Nowadays, trailers tend to be shorter versions of films. In Japan, they even have this strange but unofficial rule that says “around the 30 seconds mark, you shall add some cheap j-pop song“. But, whatever, sometimes, trailers can be more than just that.
Take for example the one for Nagisa Oshima’s Death by Hanging (1968). It’s like a movie before the actual movie, it starts raising questions, so that you want to go further. And it was directed by none other than the film’s screenwriter, Masao Adachi, which is like an experimental theorist playing with society’s taboos;
Any other japanese trailer you care to share?
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Some great others great trailers there, still ATGs:
http://eigageijutsu.blogspot.com/2009/06/blogathon-top-3-great-trailers.html
As for other great recent trailers, seems even films from Zeze are plagued with the infamous “put your j-crapsong @45s”
I would add Woman with Red hair … which seems to have been deleted from YT (remember there is some other distinctive trailer in the roman-porno genre, would be good to check the synapse DVD as retail japanese DVDs don’t always include the trailer)
Hiroshi Harada’s trailers are great, full of striking images
Yoshitaro Nomura’s trailers were also very unconventional for their time.
Like these for “Village of Eight Tombs”:
Or this one for “The Incident”, introducing the piano genius Masa Matsuda, who composed the main theme for the movie:
I for one like those J-pop songs! And I don’t think they’re cheap at all.