Eigei Best Ten Worst Ten 2005

[Aaron Gerow]

On 2006.1.12, at 09:35  PM, Andrew Grant wrote:

> Could somebody shed some light as to why OPERETTA TANUKI GOTEN was #2 
> on the
> worst list?

To see the reasons, you can check out the Best Ten issue of Eigei when 
it comes out.

One should always take the Worst Ten results in Eigei with a grain of 
salt. Of the 30 or so people polled, not all pick a worst ten, and some 
use their points strategically when they do. Eigei allows you to 
distribute your points the way you want to (KineJun doesn't), as long 
as you are not selecting more than ten films and using more than 55 
points (with ten points maximum for a film). So it is possible in both 
the best and worst lists to give ten points each to five films. No one 
does that in the best list, but some do it for the worst list. Arai-san 
and some others are particularly forceful in their use of this strategy 
in the worst list. The Worst list is thus best for judging the degree 
to which there existed strong feelings against a film by a certain 
sector of the Japanese film community (for Eigei, mostly critics and 
filmmakers), not for discerning a broad and representative opinion.

That said, while I didn't put the film in my worst ten list, I didn't 
like Seijun's film myself. I've seen lots of tanuki goten films and it 
compares poorly, it is structurally all over the place, and the 
performances (and not just Zhang Yi) are not that great. My wife was 
similarly unimpressed. Just as you had a hard time understanding why 
this ended up in the worst list, I can't imagine why A.O. Scott of the 
NY Times put it in his best ten list.


Aaron Gerow
Director of Undergraduate Studies, Film Studies Program
Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University
53 Wall Street, Room 316
PO Box 208363
New Haven, CT 06520-8363
USA
Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6764
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu