Hello readers!

This is one of the few weekends of 2015 which have rolled by that I feel that there’s a great selection of films on offer. A mix of indie and big budget flicks and anime. Not too much of one or the other and there’s plenty that was fun and interesting to watch. I’d be interested in watching all of these films.

I think that part of my positivity is the fact that I saw some rather excellent films since I last posted a trailer post. Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends (epic movie!), Fatal Frame, The Young Victoria (that one was harmless), Synodoche New York (you’re in the scene not filming it), and The Tale of The Princess Kaguya. I have been listening to nothing but Japanese shoegaze music again.

What’s released in Japan this weekend?

Kyoukai no Kanata – I’ll Be Here – Future Chapter   

Japanese Title: 劇場版 境界の彼方 I’LL BE HERE未来篇

Romaji: Kyokai no Kanata – I’ll Be Here – Mirai-hen

Release Date: April 25^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 45 mins.

Director: Taichi Ishidate

Writer: Jukki Hanada (Screenplay), Nagomu Torii (Original Light Novel),

Starring: Risa Taneda (Mirai Kuriyama), Kenn (Akihito Kanbara), Minori Chihara (Mitsuki Nase), Tatsuhisa Suzuki (Hiroomi Nase), Yuri Yamaoka (Ai Shindo),

I’ve got less and less time for Kyoto Animation the more I see of their work. Beautiful as it is, stories and characters don’t keep my interest (slice-of-life tales about cute girls tend to tire me out these days and I don’t want to see lesbian bears ever again) and yet despite the fact Kyoukai no Kanata was a narrative mess I still liked it and there were a few tears after the finale of the TV anime back in 2013. I really liked the characters… Well, Mirai Kuriyama. So I want to see more of her.

This is the second film based on Kyoukai no Kanata. The first film, Kako-hen, was released in March and retold the events of the television series while this film will work, set one year after the television series.

The director of the movie is Taichi Ishidate, director of the TV anime as well as director on episodes of K-ON! and Hyouka, an anime I really liked. The screenplay comes from writer Jukki Hanada who has two great works on his filmography in Steins;Gate and Nichijou.  Miku Kadowaki, character designer, has worked on many Kyoto Animation titles like Free! Eternal Summer, Hyouka, Nichijou, and Tamako Market. The seiyuu remain the same with KENN reprising his role as Akihito, and Risa Taneda coming back as Mirai.

The story of the movie is a retelling of the TV anime which is about two students with supernatural powers. The first we encounter is Akihito Kanbara (KENN) who is half demon (yomu) and invulnerable to wounds. When he sees Mirai Kuriyama (Risa Taneda) on the school roof and about to attempt what looks like suicide he intervenes. The two get to know each other and Akihito discovers that Mirai is from a cursed line of warriors who are able to manipulate blood. Despite her distaste for him (fuyukai desu), the two grow closer and as this happens, dark forces move in to try and take advantage of Akihito.

Website

Parasyte Part 2 / Parasyte: The Final Act   

Japanese Title: 寄生獣 完結編

Romaji: Kiseiju Kanketsu Hen

Release Date: April 25^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 117 mins.

Director: Takashi Yamazaki

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

Starring: Shota Sometani (Shinichi Izumi), Ai Hashimoto (Satomi Murano), Sadao Abe (Migi), Eri Fukatsu (Ryoko Tamiya), Masahiro Higashide (Hideo Shimada), Nao Omori (Kuramori), Pierre Taki (Miki), Hirofumi Arai (Uragami), Tadanobu Asano (Goto), Kimiko Yo (Nobuko Izumi), Jun Kunimura (Detective Hirama),

People who follow me on Twitter will know I’m a big fan of the Parasyte TV anime which I think was perfectly executed. This is the second of two live-action films and I am seriously wondering how they can measure up to the manga or TV anime considering they have limited running-time. Anyway, these films and anime adapt Hitoshi Iwaaki’s original manga serialized in Kodansha’s Afternoon magazine from 1990-1995. The 10-volume series (later reprinted in an eight-volume version) has more than 11 million copies in print.

The film stars Shōta Sometani (live-action xxxHOLiC, Himizu, Soredake/That’s It) who plays the lead role of Shinichi Izumi. He is joined by Eri Fukatsu (Villain) who plays Ryōko Tamiya, Shinichi’s former-teacher who is a Parasite take, and Ai Hashimoto (The Kirishima Thing, live-action version of Another) plays Satomi Murano, Shinichi’s classmate and girlfriend. Jun Kunimura as detective Hirama strikes me as great casting as do the enemy parasites but the voice of Migi sounds off after watching the anime – Aya Hirano was perfect.

The story takes place in a world where alien beings called Parasites come to Earth and start taking over humans by entering in through their noses and ears and attaching themselves to their brains. One alien called Migi is only able to take over high school student Shinichi Izumi’s right arm, and is unable to control Shinichi completely. Migi and Shinichi learn to co-exist, and the two battle other Parasites who see humans only as food. The second part of the film sees Shinichi an Migi try to figure out how to beat a group of Parasites who have control of the mayor of their city and are creating a network of feeding spot. Ryoko Tamiya also makes a re-appearance but is she still going to be a threat to Shinichi?

Website

Ryuzo And The Seven Henchmen   

Japanese: 龍三と七人の子分たち

Romaji: Ryuzo to Shinichinin no Kobuntachi

Release Date: April 25^th, 2015

Running Time: 111 mins.

Director: Takeshi Kitano

Writer: Takeshi Kitano (Screenplay),

Starring: Tatsuya Fuji, Masaomi Kondo, Akira Nakao, Ken Yasuda, Hisako Manda, Takeshi Kitano, Toru Shinagawa,

Warner Bros. Japan strike again to help make Takeshi Kitano’s latest film about old yakuza gangsters cleaning up the crime world. When I first read about it, looked like another “I’m too old for this,” action comedies put out by ageing actors. Now that I have seen the full trailer it looks amusing. The film stars a lot of actors who have played yakuza and tough guy roles Tatsuya Fuji (he has been in the Stray Cat Rock series, Bright Future). Reading through the filmographies of some of these guys is fascinating because you find een more classic ‘60s and ‘70s action films like Quick-Draw Okatsu (1969).

Anyway, here’s the trailer for Kitano’s film:

Ryuzo (Tatsuya Fuji) and his seven former henchmen are all retired yakuza in their 70s who live quiet lives as regular old men (so this is what happens when a yakuza doesn’t die…). One day, Ryuzo becomes the victim of a phishing scam and is outraged. He calls his seven men together to reform their society.

Website

Asleep   

Japanese: 白河夜船

Romaji: Shirakawa yofune

Release Date: April 25^th, 2015

Running Time: 91 mins.

Director: Shingo Wakagi

Writer: Shingo Wakagi, Kai Suzumoto (Screenplay), Banana Yoshimoto (Original Novel)

Starring: Sakura Ando, Arata Iura, Mitsuki Tanimura, Guama, Maki Izawa, Aya Takekou, Yoshiaki Takahashi,

I am a fan of Banana Yoshimoto’s writing and I am a fan of Sakura Ando. It therefore stands to reason that I want to see a film based on Banana Yoshimoto’s novel of the same name (published in 1989) and see Sakura Ando (the highlight of Love Exposure, tragic in Shokuzai, and delightful in For Love’s Sake) in the lead role. There’s also Arata (Ping Pong, After Life) and Mitsuki Tanimura (Arcana, The Snow White Murder Case).

Terako (Ando) sleeps a lot. She only wakes when she gets a call from her married middle-aged lover, Iwanaga (Arata), a controlling man. She wants to break it off and her life is made even more confused because she is mourning the suicide of her close friend Shiori (Tanimura), whose unusual occupation was sleeping with strangers – no sex just a comforting presence for when they wake – for pay. Every day she falls into a deep sleep, Iwanaga calling her, unsure over whether she wants to continue. Is she depressed?

Website

Chateau de la Reine   

Japanese: 王妃の館

Romaji: Ouhi no Yakata

Release Date: April 25^th, 2015

Running Time: 123 mins.

Director: Hajime Hashimoto

Writer: Junichiro Taniguchi, Kei Kunii (Screenplay), Jiro Asada (Original Novel)

Starring: Yutaka Mizutani, Rena Tanaka, Kazue Fukiishi, Hiroyuki Onoue, Munetaka Aoki, Yumi Adachi, Renji Ishibashi,

The hotel Chateau de la Reine in Paris is considered the finest hotel in the city with over 300 years of history. A travel agency, which is teetering on bankruptcy comes up with a plan to offer suite rooms at the Chateau de la Reine for night and day periods. The plan appears perfect, but the tourists who made reservations have unusual requests and attitudes…

Website

Umi yama aida Ise jinguu no mori kara hibiku messeji   

Japanese: うみやまあひだ　伊勢神宮の森から響くメッセージ

Romaji: Umi yama aida Ise jinguu no mori kara hibiku messeji

Release Date: April 24^th, 2015

Running Time: 79 mins.

Director: Masaaki Miyazawa,

Writer: Junichiro Taniguchi, Kei Kunii (Screenplay), Jiro Asada (Original Novel)

Starring: Shinnyo Kawai (Shinto Priest of Ise Grand Shrine), Kengo Kuma (world-acclaimed Architect; models and drawings of his major works is permanent collection at MOMA), Mitsuo Ogawa (Master of Carpenter), Takeshi Kitano (world-acclaimed Filmmaker; “Fireworks”, “Zatoichi”, “Sonatine”), Katsuhiko Kurata (Forest Manager of Ise), Soju Ikeda　(Kiso timber company Owner), Genmyo Ono (Chief Abbot of Horyuji Temple; Horyuji is the World Heritage, one of the oldest wooden buildings in the world), Masaru Tanaka (Professor Emeritus in Kyoto University), Tsutomu Ohashi　(Neuroscientist and Music Composer of the movie “AKIRA”), Shigeatsu Hatakeyama (Oyster Fisherman; chosen by the United Nations as one of the winners of the Forest Heroes Awards), Akira Miyawaki (Ecologist; contributed to forest regeneration by planting over 40 million native trees around the world), Yoshihiro Narisawa (Chef; won the Sustainability Award at the World’s 50 Best Restaurants)

Thank the movie Gods that more and more Japanese films have English-language pages because that allows me to copy and paste the information about these Japanese documentaries about very Japanese subjects.

Masaaki Miyazawa, one of the most prestigeous photographers in Japan, has been taking photos of shrines and temples for more than 10 years and has found the Japanese identity through this experience. He encountered Shikinen Sengu at Ise Jingu, the most sacred ceremony that is held once every 20 years for over a thousand years. He then decided to take a journey all over Japan to direct this film. He went into some deep mountains, sacred forests, and beautiful coasts. He talked with a oyster fisherman, a scientist, a master of carpenter, an architect, a filmmaker and some others. This documentary is about Mr. Miyazawa’s beautiful journey to seek the memory of people who has lived together with nature in the mountains and the oceans.

<DIRECTOR STATEMENT>

“The deity makes an equal treatment for everyone and everything”. It is my starting point of the journey when I heard this comment from a Shinto priest at Ise Grand Shrine. I have found that my country has two thousand years of history where people have lived together with forest through cyclic regeneration. This documentary is a compilation of my ten-year journey of seeking the deep root of our culture.

Website

Caesium and the Girl   

Japanese: セシウムと少女

Romaji: Seshiumu to Shoujo

Release Date: April 25^th, 2015

Running Time: 109 mins.

Director: Ryo Saitani

Writer: Ryo Saitani (Screenplay),

Starring: Yusuke Kawazu, Hatsuo Yamaya, Nankin, Takao Iida, Kaira Shirahase, Masato Nagamori, Keiji Yamasaki, Miho Kaneno.

According to Eiga.com, the director of this film runs the Laputa cinema in Asagaya which is inspired by Hayao Miyazaki’s film, Laputa Castle in the Sky. If it’s this cinema then he has a sweet job. Anyway, this is a fantasy about a girl named Mimi who gets struck by lightening and involved with some mythical figures while looking for a myna bird.

Website

Shishuu Tsugu no hi Itan   

Japanese: 死臭　つぐのひ異譚

Romaji: Shishuu Tsugu no hi Itan

Release Date: April 25^th, 2015

Running Time: 67 mins.

Director: Masakazu Kikuchi

Writer: Allen Sumiyoshi (Screenplay),

Starring: Nozomi Maeda, Towa Hasegawa, Yusuke Konno, Emi Yoshida,

Oh look, a movie adaptation of another low-budget video game. This one is based on A Stench of Death and is so low-budget it doesn’t show up on IMDB or Asian Wiki. A lot of the actors and the director do and they have worked on churning out horror titles. I’m not keeping count but that makes three low-budget horror games. Ao Oni, Death Forest, and now this. There’s a Reddit forum discussing this game.

Anyway, back to the film… Nozomi Maeda takes the lead as a girl who lives in a quiet residential area where a girl went missing some time before. While walking towards a phone box, the phone starts ringing and she gingerly takes the handset and hears the voice of a woman but it sounds like she is in the middle of a storm. Then her voice is cut off and strange stuff starts happening…

Website

Walking with My Mother   

Japanese: 抱擁

Romaji: Houyou

Release Date: April 25^th, 2015

Running Time: 93 mins.

Director: Katsumi Sakaguchi

Writer: N/A

Starring: Suchie Sakaguchi, Mariko Miyazono, Satoshi Sakaguchi, Katsumi Sakaguchi,

This one got its international premiere at last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival and it looks like emotionally powerful stuff. Here’s the info on the film from the festival webpage:

How do you live after losing your loved ones? Suchie (78) is distraught after losing her daughter and then her husband. Countless tranquilizers were given to calm her. Her son, Director Katsumi Sakaguchi, turns to his camera to understand her more. When Mariko arrives for the funeral and sees her sister’s despair, she decides to take her back to their hometown for the first time in 38 years. Here, Mariko devotes her life to her sister. Her son reveals four painful years of her distress and conflict through the camera. Grief always comes after the sadness of losing those closest to us. What rescued her from it?

Website

Broken     

Release Date: April 10th, 2014

Running Time: 122 mins.

Director: Lee Jung-Ho

Writer: Lee Jung-Ho (Screenplay), Keigo Higashino (Original Novel)

Starring: Jung Jae-Young, Lee Sung-Min, Seo Jun-Young, Lee Soo-Bin, Choi Sang-Wook,

The film starts with the sort of beautiful imagery that is all sorts of intriguing. A frost-covered man in a fur-lined coat kneels in a snowy forest, a bloodied mobile phone providing the only splash of colour in the white wilderness while there is complete silence on the soundtrack. The few shaky close-ups reveal he has the look of someone with shellshock. His eyes stare unevenly into the distance as he shivers, his mental equilibrium clearly wrecked by some trauma. Fade to black, the title, Broken.

We get taken back in time to the beginning of the story. The man we first met is a single-father named Sang-Hyun (Jeong Jae-young) with a teenage daughter named Soo-Jin. He works late at his job in a textile factory but dotes on her, making sure to stay in contact even if it is mostly by phone. We see one of those nights when he works overtime and is unable to meet her after she finishes school. She walks home alone on a rain-swept street, a car, a black Prince sedan, menacingly pulling up behind her.

When Sang-Hyun gets home there’s no one there. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare but all he can do is wait for some sign from her. He gets a call from his daughter’s mobile but it’s not her making the call it’s the police. They found Soo-Jin in an abandoned building frequented by hoodlums. She has been raped and murdered. The police need him to identify the body.

