Morning Unknown", which depict how they survive in the adult world, while focusing on multiple social issues such as bullying, friendship, interpersonal alienation, and cults. In fact, this is also related to the fact that the judges of the "Movie Shunbao" are mostly Showa men who were born in the lump generation, they have experienced the 60s student movement, they have been baptized by pink films and independent films produced by ATG, and they are more likely to be interested in works that focus on social issues and have personal style images in film preferences, whether it is in the annual top ten selected every year, or this list can feel the types of these review preferences.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >Why 2005 became a turning point? </h1>
Regardless of the ranking, this is a beautiful list worth seeing and referencing, but in fact it also highlights the "polarization" between the tastes of Japanese film critics and the general public, as well as the transformation of the film market since the 1900s. The top ten films of the 00s selected by the "Movie Shunbao" are mostly concentrated in the works released in 2000 and 2001, and only 19 of the top 45 and 60 movies were released before 2005, on the other hand, the top 2000 Japanese films, only 6 works released before 2005, and the rest are mostly TV-oriented TV drama film versions after 2006. In the second half of the 2000s, Japanese films obviously lost their individuality, and more and more directors were forced to choose between "money freedom" and "creative freedom", and the gap between commercial films and independent films was getting wider and wider.
2005 became a turning point, but in other words, when Japan entered the millennium and found that this was the next "lost decade", the national consciousness and loss of the whole was born from the era, accompanied by the evolution of soft and hardware, the strategy and attack of television stations, and Japanese cinema entered an unprecedented "change" and "chaos".
Japanese film historian Shikata Inuhiko unabashedly pointed out in the book "110 Years of Japanese Cinema" that "the first decade of the new century was an era of chaos. Film critics are no longer able to grasp all the Japanese films of their contemporaries, and audiences are not sure what they should use as the benchmark for choosing movies. Japanese films no longer care about the theme of 'what are Japanese people', and continue to produce Japanese films that speak only Japanese, targeting only Japanese people and only caring about the domestic demand market. Coupled with advances in digital photography, images in Japanese cinema have become thin and bland. ”
In reality, the first half of the 1900s was a collective loss and retrospective of the Japanese people, as was the film market. After the horrific events of the Great Hanshin Earthquake in the 1990s, the Sarin Gas Incident on the Tokyo Subway, and the Drunken Rose Saint Incident, society and the government were unable to ensure the safety of the people, and in the 1900s, the international community was generally in a state of anxiety and uneasiness, and there were many social incidents in Japan, such as the homicide and murder of Hokukyushu. Therefore, in the face of the Japanese society with a serious economic stagnation in the 00s, "movies" have become a utopia in which audiences can escape from reality, and with this emotion, a wave of "nostalgic" movies has emerged, at the same time, creators have expressed dissatisfaction with society through movies, which has also prompted the birth of a number of "world system" films in the 00s that take the protagonist as the center and lead the survival of the world.
In this 00s ranking vote, Keiichi Hara's 2001 "Crayon Shin-chan: Storm Surge Fierce! "Strikes Back of the Empire" received 7 votes and ranked 29th, and this film can be said to be the representative work that best represents the "Showa nostalgia" in the first half of the 00s. The group leader's intention to brainwash adults and eliminate the criminal concept of 21st century thinking perfectly explains the mentality of modern people who miss Showa: "The coming 21st century was full of dazzling light, and now Japan is only left with dirty money and useless garbage, which is the 21st century that was yearn for at that time." The world must be made all over again, so that this Japanese person, like the inhabitants of this city, will return to the era when they have a soul, to the era when there is hope for the future. ”
In addition, with 19 votes and no. 3, Kazuyuki Izubu's 2004 "Invincible Youth," also set in Showa, depicts a humorous love-hate feud between Koreans in Kyoto in Japan and local Japanese in 1968. In fact, for most of the Shunbao film critics who were born in Showa and experienced the disturbances between Japan and South Korea, this kind of film often touches the nostalgia in their hearts, including 2001's "GO! "The Great Runaway" and 2004's "Blood and Bones" both ranked well on this list.
▲ "Sunset in Sanchome" series trilogy. Online pictures
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > nostalgia, fear can also be relieved</h1>
But for the audience, the nostalgia they want to see is closer to "beautification", belonging to the thriving showa era, the image of peace and mutual help among neighbors, such as Takashi Yamazaki's "Sunset in Sanchome" series trilogy in 2005, which successfully achieved a total box office success of 12.23 billion yen. Audiences were able to release their dissatisfaction and loss in reality through "Showa nostalgia", making Showa pure enough to sing, and such feelings were also reflected in the "costume drama", after the death of the novelist Shuhei Fujisawa who was good at describing the life of Ichii Komin in the Edo period, Yamada Yoji re-pushed costume films to the mainstream entertainment market with the "Fujisawa Shuhei Trilogy" of "Dusk Kiyoshi Guard", "Hidden Sword Ghost Claw", and "Samurai's One Point", and in 2003 Kitano Takeshi's "Humpback City" set a record of 2.85 billion yen at home and abroad.
