I post trailers of Japanese films released in Japan every weekend and some stay with me even months after their release has come and gone. Like last year I want to start the year by looking back at the trailers that make me wish these were films I had seen in 2014 and hope I can see in 2015.

Just to jump back to the last list of films from 2013, out of the 14 films listed, I saw two – Patema Inverted and Fuan no Tane. Patema Inverted exceeded my expectations when I saw it at a cinema and I now have the Ultimate Edition home DVD/Bu-ray release that came from backing the Kickstarter campaign so I get the OST, art book and a variety of other extras. I’ll get a review of the film out before the end of January 2015! Fuan no Tane was a fun little horror film that did justice to the manga. You can read what I thought of it in my review.

The other films I listed? Well, the chances of me watching some of them were slim since they were the indiest of indies and without major studio backing, film labels with lots of money or film festivals selecting them, they would have been unlikely to get a cinema or home release in the UK. Raindance and Terracotta would have been the best places to see them but they weren’t screened.

I am kinda disappointed that I did not get to see Uzumasa Jacopetti, GFP Bunny, A Fairy Tale, and Shin Shin Shin so I’m going to start investigating ways of getting these films. My usual import routes don’t stock them… Other indie films I’m interested in cost around £20 so it’s not impossible, just expensive. It’s at times like this when I wish Japanese film and anime companies would embrace digital distribution because I know I’d make many purchases to build up my library (and regrets over spending so much).

This list of films contains entries I have cherry-picked from my trailer posts that caught my eye over the year. I doubt I’ll see many of these but who knows…

Here’s the list and music you can listen to while reading/ignoring the blurb:

Parasyte Part 1      

Japanese: 寄生獣 Part 1

Romaji: Kiseiju Part 1

Release Date: November 29^th, 2014 (Japan)

Running Time: 109 mins.

Director: Takashi Yamazaki

Writer: Ryota Kosawa (Screenplay), Hitoshi Iwaaki (Original Manga)

Starring: Shota Sometani, Ai Hashimoto, Eri Fukatsu, Nao Omori, Pierre Taki, Hirofumi Arai, Kazuki Kitamura, Tadanobu Asano, Jun Kunimura, Kimiko Yo, Masahiro Higashide,

The anime adaptation of Hitoshi Iwaaki’s sci-fi horror manga Parasyte has been consistently excellent with every episode so I am very curious about how the live-action film holds up. The reviews I have read have been really positive about the film. It has a great cast with Shota Sometani (Himizu), Tadanobu Asano (Vital), and Ai Hashimoto and Masahiro Higashide (The Kirishima Thing) featuring. The trailer reveals the film has a decent budget and it’s sticking to the source manga and not skimping on the horror but I do wonder if the creators will be able to fit the entire thing into two films…

Chances of seeing it? I don’t see this one getting picked up by any UK distributor or screened at a festival. The silence around such a good title is rather deafening.

Mysterious worm-like aliens tumble from the sky and penetrate people through their ears, nose and mouth and head to the brain to live-off and control it. Shinichi Izumi (Shota Sometani) was an ordinary high school student who was suddenly attacked by a parasite but he fought it off. For the most part. The thing still exists inside him but it lives in his right hand. Shinichi learns to co-exist with the parasite and because of this he discovers the presence of the others. He’s being monitored by another parasite that inhabits the body of his teacher Ryoko Tamiya (Eri Fukatsu). With only his love Satomi Murano (Ai Hashimoto) in danger to rely on, what can Shinichi do?

Website

Pale Moon / Paper Moon   

Japanese Title: 紙の月

Romaji: Kami no Tsuki

Release Date: November 15^th,  2014

Running Time: 126 mins.

Director: Daihachi Yoshida

Writer: Hayafune Utaeko (Screenplay), Mitsuyo Kakuta (Original Novel)

Starring: Rie Miyazawa, Sosuke Ikematsu, Yuko Oshima, Seiichi Tanabe, Yoshimasa Kindo, Satomi Kobayashi, Renji Ishibashi,

This is film is based on a novel by Mitsuyo Kakuta which has been adapted into a dorama with the same cast. I am interested in the film mostly because of the rather lurid plot and the fact that the film won the audience award at the recent Tokyo International Film Festival. It stars Rie Miyazawa and I sung her praises for her performance in The Twilight Samurai and I want to see more of her acting performances and this one looks to be strong especially since it’s in a story about a character coming apart at the seams after committing a serious crime due to her boredom and lust…

Chances of seeing it? I wonder if this will turn up at Raindance or Terracotta…

Rika Umezawa (Miyazawa) lives a dull life. Despite being a highly rated employee with her clients at a bank, a seemingly loveless marriage with her husband leaves her feeling a profound sense of emptiness and this leads her to embark on an affair with a young man named Kota (Ikematsu), a university student. Spending money on him is a costly endeavour what with hotel suites and fancy restaurants and so she begins to embezzle money from her clients and neglect her husband as she becomes addicted to her illicit affair…

Website

Bon Lin   

Japanese: ぼんとリンちゃん

Romaji: Bon to Lin chan

Release Date: September 20^th, 2014 (Japan)

Running Time: 91 mins.

Director: Keiichi Kobayashi

Writer: Keiichi Kobayashi (Screenplay),

Starring: Ema Sakura, Mahiro Takasugi, Hakushu Togetsuan, Rino Higa, Kaho Tsukioka, Takayuki Suzuki,

I like the look of this one. Naturalistic acting and dialogue and a trawl around the otaku side of Tokyo. The trailer shows beautiful colours and imagery and the plot has an intriguing story.

Chances of seeing it? This comes from the writer/director of About a Pink Sky (2012) and he had that  film screened at Raindance so there’s every chance this indie could be at next year’s event.

Natsuko Yotsuya (Sakura) is a teenage girl who is also known as Bon and she has a friend named Miyu. Bon is from a small town but Miyu lives in Tokyo with her boyfriend. When Natsuko finds out that Miyu is being abused by her partner, she heads to the big city to bring her homes. Tagging along is her childhood friend Rintaro Tomoda (Takasugi) who is also known as Lin. They meet a series of Otaku who help guide them through the streets of Tokyo to find Miyu.

Website

Rurouni Kenshin The Legend Ends   

Japanese: るろうに剣心　伝説の最期編

Romaji: Rurouni Kenshin: Densetsu no Saigo-hen

Release Date: September 13^th, 2014 (Japan)

Running Time: 135 mins.

Director: Keishi Otomo

Writer: Kiyomi Fujii, Keishi Otomo, (Screenplay), Nobuhiro Watsuki (Original Manga)

Starring: Takeru Satoh, Emi Takei, Yu Aoi, Munetaka Aoki, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Yusuke Iseya, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Kaito Oyagi, Tao Tsuchiya, Maryjun Takahashi, Kazufuki Miyazawa,

OOOOOHHHH MYYYYYYYY GOOOOOOD! I have to see this now. I saw Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno TWICE in a cinema and loved it but it ended on a massive cliffhanger which was like OH MY GOD. The film tops the first entry in the Rurouni Kenshin film trilogy by being even more visually dazzling and having insanely frenetic and huge battles and the acting was pitch-perfect! I have to know what happens next! KAORU! What happened to her? Who picked up Rurouni Kenshin at the end of the second film?

Chances of seeing it?  I’m seeing this. It’s getting a UK release in cinemas and on DVD/Blu-ray like the last two Ruroken films, I just know it. I’m waiting on info from the PR company. As with the last film and the first one, I’ll take my mother and sister to see it.

The Kyoto arc of the original manga comes to an explosive end as Kenshin must face off against another elite assassin, Shishio Makoto, a man who wants to overthrow the newly formed government.

Website

The Pinkie         

Japanese: さまよう　小指

Romaji: Samayou Koyubi

Release Date: September 14^th, 2014 (Japan)

Running Time: 63 mins.

Director: Lisa Takeba

Writer: Lisa Takeba (Screenplay),

Starring: Ryota Ozawa, Miwako Wagatsuma, Haruka Suenaga, Kanji Tsuda

When writing about film festivals you get to know a lot of the titles that are on tour around the world and, of course, you pick up one or two that you really want to see and it hurts when you don’t. The Pinkie is one of those films. I first encountered it when writing the Rotterdam International Film Festival post and then it was released in Japan in September. It looks like a lot of fun, an insane mash-up of mediums and genres with comedy and romance at the centre.  It comes from Lisa Takeba who has a background in advertising and writing videogames for Nintendo and others so she’s got a lot of experience with different styles to work with! It stars Miwako Wagatsuma who is an actress I have been tracking since 2012 because she is taking on interesting roles as can be seen from her filmography which includes Guilty of Romance, The End of Puberty, Sentimental Yasuko, Kuro and Shin Shin Shin.

Chances of seeing it? I don’t see any UK distributor or festival screening this which means import route. I need to see it, some how, some way…

Since they were both five, Ryosuke has been stalked by Momoko – the ugliest girl in the village. Momoko’s love for Ryosuke is so boundless that she has her face surgically altered to suit his taste – but still, he wants nothing to do with her. Ryosuke is more interested in the girlfriend of a yakuza boss. But when the boss finds out about their affair, he has Ryosuke’s little finger hacked off. Magically, the finger falls into Momoko’s hands, and she uses it to clone Ryosuke, so she can finally have him (or almost him) for herself – and that’s the first five minutes.

Website

Murder Workshop      

Japanese: 殺人ワークショップ

Romaji: Satsujin Wa-kushoppu

Release Date: September 13^th, 2014 (Japan)

Running Time: 75 mins.

Director: Koji Shiraishi

Writer: Koji Shiraishi (Screenplay),

Starring: Shohei Uno, Akiko Kiuchi, Mie Nishimura, Asami Ito, Hidetoshi Tokudome,

Murder Workshop comes from ENBU Seminar, an indie collective who use the workshop format to release short and feature films. I like that the filmmakers behind Murder Workshop are satirising the very workshop system that created the film. The system I talk about operates like this:

Budding actors are paired up with experienced directors and other professionals for on the job training. The actors have to pay for their moment on the screen but learn on the job.

This latest workshop film is directed by horror vet Koji Shiraishi (who I am slowly coming around to despite having “found-footage film fatigue” and it stars a solid character actor named Shohei Uno who has grown on me with his performances in a number of horror films I have seen. The only workshop film I have viewed is Be My Baby (2013) but another one has caught my eye and it’s mentioned later on in the list.

Chances of seeing it? Nil, unless I import it. There really is little to sell it to an audience in the West. It’s low-budget and has a cast of unknowns. Even Koji Shiraishi, somebody known by fans of J-horror, isn’t a name to sell a film at this point…

Here’s the music video for the film’s theme:

Akiko is abused by her lover. When she receives an email offering training to kill a person, she signs up for the course. When she gets to the workshop, she finds herself surrounded by people ready to be taught to kill and all lead by their mysterious and brutal teacher (Uno)!!!

Website

Over Your Dead Body   

Japanese: 喰女　－クイメー

Romaji: Kuime

Release Date: August 23^rd, 2014 (Japan)

Running Time: 94 mins.

Director: Takashi Miike

Writer: Kikumi Yamagishi (Screenplay), Tsuruya Nanboku IV (Original Kabuki Play)

Starring: Ebizo Ichikawa, Kou Shibasaki, Hideaki Ito Miho Nakanishi, Maiko, Toshie Negishi, Koichi Sato, Hiroshi Katsuno, Toshiaki Karasawa, Kenichi Hagiwara, Kei Sato,

Takashi Miike makes his meta-horror version of the very popular kabuki play Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan, by Tsuruya Nanboku IV and it stars kabuki actor Ebizo Ichikawa and Kou Shibasaki, the star of Miike’s J-horror film One Missed Call (2004). The reviews I have read have been full of praise and the trailer makes it look like an atmospheric horror film to die for. If Miike has made another horror film like Audition, one where atmosphere and story trump gore and grue, I’ll watch it! More Miike is a good thing, especially if he’s back dealing out horror films!

Chances of seeing it? Third Window Films have picked up two of Miike’s latest films so could this be another one? Miike’s name still carries weight in the West where many 20/30-somethings remember Audition, Ichi the Killer and a new generation have experienced 13 Assassins and For Love’s Sake. He has a mixture of commercial and critical success. This is horror and horror is easier to sell than some other genres. Will anyone pick this up for distribution?

Kosuke Hasegawa (Ichikawa) and his lover Miyuki Goto (Shibasaki) are both cast in a new stage version of the play “Yotsuya Kaidan” which is a ghost story about a man under a family curse that ensures that any relationship with a woman will end in betrayal, supernatural vengeance, and murder. They are both in the lead roles, Kosuke playing the philandering Iemon and Miyuki playing the tragic Oiwa. It seems that fact mirrors fiction as Kosuke is a faithless lover who cheats on Miyuki with other actresses in the same play. Perhaps it is this which makes it hard for Miyuki to separate herself from the character she is portraying as she slowly becomes filled with love, anger and hate. As the two get more involved with the play, reality and fiction become one…

Website

Sturm Und Drang        

Japanese Title: シュトルム・ウント・ドランクッ

Romaji: Shutorumu Unto Doranggu

Release Date: August 16^th, 2014 (Japan)

Running Time: 138 mins.

Director: Isao Yamada

Writer: Isao Yamada, Shinzo Takano (Screenplay)

Starring: Emiko Nakamura, Satoru Jitsunashi, Takashi Akiyama, Takeshi Hirokawa, Mutsuo Yoshioka, Ginpachi Ginza, Yumeji Kobayashi, Morio Agata, Fumiko Arai,

This one is a wild card. Sturm und Drang comes from Isao Yamada, director of Grass Labyrinth (1983) and it is all about a group of artists and anarchists in Taisho era Japan (1910’s – 20’s) who form a terrorist group named “Guillotine Inc.” and plot revolution against the government. Then the Kanto earthquake of 1923 strikes… That was a particularly nasty time in Japan’s history and the characters in the film are up against a brutal government but amidst the bleakness there seems to be comedy and delightful artistic moments that fit in with the character’s occupations.

Chances of seeing it? Nil, unless I import it. I doubt many people who visit this blog are that interested. They’re probably wondering why I haven’t added something like, As the Gods Will…

Website

Forma                

Japanese: 小さい　おうち

Romaji: Chiisai Ouchi

Release Date: August 16^th, 2014 (Japan)

Running Time: 145 mins.

Director: Ayumi Sakamoto

Writer: Ryo Nishihara (Screenplay), Ayumi Sakamoto (Original Story)

Starring: Emiko Matsuoka, Ken Mitsuishi, Ryo Nishihara, Seiji Nozoe, Nagisa Umeno

FORMA is an award-winning film directed by Ayumi Sakamoto. It finally gets a release in Japan after screenings at numerous film festivals such as Berlin where it won prizes and it’s screening there was when I  first posted about it and got the following burb from:

Director Ayumi Sakamoto has been in the film industry for a spell having worked as an actress and in the camera and electrical department of a number of films like Vital and other Shinya Tsukamoto films where she learned directing and cinematography skills. Shot in a muted palette of greys, blacks and beiges in perfect tandem with the colourless lives of its protagonists, Ayumi Sakamoto’s striking debut has a keen grasp of friendship’s grey areas and linguistic cadences. A slow-burning thriller whose long, rigorously composed shots demand closer scrutiny: never disregard the unspoken and the unseen.

I like the dark storyline driving this one but what gets me is the fact that the director is one to watch and from what I’ve read, she employs lots of technically brilliant flourishes and gets the best out of her actors to make this dark and compelling drama come to life.

Chances of seeing it?  Close to zero unless I import it. I’ll keep checking the film’s Twitter feed but I think it won’t reach the UK on the festival circuit and so a home release is the best way to see it and I don’t see any UK company dealing this out.

One day, Ayako Kaneshiro is reunited with her former classmate Yukari Hosaka. She invites Yukari to join her company, and she accepts. However, Ayako begins to treat Yukari coldly and act strangely around her. Yukari feels increasingly pressured, but Ayako has her reasons. The pent-up hatred within her deepens the darkness in her heart. To confirm her own feelings, Ayako confronts Yukari. Their conflicting emotions intertwine… What lies at the end of this cycle of hatred?

Website

The Voice of Water  

Japanese: 水の声を聞く

Romaji: Mizu no Koe wo Kiku

Release Date: August 30^th, 2014 (Japan)

Running Time: 129 mins.

Director: Masashi Yamamoto

Writer: Masashi Yamamoto (Screenplay),

Starring: Hyunri, Shuri, Natsuko Nakamura, Jun Murakami, Takashi Oda, Gen Sato, Akahiro Kamataki, Eiko Nishio,

Here’s the other workshop film I mentioned above. It comes from Cinema Impact, the guys who did Be My Baby (2013). I was intrigued by it when I wrote about it for a trailer post but after reading a review by Don Brown over at The Asahi Shimbun has convinced me this one is worth seeking out. It features a cast of new actors and a very good actor in the shape of Jun Murakami. It’s all about Korea town and the people who exist in it which could fascinating in and of itself when you think of the cultural issues involved but there’s the story of a cult and a girl at the centre who wants to escape here as well which adds more intrigue.

Chances of seeing it? You know the drill. Import or nothing. This could be at the next Terracotta Far East Film Festival and I think it looks like a more palatable offering than Be My Baby, which was screened this year.

This one takes place in Korea Town in Shinjuku and is all about a Korean-Japanese woman named Minjon (Hyunri) who comes from a long line of shamans who speacialise in hearing messages from the water. Believers keep seeking her out but she has misgivings about how she is exploited by a cult that has built up around her and even her own abilities.

Website

Fireworks Ideas         

Japanese: 花火思想

Romaji: Hanabi Shishō

Running Time: 93 mins.

Release Date: January 25^th, 2014

Director: Oki Moe

Writer: Ryusuke Asagaya (Screenplay),

Starring: Takuya Sakurai, Kenji Kubo, Eriko Tomioka, Hayato

Lots of indie films come out in Japan but this one caught my attention. A guy who is on the edge is on a road-trip with scary visions. It looks to be an artfully constructed cross between Donnie Darko and some road-trip movie. The strange and surreal elements draw me to it. I also love the poster. It’s so simple when compared to other film posters which are usually cluttered with kanji and faces of the actors.

Chances of seeing it? Need you ask? Import or nothing.

In this road movie we see the struggle to escape reality and achieve a dream that many people face. Our protagonist is Yusuke (Sakurai) and he is a part-time worker at a convenience store who has nightmares of a man with a horse head. He was once in a band but that was a long time ago and now his dreams have almost faded but as time passes he finds that the border between dream and reality becomes uncertain and so he goes on a journey as if guided by the guy with the horse head…

Website

Tokyo Doppelkonzert   

Japanese Title: 東京戯曲

Romaji: Tokyo Gikyoku

Release Date: March 22nd, 2014

Running Time: 83 mins.

Director: Hiranami Wataru

Writer: Hiranami Wataru (Screenplay),

Starring: Mio Dazai, Kenta Enya, Takuya Fuji, Takehiko Fujita, Ran Fukuda, Keiko Furuuchi

This one has stuck in my memory because the acting and direction shown in the trailer seemed like a mixture between artiness and pretentiousness and naturalism. I’m not quite sure what to make of it but I expect a character driven story which shows a less glam version of Japan and one populated by interesting people with different ideas and there looks to be comedy derived from these characters.

Chances of seeing it? I doubt I’ll see it unless I import it or decide I want to live in Japan and marry someone who works in the film industry and gets screeners… Is this my version of Heaven….?

The story follows a couple. Fumi, a writer who has separated from Kozue and as their relationship hits ups and downs, their connections with the people around them also change… Ah, the drama of relations between men and women…

Website

Hello Supernova  

Japanese Title:  ハロー、スーパーノヴァ

Romaji: Harō, Sūpānova

Release Date: February 22nd, 2013

Running Time: 88 mins.

Director: Yuichiro Konno

Writer: Yuichiro Konno (Screenplay)

Starring: Chisato Ushio, Mitsuharu Kobayashi, Azusa Uemura, Kaoru Ozawa

This title comes from Yuichiro Konno, a multimedia artist who has worked with photography, theatre and film. In this title a woman who has been stuck in her house for a long period of time ventures out an encounters all sorts of people in various situations. This film is another one that has stuck in my memory despite the myriad of TV/anime/book adaptations I usually dive into every weekend. It looks cheap but eventful with some interesting shots in the trailer. I like the randomness of the story. It looks different and interesting and when so many films are adaptations, being unique is a good thing.

Chances of seeing it? Import or nothing. Seeing films this small makes me wonder how they are viewable after seeing them in a cinema.

Website

The Tale of Iya                                          

Japanese Title: 祖谷物語 -おくのひと-

Romaji: Iya Monogatari – Oku no Hito

Running Time: 169 mins.

Release Date: February 15^th, 2014

Director: Tetsuchiro Tsuta

Writer: Tetsuchiro Tsuta, Masayuki Ueda (Screenplay),

Starring: Rina Takeda, Shima Ohnishi, Sachi Ishimaru, Hitoshi Murakami, Min Tanaka, Reika Miwa, Takahiro Ono, Naomi Kawase, Christopher Pellegrii, Keiko Taoka, Shigeru Kimura

This is another film that I missed and it hurts. Watch the trailer. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Magical as well, right? Do you want to know why I attend film festivals? To see the little gems that don’t get a home cinema release and to experience films on the big screen, especially beautiful ones. I will forever regret not seeing this at the Pan-Asian Film Festival earlier this year because the trailer is beautiful, mysterious, majestic, and the story sounds so intriguing and the reviews I read were all full of a mind-boggling level of praise.

Chances of seeing it? WHY DIDN’T I GO AND SEE IT WHEN IT WAS IN LONDON???? I’ll need to import this one. Or marry.

It is winter. A man (Min Tanaka) finds a baby girl in the snow by a freezing lake in the mountains of Tokushima and takes her in. He gives her the name Haruna and they live far away from other people. The baby grows into a caring woman (Rina Takeda) who looks after the man.

It is summer. A stranger from Tokyo arrived at “Iya”, where the riches of nature still abound. His name is Kudo, and he wants to start a new life in the country to refresh his tired soul. Unfortunately the reality was not as easy as he thought because there is a confliction between a local construction company and a group of nature conservationists.

One day, Kudo meets the old man and Haruna and finds out that they lead lives completely different from his own. The old man is a farmer who climbs up the mountain to go to the little shrine to offer Omiki (sake) to the mountain god and Haruna goes to high school an hour away from home, and after that, helps Grandpa to plow his field. Feeling his heart gradually healing, Kudo thought that he finally found what he was looking for in their calm life but a destructive winter occurs…

Website

100 Yen Love   

Japanese: 百円の恋

Romaji: Hyaku-en no Koi

Running Time: 113 mins.

Release Date: December 20th, 2014

Director: Masaharu Take

Writer: Masaharu Take (Screenplay),

Starring: Sakura Ando, Hirofumi Arai, Miyoko Inagawa, Saori, Shohei Uno Tadashi Sakata, Yuki Okita,

Two films featuring Sakura Ando (Love Exposure) were released last year. 0.5 mm, directed by her sister Momoko, looks good but this one has hooked my attention. It’s a character driven story and it’s Ando’s all about performance which reviewers have praised.