The police are quick to move and gather evidence but the world weary attitude of many of the detectives threatens to slow the case. They aren’t going to fumble the investigation but their slowness may allow the criminals to escape.

Sang-Hyun, with nothing but the agony of waiting for the police to do their work replays his most recent memories of his daughter before he gets a message from someone with a connection to the case who wants to manipulate events. The message tips Sang-Hyun off as to who the criminals in his daughter’s disappearance and death might be and so he sets off on a path of revenge…

From here on out the story takes a more conventional line as it plies familiar revenge-thriller territory in a linear fashion both chronologically and in terms of plot. What we get can be found in numerous other Korean films from the rape-revenge and relentless chase narrative to the archetypal jaded and rookie detectives but Broken is different perhaps because of its origins. The film is based on the 2003 novel called Samayou Yaiba by the excellent writer Keigo Higashino. I must admit I have not read it but it must be good because this is the second adaptation. The first time it was adapted was for the Japanese film named Hovering Blade. Perhaps its literary source is what makes Broken different and unique from the myriad of other titles where macho men march around massacring bad guys and seeking revenge like The Berlin File (2013) and The Man From Nowhere (2010) which often fly off into the heights of melodrama. Broken has a deep level of substance and characterisation and fascinating moral dilemmas which feel like something from a novel.

Despite the revenge-thriller aspects, the tone of the film is pitched somewhere between I Saw the Devil (2010) and Poetry (2010) because of its subject matter and because it features scenes of action and physical violence but in a real world context so that the more horrific aspects are counter-weighted by a probing moral examination of the scenario and society, all delivered through beautifully shot scenes ad strong lead performance. Don’t expect audacious action.

Just like in the film Blue Ruin (2013) what we are witnessing is an ordinary man (although far more handsome and capable to help with the action elements and hooking an audience) setting out to accomplish revenge and barely making it. We are under no illusions that Sang-Hyun’s search for vengeance is a dark and destructive one that he takes no pleasure in. The film’s locations and sets are downbeat and dour, detailing the bleakness of the enterprise. Sang-Hyun is clearly a broken man pursuing revenge because  he harbours anger and shame over his failure to care for Soo-Jin but he has no real idea on how he will get that revenge. It is most evident in the clumsy way that he gathers clues about the criminals, mostly by coincidence, and heads out into the icy wilderness with the wrong clothes, a suit and a pair of shoes he wears to the factory. As the film progresses he is increasingly battered, bruised, and bloodied as he bludgeons and beats his way to the criminals, Sang-Hyun is always on the edge of failure as he scrambles around. He’s in way over his head. Seeing a desperate man flailing for vengeance takes some of the sensationalism away from some pretty hair-raising scenes (like a leap from a window and a chase in a ski-resort) so the film doesn’t launch itself into the melodramatic stratosphere.

The film doesn’t dress up what he does. He is clumsily killing cruel and callous criminals who are mere teens or parasitic adults. It is evident we are meant to sympathise with him but his actions are still troubling not least because we see the effects of violence on victims and how it breaks people.

This places a lot of the focus on lead-actor Jung Jae-Young who I am familiar with him from lighter fare like The Quiet Family (1998), Guns and Talks (2001), and Our Sunhi (2013). Here he provides a riveting performance mostly through the way his face shows the blasted emotions that churn him up inside as he pushes on relentlessly through guilt and physical hardship to get some justice. Whether it is seeing him wide-eyed with terror or blankness as he struggles with dangerous situations or the more showy reams of saliva dripping from a mouth hanging agape at the violence he has been pushed to commit, you will sympathise. Although he gets thrilling action scenes he is more effective in the quieter emotional moments like when he discovers his daughter’s body and all he can do is smooth her hand. The look of desolation he has on his face as he struggles to cope with her death is affecting. The best scene he is involved in is not the loud action ones or dramatic confrontations but a hallucinatory vision he has in that forest where we first met him. His visions of his daughter has him confessing his guilt and anger and fear. It is a humanising and beautiful scene.

It isn’t just the main character who is broken. There are wider themes about changes in society, the hardening and callousness of the younger generation constantly brought up with constant news reports and police discussions about youth crime. The legal system in Korea is put in trial by the film in scenes where detectives and forensic experts constantly converse over how much time the suspects will get. It becomes increasingly clear that the criminals, teenage boys, may only get a few years because they are minors, which sits uneasily with everybody involved in the case. The film paints a pessimistic picture of Korean society as cops try to avoid a media disaster and public backlash, parents refuse to condemn sons who committed crimes, and there is a general fear of young people who are shown to be desensitised to the pain and suffering they cause others. With no quick remedy to solve these social problems, well, society as a whole seems broken. As awful as this sounds the film is strikingly beautiful. Most Korean film are good-looking but this film has some of the most visually memorable scenes I have seen in a while, the aforementioned opening and hallucination that is worth watching the entire film for.

For a film to stand-out in a well-worn genre like revenge it must conjure up feeling like this in the audience which is what makes Broken worth watching.

4/5

Yesterday it was announced that anime films Hana to Alice Satsujin Jiken, Miss Hokusai and The Boy and the Beast are set to be shown at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival (The Boy and the Beast is part of the Work in Progress section while Hana to Alice and Miss Hokusai are in Competition) ahead of their theatrical release in Japan in a few months’ time. The directors of the films are regulars of the festival, giving talks and getting awards. I have already written previews about Miss Hokusai and Hana to Alice (no reviews as yet) so that leaves The Boy and the Beast.

The Boy and the Beast

Japanese Title: バケモノの子

Romaji: Bakemono no Ko

Release Date: July 11^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: N/A

Director: Mamoru Hosoda

Writer: Mamoru Hosoda (Screenplay),

Starring: Koji Yakusho (Kumatetsu), Shota Sometani (Kyuuta – Teen), Aoi Miyazaki (Kyuuta – Young), Haru Kuroki (Ichirohiko – Young), Yo Oizumi (Tatara), Lily Franky (Monk Momoaki), Mamoru Miyano (Ichirohiko – Old),

Website

A lonely boy in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward finds that there is another world, the bakemono realm (“Juutengai”). Typically, the human world and Juutengai do not meet but the boy gets lost in the bakemono world and becomes the disciple of a lonely bakemono named Kumatetsu (Yakusho) who takes the boy under his wing and renames him Kyuuta (Miyazaki/Sometani).

I like the trailer. The animation features bold but simple colours and the designs of the characters are cool, angular and straight, strong and well defined, capturing an essence of what I’m beginning to imagine the characters as. I know this is a trailer but there’s a lot of motion in the animation which looks top-notch, really fluid and colourful with a lot of detail spent on movement. This won’t be static. One thing that assures me of that is Hosoda’s previous films. I recently re-watched The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and, free from having to pay too much attention to the story, I delighted in looking at the way characters moved across the screen. School scenes are vibrant and feature lots of people, all of whom move around and have something to do. Individual things like the way hair moves and people walk around are rich with detailed motion.

Overall, the trailer is fun, big bold, and brash fun. The story is fantasy and reality crashing together, which is par for the course as far as Hosoda is concerned. It remains to be seen how much substance there is in the story but there’s potential for depth considering the story is about loneliness and Hosoda can take the simplest of concepts an imbue an air of tragedy in a single beat. Careful observations of his films reveals motifs and symbolism everywhere.

The voice actors also match the characters and there is an impressive collection of seiyuu gathered for the roles, many being actors who I constantly rave about. Some of them have worked with Hosoda before.

Aoi Miyazaki (Eureka) has worked with Hosoda alongside Shota Sometani (Himizu) in The Wolf Children, Miyazaki taking the role of Hana mother of the wolf children and Sometani voicing one of the kids in teenage form. The two work together again voicing different versions of Kyuuta, Miyazaki taking the child role and Sometani playing the adolescent.

The titular bakemono of the story, Kumatetsu, is voiced by Koji Yakusho, a familiar face from live-action Japanese cinema with roles in comedies and dramas. He is probably most famous in the west for the film Shall We Dance? and the film 13 Assassins. I know him from those as well as a string of horror movies and dramas directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa like Licence to Live, Cure, Retribution, and Séance.

There’s a great vocal cast supporting the actors with Mamoru Miyano, a veteran seiyuu who voices characters in Tokyo Ghoul and many other anime, Lily Franky, an interesting actor who has appeared in Like Father, Like Son, and Judge!, Yo Oizumi, an actor who takes the lead in many films like Bolt from the Blue and has a few voice acting credits in titles like The Cat Returns and Spirited Away, Haru Kuroki who worked with Hosoda on Wolf Children and took an award for her acting in The Little House at last year’s Berlin International Film Festival.

Miss Hokusai has been confirmed for release and distribution in the UK and I suspect that The Boy and the Beast will follow suit because the subject matter of the film is easy to sell and Mamoru Hosoda is very popular and well-known amongst cinephiles and anime fans thanks to titles like The Wolf Children and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. The film gets its theatrical release on July 11^th in Japan. French movie studio Gaumont will handle international sales outside Asia.

Here are some final images to leave you with:

Source Source

Happy weekend, audience!

It is the month of May and the film festivals start crowding the calendar so expect posts on a few of them. I’ve still got plenty of reviews ready to post and I may try and get back into writing about anime but maybe not first impressions or series reviews (I’m more into writing about films at the minute). The reason for my resurgent interest in writing is because of a few stellar shows like Ore Monogatari!!, Yahari Ore no Seishun…, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and Kekkai Sensen which I have been ranting about. Anyway, back to films, I posted a review of the Korean film Broken (2014) and about the trailer for The Boy and the Beast.

Well here’s the latest set of trailers for films released in Japan this weekend:

Biri Gyaru   

Japanese Title: ビリギャル

Romaji: Eiga Biri Gyaru

Release Date: May 01^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 117 mins.

Director: Nobuhiro Doi

Writer: Hiroshi Hashimoto (Screenplay), Nobutaka Tsubota (Original Novel),

Starring: Kasumi Arimura, Atsushi Ito, Shuhei Nomura, Rie Minemura, Ken Yasuda, Airi Matsui, Yo Yoshida, Tetsushi Tanaka,

Based on the novel “Gakunen Biri no Gyaru ga 1 nen de Hensachi o 40 Agete Keio Daigaku ni Geneki Gokaku Shita Hanashi” by Nobutaka Tsubota (published December 26, 2013 by Kadokawa). The novel is based on the true story of the author Nobutaka Tsubota, who runs a private institute, and his student Sayaka Kobayashi.

Blonde-haired “gyaru” Sayaka has always been more interested in fashion than her studies. Because of this, she now has the scholastic aptitude of a 4th grader as a second-year high school student. However, when she visits a cram school, lecturer Mr. Tsubota recognizes her innate intelligence. After an informal discussion, and with the support of her family, Sayaka becomes determined not only to improve her grades, but to spend her final year of high school working hard toward getting accepted into prestigious Keio University.

Website

The Next Generation Patlabor: Shuto Kessen    

Japanese Title: THE NEXT GENERATION パトレイバー 首都決戦

Romaji: The Next Generation Patlabor: Shuto Kessen

Release Date: May 01^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 94 mins.

Director: Mamoru Oshii

Writer: Mamoru Oshii (Screenplay), Headgear (Original Novel),

Starring: Erina Mano, Toshio Kakei, Seiji Fukushi, Rina Ohta, Shigeru Chiba, Yoshikatsu Fujiki, Reiko Takashima, Kanna Mori,

Based on the novel “Gakunen Biri no Gyaru ga 1 nen de Hensachi o 40 Agete Keio Daigaku ni Geneki Gokaku Shita Hanashi” by Nobutaka Tsubota (published December 26, 2013 by Kadokawa). The novel is based on the true story of the author Nobutaka Tsubota, who runs a private institute, and his student Sayaka Kobayashi.

The story is set in Tokyo in 2013, and it represents the “third generation” of Patlabor. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police has disbanded its Section 2 Division 1 of police robots, and Section 2 Division 2 barely survived the budget cuts due to the long recession.

The project began with a seven-part series, which is composed of the “episode 0″ and 12 full episodes helmed by chief director Mamoru Oshii and other directors. Each full episode is about 48 minutes long. Finally, Oshii is directing and writing the feature-length film, which is expected to run about 100 minutes long.

The film will centre on the Section 2 team fighting against a terrorist group that has taken all of the 10 million residents of Tokyo hostage.

Website

Inhabitants of Arayashiki       

Japanese Title: アラヤシキの住人たち

Romaji: Arayashiki no Junintachi

Release Date: May 01^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 117 mins.

Director: Seiichi Motohashi

Writer: N/A

Starring: N/A

World renowned photographer Seiichi Motohashi travelled to Otari village in Nagano prefecture, a place nestled in a mountain range, and visits a farm run by a community (who live in that big house) inspired or founded by the teacher/intellectual Shinichiro Miyajima. I think that’s what this is about. Here’s a website which has a farm with a similar looking set-up but an English explanation which is easy to understand.

Website

Kuro 100 Minutes Version         

Japanese Title: はなればなれに100分版

Romaji: Hanare Banareni 100-bu-ban

Running Time: 100 mins.

Release Date: May 02^nd, 2015 (Japan)

Director: Daisuke Shimote

Writer: Daisuke Shimote (Screenplay),

Starring: Airi Kido, Yu Saitoh, Hideo Nakaizumi, Wakana Matsumoto

This one was released in April last year and screened at the 2014 East End Film Festival where fellow movie blogger Alua saw it and found it enjoyable enough to give it 8 out of 10 in her review. It’s got a new screening which adds 14 extra minutes to the original film.

Three people recently traumatised by life’s ups and downs meet up: Kuro once had dreams of being a baker until she was fired, Eito has recently broken up with his fiancé and Gou’s career as a theatre director is in imminent danger of dying when the lead actress of his own play goes missing. The three retreat from the world to a remote seaside hotel where a schoolgirl named Momo falls in with them and they all indulge in silly games.

Website

Strike Witches: Operation Victory Arrow Vol. 3   Bridge of Arnhem

Japanese: ストライクウィッチーズOperation Victory Arrow Vol 3　アルンヘムの橋

Romaji: Sutoraiku Uicchi-zu Operation Victory Arrow Vol 3 Arnhem no Hashi

Release Date: May 02^nd, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 30 mins.

Director: Kazuhiro Takamura

Original Creator:  Huikane Shimada

Starring: Sayuri Yahagi (Amelie Planchard), Miyuki Sawashiro (Perrine-H. Clostermann), Kaori Nazuka (Lynette Bishop), Saori Seto (Mio Sakamoto),

This the third of three 30-minute short OVAs that take place at the end of the second TV series which depicted the lives of the members who returned to their respective homes and before the 2012 Strike Witches movie. (according to Anime News Network ). The action takes in Arnhem which is under alien occupation and the strike witches having to protect a brother and sister who are war orphans.

Website

Akahama Rock ‘n Roll   

Japanese Title: 赤浜Rock’n Roll

Romaji: Akahama Rock ‘n Roll

Release Date: May 02^nd, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 90 mins.

Director: Haruko Konishi

Writer: N/A

Starring: N/A

This documentary film takes place in Akahama in Iwate Prefecture. It was heavily damaged in the Great East Japan Earthquake with massive loss of life but people are picking themselves up, reconstructing the town and the coastline and restoring their pride as they continue to live with the sea, grateful for its blessings while accepting its many risks.

