movie

Eighties movies Japanese want to watch again on the big screen

This ranking survey from goo Ranking looked at movies from the 1980s that people want to watch in the cinema again.

I’m familiar with all the Hollywood movies listed here bar Big (I’ve only seen snippets), and about half of the Japanese ones. Top of the list, Back to the Future, interestingly had a now-cancelled Japanese manga version planned:

The Japanese titles of the Hollywood movies are mostly straight transliterations, but some turn out a bit funny; An Officer and a Gentleman is A Journey of Love and Youth, Karate Kid is Best Kid, Coming to America is
Go to New York, Prince of the Stars, and When Harry Met Sally… is Premonition of Lovers.

The Japanese titles are mostly direct translations, but the Kitano film Violent Cop literally translated would be That Man, Being Violent.

What 80s film would you most want to see on the big screen again?
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By Ken Y-N, ago

Japanese’s most traumatic foreign horror films

The time for watching horror movies in Japan is not Halloween, but mid-summer, for the cooling effect of chills down one’s spine. However, this survey from goo Ranking looked at which foreign horror films people found traumatic.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 9th of July 2013 1,096 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.5% of the sample were female, 24.4% in their teens, 25.2% in their twenties, 24.8% in their thirties, and 25.6% in their forties; there was no-one older than 49 in this sample. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

Note that the definition of “horror” is a bit loose – I wouldn’t class Psycho and Alien, for instance, as horror, and Sixth Sense was just awful.

Have any of my readers found Japanese horror movies traumatic? I’ve never actually watched any myself, but as for Western movies, Carrie was a bit traumatic for me.

Here is a picture of Japan’s most famous horror character, Sadako:

Sadako color
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By Ken Y-N, ago

Movie download and streaming usage in Japan

I’ve looked a number of times at YouTube and Nico Nico Douga, but this survey from MyVoice is a little different, looking at movie delivery (and streaming) services that focus more on commercial content.

Demographics

Over the first five days of January 2009 14,034 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.

I don’t think I’ve ever actually used a commercial movie streaming or delivery service myself, and I can’t really see myself paying for it. I get Star Channel on cable, so I suppose if they offered a similar service for download direct to my DVD recorder, I perhaps could pay a monthly fee. AcTVila offers that sort of service through one’s television and Blu-ray recorder, but as can be seen here the take-up is quite low, but then again it is a new service.

Note that although I refer to movies in the translation below, the services also cover re-runs of television shows, etc.
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By Ken Y-N, ago