Chances of seeing it? It’s Raindance or nothing!

Kazuko (Ando) is a hikikomori who lives at her parents’ home but that situation changes when her younger sister divorces and moves back with her child. Kazuko and her sister’s relationship is pretty rocky and the two fight which makes Kazuko move out and find a place of her own. While working at a 100 Yen shop she keeps encountering a middle-aged boxer (Arai) who practices at a local boxing gym. She is attracted to him and the two start a relationship which will fuel the continuing change in her life.

Website

Kanagawa University of Fine Arts, Office of Film Research  

Japanese: 神奈川芸術大学映像学科研究室

Romaji: Kanagawa Geijutsu Daigaku Eizo Gakka Kenkyushitsu

Running Time: 70 mins.

Release Date: January 25^th, 2014

Director: Yuichiro Sakashita

Writer: Yuichiro Sakashita (Screenplay),

Starring: Kaori Iida, Chihiro Kasahara, Tomoya Maeno, Kazuhiko Takasu,

Wordy title, unattractive text heavy poster and yet I am intrigued by this film. The trailer had me laughing at some of the deadpan humour. The last film I saw that was about students at uni trying to make a movie was Who’s Camus Anyway? which I found enormously entertaining. The trailer makes me think that this is the world that the film nerds from The Kirishima Thing would enter if they continued to pursue a movie career at university. Funnily enough, the cast here features Tomoya Maeno (one of the film nerds). There is also a solid lead in the shape of Kaoru Iida (And the Mud Ship Sails Away, Miss Zombie) and Kiyoshi Kurosawa, one of my favourite directors!!!

Okuda works in the Film Department of Kanagawa University of Fine Arts. When he witnesses students stealing school equipment he is ordered by film professors to hide the truth and make a false report. He is torn between reporting the students and not rocking the boat and causing trouble. Then another incident occurs on campus and the situation seems to spiral out of control…

Website

Here’s one last trailer which I caught in December. Hold Your Breath Like a Lover. It is a release from a grad at the Tokyo University of the Arts and  it was at this year’s Locarno FIlm Festival, the only Japanese feature to play. It hasn’t been released in Japanese cinemas like these other films but I wanted to include it in this list because I want to see it in 2015.

The 2015 Rotterdam International Film Festival launches in just over a week and it will take place from January 21^st to February 01^st. Rotterdam has always been good for Japanese filmmakers with many like Sion Sono, Takashi Miike and Kiyoshi Kurosawa getting their films screened and receiving support. This year’s line-up of titles has some of their latest projects programmed as major films come to the end of a long festival run including Toronto which is where I got some of the trailers from. Of note is the appearance of Lisa Takeba who was at last year’s festival with The Pinkie. Her projects strike me as interesting and it seems that the programmers at Rotterdam agree because she is back with the world premiere of her latest, Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory!

The line-up features a real variety in topic and tone making this Rotterdam a good one for fans of Japanese films. There are a lot that have toured other festivals but more which have not been widely seen so it’s worth looking at all of them to see if there are any that catch your eye!

Here’s the line-up of films:

Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory

Japanese: 春子超常現象研究所

Romaji: Haruko Chojo Gensho Kenkyujo

Release Date: N/A

Running Time: 76 mins.

Director: Lisa Takeba

Writer: Lisa Takeba (Screenplay),

Starring: Aoi Nakamura, Moeka Nozaki, Fumiyo Kohinata, Sayaka Aoki, Takumi Saito, Yumiko Takahashi,

No trailer but the festival page pretty much describes the film (spoilers, anyone???) and that’s where I got the image from.

Angry girl Haruko (Nozaki) is in the habit of bitching at her television. It’s an old, analogue set, which one day breaks down – then starts talking back. The television set becomes a man (Nakamura). Haruko names him Terebi and soon falls in love with him. Absurd situations stack up in colourful images in a startling mix of pop absurdism, drawing on cult TV shows and romantic children’s television. Beneath all the craziness, however, a love story unfolds.

Haruko can’t believe her TV man is real. She thinks he must be a Yokai (a Japanese poltergeist) and that she must have paranormal talents. Haruko would prefer to keep her lover at home, but one fine day he goes out in search of work. It turns out he has a striking talent: he speaks twelve different languages. His manliness also proves to be more than satisfactory. He gets a role in a TV show but he attracts the attention of less than savoury characters.

Undulant Fever (International Title)/Umi wo Kanjiru Toki (When I Sense the Sea)  (Literal Title) 

Japanese: 海を感じる時

Romaji: Umi wo Kanjiru Toki

Release Date: September 13^th, 2014 (Japan)

Running Time: 118 mins.

Director: Hiroshi Ando

Writer: Haruhiko Arai (Screenplay), Kei Nakazawa (Original Novel)

Starring: Yui Ichikawa, Sosuke Ikematsu, Masaki Miura, Kumi Nakamura, Sakiko Takao, Madoka Sakai,

Based on a famous novel by Kei Nakazawa which she wrote when she was only 18 years old in 1978. The film is directed by Hiroshi Ando who has made pink films.

Emiko (Ichikawa) and Hiroshi (Ikematsu) are both members of their high school newspaper club and run into each other in the club room during a break. Emiko loves Hiroshi but he is only interested in sex. Even so Emiko originally gives herself as a slave to Hiroshi, but years later, the roles are reversed.

La La La At Rock Bottom / Misono Universe    

Japanese:　味園ユニバース

Romaji: Misono Yunibasu

Release Date: February 14^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 103 mins.

Director: Nobuhiro Yamashita

Writer: Tomoe Kanno (Screenplay),

Starring: Fumi Nikaido, Subaru Shibutani, Akainu, Sarina Suzuki, Shohei Uno, Shinji Imaoka, Takumi Matsuzawa, Suon Kan,

This one is a bit of a scoop for Rotterdam. It seems that they have developed a taste for Nobuhiro Yamashita after screening his film Tamako in Moratorium (2013) last year and they want some more. This is his latest and it sounds like a romantic comedy with a bit of darkness in its heart. The festival page for the film describes it as such:

This is not the usual run of romantic comedies; it avoids clichés and occasionally comprises bizarre moments, but also tender ones.

The trailer looks promising and suggests this has the potential to be different, sharper and harder than a lot of films and then we come to the fact that Nobuhiro Yamashita has assembled a cast with a lot of range. We’re talking about Fumi Nikaido (Himizu) who can do beautiful, dark as well as comedic characters, Shohei Uno who can play deluded losers, cool murderers and fools and then there are a few wild cards. Subaru Shibutani is an idol and part of the boy band Kanjani Eight. He’s starred in super sentai parodies, can he do drama? Nobuhiro Yamashita has also drafted in the pink film directing legend and regular writing partner Shinji Imaoka (the two worked together on The Drudgery Train). I’m very curious about this one. Apparently, there will be a live performance by Subaru Shibutani after the screening on Thursday 22 January. Here’s the trailer:

During a band’s performance at a square in Osaka, a young man (Shibutani) suddenly rushes onto the stage, grabs the mic and begins to sing. The audience is initially stunned by the man’s actions but they are soon enraptured by the man’s voice. The band are also blown away and the band’s manager, Kasumi (Nikaido), who was in the audience, approaches the man to ask him who he is. He tells her that he doesn’t know because he has lost his memory. Kasumi nicknames him “Pochi Man” and takes him into her care, letting him live with her and her grandfather and work in the studio. The young man soon becomes the singer for the band, but when his memories start to return, he isn’t happy…

The World of Kanako                         

Japanese Title: 渇き                    

Romaji: Kawaki

Running Time: 118 mins

Release Date: June 27^th, 2014 (Japan)

Director: Tetsuya Nakashima

Writer: Tetsuya Nakashima (Screenplay), Akio Fukamachi (Novel),

Starring: Koji Yakusho, Nana Komatsu, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Joe Odagiri, Fumi Nikaido, Ai Hashimoto, Miki Nakatani, Jun Kunimura, Asuka Kurosawa,

If you’re attending the festival then take the time to see this one. It comes from Tetsuya Nakashima, director of Confession, and like that film it is a highly stylised and dark title. As I stated in my review, it’s an intense experience both intellectually and emotionally. The quality of the cast and staff are high. The film stars awesome actors like Koji Yakusho (Cure, The Woodsman & the Rain), Satoshi Tsumabuki (Judge!, For Love’s Sake), Fumi Nikaido (Himizu, Why Don’t You Play in Hell?) and Ai Hashimoto (The Kirishima Thing, Another) and taking the lead as Kanako is a new actress, Nana Komatsu, who I think we will be seeing a lot more of.

An alcoholic ex-detective named Akikazu (Yakusho) investigates the disappearance of his teenage daughter Kanako (Komatsu), a girl who seemed to be a model student. What he finds leads him into a disturbing situation…

Over Your Dead Body   

Japanese: 喰女　－クイメー

Romaji: Kuime

Release Date: August 23^rd, 2014 (Japan)

Running Time: 90 mins.

Director: Takashi Miike

Writer: Kikumi Yamagishi (Screenplay), Tsuruya Nanboku IV (Original Kabuki Play)

Starring: Ebizo Ichikawa, Kou Shibasaki, Hideaki Ito Miho Nakanishi, Maiko, Toshie Negishi, Koichi Sato, Hiroshi Katsuno, Toshiaki Karasawa, Kenichi Hagiwara, Kei Sato,

Takashi Miike gets his latest film released and it is in an update of Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan, a kabuki play by Tsuruya Nanboku IV which has been adapted into film over thirty times. The new script from Miike looks like an atmospheric slow-build in the way his magnum opus, Audition was. It sees a group of modern thespians bringing to life the play and finding their lives imitating the fiction they are portraying. The film stars kabuki actor Ebizo Ichikawa and Kou Shibasaki, the star of Miike’s J-horror film One Missed Call (2004). The great thing about the film is that it looks to be in the mould of traditional J-horror films thanks to the yurei and the emphasis on atmosphere. The festival site describes the film in such tantalising terms:

The revolving stage has been beautifully lit and the soundtrack is dark and minimalist. The tension simmers out of sight and only explodes at the end – atypically for Miike, who is known for his bloodthirstyness. And it remains unclear what is real and what is imagined.

NICE!

Kosuke Hasegawa (Ichikawa) and his lover Miyuki Goto (Shibasaki) are both cast in a new stage version of the play “Yotsuya Kaidan” which is a ghost story about a man under a family curse that ensures that any relationship with a woman will end in betrayal, supernatural vengeance, and murder. They are both in the lead roles, Kosuke playing the philandering Iemon and Miyuki playing the tragic Oiwa. It seems that fact mirrors fiction as Kosuke is a faithless lover who cheats on Miyuki with other actresses in the same play. Perhaps it is this which makes it hard for Miyuki to separate herself from the character she is portraying as she slowly becomes filled with love, anger and hate. As the two get more involved with the play, reality and fiction become one…

Tokyo Tribe   

Japanese: トーキョー　トライブ

Romaji: To-kyo- Toraibu

Release Date: August 30^th, 2014 (Japan)

Running Time: 116 mins.

Director: Sion Sono

Writer: Sion Sono (Screenplay), Santa Inoue (Original Manga)

Starring: Ryohei Suzuki, Young Dais, Nana Seino, Ryuta Sato, Riki Takuechi, Denden, Shota Sometani, Shoko Nakagawa, Yosuke Kubozuka, Takuya Ishida, Shunsuke Daito, Yui Ichikawa, Mika Kano,

Sion Sono is one of my absolute favourite directors thanks to works like Suicide Club (2002) and Strange Circus (2005) and the super extreme violent comedy Why Don’t You Play in Hell?. It looks like he’s still in the mood for making entertainment films if this title is anything to go by. Tokyo Tribes is a film based upon a seinen manga created by Santa Inoue and serialised in the urban fashion magazine Boon from 1997 to 2005 and judging by the trailer, this film looks like a riot. I have heard lots of praise for it so this will be one to watch.

The film takes place in the future. Five years have passed since the Shibuya riots and different clans called “Tribes” exist in Tokyo. Kai Deguchi is a member of the Musashino Saru tribe led by Tera. When Tera dies at the hands of Bukuro Wu-RONZ tribe leader Mera,   Kai finds himself facing off against a former best friend.

As the Gods Will       

Japanese: 神さまの言うとおり

Romaji: Kami-sama no Iutoori

Release Date: November 15^th, 2014 (Japan)

Running Time: 83 mins.

Director: Takashi Miike

Writer: Hiroyuki Yatsu (Screenplay), Muneyuki Kaneshiro, Akeji Fujimura (Original Manga)

Starring: Sota Fukushi, Hirona Yamazaki, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Mio Yuki, Shota Sometani, Nao Omori, Lily Franky

Looking even better is this!!! Takashi Miike is back to his bloody best with a series of horror films released in the second half of this year. Kami-sama no Iu Toori translates as Just as God Said but it’s also known under the title As the God’s Will. It is based on a horror-survival manga series written by Muneyuki Kaneshiro and illustrated by Akeji Fujimura and taking part in the horror show are an amazingly talented bunch with experienced actor Nao Omori, star of The Ravine of Goodbye (2013) and Lily Franky, a supporting actor and a hilarious one at that in Judge! (2014). They are providing support for a new generation of actors like Ryunosuke Kamiki, one of the standouts in the ensemble school drama, The Kirishima Thing (2012) and Hirona Yamazaki, one of the star of Lesson of Evil (2012). I started reading the manga recently and it’s pretty good! For more images and trailers, see my post about its trailer.

Shun Takahata (Fukushi) is a high school student who lives an ordinary life until he finds himself forced to participate in a series of children’s games which turn extremely deadly as is seen in the first one when his teacher’s head explodes and is replaced by a daruma doll! Shun has to play the games and win to survive otherwise he will die. It gets complicated because his friend Ichika Akimoto (Yamazaki) is also playing. Nobody knows who or what has caused this bizarre game but a fellow student named Takeru Amaya (Kamiki) is enjoying seeing his classmates die…

When Marnie Was There    

Japanese: 思い出のマーニー

Romaji: Omoide no Mani

Release Date: July 19^th, 2014 (Japan)

Running Time: 103 mins.

Director: Hiromasa Yonebayashi

Writer: Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Keiko Niwa, Masashi Ando (Screenplay), Joan G. Robinson (Original Novel)

Starring: Kasumi Arimura (Marnie), Sara Takatsuki (Anna), Hitomi Kuroki (Hisako), Susumu Terajima (Kiyomasa Oiwa), Yo Oizumi (Dr. Yamashita), Nanako Matsushima (Yoriko), Kazuko Yoshiyuki (Baaya),

This film is from Hiromasa Yonebayashi, director of Arrietty (2010) and while it didn’t set the world on fire, it looks good. The film is an adaptation of a book written by British novelist Joan G. Robinson’s and published in 1967 but the setting has moved from Britain to Japan, More specifically, to a small coastal town in Hokkaido. This is the location for a strange tale involving a twelve-year-old girl named Anna who travels from Sapporo to the village to cope with her asthma. She is staying with relatives and leads a solitary existence because she finds it hard to deal with other children due to a dark incident in her past. One day, she sees a western-style house that the villagers refer to as Marsh House and spies a mysterious blonde girl named Anna in the windows. She heads over there and the two become friends but Anna has a dark secret…

The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness  

Japanese: 夢　と　狂気　の　国

Romaji: Yume to Kyōki no Ōkoku

Running Time: 118 mins.

Release Date: November 16^th, 2013

Director: Mami Sunada

Writer: Mami Sunada

Starring: Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Toshio Suzuki, Hideaki Anno, Goro Miyazaki

This is a documentary is in the TIFF documentary strand and is  about the acclaimed anime company Studio Ghibli and the three major figures behind the studio, directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and producer Toshio Suzuki as they work on Ghibli’s latest film The Wind Rises and The Tale of Princess Kaguya.Director Mami Sunada was prepping to do a fiction film but when offered the chance to do this documentary immediately stepped up. Miyazaki and Takahata have been very complimentary about the title. Here’s another video.

Fires on the Plain

Japanese Title: 野火

Romaji: Nobi

Release Date: N/A

Running Time: 87 mins.

Director: Shinya Tsukamoto

Writer: Shinya Tsukamoto (Screenplay), Shohei Ooka (Original Novel)

Starring: Shinya Tsukamoto, Lily Franky, Tatsuya Nakamura, Yuko Nakamura, Dean Newcombe,

Shinya Tsukamoto is back bringing the fire to Japanese cinema audiences with his challenging films. The fire I mentioned is Fires on the Plain which is based upon the 1951 Yomiuri Prize-winning novel of the same name and that was then adapted into a film in 1959 by Kon Ichikawa. It took Tsukamoto 20 years to bring his adaptation of the film to the screen. It stars the director, Shinya Tsukamoto, who surrounds himself with interesting actors like Yuko Nakamura Kotoko (2011) and Lily Franky,  Judge! (2014) and Like Father, Like Son (2013). Fires on the Plain has come away from many film festivals with critics praising it so if you’re looking for a challenge, this might be for you.

Clips from the film:

The film Fires on the Plain follows a demoralised Japanese army in the Philippines. We see how bad things are for the Japanese troops through the desperate struggle of a conscript named Tamura who is sick with TB and forced into the field by a commander who cannot waste resources on a dying man. Tamura doesn’t want to give up so easily and clings to life but it is a struggle that will lead him down a dark path that hint at some of the atrocities carried out by soldiers…

Here are images from the film:

As well as these Japanese features, there are a number of co-productions. A Midsummer’s Fantasia (JP-KOR) is directed by Jang Kun-Jae and it is described as having scenes reminiscent to Richard Linklater’s film, Before Sunrise (1995). It is about a “Korean director who, in black-and-white, prepares a co-production in a remote area of Japan. The second half shows the results in colour: a moving retrospective of a possible love between a guide and a female Korean visitor.”

The Screen Daily review I checked just before posting this preview makes this one sound like a treat for cinephiles who love a good rambling and realistic film: “what makes Jang stand out compared to many of his contemporaries is his talent to capture moments in life and create something that is layered and rather profound.”

The other co-production is…

Chigasaki Story   

Japanese:　 三泊四日、五時の鐘

Romaji: Sanpaku Yokka Goji no Hitomi

Release Date: N/A

Running Time: 88 mins.

Director: Takuya Misawa

Writer: Takuya Misawa (Screenplay),

Starring: Kiki Sugino, Haya Nakazaki, Ena Koshino, Natsuko Hori, Juri Fukushima, Shuntaro Yanagi

Another drama but one done in the style of Ozu and from a director who is new to the game. The Hollywood Reporter review makes this one sound like another film to watch:

“Boasting a complex narrative of intertwining relationships, vibrant performances from its young cast and a colorful setting which will appeal to international audiences hungering for a slice of bucolic Japan“

Tomoharu (Nakazaki) works at a traditional Japanese inn called Chigasakikan Hotel. This is where the film master Yasujiro Ozu retired to write his screenplays.He works with Karin (Koshino) and Maki (Sugino). Risa (Hori), the daughter of the inn’s owner, is set to have a wedding in 3 days and various people show up each with repressed feeling for each other that soon come out just before the wedding…

Short Films

There are two short films from Japan, the first is named Sound of a Million Insects, Light of a Thousand Stars (Dir. Tomonari Nishikawa) and for that one 35mm colour negative film was buried under fallen leaves near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in an attempt to “visualise invisible radioactivity. The result is a frenzy of flickers of light and scratches.”

The second film is Get Closer (Dir. Maki Satake) and the festival page describes that one as a “Stop-motion collage of scraps of photographs of three children all taken at the same table in 1989. At the end, the pieces fall into place revealing a photo of the same kids in 2008. Intimate, moving reflection on time’s inexorable progression.”

There are also a number of shorts on the festival YouTube page such as Columbos which is a stop-motion animation about the famous fictional detective:

Check out the YouTube channel for more shorts including one by Lisa Takeba.

Every weekend over the last few years I wrote down the titles of most of the films I watched but never really got around to making a list so this year I will. I was inspired to do so by Lynn who listed all the books she read. So far in 2015 I have watched five films. I started this week watching the George A. Romero film, Survival of the Dead (2009) which had plenty of inventive zombie kills and then the Hitchcock thriller Suspicion (1941). I then followed that up with the indie sci-fi Primer (2004) which was more talk and time travel and no action.

In anime terms, Yurikuma Arashi, Samurai 7, Ghosthound, Death Parade, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders Battle in Egypt and Rolling Girls. After the awful run of anime I watched last year I’ve stopped writing first impressions and will stick to series reviews dotted amongst the film reviews.

In terms of the blog I posted about the films from last year that I really want to see and went gaga over a glorious selection of films at this year’s Rotterdam International Film Festival which looks so good it makes me want to head to Holland right now.

What is released in Japan this weekend?

Chokolietta    

Japanese: チョコリエッタ

Romaji: Chokorietta

Release Date: January 17^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 159 mins.

Director: Kazama Shioro

Writer: Masumi Ooshima (Original Novel), Kazama Shiori, Shotaro Oikawa (Screenplay),

Starring: Aoi Morikawa, Masaki Suda, Miwako Ichikawa, Jun Murakami, Toko Miura, Atsuo Nakamura, Atsuko Sudo, Kiyohiko Shibukawa,

On New Year’s Day I took to Twitter to highlight some films I’m looking forward to in 2015 and a fellow cinephile pointed me in the direction of this one. Although the director is new, it is adapted for the screen by Shotaro Oikawa who has some horror (Arcana, Tomie: Another Face) and drama (Tokyo Trash Baby) on his long filmography. It stars a great raft of new actors. Aoi Morikawa is the lead here. She had a fantastic 2014 with brief appearances in The World of Kanako and taking the lead in Zero. She is supported by Masaki Suda who was the rough but charming Takuji in The Light Shines Only There. Both are sporting the same haircuts they had in the films. Jun Murakami is supporting the two young leads and he’s a great actor.

Chiyoko (Morikawa) is a high school girl who lost her mother at an early age and has closed her heart to others. When her pet dies she feels loneliness bite. When a senior at the school film cub, Masamune (Suda) screens the Italian film, “La Strada,” Chiyoko watches it because her mother loved it. She begins acting in a film directed by Masamune.

Website

Wonderful World End    

Japanese: ワンダフルワールドエンド

Romaji: Wandafuru Warudo Endo

Release Date: January 17^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 82 mins.

Director: Daigo Matsui

Writer: Daigo Matsui (Screenplay),

Starring: Ai Hashimoto, Jun Aonami, Yu Inaba, Go Riju, Marie Machida, Seiko Oomori,

Daigo Matsui, directed a film called How Selfish I Am! (2013) which started life as a series of music videos that were turned into a full movie with the actors from those music videos taking on the lead roles. Has has done the same thing with this one which is based on two music videos by Seiko Oomori: “Midnight Seijun Isei Kouyuu” and “Kimi To Eiga.” Ai Hashimoto, Jun Aonami and Yu Inaba all appeared in the original music videos. This is all about a tight friendship between two girls. One girl is layed by Ai Hashimoto who I know about from The Kirishima Thing (2012). The other actress is making her debut. Jun Aonami was winner of miss iD 2014 and is already making another film.

