The Greatest Horror Director Is Not A Horror Director 

i hate that the youtube algorythm buried these videos, but i am glad it gave me the two and a half men one to check out the rest of the channel. These videos definately earned a sub!

watched the two and a half men video, got surprised by the subscriber count, saw this, saw japanese films in the thumbnail, clicked, started cheering because masaki kobayashi is my Favorite japanese film director alongside satoshi kon. i have to go to bed but this is cued for the next time i open up youtube.

Bushido code being mostly nonsense reminds me heavily how in Hinduism, a lot of horrible practices were done like 'sati pratha' (widow burning practice) in name of tradition. These got abolished by social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Swami Dayanand once they actually brought up the scriptures and proved it was nonsense.

you are seriously one of my favorite video essayist. cant wait for you to blow up. thank you for making me discover artists i had never heard off. i am excited to discover theyre work for myself next. cheers !

this vid ruled, it explores a ton of really interesting ideas. some of masaki kobayashi's movies have been on my to-watch list for a bit, this makes me wanna actually check them out

There's a great, beautiful comedy in how you spend so long justifying the pronunciation of Kwaidan, only to then mispronounce Cannes. If intentional, well done to you, and if not, well...claim it, it's yours.

This has now become one of my comfort videos, i'll be coming back regularly

Me: cool video Dark clone:sigh........

Beyond peak vid as always, dude! Also a real psychic-link deal--just watched my first Kobayashi (Harakiri) last week. I was already all in on him, but after watching this?? Oh baby, gimme all the 'yashi all the time, I'm so ready

I got owned for not pronouncing kwaidan correctly. Convinced to watch all the Kobayashi movies I haven't!

Already fiending for the berserk video, I love your analysis and writing!

Watched three of your videos today and they're all bangers, I think that more than deserves a sub! Kazuma's a good shout too, dude writes great stuff!

I found Harakiri in a DG 1$ movie sleeve and it sent me down a complete rabbit hole watching his entire filmography. Love the vid. Now that you mention the swords being real I can’t unsee that detail.

You have clearly been hammering away constantly with great content. Glad to catch you before the 100K mark.

10:45 excellent use of the Kokiri Theme here

30:45 the bgm music made me feel like if i had an ink ribbon i could save the game

Keep it up guy, you're doin' good. Stuff worth talking about, done in ways that are entertaining and easy to follow.

always love me a new episode of "Jai picks what i'm watching this week"

Vibyl is actually a really interesting technology how it works is that an ancient wizard inscribes runes into the disk and then an elf reads them out to a small group of trained goblins inside of the machine who play whatever sound you want

Really excellent video. I appreciate all the research & context on Kobayashi as a film-maker & the deep dive on the beauty and potential of cinema as an art form. More movies should look as good & be as considered as Kwaidan. There were at least 7 points where I felt compelled to puase & watch the whole film. Keep it up & keep talking about the important stuff (salute) (salute) (salute)

25:15 subbed. Love that shizz mang, also the algorithm showed me the two and a half men video so I'm going backwards through everything. You've got it man, you're in

This video deserves way more views but I love that the people who are really interested in stuff like this managed to find it.

This is honestly one of the best YT videos I've seen in a while! Really great job I have seen Harakiri and really loved it and i have The Human Condition in my watchlist but this really made me interested in checking out Kaidan soon!

Best video essay channel I've found in awhile. Subbed for sure ♥

I just got recommended this channel today, the day after my Harakiri and The Human Condition criterions came in from Amazon. I love these films and I love this video essay!

Great video as always. All your videos I've seen are very informative and the topics you pick end up being interesting. I'll have to check the ones I still have yet to see, like the kitchen one.

Brilliant video. Honestly, there’s a strong case to be made that the golden age of Japanese cinema was the greatest era in film history. Because there were many filmmakers that were so distinctly different from one another, but all made amazing movies. I’m working on writing a full breakdown of Harakiri on Letterboxd, and this came just in the nick of time, providing a lot of helpful information, so thank you

comment for the algorithm: Kaidan is one of my favorite movies and when I found out how old it was i was blown away. It looks so good I assumed it was a new movie. amazing. this was the late 80s or early 90s. It looked as good or better than the current movies I had available at the time.

