Anyone with an interest in Japanese culture in the mid to late Noughties had heard the stories of these mad films coming out of Japan. There was the one with the weird babies and the other that had a huge head in the garden. It would transpire that the first was called Funky Forest: The First Contact and the other The Taste of Tea, but what wasn’t known at the time was that these were both directed by the same man, one who’s quirky view of the world would light many a screen throughout the new millennium, his name is Katsuhito Ishii, and there is nobody quite like him.
Whilst the aforementioned films of Funky Forest and The Taste of Tea are arguably his most famous, and absent from this collection (having both received their own individual releases, also through Third Window Films), here is an opportunity for those that watched in wonder whilst lashing of white puss spray at random whilst a girl tries to hit with a badminton racquet… to dig a little deeper and see where the madness started and what it is up to today.
Four features and 2 shorts (one 50 minutes and the other 30) make up this collection that tops and tails Katsuhito Ishii work to date, and it all begins on disc one with Shark Skin Man & Peach Hip Girl (1998), a quirky heist movie filled with characters that wouldn’t look out of place in an Austin Powers movie (if Mike Myers was trying to make Reservoir Dogs). Also on this disc is the Trainspotting-esq Promise of August (1995), a tale of three friends on the search for a marijuana plant in a far off forest. Filled with riot grrrl and vinegar, this turned out to be surprisingly touching in many ways, whilst still showing the signs of the craziness that was yet to come.
Katsuhito Ishii maybe as mad as a box of frogs, but he really does make some wonderful films.
Arguably the most off kilter offering in this collection is Party 7 (2000), which feels like two ideas bolted together that are so diametrically opposed that they should not work at all, and yet somehow finds room to fit them both in side with ease (even if at times it feels like one of the story lines gets forgotten about for long stretches). Costumed peeping perverts sharing their greatest peeps and a collection of people all after a big pay day, but they cross in ways you could barely imagine.
The final disc brings us to more modern times with 2014’s Hello, Junichi, the tale of of some school friends trying to put together a band to perform for on of their parents and the chaos that surrounds their efforts. Then there’s Sorasoi (2008), a story of a runaway girlfriend and a practicing dance troupe that happen to be staying at the same hostel. Finally there is the 30 minute “short” Norioka Workshop (2022), a struggling actor gets a couple of students that are not exactly what they seem.
The Katsuhito Ishii Collection itself is a disparate mix of one Director’s work that bookends what became his most recognised works, and whilst they lack the assault on the senses those more recognised films have, they each carry with them plenty of twisted laughs and wacky stories, but alongside this is a huge dollop of heartfelt sentiment, something that came as a huge surprise (in particular the utterly charming Hello, Junichi). Katsuhito Ishii maybe as mad as a box of frogs, but he really does make some wonderful films.
The Katsuhito Ishii Collection is out now on Third Window Films Blu-Ray
Ben’s Archive – Katsuhito Ishii
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