Website

Again    

Japanese: アゲイン28年目の甲子園

Romaji: Agein 28 Nenme no Koushien

Release Date: January 17^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Sumio Omori

Writer: Kiyoshi Shigematsu (Original Novel), Sumio Omori (Screenplay),

Starring: Kiichi Nakai, Haru, Toshiro Yanagiba, Emi Wakui, Mugi Kadowaki, Taiga, Asuka Kudo, Ken Yasuda,

Following the death of her father during the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011, Mie (Haru) is sorting through his belongings. She discovers a collection of New Year’s cards that were never sent after they were written twenty-eight years ago. Mie tracks down the intended recipients and discovers that they were connected to her father’s high school baseball team. She contacts more to learn about her father and they all gather together to play in the Masters Koshien (a senior league baseball tournament) and tell Mie about him.

Website

Bali Big Brother    

Japanese: 神様はバリにいる

Romaji: Kamisama wa Bari no Iru

Release Date: January 17^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 106 mins.

Director: Toshio Lee

Writer: Kiyoshi Shigematsu (Original Novel), Sumio Omori (Screenplay),

Starring: Shinichi Tsutsumi, Machiko Ono, Hiroshi Tamaki, Nanao,

I like the look of this light comedy. First off, it’s directed by Toshio Lee and he did Detroit Metal City. Good start. There’s a solid set of actors here with the versatile actor Shinichi Tsutsumi displaying his comedy chops once again and after seeing I’ll Give it My All Tomorrow and Why Don’t You Play in Hell? I think he can carry the film by himself but he has Hiroshi Tamaki who is also excellent at giving comedic performances as seen in his turn in Watashi no Kirai no Tantei. He has able support from actors like Machiko Ono (Like Father, Like Son) and nanao (The Snow White Murder Case).

When Sachiko’s (Ono) matchmaking business goes bust she heads to Bali to find a new direction and a way to deal with a large debt. What she finds when she arrives is a flamboyant and mysterious Japanese business man named Aniki (Tsutumi) who offers her advice and encouragement.

Website

Gekijouban Kobe Zaiju    

Japanese: 劇場版　神戸在住

Romaji: Gekijouban Kobe Zaiju

Release Date: January 17^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 96 mins.

Director: Mitsuhito Shiraha

Writer: Kon Kimura (Original Manga), Mana Yasuda (Screenplay),

Starring: Izumi Fujimoto, Eiji Sugawara, Misato Tanaka, Alisa Urahama, Nagisa Matsunaga, Sayuri Yanagita, Takashi Matsuo, Keiko Takeshita,

Kei (Fujimoto) is an art student who has moved from Tokyo to Kobe because of her father’s work transfer. She slowly learns about the Great Hanshin Earthquake from locals and meets Yoji, an illustrator who is physically disabled. Despite his situation, he donates the money he makes from his paintings to help areas affected by the earthquake. This inspire Kei.

Website

Yamamoto Shigeaki bokyo no kane manmokaitaku-dan no rakujitsu   

Japanese: 山本慈昭　望郷の鐘　満蒙開拓団の落日

Romaji: Yamamoto Shigeaki bokyo no kane manmokaitaku-dan no rakujitsu

Release Date: January 17^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 102 mins.

Director: Hisako Yamada

Writer: Kazuhiro Saki (Screenplay),

Starring: Takashi Naito, Azusa Watanabe, Yuri Hoshino, Yosuke Saito, Ichiro Ogura,

A film all about those who lived through the last days of Manchuria just before, during and after before the Soviets invaded and shipped lots of people off to labour camps and many children were left as orphans.

Website

Iron Girl: Ultimate Weapon    

Japanese: アイアンガール　Ultimate Weapon

Romaji: Aian Garu Ultimate Weapon

Release Date: January 17^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 83 mins.

Director: Kenichi Fujiwara

Writer: Kon Kimura (Original Manga), Mana Yasuda (Screenplay),

Starring: Kirara Asuka, Hiroaki Iwanaga, Asuka Kishi, Ryunosuke Kawai, Yuri Morishita, Asami,

Kurisu Saotome (Asuka) is a bounty hunter who wears an armoured suit. Her skills and appearance have earned her the moniker “Iron Girl” but for all her toughess she is uncertain about her background because she has lost her memories and so she searches for a way to regain them whilst battling bad guys.

Website

Paraoiac   

Japanese: パラノイアック

Romaji: Paranoiakku

Release Date: January 17^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 77 mins.

Director: Hiroki Irasawa

Writer: Uri (Original Game), Hiroki Iwasawa, Miho Aotsuka (Screenplay),

Starring: Kisu Konishi, Sho Kajiwara, Kota Satsunai

Has the Japanese movie industry run out of books and manga to adapt? I ask because over the last few months we have had adaptations of free online games and Paranoiac is just the latest in a series of low-budget horror flicks taking inspiration from games. Check out let’s play video to see the video game in action!

No trailer.

A woman named Miki moves nto the Western-style house her aunt died in a number of years ago. There’s a reason her aunt died and a mystery lurks in the house that puts herlife at risk.

Website

Nani wo osoreru Feminizumu wo ikita onnatachi   

Japanese: 何を怖れる　フェミニズムを生きた女たち

Romaji: Nani wo osoreru Feminizumu wo ikita onnatachi

Release Date: January 17^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 111 mins.

Director: Hisako Matsui

Writer: N/A

Starring: Eriko Ikeda, Teruko Inoue, Yoko Sakurai, Keiko Higuchi, Suzuyo Takasato, Noriko Takeshi, Mitsu Tanaka,

The title for the documentary is a challenging one! Nani wo osoreru – What are you Afraid of? Feminizumu wo ikita onnatachi. Women have taken on the role of feminists and so what? When you live in a patriarchal society you need to step up and defend your rights! Yes, this is a documentary about feminists. More spcificlly, it’s about a group who started campaigning in the ‘70s with unique live activities that were created to make people think about their lives. They faced prejudice and misunderstanding from both men and women. The documentary is a sympathetic portrait of the women describing their aims at the time and looking back at what they did and whay they have achieved and what they want to pass on to the next generation.

This year in the UK we are getting films and dramas that look at what the Suffragettes went through. I’m kinda curious about feminism in Japan.

Website

Appleseed Alpha   

Japanese: アップルシード アルファ　

Romaji: Appuru Shi-do Arufa

Release Date: January 17^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 93 mins.

Director: Shinji Aramaki

Writer: Shirow Masamune (Original Manga), Marianne Krawczyk (Screenplay),

Starring: Yuka Komatsu (Deunan Knute), Junichi Suwabe (Briareos Hecatonchires), Aoi Yuuki (Iris), Hiroki Takahashi (Olson)

UK anime fans will know Appleseed from the old ‘80s over that aired on the Sci-fi channel. It is based on a manga by Shirow “Ghost in the Shell” Masamune. They will also know director Shinji Aramaki as the director of Megazone 23 and Gasaraki and the recent Captain Harlock movie, each of which were released in the UK. This was released in America last year and it’s available pretty widely in the UK with physical and digital versions.

The World was savaged by a nuclear war but humanity did survive. Two such survivors are  Deunan Knute and Briareos who work as mercenaries in the ruins of New York City. Deunan has heard of a highly advanced city named Olympus but nobody knows if it exists or not until a mysterious girl and her cyborg bodyguard cross her path and tell her they are on an important mission for Olympus and that they are fleeing a team of highly advanced cyborg mercenaries are chasing them.

Website

Ressha Sentai ToQger VS Kyouryuger The Movie   

Japanese: 烈車戦隊トッキュウジャーVSキョウリュウジャー THE MOVIE

Romaji: Ressha Sentai Tokyuuja- vs Kyou Ruuja- The Movie

Release Date: January 17^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 83 mins.

Director: Katsuya Watanabe

Writer:  Yasuko Watanabe (Screenplay),

Starring: Kappei Yamaguchi, Jun Fukuyama, Haruka Tomatsu, Yui Horie, Nao Ichimichi, Shunsuke Nishikawa, Ai Orikasa,

Two super sentai teams work together to save the world from a mysterious energy. We get to meet the new guys and gals of the Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger series1

Website

TM NETWORK THE MOVIE 1984 ~ 30th ANNIVERSARY   

Japanese: TM NETWORK THE MOVIE 1984 ~ 30th ANNIVERSARY

Romaji: TM NETWORK THE MOVIE 1984 ~ 30th ANNIVERSARY

Release Date: January 17^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 112 mins.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: Tetsuya Komuro Takashi Utsunomiya, Naoto Kine,

The popular Japanese rock/pop group TM Network became popular in the ‘80s and subsequently influenced much of the music scene in Japan during the ‘90s. Thirty years on from their debut we get this documentary that has plenty of live-video performances like the above! More examples can be found on their website.

Website

Aaaaan that’s it for the trailer preview!

The random music video is not so random because I was influenced to place it in after listening to TM Network. Here’s a mix of Yasutaka Nakata’s works, y’know. That guy producing the awesome tracks behind a lot of techno-pop groups like Capsule, Perfume…

Third Window Films are starting this year with something deliciously dark Greatful Dead, a film that was at the 2013 Raindance Film Festival where I didn’t get to see it but overheard numerous audience members raving (and I mean, they were getting hyper about the film and going into detail) about how good it is. I have a copy I’m writing a review for so you can find out what I think next Monday when its release on January 26th!

Here are the release details and a trailer:

GREATFUL DEAD

A film by Eiji Uchida (Dead Banging, The Last Days of the World)

Japan / 2013 / 97 Mins / In Japanese with English subtitles / Colour
Starring: Kumi Takiuchi (The Ravine of Goodbye) 
Takashi Sasano (Departures, Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai, Instant Swamp)
Kim Kkobbi (Breathless, Pluto)

On DVD & BLU-RAY January 26th

DVD/BLU-RAY Special Features:
Interview with director Eiji Uchida

Synopsis 

Nami (Kumi Takiuchi) is a young woman with numerous hangups sprouting from a dysfunctional childhood. She inherits a small fortune that allows her to pursue various interests, many of which are highly abnormal. For example, Nami loves to spy on people who, not unlike herself, have gone crazy from loneliness. She calls these people “solitarians.” Perhaps due to a father fixation, her favourite spying targets are old men with stiff boners. One fateful day, Nami spies on an elderly gentleman (Takashi Sasano) watching porn DVDs at home. She soon transitions from a peeping tom into a full-fledged stalker.

In keeping with the fresh new films from Japan approach, Third Window Films has snagged a great title which was released in Japan in November last year which is where I snagged this trailer from.

Director, Eiji Uchida Biography

Eiji Uchida was born in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil which has continued to be an influence even after going back to Japan. In his twenties he worked as a journalist for Playboy magazine. After leaving that job he started working as a scriptwriter.

Statement
There are many works dealing with religion. The idea to start creating “GREATFUL DEAD” was difficult as movies with the theme of a religion are unpopular in Japan. However, Takashi Sasano, who is a very famous actor representing Japan in many internationally acclaimed films such as ‘Departures’ was happy with the script and chose to be in the film which allowed the film to progress to what it is today.

Lynn, a lady with great taste in films from the wonderful Lynn’s books blog, has tagged me for a game of four (the link has Lynn’s answers which are really quirky) and since she’s a cool character and I haven’t done something like this in a while, I thought I’d take part. She thinks I might have some cool answers (I don’t know what gave her that idea…) so I thought I’d answer a lot of her questions by using videos and/or pictures. Brace yourself for a traumatic trip into my mind and background:

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.

Edgar Allan Poe

FOUR NAMES THAT PEOPLE CALL ME (OTHER THAN MY REAL NAME)

I’m not a particular fan of nicknames so when people do make the point of telling me they will use them I give them with an unamused look and move the conversation on. But I have been called:

Jase – which makes me think of this:

Jay

Dood – Disgaea reference

Genki – Some people who do know about my blog call me Genki. I don’t talk about it too much in real life and hide it and all the writing I do for magazines and websites from work colleagues.

FOUR JOBS THAT I HAVE HAD

I was a regular wage-slave back in uni, a MgRonalds employee, if you will. Here’s some of what I did:

1. I have worked in a department store in the furniture section which I found rather stultifying,
2. I have worked in a a regular store as a cleaner and merchandiser which was super boring and I was working until midnight most days so I was a zombie the next day ;_;
3. I have worked on a market stall selling books and stationary (which was a lot of fun because I was able to engage with customers over books and whatnot)
4. I have worked in a museum which specialises in Romans. I once had to carry Roman armour and it was bloody heavy – I cannot imagine having to wear it and fight in it!

Then I graduated from uni and got a job in an art gallery…

FOUR MOVIES I HAVE WATCHED MORE THAN ONCE

1. Chungking Express – I love this film so much. It has a set of emotionally confused characters in a story full of danger and mystery and it is beautifully shot. I watched it repeatedy in high school and still watch it every now and again.

2. Battle Royale – this was another film I watched over and over again when in high school (probably the right age to discover its story of teenage protagonists being forced to fight to the death) and even went to the cinema to see a screening of the director’s cut back in the early 2000s. I fell in love with Chiaki Kuriyama thanks to this film.

3. Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise – I was originally going to put Spirited Away here but I’ll highlight something different. I have watched anime since I was a kid so I am aware of how diverse it is as a medium but nothing prepared me for this film when I saw it late at night on the Sci-Fi Channel. I was blown away by the artistry in the music and animation, character and art designs and mature story. I was transported to another world which felt totally foreign but with characters I recognised and could identify with. It’s essentially about a bunch of amiable losers trying to achieve something with their lives. In their case it was trying to get into space with zero budget and an impending war threatening to unravel their plans. It was a gripping and beautiful story, equal parts melancholy and hopeful and I would watch it every New Year’s Eve for three or four years. I bought the soundtrack (what a lucky find) and poster and I’ve got two copies of the film (a VHS recording I made and an American DVD release) and I’ll pick up the new DVD which will be released by Anime Limited.

4. Shady – I thought I’d put something up to date here and something I have reviewed on the blog. I have watched other movies a lot but with Shady I was sooo impressed when I saw it at the Raindance Film Festival in 2013 it instantly became my film of the year. Since then I have watched it a few more times and the shocks in store haven’t worn off while I keep appreciating different aspects of the filmmaking.

FOUR BOOKS I’D RECOMMEND

1. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami – a slightly useless middle-class guy (me) apathetically tackles life (so me) and the disappearance of his wife and his cat which may be linked to a weird conspiracy involving a politician (not me, then).
2. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski – Really ambitious horror story that mixes a family drama with an unnerving haunted house narrative that is placed within another narrative of a man undergoing mental dissolution.
3. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick – the book that Blade Runner is based on but it is much more darker than the film.
4. White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty – A satire of American culture through a geeky black kid on the mean streets of LA who winds up becoming a basketball star and a poet who leads a generation of youngsters.

FOUR PLACES I HAVE LIVED AND FOUR PLACES I HAVE BEEN

I’m going to cheat. I have only moved around a couple of times in the UK and travelled in Western Europe so I guess I’m a bit boring in this regard but I did stay in Le Champ Saint-Pere and other places in France for a spell. Some of these places were just wow. The landscape was a patchwork of green and golden brown, rolling hills with wheat fields that stretched into the far distance criss-crossed by roads and the views were only broken up by dense forests. The summer sun was constantly shining and a balmy heat bathed the small towns I stayed in, some being the very definition of rustic and totally French. We’re talking about bakeries with doors and windows wide open and the delicious smell of freshly baked croissants and pain aux chocolat drifting out. These bakeries were on quiet streets and the owners placed their wares out on trestle tables and cats idled underneath, waiting for crumbs to drop before slinking back to their homes. I was totally into French films at that point in my life and a certain lady named Laure…

FOUR PLACES I’D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW

1. The Goto Islands in Barakamon

2. Mirror Kyoto in Kyousougiga

3. The world of Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis which is a fantasy one. FAVAROOOOOOO

4. Tokyo from Patlabor 2 – like real life only with Mecha. I’d join Tokyo Metropolitan Police Special Vehicle Section 2, Division 2 just to pilot those Mecha and blow stuff up.

…野明 泉

FOUR THINGS I DON’T EAT

I’m going to cheat again but for a good reason… I’m not a fussy eater, so far there’s only one food item I avoid:

1. Marmite (it’s a British thing)

FOUR OF MY FAVORITE FOODS

Again, I’m not a fussy eater but these are my favourites:

1. Apple crumble and custard! (any of the cakes my mother makes, actually)
2. Pizza and chips!
3. Katsu don!
4. Yaki soba!

FOUR TV SHOWS THAT I’VE WATCHED…

Most of the television shows I watch are anime and doramas. I’ll be random:

1. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Mask/Battle Tendency/Stardust Crusaders – I’m cheating here by putting on four TV series but whatever. Absurdly powerful people having absurdly destructive battles with absurdly powerful supernatural beings around the world with a dubstep soundtrack and everyone does extreme posing at regular intervals.

2. Frasier – this comedy comes from a time back when you could make a comedy about smart people and it’s good-natured and intelligent, not like the dumb and misanthropic and smutty stuff. I get that writing comedy is hard, but there hasn’t been anything to top Frasier in my opinion.
3. Space Dandy – An episodic sci-fi TV show in the same vein as Red Dwarf only a lot funnier and more inventive because of its use of a multiverse.

4. Kino no Tabi – I would die a happy man if I created something like this. Strike me down the minute the last episode aired.

Man, looking at the anime I watch, I’m so glad I got into this stuff when I was a kid!

FOUR THINGS THAT I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS YEAR (THE NEXT 12 MONTHS)

1. Films,
2. Holidays during which I will watch films – London Film Festival, Terracotta Far East Film Festival, possibly Tokyo International Film Festival,
3. Family trips around the UK (occasionally to the cinema),
4. Family time (when I usually bring my laptop and watch anime)

FOUR THINGS I AM ALWAYS SAYING

1. “DOOD!” – I yell it out to some people I work with. They think I’m saying “Dude” but it’s “Dood” like the Prinny’s in Disgaea.

2. “Really?” – It’s used when I’m exasperated or facing a ridiculous situation or for everyday life and is usually accompanied by a raised eyebrow…
3. “しまた” Shimata – which translates as darn or dammit. Used when I am asked to do something I don’t want to do or when I have made a mistake or forgotten something. I’m kinda like Houtarou Oreki from Hyouka only slightly more helpful.
4. “やれやれだぜ” Yareyare daze (because of Jotaro Kujo) which translates as Good grief.

Unlike Jotaro, I cannot pummel things into oblivion with a Stand named Star Platinum. See him in action.

FOUR PEOPLE I TAG

I won’t be tagging anyone.

Hello dear reader, I hope you are well!

The weather has been pretty frosty where I am but nothing too serious but I still spent most of my week indoors either at work or at home which is good for viewing movies. 2015 has been about a lot of films for me and my list of films watched has expanded by two.

Earlier this week I viewed The Driver (1978) and God Bless America (2011) added to my tally. The Driver was my favourite of the two. It stars Ryan O’Neal who plays a cold getaway driver for hire in the LA underworld who has a detective obsessively chasing him played by Bruce Dern. He gets mixed up with a beautiful lady played by the gorgeous Isabelle Adjani who was last reviewed here for the vampire film Nosferatu the Vampyre, directed by Werner Herzog.

Any excuse to use a picture of her… The two are stuck in a set-up orchestrated by the police that results in a film that was full of great car chases. It was interesting to see how much the 2010 film Drive took away from it.

I also re-watched Greatful Dead (2013) as prep for the review which is published next week. The film gets its UK release courtesy of Third Window Films (which I posted about) and I think it’s excellent. As well as posting about the release, I also answered some questions from ace book-blogger Lynn which gives readers a tiny bit of an idea of who I am.

I’ll be adding on to the list of films I have watched this year. This time next week I’ll be in London for the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme (my preview here) and the Rubens exhibition at the Royal Academy.

What’s released in Japan this weekend? Lots of foreign films an this set of Japanese ones including one by Ryuichi Hiroki.

Kabukicho Love Hotel   

Japanese Title: さよなら　歌舞伎町

Romaji: Sayonara Kabukicho

Release Date: January 24^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 135 mins.

Director: Ryuichi Hiroki

Writer: Haruhiko Arai (Screenplay)

Starring: Shota Sometani, Atsuko Maeda, Kaho Minami, Nao Omori, Yutaka Matsushige, Jun Murakami, Tomorowo Taguchi, Miwako Wagatsuma,

The last film I reviewed by Ryuichi Hiroki was Kimi no Tomodachi (2010), a film with a large ensemble cast who performed wonders in making the everyday lives of a bunch of small town people a moving experience. This was partly down to Hiroki’s assured direction which favours naturalism. It looks like he’s doing something similar only a bit grittier as he goes to the seedier areas of Korea town in Tokyo.

A group of people are all connected to a love hotel in Kabukicho. These people include Toru (Sometani), the manager of the love hotel, and his lover, a musician named Saya (Maeda), a cleaning woman named Satomi (Minami) and her husband Yasuo (Matsushige), a slarayman named Kagehisa (Murakami), a music producer, a prostitute scout named Masaya (Oshinari) and call girl business manager named Masashi (Taguchi).

The film was at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival and according to the very positive reviews at the Japan Times, Variety and the one at the Hollywood Reporter, this multi-strand story is worth delving into with some racy scenes and great acting. I write racey scenes but it seems less raunchy than expected considering the action takes place in a love hotel. It should come as no surprise stars a whole bunch of totally talented actors like Shota Sometani (Himizu), Atsuko Maeda (The Drudgery Train), Nao Omori (The Ravine of Goodbye), Miwako Wagatsuma (The Pinkie), and Tomorowo Taguchi (Tetsuo: The Iron Man).

Website

Kano   

Japanese Title: Kano 1931海の向こうの甲子園

Romaji: Kano

Release Date: January 24^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 185 mins.

Director: Umin Boya

Writer: Ruby Chen, Wei Te-Sheng (Screenplay)

Starring: Masatoshi Nagase, Takao Osawa, Maki Sakai, Togo Igawa, Zhong Yan-Cheng, Tsao Yu-Ning, Chang Hung-Yi

This drama is set in the 1920s when Japan was the colonial ruler of Taiwan. The principal cast and major roles in the production staff are filled by Taiwanese and this is a Taiwanese film!

The year is 1928 and the place is Taiwan. The Kano baseball team are on an epic losing streak having never scored a run or won a game. In steps a Japanese man named Kondo (Nagase). He used to play professionally but retired and now works as an accountant. He takes on the role of coach for the team which consists of local and Japanese guys. His goal is to get them to compete in Koshien, Japan’s national baseball championship for high schools.

