I went with Ayaka to the movie theater in Yurakucho (有楽町) and saw a “late show” (レートショー), basically a screening late at night, usually ending close to the time that the last trains run (12:00 to 12:30). I guess because of this late showing and the time issue, they don’t show any previews before the movie, it just goes straight in at the starting time which is nice in a way.
Anyway, the movie I saw this time was Kaiji The Life Reversal Game (カイジ 人生逆転ゲーム). It was actually a pretty good movie, I liked it a lot. It involved a lot of interesting card playing which reminded me of my younger days when I played Magic: The Gathering a lot. The basic plot is that Kaiji, a young male, has to pay a ton of money because his friend who took out a loan from a loan shark failed to repay it and so because Kaiji was foolish enough to sign on as a co-signer he owes quite a bit of money. The loan shark suggests he goes on this cruise where he plays a card game that could earn him all the money he owes the shark. He ends up losing and becomes basically a mine worker for this huge corporation and eventually has to work his way out by eventually going through weird trials (walking across a 3 inch wide beam thousands of feet above the ground between two buildings in a city) until he can play another kind of card game against one of the top guys in the company that owns him.
Anyway, click on this link to get a feeling for the movie, it’s a preview for Kaiji Life Reversal Game (カイジ 人生逆転ゲーム).
I want to see more Japanese movies here in the theaters. Now that my Japanese is at a pretty high level, I am able to follow the story along without any major problems. It is very interesting to have the experience of watching current Japanese movies coming out in Japan and seeing them in theaters here in Tokyo. Luckily the film industry here is developed enough to make decent quality movies (unlike perhaps India (Bollywood) and Nigeria (Nollywood) although one might say that these film industries are also specializing in their own particular way).
In any case, going to the “late show” was pretty nice because there weren’t a ton of previews and there was hardly anyone else in the movie theater. The other times I have gone to movies here in Japan, the movie theater has always been packed. This time, however, there were only maybe 15-20 other people in a theater that could easily sit over a hundred. It was a pretty good theater so the screen was nice and big, too. So, I’ll have to remember the “late show” next time I want to see a Japanese movie.
Work has been continuing along nicely and hopefully I will begin to see some profits from the work in the near future. I have even started to learn some Filipino from one of my workers in the Philippines. They speak many languages in the Philippines but probably the two most popular languages are Tagalog and Cebuano. So far I have learned some phrases like “magandang gabi” (“good evening” in Tagalog) and “maayung gabie” (“good evening” in Cebuano). Also, “paalam” (“bye” in Tagalog) and “salamat” (“thanks” in Tagalog). Then, even more complicated: “maraming salamat” (“many thanks” in Tagalog).
Hopefully I will continue to pick up some phrases this way. I would like to take a trip to the Philippines someday. If I do decide to go, hopefully I will have a good base of words that I can use and then quickly learn the grammar so I can make basic conversation.
In any case, I will continue to push on in my efforts and hopefully start to generate some money from the projects I am in the process of creating.