Japanese Literature on Screen

[Stephen Cremin]

I read a wonderful novel recently by Miyabe Miyuki called ALL SHE WAS WORTH:
a detective story with a social conscience with the subheading: "In modern
Japan, consumer goods are literally to die for...".  English translation is
copyrighted 1996 and first published in Japan in 1992 as "Kasha".  Miyabe's
brief bio says that "ten films based on her work have been produced".  Apart
from Kaneko Shusuke's PYROKINESIS (Cross Fire), what would these be?  I
enjoyed PYROKINESIS, but wish it had pumped up the politics a bit more and
I'm generally curious about impressions of the original novel and how they
compare with the film adaptation.

And this morning, I watched Korean film FAILAN which I completely loved. 
It's based on Asada Jiro's novel, previously adapted in 1998 by Morisaki
Azuma as LOVE LETTER (written in katakana) in 1998.  I was wondering when
Asada's novel was written since there are parallels to Iwai's own LOVE
LETTER.  FAILAN is about the enoblement of a lowly gangster in Inchon, South
Korea, after the death of the Chinese wife he has never met, discovering a
love story he never knew through her letters.  It's pure melodrama so many
of you will run a mile.  I guess it's available on DVD with English
subtitles, but you can double-check on Darcy Paquet's website:
http://www.koreanfilm.org/

Stephen