Website

Sesshi 100 do no Binetsu   

Japanese Title: 摂氏100℃の微熱

Romaji: Sesshi 100 do no Binetsu

Release Date: January 24^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 80 mins.

Director: Koichi Okamoto

Writer: Aya Nozaki (Original Manga), Rika Nezu (Screenplay)

Starring: Airi Taira, Sho Aoyagi, Chisun, Kaname Endo, Natsuhi Ueno, Hiroaki Matsuda, Keiko Miyata,

Awaji island is the location where a young woman named Chinami (Taira) finds her life falling apart when she loses her job and sees her boyfriend cheating on her.Her problems exacerbate all of her bad feelings she has over The Great Hanshin Earthquake from nineteen years earlier. Just as she falls into despair she meets a young man from Tokyo…

Website

Nakajima Miyuki “Enkai 2012 – 3 Gekijouban”   

Japanese Title: 中島みゆき「縁会2012～3 劇場版」

Romaji: Nakajima Miyuki “Enkai 2012 – 3 Gekijouban”

Release Date: January 24^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: N/A

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: Miyuki Nakajima

This is another conert movie for the artist Miyuki Nakajima.

Website

Black Film    

Japanese Title: ブラックフィルム

Romaji: Burakku Firumu

Release Date: January 24^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 82 mins.

Director: Tatsuya Ogishima

Writer: Tatsuya Ogishima (Screenplay)

Starring: Risa Aragaki, Yu Saito, Yuri Akikawa, Yuuta Furukawa, Chinatsu Eguchi, Nao Yamabuki, Arisa Nakamura,

Risa Aagaki, a former member of Morning Musume, stars in a psychological horror about a budding actress named Saori who dreams of becoming an actress. She participates in a dual workshop/casting session for a film but becomes obsessed with a rival actress named Miho…

Website

Random music video:

Greatful Dead       

Japanese Title:  グレイトフル デッド

Romaji: Gureitofuru Deddo

Release Date: November 01^st, 2014 (Japan)

UK Release Date: January 26th, 2014

Distributor: Third Window Films

Running Time: 98 mins.

Director: Eiji Uchida

Writer: Eiji Uchida, Etsuo Hiratani (Screenplay),

Starring: Kumi Takiuchi, Takashi Sasano, Kim Kkobbi, Aira, Itsuji Itao, Taro Yabe, Wakana Sakai, Hoka Kinoshita,

Director and writer Eiji Uchida is one to watch. With this film has created a title that defies expectations. Through his careful control of the film’s tone and its story full of death, religion, and sexuality gone awry, Greatful Dead is a real surprise that will keep audiences guessing which way it will go as we follow the central protagonist on her dark and twisted path fuelled by a personality warped by neglect. Comparisons will be made with Sion Sono’s films Love Exposure (2008) and Noriko’s Dinner Table (2005) because of the themes and social commentary on individualism and the breakdown of family dynamics and the way these elements are brought together in a story about how loneliness drives people crazy and those comparison will be richly deserved.

The opening sequence for Greatful Dead will have you convinced you are watching a tragedy about child neglect. As you witness the lonely childhood of Nami (Aira) unfurled on screen you will want to hug her as she cries out for love and attention from her indifferent parents and an unhappy elder sister. Nami’s mother quickly abandons the family to look after other people’s kids in third world countries because she is obsessed with charity work. Nami’s father, who has little interest in his daughters and is obsessed with his wife, is subsequently so broken up by her departure he falls into bad company and depression. Tired of her dysfunctional family, Nami’s elder sister leaves their broken home to shack up with a boyfriend and lead a normal life because, to quote her, “normal is best.” All abandon Nami. “Don’t ignore your daughter,” she cries plaintively at her father at one point. He then promptly ignores her to spend time with a mistress and so Nami retreats into herself.

All of that sounds like the film might be a savage study in loneliness but it isn’t. These events aren’t delivered with Bergmanesque understatement, the sequences of neglect are breezed through quickly and the tone is wryly comedic with the serious situations punctured by young Nami’s understated reactions to her neglect and her narration of her history which is full of profound precocious pronouncements on loneliness. The film undercuts any sympathy we might have by showing us moments when Nami herself displays her own cruel streak and hurts others to get attention makes us question whether we would want to hug her quite so tight as sends a fellow school pupil to hospital to get her parents to pick her up and acknowledge her existence. Her loneliness has twisted her personality. With a background like hers, of course Nami develops her own strange obsessions such as an addiction to television shopping and an interest in loneliness, something that grows as she ages.

As an adult Nami (Takiuchi) then comes into a lot of money and idles her time away on television shopping and spying on people who have gone crazy from loneliness. She calls these people “Solitarians,” and with this part of the film the experience becomes quirkier, more comedic as we join her in her observations of Solitarians, a tragi-comic set of people, all nursing a painful loss or trauma which has cleaved them from others and isolated them. Solitarian specimens include a mother who has lost her son, a grumpy and bullying businessman, and a supposed murderer who listlessly tosses popcorn at birds and chases people… All emotionally damaged, struggling. Her favourites are horny old men, the more priapic and addicted to porn the better. She likes these specimens the best. Dead or alive.

She spies on all, setting out from her house in hiking gear with a rucksack containing a tent, a telescope and sporting a big grin as she cycles through the city on sunny days people watching, tracking the Solitarians as they act out their lonely and demented routines which are both sad and somewhat amusing.

These Solitarians act as a way for Nami distract herself from the fact that she is a Solitarian. She avoids her elder sister and her sisters family who offer to take Nami on holiday, and spends her time with broken people with mental issues who distract her from her aimless and moribund life.

It is not until Nami spies on an elderly gentleman named Shiomi (Sasano), a once powerful man who has lost his wife and has bad relations with a son who may be using him for money. He is isolated. Even better for Nami, his only point of human contact is taking delivery porn DVDs at home. She soon transitions from a peeping tom into a stalker as she learns everything about the man and enjoys watching him wallow in his loneliness.

Her enjoyment is spoiled by the appearance of a Christian missionary named Su-young (played as an innocent by Kim Kkobi) who Shiomi takes a shine to thanks to her good looks and finds himself learning to be a better person.

Would it surprise you if I told you that the tone of the film changes again? If the first part was tragedy, the second absurdity and morbidity, the final third goes into the downright murderous as Nami takes action to make Shiomi lonely again and he tries to defend himself and his newfound happiness of having made friends and found a cute girl willing to talk to him. We knew Nami had a darkness behind her smile but things get extreme in the fight between two lonely people and nobody is safe. Everything from kidnap to murder and more are used in the conflict and even though it sounds like a completely different film, as crazy as this sounds, the transitions are expertly handled by Eiji Uchida’s script, direction and the performances he gets from his lead actors Kumi Takiuchi and Takashi Sasano.

This mix of tones in the film takes place from the very start as events morph from tragedy and black comedy to violence. It is handled carefully in Greatful Dead, rooted in the script’s careful crafting of characterisation, Nami’s absurdly abnormal behaviour which is rooted in that awful childhood of hers, the way she is warped hinted at and shown repeatedly. Despite the morbidity in the lead character and a bitter loneliness that hangs over everyone that forms the film’s emotional core, there is a bouncy confidence, a naughty irreverence that suffuses everything thanks in part to Kumi Takiuchi who makes the film her own.

She plays Nami as a Genki Girl, dressing cute and embracing her weirdness in an energetic manner, cycling through the city with a big grin to visit her different specimens on bright sunny days and showing enthusiasm. Her smile never fades even as she does horrendous things to people. One feels sympathy for her because we know of the isolation she has gone through and even by the end, after all the violence which is absolutely brutal but funny at times, we still pity her to a certain extent as she is revealed to still be the childish girl we first came into contact with even as the arterial spray gushes forth from various people around her.

Veteran actor Takashi Sasano imbues his character Shiomi with a myriad of emotions as we watch him play a grumpy old man unable to socialise with others due to his bitterness only to blossom and open up thanks to a pretty girl, reminding us he is still human. Then he becomes a fiery warrior as Nami tries to intervene in his social life and he takes to the craziness of this development with gusto. The film never loses sight of the fact that he is an old man and remains vulnerable, huffing and puffing in fights which makes the results of his battle with Nami hard to call and all the more exciting. Behind all of this action is the desire of the two characters to connect with others which is never forgotten.

One of the triumphs of the film is that there is a degree of serious commentary about the fraying of family ties and it is expertly used in the film even as people die. A little foreshadowing of why exactly Nami feels so connected to Shiomi would not have gone amiss but these are minor quibbles because the story is a smooth and smartly written journey that takes us into dark areas. Ultimately Greatful Dead is an enjoyable film, its quick pace and lean running time makes it an easy watch and the characters who are all well-written and plug into a story about loneliness. With this feature Eiji Uchida has established himself as a director to follow because his consummate skill and willingness to tackle dark subject matter is highly reminiscent of Sion Sono.

4/5

Happy weekend, everyone!

I’m excited because this will be the first weekend I have not spent in work for what seems like a year and I am down in London to take part in the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme to watch My Little Sweet Pea and Bolt from the Blue. Just before that I’ll be visiting the National Gallery (hope the MA strike goes well!) and Royal Academy.

At the time this post goes out I got those films and art exhibitions still to come. I have already watched quite a bit. I’ve added to the films viewed list I started after watching the Swedish crime thriller Headhunters (2011) and the Adam Curtis documentary Bitter Lake (2014). I posted a review of Greatful Dead (2013) earlier this week and I’m struggling to get back into posting news about anime but I’m still watching hours of content.

Enough about me.

What’s programmed for Japanese cinemas this weekend?

Shinya Shokudo    

Japanese Title: 映画　深夜食堂

Romaji: Eiga Shinya Shokudo

Release Date: January 31^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 119 mins.

Director: Joji Matsuoka

Writer: Yaro Abe (Original Manga), Katsuhiko Manabe, Joji Matsuoka (Screenplay)

Starring: Kaoru Kobayashi, Saki Takaoka, Joe Odagiri, Ken Mitsuishi, Yutaka Matsushige, Tokio Emoto, Mikako Tabe, Kimiko Yo, Michitaka Tsutsui, Akiko Kikuchi, Risa Sudo, Asako Kobayashi, Mitsuki Tnaimura, Nahoko Yoshimoto, Shohei Uno, the cast list goes on and on…

“懐かしい”(natsukashi). That word will crop up again but it’s adept at describing the feelings of nostalgia and desire brought up as we meet the patrons of a small restaurant. Some are new, some are old but we get to hear their tales of love, heartbreak, failure and success and all the things that make human relations complicated and memorable. This is based on a manga which was adapted into three television series. I watched the first one and can recommend it. The film brings back a lot of the stars from the TV series like Kaoru Kobayashi (The Great Passage), Joe Odagiri (Mushishi) and more, so many more.

There is a small restaurant just off a main street that is run by a man named Master (Kobayashi). When someone leaves a funerary urn he and his customers talk about it…

Website

Joker Game   

Japanese Title: ジョーカー・ゲーム

Romaji: Jo-ka- Ge-mu

Release Date: January 31^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 108 mins.

Director: Yu Irie

Writer: Koji Yanagi (Original Novel), Yusuke Watanabe (Screenplay)

Starring: Kyoko Fukada, Kazuya Kamenashi, Yusuke Iseya, Ken Mitsuishi, Tetsuya Chiba, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Hiroshi Yamamoto,

Don’t get this confused with the 2012 teen death game film of the same name! This is a big-budget alternate history flick set in the 1940s where a group of spies from various nations take part in spy games (do spies play anything else?) that take place across Asia. It was filmed in Japan, Singapore and Indonesia stars Kyoko Fukada (Wild 7) and Yusuke Iseya (Thirteen Assassins, Aoshi in Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno), Kazuya Kamenashi (member of pop group KAT-TUN) and Ken Mitsuishi (Noriko’s Dinner Table, Rentaneko/Rent-a-Cat).

It is the eve of World War II and spies from international powers like Japan, the British Empire, the Soviet Union, the radical army in Japan, and Germany are competing against each other in an international city in Asia to get their hands on “Black Note,” a confidential document possessed by the American amabassador to the city. Japan has fielded an unconventional candidate for this mission: Jiro Kato (Kamenashi). He is a soldier facing capitl punishment for refusing to follow a superior’s orders. Scouted by Colonel Yuki (Iseya) for a spy school, he underwent brutal training to get this far but things are about to get tougher when his first mission commences and spies from around the world show up not to mention sexier with the introduction of a mysterious woman named Rin (Fukada)…

Website

Maestro!     

Japanese Title: マエストロ！

Romaji: Maesutoro!

Release Date: January 31^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 129 mins.

Director: Shotaro Kobayashi

Writer: Akira Saso (Original Manga), Satoko Okudera (Screenplay)

Starring: Tori Matsuzaka, Toshiyuki Nishida, Miwa, Yutaka Matsushige, Kyusaku Shimada, Tomoya Nakamura, Mari Hamada, Aoba Kawai, Denden,

Another manga adaptation but no silliness. This trailer looks like fun. Melodramatic in places. It’s based on a long-running manga series and adapted for the screen by Satoko Okudera (The Wolf Children). Yutaka Matsushige, the psychotic killer from The Guard from Underground is in this and his name is the one which made me smile. Imagine a film where an orchestra are stalked by an emotionless sumo wrestler from hell who plays the viola…

When the members of a disbanded get back together again they find they cannot play together! There is no harmony between the different musicians! Then a mysterious conductor named Tetsusaburo Tendou (Nishida) appears and, despite some resistance from the orchestra members, he gets them working together again through his unique style which helps them get over traumas and recover their confidence. All except concertmaster Shinichi Kousaka (Matsuzaka). Can he get back to his prime?

Website

A Stitch of Life    

Japanese Title: 繕い裁つ人

Romaji: Tsukuroi Tatsu Hito

Release Date: January 31^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 104 mins.

Director: Yukiko Mishima

Writer: Aoi Ikebe (Original Manga), Tamio Hayashi (Screenplay)

Starring: Miki Nakatani, Takahiro Miura, Kimiko Yo, Haru Kuroki, Masato Ibu, Hana Sugisaki, Mie Nakao,

Despite being based on a manga, this isn’t one about schoolboys with nosebleeds spying on pretty girls or supernatural battles, it’s a drama. The music, sets, costumes all scream nostalgia and yearning. I think of the Japanese word “懐かしい”(natsukashi). Whenever I think of that words being said, it is the voice of an old man with a gentle smile and deep voice, “natsukashiiiiiii”. I doubt this film will travel outside of Japan. It stars Miki Nakatani (Zero Focus, The World of Kanako), who isn’t cast as a villain but someone who brings people together…

Ichi (Nakatani) takes over her grandmother’s dressmaking shop but instead of making changes to her new business she follows the old ways by using old fashioned sewing machines and lots of care and attention. This makes the clothes she creates very popular and soon people from far and wide come to visit and she gets involved in their lives…

Website

Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova DC   

Japanese Title: 蒼き鋼のアルペジオ -アルス・ノヴァ- DC

Romaji: Aoki Hagane no Arupejio – Arusu Noba- DC

Release Date: January 31^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 119 mins.

Director: Seiji Kishi

Writer: Ark Performance (Original Manga), Makoto Uezu (Screenplay)

Starring: Mai Fuchigami (Iona), Kazuyuki Okitsu (Gunzo Chihaya), Manami Numakura (Takao), Ayaka Fukuhara (Myoko), M.A.O (Hiei), Rina Hidaka (I-400),

There are two Arpeggio of Blue Steel movies coming out and this is a first. This acts as a recap of the TV series while the second is brand new content.

In Arpeggio of Blue Steel, humanity has lost a large quantity of its developed land as a result of global warming. They then lose the seas when a “Fleet of Fog” appears all over the world and overwhelms humanity. Seventeen years later, Gunzo Chihaya and his crewmates find themselves comandeering a “Fleet of Fog” submarine and together with the submarine’s “mental model”, they take the fight back to the Fleet of Fog.

Website

hide ALIVE THE MOVIE hide Indian Summer Special 2015 Edition   

Japanese Title: hide ALIVE THE MOVIE hide Indian Summer Special 2015 Edition

Romaji: hide ALIVE THE MOVIE hide Indian Summer Special 2015 Edition

Release Date: January 31^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 137 mins.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: hide

hide ALIVE THE MOVIE hide Indian Summer Special 2015 Edition is an updated version of a 2013 film about hide, a guiatarist and solo artist famous for hs work with X Japan. The new version has unseen footage. The above trailer is for the 2013 film.

Website

Gachiban New Generation Part 1    

Japanese Title: ガチバン NEW GENERATION

Romaji: Gachiban New Generation

Release Date: January 31^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 83 mins.

Director: Motoki Takashi

Writer: Masao Iketani (Screenplay)

Starring: Sho Jinnai, Kousuke Yonehara, Hideya Tawada, Megumi Nitta, Daigo (Chidori), Keita Uehara, Jo Hyuuga,

I still haven’t caught up with the 20-something films in the Gachiban series which was created as a spoof of Crows Zero and involves handsome guys in OTT fights. Gachiban info can be found here at 13oysandm3n.

Website

I want you to be here Soar    

Japanese Title: あなたにゐてほしい Soar

Romaji: Anata ni Witehoshii Soar

Release Date: January 31^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 98 mins.

Director: Masato Hara

Writer:  Itara Imadegawa, Masato Hara (Screenplay)

Starring: Maori Kannonzaki, Dai Nagasawa, Takao Satomura, Mari Nakamura, Seijun Suzuki,

This film is set in the 1950’s and is about a woman who lost her fiance in the war who lives in a small mountain village which is seeing televisions entering it for the first time. She remains a force of positivity. Director Masato Hara also operated the camera and scored the music.

Alice no Uta / Alice’s Song   

Japanese Title: アリスノウタ

Romaji: Arisu no Uta

Release Date: January 31^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 82 mins.

Director: Koji Motegi

Writer: Koji Motegi (Screenplay)

Starring: Haru Sakurai, Natsumi Ishido, Naoko Kishimoto, Kasumi Matsuura, Asanori Mishina, Koji Motegi, Yuka Motohashi,

Alice is about to make her debut as a singer but she has trouble with the people surrounding her…

Website

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils   

Japanese Title: ニルスのふしぎな旅

Romaji: Nirusu no Fushigi Tabi

Release Date: January 31^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 97 mins.

Chief Director: Hisayuki Toriumi

Director: Mamoru Oshii, Masami Anno, Yuji Nunokawa,

Writer: Selma Lagerlof (Original Creator), Akira Nakahara (Screenplay)

Starring: Mami Koyama (Nils), Yu Yamazaki (Carrot), Yoshito YAsuhara (Morton), Kei Tomiyama (Rex), Nobuko Terashima (ACCA),

According to Anime News Network, there was a movie adaptation of a TV show called The Wonderful Adventures of Nils which was based upon the works of Swedish author Selma Lagerlof but that film was never theatrically screened. This makes today’s screening the first ever and it is part of Tokyo Northern Lights Festival which is dedicated to showing works from or about Nordic countries which looks like everything from Dogma films from Von Trier to The Moomins.

Nils Holgersson is a young boy on a farm who is cruel to the animals. But when he catches the farm’s little goblin it becomes one prank too many. He is magically shrunk and suddenly the farm animals are out for revenge. He flees on the back of the goose Morten with a hamster named Carrot and they join up with a flock of wild geese. Together they travel all over Sweden, with Nils hoping to find a way to become big again. (Synopsis from Anime News Network)

Website

Kono yo de ore/boku dake   

Japanese Title: この世で俺／僕だけ

Romaji: Kono yo de ore/boku dake

Release Date: January 31^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 109 mins.

Director: Sho Tsukikawa

Writer: Akihiro Murase (Screenplay)

Starring: Makita Sports, Sosuke Ikematsu, Shiro Sano, Akina Minami, Taku Suzuki, asako Chiba, Tsutomu Takahashi,Toru Nomaguchi,

SOUND THE ALARM! A FILM BASED ON AN ORIGINAL IDEA! Someone get this to Raindance, pronto. Anyway, actor and all-round entertainer Makita Sports (the schlubby singer in The Drudgery Train) and up-and-coming actor Sosuke Ikematsu (How Selfish I Am!, Paper Moon) play a mismatched-pair in a case of a kidnapping.

Hiroshi Ito (Makita) is a middle-aged salaryman. Koga Kuroda (Ikematsu) is a high school delinquent. The two inadvertently intervene in a case of a kidnapping of a politician’s child, rescuing it from a car owned by the yakuza that was in trouble who are trying to influence the decision on whether the city should be redeveloped or not. What do you think happens? Hiroshi and Koga get called the kidnappers and get chased by both criminals and police while trying to deliver the baby to the politician, Taizo Okuma (Nomaguchi). It’s a comedy so hilarity ensues as can be seen in the trailer.

Website

Nakadai Tatsuya ‘Yakusha’ o Ikiru   

Japanese Title: 仲代達矢　「役者」を生きる

Romaji: Nakadai Tatsuya ‘Yakusha’ o Ikiru

Release Date: January 31^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 90 mins.

Director: Hidetaka Inazuka

Writer: N/A

Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Chisa Nishiyama, Masako Yamamoto,

Tatsuya Nakadai is a legend. He’s worked with many of the great golden age directors such as Akira Kurosawa, Masaki Kobayashi, Kon Ichikawa and Hiroshi Teshigahara, and Keisuke Kinoshita (head over to this site for what seems to be the first few in a series of reviews of films by this director). We’re talking, Kwaidan, Yojimbo, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, Sword of Doom and the list goes on. I haven’t even mentioned his theatre appearances (which I know little about) but with 150 films to his name, he is a legend. And now this legend gets a documentary film which looks at his acting on stage and on screen. Check out his Wikipedia page for a great overview. Interestingly enough, a few of the films at this years Berlin Film Festival have him in the lead. Come back Monday to find out which ones.

Website

Halser Acre The Movie Acre-zu    

Japanese Title: ハルサーエイカー THE MOVIE エイカーズ

Romaji: Haruse-eika- The Movie Eika-zu

Release Date: January 31^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 93 mins.

Director: Tsukasa Kishimoto

Writer: Tsukasa Koshimoto, Yuki Yamamoto (Screenplay)

Starring: AKINA, Moeko Fukuda, Satoshi Chinen, Tomoji Yamashiro, Kenta Nakaza

Halser Acre was a television show originally broadcast in Okinawa in 2012 and orchestrated by director Tsukasa Kishimoto (you may remember her from the quirky 2013 martial arts dance comedy, Dancing Karate Kid). Halser Acres looks to draw heavily on traditions Okinawa. It’s all about a team of super heroes who draw their power from nature. Looks like fun.

Website

Random Music Video:

I feel that the 2015 Rotterdam International Film Festival has laid down a marker in terms of quality and quantity of Japanese films, depth and breadth in subject matter and the people creating that content. What have the minds behind the Berlin International Film Festival programmed? In previous years it has had a strong selection of Japanese films and 2015 looks to be no different with a group that includes classics from Kon Ichikawa and new films from Sabu.

The festival takes place from February 05th -15th and I think you will find this an interesting selection.