Website

Code Geass: Akito the Exiled 3 – The Brightness Falls   

Japanese: コードギアス 亡国のアキト 第3章 輝くもの天より墮つ

Romaji: Code Geass: Boukoku no Akito 3 – Kagayaku Mono Ten yori Otsu

Release Date: May 02^nd, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 59 mins.

Director: Kazuki Akane

Writer: Kazuki Akane (Screenplay), Ichiro Okouchi (Original Creator),

Starring: Miyu Irino (Akito Hyuuga), Maaya Sakamoto (Leila Malkal), Yukana (C.C.), Takahiro Sakurai (Suzaku Kururugi),

The year is 2017 around the time Lelouch took on the alter-ego “Zero” and built up his “Black Knights” rebellion army to free Japan from The Holy Britannian Empire but the Akito series is a spin-off which takes place in Europe. Here’s a ten minute preview:

The Holy Britannian Empire has invaded the continent and is about to defeat the E.U and a young pilot named Akito Hyuuga leads a special team fighting to prevent what seems inevitable. Then Layla Malkal, a former Britannian Aristocrat comes to the E.U.’s aid, commanding the “Wyvern” Knightmare corps comprised of Japanese teenagers and t looks like they might be able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat but the risks involved in every battle is immense.

Website

Music video of the week:

Seventh Code     

Japanese Title:  Seventh Code

Romaji: Sebunsu Kodo

Release Date: January 11^th, 2014

Running Time: 60 mins.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Starring: Atsuko Maeda, Ryohei Suzuki, Hiroshi Yamamoto, Aissy

Website

2013 was the year for Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s return to mainstream big-budget filmmaking. He released two films, both star-packed with idols. The first was the big-budget sci-fi film Real, a title that was subject to critically and commercially middling responses. I found it a dull trudge through a slight story with one-note characters played by Takeru Sato and Haruka Ayase. The better received of the two movies, and definitely the most interesting viewing experience, was his latest film Seventh Code which won two awards at the Rome Film Festival for Best director and technical contribution for Koichi Takahashi, the editor. Kurosawa was reportedly very surprised to get them. After watching Seventh Code I can see why.

The true nature of this little thriller is that it is essentially a 60 minute promo (including a music video at the end!) for Atsuko Maeda, a former leader of the J-pop supergroup AKB48, to display her acting. Maeda has picked all sorts of roles that go against the cute idol image she had built with AKB48 by working with a myriad of auteurs on titles that break the idol image. She has been directed by the likes of Hideo Nakata in the J-horror film The Complex, and two dramedies The Drudgery Train and Tamako in Moratorium, both directed by Nobuhiro Yamashita. With Kiyoshi Kurosawa Maeda has met the director whose style can annihilate her cute idol past. I say this because Kurosawa is famed for being a horror auteur with some pretty bone-chilling titles in his filmography and also credited with directing the least sexiest pink film ever (according to Wikipedia it is called College Girl: Shameful Seminar and that film was reworked into the 1985 non-pink film The Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girl). For the first twenty-minutes of Seventh Code this intriguing film looks set to change our perceptions of the girl as Maeda gets swallowed up in Kurosawa’s style and love of a mystery!

Maeda plays a girl named Akiko who has travelled to the Russian port city of Vladivostok to track down a man named Matsunaga (Suzuki), the man she seems convinced is the love of her life based on a brief meeting in Tokyo a month earlier. With no clear idea of where he might be coincidence strikes when he exits a particular green car on his way to a meeting. When Akiko stops Matsunaga he is confused at first then takes her to a restaurant where he claims not to remember her, tells her not to trust anyone in a foreign country and suddenly leaves.

When Akiko tries to find Matsunaga again she is attacked by Russian mafia thugs, kidnapped, and thrown into a wasteland with no money except a few coins. She refuses to give up tracing Matsunaga and coincidence strikes again as she stumbles upon a restaurant run by a Japanese man named Saito (Yamamoto) and his Chinese girlfriend (Aissy). From there she begins tracing Matsunaga but will she be able to contest with the dangerous men around him…

Akiko is at first an odd character. With her incessant need to meet mysterious man Matsunaga the film takes on a psychological thriller element as we wonder just why Akiko is blindly following him regardless of the danger, handsome and suave though he is. Is she a tremendous bubblehead and is he worth the risks? Is this the case of love really making people mad? What sort of emotional baggage is she carrying? She’s practically reciting his name like a mantra to get her through her days spent in a horrid Russian city where everyone is a stranger and offers some sort of threat. The film takes all sorts of twists and turns and as it progresses and viewers are teased that there is more to Akiko than just blind love like in the way she gets herself back to the city from the wasteland, her language skills, and the way she is relentless in her task. For the first thirty to forty-minutes there are random and crazy events which may confuse viewers as Akiko discovers secrets in her search but soon things begin to make sense and the story contracts into something more familiar and conventional. To say anything more will be to ruin twists as Maeda steps away from her cute schoolgirl idol image and matures a bit by running through the Kurosawan aesthetics as a character with more than just a pretty smile.

Kurosawa, famed for his horror movies which make everywhere in Japan look scary (even the countryside), manages to turn Russia into a decaying corpse. The post Soviet city of Vladivostock is a miserable place filled with a warren of streets which are all a dingy, the walls covered in agit-prop posters, twisted graffiti, and chipped paint and the wan sunlight serves only to illuminate the trash strewn along the cobblestones and cast stark shadows across corridors which characters have to brave to get what they want. Even in foreign countries Kurosawa insists on taking his leads to derelict buildings rusting away and overgrown with weeds and populated by people harbouring secret malignant intentions. Outside the city is not much better as mist covers much of the land. The only places of safety are the little café Akiko works in, a pokey and dingy affair with much despair in the air, and the one place of actual comfort is the ramshackle apartment she shares with Aissy, paint peeling from the walls, dust covering every surface except the bed. Meanwhile the mysterious Matsunaga’s apartment, while sumptuously put together with ornate and stylish furniture in a few rooms, is mostly a cavernous building missing much in the way of comfortable friendly colours but having plenty of billowing curtains which take on menacing phantasmic forms.

All of the characters, as is typical for a Kurosawa film, seem to hold some sort of self-doubt or angst. Two particularly good scenes that mix characters and locations are Maeda’s chase of Matsunaga’s car up a foggy hill and the following sequence when she gets back to the restaurant at night and Aissy is sat at a table obsessively putting sugar into containers and running through her thoughts about her future while a cat stalks around in the shadows in the background.

Amidst all of this madness Maeda, our main character and the star of this promo, strikes a positive note as our little leading lady. Her role could have made a lesser actor stumble by playing things in too artificial a way because the narrative is a rather oblique one (if ultimately slight) but she commits to the role with gusto, speaking Russian with what appears to be ease, running, leaping, and searching for her goal with a strange determination mixed with indecision that hooks audience interest. I don’t think she is a brilliant actress yet. Her performance in The Complex was pretty awful but I feel that was partly down to Hideo Nakata’s direction. With this role and others previously mentioned, she proves there is substance to her. Here’s Atsuko Meada as an adorable AKB48 girl

She seems more mature, harder, and less innocent in films I have watched her in. Rather fittingly, we get a reminder of her past as an idol as she performs in a music video at the end of the film and how much she has progressed as an actress:

If she plays to her strengths like in Tamako in Moratorium and continues to work with interesting auteurs she will continue to grow.

I’m eager to see her in Kabukicho Love Hotel.

I can imagine that people with no interest in J-pop idols or Japanese films will think this a slight film and ultimately pointless but I think this is a fun little thriller and at only sixty minutes it isn’t too big a commitment

3.5/5

My top five Kiyoshi Kurosawa films are:

Cure: The Power of Suggestion

Tokyo Sonata

Licence to Live

Pulse

Sakebi

Check out my biography and filmography of my favourite director!

Cannes is THE film festival that everyone (even people with no interest in films) knows because of all the gossip about movie stars and the fashion stuff that newspapers report on instead of serious film business like who licenses what for distribution. For people more interested in films, we get to speculate about which directors and what films will be programmed by the selection committee. Well speculate no more! The announcements have been made… and I only care about the Japanese films that have been selected. Let’s go!

The Cannes Film Festival (68th Festival de Cannes) takes place in the middle of May and we now know the names of quite a few of the films that will be screened at the festival which will run from Thursday, May 13^th– 24^th.

There are no real shockers as far as I can see since there is a familiar line-up of directors, festival favourites who keep getting invited back to Cannes like Nanni Moretti, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and plenty of French auteurs like Jacques Audiard. The one big change from previous years is the higher number of female directors and that’s probably down to the criticism the festival committee got last year about the paucity of female talent getting their work shown. The opening night film is Emmanuelle Bercot’s Standing Tall (La Tete Haute), the first time that a film directed by a woman has opened Cannes (which is mind-boggling considering the high number of female directors in France and their high quality of work).

As far as the Japanese contingent goes we get familiar names like director Naomi Kawase and Hirokazu Koreeda as this preview will show. The usual suspects…

The question this festival raised for me is where are the newer directors? Shuichi Okita, Yuya Ishii? Is nobody really interested in them? Do they not make films festivals want to screen? Are their films too nice, gentle, polite, and amusing and relaxing to make the headlines that more dramatic and experimental films do? Maybe, maybe not. What I have noticed is that the real show-stoppers from the newer generation of Japanese directors seem to come from female directors who fearlessly tackle all sorts of social issues and tough relationships.

All of the interesting titles that get picked up are directed by a new generation of women! Hear that Cannes selection committee? Two birds, one stone. Women. Japanese. Japanese women. Screen films by directors like Lisa Takeba!

Anyway, what are the Japanese films getting screened at Cannes?

Our Little Sister (International Title) / Umimachi Diary   

Japanese: 海街 Diary

Romaji: Umimachi Diary

Release Date: June 13^th, 2015

Running Time: 126 mins.

Director: Hirokazu Koreeda

Writer: Shin Adachi (Screenplay), Akimi Yoshida (Original Manga)

Starring: Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa, Kaho, Suzu Hirose, Shinobu Otake, Shinichi Tsutsumi, Ryo Kase, Jun Fubuki, Ryohei Suzuki, Oshiro Maeda, Lily Franky, Kirin Kiki

Our Little Sister is the English-language title for Umimachi Diary which is based on an award-winning josei manga series created by Akimi Yoshida and published in 2006. The ever-popular Hirokazu Koreeda is bringing this live-action adaptation of the manga Umimachi Diary. Many film-critics and fans know his work even if they don’t know that much about Japanese cinema.  If I were to be cynical I would say it is because he is the only contemporary director closest in style to Yasujiro Ozu. The truth is that his films with Kiseki, and Like Father, Like Son proving very popular with international audiences (Kiseki, especially). Koreeda has won an award at Cannes with his film

So yeah, Hirokazu Koreeda is a regular at Cannes with four films getting presented there and he won the Jury award for Like Father, Like Son. He brings back a lot of collaborators from previous films like Lily Franky (Judge!) and Jun Fubuki (Like Father, Like Son), Kirin Kiki, Oshiro Maeda (the cuter younger brother in Kiseki), and Haruka Ayase (Real). It looks like a solid drama and it’s in the main competition category.

29-year-old Sachi Kouda (Ayase), 22-year-old Yoshino Kouda (Nagasawa), and 19-year-old Chika Kouda (Kaho) live in a house once owned by their grandmother in Kamakura. Their parents are divorced, their father having left them fifteen years ago. When they learn of their father’s death they decide to attend his funeral where they meet their 14-year-old sister Suzu Asano (Hirose) who has nobody to care for her. Sachi invites her to join them in Kamakura.

Website

Journey to the Shore   

Japanese: 岸辺の旅

Romaji: Kishibe no Tabe

Release Date: July 25^th, 2015

Running Time: 128 mins.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer: Shin Adachi (Screenplay), Kazumi Yumoto (Original Novel)

Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Eri Fukatsu

The second film is Journey to the Shore, directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. I’m a big fan of his work. I have seen 12 out of 17 of his features and 3 of his 13 straight to DVD features (I wrote a biography about the chap). After the critical success of Tokyo Sonata and years as a teacher at Tokyo University of the Arts he has moved from being a horror auteur creating scary and intelligent movies like Pulse and Cure to respectable mainstream titles. His last two projects were Real and Seventh Code. The first was a pretty dull psychological adventure that wasted some great actors while the second was a quirky adventure/promo for the idol Atsuko Maeda. He has considerable form with Cannes considering four of his films have been presented there and Tokyo Sonata won the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard category in 2008.

Kurosawa is adapting the 2010 novel Kishibe no Tabi by Kazumi Yumoto and to bring to life the characters he has two actors who should be familiar to Japanese film fans. Taking the male lead is Tadanobu Asano, star of Vital, Ichi the Killer, and Gohatto. More recently he has picked up awards for acting in the film, Watashi no Otoko. Eri Fukatsu is a great actor who will be a little less well-known but a star turn in the crime drama Villain put her on the radar. She has also cropped up in fun Koki Mitani comedies like The Magic Hour and Ghost of a Chance. Journey to the Shore plays in the Un Certain Regard category.

No trailer.

Mizuki’s (Fukatsu) husband Yusuke (Asano) disappeared for three years. Then one day, he comes back and asks Mizuki to go on a journey with him visiting all of the places he went to and all of the people he met while he was travelling. Mizuki begins to understand why Yusuke went on his journey.

Website

Yakuza Apocalypse: The Great War of the Underworld   

Japanese: 極道大戦争

Romaji: Goku dou dai sensou

Release Date: June 20^th, 2015

Running Time: 125 mins.

Director: Takashi Miike

Writer: Yoshitaka Yamaguchi (Screenplay),

Starring: Hayato Ichihara, Riko Narumi, Lily Franky, Reiko Takashima, Kiyohio Shibukawa, Sho Aoyagi, Mio Yuki, Pierre Taki, Denden, Yayan Ruhian, Yuki Sakurai,

The third film is Yakuza Apocalypse: The Great War of the Underworld, and it is part of the Director’s Fortnight which is a section for directors who have already competed at Cannes to get their film screened. It has already generated considerable buzz amongst Asian film fans. Well, those of us who grew up watching Japanese cinema during the ‘90s and delighted in Miike’s weird titles like Gozu, The Happiness of the Katakuri’s, and Visitor Q, because it looks like it is a return to form! After years producing big-budget titles like 13 Assassins and Ninja Kids!!! he is fulfilling a promise and returning to his roots making wacky and action-packed films. Here’s the quote from Twitch:

“Take a hike, boring Japanese productions! Against everyone’s wishes, I’m going back to my roots on this one, and plan to go on a real rampage with Yakuza Apocalypse… I hope my cast and crew, and even myself make it out alive.”

That’s what I like to read, a filmmaker willing to die in order to make something awesome, and judging by the trailer he is as good as his word. Miike has been to Cannes three times so far with Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai, For Love’s Sake, and Shield of Straw, this looks like his best offering so far.

Akira (Ichihara) is inspired the by fearsome reputation of the so-called “invincible” yakuza boss Genyo Kamiura (Franky) to become a yakuza himself. What he finds is not what he expected. His fellow gangsters don’t play by old-school rules of loyalty and honour. Even worse, they treat him like a fool and his sensitive skin means he cannot tattoos. Things change when Akira gets caught up in an assassination attempt on Genyo…

Website

Sweet Red Bean Paste   

Japanese: 極道大戦争

Romaji: An

Release Date: May 30^th, 2015

Running Time: 113 mins.

