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March 29, 2024, 12:06:16 PM

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R.I.P. Nobuhiko Obayashi (director of Hausu)

Started by Small Man Big Horse, April 12, 2020, 01:01:57 PM

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Small Man Big Horse

I only saw Hausu a few years ago thanks to a CaB recommendation and it quickly became one of my favourite films, an absolute batshit movie that's beautifully inventive and mad and crazy and a deranged delight from start to finish, but for some unknown reason I didn't even consider checking out any of the director's other work, and to be honest had filed him under "Probably died years ago" in the back of my mind. Then on Friday the AV Club ran a story about his demise https://news.avclub.com/r-i-p-nobuhiko-obayashi-director-of-hausu-and-the-gir-1842796621 - which was sadly due to lung cancer, though at least he outlived his initial three month prognosis by almost four years. Thanks to that article I learnt he was still making films, indeed his latest, "Labyrinth Of Cinema", was due to be released in Japan this weekend though obviously won't be for a little while yet due to the lockdown.

Of course it shouldn't have taken his death to get me to watch another of his movies but at least I've seen one more now in the form of School In The Crosshairs (1981), and here's the short review I wrote of it when drunk last night: From the director of the masterful Hausu, one of the best and weirdest horror films ever made, this is a odd old thing too though not nearly good, as a high school student realises she has weird powers and helps a guy she likes win a Kendo competition. But then forty minutes in a new student joins the school, sets up a patrol that's disturbingly Hitler Youth-esque, and she has unusual supernatural powers as well. While likeable it definitely takes too long to get going, promises much and doesn't quite deliver, though at least a few psychedelic sequences (
Spoiler alert
including a long ten minute one at the end
[close]
) are enormous fun, and it's without doubt quite a charming movie too, but I couldn't help but feel that not quite as good as it could have been. 6.5/10

So it's a shame I didn't madly love it but that hasn't put me off seeking out his other work. Which leads me to ask, has anyone seen any of it? And if so, what did you think?

Abnormal Palm

Fantastic film, and a big fave of the band, Animal Collective.

chveik


Sin Agog

Great man.  Like a lot of his 80s stuff 'n' all, like his adaptation of the massively influential (in Japan) horror manga Drifting Classroom.  He did seem to slowly drop the arthouse from arthouse schlock later on, but there was always something interesting there, like his movies came from the same strange place as the soap opera some of the characters watched in Twin Peaks.