Erik Yates

Every so often it’s good to push ourselves in our film viewing. This month, we’ve opted to push ourselves all the way to China. China, and its surrounding applicable countries, as the loosey-goosey parameters for this edition of ZekeFilm Film Admissions is (as you can see) films of the spoken languages of either Mandarin or Cantonese. Though for good measure and full inclusivity, any associated language would qualify.

Do we like to watch characters who descend into madness cause it washes out our abject fear of our own potential mental collapse? That is to say, is it mere catharsis? Or is it just that we like to watch people go nuts? Either way, the risk of this hard-hitting question being crass and insensitive is mitigated by the fact that we’re living in actual crazy times, where a little madness might be warranted, if not welcomed.

This past month at ZekeFilm, many of our site contributers opted to figuratively venture into the land of the rising sun. What follows are personal “admissions” in the form of unpacking whichever film they chose to watch. As we’re nothing if not suckers for alliteration, we declared it “Japanese January.”  (Join us next month for our roundup of “French February”). As is evident from this smattering of important films, Japan is a country steeped in a complex and complicated history.