Here is what is on offer at the Berlin Film Festival this year:

The Voice of Water     

Japanese: 水の声を聞く

Romaji: Mizu no Koe wo Kiku

Running Time: 129 mins.

Director: Masashi Yamamoto

Writer: Masashi Yamamoto (Screenplay),

Starring: Hyunri, Shuri, Natsuko Nakamura, Jun Murakami, Takashi Oda, Gen Sato, Akahiro Kamataki, Eiko Nishio,

I have mentioned this workshop film a number of times so here we go again. It comes from Cinema Impact, a workshop set up by Masashi Yamamoto in 2012 which has produced features and shorts like Be My Baby (2013). This particular feature film is based on a series of shorts about Zainichi (Koreans living in Japan) who are exploited by a religious sect.

This one takes place in Korea Town in Tokyo where yakuza roam and is all about a Korean-Japanese woman named Minjon (Hyunri) who comes from a long line of shamans who speacialise in hearing messages from the water. She listens to people who are mostly outcasts and gives them a response in Korean which they are unable to understand.  Believers keep seeking her out but she has misgivings about how she is exploited by businessmen who use her to found the God’s Water sect and wring money out of people. This group has built up around her and she is ready to leave it behind and do so through her Korean ancestry.

Wonderful World End    

Japanese: ワンダフルワールドエンド

Romaji: Wandafuru Warudo Endo

Running Time: 82 mins.

Director: Daigo Matsui

Writer: Daigo Matsui (Screenplay),

Starring: Ai Hashimoto, Jun Aonami, Yu Inaba, Go Riju, Marie Machida, Seiko Oomori,

Daigo Matsui, directed a film called How Selfish I Am! (2013) which started life as a series of music videos that were turned into a full movie with the actors from those music videos taking on the lead roles. Has has done the same thing with this one which is based on two music videos by Seiko Oomori: “Midnight Seijun Isei Kouyuu” and “Kimi To Eiga.” Ai Hashimoto, Jun Aonami and Yu Inaba all appeared in the original music videos. This is all about a tight friendship between two girls who enjoy exploring popular culture and online culture and broadcasting their dreams and discoveries through their blogs. One girl is played by Ai Hashimoto who I know about from The Kirishima Thing (2012) and The World of Kanako (2014) while the other is Jun Aonami, a new actor.

Shiori is 17, a goth-loli and blogger with a lot of followers who like watching her dive into make-up and fashion and her personal life online. When she meets a girl named Ayumi she discovers a shy and slightly odd fan who will soon become a major presence in her life because Ayumi has run away from home to stay with Shiori!

Little Forest: Winter Spring       

Japanese: リトル　フォレスト　冬編・春編

Romaji: Ritoru Foresuto Fuyu Hen Haru Hen

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Junichi Mori

Writer: Junichi Mori (Screenplay), Daisuke Igarashi (Original Manga)

Starring: Ai Hashimoto, Takahiro Miura, Mayu Matsuoka, Yoichi Nukumizu, Karen Kirishima,

Little Forest is based on a popular manga by Daisuke Igarashi that was serialised in Monthly Afternoon from 2002 – 05. It was shot over the course of a year and is a 4 part film of four seasons. This is the second of the two films that has been programmed for this year’s Berlinale and is the “Winter” and “Spring” portion. It is due for release in February in Japan.

Ichiko (Hashimoto) leaves big city life and confusion behind to head back to the mountains where her hometown of Komori is located (in Tohoku prefecture) and she takes to living off the land. She grows and farms her own food and cooks meals all of which are dictated by the seasons and the things she collects in the mountains around her. This return to nature allows her to gain a new strength.

Dari marusan

Japanese: ダリー・マルサン

Romaji: Dari marusan

Running Time: 103 mins.

Director: Izumi Takahashi

Writer: Izumi Takahashi (Screenplay),

Starring: Hiromasa Hirosue, Miho Ohshita, Takashi Matsumoto, Midori Shin-e, Hikaru Takanezawa, Akie Namiki, Keiko Sugawara,

This trailer starts out slow and picks up but the description on the festival site makes it sound bleak but uplifting: The films of Izumi Takahashi are populated by defeated people, people who are physically and psychologically maimed, who hurt one other and are even looking to be hurt themselves. But as wounded as they may be, they are also always looking for healing and for someone to make that possible. Here’s a trailer I found plus I the synopsis from the festival site.

Traditional Japanese wooden Daruma dolls have no ears. The classmates of this film’s hearing impaired heroine gave her the nickname ‘Dari Marusan’ in reference to such dolls. While Dari has now adopted the name as her own, she hasn’t got over the hurt. She has grown up and is now working for a detective agency that specialises in finding pets and she is on the case of a missing parrot. Her client is Yoshikawa (Hirosue), a severely traumatised man who keeps his distance from other people and thinks he has severed all links to the past. When the sensitive Dari and the gruff, inconsiderate Yoshikawa meet, old wounds resurface for the both of them.

Ten no chasuke / Chasuke’s Journey

Japanese: 天の茶輔

Romaji: Ten no Chasuke

Running Time: 106 mins.

Director: Sabu

Writer: Sabu (Screenplay/Original Novel),

Starring: Kenichi Matsuyama, Ito Ohno, Ren Osugi, Yusuke Iseya, Hiromasa Taguchi, Susumu Terajima, Hiroki Konno, Tina Tamashiro, Orakio,

Another film by Sabu! This one is based on a novel he wrote, apparently. The festival site describes it like this: Oscillating between philosophy and buffoonery, Sabu’s film plays with famous motifs from film history, uniting melodrama, the gangster movie, romance and slapstick. His underlying idea, that every life has a value of its own, is special and in no way predictable and is presented with great pace and flamboyance.

Looks like a good one! It stars Kenichi Matsuyama (Detroit Metal City) and the man, the legend, Ren Osugi (Exte).

Things are hectic in heaven. Dozens of scribes sit before a long scroll writing the biographies of people down on Earth. What is invented by the men in heaven is lived out below. And their employer, God, is increasingly vehement in demanding avant-garde ideas. Take, for example, the beautiful Yuri (Ono), a girl who dies in a car crash. Some of the heavenly scribes find this very dull and send former gangster Chasuke (Matsuyama), who has become a heavenly tea-boy, back down to earth with instructions to save Yuri no matter what. And so Chas ends up in Okinawa, gets to know the earth-dwellers, interferes in their fates, becomes celebrated as ‘Mr Angel’ and is hounded by brutal enemies. His falling in love with Yuri is of course a foregone conclusion. But no one could anticipate what happens next. Not even God himself.

Nuclear Nation II    

Japanese: フタバから　遠く　離れて第二部

Romaji: Futaba kara toku hanarete dainibu

Running Time: 114 mins.

Director: Atsushi Funahashi

Writer: N/A

Starring: Shiro Izawa, Masami Yoshizawa, Katsutaka Idogawa,

Atsushi Funahashi was at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival with his documentary Nuclear Nation, about the consequences of the March 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima Daiichi which displaced 1400 people from nearby Futaba. These people were evacuated to a school building in a Tokyo suburb and we saw how they survived. The sequel takes place some time after and we learn what happened to the people we saw in the first documentary. We learn that the former mayor – previously a fervent advocate of nuclear energy and now a passionate fighter for the victims of the catastrophe – has now been replaced by someone younger. The single-minded cattle breeder also makes another appearance, originally having resisted the government’s orders to evacuate the disaster zone and kill his livestock. Today, a look at his animals lays bare the consequences of radioactive contamination: they all have ulcers and open wounds. It wasn’t until late 2014 that the final people left the school building – but they’re unlikely ever to be able to return to their homes because the epicentre of the catastrophe has been declared a toxic waste disposal site.

Classics

An Actor’s Revenge

Japanese: 雪之丞変化

Romaji: Yukinojo Henge

Running Time: 114 mins.

Director: Kon Ichikawa

Writer: Otokichi Mikami (Newspaper Serial), Daisuke Ito, Teinosuke Kinugassa (Adaptation), Natto Wada (Screenplay),

Starring: Kazuo Hasegawa, Fujiko Yamamoto, Ayako Wakao, Eiji Funakoshi, Saburo Date, Kikue Mori,

Last year saw the 1935 version of An Actor’s Revenge directed by Teinosuke Kunigasa and now audiences in Berlin get the 1963 version which has the same story but is directed by Kon Ichikawa. The film marks the 300^th film appearance of the actor Kazuo Hasegawa. The Berlin Film Festival page has an intriguing description of the action:

Ichikawa plays around with illusion and reality and weaves them into a delirious widescreen work full of vivid colours. The action remains within the stylised stage setting; the boundaries between on- and offstage become blurred and repeatedly flow into one another. The soundtrack also draws on the same stylistic blend of tradition and modernity, moving effortlessly between Japanese classical music and suggestive jazz.

Set in 1863, main character Yukinojo (Hasegawa), is become a well-known ‘onnagata’ (a man playing female roles) in a travelling Kabuki troupe which heads to Edo (the old name of Tokyo) where he discovers and sets out to take revenge on three local officials who drove his parents to suicide. He wants to ruin them and aiding him is the daughter of one who has fallen for him…

Her Brother    

Japanese: おとうと

Romaji: Otōto

Running Time: 93 mins.

Director: Kon Ichikawa

Writer: Aya Koda, Yoko Mizuki (Screenplay),

Starring: Keiko Kishi, Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Kinuyo Tanaka, Masayuki Mori, Kyoko Kishida, Sho Natsuki, Kyoko Enami,

Her Brother is an award-winning film from Kon Ichikawa from 1960. It was remade by Yoji Yamada in 2010. I have seen the more modern version but I’m rather intrigued by this older one.

Young Gen and her no-good brother Hekiro live with their father and stepmother. Due to the stepmother’s severe rheumatism, it’s Gen who does most of the work around the house. She’s also unceasingly loyal to her brother, a trouble-maker and rebel. Their mother, a pious Christian who feels the rest of the family doesn’t really accept her, often laments her poor health. The father never really listens to his family’s troubles, content to dole out platitudes when not remaining silent. The family’s fragile relationships only begin to heal when Hekiro becomes seriously ill.

Enjo       

Japanese: 炎上

Romaji: Enjo

Running Time: 93 mins.

Director: Kon Ichikawa

Writer: Aya Koda, Yoko Mizuki (Screenplay),

Starring: Raizo Ichikawa, Tatsuya Nakadai, Ganjiro Nakamura, Yoko Uraji, Tanie Kitabayashi, Michiyo Aratama, Tamao Nakamura, Jun Hamamura,

This complex psychological study of an outsider is based on Yukio Mishima’s book “The Temple of the Golden Pavilion”, which was inspired by the burning of a national shrine in 1950. I found the film poster at this site which has other entries for films from the ‘60s. I found this six minute clip from the film.

Goichi Mizoguchi is an introverted and earnest young man who enters the famous Shukaku temple in Kyoto as a novice after his father dies. He is rendered an outsider by a stutter but he befriends a cynical fellow student who opens his eyes to the priests’ double standards and business acumen. The temple fleeces people who visit it and the high priest has a lover. Goichi, for whom the temple represents beauty and truth as well as symbolising his late father’s dreams, feels that the purity of Shukaku is in danger. In his attempts to protect the temple he commits a serious act which may destroy the place…

Shorts

Only two shorts: Shape Shifting (Dir: Elke Marhöfer, Mikhail Lylovm Dur: 18 mins.) is a co-production between Germany and Japan that explores human and non-human impact on the natural world. Maku (Dir: Yoriko Mizushiri, Dur: 6 mins.) is an animated exploration of the interactions between two people which looks to run the gamut fom sweet and tender to fearful. It’s all relayed via pastel-coloured animation and flowering movements which create sensual and emotional visuals that are made more powerful by the accompanying sounds. The festival page has a short excerpt from the film.

And that’s it!

Following on from Lynn’s questions I am now answering a series of other questions from Beats Lars who is an insightful aniblogger with good taste. I don’t normally do these things but since the questions are all connected to anime and I love anime then that’s cool. Here they are my answers (warning, this is long and rambling):

1. Favorite anime series.

Kino no Tabi. I had to think about this. For less than a minute. I watch a lot of anime but revisit few. I was addicted to Cowboy Bebop and Neon Genesis Evagelion when they first aired and bought CDs and DVDs but haven’t watched them in nearly a decade. Not so with Kino no Tabi. I watch it every so often. At thirteen episodes it’s easy to devour but I love it for more reasons than just that.

Kino’s Journey is a collection of stories, allegorical tales collected by the titular character Kino. Kino is a traveller, someone whose raison ‘detre is to journey across the world and experience things. Kino rides a motorbike named Hermes. They journey across a European-style continent and visit different countries. In each country Kino experiences different cultures and meets different people. Each experience Kino has is part of a larger examination of human nature and the resulting show can be dark, melancholy, and tragic but when it is hopeful and joyful those moments stand out all the more amidst the darkness. Kino is a singular protagonist who won me over so much that I consider Kino to be one of my favourite anime protagonists of all time.

It had a great emotional impact on me. It was a beautiful and intelligent show that delighted in playing with the viewer’s perception of life by crafting stories that initially seemed simple but turned out to be far more complex. When people dismiss adaptations of light novels I point out the fact that Kino no Tabi is based on one written by Keiichi Sigsawa and illustrated by Kouhaku Kuroboshi which I have started reading in the original Japanese (well, I started a few years ago). I also like to think it has something to do with its director Ryutaro Nakamura who loves crafting stories that challenge the audience (Serial Experiments Lain, Ghost Hound, anybody?). Here’s an AMV:

2. Favorite director

Mamoru Oshii is a director whose name is synonymous with the animation studio Production I.G, having scripted, directed, and/or produced many titles there but he is also a manga artist and novelist.

His work strikes me as unique because it veers away from being formulaic and aims to be much more political and intellecutally engaged with big issues of the day. This makes his works much more troubling and complex and mature and for people who like to have weighty issues to chew on, it’s a godsend. Watch his films and you will see much in terms of philosophical dialogue centred on politics and existentialism all delivered in a film which, though dotted with tremendous action sequences and gun/tech porn, opt to go for a slow contemplative mood that veers into dark territory. If engaging in politics and philosophy with the intellectual arguments he presents, one can delight in the worlds he creates, the well-drawn and depicted realities of characters which we get to see in long dialogue-free sequences with nothing but music (typically provided by the composer Kenji Kawai) to accompany what we see.

There is nobody like him. I look at newer directors like Seiji Kishi and Tsutomu Mizushima, Mamoru Hosoda and I don’t see any of his qualities which is an indication of the difference in student life since Oshii was a bit of a lefty radical in his day with a healthy interest in foreign films. In contrast, most anime directors feel like otaku good for nothing but limp meta-comedies.

3. Favorite animation studio

I’m going to cheat and put two studios which I judge every other studio by because their works consist of some of the most ground-breaking anime ever made, they have fostered the careers of great directors and their works are usually high-quality (plus I have reviews of a few):

Production I.G was the first anime studio I could name and it was thanks to Mamoru Oshii’s work. Here is some of their output that I have loved: Blood: The Last Vampire, Blood+, Ghost in the Shell, Psycho-Pass, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, Ghost Hound, The Sky Crawlers, Attack on Titan, Psycho-Pass.

Madhouse The former home of Satoshi Kon, the place where Yoshiaki Kawajiri cranked out great horror titles and some of the first anime I ever watched. The list of anime I like that comes from the studio is long: Black Lagoon, Dennou Coil, Death Parade, Death Billiards, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Gunslinger Girl, Perfect Blue, Paranoia Agent, Parasyte, Paprika, Ninja Scroll, Mouryo no Hako, Master Keaton, Mai Mai Miracle, The Tatami Galaxy, Wicked City, Wolf Children.

4. Anime Episode that stood out to you as the most bizarre

Space Dandy Episode 9: Plants Are Living Things, Too, Baby

Not necessarily the most bizarre but the mot daringly strange one that I remember from recent times. Anime can be terribly formulaic so when I watched Space Dandy last year I enjoyed its variety of visual and aural styles. The biggest odd episode of Space Dandy was episode 9, a psychedelic where the gang took a trip to a planet of living plants full of different shaped multicoloured landscapes and sentient plant creatures with high-pitched voices. The story was created and directed by Eunyoung Choi, a disciple of Masaaki Yuasa and the two are big on surrealism and abstract art and it was no different here in a vivid and beautiful episode which managed to be a great sensory experience that feels like a dream while creating a touching story when you see the relationship develop between Dandy and his plant friend develop.

Thank you Space Dandy.

5 . Anime soundtrack that had the biggest impact on you.

I want to say JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure because the use of dubstep for a grand globe-spanning adventure that stretches from the Victorian period with super powered beautiful people who strike cool poses battle each other with crazy powers…

Patlabor 2: The Movie

I have been watching anime since I was a child but it wasn’t until high school that I became a bit of an otaku. The first soundtrack I ever bought was the UK release for Patlabor 2: The Movie and followed that up with a purchase of Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise (which was quite a find). Patlabor 2: The Movie is one of the films I consider instrumental in making me a cinephile and it was one of the first anime that made me look at the medium as more than entertainment. I had watched lots of anime like Bubblegum Crisis, Vampire Princess Miyu, Robotech, Devilman, Moldiver, and Urusei Yatsura but none had a story as complex or art and world design which captured my imagination as much as Patlabor 2 and none had a soundtrack to match.

It consists of a series of themes that are built up over the course of the film as a complex political puzzle is unravelled.

The score’s orchestration is a mixture of ambient and electronic music accompanied by more traditional instruments like and haunting chanting. It stars with an upbeat electro-pop melody that is hopeful and relaxing before seguing into a deceptively relaxing symphonic musical experience that subtly adds more instrumentation to make themes the audience has already heard become profoundly darker.

The music will play as we get scenes of everyday life in Tokyo and characters discuss political issues and as the story evolves and martial law descends upon the city, the music changes. It’s perfect for a film which probes ideas of unjust peace and the uncertain position and role of the military in Japan and ultimately Japan’s uncertain position in the World. As much and fit each scene you can listen to the soundtrack by itself however the film is so strong, it’s hard no to remember the scenes each track accompanies.

It is composed by Kenji Kawai, a man probably best known for composing the soundtrack to Ghost in the Shell. He has had a long career in the entertainment industry, starting off dropping out of a music academy and creating a band to enter the music industry and then by composing music for commercials before moving on to composing scores for anime and movies. When I see Kenji Kawai’s name listed amongst the staff of an anime I am sold.

Watch the UK dub for Patlabor, it’s the best!

6. What is one manga or novel that you’ve read that you would want an anime adaptation of. What studio would make it and director?

After last year’s CG anime Knights of Sidonia, the name Tsutomu Nihei is probably a lot more widely known beyond horror/SF fans. I hope they move on to other works of his lie Abara and Biomega because for me they are the superior titles. The work I’m going to choose is the six-volume manga Biomega by Tsutomi Nihei. Here’s an MMV which gives you a taste:

It is set in the future. Humanity achieved a colony on Mars but something went wrong and a deadly infection that turns people into zombies was brought back to Earth. I’m getting ahead of myself. The manga starts in media res with main protagonist Zouichi Kanoe riding towards the city of 9JO on a totally cool motorcycle with his AI companion Fuyu Kanoe. They are on a mission to procure humans with the ability to resist the infection which we learn more about mid-series. They discover the city is overrun with zombies and a shadowy agency and battle their way to their target…

That’s about as coherent as the plot gets because after volume one the crap hits the fans in a big way as multiple protagonists are thrown into an increasingly apocalyptic story that sees the future of humanity at stake. The story is told in a piece-meal way which was creepy even when the story became abstract and but what stands out is the art. Tsutomu Nihei is not that great at characterisation or plot but his art and character designs are stunning. With Biomega he crafted a world that is bleak, a mechanical cyberpunk nightmare where huge cyclopean buildings are located in blank, nay, blasted landscapes. Cities stretch off into the distance with threatening protrusions and massive pits dotted around and people live in these cramped and dirty nightmarish urban environments that are located in devastated and dying lands. It is visceral stuff.

If the world is harsh, the people in it reflect it in how badass they are. Plebians are turned into corrupted zombies or drones that are sickening to look at while the main protagonists and antagonists are a mixture of synthetic humans with super strength, gigantic human mutations with tentacles, and biomechanical cross-overs that tower over everything. Their strength and speed are indicated by the great character placement, speed lines, and the way the environment is affected. They all look totally damn cool. This is long enough so I’ll stop there.

I found the manga so good I chose it as a scary manga to read for Christmas (it’s a British tradition to read/hear/tell/watch scary stories).

The next bunch of answers will be shorter.

7. The most disappointing series you’ve ever seen.

High School of the Dead. I went into it hoping for a Night of the Living Dead/Dawn of the Dead zombie story and what I got was a terrible example of how sexist anime could be. I wrote about the experience I had watching it years ago. My expectations were misplaced. I read the manga during some downtime in a uni lecture and knew that it was about ecchi but I was still disappointed.

If you want to see a good zombie story, read I Am a Hero which (until the hotsprings sequence and school girl kiss/CPR) has resisted all those creepy lolicon tropes and sexual objectification and presented a compelling and mature and scary story. I’m looking forward to the movie and the manga spin-off set in Osaka.

8. Your favorite live action version of an anime series.

That’s easy, the Rurouni Kenshin live-action movies starring Takeru Sato and Emi Takei and directed by Keishi Ohtomo. There are three in the trilogy and I have had the pleasure of watching two in a cinema and waiting for the third.

Rurouni Kenshin has been given the glossy big screen treatment with a huge cast full of great actors all of whom are on sets that are so beautiful and detailed watching the film felt like being transported back in time. The action scenes are phenomenal and made me sit on the edge of my seat and grin like a child (always a good sign when it comes to me).

I have a review of the first Rurouni Kenshin film up already and a review of the second one is in the draft queue.

9. If there would be one anime to introduce someone to the genre what would it be?

Spirited Away. I consider it Miyazaki’s best film to date. Spoilers in the AMV.

I think it contains the right amounts of darkness and fantasy to engage a wide audience as it strikes a balance between the joyful and strange and the downright terrifying. The magical journey that central protagonist Chihiro engages upon is a huge one but remains heartfelt and intimate thanks to how well-drawn she is as a character. She starts off as a somewhat selfish and sullen character who is numb to her parent’s constant attention and oblivious to their needs and when they are turned into pigs and she is forced to fend for herself we witness her grow as a person through a series of thrilling encounters at the haunted bath house she has to work in. In believable fashion she learns how to be kinder and far more caring and also toughens up as she meets different characters on her adventure.

The animation is top drawer, which is what we expect from Studio Ghibli, but the details in the world are incredible as we see the spirit world come to life and the many areas of the bath house and its surroundings. There is also a typically huge cast full of humans, spirits and more and they are all wonderfully designed.

10. Name one anime feature length film that had the most impact on you and why.

Patlabor 2: The Movie

This was the first anime movie which had a complex plot and narrative that made me think about the wider world at large. It was also stylistically different from the first Patlabor film which made me want to research different animation techniques and film and, alongside Chungking Express, made me want to become a cinephile.