Director: Naomi Kawase,

Writer: Naomi Kawase (Screenplay), Tetsuya Akikawa (Original Novel),

Starring:  Masatoshi Nagase, Kirin Kiki, Kyara Uchida, Etsuko Ichihara, Miki Mizuno, Taiga, Wakato Kanematsu, Miyoko Asada.

I can claim to have a good understanding of all of the directors I have written about so far because I have seen a lot of their work but Naomi Kawase is a complete unknown to me but she has achieved a lot in her career, more than many of her male contemporaries in the Japanese film industry.

She has been to Cannes five times. In 1997, her first visit, she won the Caméra d’or for her feature Moe No Suzaku and since then she has been a regular guest. In 2007, her film The Mourning Forest won the Grand Prix at that year’s Cannes film festival.

After getting released from prison Sentarou (Nagase) worked hard to become the manager of a dorayaki bakery store. An older woman, Tokue (Kiki), is hired to work at the store, making the sweet red bean paste that fills the dorayaki. Her sweet red beans become popular and the store flourishes, but a rumour spreads that Tokue once had leprosy.

Website

Cannes Classics

The Cannes Classics section was established in 2004 and this is the section of the festival where rediscovered and restored classic films are screened. The big title her is Battles Without Honor and Humanity and this marks the first time that a Toei production has screened in the programme and will probably be the first festival in a long tour.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity   

Japanese Title: 仁義なき戦い

Romaji: Jingi Naki Tatakai

Release Date: January 13^th, 1973 (Japan)

Running Time: 99 mins.

Director: Kinji Fukasaku

Writer: Kazuo Kasahara (Screenplay), Koichi Iiboshi (Original Newspaper Reports),

Starring: Bunta Sugawara, Hiroki Matsukata, Kunie Tanaka, Eiko Nakamura, Tsunehiko Watase, Goro Ibuki,

Kinji Fukasaku is famous for two films. A younger generation will know him from Battle Royale, cinephiles and an older generation will say it is Battles Without Honor and Humanity, a bleak crime story shot in a documentary style. It’s pretty famous for signalling the end of traditional yakuza films by having gritty violence, hypocrisy, betrayal, and assassinations instead of chivalry and heroic bloodshed like older films in the genre. It’s because it is based a screenplay which adapted a series of newspaper articles by journalist Koichi Iiboshi and his work was based on a manuscript originally written by real-life yakuza Kozo Mino who gave away lots of secrets from his world.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity became part of an award winning series and the prestigious Kinema Junpo magazine named it fifth on a list of the Top 10 Japanese Films of All Time in 2009. According to the Cannes film festival website, the film has been “restored from 4K 35mm print original negative into 2K digital by TOEI LABO TECH.”  Find out more from Wikipedia to discover the fascinating history of the film.

It is 1946 and in the teeming open-air black markets of post-war, bombed-out Hiroshima, a young ex-soldier and street thug named Shozo Hirono (Sugawara) and his friends find themselves in a new war between different yakuza factions. After joining boss Yamamori, Shozo is drawn into a feud with his sworn brother’s family, the Dois.

Zangiku Monogatari (The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum)   

Japanese Title: 残菊物語

Romaji: Zangiku Monogatari

 Release Date: October 13^th, 1939 (Japan)

Running Time: 143 mins.

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi

Writer: Yoshikata Yoda, Matsutaro Kawaguchi (Screenplay), Shofu Muramatsu (Original Novel),

Starring: Shotaro Hanayagi, Kokichi Takada, Gonjuro Kawarazaki,Yoko Umemura, Tokusaburo Arashi, Kakuko Mori,

Kenji Mizoguchi, the genius behind Ugetsu Monogatari and Sansho Dayu (two of the greatest films I have ever seen), helped popularise Japanese films in the west. This is one of his works from the middle of his career and the info on Wikipedia makes it sound like a real treat for cinephiles. That Tony Rayns called it “the peak of Mizoguchi’s art,” makes this sound really impressive to me since Ugetsu Monogatari had an extremely profound effect on me as a teen since it cemented my love of cinema and want to learn more about it. It’s available in the UK as part of a box-set courtesy of Artificial Eye!

No trailer, alas. Image from this page.

Kikunosuke (Hanayagi), the adopted son of a famous kabuki actor (Kawarazaki) and is being groomed to follow in his theatrical footsteps. It all goes wrong when he falls in love with Otoku (Mori), his stepbrother’s wet nurse, and is forced to cut ties with the kabuki troupe and make his own career with only Otoku willing to help.

Ran   

Japanese Title: 乱

Romaji: Ran

 Release Date: May 31^st, 1985 (Japan)

Running Time: 162 mins.

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Writer: Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Masato Ide (Screenplay), William Shakespeare (Original Play “King Lear”),

Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryu, Mieko Harada, Yoshiko Miyazaki, Hisashi Igawa,

Adding to the sense that the newer generation of directors can’t get a look in with festivals, we have golden age directors alongside Koreeda and Miike! Anyway, Ran, I must admit I have seen a lot of Kurosawa’s films but I have not watched Ran… It gets lots and lots of praise from many critics. Kurosawa has adapted Shakespeare plays into movies set in Japan before (most famously with Macbeth which is used in Throne of Blood) and this looks like an epic take on King Lear. People can now see it on the beach at Cannes.

According to the Cannes website, the original negative was “scanned in 4K and restored frame by frame in 4k by Éclair. Image and sound restoration under STUDIOCANAL supervision with Kadokawa (Japanese co-producer). Color grading approved by Mr. Ueda (cinematographer), Akira Kurosawa’s close associate on the film.”

Lord Hidetora Ichimonji (Nakadai) has reached the age of 70 and wants to divide his domain amongst his three sons with Taro (Terao), the eldest, ruling with his other sons’ Jiro (Nezu) and Saburo (Ryu) given different castles but they don’t like the way that power has been divided and start plotting against each other…

So yeah, that’s a great line-up of Japanese films whatever the complaints about the lack of youth and women! Newer Japanese filmmakers seem to have a more receptive arena in places like Rotterdam, Berlin, and Vancouver as well as Nippon Connection, Sitges and Locarno which is why I cover the first three. I’ll try and keep you posted about reviews of some of the features in a follow-up post!

Happy weekend, everyone!

The 2015 Cannes Film Festival is going to commence next week and I posted about the Japanese contingent that would be in France. I’m looking forward to seeing the coverage they will get and seeing if they live up to expectations. I’ll post about them when the festival ends. I also posted a review of the Atsuko Maeda x Kiyoshi Kurosawa film Seventh Code (2013). I hope to get a couple of more reviews completed before the end of the month and I’m thinking of taking time off work to do that.

What’s released in Japanese cinemas this weekend?

Poison Berry in My Brain   

Japanese: 脳内ポイズンベリー

Romaji: Nounai Poison Berry

Release Date: May 09^th, 2015

Running Time: 121 mins.

Director: Yuichi Sato

Writer: Tomoko Aizawa (Screenplay),

Starring: Yoko Maki, Yuki Furukawa, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Yo Yoshida, Hiyori Sakurada, Kazuyuki Asano, Songha,

I like the concept of this one because it allows people with massively different personalities to fight with each other for control of the brain of one character or work together. Comedy will surely ensue when you have genki girls and boys played by Ryunosuke Kamiki and Hiyori Sakurada matching wits with a miserable looking prim and proper types in the shape of Hidetoshi Nishijima (License to Live) and Yo Yoshida. The person who has them in their head is played by Yoko Maki, a lady who put in star turns in The Ravine of Goodbye, and Like Father, Like Son two 2013 films to steal the show.

Ichiko (Maki) is a thirty-year-old unemployed woman who meets the much younger Ryoichi (Furukawa) at a bar. She totally falls for him but love may not run so smoothly since Ichiko has 5 different characters in her brain and they work together to operate her actions. The ostensible leader is middle-aged Yoshida (Nishijima), who oversees the stern pessimist ikeda (Yoshida), the younger and more optimistic Ishibashi (Kamiki), and Hatoko (Sakurada), a girl who lives in the moment, and the rather calmer and more experienced Kishi (Asano) who thinks about the past.

Website

Miss Hokusai       

Japanese Title: 百日紅 ～Miss HOKUSAI～

Romaji: Sarusuberi ～Miss HOKUSAI～

Release Date: May 09th, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: Keiichi Hara

Writer: Miho Maruo (Screenplay), Hinako Sugiura (Original Creator),

Starring: Anne Watanabe (O-Ei), Yutaka Matsushige (Tetsuzo/Katsushika Hokusai), Shion Shimizu (O-Nao), Kumiko Aso (Sayogoromo), Kengo Kora (Utagawa Kuninao),  Gaku Hamada (Zenjiro/Keisai Eisen), Jun Miho (Koto), Michitaka Tsutsui (Katsugoro/Totoya Hokkei), Danshun Tatekawa (Manjido),  

I have written about this film quite a bit so I’ll link through to this post which has a lot of details on the staff, cast, and the origins of the project. Suffice it to say that I am excited about this important story coming to light especially with the direction of Keiichi Hara who showed his skill with the film Colorful, a title that made me cry due to my attachment to the story and characters.

Production I.G describes the story of Miss Hokusai:

The time: 1814.

The place: Edo, now known as Tokyo. One of the highest populated cities in the world, teeming with peasants, samurai, townsmen, merchants, nobles, artists, courtesans, and perhaps even supernatural things.

A much accomplished artist of his time and now in his mid-fifties, Tetsuzo can boast clients from all over Japan, and tirelessly works in the garbage-loaded chaos of his house-atelier. He spends his days creating astounding pieces of art, from a giant-size Bodhidharma portrayed on a 180 square meter-wide sheet of paper, to a pair of sparrows painted on a tiny rice grain. Short-tempered, utterly sarcastic, with no passion for sake or money, he would charge a fortune for any job he is not really interested in.

Third of Tetsuzo’s four daughters and born out of his second marriage, outspoken 23-year-old O-Ei has inherited her father’s talent and stubbornness, and very often she would paint instead of him, though uncredited. Her art is so powerful that sometimes leads to trouble. “We’re father and daughter; with two brushes and four chopsticks, I guess we can always manage, in a way or another.”

Decades later, Europe was going to discover the immense talent of Tetsuzo. He was to become best known by one of his many names: Katsushika Hokusai. He would mesmerize Renoir and van Gogh, Monet and Klimt.

However, very few today are even aware of the woman who assisted him all his life, and greatly contributed to his art while remaining uncredited. This is the untold story of O-Ei, Master Hokusai’s daughter: a lively portrayal of a free-spirited woman overshadowed by her larger-than-life father, unfolding through the changing seasons.

Website

Zutaboro   

Japanese: ズタボロ

Romaji: Zutaboro

Release Date: May 09^th, 2015

Running Time: 110 mins.

Director: Hajime Hashimoto

Writer: Izumi Takahashi (Screenplay), Gettsu Itaya (Original Novel)

Starring: Tasuku Nagase, Fumika Shimizu, Atsushi Arai, Takuya Ishida, Arata Horii Eiki Narita,

Oh no… Izumi Takahashi is writing this. His films are boring. Vanished and The Devil’s Path are soporific. I did not get along with them and felt that the narratives tended towards cramming so much in they become muddled. This projects looks utterly derivative of those battling yankee movies like Crows Zero and Gachiban. This is the sequel to a film released a few years ago…

Koichi (Nagase), Yakko (Arai) and Kyamu graduate from the same middle school and attend high school. Instead of studying, the guys join a motorcycle gang and get into fights. It is far from fun and games for the boys because Yakko becomes the victim of bullying in the gang and it shatters his confidence. Koichi is angered and joins the yakuza to avenge his friend much to his mother’s horror.

Website

Geki x Cine Aonoran   

Japanese: ゲキ×シネ「蒼の乱」

Romaji: Geki x Cine Aonoran

Release Date: May 09^th, 2015

Running Time: 168 mins.

Director: Hidenori Inoue

Writer: Kazuki Nakashima (Screenplay),

Starring: Yuki Amami, Kenichi Matsuyama, Taichi Saotome, Zen Kajihara, Miharu Morina, Shoko Takada, Jun Hashimoto, Makoto Awane, Mikijiro Hira

Yuki Amami (Black Angel 2, Ponyo) and Kenichi Matsuyama (Detroit Metal City, Norwegian Wood, Shindo) takes parts in an epic Chinese civil war drama where the two play a married couple fighting for the rights of heavily taxed peasants, Matsuyama being a cool samurai from Japan (I think).

Website

17 Short Lived   

Japanese: 7才の別れ

Romaji: 7 sai no Wakare

Release Date: May 09^th, 2015

Running Time: 110 mins.

Director: Takao Saiki

Writer: N/A

Starring: Michiko Miyagi (storyteller), Norie Ishida (singer/song writer), Yui Kakazu (girl in flashback), Aya Nanbu (dancer) Tomishiro High School Girls,

There’s a lot of anger over the way US forces in Japan are based in Okinawa and a lot of resentment over the way Tokyo treats the island. That’s partly because during the way, military generals in Tokyo gave the order for civilians to commit suicide instead of surrendering to US forces and many did. Okinawa became a battleground and the natives of the island were caught between US forces and Tokyo. This documentary gives us an insight into some of the tragic tales that went on.

Michiko Miyagi is a survivor from the chaos of the battle of Okinawa and she about her life-changing experiences after 44 years of silence brought on because she thought she would be arrested by the Japanese government if she did. She was one of many high school girls drafted into a nursing army of sorts. This student corps was given basic training and sent onto the battlefield as nurses where nearly two hundred died. It was all hushed up by the Japanese government but Michiko never forgot and now she is speaking out about it.

Website

Make Room   

Japanese: メイクルム

Romaji: Meikurumu

Release Date: May 09^th, 2015

Running Time: 86 mins.

Director: Kei Morikawa

Writer: Kei Morikawa (Screenplay),

Starring: Aki Morita, Beni Itoh, Riri Kuribayashi, Nanami Kawakami, Mariko Sumiyoshi,

This indie title was the big winner of Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival’s Grand Prix earlier this year and it has travelled to the Udine Far East Film Festival:

Director Kei Morikawa draws from his experiences as a former adult-video director for this comedy which stars some AV actresses. It looks like a similar deal to Be My Baby in the sense that it’s effectively a stage play with a limited set and lots of talking.

The comedy revolves around a porn shoot and the antics that happen in the make-up room.

Website

August in Tokyo   

Japanese: 愛の小さな歴史

Romaji: Ai no Chisana Rekishi

Release Date: May 09^th, 2015

Running Time: 81 mins.

Director: Ryutaro Nakagawa

Writer: Ryutaro Nakagawa (Screenplay),

Starring: Eriko Nakamura, Takashi Okito, Asaka Nakamura, Sosuke Ikematsu, Ken Mitsuishi, Manami Takahashi, Ayaka Ikezawa Yuriko Mishina,

The title translates as A Small History of Love, which is enigmatic. Director Ryutaro Nakagawa is a relative unknown but making waves with films like Plastic Love Story featuring in film festivals. I have seen that film and it is very beautiful and full of raw emotions. I’ll have to get around to reviewing it. This new film of his stars hot new actor Sosuke Ikematsu (How Selfish I Am!), Eriko Nakamura (Love’s Whirlpool) and the ever dependable Ken Mitsuishi (Noriko’s Dinner Table, Rent-a-Cat). It looks really dramatic.