In addition to nostalgia, fear also becomes an escapee relief. Japanese horror movies moved from rough underground movies to the maturity of "Midnight Bells" and "Dead Country" in the 90s, until the development of Japanese-style J-HORROR in the 00s. Japanese horror films are deeply influenced by Kabuki, Rakugo, folk history, do not rely on special effects and blood, but in the complex political, social, and ethnic identity struggles, explore the deep humanity and tragedy, Nakada Hideo, Shimizu Takashi, Takashi Miike, Kurosawa Kiyoshi and other horror film promoters, respectively, in "Ghost Water Monster Talk", "Curse", "Ghost Call", "Circuit" to show a sense of human-centered criticism and mystery, and then in the 000s after being remade by Hollywood, thus establishing the international status of Japanese horror films.
On the other hand, the "world system" movie that was originally related to the survival of the world, the protagonist's world became a pure love movie with only "love" left, and it revolved around it. 1995 "Love Letters" and 2001 "Between Calm and Enthusiasm" two classic pure love movies, although they caused a sensation at the time, pure love is still only a genre of movies rather than a phenomenon. It wasn't until 2004, when "Call for Love in the Center of the World" sold 8.5 billion yen, that a "world boom" broke out throughout Japan, which not only led to the sales of the original book selling 2 million copies, but Japan began to produce a large number of pure love movies. Released at the end of 2004, "Speaking by Rain" just hitched a ride on the first pure love train and sold 4.8 billion yen, and these two films became the hottest pure love movies in the 00s. Of course, you can't deny that "Winter Love Song", which also became popular in 2004, and Pei Yongjun did not contribute to the wave of pure love in Japan. After that, the pure love of life, old age, illness and death, cross-nationality, national borders, and blood relations has become a utopia where the audience can once again "escape" reality.
▲ "Midnight Bell". Online pictures
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > when "pure love" begins to chain</h1>
Throughout the 00s, it can be said that the best years are also the worst years, only because the second half of the 00s fully reflects the replication of what is called "a swarm of bees". Japanese horror movies became famous after being remade by Hollywood, and Japan also entered the idol Sengoku era led by AKB48 at this time, unlike the idol ice age of the 90s, horror movies were the stage for idol actors to transform into powerful actors, "Oni Water Monster Talk" Matsushima Naoko, "Dead Country" Chiaki Kuriyama, "Tomie" Kanno Miho have successfully jumped onto the bigger stage with horror movies. But in the second half of the 00s or even now, the perfect combination of horror movies and screaming beautiful girls has become a channel for agencies and distributors to earn fame and fortune, forcing young actors or idols with no experience and acting skills, just to attract "fans" to come to the small cost of cheap production, but also let the Japanese horror movies that once scared the world to death, the more boring the more they are made.
And such roughness and production lines are actually more obvious in the "pure love" film market. After 000 years, the pure love movies such as Aoi Miyazaki's "Just Love You", Nakatani Miki's "Tram Man", Yu Aoi's "Honey Lucky Grass", and Yui Niigaki's "Love Sky" have become the mainstream, and film companies have put mobile phone novels, manga, and love stories on 2ch internet forums on the big screen, attracting audiences through pure love elements that can trigger the audience to "move" and "move", as well as the eye-catching combination of handsome men and beautiful women. In the 00s, there were a large number of female audiences entering the cinema, "pure love movies" is one of the reasons, the second is that the "chain cinema" mushroomed in the 90s, and changed the traditional cinema in Japan in the past, the number of small halls, dark and old, dragons and snakes mixed image, so that the cinema has become an entertainment place where the public can easily stop, plus in order to revitalize the film industry launched "Let's go to the cinema together!" "The campaign, which introduced a variety of fare concessions, began to attract new customers.
▲ "Love Void". Online pictures
Although the proliferation of chain movie theaters has become the last straw that overwhelmed independent cinemas in disguise, it has also changed the way Japanese cinemas are screened. Movies are no longer limited to the mode of only being released in their own theaters, and according to the popularity of the film, the studio can freely decide to change the size of the hall, and can also cope with the situation of long-term release, etc., while the audience can choose a variety of movies, no longer need to go to the traditional independent cinema that only screens Western and Japanese films.
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Jedi counteroffensive</h1>
With good external conditions, Japanese films began to start the "Jedi Counterattack" in the second half of the 00s. According to the Japan Film Production Alliance, in 2006, the market share (distribution revenue, the proportion of local and foreign films) Japanese domestic films surpassed Western films for 21 years, and the total number of films released in the year hit a new high of 821 films in the past half century. The reason why Japan can go from a total box office of 54.3 billion yen in 2000 to 118.2 billion yen in 2009, its "savior" or "initiator" is to make the current Japanese film market into one of the culprits of the "manga" and "theatrical version" flood - TV.