As part of the challenge I have to review the first episode of Honey & Clover. That will be posted tomorrow! Thanks for reading.

So Honey and Clover…

What a pleasant surprise. I watched it as part of an anime challenge given to me by Beats Lars. In the first part I answered questions and then I had to review the first episode of this anime. I had no expectations about this.

The Honey and Clover anime is based on Chika Umino’s manga which ran from 2000 to 2006. The anime was produced by J.C. Staff over two seasons before getting turned into a live-action movie in 2006 and a dorama in 2008. The first season is uncharted territory for me. I didn’t even research it. I had heard of it but never thought to watch it so this turned out to be a good opportunity to try watching and I’m glad I did. The anime is a relaxing and charming comedy that seems to set up a series of romances between a likeable cast of realistic people.

The story effectively starts with a bunch of college students who live a worn out boarding house in Tokyo. These guys are the seemingly dependable architecture student and senior Takumi Mayama, the laid back and shy Yuuta Takemoto and the scurrilous and scandalous senior Shinobu Morita, an older guy who doesn’t take life seriously is so lazy he keeps repeating a year because he’s late to class. They are all in art school and desire to make things and share an easy friendship with each other but when Professor Hanimoto introduces his cousin’s daughter Hagumi Hanimoto. She is a small and extremely shy girl who has a prodigious talent when it comes to art. A love triangle develops between the group and the new girl.

And that’s as far as episode one goes. It’s an easygoing and laidback drama with a large cast of likeable characters. The animation is highly detailed and very beautiful to look at. The character designs have the familiar long langrous limbs of shoujo manga and the music is unobtrusive piano pieces. The entire show has a light atmosphere, a whimsical air that is reinforced by the events we see in the early part of the episode which is mostly character introductons comedy. With each new person we discover the quirks of each individual characters coming out and clashing. Shinobu Morita is a handsome fella and a bit of a mystery because he disappears from time to time. The problems he causes for his friends Mayama and Takemoto are too funny to spoil but Morita is such a cad and his voice actor is so good you can’t help but be charmed by what must be the show’s comic relief.

The later part of the episode turns into more of a touching drama as more delicately drawn emotions appear with the first buds of romance. Hagumi is an odd one, totally silent, but she draws an adorable reaction from the shy Takemoto who blushes at the first sight of her and acts with earnest intentions unlike the terrible Morita who takes to trying to turn Hagumi into some sort of idol and creepily takes lots of pictures of her.

Thanks to the strong characterisation seen in the first episode there’s a lot of potential for this to be more than a generic school romance story. The sights and sounds are wonderfully done to make it a beautiful anime to watch especially when coupled with the interesting character designs and characterisation which looks set to get complex. I may come to care about these guys and girls if I continue to watch it and I think I will.

Hello dear audience!

I hope you are well!

This week I have been in work every day but that has not stopped me from writing more things for the blog, which may or may not be a good thing because you might be sick of my ramblings. Said ramblings have included a round-up of the Japanese films at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival and I also answered a series of anime questions which give some background to my background in anime. I also did a quick review of the first episode of the anime Honey and Clover. I enjoyed writing these posts so much I wanted to write a review of Biomega and review Mamoru Oshii’s films!

Films? I watched plenty of them this week! I was in London watching two dramas My Little Sweet Pea (2014) and Bolt from the Blue (2014) last Saturday as well as popping into the Japan Centre and buying a lot of chocolate and the Royal Academy to see the Rubens exhibition. I came home and watched the western Sweetwater (2013) and then Predator (1987) and the last two Berserk anime movies as well as many clips of the wonderful Philomena Cunk.

What is released this weekend in Japan?

Present for You    

Japanese Title: プレセント　フォー　ユー

Romaji: Puresento Fo- Yu-

Release Date: February 07^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 93 mins.

Director: Yoshihiko Dai

Writer: Yoshihiko Dai (Screenplay)

Starring: Joe Odagiri, Akira Emoto, Jun Fubuki, Isao Natsuyagi, Munetaka Aoki,

A great cast and an interesting idea but the review over at the Japan Times website is pretty dismissive.

Synopsis right from the website:

At a shady health food company in Shimbashi, part-time employee Kajiwara is left behind when the other staff takes off with the company’s money. Brought before The Boss, the president of parent company Give Me Money, in a skyscraper towering over Shimbashi,Kajiwara is commanded to recover the funds alone. He makes back half a billion yen owing in record time and earns the favor of The Boss. Charged with cleaning up Japan, Kajiwara is made the president of dummy health food company, Present For You. But The Boss is a man who doesn’t believe in love and sneers at people who so much as trust each other. Under the guise of cleaning up Japan, he dictates people he doesn’t like to be sent to Kajiwara’s office in a bag for disposal. One rainy night, the “present” delivered to Kajiwara’s office.

However difficult their lives, however weak and susceptible to sorrow they are, these are people who hold love and hope for their friends in their hearts. Their harsh town doesn’t give them much love. And, in truth, they don’t really care what happens here today. That they were there is enough. They will deal with the rest. Even the truth of the love between fugitives Muneoka and Yuki doesn’t mean anything to them. Here’s hoping you’ll meet someone like them one day.

Website

Sukimasuki   

Japanese Title: スキマスキ

Romaji: Sukimasuki

Release Date: February 07^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 82 mins.

Director: Kota Yoshida,

Writer: Yumi Unita (Originl Manga), Kota Yoshida (Screenplay)

Starring: Keita Machida, Kokone Sasaki, Eriko Nakamura, Mizuki Kusumi, Masayasu Yagi, Miyavi Matsunoi,

There were about four or five films about guys peeping on girls and girls peeping on guys. Here’s another one.

University student Heisaku (Machida) peeps on his neighbour Fumio (Sasaki). Fumio is aware of this and peeps on Heisaku.

Website

Mango and the Red Wheelchair    

Japanese Title: マンゴーと赤い車椅子

Romaji: Mango- to Akai Kurumaisu

Release Date: February 07^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 93 mins.

Director: Shigeo Nakakura

Writer: Toshiro Fukushima, Yukiko Yamamuro, Shigeo Nakakura, (Screenplay)

Starring: Naoto, Takanari Ishii, Sayaka Akimoto, Riho Yoshioka, Kaoru Sugita, Mire Aika, Bengal,

When 23-year-old nurse Ayaka (Akimoto) falls from her 04^th floor apartment an survives, she finds herself a patient at her hospital and paralysed from the waist down. She has a hard time dealing with it and complains bitterly to hospital staff and family. She finds solace and comfort by communicating with her grand mother and other people who use wheelchairs. Her greatest inspiration and source of positivity is the rock star Shota (Naoto) who also uses a wheelchair.

Website

Reflection Mr. Children    

Japanese Title: プレセント　フォー　ユー

Romaji: Puresento Fo- Yu-

Release Date: February 07^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: N/A

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: The band Mr Children: Kazutoshi Saurai, Kenichi Tahara, Keisuke Nakagawa, Hideya Suzuki,

Mr Children are a big band and they celebrated their 21^st anniversary last year. This documentary was recorded on their Mr Children Father & Mother 21 Anniversary Festival Fan Club Tour.

Website

The BiS Cannon Ball Run 2014, The Movie    

Japanese Title: 劇場版 BiSキャノンボール2014

Romaji: Gekijouban BiS Kyanon Bo-ru 2014

Release Date: February 07^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: N/A

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: Pour Lui, Nozomi Hirano, Ten Tenko, First Summer Uika, Saki Kamiya, Megumi Koshouji,

The Bis Cannon Ball Run 2014, The Movie is a documentary film from Company Matsuo and it’s all about the idol group BiS who set the world aight for a few years with their satirical take on the idol culture in Japan before their disbandment last year. This group is new to me but after listening to some of their music and reading their Wikipedia page, I think they are interesting.

Website

And that’s the lot. Not much, right? Don’t worry. Next week is packed.

Here’s the not so random music video:

Shindo (Wonder Child)      

Japanese Title:  神童

Romaji: Shindou

Release Date: April 21^st, 2007

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Koji Hagiuda

Writer: Kosuke Mukai (Screenplay),

Starring: Riko Narumi, Kenichi Matsuyama, Satomi Tezuka, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tamae Ando, Masahiro Komoto, Shihori Kanjiya, Akira Emoto,

Japanese cinema has a unique category of film known as seishun eiga (youth films or coming-of-age films). These are a pretty common in Japan because many are made to serve as a star-vehicle for some young up and coming talent. Shindo stands out by taking the audience into the world of its main protagonist and lets us experience things as she does.

Shindo can translate into genius or prodigy and the prodigy here is Uta Naruse (Riko Narumi). Her name means song and she is a musical prodigy, a gifted pianist. She could read sheet music before she could speak and can play complex pieces from memory.

This Uta is not the one that greets us when we first meet her. What we see is a feisty thirteen-year-old girl from a poor background with a bit of a rebellious attitude. She walks around with a defiant look and her speech can be rough for a girl her age especially when talking to seniors, she has no problem punching boys in her school but for all her fire she is immature as shown by her physical appearance. She slouches around, her twin-tails bouncing off the back of her school uniform and her stuffed animal Gan is a constant companion. Her attitude is partly in reaction to the people who surround her who keep pushing her to play the piano, especially her mother Mika (Satomi Tezuka), because her gift is one that can set her up for a successful career.

While she resents the constant practice and seeks to defy her mother by avoiding it, as adults are sure to see, her rebelliousness is a cover for her confusion with life. She has entered the fog of her teenage years and is beset by hormones and self-doubt, worries about health and her future. She negotiates romantic advances from boys at school and she suffers a little bullying for being kept out of school activities but what weighs most heavily is the mysterious disappearance of her father (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a piano virtuoso himself and the parent she feels the most affinity to. As much as music stifles her it offers her a way to relive treasured moments from her childhood when she spent time with her father. It is a mess of emotions rich in drama.

We as an audience wonder how she will grow as a person?

Uta forms an unlikely friendship with the older Wao Kikuna (Kenichi Matsuyama), the son of a grocer and an aspiring musician who is a ronin-student looking to get into university. He dreams big but is uncertain about how to achieve things. With her help he may be able to get into a prestigious university. For Uta, his presence helps her negotiate some of the more complex feelings of adolescence.

We are in no doubt that the two will grow and, like most musical films, it will crescendo with a musical performance but a lot of the enjoyment to be had is experiencing their journey.

The film is mostly conventional visually and rhythmically. It starts off at a fair clip with a set of sequences delivered in a staccato manner as we are introduced to people and places. We are in the familiar urban landscape of schools, shopping arcades, and Wao’s working-class neighbourhood and we see the people who inhabit these places, chief amongst them Uta and Wao, their relationship forming the heart of the film.

It develops as we get to the middle portion of the film where a slower tempo is used to reveal back-story. There is a complexity to the mise-en-scene that demonstrate the care and attention that has gone into making the film. Apart from a few sweeping establishing shots of outdoor locations or the interiors of large concert halls, there is not much in the way of showy camerawork to distract from the details to be gleaned from the screen. Cinematographer Yoshihiro Ikeuchi and director Koji Hagiuda use careful shot composition and set design to relay information on the people who are in the film and these items and locations are revisited multiple times, built upon to have more meaning. They play into the relationship dynamics between characters.

The best example is when we see Uta’s old house, a spacious building with surrounding grounds in the middle of a crowded city where space is at a premium. At the heart of this home is a room packed with expensive furniture reduced to ghost-like forms because they are covered in white sheets and a grand piano her father owned that stands proud. We see her new home, a somewhat bare and boxy apartment with blank white walls she shares with her somewhat strict and mostly absent mother and a picture of her deceased father that stares out mournfully. Contact between the family has been disrupted by the father’s death and the lack of Mika’s presence as she works hard to keep their finances steady and we realise Uta has lost a lot at a tender age. Even when Mika and Uta are together they are separate, taking different seat on a bus, the mother outside of the room Uta practices the piano in and an intriguing ambiguity arises into why Mika pushes Uta obsessively to practice. We understand why Uta hangs out at Wao’s home because of the warmth his crowded place radiates with its wooden furniture, heaps of knickknacks and the friendliness his down-to-earth parents offer. She finds cheap and tasty cup noodles, free fruit and grown-ups who encourage her to be normal and a guy she can hang out and play the piano with and talk to without the awkwardness she feels with her peers. It’s a relief for her and for Wao as well.

They are both natural musicians who live for music which is why they are drawn to each other. They urge each other on to become better at playing the piano and face the future and through this the film develops the idea that there is more to a musical performance than just pressing down on keys in time. There must be the will to play, the ideal to live for music and dedicate one’s life to it and there must be the support of others.

“Your playing sucks,” Uta keeps telling Wao with the cheekiest of grins. This is a truth and a provocation to spur him to improve because she cares enough to make him work. Their friendship and growing relationship is natural and beautiful, a deceptively light and carefree one that has profound depth of feeling and understanding and despite the small age difference, it is far from creepy, they offer each other companionship and guidance even if it isn’t that obvious. The two become something slightly more than friends, a chaste romance growing. The most intimate moments they get is when Uta holds Wao’s hands just before his college entrance exam. These are moments that demonstrate the bond they share and they are dotted throughout the film until the climax where they work together on an intimate piece that has been played in fragments but is unfurled in time for the closing credits, this music they play together, their bodies working together as one and the audience knowing that they have matured a lot from their time together.

The key thing for a film about music is sound and here the musical score is integrated with excellent sound direction and a selection of appropriate classical music pieces to show the influence all of these things have on people. Both Uta and Wao appreciate not just music but sounds. The film opens with Wao drifting on a boat, eyes closed, luxuriating in the ambient sounds of the river. There are scenes where Uta bangs a cup on a table and flicks and bites apple with long juicy crunches to hear the sounds they make. The two practice passage of music incessantly to understand how they evoke emotions. Most affectingly Uta, the real genius of the two, lives music and is usually haunted by some piece from her past she can hear as an echo that guides her. She may claim to hate the piano but she knows she has a talent and responsibility to exercise it.

Hagiuda’s camera doesn’t forget audience as it pans across them for reactions, catching the odd person keeping time with their pencil, the furrowed brows of those lost in a passage of music, the ones that have dozed off during a dull performance and those on the edge of their seat during a phenomenal performance.

All of this makes a film that is an enjoyable experience all around. It has great aesthetics and the script is rock-solid as it introduces characterisations and narrative turns with ease. The creaking machinery only to be heard in the penultimate concert scene where an unexpected event forces Uta to make a choice about playing the piano but we have learnt so much about the characters and appreciate them so much we can leave behind our cynicism and enjoy the moment.

I saw this film at the 2014 Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme and have watched it numerous times since then. It is not stylistically daring but extremely well-made and I find it satisfying. Koji Hagiuda takes a solid script with a familiar narrative about growing up and uses the cinematic medium to create a film that demonstrates and extolls the power of music and talent by showing what these things mean for Uta and those who surround her.

4/5

Hello dear readers! I hope I find you well!

I haven’t been up to much except work and watching films. I have a huge backlog of reviews to whittle down for my own site and I’m spending a lot of time going through them. This week I posted my review of Shindo (2007), a film I saw over a year ago at the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme. I have watched it a more than few times since I first watched it and so to get the review posted, I watched it twice! I also watched Predator (1987), Predator 2 (1990), Gentle 12 (1991) and Fallen Angels (1995). I have plenty to do so I’ve cut out some anime and television shows. I need to get back into regular Japanese practice and writing more things.

Well, enough about me…

What is released this weekend in Japan?

Imawano Kiyoshiro Rock and Roll Show the Film#1 New Chapter   

Japanese Title: 忌野清志郎　ロックン・ロール・ショー The FILM ＃1 入門編

Romaji: Imawano Kiyoshiro Rokkun Roru Sho The film# 1 Nyumon-hen

Release Date: February 10^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 125 mins.

Director: Shun Ota

Writer: N/A

Starring: Kiyoshiro Imawano

Kiyoshiro Imawano (1951 – 2009) was a musician, actor and composer who founded the popular band RC Successor, wrote socially conscious songs railing against nuclear power and was once dubbed Japan’s King of Rock. This video shows highlights of his career such as performances at Budokan, the Fuji Rock Festival in 2005 and more. Audiences get to enjoy tracks from his band and his solo projects Here’s a video with one of his anti-nuclear songs.

Website

La La La At Rock Bottom / Misono Universe    

Japanese:　味園ユニバース

Romaji: Misono Yunibasu

Release Date: February 14^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 103 mins.

Director: Nobuhiro Yamashita

Writer: Tomoe Kanno (Screenplay),

Starring: Fumi Nikaido, Subaru Shibutani, Akainu, Sarina Suzuki, Shohei Uno, Shinji Imaoka, Takumi Matsuzawa, Suon Kan,

This film was at this year’s Rotterdam International Film Festival which I previewed. Here’s the blurb I wrote;

Nobuhiro Yamashitais back with his latest and it sounds like a romantic comedy with a bit of darkness in its heart.

The trailer looks promising and suggests this has the potential to be different, sharper and harder than a lot of films and then we come to the fact that Nobuhiro Yamashita has assembled a cast with a lot of range. We’re talking about Fumi Nikaido (Himizu) who can do beautiful, dark as well as comedic characters, Shohei Uno who can play deluded losers, cool murderers and fools and then there are a few wild cards. Subaru Shibutani is an idol and part of the boy band Kanjani Eight. He’s starred in super sentai parodies, can he do drama? Nobuhiro Yamashita has also drafted in the pink film directing legend and regular writing partner Shinji Imaoka (the two worked together on The Drudgery Train). I’m very curious about this one. Apparently, there will be a live performance by Subaru Shibutani after the screening on Thursday 22 January. Here’s the trailer:

During a band’s performance at a square in Osaka, a young man (Shibutani) suddenly rushes onto the stage, grabs the mic and begins to sing. The audience is initially stunned by the man’s actions but they are soon enraptured by the man’s voice. The band are also blown away and the band’s manager, Kasumi (Nikaido), who was in the audience, approaches the man to ask him who he is. He tells her that he doesn’t know because he has lost his memory. Kasumi nicknames him “Pochi Man” and takes him into her care, letting him live with her and her grandfather and work in the studio. The young man soon becomes the singer for the band, but when his memories start to return, he isn’t happy…

Website

Little Forest: Winter Spring       

Japanese: リトル　フォレスト　冬編・春編

Romaji: Ritoru Foresuto Fuyu Hen Haru Hen

Release Date: February 14^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Junichi Mori

Writer: Junichi Mori (Screenplay), Daisuke Igarashi (Original Manga)

Starring: Ai Hashimoto, Takahiro Miura, Mayu Matsuoka, Yoichi Nukumizu, Karen Kirishima,

And this film was at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival. Here’s the blurb I wrote:

Little Forest is based on a popular manga by Daisuke Igarashi that was serialised in Monthly Afternoon from 2002 – 05. It was shot over the course of a year and is a 4 part film of four seasons. This is the second of the two films that has been programmed for this year’s Berlinale and is the “Winter” and “Spring” portion. It is due for release in February in Japan.

Ichiko (Hashimoto) leaves big city life and confusion behind to head back to the mountains where her hometown of Komori is located (in Tohoku prefecture) and she takes to living off the land. She grows and farms her own food and cooks meals all of which are dictated by the seasons and the things she collects in the mountains around her. This return to nature allows her to gain a new strength.

Website

Gachiban New Generation Part 2    

Japanese Title: ガチバン NEW GENERATION 2

Romaji: Gachiban New Generation 2

Release Date: February 14^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 77 mins.

Director: Motoki Takashi

Writer: Masao Iketani (Screenplay)

Starring: Sho Jinnai, Kousuke Yonehara, Hideya Tawada, Megumi Nitta, Daigo (Chidori), Keita Uehara, Jo Hyuuga,

And I still haven’t caught up with the 20-something films in the Gachiban series which was created as a spoof of Crows Zero and involves handsome guys in OTT fights. Gachiban info can be found here at 13oysandm3n.

Website

The Mourner   

Japanese Title: 悼む人

Romaji: Itamu Hito

Release Date: February 14^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 138 mins.

Director: Yukihiko Tsutsumi

Writer: Arata Tendo (Original Novel), Sumio Omori (Screenplay)

Starring: Kengo Kora, Yuriko Ishida, Arata, Kippei Shiina, Shihori Kanjiya, Keiko Toda, Mitsuru Hirata, Natsuko Akiyama, Shinobu Otake,

This one is based on an award-winning novel was turned into the stage play directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi and written by Sumio Omori so it might be fair to say that they have a deep understanding of the material. They certainly have a great cast with Kengo Kora (The Story of Yonosuke), Arata (The Ravine of Goodbye, After Life) and Shihori Kanjia (Shindo, Survive Style 5+, Parade), all taking a role. It looks all rather worthy and dramatic.

This movie is all about life, death and human connections and we explore them through Shizuto Sakatsuki (Kora), a mourner who travels to scenes of accidents and mourns for the victims. He meets Yukiyo Nagi (Ishida) who is freshly released from prison for murdering her husband and goes back to the scene of the crime where she meets Shizuto. She takes an interest in Shizuto and meets those connected to him, his sick mother who misses him, his pregnant younger sister and a reporter looking for him.

Website

Girl Hate   

Japanese Title: おんなのこきらい

Romaji: Onna no ko Kirai

Release Date: February 14^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 80 mins.

Director: Ayaka Kato

Writer: Ayaka Kato (Screenplay)

Starring: Aoi Morikawa, Kenta Kiguchi, Saki Inoue, Keigo Tani, Kayano Masuyama,

Kiriko (Morikawa) is a pretty girl popular with guys and not so much with other women but she hides the fact that she has bulimia and binge eats to make herself vomit. Her thinking twisted by the belief that she must be cute. She is friends with Yuto (Tani) who works at a bar who provides some support and possibly more than friendship…

Website

A Man’s Life    

Japanese Title: おんなのこきらい

Romaji: Otoko no Isshou

Release Date: February 14^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 119 mins.

Director: Ryuichi Hiroki

Writer: Hiroshi Saito (Screenplay), Keiko Nishi (Original Manga)

Starring: Nana Eikura, Etsushi Toyokawa, Osamu Mukai, Mari Hamada, Tomoya Maeno, Sakura Ando, Motoki Ochiai, Minami,

Provocative poster. Ryuichi Hiroki has taken to making big ensemble films packed with lots of stars. I reviewed Kimi no Tomodachi back in December and previewed his latest one, Sayonara Kabukicho just last month. He’s back with an adaptation of a manga with a huge cast of characters and he has an interesting ensemble of actors taking roles like Minami (Detroit Metal City), Etsushi Toyokawa (Judge!, Gentle 12, Angel Dust), and Sakura Ando (Love Exposure). Then there’s the solid Nana Eikura (Tokyo Park), Osamu Mukai and Tomoya Maeno (The Kirishima Thing). I have never read the manga and the storyline doesn’t grab me but that’s a good combination of actors and director.