In a corner of Tokyo, a man named Natsuo lives as a yakuza and a woman named Natsuki works part-time. Although they rarely think about their families, they attempt to reunite with them. Brother and sister, father and daughter; the distance between them begins to shrink, but… This film portrays the dynamics of people trying to co-exist in nature and in the city. Even though two individuals may be insignificant in the context of a large society, one life meets another and they move forward. This is a movie about their small footsteps.

Website

It seems that reviews of films containing Fumi Nikaido grow to mammoth proportions and this is another long one for a film released in June of last year. I’ve done my best to avoid spoilers and barely mention what happens in the second half of the film. Read on if you care or dare because this film is about some taboo subject-matter.

My Man  

Japanese Title:私の男

Romaji: Watashi no Otoko

Running Time: 128 mins

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

Director: Kazuyoshi Kumakiri

Writer: Takashi Ujita (Screenplay), Kazuki Sakuraba (Novel)

Starring: Fumi Nikaido, Tadanobu Asano, Aoba Kawai, Kengo Kora, Tatsuya Fuji, Taiga, Itsuki Sagara,

“Parents. They f*ck you up.” – Philip Larkin

That quote seems apt for Watashi no Otoko, a beautiful but dark film that is sure to challenge all viewers. It starts off with a disaster, one that strips a girl of her family, and gets darker as she gets a new family. If I make a reference to the novel/film Lolita you will know the territory. A spirit of corruption hovers over the characters in the film, one that takes the bonds of family and poisons them with the perversion of incest and director Kazuyoshi Kumakiri makes no bones about being somewhat explicit while exploring the effects of an incestuous love affair on the characters.

Events start with a flashback to the past. An earthquake and tsunami has struck Okushiri Island just off Hokkaido and through one survivor we get a child’s disorientating and terrifying perspective of the disaster. A 10-year-old girl named Hana has escaped death but both of her parents have perished. She ends up in a disaster centre, a thin waif in white pyjamas wandering alone down dark dank corridors and through rooms at night before she strikes out for home with just a bottle of water. All about her corpses lie on the ground. Then she is discovered at her house by a rescue worker lighting the night with a candle, a handsome strong-looking 26-year-old man named Jungo Kusarino (Asano), a cook for the coastguard. He takes her hand in his and gently asks her questions before declaring, “You’re mine now.” When asked by another rescue worker what he is doing with Hana he states, “I found one. My daughter.”

The audience’s alarm bells are surely ringing over this situation and fellow disaster workers are equally suspicious. People around Jungo question him, how can he just take this girl he has “rescued” as his daughter? It turns out he is a distant relative and in the middle of a disaster a few words from a friend facilitates a deal with local authorities allowing Jungo to adopt Hana. “I’ll be her father. I want to have a family, too,” he states. One man with knowledge of Jungo’s background, Oshio (Fuji) a town elder says, “You aren’t good enough to have a family.” As tantalising as that little line of dialogue is for the audience, a quick glance from Jungo silences him especially with Hana around. “I’ve said too much,” Oshio smiles before backing down.

Jungo gets his way and both he and Hana board a car and ride off into the night, Jungo’s hand holds hers tightly, the camera focussing on his fingers caressing hers, and his words are all we hear as the darkness envelops the screen, “From today I’m all yours.”

The story resumes in the future, in a snowbound port town in Hokkaido. It is a serene place, cold and pristine, where the community clings together tightly and everybody knows each other. Hana has grown up. She is a beautiful middle school girl (Nikaido) bursting with laughter and brimming with happiness, popular with those around her. Jungo is in a relationship with Komachi (Kawai), a clerk at a local bank who is also the granddaughter of Oshio. Many expect Jungo and Komachi to marry which would help Hana gain a stable family life again since he is at sea a lot with the coastguard and she is alone but there is something strange about Jungo and Hana’s relationship and Komachi begins to scent something is amiss.

It starts with Jungo’s distance. She has to make every effort to visit him when he returns to shore, not vice versa. Komachi finds his lovemaking mostly passionless on his part, Asano looking positively bored and lumpen, his mind elsewhere during explicit steamy sex scenes with the sultry and sexy Kawai who bravely displays much of her beautiful and lithe body. There are major social slights like gifts Komachi thought Jungo bought for her on long trips actually being intended for Hana. And we come to the girl raised by Jungo…

That happy smiling girl exhibits strange behaviour when it comes to Jungo. Komachi, jealous about the gift, finds Hana out playing with her friends and their conversation turns to Jungo which is where things get slightly weird as Hana shows the same observations, care and knowledge of her man that a housewife would. What starts out as a friendly conversation about playing with friends, “Mai nichi tanoshii/毎日たのしい？” turns confrontational as Hana probes Komachi’s feelings for Jungo. The audience will get a shock as they hear Hana lecture Komachi about who Jungo needs as a life partner (a blood relative) and in a few words and with her sweet smile she reveals her possessiveness. This doesn’t go unnoticed by an already jealous Komachi and an increasingly worried Oshio.

As Komachi begins to get a better understanding of what lies behind the “family” unit that Hana and Jungo have established, the childishness of Hana’s behaviour becomes tainted with fears over the danger the girl might be in. Characters witness the way that Hana and Jungo always separate themselves from others and remain close together as seen in the party that Oshio throws for many in town. There is the way Hana is constantly caressing Jungo and the way he gives in and fondly returns her touches, and the fixation with fingers that was established in the opening of the film takes on more erotic tones.

It is clear that they have grown interdependent upon each other and love each other but is it going too far? The film teases us.

The very slow rhythm of the film builds through naturalistic direction which shows characters going about their daily lives and allows a highly textured portrait of the relationship between Hana and Jungo that gets increasingly darker. We see the way the world slowly begin to admit to the strangeness that it was always suspicious of, ever so slowly, to ensure that audiences are dragged over the coals of expectations over what will happen next.

Then the film takes a step into pure darkness after teasing us for so long with whether Hana is a victim of Jungo’s upbrining and whether the two will take things into taboo territory. The couple finally give in fully to their mutual desire for each other in what I consider to be one of the most disturbing sex scenes I have witnessed. We knew it was coming but the sight of it is still off-putting and those with weak stomachs may turn off at this point. Jungo is soon caressing and gripping Hana’s body, the girl returning his passion knowing full well what she is doing to him and herself and framing it as one of sacrifice for the both of them in the grip of loneliness. It is sickening but the director hooks the audience back in by shooting the scene in a stylised and surreal way. The lovers are covered in a rain of blood symbolic of their passion and suggesting darker narrative turns and to remind us that we have spent the last hour watching a psychological drama.

Although disturbing it is not exploitative or sleazy. Kumakiri’s direction and scriptwriter Takashi Ujita’s writing has, up until this point, weaved interesting details about these two characters and teased the audience with what drives them and it is the trauma of the disaster that Hana survived (she has terrifying flashbacks to the fateful night when her real father rescued her and her new father Jungo took her in) and an unfathomable loneliness that the two feel and the love, no matter how awful, that they give each other that makes their relationship work. This idea of isolation is emphasised by the  landscapes they inhabit and the shot composition. Hana often anxiously waits alone for Jungo’s return from his duty on a coastguard ship. In their snowbound town they are sometimes  the only dash of colour in the snowy scenes, the rest of the world blank, devoid of people.

From this point the film descends into a melancholy tale of inertia, lonely desperation and self-destructive desire as the illicit relationship is threatened with exposure and the characters finally come up against the limits of their bond in a society where their ‘love’ is forbidden. A trip to Tokyo reveals just how far the two are willing to defend their connection and how they cannot give each other up.

Director Kazuyoshi’s script and the brilliantly subtle and nuanced performance from lead actor Fumi Nikaido delicately balance things for a lot of the movie ensuring that an observant audience pick up on a lot of details and atmosphere. The director exhibits a lot of control and focus in showing the characters psychodrama, the camera lingering on Hana and Jungo as they cast longing gazes or think things over and interact with other and this leads me to praise what really makes the film work which is Nikaido and Asano’s performance.

I am convinced that Fumi Nikaido is on her way to becoming the best actress in Japan (if not already there). I can think of few who match her commitment to roles where she can tell the audience some of the most complex things with the change of a facial expression and the way she holds herself. She handles Hana perfectly so we are never sure how much of a victim she is, how much of a dependency she has for Jungo and whether it was been fostered by him and if she has set out to do the same thing to him. Hana’s actions could be mistaken for teenage whimsy but there is always a layer of fierce passion underneath them that is unsettling. Nikaido is brilliant at conveying the confusion and damage from her past and the desire for her present that lie within her core.

Fumi Nikaido effortlessly creates a murky picture of the character so we can never be too sure what to make of her as she details the transition from perky school girl devoted to the closed-off world she has with Jungo, a man she loves, to the damaged and distant young woman at the end. Nikaido has the skill to disappear into characters and the look she gives at the end of the film will remain long with the viewer as they try and work out how to read this rotten relationship.

Asano was also incredible, making his character a complex, if a little too opaque man rather than a monster. Initially trim and well-built, he undergoes something of a physical transformation after relocating to Tokyo, putting on more weight and coming across as seedier. Despite his transgressions I felt some sympathy for him in his confused emotional state and desires. He is a violent and vile man who battled with his own demons and loneliness and failed, his own confusion over the role of lover and father stingingly made clear in the end when he says “I just want to be a father,” after a drunken encounter with a man interested in Hana near the end of the film.

Aoba Kawai also deserves special mention as Komachi, a woman unable to come to terms with what she is uncovering about Hana and Jungo hopeful but suspicious and gradually increasingly devastated and sickened with each turn of the story, mirroring the audience.

That the film never became too disgusting to watch is down to the strong performances and interesting script but despite these fine performances the only downside to the film is that by being too opaque about character motivations thwarts audience understanding of Jungo and his motivations. I would have liked more of an understanding of what drives Jungo and felt the second half of the film could have done with more time to explored him but the relationship between Jungo and Hana and the girl’s transformation makes for a strong engine regardless and I guess that getting a straight answer to those questions would be difficult just like in real life.

4/5

I wasn’t the only one convinced about the brilliance of the acting because Fumi Nikaido and Tadanobu Asano both picked up awards at different film festivals!

Cannes kicked off this week and the reviews are coming in thick and fast for all of the Japanese films that are at the festival. I’ll be sure to post highlights and links of/to them for you next week. I managed to watch three films this week and they were all horror titles: Silent Hill Revelations (2012), Ju-On: Beginning of the End (2014), and Puzzle (2014). Only one post this week: Watash no Otoko (2014).

What are the movies released this weekend?

Deadman Inferno (International Title) / Zombie Island (Japanese Title)   

Japanese: Z アイランド

Romaji: Z Airando

Release Date: May 16^th, 2015

Running Time: 108 mins.

Director: Hiroshi Shinagawa

Writer: Hiroshi Shinagawa (Screenplay),

Starring: Sho Aikawa, Shingo Tsurumi, Sawa Suzuki, Daigo, Erina Mizuno,Yukiko Shinohara, Daisuke Miyagawa, Yosuke Kubozuka, Maika Yamamoto,

The list of good zombie movies from Japan is short but this looks like a fun zombie film full of action and comedy and some decent special effects. It stars Sho Aikawa, an actor who people my generation will remember as being a collaborator with Takashi Miike in the Dead or Alive films. I have reviewed two V-cinema titles he was in, Eyes of the Spider and The Serpent’s Path, both released in the West thanks to Third Window Films. Here is the trailer plus a prequel of sorts:

Hiroya Munakata (Aikawa) and his younger brother Takashi (Tsurumi) are the leaders of the Munakata-gumi yakuza family. Takashi was sent away to prison for ten year after a fight but he is due to be released soon. His daughter Hyuga (Yamamoto) is not looking forward to seeing him and runs away to Zeni Island. The gang go to get her back and but Zeni island has strange inhabitants…

Website

Kakekomi   

Japanese: 駆込み女と駆出し男

Romaji: Kakekomi Onna to Kakedashi Otoko

Release Date: May 16^th, 2015

Running Time: 143 mins.

Director: Masato Harada

Writer: Masato Harada (Screenplay), Hisashi Inoue (Original Novel),

Starring: Yo Oizumi. Erika Toda, Hikari Mitsushima, Rina Uchiyama, Misuzu Kanno, Hana Hizuki, Rei Otori, Jun Hashimoto, Shinichi Tsutsumi, Kirin Kiki, Denden,

I’ve read a few reviews of this and it sounds entertaining historical dramedy. Certainly, the cast is appealing. I like Yo Oizumi’s presence after seeing him in Bolt from the Blue and I think he can pull off the main role with ease, and Hikari Mitsushima (Sawako Decides, Love Exposure) is a talented actress when she isn’t wasted in a role like Moteki.

Did you know that the divorce rate during the Edo period was higher than it is now? One place that allowed people to get divorced was the Tokei-ji, a Buddhist temple in Kamakura that helped women escape from bad relationships and abusive husbands. Two women flee to the temple: Jogo (Toda) is tired of her feckless husband, Ogin (Mitsushima) wants to escape life as a concubine of a merchant. They both encounter a doctor named Nobujiro (Oizumi) who is staying at the temple. He aspires to be a writer and wants to help women establish new lives but one of these two new ladies in his life catches his feelings. Which one does he love?

Website

Harajuku Denieri   

Japanese: 原宿デニール

Romaji: Harajuku Denieri

Release Date: May 16^th, 2015

Running Time: 89 mins.

Director: Hideta Takahata

Writer: Hideta Takahata (Screenplay),

Starring: Rina Takeda, Minsu, Joonho, Shuta, Gyumin, Saki Asamiya, Kaoru Hirata, Erica Tonooka, Sayaka Tashiro, Rie Fujiwara, Hiroshi Yamamoto, Hiroki Konno,

Set in Harajuku, various young people in various professions are the stars of a story which depicts the people who make up the lively area of Tokyo known as Harajuku.  Martial arts angel Rina Takeda plays a policewoman named Yokoyama and she finds her story is linked to that of people of Korean descent, scouts for talent agencies who are scoping high school girls and more. This films sees Japanese actors and Korean boyband idols working together, probably best exemplified by the presence of the group BEE SHUFFLE.

Website

Akegarasu  

Japanese: 明烏あけがらす

Romaji: Akegarasu

Release Date: May 16^th, 2015

Running Time: 106 mins.

Director: Yuichi Fukuda

Writer: Yuichi Fukuda (Screenplay),

Starring: Masaki Suda, Riho Yoshioka, Yuu Shirota, Hayato Kakizawa, Yuya Matsushita, Jiro Sato, Ryuya Wakaba,

Akegarasu is the name of an unpopular host club in Shinagawa, Tokyo, Naoki (Suda) is one of the hosts. He is working to pay off a debt of 10 million yen and on the night before he hands the money over to some pretty nasty characters he has a party to celebrate. The next day he discovers that his money has gone missing. Everybody in the club at the time claims not to have seen the money but Suda keeps searching knowing that if he doesn’t find it then he’ll be in big trouble…

Website

Terrace House: Closing Door Kindan no fuku onsei-ban

Japanese Title: テラスハウス　クロージング・ドア禁断の副音声版

Romaji: Terasu Hausu Kurosshingu Doa Kindan no fuku onsei-ban

Release Date: May 16^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: N/A

Director: Masato Maeda

Writer: N/A

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

I think this is based on a Fuji TV 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. There’s no trailer because the show is region-locked apparently. Here’s a video on dailymotion of one episode.