Came from two and a half men to this fucking banger. Definetly got some more movies to watch and thoughts to consider.

I was shown your Fresh prince Video a while ago, forgot about you and found you again through the Two and a half men video. Now I am a proud subscriber.

Great video. On Kobayashi being more outwardly political than Kurosawa, I’d have to agree. But I also think Seven Samurai and Kurosawa’s other samurai films are no less aware or critical of the fascist reworking of samurai.

Beautiful work, i appreciate the video

loved this Jai! Keep it up!

Sorry, just had to pause this video to go watch kaidan then I’ll finish the other 3 vids u have aswell. Awesome channel

CONGRATS ON 10K!!!

sick video, stumbled across this while playing ghost of tsushima so thats cool

OMGGGG MASAKI KOBAYASH, TATSUYA NAKADAI, AND THE HUMAN CONDITION MY THREE FAVES ❤❤❤❤

nice video jai!

You make amazing content man keep it up. glad I found you from the two and a half men video

look at him suited up smoking in the theatre with that big bucket hat and sunglasses. fuckin. look at him. god i love him so much

Nice video jai!

It's probably worth noting that the reason that "k(w)aidan" was spelled like that pre-spelling reforms was that the term is, as with many Classical Japanese formal terms, derived from Middle Chinese, and thus pronounced with that initial kw- sound, but as Japanese evolved kw-/gw- merged into k-/g- in all but a few very conservative rural dialects. In other words, pronouncing it "kwaidan" would kind of make you sound like a historical reenactor or a zillion-year-old hick.

Directors who don't usually direct horror bring a unique vision to a horror project. Luca Guadagnino's remake of Suspiria is a great example. I don't think a single other director in the world could have pulled off a Suspiria remake.

two and a half men brought me here and i am SO GLAD. really loving all of your video essays! specially Japanese cinema ones

16:08 as far as modern Japanese pronunciation, the first attempt was pretty much correct: "hey-K" or "hey-keh".

Nice video, Jai 😀

I still remember it! At least Hoichi the earless and Yuki Ona stories… man, they just captivated me, especially the story of the Yuki Ona. This movie is really something worthy to rewatch. Thank you for the video.

another one out of the park ⚾

I cant stop watching these videos this must be the 9th time i watched this video essay lol

another great vid @LowercaseJai ! if anyone's interested in revisionist bushido films like harakiri, i recommend kon ichikawa's the wanderers.

This rocks so hard Jai

Dang, i watched ur fesh pince video when it came out and i have to say im very happy you got a banger vid, 1m views is crazy, congrats 😌

I found your channel through the two and a half men video and you are one of the few video essay makers I really enjoy. You provide commentary that’s actually good and insightful while being entertaining. I feel like most video essays are really either very surface level analysis or extremely boring and too long. You’re doing great, can’t wait for your channel to blow up!

I didn’t know RU-vid videos could get this good

These videos rip it is awesome that the algo pushed it to me and I got to subscribe and watch them all!! Also more deep dives on the letter W pleease

Excellent video. thank you very much. Greetings from El Salvador.

just watched Kwaidan and it ruled so then watched this vid properly and it kicks ass

Finally some romanization tea

Oh. I LOVE this channel.

The only one of Kobayashi's movies that I've watched is Harakiri, this video convinced me that I've got to watch more. Thanks!

I have absolutely no previous knowledge of this. But it was still very interesting. I definitely understand that I'm kinda dumb as well.