With huge sums of money, copyright and screening rights, and advertising agencies and publishers behind them, they carried forward the "production committees" that invited different companies to contribute in the 1990s in order to diversify risks. In 1998, Fuji Television put the TV series "Jumping Search Line" on the big screen with unprecedented success, and in 2003, it took advantage of the victory to launch "Jumping Search Line 2" at the box office of 17.35 billion yen, and it is still the highest-grossing live-action movie in Japan and the fifth highest-grossing movie in history. In 2004, the trend of "Calling for Love in the Center of the World" exploded because two months after the release of the movie version, a TV drama version starring Takayuki Yamada and Haruka Ayase was broadcast, allowing the TV station TBS to successfully obtain box office and ratings. Fuji TV's "Sea Ape" series also created a box office myth in the 00s, and the 2006 film version of "Sea Ape 2" sold for 7.1 billion yen, making more and more TV stations eat and taste and invest in this "production chain" oriented to the box office.
▲ "Jumping the Great Search Line" series. Online pictures
What they want is not a lofty film history status like "The Story of Injiro", but to achieve the purpose of rolling money with the smallest investment, and then follow the big selling formula of "the beginning of the TV series and the end of the movie version" and the "swarm of bees" in the second half of the 00s, including "Rookie Story", "HERO", "Meteor Garden F: The Secret of the Crown" and other film versions, all of which broke the record of more than 7 billion yen at the box office and wrote the victory chapter of the 00s TV station. Time comes to the next decade, and this formula continues.
In principle, the addition of TV stations and production committees can actually promote the flow of film funds, so that good planning will not be stillborn because of lack of money, such as "Entering the Mortician", "Even this is not what I did", "Battle Royale" are classic works funded by TV stations. However, the investment that does not seek return does not exist in the film industry, which also makes the big bosses begin to frantically pursue the money-making formula of "making manga and making a fortune", and the mainstream market of Japanese films has begun to lead to another way, that is, compared to "artistry", as long as it can make Japanese audiences pay for it, "Galapagoization". In addition, with the progress of digital cameras and CG post-production, the comics that can be adapted are no longer limited to sports and campus themes, led by "Death Note" in 2006, and then to comic films such as "Kitaro GeGeGe", "20th Century Teenager", "Gambling Apocalypse" and so on, attracting young audiences through strong sound and light effects and highly entertaining themes, and also allowing TV stations with "copyright" and "funds" to achieve all-round interest recovery under the overwhelming publicity strategy.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > what happens if the market can't support independent films? </h1>
In the 00s, Japanese films went to J-POP, in order to cater to the tastes of the audience, the director's writerhood and the artistry of the film were put behind, everything was based on the audience's preferences, compared to making a "good" movie that could win an award, the overall Japanese market began to tend, as long as it was a movie that could "sell well". In 20010, the bankruptcy of independent film company Cinequanon (Date: シネカノン) was a reflection of the tragic fate of independent films in the general environment, and they have produced and distributed a number of classic masterpieces such as "Where the Moon Rises", which was the first of the 90s selected by "Film Magazine"; "No one knows", "Swing", "Unrestrained Youth" on the 00s list, and "Fuso Flower Girl" ranked 17th. Although these works have achieved good results in the history of film, the Japanese market has been unable to support independent films that can only stand on its own, and cinequanon finally announced that it lost to the mainstream market and ended badly.
▲ "Battle Royale". Online pictures
If you make an entertainment movie that satisfies the tastes of most audiences, it can create huge box office revenue, and who wants to invest money in a social film that may not be able to return the money, and may even offend others? This has become a vicious circle, although we can still see a lot of excellent film works in the 00s, seeing new directors such as Lee Sang-il, Yamashita Atsuhiro, Nishikawa Miwa, Miyato Kankuro Miyato, Tetsuya Nakajima and other cutting-edge directors starting to shine; the animation industry also has a succession of blockbuster directors such as Hosoda Mori and Makoto Shinkai, but unfortunately Imatoshi died after handing over his posthumous work "Red Hot Chili Peppers" in 2006; the actors also have Yosuke Wazuka, YumiYaku Yasumi Matsuda, Mirai Moriyama, Hikaru Manjima, Aoi Miyazaki, Yu aoi, Shinobu Terajima and others were saddled with the future of Japanese cinema at that time. However, the Japanese film market in the 00s under the leadership of television stations is still moving towards "conservative", the capital is reluctant to touch social issues, independent films want to make no funds, can not find people to invest, and finally the market is full of films around small love, family and family, campus youth and other full of copy. In the next decade, this has been reduced from a phenomenon to the abuse of the entire film market.
The '00s were the best and worst of times. Miyazaki's creation of the Ghibli undefeated myth and the birth of various successors, the writer type led by Kore-eda who went out of Japan and stood on the international stage, the emergence of Japanese female directors after Naomi Kawase, and the maturity of Japanese horror films led by Takashi Shimizu, and these 00s films are still classics in the hearts of fans.
At the end of 2020, when I was looking forward to the release of the top ten Japanese films of the 10s, on the one hand, I still felt a little pity and helplessness for this film, which would rather invest 100 million yen to make a pure love manga film than invest 50 million yuan in the Japanese film market of independent films.