Website

Mushishi: The Next Chapter: Suzu no Shizuku   

Japanese: 蟲師　特別編「鈴の雫」

Romaji: Mushishi: Zoku-Shō: Suzu no Shizuku

Release Date: May 16^th, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: Hiroshi Nagahama

Writer: Hiroshi Nagahama (Screenplay), Yuki Urushibara (Original Creator),

Starring: Yuto Nakano (Ginko), Tomomi Saito (Kaya), Gen Ogawa (Ashiro), Mika Doi (Narrator),

Mushishi is the much-respected and loved award-winning manga from Yuki Urushibara. It has been adapted into one live-action movie and two TV anime which are held in high regard. This film is based on a story that didn’t get aired on TV. The story follows Ginko, a mushishi who studies mushi spirits and their effects on people.

Website

Nippon Connection launches next month and the programme has been released. It looks incredible.

This is the 15^th Nippon Connection festival and it takes place from June 02^nd to 07^th, 2015 in Frankfurt, Germany. This is the first year that I will write about this festival.

It is a chance to get a deep and varied insight into Japanese cinema with everything from classics to contemporary titles, anime and live-action, a healthy dose of the latest films not yet released in Japan and many from the ‘80s. There are more than 100 short and feature films, and a retrospective of the works of director Shinji Somai. There are also stars in attendance with the super actors Tadanobu Asano and Sakura Ando and the director Ryuichi Hiroki at the festival. Tadanobu Asano will receive the first Nippon Honor Award and he will perform a live soundtrack concert together with the band Stereo Total.

If you check the festival site you will see many great films on offer at the festival but placing so many trailers into one post would be a bit much so I will highlight what I think are the best out of each category, the notable titles and the ones that will be rarer for Europeans/Westerners to catch outside of the festival. Of course you can ignore all this advice and just click on the links to be taken to the film’s page on the festival website where more coherent text, a trailer, and images are located. Without further ado here’s the highlights and all of the rest of the films that will screen at this year’s Nippon Connection:

Nippon Cinema

There are a lot contemporary titles in here and it gives a great indication of the strength of films on the more mainstream front with films from familiar favourites such as Takashi Miike, Shinya Tsukamoto, SABU, Nobuhiro Yamashita, and Ryuichi Nakamura getting screened. This section allows the audience will once again be able to bestow the Nippon Cinema Award upon their favourite film with a cash prize going to the winner.

From my perspective the main thing about this category is making the most of seeing what will look great on the big screen, the presence of actors/directors at a screening, and seeing films that probably won’t see on DVD (or online) any time soon. There are plenty of titles that will probably disappear once they leave the festival circuit so this is an opportune chance. The two exceptions to that rule are The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi which is a fun film and there will be a breakfast buffet(!!) and The World of Kanako  (getting a release in the west courtesy of Third Window Films) which was a breath taking when I saw it in a cinema. That still leaves plenty of other films to choose from so here would be my selections:

FIRES ON THE PLAIN, 野火, Nobi (2014 ) Dir: Shinya Tsukamoto

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 (Shinya Tsukamoto) 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…

Fires on the Plain 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 and from what I have read, it’s tough, brutal, troubling, and realistic and, thanks to Tsukamoto’s vision, it puts you right in the heart of war. This is an anti-war film so it has to be brutal… and that trailer. It looks. Wow! I think this will be an intense journey. His visual imagination has been incredible in past films such as Tetsuo: The Iron Man and Tokyo Fist so seeing Fires on the Plain on the big screen will be quite the experience if you have the stomach for death and destruction.

KABUKICHO LOVE HOTEL, さよなら歌舞伎町, Sayonara Kabukicho (2014) Dir: Ryuichi Hiroki

Ryuichi Hiroki has two films at the festival, this and Her Granddaughter. As far as I am concerned this one has the superior

cast and the more interesting story with its set-up plunging us into the disparate lives of people connected to a love hotel over the course of 24 hours in Tokyo’s Kabukicho. Ryuichi Hiroki is a master at maneouveing multiplie narratives in modern tales as I discovered in Kimi no Tomodachi so I believe in the promise of drama and dry comedy from performances by great actors!

Shota Sometani, Jun Murakami, Tomorowo Taguchi are the male actors and between the three of them they have amassed an impressive set of performances with great directors. I am excited by the presence of former idol girls such as Atsuko Maeda and Miwako Wagatsuma who are going beyond the typical idol girl confines of popcorn flicks and frothy romances and challenging themselves, working on interesting projects with notable directors.

There’s a good chance this will be at other festivals but will Ryuichi Hiroki be at that festival? Will you be able to ask him questions about films like Vibrator or his pink films?

SEVEN WEEKS 野のなななのかNo no nanananoka (2014) Dir: Nobuhiko Obayashi

The story kicks off  with the funeral of doctor Mitsuo Suzuki which brings his family back to snowy Sapporo. From there, a family story unfolds that dates back to the Second World War.

Nobuhiko Obayashi is a legend and he’s still cranking out films even though he has reached his 70s. People in the west know him for House and (maybe) School in the Crosshairs but little else. In effect, based on these two films, he has the reputation of having a crazy visual style and making films that are fun to watch. I think it would be fascinating to see what he makes now.

I remember having trouble translating the story for a trailer post and didn’t expect it to travel to the west but it has and it looks like a rare opportunity to catch a genuine indie film from a venerable talent. Some film critics based in Japan have sung the praises of this film. Don Brown at the Asahi Shimbun, “Numerous domestic dramas are made in Japan every year with little ambition other than capturing the mundaneness of everyday life. But the jaded viewer will be shocked by Obayashi’s sprawling family saga and its distinctive stylized approach that diverges into various thematic tangents.”

A rare gem then!

100 YEN LOVE, 百円の恋Hyakuen no koi, (2014), Dir: Masaharu Take

Kazuko (Sakura 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 (Hirofumi 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.

This film has Sakura Ando in the lead role as a hikikomori who uses boxing to turn her life around. I would watch her in anything. Alongside Fumi Nikaido, she is one of Japan’s best young actors and Sakura Ando will be at the festival!. It has gotten great reviews as seen in Variety and Japan Times and it offers a positive story.

These are my top choices for this section. Here’s the list of films in full:

100 YEN LOVE,      THE BLIND SWORDSMAN: ZATOICHI,     BLINDLY IN LOVE,     CHASUKE’S JOURNEY,     A COURTESAN WITH FLOWERED SKIN,    FIRES ON THE PLAIN,

HER GRANDDAUGHTER,    KABUKICHO LOVE HOTEL,   KUMIKO, THE TREASURE   HUNTER, LA LA LA AT ROCK BOTTOM    My Man (My Review)    OUR FAMILY,                 OVER YOUR DEAD BODY,   PALE MOON        PARASYTE: PART 1   PARASYTE: PART 2     THE ROUND TABLE    SEVEN WEEKS    SILENT COLOR SILENT VOICE

SOLOMON’S PERJURY 1: SUSPICION   SOLOMON’S PERJURY 2: JUDGMENT

UZUMASA LIMELIGHT   The World of Kanako (My Review),   THE VOICE OF WATER

Nippon Visions

The indie side of Japanese cinema is located in this section and again there are many choices from a wide range of styles and genres with many directors here to introduce their works.

There are a variety of documentaries that focus on normal people in tough circumstances such as -1287 which focusses on a woman dying from cancer and Walking with my Mother which tells the story of an elderly woman (the mother of the director) dealing with the death of her husband and daughter and finding comfort in her sister who comes to her rescue. There are quite a few Fukushima documentaries that chart the aftermath of the disaster on people such as farmers in Going Against the Grain in Fukushima and children in Little Voices from Fukushima and a series of short films by Hikaru Suzuki. On the more positive side of things is The Cockpit about a group of musicians making a hip-hop track, and A Little Girl’s Dream which charts one girl’s journey from student to vet.

In recent years there have been collaborations between Japanese and Korean film production companies and universities and the two shorts Kim / Brakemode, the first a serious drama about a boxer forced to retire and forced to face debts, and Brakemode, a comedy about Japanese an Korean employees of car manufacturers working to save their prototype car after it is stolen.

There are short films from Tama Art University graduates and experimental films from Japanese/half-Japanese who have left the country and are based elsewhere in the world. Other shorts aim for the more comedic end of the scale in HELLO ZOMBIE / USE THE EYEBALLS!.

I get a sense of real variety with this part of the programme because of the two and benshi performances and a pink film in the form of Treasure Ship: Latitudes of Lust

I am excited to see a number of titles from the indie world and

Here are my selections:

Hold Your Breath Like a Lover息を殺してIki o koroshite (2014) Dir: Kohei Igarashi

Here’s the description of the story from the film’s page: December 30, 2017: A handful of workers spends the night in a seemingly abandoned factory, playing video games, battling out love conflicts and aimlessly walking through gloomy offices and corridors. In between, a dog gets lost and ghosts of the dead return. A dark view on a future pre-apocalyptic Japan, presented in ambiguous images exerting a unique pull.

I first saw this trailer at the end of last year and tweeted it to friends after seeing an interview with the director on Midnight Eye. I have watched the trailer so many times and even had it on my phone at one point. It’s beautiful and mysterious and there’s so little known about it which makes this an exciting title to venture into blindly.

Obon Brothersお盆の弟Obon no ototo (2015) Dir: Akira Osaki

Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Ken Mitsuishi, Makiko Watanabe, Yoji Tanaka, Koki Okada, Erika Yanagita, Yumi Goto, Aoba Kawai, Miyoko Inagawa,

Takeshi is a struggling film director, with a fractious home life. That’s an understatement, actually, since he has been kicked out of his house by his wife and forced to move in with his ill brother. Can Takeshi turn his life around and save his marriage?

This is another film I tweeted about after the trailer was released

and it’s simple why: great cast with a story and style of filming that will get the most out of them. The trailer reminds of lovely and strange And the Mud Ship Sails Away what with the meandering, talk-heavy action shot in black and white. This film stars some great actors like the cool Kiyohiko Shibukawa, the exceptional Makiko Watanabe, and the super solid Ken Mitsuishi. There is also Aoba Kawai and Yumi Goto, two names I have gotten used to over the past year after seeing the give great performances in different films. The director and writer are in town so ask plenty of questions.

Sharing (2014) Dir: Makoto Shinozaki

Eiko (Kinuo) is a psychology teacher in a university. She lost her husband in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and this pushes her to research cases of individuals who claim to have had precognitive dreams about the disaster. One of her students, Kaoru (Asuka), is a member of the drama club, and is writing a stage a play about the disaster. The two become so engaged in their projects that it pushes friends and colleagues away from them as they become more extreme in their work and lost site of reality…

There are a number of films with backing from Office Kitano at this festival and I like the look of Sharing which was at last year’s Vancouver International Film Festival. The director is a graduate of Rikkyo University where he now teaches psychology, and has collaborated with Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Ingredients for intrigue!

There are a set of interesting looking dramas headed by 0.5MM, Chigasaki Story, Dual City, and Sceneries of New Beginnings. Out of those 0.5MM has to be the one to watch because that stars Sakura Ando!

-1287  0.5MM   CHIGASAKI STORY   THE COCKPIT   DUAL CITY

GOING AGAINST THE GRAIN IN FUKUSHIMA

HELLO ZOMBIE / USE THE EYEBALLS!  HELLO, SUPERNOVA   HIKARU SUZUKI SPECIAL   HOLD YOUR BREATH LIKE A LOVER   IN & OUT OF JAPAN VOL. 2

JAPAN MEETS KOREA: KIM / BRAKEMODE

A LITTLE GIRL’S DREAM   LITTLE VOICES FROM FUKUSHIMA

NO SILENCE, PLEASE! ICHIRO KATAOKA PRESENTS: OROCHI

NO SILENCE, PLEASE! ICHIRO KATAOKA PRESENTS: THE POLICE OFFICER

OBON BROTHERS   SCENERIES OF NEW BEGINNINGS   SHARING    TAMA ART UNIVERSITY SPECIAL    TREASURE SHIP: LATITUDES OF LUST    WALKING WITH MY MOTHER

Nippon Animation

There is a variety of anime on show and I would say that people with kids who want to attend the festival see The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, a stunningly beautiful and intelligent film that mixes artistic skill of a highly talented director and animators to convey a story deep in Japanese culture, heartfelt tale that can appeal to adults and children who will find something to laugh at and relate to. It has already had a theatrical and home video release in Germany so you can skip it if money is an issue since we’re going after titles you may not ever see again. This being the case you can drop Appleseed Alpha because that’s already available in the West plus it’s a CG Shinji Aramaki film which in my experience means that it is guaranteed to be of less importance than some of the other titles on the programme. Another one you might want to miss is Psycho-Pass: The Movie which has great reviews but it’s only worth watching if you are familiar with the television anime. If you can get yourself up to speed with the gloriously brilliant first season and awful second season and you like your dystopian sci-fi tales this might be for you.

Here’s what I would pick:

Shinsengumi 新選組 Shinsengumi (2000) Dir: Kon Ichikawa

I had no idea that the great director Kon Ichikawa directed an anime. Not only that it’s about the Shinsengumi, the shogun’s samurai special forces, in effect. It looks pretty awesome and the festival webpage describes it as a “long-forgotten animation masterpiece… never before been screened outside of Japan.” This is why you go to film festivals. Gems like this.

I would also try out some of the shorts, student films, and indie anime. This is for people who want to go beyond the glossy anime that regularly gets streamed/sold in the West and we can see what independent talents outside of the studio system and across Japan are doing. There are films created by using stop motion, hand drawn, and CG animation and it comes from a diverse array such as the Tokyo University of the Arts and indie titles from all sorts of people and studio.

Everything Visible – Japanese Indie Animated Shorts is an interesting selection and not just because of the diverse works but because Dr. Catherine Munroe Hotes has programmed this section and she will be present for the films and will talk about her selections. I talked to her about programming shorts for a festival, interested in seeing how people reacted to them since they are harder to sell than features (in my mind, at least) and she kindly responded:

Catherine: “The audience in Frankfurt really loves experimental / alternative fare. I am from Canada so I was amazed at first to find sold out crowds for experimental works. For this programme I chose films that had some buzz at festivals in Japan and overseas… They are not for everyone’s taste – it’s for people who want something different – I think of them as being visual poetry. I grew up watching a lot of NFB [National Film Board of Canada] animation from a young age so when I came across indie animation in Tokyo in 2006 I understood a bit. Some films I don’t get at all after a first screening and I need to watch them more than once before I understand what the artist is trying.”

Me:  “You actively look for artists to screen and I assume artists contact you as well.”

Catherine: “I wanted to have filmmakers from all over Japan / different animation schools. “There are also people in the programme that NC regulars ask me about a lot.  Like: whatever Like: whatever happened to Kato Kunio after he won the Oscar. I went to Hiroshima last year.  If you check my post from last August (I think the screening was called Japan’s Animation Today) you can see who had works at that festival.   I saw a work by Osamu Sakai at Wissembourg in Dec & wanted him…. I also check to see who won at various other festivals like Japan Media Arts Festival. Iwasaki is a young artist whose film won a top prize at HAFF this year so I checked him out on Vimeo & had him send me his latest work. Oh – in addition to JMAF I look at the Image Forum Festival line up every year – their curator Takashi Sawa finds amazing new works

I should also mention that our animation guest Yuichi Ito (here’s his profile) is a wonderful stop motion animator.  My kids loved his short short series Knyacki on the NHK when we lived in Tokyo.  His visit has been made possible through the Yokohama- Frankfurt sister city organisation. It’s not on the main animation program but he’s giving a stop motion workshop for kids on the Saturday”

Thanks go out to Dr Catherine Munroe Hotes. I highly recommend checking out her website Nishikataeiga for all sorts of fascinating posts on Japanese animation and live-action films as well as adventures in Japan and elsewhere. For more on the films at the festival head to each of the web pages I linked to so you can see videos of some of the works.

