This book explores the phenomenon of V-Cinema, founded in Japan in 1989 as a distribution system for direct-to-video movies which film companies began making having failed to recoup their investment in big budget films. It examines how studios and directors worked quickly to capitalize on niche markets or upcoming and current trends, and how as a result this period of history in Japanese cinema was an exceptionally diverse and vibrant film scene. It highlights how, although the V-Cinema industry declined from around 1995, the explosion in quantity and variety of such movies established and cemented many specific genres of Japanese film. Importantly the book argues that film scholars who have long looked down on video as a substandard medium without scholarly interest have been wrong to do so, and that V-Cinema challenges accepted notions of cultural value, providing insight into the formation of cinematic canons and inviting us to rethink what is meant by "Japanese cinema".

Japanese Film and the Challenge of Video (Media, Culture and Social Change in Asia)

Mes, Tom

Reference

Routledge

An eye-opening portrait of a vibrant film culture, The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film is the most comprehensive study of the Japanese filmmaking scene yet written. Tom Mes and Jasper Sharp explore the astounding resurgence of Japanese cinema, both live action and animated, profiling 19 contemporary Japanese filmmakers, from the well-known (Kitano, Miike, Miyazaki) to the up-and-coming (Naomi Kawase, Satoshi Kon, Shinya Tsukamoto) and reviewing 97 of their recent films. With 100+ images from behind and in front of the camera, this is a book any film lover will savor. Foreword by Hideo Nakata, director of Ring.
Tom Mes (in Paris) and Jasper Sharp (in Tokyo) co-edit Midnighteye.com, the premier English-language website on Japanese cinema.

The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film

Humor & Entertainment

Sharp, Jasper

Movies

Stone Bridge Press

Agitator: The Cinema of Takashi Miike

Fierce. Nonsensical. Vulgar. Powerful. These are words that could be used to describe Takashi Miike. But without doubt the most essential words are self-assured and clever. - Shinya Tsukamoto Audition. Dead or Alive. Ichi the Killer. Visitor Q. These films have amazed, stunned, delighted and shocked audiences the world over, garnering critical acclaim for their Japanese director: Takashi Miike. Seen as one of the most important filmmakers to emerge in Japan in the last twenty years, Takashi Miike has directed 49 feature films and 3 TV series in the space of 11 years. Many of them still unseen outside Japan, Miike's films are marked by a dazzling visual style, brilliant narrative invention and a willingness to go far beyond accepted boundaries. Agitator - The Cinema of Takashi Miike examines each of these titles in-depth, revealing a provocative but remarkably consistent body of work. Illustrated with hundreds of stills, behind-the-scenes pictures and rare photographs from the director's private collection, this is the first ever study devoted entirely to the work of one of the world's most exciting filmmakers.

Agitator: The Cinema Of Takashi Miike

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Fab Pr

Unleashed with the now legendary black and white cyberpunk masterpiece Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Shinya Tsukamoto is one of Japan's leading filmmakers. With visual assaults like Tetsuo II: The Body Hammer, Tokyo Fist and Bullet Ballet he gained a worldwide following and paved the way for the international breakthrough of Japanese cinema. Despite his fame he remains fiercely independent, financing, writing, shooting, directing and often also starring in his own films. Shinya Tsukamoto is literally uncompromising. Fully authorised by the director and featuring first hand accounts from many of his close collaborators, Iron Man: The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto is a fascinating and in-depth look at the life and work of an intense, groundbreaking filmmaker who counts Quentin Tarantino, Tsui Hark, novelist William Gibson and The Matrix directors The Wachowski Brothers among his most loyal fans. Illustrated with hundreds of stills, behind-the-scenes pictures and rare photographs from Tsukamoto's private collection. Plus a complete filmography with cast and crew credits, and detailed information on DVD availability.

Iron Man: The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto

Literature & Fiction

FAB Press

This edition features a new and expanded colour section, completely updated DVD information, and several brand new reviews of Takashi Miike films that were unavailable for coverage at the time of the book's initial production.

From outrageous flavour of the month to respected modern master â€“ Takashi Miikeâ€™s rise to fame has been stellar. The former bad boy of Japanese film is now a regular at the worldâ€™s most prestigious film festivals.Tom Mes, whose groundbreaking Agitator: The Cinema of Takashi Miike helped shape this filmmakerâ€™s international career, has been along for the ride ever since Audition turned heads and stomachs at the turn of the millennium. This new book collects more than ten yearsâ€™ worth of his writing on Miike. From dusty film sets in Japan to festival intrigue on the Riviera, and from the straight-to-video ghetto to the stage, Mes covers the full scope of this unclassifiable filmmakerâ€™s life and work â€“ with the kind of detail and intimacy that only an insider can provide.Fully endorsed by the filmmaker himself, the full-colour Re-Agitator: A Decade of Writing on Takashi Miike also features a provocative foreword and a gallery of unique set photos by longtime Miike collaborator Christian Storms.This book is not Agitator Part 2. It doesnâ€™t continue where the first one left off, but rather collects the vast majority of the writing on Miike that Mes has done over the years for magazines, websites, DVD liner notes, in non-English-language books, as well as for festival catalogues. This luxurious coffee-table hardback also contains previously unpublished material, like an interview recorded at the 2005 Venice film festival, plus a piece on 13 Assassins written exclusively for this book.The wide variety of sources and formats of these texts entails that there is an equally wide variety in styles, tones, and approaches: from impressionistic reviews to personal eyewitness accounts and loose, appreciative write-ups. Re-Agitator is also an opportunity to add some context and background on the development of the Japanese film industry over the past twenty years and Miikeâ€™s career therein, something that was largely absent from Agitator. The publisher and author also feel very fortunate to be able to include a series of very candid behind-the-scenes photographs taken during the troubled production of Sukiyaki Western Django.

Re-Agitator: A Decade of Writing on Takashi Miike

Arts & Photography

Photography & Video

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mes, Tom. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Mes, Tom

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mes, Tom. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Japanese Film and the Challenge of Video (Media, Culture and Social Change in Asia)

Japanese Film and the Challenge of Video (Media, Culture and Social Change in Asia)

The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film

Agitator: The Cinema Of Takashi Miike

Iron Man: The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto

Agitator: The Cinema of Takashi Miike

Re-Agitator: A Decade of Writing on Takashi Miike