Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Cooktopi The acting in this movie is really good.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

talyseon Yaji and Kita: Midnight Pilgrims (2005) Directed by Kudo Kankuro.Yaji and Kita is the story of two samurai from the Edo-era. They are gay lovers with two problems. Yaji is married, Kita is a drug addict. Their lives in Edo have become a spiral of despair, so when Yaji sees an advertisement in the post for Ise, "Get back to Reality" He decides that a pilgrimage to Ise will be good for them, there, maybe Kita can get the monkey off his back.So they set off on a journey of self discovery. On Captain America's bike from the movie Easy Rider.Say what? You get that reaction a lot. This movie is a psychedelic road trip through the mind of a junkie. There are a lot of Japanese Pop culture References strewn through the movie. I mean a lot. And if you don't have a very, very, VERY good understanding of Japanese pop culture, you are going to miss out on a lot.Imagine taking a movie like Airplane or better yet, The Rocky Horror Picture Show to a small village in Nepal. A lot is going to be lost, because they don't get the reference material for some of the jokes, like when June Cleaver offers to translate for the two brothers, because she speaks Jive, or the significance of the pink triangle on Frankie's surgical gown.So, basically, you have the bastard love child of a Cheech and Chong movie, an Akira Kurosawa film, with a liberal dash of Thelma and Louise, and its gay.The lovers move along the Tokaido Road, stopping at various inns along the way. The first is the Laugh Inn. No one gets through the check point with out doing a comedy routine. The second is the Music Inn, where you get a song with each cup of tea, from a transsexual innkeeper. His daughter is very sad because her music is so bad, it causes Mt. Fuji to hide in the haze. Kita fools himself into thinking he is love with the daughter, but she is in love with Yaji.In the mean time, an inspector Kin-kin has found Yaji's wife Ohatsu murdered, and he's hot on the pair's trail.Their trails and tribulations move on, Inn after Inn, through the mundane to the surreal with all the colour and cogency of a magic mushroom trip, which incidentally, plays a big part in the latter part of the film.Is the movie good? Well, yes. I enjoyed it. I watched it several times, and got some pointers from my Japanese friend. For instance, the funny stance the school girls take when greeting Kita is the classic pose for Yakuza to assume when making their introductions. Since they are a fan club for a Mob Boss, this makes sense. You have to go into it with an appreciation for the absurd, much like when you watch spoof movies, like Scary movie, and Meet the Spartans, or Pink Floyd's The Wall.Will you get this movie? All of it, first time out? Only if you are an expatriate from Japan. But part of the fun for me has been picking up things here and there. One of the reasons that so many of the puns work in the translation is because Japan adopts words into the language when they don't have a word, so puns about Thrones, and Thrown work. Weird, huh? Is this a classic movie? I don't think so. Is it a cult movie? Yes, in Japan. Will it catch on here? I doubt it. But if you are a fan of Japanese culture, this is a great little movie. If you are a fan of Gay culture, this is a real trip. If you are a fan of both, you have to watch this movie.Visually, this movie is stunning, rich and detailed, with jarring anachronisms and wonderful silliness. The stars, Nakamura Shichinosuke, Kita (the blond Uke) and Nagase Tomoya, Yuji, (the handsome Seme) are both cute, and easy on the eyes. I think they did a good job; I got involved with their characters.This film is probably not for everyone, but if you want to take a subtitled walk on the wild side, this is the film for you.

T&R W Yaji and Kita is a film that, as one other reviewer wrote, was definitely written for the Japanese. It's legendarily filled with pop culture references, including plenty of ones obscure enough to throw even a native Japanese viewer, and has its share of language jokes too. While you may pick up on some of those, chances are good that most of them will pass you by completely. My wife and I caught only a handful of them, and chances are you'll catch a few yourself, but you won't get them all.But it doesn't matter. In the end, the reasons why many Japanese viewers thought this film was brilliant will be lost on most Western film fans - but like all good films, this one isn't relying on just pop culture and language to make you laugh. The film is full of outright humor that DOESN'T get lost in translation; from the very beginning to the very end, this film was making us laugh. What's lost in translation just isn't enough to stop this film from being great, great fun! I usually loathe musicals, but the musical set pieces in this film are just outright hilarious.If you enjoy bizarre humor, especially visual gags, then you'll get a kick out of Yaji and Kita : The Midnight Pilgrims. The characters are very bright, very colorful and very vivid, and the humor is extremely off the wall, imaginative and playful. There's a story underneath it, and although the film never discards it, it's really about the comedy. The film featured a fair few respected actors, and their talents help to make every small piece of this movie worth a watch - from start to finish, there are set-piece situations and running gags that will keep you laughing and smiling.We may never see this film the way a Japanese watcher would...but so what? It's great anyway!

dbborroughs This is the story of two samurai in Edo period Japan who are in love. One is married, the other is a drug addict. They decide that in order to make things better they will go on a trip to Ise Sanctuary, where its presumed, everything will be made right. What happens once they get on the road is the movie and its as wild and wacky as anything your likely to see. There are numerous puns, both visual and verbal; we get bodily function jokes; gender bending characters; gay jokes;romance; spoofs of films and music (and musical numbers); trips through time and space; a search for "my reality"; drug induced hallucinations and other things I was laughing to hard, or too shocked to noticed. Its a movie made for the film makers and whom ever will click into their strange mind set. Frankly its hard to describe what happens since much of it is so out there that to hear about it out of context will not make any sense (office girls on parade? Zombie Bartender? Born to be Gay?).Its probably more fun to discover the weirdness on your own, besides its too hard to describe simply.The film is not perfect. Its over two hours and probably could be trimmed by twenty minutes. The film also gets rather bizarrely surreal and it becomes almost too much to take. There is only so much one can take in before one hits the over load button. You probably won't like or get every joke or reference, I didn't, but I have to give it points for keeping at the craziness at all costs.Still for those are open to crazed, silly/clever films that the term "off beat" is too weak a word. Actually this film is so crazy that there is a good chance it will never even find its well deserved cult.9 out of 10 for sheer originality and audaciousness. Actually it would probably be something about an 8.5 but I have to round up or down to whole numbers. If you you're into off beat films and original visions look no farther this is the real deal. If you can't handle anything even slightly off center stay away, far away.A unique cinema experience.

indexFinger Be sure not to miss this most irreverent "jidai-geki" (period piece) from first-time director Kudo Kankuro. Loosely based on an earlier movie about two men escaping their wives, the postmodern treatment of the subject is indeed a treat. As one critic in Japan commented, the director must have been drunk while filming -- offbeat isn't quite the word, and off-the-wall goes only so far. But if you've ever wanted to see Tetris with dead people floating down the river on rafts, anachronism at the most unexpected times, or just shut off your brain and enjoy a movie which is really impossible to follow, Yaji and Kita's Midnight Pilgrimage will not disappoint. It's half-serious way of dealing with, in the best road movie traditions, two gay lovers, one a drug addict popping blue pills, make their way from medieval Edo to Ise and then when you least expect, burst out the absurd (motorcylces, TV shows, modern-day Tokyo). The translations occasionally fell flat (since the movie includes a lot of verbal jokes in Japanese) or were just plain unintelligible, but watching the miniature Tamiya tankers roll by needs no translations. So, sit back and enjoy the ride.