Nippon Retro

This section is all about Shinji Somai and he’s pretty important in Japanese cinema but pretty much unknown in the west. His style of very long takes and letting actors do their work (Regardless of genre) and his ability to capture the most acute emotions social drama allowing stories to develop naturally has had a massive influence on other directors (Including my favourite Kiyoshi Kurosawa).

I remember that the 2012 Edinburgh Film Festival had an incredible Shinji Somai retrospective (I wish I wrote about that one but didn’t focus on festivals back then). Here’s festival director Chris Fujiwara (just after he took over the festival) talking about Shinji Somai.

I’ll admit that I have only watched the drama Moving and idol action title Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (and they are very good) so instead of reading my rambling notes the best thing to do is to check each film’s webpage on the festival site and make a choice. Better yet, watch the above video and listen to Chris Fujiwara who recommends Typhoon Club, Moving, The Friends, PP Rider, and Love Hotel. I will say that certain films have actors it would be fascinating to watch earlier in their career like Kaza-Hana (Tadanobu Asano, Kyoko Koizumi), Dreamy Fifteen (Shingo Tsurumi). Other films in this retrospective include Stepchildren and The Catch.

There will be film introductions and a lecture “Shinji SOMAI and the Long Take” by Aaron Gerow (Professor of Film Studies and East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University).

What makes Nippon Connection impressive is that none of this stuff is happening in isolation like in other festivals, there are film screenings and connected to many of them are workshops and talks aimed at illuminating Japanese and cinema culture.

Nippon Kids

It’s great to see a section for children that will get them interested in film/Japanese culture and thinking about things outside of their normal lives. There’s all sorts of things like kamishibai, kendo, drawing and makeup sessions and voice acting workshops as well as a Japanese language course taught via manga and anime. There’s also The Tale of the Princess Kaguya.

Nippon Culture

There are talks and workshops galore in Nippon Culture with an animation workshop run by Yuichi Ito, the chap who made the animated film Harbor Tale. There’s the obligatory food and art sections and an aikido workshop for people interested in martial arts and Tadanobu Asano is going to be performing with his band Stereo Total. Want to try your hand at Benshi and give voice and sound to silent movies? That’s become popular recently and there’s a workshop for that. The film talks are many and cover the famous Sakura Ando and Tadanobu Asano and indie directors, festival programmers and film lecturers and reviewers.

You’ll be glad to read that this is the end of the post. I now know why I have avoided writing about this festival for so long! There’s so much on offer and I find it hard to edit myself!! Make no mistake, this is a line-up of films to die for but then I love Japanese films so I am biased. I hope you guys have fun watching some of these films!

Happy weekend, everyone! Here’s something to cheer you up:

The Cannes film festival is winding down now and I have begun collecting reviews of the Japanese films that screened for a post that acts as a follow up to the festival preview. The reviews for the Fukusaku, Koreeda, and Kurosawa films have been great. In between watching reading about Cannes I watched lots of television and films like Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa and Margin Call, the first four episodes of Cold War thriller The Game and the magical fantasy series Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I watched plenty of anime like Kekkai Sensen and Ore Monogatari!! As well as starting City Hunter and Record of Lodoss War.

Only one post this week and that’s the films at Nippon Connection 2015. The reason it’s the only post this week is so the festival gets as much coverage as possible and it is one that is worth keeping up so randoms drawn to the site can see what is an interesting programme of films and events.

There are a lot of films at the festival I would like to see but I don’t have the money. I checked hotel prices and made a sad face :(

I’ll be watching plenty of films at home instead. For Japanese people and people in Japan who want to go to a cinema, the films released this weekend are:

Before the Leaves Fall   

Japanese: ゆずり葉の頃

Romaji: Yuzuriha no Koro

Release Date: May 23^rd, 2015

Running Time: 102 mins.

Director: Mineko Okamoto

Writer: Mineko Okamoto (Screenplay),

Starring: Kaoru Yachigusa, Tatsuya Nakadai, Ittoku Kishibe, Toru Kazama, Keiko Takeshita, Naomasa Musaka, Kyusaka Shimada, Hirotaro Honda,

An elderly lady named Michiko (Yachigusa) visits the studio of an artist she is convinced she inspired to paint a famous portrait.

Website

Buzz    

Japanese: 騒音

Romaji: Souon

Release Date: May 23^rd, 2015

Running Time: 103 mins.

Director: Tsutomu Sekine

Writer: Norio Tatekawa (Screenplay),

Starring: Yoichi Nukumizu, Toshifumi Muramatsu, Kazuko Iio, Jonio Iwai, Toshiya Sakai, You, Mari Sekine, Udo Suzuki, Keiko Toda, Makita Sports,

A small town comes under attack by strange creatures called undergrounders. They exhale a poisonous gas that people find irresistible and their targets give up fighting. Then, 5 men appear who are immune to the poisonous gas exhaled by the undergrounders appear to save the town. These 5 men are under appreciated by their families and co-workers.

Website

Initiation Love    

Japanese: イニシエーション　ラブ

Romaji: Inishie-shon Rabu

Release Date: May 23^rd, 2015

Running Time: 110 mins.

Director: Yukihiko Tsutsumi

Writer: Mineko Okamoto (Screenplay), Kurumi Inui (Original Novel),

Starring: Shota Matsuda, Atsuko Maeada, Fumino Kimura, Takahiro Miura, Tomoya Maeno, Tsurutaro Kataoka, Satomi Tezuka,

This is a youth romance story based on a book which is pretty famous for a twist which is on the final page and makes readers re-read the entire novel to see things in a different light. The book has two main parts: “side A” set in Shizuoka when the characters played in the movie by Shota Matsuda and Atsuo Meada meet and strike up a romance. Then there is “side B,” which is set in Tokyo with chapters named after song titles which are representative of what happens in each of them.

Sounds intriguing but how will it play out on the big screen?

It’s directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi (2LDK) who can do tricksy narratives with shifts in perspective. It stars Shota Matsuda and Atsuko Maeda (Seventh Code).

It is some time in the late 1980’s in Shizuoka and the character we are following is a college student named Suzuki or Takkun to his friends (Matsuda) who is attempting to find a job. He goes on a blind date and meets Mayu (Maeda), a dental hygienist, and the two hit it off and begin dating. Takkun is forced to move after he gets a job in Tokyo and heads off to the capital leaving Mayu behind. Madness…. Their long distance relationship may collapse as another woman named Miyako (Kimura) enters the picture… Oh no, romance broken… but then something is said and the film becomes a mystery in the final five minutes as a twist is revealed!!!

Website

Yarukkya Knight    

Japanese: やるっきゃ騎士（ナイト）

Romaji: Yarukkya Kishi (Naito)

Release Date: May 23^rd, 2015

Running Time: 75 mins.

Director: Katsutoshi Hirabayashi

Writer: Lion Hitoshizuku, Katsutoshi Hirabayashi (Screenplay), Nonki Miyasu (Original Manga),

Starring: Tomoya Nakamura, Nina Endo, Reiya Masaki, Elisa Yanagi, Alexander Otsuka,

Well, we nearly got half way through the year before we got one of these perv films set in a school with a dumb male lead.

Gousuke (Nakamura) is a school boy with “erotic powers” who loves reading hentai but he gets the shock of his life when he transfers into a new school and meets Shizuka (Endo), the president of the government club who imposes strict rules on the male students against perverted behaviour and this includes a ban on erections. Gousuke decides he must take action, joins forces with a pervert teacher and uses his powers to see some flesh!

Website

Tensai Bakavon – Resurrection of the Dog of Flanders –   

Japanese: イニシエーション　ラブ

Romaji: Tensai Bakavon – Yomigaeru Flanders no Inu –

Release Date: May 23^rd, 2015

Running Time: 102 mins.

Director: Frogman

Writer: Frogman (Screenplay), Fujio Akatsuka (Original Manga), Ouida (a pseudonym for Marie-Louise de la Ramée) (Original Novel),

Starring: Frogman, Mitsuo Iwata, Inuko Inuyama,

Forget Cannes, the real movies start here! Tensai Bakavon – Resurrection of the Dog of Flanders – is the first feature length anime movie adapted from Fujio Akatsuka’s Tensai Bakabon gag manga series which started in 1967. He may have died in 2008 but his works have already been adapted four times as TV anime and Akatsuka got a biographical film in 2011. This film celebrate the 80th anniversary of his birth.

Have you read The Dog of Flanders, the classic book by British-French author Ouida (aka Marie-Louise de la Ramée). Well if you haven’t SPOILERS… but the book is about a poor orphan boy named Nello who lives in rural Belgium. He dreams of becoming a painter like his idol Reubens. He saves what little money he can scrape together and practices hard and… well, it ends badly… It is a big title in Japan and was adapted into an anime in 1975 thanks to the famous Nippon Animation’s World Masterpiece Theater which is where Studio Ghibli founders Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata got their start. Well this film is based on that book… Sort of. We start at the very last moment of the story as orphanboy Nello and his dog Patrash lay dying. Their bodies are lifted up by angels and if the original story is followed they should be going to Heaven but in this film they decide to take revenge on humanity! Nello and Patrasche now orchestrate a shadowy organization bent on destroying things, and only a dim-witted boy named Bakabon and his family and friends can stop them and save the world. Cue antics from Bakabon’s lunatic father as he gets into stupid situations to stop Nello and Patrash.

Website

New Initial D the Movie Legend 2: Tousou   

Japanese: 新劇場版 頭文字D Legend2 –闘走–

Romaji: Shin Gekijouban Initial D Legend 1 – Tousou   –

Release Date: May 23^rd, 2014

Running Time: 60 mins.

Chief Director: Masamitsu Hidaka, Director: Tomohito Naka

Writer: Mayori Sekijima (Screenplay), Shuuichi Shigeno (Original Manga)

Starring: Mamoru Miyano (Takuma Fujiwara), Yuichi Nakamura (Keisuke Takahashi), Daisuke Ono (Ryosuke Takahashi), Maaya Uchida (Natsuki Mogi), Hiroaki Shiraishi (Bunta Fujiwara), Minoru Shiraishi (Itsuki Takeuchi),

This is the second in a trilogy of films that retell the original Initial D story.

High school student Takumi Fujiwara works at a gas station during the day and as a delivery boy for his father’s tofu shop during the night. Thanks to his experience driving his father’s Toyota Sprinter AE86 Trueno, he develops precise driving skills and soon becomes the greatest amateur road racer on Mt. Akina’s highway and this makes him a rival to racing groups in the prefecture who want to take him on in races.

Website

Obakeashi Retsudan Senritsu Meikyuu MAX   

Japanese: お化け屋敷列伝　戦慄迷宮MAX

Romaji: Obakeashi Retsudan Senritsu Meikyuu MAX

Release Date: May 23^rd, 2014

Running Time: 71 mins.

Director: Yusuke Wakabayshi

Writer: Yusuke Wakabayshi (Screenplay),

Starring: Yusa Sugimoto, Ito Maki, Kana Fukuyama, KIKKUN-MK-II, Martin Brandt,

Fuji-Q’s Haunted House attraction – Super Scary Labyrinth of Fear is the setting for this film where some random couples must escape from the shock labyrinth and its scary denizens.

Website

Hide 50th Anniversary FILM 「JUNK STORY」   

Japanese: Hide 50th Anniversary FILM 「JUNK STORY」

Romaji: Hide 50th Anniversary FILM 「JUNK STORY」

Release Date: May 23^rd, 2014

Running Time: 125 mins.

Director: Dai Sato

Writer: N/A

Starring: Hide, Yoshiki & Pata from X Japan, J fom Luna Sea, I.N.A & joe from hide with Spead Beaver

Hide was the popular guitarist for the super group X Japan and yet he committee suicide (read this article for more). This documentary sees his bandmates, collaborators, and friends talk about him. 

Website

Dare mo shiranai Kenchiku no Hanashi   

Japanese: だれも知らない建築のはなし

Romaji: Dare mo shiranai Kenchiku no Hanashi

Release Date: May 23^rd, 2014

Running Time: 73 mins.

Director: Tomomi Ishiyama

Writer: N/A

Starring: Arata Isozaki, Tadao Ando, Toyo Ito, Rem Koolhaas, Charles Jencks, Peter Eisenman,

Tomomi Ishiyama’s latest documentary is about the future of architecture. She hopes to spark a conversation that changes the way Japanese society thinks about it hence the title Inside Architecture – A Challege to Japanese Society. It features buildings seen throughout Japan and questions why they were built etc. She interviews architects from around the world including many legends.  2014 Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition

Website

Senjōnu Yami (Ikusabanu to ~udo~umi)   

Japanese: 戦場ぬ止み（いくさばぬとぅどぅみ）

Romaji: Senjōnu Yami (Ikusabanu to ~udo~umi)

Release Date: May 23^rd, 2014

Running Time: 129 mins.

Director: Chie Mikami

Writer: N/A

Starring: N/A

Okinawa has a rich culture and beautiful landscape but there are many who are unhappy on the island. It’s all going down in Okinawa with the building of the new base for American forces. Japanese police nd coast guard have their hands full dealing with protestors from all over Okinawa who resent the presence of the US military. And yet there are many who live and work on base and get along with the Americans stationed there. Director Chie Mikami tries to show what’s going on in Okinawa by getting different opionions from a range of people from different generations.

Website

Here’s a music video from a girl group I used to listen to when I was still in school. Take it away, Morning Musume:

The Light Shines Only There  

Japanese: そこのみにて光輝く

Romaji: Soko nomi nite Hikari Kagayaku

Running Time: 120 mins.

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

Director: Mipo O

Writer: Ryo Takada (Screenplay), Yasushi Sato (Original Novel)

Starring: Gou Ayano, Chizuru Ikewaki, Masaki Suda, Kazuya Takahashi, Shohei Hino, Hiroko Isayama

Fresh from Japan is a wave of young female directors creating deeply interesting dramatic tales of tragedy driven by dark emotional undercurrents that are found in everyday life. The Light Shines Only There (Soko Nomi Nite Hikari Kagayaku) is Mipo Oh’s most recent contribution to this movement. I saw it at the 2014 Raindance Film Festival where the quality of the film blew me away through how well composed and how immersive the atmosphere and darkness of the film is.

The Light Shines Only There is technically flawless which allowed me to experience the story perfectly. Every scene is visually beautifully put together,  the august pacing of the film allows the audience to understand the story and characters and this reveals that the writing and acting is focussed and emotive, without fault and all telling a simple but powerful narrative. It does not feature crazy plot twists or outrageous characters, it is rooted in reality and remarkable in how it takes the audience into the world of the characters and lets us glimpse their suffering, despair, and see them discover a glimmer of hope in life.

The film takes place in Hakodate, Hokkaido, a port town where the sun shines brightly on people going about their daily lives as they prepare for a festival and fun.

Not taking part in any of the festivities is Sato (Ayano). When we first meet him we see he is sleeping off a night of heavy drinking and suffering a nightmare. The opening shot of the film pans up his almost naked body sprawled across the floor of his tiny, almost unfurnished apartment. He is unemployed. His days are spent wandering around the streets of the city and visiting pachinko parlours in a fog of melancholy. His nights are spent stumbling from bar to bar in a drunken stupor. We don’t know why he is in this state but fragments of a traumatic dream that keep recurring throughout the film hint at a bloody tragedy that has trapped him in a destructive routine which he uses to blunt his trauma.