Tsugumi Dozono (Eikura) works hard for an electronics company and loves to vacation at her grandmother’s house in the countryside, but her latest trip is not a happy one. Her grandmother passes away. Tsugumi chooses to live in that house but encounters a man named Jun Kaieda (Toyokawa) who claims to be an ex-student of her grandmother’s and he also claims he is allowed to stay in the annex house. Tsugumi begins to life side by side with Jun as she tries to figure him out.

Website

Terrace House: Closing Door   

Japanese Title: テラスハウス　クロージング・ドア

Romaji: Terasu Hausu Kurosshingu Doa

Release Date: February 14^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: N/A

Director: Masato Maeda

Writer: N/A

Starring: Tetsuya Sugaya, Seina Shimabukuro, Hitoshi Kotabe, Yoshino Keisuke,

Is this the Japanese Big Brother? Fuji TV ran a television series from 2012-14 where a bunch of guys and gals shared a house with ocean views. I think the film begins after the last TV series and Tetsuya Sugaya and a new bunch of housemates are sent to the Terrace House. Here’s a video on dailymotion of one episode. Love to give you a trailer but I can’t find one that works.

Website

Minorities and Sex, Strictly Personal Way of Love   

Japanese Title: マイノリティとセックスに関する、極私的恋愛映画

Romaji: Mainoriti to Sekkusu ni Kansuru, Gokushiteki Renai Eiga

Release Date: February 14^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 85 mins.

Director: Makoto Sasaki

Writer: N/A

Starring: Kyoichi Nakajima, Tomohito Nakajima, MAMI, Christina Roberts, LILY, Shuji Yamamoto,

Makoto Sasaki has appeared on this blog before with a documentary about a blind musician who creates his own video game. He’s back with another documentary about “sexual minorities,” the second this year. This is another documentary about breaking the stereotypes held by society and why we label things.The trailer can explain everything far better than my lame translations.

Website

Assatsu no Umi Okinawa Henoko   

Japanese Title: 圧殺の海　沖縄・辺野古

Romaji: Assatsu no Umi Okinawa Henoko

Release Date: February 14^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 109 mins.

Director: Asako Kageyama, Yukihisa Fujimoto,

Writer: N/A

Starring: N/A

This documentary is all about the protestors who try to disrupt the building of the new American base on Okinawa and the police response against it.

Website

Murder on D Street   

Japanese Title: D坂の殺人事件

Romaji: D Zaka no Satsujin Jiken

Release Date: February 14^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 114 mins.

Director: Shoji Kubota

Writer: Shoji Kubota (Screenplay), Edogawa Rampo (Original Manga)

Starring: Sachiko, Ryunosuke Kawai, Kota Kusano, Eiko Otani, Takashi Nishina, Yoshimasa Kondo

Edogawa Ranpo is a popular writer and a lot of his works are adapted for the screen. His story, The Case of the Murder on D. Hill, has already been made into a movie in 1998 and it’s getting a second go again. The story involves detective Akechi Kogoro looking into the death of a man who is thought to have committed suicide. Was it murder or an S&M game gone wrong? There looks to be a mash-up of Edogawa Ranpo tales with guys in attics and people being tied up! Not that I’m into that sort of thing… Ahem…

Website

Magic Dolphin    

Japanese Title: マジックドルフィン

Romaji: Majikku Dorufin

Release Date: February 14^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 45 mins.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: N/A

From time to time there are films based on sea creatures that are released for the delight of kids and this is another one. It shows a special dolphin show at Hakkeijima Sea Paradise.

Website

And that’s your lot. Here’s a random music video:

Well the hype train has now set off from its station because I got news about the UK release of the third and final part of the Rurouni Kenshin film trilogy. Last week Monday I reported on Anime UK News about the release of Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends which will hit UK cinemas on March 06^th thanks to Warner Bros. UK. Today I got a bit more information including a poster (which looks like a good way of selling it to a UK audience who may not be familiar with the cast) and so I’m posting some news about it here with trailer and synopsis and everything. Poster first:

I can say without a doubt that the Rurouni Kenshin films are so action-packed and exciting, so well-made and beautiful that they have provided me with some of my best cinematic experiences. Here’s the info and the original Japanese poster.

Rurouni Kenshin The Legend Ends   

Japanese: るろうに剣心　伝説の最期編

Romaji: Rurouni Kenshin: Densetsu no Saigo-hen

Release Date: September 13^th, 2014 (Japan)

Running Time: 135 mins.

Director: Keishi Otomo

Writer: Kiyomi Fujii, Keishi Otomo, (Screenplay), Nobuhiro Watsuki (Original Manga)

Starring: Takeru Satoh, Emi Takei, Yu Aoi, Munetaka Aoki, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Yusuke Iseya, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Kaito Oyagi, Tao Tsuchiya, Maryjun Takahashi, Kazufumi Miyazawa, Masaharu Fukuyama,

This is the finale to the Kyoto arc of the original manga and it comes to an explosive end as Kenshin (Sato) must face off against another elite assassin, Makoto Shishio (Fujiwara), a man who wants to overthrow the newly formed Meiji government by destroying everything with his ironclad and returning Japan to chaos. At the end of the last film Kaoru (Takei) and Kenshin went overboard into a stormy sea and we see that Kenshin is saved by his former mentor, Hiko Seijuro (Fukuyama). In order to stop Shishio in time, Kenshin enlists the help of his old master to train for the ultimate battle between hero and villain in an epic blood-drenched showdown!

The film was released last year September on a rather awesome weekend. I have watched and reviewed the first one, watched the second and a draft of a review is on hold and waiting for me to add some pictures.

Takeru Sato (Real), Emi Takei (Ai to Makoto), Tatsuya Fujiwara (Battle Royale) and Yu Aoi (Hana and Alice) taking the lead roles. They are joined by Ryunosuke Kamiki (The Kirishima Thing), Yusuke Iseya (Thirteen Assassins), and Masaharu Fukuyama (Like Father Like Son).

Website

I’ll update this post with a list of cinemas like I did with announcement for the release of Kyoto Inferno so check back or check on Anime UK News to see if a cinema near you will be showing it!

As for me… As I made clear in my list of films I want to see this year, I’m looking forward to this tremendously and I cannot wait to watch it!

The Devil’s Path     

Japanese Title:  凶悪

Romaji: Kyouaku

Release Date: September 21^st, 2013

Running Time: 128 mins.

Director: Kazuya Shiraishi

Writer: Kazuya Shiraishi, Izumi Takahashi (Screenplay),

Starring: Takayuki Yamada, Pierre Taki, Lily Franky, Chizuru Ikewaki, Kazuko Shirakawa, Yu Saito, Nozomi Muraoka

The events depicted in The Devil’s Path detail a series of shocking crimes that occurred in a mundane town in Japan. Thugs targeted isolated elderly people or each other to extort for money, often using violence. The police missed the seriousness of the situation due to the surrounding circumstances of the victims. It was not until a journalist at the Shincho45 editorial department made these crimes public in the nonfiction novel “Kyoaku-Aru Shikeishuu no Kokuhatsu” that the police arrested the culprits.

When the film opens we see a yakuza named Junji Sudo (Pierre Taki) on a violent rampage, murdering a series of people before getting caught by the police.

He ends up a death-row inmate and sends a letter to magazine reporter Fujii (Takayuki Yamada), claiming that a man named Kimura (Lily Franky) gathered together a group of people to commit numerous murders in order to scoop up life insurance money. Their targets were elderly people. Sudo wants revenge because Kimura tricked him into killing his loyal henchman and getting arrested by the police, all of which we have seen.

Fujii is drawn to the case and soon starts looking at maps, driving to locations and interviewing people but the more he becomes obsessed with the case the more he ignores his mother who has dementia and the more he ignores his wife who is at breaking point due to the stress she suffers with Fujii’s mother. His wife feels even more frustrated because of Fujii’s lack of emotion at home and his passion for the case. A strange relationship develops between Sudo and Fujii as they spend more and more time together to try and collar Kimura for the crime…

When dealing with real-life crimes, there are many ways to bring them to film. Someone like Sono makes a  gore fest with plenty of black humour such as Cold Fish but with that film he had the benefit of an outlandish crime committed by rotten people against some other rotten people so we wouldn’t feel so bad about the violence and he could get away with it. The serious nature of the crimes in The Devil’s Path demand that the filmmakers take a respectful approach, highlighting many issues facing contemporary Japan but it seems that in attempting to detail the background of the case and create a narrative around events there is too much for the writers to adapt in an appropriate manner so they show everything and with little flair. The result is a lumbering film made duller by uninspired direction.

There are many themes involved in The Devil’s Path and each theme is treated solemnly. Most prominent is the treatment of the elderly, the decay of the family unit (even Yakuza families are falling apart), and the blight of economic depression that has fostered hopelessness and cruelty in the people involved in the case.

With so much to explore, the script settles for following Fujii’s journalistic investigation which proceeds extremely slowly as he looks through public records, makes maps, visits various locations and briefly talks to people connected to the case and reports back to Sudo who feeds him more information. These locations spark flashbacks to some slices of true crime cruelty as we witness the murders and tortures that took place there.

Despite the actual investigative element being light-weight stuff, it is a slow process that becomes tedious and dull to watch not least because the pacing is lethargic.

The film takes place over a number of years but that’s never made clear (although the pacing did feel loooong). As if sensing the lack of drama the scriptwriters’ change tack after a third of the film and the story opts for an extended flashback which indulges in some more displays of murder and cruelty of the murderers which throws in some gore and torture. At no point are the characters ever explored and so while their crimes are extreme, the chilling stuff of grisly newspaper reports, we never discover why these characters are doing such things and so the idea of this being a serious examination of modern moral maladies is undermined. We don’t need to engage that much, just know that the criminals are evil, desperate for money or easily lead. There is no effort to give them backgrounds as the investigation takes precedence. This light-weight characterisation and the script’s clumsy narrative that tries to make allusions between Fujii’s failing family life and the actions of the criminals mean that the emotional impact that Fujii’s work has is limited to the horrendous crimes.

This takes its toll on the actors who are saddled with dull roles not least lead actor Takayuki Yamada who gives an uncharacteristically uncharismatic performance which is almost wooden. With coal-rimmed eyes, he wanders about speaking in a monotone voice as he tries to convey how Fujii is despondent and obsessed with the case but he seems unchallenged, unmotivated, and uninterested in the role, a feeling that is infectious because that was how I came to regard the film. There are, however, two stand-outs.

Chizuru Ikewaki is largely wasted by valiantly generates some sympathy from her put upon housewife character. Stuck in a nightmarish situation, she simmers with resentment directed at Fujii’s job and this makes some tension. Unfortunately, she’s acting alongside a leading man who could be confused for a piece of wooden furniture.

Lily Franky is the stand-out and that is because he throws himself into his role as a highly charismatic psychopath Kimura with gusto. His act is all bonhomie and avuncular charm but behind the merriment and sympathy is a man with a wicked cruel streak who dances with delight over getting to take part in killing people. His glee belongs in a Sono film rather than this stodgy title and is symptomatic of a poor control of atmosphere thanks to lacklustre direction which is hammered home by lifeless visuals.

The film is visually charmless and the atmosphere is leaden. It looks like it has the production values of a television movie and the director does not take advantage of the power of cinema. Scenes are stolid and when they change locations or time periods they simply bleed into each other. Shot composition is conventional, camera movement is minimal, and despite a few tilts, most shots are at eye-level with a few scenes where the camera pans around. It’s a shame that there’s so little to look at since Fujii is traipsing around abandoned junkyards and houses.

Overall, I found the film a dull experience despite the subject matter. What should have been harrowing and tough to watch was dull and wearisome. In the hands of a better director armed with a sharper script, it might have lived up to its promise but it never comes to life.

2.5/5

The Glasgow Film Festival kicks off tonight and it has a selection of excellent films that any fan of cinema will love. Here’s the line-up. This is a bit of a rush post. I decided to cover this at the very last minute because I took a gander at the films and I think that there are enough quality titles to make this film festival stand out. I’m excited to see Fires on the Plain because if this is in the UK it means that it may make its way down to London. Also of note are Pale Moon and Uzumasa Limelight both of which have had excellent reviews including ones by a fellow J-film blogger who has great taste (Uzumasa Review) (Pale Moon Review)! Glasgow usually has good films (it’s how I saw Rentaneko and Museum Hours) so I’ll cover it every year from now on…

Here’s the line-up of films programmed this year:

Thursday, February 19^th

Pale Moon (紙の月)   

Director: Daihachi Yoshida, Writer: Hayafune Utaeko (Screenplay), Mitsuyo Kakuta (Original Novel), Starring: Rie Miyazawa, Sosuke Ikematsu, Yuko Oshima, Seiichi Tanabe, Yoshimasa Kindo, Satomi Kobayashi, Renji Ishibashi,

Running Time: 126 mins.

This is film is based on a novel by Mitsuyo Kakuta which has been adapted into a dorama with the same cast. I am interested in the film mostly because of the rather lurid plot and the fact that the film won the audience award at the recent Tokyo International Film Festival. It stars Rie Miyazawa and I sung her praises for her performance in The Twilight Samurai and I want to see more of her acting performances and this one looks to be strong especially since it’s in a story about a character coming apart at the seams after committing a serious crime due to her boredom and lust…

Rika Umezawa (Miyazawa) lives a dull life. Despite being a highly rated employee with her clients at a bank, a seemingly loveless marriage with her husband leaves her feeling a profound sense of emptiness and this leads her to embark on an affair with a young man named Kota (Ikematsu), a university student. Spending money on him is a costly endeavour what with hotel suites and fancy restaurants and so she begins to embezzle money from her clients and neglect her husband as she becomes addicted to her illicit affair…

Friday 20^th – Saturday 21st

Uzumasa Limelight    (太秦ライムライト)   

Director: Ken Ochiai, Writer: Hiroyuki Ono (Screenplay), Starring: Seizo Fukumoto, Chihiro Yamamoto, Hiroki Matsukata, Masashi Goda, Hirotaro Honda, Hisako Manda.

Running Time: 104 mins.

 A moving, nostalgic portrait of the men behind the golden age of chanbara (sword-fighting dramas and films), Uzumasa Limelight goes behind the scenes of the distinctive film genre for which Japan is famous. A professional extra named Kamiyama (real-life kirare-yaku Seizo Fukumoto) has devoted 50 years of his life as a kirare-yaku in sword-fighting movies produced at Kyoto’s Uzumasa Studios. A master of the art, he lives to die–or more exactly “to be cut”–and show a beautiful, spectacular death on screen. Now an elderly man, Kamiyama lives very modestly but has earned immense respect from his peers, some of them movie stars. When the studio where he works decides to discontinue its chanbara productions, Kamiyama finds himself at a loss. Hope arrives in the form of a young girl named Satsuki, who soon becomes Kamiyama’s disciple. Will the art of dying by the sword live on?

Saturday 21^st – Sunday 22^nd 

The Light Shines Only There (そこのみにて光輝く)   

Director: Mipo O, Writer: Ryo Takada (Screenplay), Yasushi Sato (Original Novel), Starring: Gou Ayano, Chizuru Ikewaki, Masaki Suda, Kazuya Takahashi, Shohei Hinom Hiroko Isayama

Running Time: 120 mins.

I saw this one at the Raindance Film Festival and I found it an intensely moving drama about emotionally damage people and also very beautiful. I’m tempted to see this one again because I was so impressed – I just need to finish the review. It is based on a novel published in 1989 by an author who lived a tragic life and was updated for the screen by the director Mipo O (most famous in the UK for Quirky Guys and Gals) and the writer Ryo Takada (one of the writers on the tough drama The Ravine of Goodbye). It stars Gou Ayano (Rurouni Kenshin, The Story of Yonosuke) and Chizuru Ikewaki (Shokuzai). It’s a film full of despair but ends on a little bit of hope. This is Japan’s entry for the next Academy Awards.

Tatsuo Sato (Ayano) quits his job and does little with his days until he meets Takuji Oshiro (Suda), a rough around the edges kid recently released from jail, at a pachinko parlour and strikes up a friendship. Takuji invites Tatsuo back to his home where he lives with is sick father, mother and older sister Chinatsu (Ikewaki). Tatsuo becomes attracted to Chinatsu, who shines even in their difficult situation.

Sunday 22 February

Fires on the Plain (野火)   

Director: Shinya Tsukamoto, Writer: Shinya Tsukamoto (Screenplay), Shohei Ooka (Original Novel), Starring: Shinya Tsukamoto, Lily Franky, Tatsuya Nakamura, Yuko Nakamura, Dean Newcombe,

Running Time: 87 mins.

Shinya Tsukamoto is back bringing the fire to Japanese cinema audiences with his challenging films. The fire I mentioned is Fires on the Plain which is based upon the 1951 Yomiuri Prize-winning novel of the same name and that was then adapted into a film in 1959 by Kon Ichikawa. It took Tsukamoto 20 years to bring his adaptation of the film to the screen. It stars the director, Shinya Tsukamoto, who surrounds himself with interesting actors like Yuko Nakamura Kotoko (2011) and Lily Franky, Judge! (2014) and Like Father, Like Son (2013). Fires on the Plain has come away from many film festivals with critics praising it so if you’re looking for a challenge, this might be for you.

Clips from the film:

The film Fires on the Plain follows a demoralised Japanese army in the Philippines. We see how bad things are for the Japanese troops through the desperate struggle of a conscript named Tamura who is sick with TB and forced into the field by a commander who cannot waste resources on a dying man. Tamura doesn’t want to give up so easily and clings to life but it is a struggle that will lead him down a dark path that hint at some of the atrocities carried out by soldiers…

Tuesday 24^th – Wednesday 25^th

Still the Water (２つ目の窓)   

Director: Naomie Kawase, Writer: Naomie Kawase (Screenplay), Starring: Nijiro Murakami, Jun Yoshinaga, Tetta Sugimoto, Miyuki Matsuda, Makiko Watanabe, Jun Murakami, Hideo Sakaki, Fujio Tokita

Running Time: 114 mins.

Still the Water was at this year’s Cannes film festival where it got mixed reviews, some praising its beauty and atmosphere while others lamenting the heavy handed symbolism used throughout the film.

It is the full-moon night of August and on Amami-Oshima traditional dances take place. A 14-year-old boy finds a dead body floating in the sea. With the help of his girlfriend, the two set about trying to solve the mystery. As they investigate the two grow into adults by experiencing the interwoven cycles of life, death and love.

Thursday 26^th – Friday 27^th

Man from Reno (リノから来た男)   

Director: Dave Boyle, Writer: Dave Boyle, Joel Clark, Michael Lerman (Screenplay), Starring: Ayako Fujitani, Kazuki Kitamura, Pepe Serna, Elisha Skorman, Hiroshi Watanabe.

Running Time: 111 mins

 A Japanese bestselling crime novelist visiting San Francisco finds herself embroiled in a real life mystery after a night with a handsome stranger. The man–Japanese and supposedly from Nevada–disappears the next morning, after which increasingly strange and dangerous events begin to occur. This beautifully photographed Japanese-American co-production overturns the gender stereotypes of the mystery thriller, casting international star Kazuki Kitamura as its homme fatale. Kitamura effortlessly slides between gentle and sinister, while Ayako Fujitani fits perfectly into the role of author-turned-detective. One of this accomplished transnational film’s greatest features is a rare leading turn from Pepe Serna, veteran character actor of over 100 Hollywood films (Scarface, The Black Dahlia). Set in San Francisco, this neo-noir offers not only a compelling portrayal of gender and globalization, but a model for vibrant independent filmmaking across borders.

Hello once again dear audience!

I posted the weekly trailers like usual last Saturday and totally forgot it was Valentine’s Day! A belated Happy Valentine’s Day to you all. Yesterday I got some very lovely Studio Ghibli-related gifts from a kind and dear friend who visited the exhibition in Paris. They were an unexpected surprise and I love them! So thanks, if you read this! What a great week!

This week I posted about the UK release of Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends (the release date has changed so I updated the original post) and a review of The Devil’s Path something that has been on the back-burner for a while, and a preview of the Japanese films at the Glasgow Film Festival. Expect a review for Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno to be posted next week because I am finally editing that beast down from 2000+ words. I’m writing up my review of the two films I saw at this year’s Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme and I am currently making my way through Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together on the PSP and enjoying it (when I should be writing)!

Like Peter in Dawn of the Dead, I’m leaving things to the last minute!

What’s released in Japan this weekend?

The Pro Wrestling Cannon Ball Run 2014, The Movie   

Japanese Title: 劇場版プロレスキャノンボール2014

Romaji: Gekijouban Puro Resu Kyanon Bo-ru 2014

Release Date: February 16^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 130 mins.

Director: Muscle Sakai

Writer: N/A

Starring: Sahshiro Takagi, Minoru Suzuki, Jun Kasai, Muscle Sakai, Ryuohei Fukuda,

This is a documentary film where we see wrestlers in the Tohoku region get involved with a Canon Ball Run and get involved in fights in local areas while meeting all sorts of people.

Website

The Case of Hana & Alice 

Japanese Title: 花とアリス 殺人事件

Romaji: Hana to Alice: Satsujin Jiken

Release Date: February 20th, 2015

Running Time: 100 mins.

Director: Shunji Iwai

Writer: Shunji Iwai (Screenplay/Original Creator),

Starring: Yu Aoi (Tetsuko Arisugawa), Anne Suzuki (Hana Arai), Ryou Kazuji (Kotaro Yuda – a man who holds the key to the murder mystery), Haru Kuroki (Satomi Hagino-sensei – Hana and Alice’s homeroom teacher), Tae Kimura (Yuki Tsutsumi – the ballet classroom teacher), Shouko Aida (Kayo Arisugawa – Alice’s mother), Sei Hiraizumi (Kenji Kuroyanagi – Alice’s father), Ranran Suzuki (Tomomi Mutsu – Hana’s classmate), Tomohiro Kaku (Asanaga-sensei), Midoriko Kimura (Tomomi Arai – Hana’s mother),

This is the prequel movie to Shunji Iwai’s wonderful 2004 coming-of-age film Hana & Alice, the film which was the break-out title for two totally talented actors Yu Aoi and Anne Suzuki who respectively starred as Alice and Hana, two school girls in an intense friendship who both experience love for the first time. Hana to Alice: Satsujin Jiken tells the story of how the girls first met and it is apparently through the world’s smallest murder case. I really like the look of the animation and the character designs as I made clear in my preview for the film.

Website

Fantastic Girls   

Japanese Title: でーれー　ガールーズ

Romaji: Deeree Garuzu

Release Date: February 20th, 2015

Running Time: 118 mins.

