New J-horror, anime out in 3-day blitz
Japanese genre fans have cause to celebrate this weekend with the release of a new anime and the revival of a J-horror cult favorite.
In what amounts to a threeday national release courtesy of Fathom Events, “Fireworks,” producer Genki Kawamura’s follow-up to the beloved 2016 hit “Your Name,” will play for three days at 21 theaters across the Bay Area, and for a week at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco.
Set in a picturesque seaside town, it’s about the strange junior high school romance between the shy Norimichi and the pretty but strange Nazuna, who wants to run away from home because her mother is remarrying and the new family unit will move to another town.
And then there’s “House,” Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s bizarre 1977 sicko horror comedy about high school girls spending the weekend at a haunted house, which plays as the midnight movie at Landmark’s Clay Theatre on Friday and Saturday, July 6-7.
“Fireworks” is based on a 1990s Japanese television series by Shunji Iwai (“April Story,” “Love Letter”). Like “Your Name,” in which a country girl and a city boy work their way through adolescent issues by switching bodies, there is a science fiction/fantasy element. This time, the McGuffin is a multicolored crystal, about the size of a Ping-Pong ball, which can take the protagonists back in time to relive — or change — events, “Groundhog Day”style.
It also allows them to examine the choices they make. Like, running away at age 14, trying to pass as 16 and get married and move to Tokyo — good idea or bad?
There’s a running gag where Norimichi and his pals argue whether fireworks are round or flat, with one boy saying that it depends on whether we view them from the side or from the bottom (the original Japanese title translated as “Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom?”
An allegory, of course, for life — our perceptions depend on how we look at it.
Directors Akiyuki Shinbo and Nobuyuki Takeuchi substitute depth for some eyepopping visuals and extreme close-ups (it was released in Japan in 3-D). While it doesn’t achieve the emotional depth of Makoto Shinkai’s “Your Name,” “Fireworks” is a colorful theatrical experience, even in 2-D.
“Fireworks” screens in its original Japanese language with English subtitles on Thursday, July 5, and in an English-dubbed version on Saturday, July 7, at 21 Bay Area theaters. For theaters, showtimes and tickets, go to www.fathomevents.com. “Fireworks” also plays 7 p.m. Friday, July 6 (subtitled), 4:45 p.m. (dubbed) and 7 p.m. (subtitled) Saturday, July 7; and 7 p.m. Monday, July 9 (subtitled) at the Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St., S.F. 415-863-1087. www.roxie.com. $12.
“House”: “This is ridiculous,” says one of the high school girl protagonists of “House,” a cult film. “Maybe it’s an illusion.”
Delusional, maybe, or even hallucinogenic, but definitely not an illusion — it came right out of the very real and bizarre mind of Ôbayashi, who is 80 and still active. In his prime, he inspired a whole generation of J-horror directors who flowered in the 1980s and ’90s and were dubbed “Ôbayashi’s children.”
But yes, “House” is quite ridiculous, and fabulously so. Here’s a movie where nothing is sacred — a flashback sequence set during World War II includes newsreel footage of an atomic bomb being dropped on a Japanese city. “Oooooo!” coo the girls at the billowing mushroom clouds. One of them adds, “It’s like cotton candy!”
The plot of “House” is simple: A high school girl, Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami), is upset that her father is remarrying after her mother’s death. She needs to get away, so she invites six of her friends — Melody, Fantasy, Prof, Kung Fu, Sweet and Mac — to her aunt’s rural mansion, which seems modeled after the Norman Bates house in “Psycho.” The aunt, who’s in a wheelchair, covered in a blanket, could be a distant cousin of Mother Bates.
The first inkling of trouble is when Mac goes missing, and Fantasy, when drawing up water from the well outside, brings up Mac’s severed head. But this is no ordinary horror film. Mac’s head comes alive and tries to eat Fantasy. Another creative death: Melody is eaten by a piano, but her severed fingers continue to play.
It’s a horror movie, but really isn’t that scary. The deaths are so cartoonish — with the kind of special effects that, sadly, we don’t see anymore since the invention of computer effects — that laughing or shaking your head are your options, not recoiling in fright or disgust.
Midnight Friday and Saturday, July 6-7. Landmark’s Clay Theatre. 2261 Fillmore St., S.F. 415-561-9921. www.landmark theatres.com. $10.