2006 / Tetsuya Nakashima > Considering I couldn’t bear more than 30 minutes of Nakashima’s Kamikaze Girls, imagine my surprise when I found Memories of Matsuko creeping up my mind months after having watched it. While it may be a ridiculous musical with an abrasive color palette, misplaced violence and oodles of sexual innuendo, it also ends up falling just short of being a masterpiece of human resilience.

Miki Nakatani’s portrayal of Matsuko is one of the year’s great performances, showing a wide emotional range while still successfully hitting every note. Her ability to be a chameleon is further complimented by Nakashima’s storyline of life’s ironies and heartbreaks that span multiple occupations and decades, creating an epic of personal proportions. This is a story about one person, a very normal person who has dreams like the rest of us. And this is the story of one whose dreams don’t come true in the fashion that was intended, but magically we find solace in the fact that life isn’t dictated by those failed dreams.

1960 / Akira Kurosawa > It’s taken me quite a while to appreciate the power of Kurosawa’s storytelling, but The Bad Sleep Well is one step closer to the nail on that coffin. Forget the fact that this is a Shakespearean adaptation (and note that knowing the story itself is of no consequence). What we have here is an elegantly crafted corporate revenge thriller that touches on multiple facets of capitalism as well as social construction. While there may be a leftist bias, thankfully the gravity of that bias is appropriate when the plot and setting are put in perspective.

Toshiro Mifune is as lean and mean as ever: No Seven Samurai-style overindulgence is necessary for him to convey his character’s anger and compassion. The remainder of the cast each flower the pot to full bloom, notably Ko Nishimura’s paranoid contract officer and Tatsuya Mihashi’s loving brother. The cryptic and often jolly musical accompaniment is haunting, and the pacing slowly builds an emotional snowball within the viewer that enhances attachment. Too often we get bored and want the bad guy to win—but here, even though at times we question the protagonist’s moral tactics, we stand by him and hope for the best.

The film is often forgotten among the annals of samurai flicks in Kurosawa’s ouevre. But The Bad Sleep Well is not simply about social relevance to today’s society, but rather a sobering experience in expert storytelling. It lacks the gimmicks that drive most of today’s films, and instead depends on human curiosity itself, an obvious yet underused technique. The wedding cake scene alone is worth the price of viewing.

1950 / Akira Kurosawa > No doubt that it’s quite sad when such a revolutionary film does not age well: Rashomon’s contrasting viewpoints and inquiries into the nature of truth was of great importance when the film had its initial release. But while it’s important to respect the film for its place in the annals of history, it’s bound to underwhelm the majority of viewers who’ve seen the same techniques further refined in a barrage of films over the past decade or two. Thus, it’s important to not ask, “Is The Usual Suspects better?” but rather to focus on how it has improved upon the foundation originally laid by Kurosawa.

2002 / Shin Togashi > In short, Sorry’s portrayal of “first love” may be the finest of its kind ever put on celluloid. And no, this can’t be compared with Romeo or Juliet or something equally as melodramatic. What we have here is a simple, beautiful but strong as ever tale of a boy who’s just hit puberty falling head over heels for a girl who he randomly comes across at a pickle store. The film’s comic and often childish, but that’s fitting for our 12-year-old protagonist. Sorry matures as he does, step by step, by unwinding the mystery that is love.

2005 / Takashi Minamoto > Until the Lights Come Back revolves around six couples on Christmas Eve, a night where unidentifiable debris from space renders the city of Tokyo without electricity. It is, in short, a smarter, more contemplative and considerably more identifiable take on Love Actually. While it lasts over two hours, the film is very well-paced and succeeds in building up several different characters without having to resort to absolute cliches. It’s beautiful and subtle, and while the strings aren’t blatantly visible, it does end up being somewhat formulaic. But even with such a mold, it leaves an impression of contentedness that is hard to find in film.

2005 / Kenji Uchida > Directors who utilize the one-story, multiple perspectives technique generally depend on the gimmick to drive the film. For a change, however, Uchida’s A Stranger of Mine gives each storyline enough strength to carry the film on its own without having to resort to “other viewpoints” for support. It’s not really a gimmick here, but rather a well-thought out method to preserve holistic continuity without disrupting each character’s personal storyline. The end result is a charming film that utilizes loose Japanese stereotypes (i.e., the salaryman, the yakuza) as cornerstones in both keeping our attention as well as entertaining our curiosities.

2004 / Hayao Miyazaki > I had high expectations for the next Miyazaki project after Spirited Away, which ranks as my favorite animated film of all time, and fortunately Howl’s Moving Castle does not disappoint. Unfortunately, however, it fails to surpass the near perfection of its predecessor.

The strengths are all understandable: A decently complex, unpredictable storyline dealing with fastastic elements that get your inner child all worked up while wooing and pleasing your ADD-exceling, older self. The characters are imaginative, and the animation is vivid.

But the flaws, in the end, pull it back and make it ultimately less memorable than most of his other work. Much of the last third of the film felt rushed, the storyline often felt unclear and confusing, and it seems mostly that unless you know the story it’s based on, there is too much left for interpretation that really shouldn’t be. In theory, the only qualifying statement here is that Disney did an incredibly subpar job in coherently doing the English subs, and if that is true, it’s a pity.