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| Hiroshi Kashiwabara. Photo by Brett Homenick. |
Tonight (Monday, March 25), I paid another visit to screenwriter Hiroshi Kashiwabara at his cafe. The topic of the evening was originally scheduled to be Catch-22 (1970), which is what I was expecting when I entered the venue. However, when I arrived, I discovered that the plans had changed due to the recent passing of actor Minori Terada.
Instead, the topic was Kihachi Okamoto's The Human Bullet (1968), which stars Terada. There are things to admire in The Human Bullet, but I can't say it's a great film or even completely successful. The story does drag at times, and I think it could have easily been tightened. It's not a bad film by any means, just an imperfect one.
I've seen Catch-22 twice. The first time was back in 1997 when I hadn't yet read the book, so the film basically went completely over my head and made no sense to me. The second time was around 2019 on DVD when the film was much more understandable. I think a better film could have been made from the source material, but there are great moments in it. (Hey, that sounds like exactly what I wrote about The Human Bullet!)
After that, there was the usual conversation among the attendees, and the subject of tokusatsu was naturally on the agenda. It was fun chatting with the various folks about the movies and TV shows they watched as kids.
As I was saying goodbye to some people, Kashiwabara-san pulled out his phone and took a couple of photos of me, which he later sent to me. (You know what I say about VIPs who take pictures of you.) A big thanks to Kashiwabara-san for tonight. I hope our next meeting won't be too far in the future.
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