The top films Japanese think foreigners should watch

The list is kind of funny. There are only two on it that a large number of foreigners have seen (I don’t mean people interested in J-culture), Letters from Iwojima and Seven Samurai. And Letters isn’t even a Japanese movie.

I bet that the equivalent list done in the US or Britain of movies foreigners should watch would be equally amusing. I can’t tell you how many people have no idea what “The Breakfast Club”, “Ferris Bueller”, or “Black Adder” are.

I should note that I’m not making fun of the people who answered the questions. My post isn’t really clear.

I just find it amusing because of the difference between what a foreigner would think are the good J-movies, and what a Japanese person thinks, and that if the same poll were taken in a western country, the same thing would probably happen.

I find these lists to be beyond bizarre. There’s way more anime than I would have expected, not to mention the inclusion of an American-made film (Letters from Iwo Jima). And the fact that I have heard of nearly all these movies feels weird. I wonder if people simply responded by recommending their favorite movie? Were these films chosen because they thought a foreigner would understand them better than say, Tokyo Story? Or did the respondents deliberately select movies they felt best represented Japan? I wish the question had been more specific.

Hey, “Shogun” the miniseries was pretty cool, though the chopped-down film version sucked (aide from being able to see Mariko’s tits in the bath scene). The original story of course is so historically untenable that even Clavell didn’t try and pretend it was history (thus the different names for people) but I am still impressed by the fact that he wrote it: Clavell, the author of King Rat, was a POW of the Japanese, and overcame his hatred of them enough to write one of the definitive pro-Japanese culture (fiction) books out there. And it inspired me to learn a bit more about Japanese history….

The Otoko series is no doubt the ideal of the everyday Japanese shitamachi lifestyle and ethos, and is balanced by the samurai ideal of the Seven Samurai in second place. Totoro too hearkens back to a golden age of close neighbours and green rice fields, mystical animals in the woods, etc (as well as being a very nice movie on its own of course). Haven’t seen Ichibun, but Hotaru no Haka is not only a very good (anti) war movie but plays up the pathos and victimhood of WW2 (note that the aggressors are not just the Americans, but also the various cold and arrogant Japanese who spurn the two children: this is not an anti-American or anti-foreigner film at all). Haven’t seen “Always”. Nausicaa is often seen as Miyazaki’s masterpiece (though not by Miyazaki himself, I gather) and as Japanese animation (esp Ghibili stuff) is some of the top in the world, it’s only logical that the ‘top’ film by the top animation director is there. This is about how good Japan does rather than how good it is. Haven’t seen the last three, but am surprised Sen to Chihiro or Mononoke didn’t rate better. The females liked it, but the guys preferred “Mens’ Yamato”, probably for the Gundam factor (huge powerful tech).

It seems to me that Shogun was plagairized from The Needle Watcher. Hasn’t this accusation ever arisen?