Excellent video, Jai! It's really important to remind (well in this case actually inform) people that the Bushido was made up as government propaganda! From the Meiji restoration onwards, the japanese powers that be often and clearly used art and educational material to shape their population according to their own whims, including the very japanese language we know today in the mold of what used to be spoken in the new capital of Tokyo. And that we're not free from the dangers of revisionist propaganda, be it in Japan, the USA or even Britain. Also, while I've not watched Kwaidan (yet), your description of it and the ways it contrasts with Lafcadio Hern's rendition of the story made me remember another famous japanese artist, but in this case Akutagawa Ryunosuke, the man who wrote the 2 short stories that would be used by Kurosawa and his team to make Rashomon. One of Akutagawa's most notable traits was his acute eye towards traditional japanese stories, and how to add dimensionality to them that they didn't have. Rashomon is one of those examples, though the movie itself uses the short story 藪の中 (translated as In a Grove, generally) as the basis for its script. So, while a classic font such as the Konjakumonogatarishuu would have a short story that feels more like an anecdote, Akutagawa instead rewrote those stories to represent more psychological and social perspectives that weren't present in them (or if present, only tenuously insinuated).

do u still need that harakiri blu ray or nah just wondering thanks

Kobayashi mentioned 🗣️🗣️🗣️

Gotta watch these films now

I’m glad to have found this

great vid! I'm gonna make my friends watch some of these movies

Good stuff :)

The west is also guilty of innaccurate of romatisisation of Knights compaired to how they were, many were also selfish and mercenary but we like to think they were all like William Marshall, a great, Noble man who was loyal and honorable and who's deeds litterally still have significant effects on modern society 700 years later. I think it's true for every culture, but what is the purpose of that inaccuracy

I just wanna say you have great taste in music. Smt3 and FFT have godly ost's

new jai vid. . . .rubbing my hands and licking my lips

Excelent video

what a great video

Happy to be here

so real for using the Brave Story song

I mean knight chivalry was also all bs haha. Even when people tried to make knights be more honorable they misinterpreted it. Like the guy who said knights should protect women, so they only protected noblewomen and continued to pillage peasant women *facepalm*.

I'm so glad two and a half men got me here too

Excellent video! Reading that Bushido artcile now, I've always known it was nonsense but I've never known the origins of it.

Lying to people by creating fake nostalgia to make people go to war: "Which luckily, DEFINITELY doesn't happen today". I sincerely hope people realize that was only a joke.

I had to dig deep to find this video (thanks to the frustrating algorithm). Honestly, you deserve to be up there with the great video essayists. I can't wait to see you achieve that one day, my dude!

Ooooo potential berserk video I'm excited

I found out this movie is on max guess i know what im watching next

hidden gem youtuber

great video! btw what is the song used at 20:38? it's very familiar but i cant remember where i know it from

Okay, I watched the Two and a Half Men video like others are saying then came here. I've recently realized to not care how many subscribers a channel has, or even how many views a particular video has and its been paying off so well. i already subscribed! lol. I'm about 10 minutes into this one and i just wanna thank you for taking the time to explain the why i shouldn't pronounce the W. Some people are detailed oriented and appreciate that kind of thing. Anyway keep up the work! I think you will grow a lot. I'm getting big Hbomberguy vibes. I mean that it the best way and its not just the accent. lol

What song starts playing at 10:38? I know it but it's driving me nuts.

do I hear Final Fantasy Tactics music or am I going insane

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Liked the video. Yet I got some criticism which I'm only sharing because this is a small channel. This guy seems definitely interesting and I will check him out after watching this - so mission accomplished I guess. But you don't really make the case why he is better than more recognized horror directors in any way. That makes the title feel clickbaity and brings down an honestly good essay needlessly. It also has an aftertaste of the common movie snob sentiment that horror movies aren't real movies and may be diregardet, when in fact it's the most avangart genre of film, which is sadly drowned out by an over abundance of shlock. In any way, I don't think implicitly shitting on a genre or being clickbaity were your intention, so I felt like pointing it out.

AMAZING VIDEO NEW SUB HERE FROM PARAGUAY!

BEAST

26:55 what music do you use here?

What's the music in the background starting at 10:38 please?

Legalize marinara idk

I need that mgs review bro, i see big boss as your pfp 😈

HELL YES.

left side strong side 😎

Sorry, can't watch this video. Gotta go see Kwaidan 👋🏾

Please watch kalki movie on 27 th june 2024