Director: Akiko Ohku

Writer: Takashi Minamoto (Screenplay), Maha Harada (Original Novel),

Starring: Mio Yuki, Rika Adachi, Yuri Shirahane, Kei Aran, Kenta Suga, Masato Yano, Kae Sugiura, Chika Yamane,

Ayuko (Yuki) has transferred schools from Tokyo to Okayama and has no friends. She hangs out with her boyfriend Hideo (Yano), a college student, and draws romance manga of the two of them. Takemi (Adachi) is Ayuko’s classmate and she likes reading Ayuko’s manga and thanks to that the two become friends until a certain incident occurs… Thirty years later, Ayuko (Shirahane) is a manga artist back in her old high school to give a lecture where Takemi (Aran) is a teacher…

Website

Klevani: Ai no Tunnel / Tunnel of Love The Place For Miracles   

Japanese Title: クレヴァニ、　愛トンネル

Romaji: Klevani: Ai no Tonneru

Release Date: February 20th, 2015

Running Time: 85 mins.

Director: Akiyoshi Imazeki

Writer: Akira Ishikawa, Akiyoshi Imazeki (Screenplay), Akiyoshi Imazeki (Original Novel),

Starring: Miki Honoka, Sho Oyamada, Masaru Mizuno, Masaru Mizuno, Chieko Uozumi, Itsuji Itao, Nanaka Kawamura, Tomoe Koyanagi, Yoichi Okamura,

Kei (Oyamada) and Kazuha (Honoka) are separated by a tragic accident. Kei cannot get over the loss of the love of his life and finds out about a village in the Ukraine where people can meet those they have lost, they just have to enter a tunnel… They find themselves reunited and there’s no mention of the huge age gap between the high school girl and the adult male.

Website

I Live in Shimokita 2003 to 2014 (Someday, to be Independent)   

Japanese Title: 下北沢で生きるShimokita 2003 to 2014

Romaji: Shimokita azawa de Ikiru Shimokita 2003 to 2014

Release Date: February 20th, 2015

Running Time: 95 mins.

Director: Mayumi Saito

Writer: N/A

Starring: N/A

I like the poster a lot – the look on the cycling girl’s face is intriguing. It’s a shame I couldn’t find a trailer. It’s for a documentary about the evolution of Shimokita’s music and theatre venues from 2003 to 2014, the problems faced by various places, the musicians, actors and others who are involved in keeping the cultural life of the city alive. Expect interviews with many people.

The Boy Who Has A Lifeless Eyes / The Boy with Dead Eyes    

Japanese Title: 死んだ目をした少年

Romaji: Shinda me o shita shounen

Release Date: February 20th, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: Hayato Kano

Writer: Akira Ishikawa, Akiyoshi Imazeki (Screenplay), Tomohiro Koizumi (Original Manga),

Starring: Naoya Shimizu, Maria Takagi, Satsuki, Miyabi Nishii, Shono Hayama, Shigeaki Fukui, Daigo Nozawa, Keito Sakurai,

Inuta (Shimizu) and Kazumiya live in a small country village and attend middle school. They suffer a degree of bullying at home and in school but an encounter with a woman named Fueko leads them into learning boxing from her which makes them feel like they are escaping their boring lives. It also creates a rift between them and their classmates including Tsuyomi (Satsuki), who has feelings for Inuta.

Website

Minna no Gakkou   

Japanese Title: みんなの学校

Romaji: Minna no Gakkou

Release Date: February 20th, 2015

Running Time: 106 mins.

Director: Toshinaga Manabe

Writer: N/A

Starring: N/A

This is an award-winning documentary that was originally broadcast on television and re-edited for the big screen. Forgive me translation but it’s about an elementary school that takes care of kids with behavioural issues. The principal aims to get the truancy rate to zero and enlists the help of the parents, faculty, and children to make the school an inviting place, a “school for all,” hence the title Minna no Gakko (Everyone’s School).

Website

THE ALFEE 40th Anniversary Film THE LAST GENESIS 40 Year History and Miracle    

Japanese Title: THE ALFEE 40th Anniversary Film THE LAST GENESIS 40年の軌跡と奇跡

Romaji: THE ALFEE 40th Anniversary Film THE LAST GENESIS 40nen no Rekishi to Kiseki

Release Date: February 20th, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: Toshihiko Takamizawa, Konosuke Sakazaki, Sakurai Masaru

This documentary film was made when The Alfee were celebrating their 40^th anniversary last year. Expect interviews with the band and people in the music industry and performances that stretch back from 1974 to 2014.

Website

Piramekikoyaku Koi Monogatari: Koyaku ni Akogareru Subete no Oyako no Tame ni   

Japanese Title: ピラメキ子役恋ものがたり　子役に憧れるすべての親子のために

Romaji: Piramekikoyaku Koi Monogatari: Koyaku ni Akogareru Subete no Oyako no Tame ni

Release Date: February 20th, 2015

Running Time: 64 mins.

Director: Isamu Ohta

Writer: Mori Hayashi (Screenplay),

Starring: Fuku Suzuki, Rina Ikoma, Satoshi Kanada, Akiyoshi Kawashima, Kentaro Watari, David Ridges, Kenji Murakami,

Apparently Piramekikoyaku is a variety programme aimed at children and broadcast on TV Tokyo. The lead actor is child actor Suzuki Fuku and through hi we get to see behind-the-scenes of the Japanese TV industry and all sorts of weird stuff as can be glimpsed in the brief trailer.

Website

Radio Love   

Japanese Title: ピラメキ子役恋ものがたり　子役に憧れるすべての親子のために

Romaji: Piramekikoyaku Koi Monogatari: Koyaku ni Akogareru Subete no Oyako no Tame ni

Release Date: February 20th, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: Hideyuki Tokigawa

Writer: Hideyuki Tokigawa (Screenplay),

Starring: Yuji Yokoyama, Sakura Nakano, Takashi Tanaka,

A radio DJ in Hiroshima who is bored of his job finds himself saving a young girl who is about to fall off a bridge. The girl pleads with him not to quit and tells him about the importance that the radio has because it helps connect people. This is the start of a series of strange events and appearances of strange people and all of this will make the radio DJ change his mind about leaving his station!

Website

Aaaaaaaaaannnnd that’s it for another weekend!!!

Random music video – TACTICS OGRE LET US CLING TOGETHER!!!:

Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno    

Japanese Title: るろうに剣心京都大火編

Romaji: Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Taika Hen

Release Date: August 01^st, 2014 (Japan)

Running Time: 139 mins.

Director: Keishi Ohtomo

Writer: Watsuki Nobuhiro (Original Manga), Kiyomi Fujii, Keishi Ohtomo (Screenplay)

Starring: Takeru Sato, Emi Takei, Munetaka Aoki, Yu Aoi, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Yosuke Eguchi, Kaito Oyagi, Yosuke Eguchi, Yusuke Iseya, Tao Tsuchiya, Maryjun Takahashi,

History is never as clean or as clear cut as the books make it out to be and for the survivors’ of the Boshin War and the pivotal Battle of Toba-Fushimi the scars run deep and the old hatreds have simmered. It is to be expected that the consequences of this battle are messier and farther reaching than many would like considering the conflict between the Tokugawa Shogunate and the eventually victorious Imperial forces decided the fate of Japan and set in motion the end of samurai era and ushered in the modernisation and westernisation of Japan. Many who fought on both sides found themselves cast adrift in a new world that does not require their deadly skills but these people who fought to change the future of their nation will find history can never be escaped.

For Kenshin Himura (Satoh) this change is to be embraced and protected and ever since that battle he has tried to discard his old life. Once an elite government assassin whose skill with the blade made him a legend across Japan and helped secure the Imperial government’s victory, he has since worked hard to fade into the background having lain down his sword and renounced killing and embraced the life of a wanderer who helps others in order to atone for his past deeds. His own tragic childhood, tough upbringing, and memories of war fuel his desire to protect a new age of equality where people know nothing of war and children experience peace. It is a fragile peace and a somewhat dishonest one as another survivor of the battle of Toba-Fushimi knows all too well and this man threatens to burn the new Japan to the ground.

That man is Makoto Shishio (Fujiwara). He is a skilled swordsman and a ruthless and merciless killer who was left physically scarred after a betrayal by his government paymasters at Toba-Fushimi. He was believed to be dead but is in fact both alive and plotting to overthrow the new government of Japan. Shishio is driven by a burning desire for revenge and commands a private army of mercenaries who are carving out a huge swathe of territory for their master while destroying all forces sent against them by the government. With few options left, Home Minister Toshimichi Okubo (Miyazawa) summons the only man alive who can stop Shishio… Rurouni Kenshin.

After preventing a drugs-baron from flooding Japan with opium, Kenshin has started a new life and helps out in a dojo run by fencing instructor Kaoru (Takei). He enjoys life surrounded by his friends, Kaoru’s young student Yahiko (Oyagi), brawny roughneck Sanosuke (Aoki), and a formerly deviant and deadly doctor named Megumi (Aoi) who now uses her medical skills to help the local community.

With a place to call his own in the new Japan and treading the path of nonviolence he is at peace and growing closer to Kaoru. When the government calls on Kenshin, their happiness is shattered. Despite some misgivings about helping and facing the possibility of breaking his pledge of non-violence, when he sees the destruction wrought by Shishio and his forces, he knows he must take up his sword once again and travel to Kyoto to stop Shishio and save Japan!

Audiences will be relieved that he does take to fighting once again because it means another instalment in the live-action Rurouni Kenshin trilogy of films. Kyoto Inferno is the second I have seen in a cinema and it was a fantastic big blockbuster movie that I found so exciting I had to see it twice during its run!

Kyoto Inferno is the sequel to the 2012 Rurouni Kenshin film and much like its predecessor it is based on and remains faithful to Nobuhiro Watsuki’s manga. It adapts the Kyoto arc of Kenshin’s story which many fans consider to be the best part. If the first film served to lay the groundwork for historical context and character back-story, Kyoto Inferno is the series flexing its muscles just before the third and final part.

Director Keishi Ohtomo, his production team and his cast returned from the first film less than a year after it was released and over the course of six months they made Kyoto Inferno back-to-back with the third film, The Legend Ends. The two were released in Japan last year in August and September respectively and became huge box-office smash hits. As the dramatic title suggests Kyoto Inferno has grand ambitions with a big budget (3 billion yen) a complex narrative that stretches across Japan and across history, a large cast (5,000 extras), and even more impressive sets, costumes, battles and visuals that have sheen of classiness thanks show the high production values on display.

Once again we are transported into Japan’s recent past and it is this rich history and its real people and politics which gives the film enough depth and its characters enough complexity to make the film more than a simple action title. The historical context is rich here. Kenshin exists in an age where society is in flux, where samurai are no longer the bedrock and rulers of Japan, they now occupy liminal space and their fall from grace is the price to be paid for making Japan a modern nation where words like equality mean something. This change can be seen affecting everyone and everything on screen. Some samurai such as Hajime Saito, a former member of the Shogun’s Shinsengumi, have taken on new roles in society, donned western clothes and adopted western habits and joined the police and government as the new Imperial authorities simultaneously absorbs much of the samurai caste and outlaws the rest. Others have not fared so well with the changes and bands of rowdy ragged-clothed Ronin roam the country causing trouble that has to be put down by the new police force. Even a legendary assassin like Kenshin is cast adrift in the age he helped bring about but at the end of the first film he has found a way to live a life of peace. More worryingly, others such as Shishio are plotting to drag everyone back to the past, to an age where the strong rule the weak and men like him can prosper. A world opposite of the one Kenshin fights for.

His ideology isn’t born from lazy scriptwriting and clichéd genre tropes, it is one driven by his own personal and complex nature, his almost psychopathic personality which refuses to bow down to anyone and would have flourished in an earlier age of constant warfare like the Sengoku period, a personality that is spurred on by the hypocrisy of the new government which was born on a tide of bloodshed orchestrated and performed by men like him, men that have subsequently been betrayed and discarded. This is most potently shown in a flashback to Shishio’s battle at Toba-Fushimi, shot distinctly differently from the grand and luscious main plot, it is a grainy and harrowing battle on a patch of blasted and snowbound countryside that looks like t is straight from a nuclear winter. The battle is full of jittery camera movement which displays his callousness and that of the Imperial government.

Indeed, one of the great strengths of the film is the delivery of this rich back-story. You do not need to have a degree in Japanese history to understand any of this. It is all told in dialogue that is well-crafted and well-delivered to avoid sounding too much like crude exposition. It is all on display in the way characters interact and the costumes worn by them like dust-covered down and out Ronin, and well-heeled government men in western clothes and the increasing presence of foreigners. It is shown in the sets which recreate an age of change which we see while watching Kenshin journey across Japan.

Kyoto Inferno brings to the screen scenes and locations, gorgeous outdoor sets that span the screen, props, and costumes that look to have been taken wholesale from the past via a time machine. They offer up a glorious feeling of verisimilitude that transport the audience into a fully populated living breathing world you could imagine actually existed and will continue to exist after the film has finished.

Kenshin visits the new European style government buildings occupied by Home Minister Okubo which displays the change in the age. The homely dojo that Kenshin lives in with Kaoru in Tokyo has polished floors, orderly rooms, and small garden that all speak of peace and dedication to simplicity and the bettering the human spirit. Kyoto, Kenshin’s destination, is a more traditional bustling and thriving metropolis where Geisha in their full dress catch the eye of young Yahiko and street sellers offer windmills and other goods. A burnt out village that is a trap for Kenshin is a ghost town where ash floats on the air, blood paints walls, and corpses hang from trees, and it all shows the barbarity Shishio wants to bring to Japan. The dedication to bringing to life this world, its people and politics is admirable. It feels like being transported in time and Kenshin’s travels are a great way to deliver it!

Playing the titular wandering swordsman is Takeru Satoh who offers another phenomenal physical performance full of fighting spirit. His compact frame belies the breath-taking speed, power, and athleticism that he has as he engages with a variety of opponents. The fights are breath-taking to behold as Takeru Satoh, who performs in the majority of the battles, springs about the screen. One moment will see him rushing enemies stalking towards him in the blink of an eye and quickly changing direction to leap into a crowd of other samurai, his frame twisting around suddenly hand shooting out for guidance. His fighting technique is phenomenal and the clear and concise direction makes sure we see it. His sword is used for a few economical jabs, parries and thrusts to take down opponents quickly and efficiently, creating space and opportunity in battles so he controls the flow of battle. Even when he doesn’t have his blade, he is still an excellent fighter as he punches, kicks, throws and uses a hollow scabbard to beat an evil baby-snatching opponent and others.

Few stand in his way.

Few except Sojiro (played by Ryunosuke Kamiki), a baby-faced killer with quick reflexes and speed to rival Kenshin’s. The few encounters between Kenshin and Sojiro are short and sweet but phenomenal in terms of execution as they dash at each other, parry strikes, dodge, and tussle for any advantage and it offers a hint at the exciting blade storm to be expected in the third and final film. Ryunosuke Kamiki, an excellent new actor from Japan and while his malevolent character is only teased in this film, he has almost as much presence as Shishio as a villain.

It is Takeru Sato who takes centre stage, however, and he manages to transcend his earlier, mostly physical performance, and put in a dramatically strong one which more clearly expresses Kenshin’s interior life as the legendary swordsman desperately battling against the need to kill his opponents and is taken to the limits of his pacifist pledge by some real tough guys. Every fight he takes on leaves not just its physical mark (darker clothes, rougher appearance), but a mental one, his countenance darkening with constant brooding over the importance of his task and wear of each battle leaving him more solemn as the film progresses.

Given less to do are Kenshin’s old friends as a new, larger cast of characters are introduced but they do get some screen time. That written, a lot of the plaudits go to the new actors such as Tao Tsuchiya as Misao, a comely comedy ninja who offers levity to the film just before her heartbreak and Min Tanaka as , a veteran Watcher/ninja who gets involved in an amazing fight near the film’s end.

Tatsuya Fujiwara resists creating a cartoonish antagonist despite the bandages and big speeches and reigns in a potentially melodramatic psycho performance to create a laconic bad guy who is intelligent, ruthless and as clear-eyed and honest about what he is doing and the age he lives in to be convincing as a leader of disenfranchised samurai. Fujiwara imbues the character with a heavy physicality that reeks of menace and complexity.

All deliver committed performances that bring to life their characters and it is never more so evident that when the fighting happens.

There are too many highlights to name but fans of the films will be pleased to know that the smoulderingly handsome and mysterious Hajime Saito (played brilliantly by Eguchi) gets involved with more street scraps where he swaggers down boulevards set ablaze with a cigarette clamped between his teeth whilst dispatching multiple bad guys with precision strikes without missing a beat.

The fight choreography is pulse quickening stuff as the characters use their environments with skill and fight with a mixture of ingenuity and technique. All of those historically accurate (to my eye, at least) sets get demolished and the environment is heavily affected as people get thrown through doors, books and lanterns are tossed at opponents to buy a few vital seconds of breathing space so they can work themselves into better positions. Power is conveyed through the speed of the flurries of kicks and punches and the reactions of opponents and in a neat bit of detail you can see props blown about for dramatic effect.

The highlights are many and culminate in a massive battle when Kyoto is set ablaze.

Watching all of these performers is thrilling beyond words, real edge of your seat stuff as they display athletic prowess that are exciting. The bursts of speed are kept on frame so we see the swift and well-defined and precise movements. We never lose track of the fighters or what they are doing even amidst the humongous battles full of what seems like hundreds of extras which, again, brings up the history of Japan because the showdown in Kyoto feels epic. This is a battle not just for Kenshin and his friends but for all of Japan as young and old, men and women, all take part and all get a moment to shine as their individual battles are expertly intercut together to give a sense of the action. Far from being sucked out of the action, we are firmly placed in it, the mise-en-scene and actors flawlessly combined to create an exciting arena filled with combatants who are larger than life as in the manga, and yet totally believable. There is an energy and attitude to the precisely orchestrated battles that, when coupled with the stateliness of the drama brings home the high stakes game being played by the characters. Everything is performed and filmed with the precision of a Swiss watch, no shot or sequence wasted, everything feeding into telling the audience what they need to know about Kenshin’s times, his personality, and the battles he faces to bring about peace in a new age.

Overall, Kyoto Inferno is a beautiful and flashy action film with a brain and a heart. It’s full of fun, colourful, and compelling characters brought to life by passionate actors who work together in a story which has a rock solid tightly plotted script that draws on real history to create a fascinating and engaging sweeping historical action film. The production team have adapted an exciting comic-book version of Japanese history and the details are almost palpable to such an extent that it is easy to feel transported back in time and with some artistic license it makes real the drama of the seismic shifts experienced by society in Japan. Overall, the first two Rurouni Kenshin films are some of the best action films in recent cinema and definitely some of the most accessible chanbara films available both in Japan and elsewhere and I thought Kyoto Inferno was one of the best films I saw in 2014!

BRING ON THE THIRD FILM!

4.5/5

Here’s the official music video:

The third film, Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends is released in the UK on April 17th, 2015.

Warner Bros. Japan has been the best thing to happen to Japanese cinema in recent years, in my opinion. I have liked all of the films they have backed that I have seen:

Berserk: Golden Age Arc The Egg of the King

Wild 7

Black Butler

Rurouni Kenshin

Ninja Kids!!!

Apart from Tajomaru and Higanjima…

Here’s the original Japanese poster for Kyoto Inferno.

The World War II drama The Eternal Zero was the big winner at the 38^th Japan Academy Prize award ceremony taking Picture of the year and best director for Takashi Yamazaki. Another big winner from that film is Junichi Okada who won Best Actor for his portrayal of a kamikaze pilot and he also won best supporting actor for the historical drama, A Samurai Chronicle, becoming the first male actor to get two Japan Academy acting awards. Not only that but he won Most Popular Actor.

Rie Miyazawa’s performance as a bank employee in a lurid affair in Daihachi Yoshida’s drama Pale Moon managed to net her Best Actress in a category full of excellent competitors, while Haru Kuroki took best supporting actress.

The Eternal Zero also took many of the technical awards such as lighting and cinematography.

Looking at the nominees and winners, one cannot help but see it as a pretty dull line-up of films designed not to offend anyone (particularly those of a conservative nature).

Here are the nominees with the winners in bold:

Picture of the Year
The Eternal Zero
Pale Moon
Little House
A Samurai Chronicle
Cape Nostalgia

Animation of the Year
Stand by Me Doraemon

When Marnie was There
Giovanni’s Island
Detective Conan
Buddha 2: Tezuka Osamu no Buddha: Owarinaki Tabi

Director of the Year
Takashi Yamazaki – The Eternal Zero

Daihachi Yoshida – Pale Moon

Izuru Narushima – Cape Nostalgia
Takashi Koizumi – A Samurai Chronicle
Katsuhide Motoki – Samurai Hustle/Mission Impossible: Samurai

Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Junichi Okada – The Eternal Zero

Hiroshi Abe – Cape Nostalgia

Koji Yakusho – A Samurai Chronicle
Kuranosuke Sasaki – Samurai Hustle/Mission Impossible: Samurai
Kiichi Nakai – Snow On the Blades

Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role  
Rie Miyazawa – Pale Moon

Sakura Ando – 0.5mm
Chizuru Ikewaki – The Light Shines Only There
Mao Inoue – Snow White Murder Case (Review)
Fumi Nikaido – My Man
Sayuri Yoshinaga – Cape Nostalgia

Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Junichi Okada – A Samurai Chronicle

Abe Hiroshi – Snow on the Blades
Ito Hideaki – Wood Job!
Shofukutei Tsurube – Cape Nostalgia
Haruma Miura – The Eternal Zero

Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Haru Kuroki – The Little House

Yuko Oshima – Pale Moon
Satomi Kobayashi – Pale Moon
Yuko Takeuchi – Cape Nostalgia
Sumiko Fuji – Maiko is ready

Screenplay of the Year

Akihiro Dobashi – Samurai Hustle/Mission Impossible: Samurai

Takashi Yamazaki, Tamo Hayashi – The Eternal Zero

Yoji Yamada – The Little House

Masato Kato Teruo Abe – Cape Nostalgia

Kaeko Hayafune – Pale Moon

Rookies of the Year (THEY ARE ALL WINNERS)
Rena Nounen – Hot Road
Sosuke Ikematsu – Pale Moon, Vortex of Love, Our Family

Nana Komatsu – The World of Kanako (Review)
Hiroomi Tosaka – Hot Road
Sota Fukushi – In The Hero, As the God’s Will, Say “I Love You”

Mone Kamishiraishi – Lady Maiko

Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography

Kozo Shibasak – The Eternal Zero

Shoji Ueda – A Samurai Chronicle

Masashi Chikamori – The Little House

Mutsuo Naganuma –  Cape Nostalgia

Hiroyuki Kitazawa – A Samurai Chronicle

Outstanding Achievement in Music

Yoshikazu Suo – Lady Maiko

Goro Yasukawa – Cape Nostalgia

Naoki Sato – The Eternal Zero

Takashi Kako – A Samurai Chronicle

Joe Hisaishi – The Little House

Outstanding Foreign Language Film

Frozen

Godzilla (Review)

Fury

Interstellar

Jersey Boys

Most Popular Film

Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno (Review), The Legend Ends

Most Popular Acctor

Junichi Okada

Sosuke Ikematsu can be seen in the film How Selfish I Am! (Review),

Like last year, I’ve put a selection of the posters for the films nominated: