Movielogr

Rating: 6.5 stars

Tags

Japan Criterion bullying Kaiju children monster

All movies seen on 03/16/2019

View on: IMDb | TMDb

Jellyfish Eyes (2013)

Directed by Takashi Murakami

Fantasy | Science Fiction | Family

Most recently watched by lordofthemovies, GMOM65, sensoria

Overview

In present-day Japan, little Masashi moves from an evacuation center to a small village. There he will discover that every child has the ability to communicate with a fantastic creature, but they are being used in an evil plan to collect the children’s negative energy. Artist Takashi Murakami ‘s debut film is an amazing epic story that is an X-Ray of children’s hopes and fears with the artist’s unmistakable visual style.

Length 101 minutes

Actors

Kanji Tsuda | Eihi Shiina | Kentarô Shimazu | Akiko Yajima | Takumi Saito | Houko Kuwashima | Shôichirô Masumoto | Asuka Kurosawa | Kentaro Kishi | Shota Sometani | Mayu Tsuruta | Masataka Kubota | Ami Ikenaga | Hidemasa Shiozawa | Himeka Asami | Takuto Sueoka

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Viewing Notes

Not knowing much about this movie I was surprised that it was added to the Criterion Collection. It’s simply a cute pocket monster kids flick akin to Monster Hunt or live action Pokemon. Watching all the supplements it’s clear that someone at Criterion is a big fan of Takashi Murakami, the renowned pop artist, who developed the story and directed the film (along with Yoshihiro Nishimura!!!). The movie is fine and totally in my wheelhouse however it’s not something I’d expect in Criterion, particularly for a newer film (it may also have the lowest IMDb rating for any Criterion release at 4.9/10). But this is probably the only way Yoshihiro Nishimura, director of Tokyo Gore Police, gets into the Criterion Collection so I’m fine with it. Just a weird choice that leads me to believe they are big fans of Murakami.

Also explains how Eihi Shiina made it into this film. Wish she had a bigger part but damn she’s super fine. Anyways, this is a cute fantasy flick with adorable creatures and a crazy kaiju battle. All the extras on the Blu are great and clearly show how Nishimura did most of the directing given that Murikami had no directing experience (he even states after day 1 of filming “I didn’t do anything”). During the pre-production it’s funny how he keeps referring to Nishimura as a horror director. The story of how they came to work together is pretty cool as well.

There’s a trailer for Jellyfish Eyes 2 included, which is funny bc I can’t imagine them created a sequel and they haven’t. But it looks nice and I wish they did.

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