One trip to a pachinko parlour sees him meet Takuji (Suda), a boyishly handsome, blonde-haired brazen kid who lolls about in loud clothes and packs a loud mouth. He wears his heart on his sleeve and is good-natured. His puppyish enthusiasm and simplicity sees him break through Sato’s grim exterior and the two start hanging out mostly because they have nothing better to do. Takuji takes Sato to his cramped, shabby home which lies on the edge of a beach, a desolate looking place with patches of sand and scrub grass, where shacks are dotted along the shore and some boats lie listlessly on the ground far from water, their paint peeling in the sun. The view across the bay is a factory spewing out smog. Takuji’s house is full of clutter and there is little in the way of privacy apart from a few plastic sheets. This is where Takuji’s worn-out mother struggles to cope with his father who is suffering the debilitating aftereffects of a stroke and a rampant libido. Also in the house is Takuji’s older sister Chinatsu (Ikewaki).

Chinatsu has just finished cooking rice when Sato and Takuji first enter. Upon her introduction we immediately see she is also worn out by their circumstances but as the boys start eating her freshly cooked meal she shares a glance with Sato who registers mutual attraction by glancing back and a slight energy flickers to life inside the two characters.

They hold off for now but a night getting drunk sees Sato run into Chinatsu at a bar where he discovers she picks up men as a prostitute. Sato makes an ass of himself and gets thrown out by Chinatsu.

Despite Sato’s unfamiliarity with the family he returns to visit them again and again. It is clear he is taken with her and she with him even after their argument at the bar. Those glances the two exchange, the way they hold each other’s gaze and the way they orbit each other even when they hurt each other burns not just with an animal attraction but shared darkness. We know that Sato is damaged from our first glance of him and his brooding air but so is Chinatsu who also has some deep existential self-hatred drawn from her circumstances, the extreme poverty and hopelessness she lives with, and the way she is used by men, especially her violent and jealous married lover Nakamura (Takahashi) who uses his business connection to set Chinatsu and Takuji up in various jobs to control her. Chinatsu’s situation with Nakamura is one she sums up as, “… a rotten relationship.”

If Sato is trapped by his past, Chinatsu is trapped by her present. It’s terribly complicated for both the two. They dream of being together and reveal their passions and what haunts them to each other in frequent meetings, walks on the beach and dalliances in the water. These actions defy an increasingly angry Nakamura and may have repercussion for Chinatsu and Takuji…

For all of the sunlight that shines on Hakkodate, these characters exist in a world of darkness both in terms of their spiritual and mental world and in terms of the lives blighted by poverty that we see on screen and the way people with money and power exploit them.

The darkness has its basis in the original novel that this film is based on. It was written by Yasushi Sato, the award-winning author of the novel (published in 1989) and a native of Hakodate, Hokkaido, the setting of the film. He struggled in life. He was a contemporary of the massively successful Haruki Murakami but he remained pretty much unknown and unsuccessful despite being nominated for the Akutagawa prize and Mishima prize multiple times.  His lack of success was compounded by physical problems brought on by autonomic ataxia, a neurological condition that causes all sorts of unwanted physical reactions. He committed suicide at the age 41 in 1990. His works fell out of public consciousness until quite recently. I may be reading too much about the author’s situation but I think his experiences and frustrations have clearly informed the writing of the character’s feelings, their despair, frustrations, and hopelessness and the feeling of being trapped that saturates the film and it is amplified by the director’s skill in exploring the issues affecting the characters and making the emotions almost palpable without getting sidetracked by frivolity or commercial demands.

Mipo Oh’s direction is show-not-tell direction at its finest, her visuals and editing relaying the inertia and emotional problems of the characters, building up and showing the suffering of Sato and Chinatsu and moving at a slow and sticky pace so we feel their struggle out of their bleak physical surroundings and emotional pit of despair in a grimy part of Japanese society that isn’t normally seen on screen.

There is none of the colourful and pretty Japan hype we normally see in tourist literature and anime, none of the cherry blossoms (wrong season), or the geisha (this isn’t Kyoto, this is an industrial town), and no school girls (this is a drama about adults) and certainly none of the weird and wacky characters some expect to see. The film’s locations and setting are every day and relatable with a dive into poverty and despair as seen through the eyes of adults who are lost. Despite the sunlight, stark and harsh for the most part, the colour palette of the film feels like a drab one with the murky browns and greys of the dull areas of the city being predominant in the films visuals. This ensures the film has the muggy atmosphere of a summer choking the characters who loll around in a sticky haze both mental and physical. Their emotional journey feels at one with their physical surroundings.

The pacing is slow as befits a drama about people pushing through a personal emotional morass to find some hope. The script ensures we get involved in an intense present-tense narrative that is enriched by flashbacks to help contextualise why characters act the way they do, helping build nuanced interpretations of them. Throughout the film Mipo Oh’s use of editing skilfully intercuts parallel scenes of self-destruction so we see Sato drinking himself into oblivion and Chinatsu sinking further into self-hatred by selling her body to men in loveless encounters in miserable love hotels and by giving equal screen time to these two characters in parallel spirals of despair we understand that they are both lost and they find salvation in each other and this journey is made even more effective by the acting.

Gou Ayano offers up a picture of confusion and gloom, his lithe frame juddering around uncertainly in a stubborn search for oblivion. He believably portrays  a character who finds it hard to communicate his inner turmoil. His halting speech and mood swings speak of pent up emotions giving substance rather than seeming theatrical and the air of despondency that hangs around him gradually builds up into terse and confused confessions as he opens up to his new friends and unlikely saviours Takuji and Chinatsu.

Ikewaki plays Chinatsu as a woman with a tough exterior who takes on the responsibility of her family and refuses to let anyone see what despair she truly feels. She is emotionally opaque in an intriguing way, at once strong despite being a woman continually dragged down by her rotten situation. She refuses to break but she questions what is she living for. With Sato, she finds an answer and she slowly gives in to hope whilst dealing with her violent lover.

Her body, along with Ayano’s, is often central to the scene and they inform us of their character’s developments perfectly through their physicality which is constricted and full of awkward moments, their speech which is a series of terse snatches of dialogue and silences that obscures what they feel and this all reveals the stifled emotions. All of this containment makes us focus on their performances, invites us to peer into their murky characters and so we gain more as they gradually open up to each other the more time they spend together and we see how they find freedom in a loving and mending relationship.

The most notable performance however comes in the shape of Takuji who is played by Masaki Suda as a cheeky kid who has the speech of a ruffian (being able to speak Japanese is a big help in getting just how rough he is) and especially with his grin and energy which radiate a good if unstable nature.

Suda is a revelation. His physicality is the most open of the actors. He slouches about when uncertain and when he finds himself comfortable he flings himself around. There is something charming about the immature guy, the way he rides his small bicycle like a young boy. He forms the lynchpin between Ayano and Ikewaki’s performances, keeping things from getting too grim and also acting as a conduit for the two to feed into one another.

You can feel a bond developing as you watch all three actors and this makes the film compelling as we see if they can escape their poverty together and misery.

The first work of Mipo Oh’s that I saw was a short film that was part of the Quirky Guys and Gals (2010) collection, a slight comedy. With The Light Only There she has created a bleak film that radiates with hope at the very end (the ending is so perfect that I want to put it at the end of this review underneath more pictures so spoiler warning for the things that come after this final paragraph). The events of the story may be easy to predict but the direction and acting make the journey profoundly moving. Cinema can be more than just simple entertainment and this challenging title shows how people can physically, emotionally, and mentally cope with and overcome their struggles and imbibe some hope from the simplest of thing. Mipo Oh is skilful enough to do this. She takes a novel laced with misery and reveals the tenacity of the human spirit through suffering and in its final few moments manages to imbue it with hope.

5/5

The film’s climax comes after a lot of drama and after a lot of realism, it is a moment of simple poetic beauty which strikes the heart hard. The central couple are on the beach and the sun rises in the mountains behind Sato. Chinatsu slowly turns to look at him, her battered face registers a smile, Sato, smiles back at her. Amidst all of the tragedy and missed opportunities they have found each other. The only sound we hear as they look at each other is that of the waves lapping up on the shore. On screen text emerges. The Light Shines Only There – the first time we see the title. Brilliant.

Happy weekend!

I started this week with the rather disappointing horror movie It Follows (2014). It was disappointing because it was overhyped and it didn’t live up to expectations despite some chilling moments (watch adaptations of M.R. James ghost stories for scary supernatural chase narratives). I watched a few Japanese films this week – the awful White Panic (2005) and Gusha no Bindu Me (Hellevator: The Bottled Fools) (2004), and I watched the awesome As the Gods Will (2014) directed by Takashi Miike and the super Spirited Away (2001). Like most of the internet I watched Kung Fury as well.

I reviewed The Light Shines Only There (2014) and that’s it.

What was released this week?

Sore Dake That’s It   

Japanese: そだけ that’s it

Romaji: Soredake that’s it

Release Date: May 27^th, 2015

Running Time: 110 mins.

Director: Gakuryu Ishii

Writer: Kiyotaka Inagaki (Screenplay),

Starring: Shota Sometani, Erina Mizuno, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Jun Murakami, Gou Ayano,

The title of the film “Soredake” was inspired by the 1999 song “Soredake” by Japanese rock band Bloodthirsty Butchers. The band’s music is also feature in the film. The film’s release date is also set for May 27, 2015, which falls on the same day Bloodthirsty Butchers’ lead singer Hideki Yoshimura died (May 27th, 2013).

Samao Daikoku’s (Sometani) is trapped in an underground life thanks to the fact that the gangster Daikichi Ebisu (Shibukawa) has stolen his family register. Samao breaks into Daikichi’s coin locker to steal gold but finds more. He finds a hard disk containing personal information on runaways, homeless people, bankrupt people, and prostitutes and steals it, joining forces with a prostitute named Ami Nanmu (Mizuno) to take on Daikichi and his gang boss, Kan Senju (Ayano).

Website

Sweet Red Bean Paste   

Japanese: あん

Romaji: An

Release Date: May 30^th, 2015

Running Time: 113 mins.

Director: Naomi Kawase,

Writer: Naomi Kawase (Screenplay), Tetsuya Akikawa (Original Novel),

Starring:  Masatoshi Nagase, Kirin Kiki, Kyara Uchida, Etsuko Ichihara, Miki Mizuno, Taiga, Wakato Kanematsu, Miyoko Asada.

Naomi Kawase was at this year’s Cannes film festival making this her sixth appearance at the prestigious event but this film has not earned many complementary reviews.

After getting released from prison Sentarou (Nagase) worked hard to become the manager of a dorayaki bakery store. An older woman, Tokue (Kiki), is hired to work at the store, making the sweet red bean paste that fills the dorayaki. Her sweet red beans become popular and the store flourishes, but a rumour spreads that Tokue once had leprosy.

Website

Smiles in the Mirror    

Japanese: 鏡の中の笑顔たち

Romaji: Kagami no Naka no Egaotachi

Release Date: May 30^th, 2015

Running Time: 102 mins.

Director: Ichiro Kita

Writer: Ichiro Kita, Chihiro Seko (Screenplay),

Starring:  Shunya Shiraishi, Natsuna Watanabe, Akiyoshi Nakao, Yuki Matsushita, Mickey Curtis, Chieko Matsubara,

Ryo (Shiraishi) is a popular hairdresser at a successful beauty salon in Tokyo but he loses his job when he turns down a date with a major client. As if things couldn’t get even even more disastrous a fire breaks out at his apartment. Ryo needs a break fom his bad fortune and so he decides to go back to his hometown and work there where he helps out at a hospital. He cuts a girl’s hair and the girl smiles and this smile changes Ryo’s life.

Website

Shinjuku Swan    

Japanese: 新宿スワン

Romaji: Shinuku Suwan

Release Date: May 30^th, 2015

Running Time: 139 mins.

Director: Sion Sono

Writer: Rikiya Mizushima, Osamu Suzuki (Screenplay), Ken Wakui (Original Manga),

Starring:  Gou Ayano, Erika Sawajiri, Takayuki Yamada, Yusuke Iseya, Jun Murakami, Ken Yasuda, Erina Mano, Motoki Fukami Yuki Sakurai, Nobuaki Kaneko,

With Shinjuku Swan Sion Sono (Himizu), launches the first of two feature film salvos with Tokyo Family getting released later this year. Before that we get Shinjuku Swan with Gou Ayano (The Light Shines Only There), Takayuki Yamada (13 Assassins), and Yusuke Iseya (Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno) heading up an impressive cast.

Tatsuhiko Shiratori (Ayano) is dead broke but his luck changes when he meets a scout named Matora (Iseya) who recruits girls on the streets of Shinjuku to work in the adult entertainment business. This turns out to be the start of a lucrative friendship but is the world of adult entertainment good clean fun? No, obviously.

Website

The Cockpit    

Japanese: ザ　コクピット　－リアルに生きてる

Romaji: Za Kokupitto – Riaru ni Ikiteru

Release Date: May 30^th, 2015

Running Time: 64 mins.

Director: Sho Miyake

Writer: N/A

Starring/Hustling: OMSB from SIMILAB, BIM from The Otogibanashi, Hl’Spec from SIMILAB, VaVa from CDS, Heiyuu from CDS,

Cockpit is the name given to a small apartment located in the outskirts of Tokyo where audiences who purchase tickets for this documentary will see creative the process behind the recording of a Hip Hop song, from the creation of the beat to the writing of the lyrics. Director Sho Miyake gives us an insight into the lives of the artists who make the music. Interestingly enough, Sho Miyake comes from a feature film background and is famous for fiction. His second feature was the award-winning Playback (2012).

Website

Good Stripes    

Japanese: グッド　ストライプス

Romaji: Guddo Sutoraipusu

Release Date: May 30^th, 2015

Running Time: 119 mins.

Director: Yukiko Sode

Writer: Yukiko Sode (Screenplay)

Starring: Akiko Kikuchi, Ayumu Nakajima, Asamu Usuda, Itsuki Sagara, Yu Nakamura, Yuko Yamamoto

Midori Mantani (Kikuchi) and Masao Minamisawa (Nakajima) have been dating for years, but their relationship seems stale to the point that they think about breaking up. They change their minds when Midori becomes pregnant! They decide to marry.

They now choose this as the time to truly get to know each other and explore their backgrounds. Masao comes from a wealthy family of artists and doctors who lived in Tokyo and Midori grew up with parents who ran an iron factory in a provincial city that didn’t offer much in terms of culture.

The more they get to know each other the better their relationship gets.

Website

Dalai Lama XIV    

Japanese: ダライ　ラマ14世

Romaji: Darai Rama 14 Se

Release Date: May 30^th, 2015

Running Time: 116 mins.

Director: Fujiro Mitsuishi

Writer: N/A

Starring/Hustling: 14^th Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is the subject of a documentary and it looks like it’s about his, and the Tibetan Government in Exile’s, place in the World, their traditions and customs and how they teach Tibetan Buddhism with a particular focus on a trip to Japan. Director Fujiro Mitsuishi made the interesting sounding Osaka Hamlet (2009). 

Website

Wedded Pair Diary / Till Death Do Us What?   

Japanese: 夫婦フーフー日記

Romaji: Fufu Fufu Nikki

Release Date: May 30^th, 2015

Running Time: 95 mins.

Director: Koji Maeda

Writer: Tamio Hayahsi, Koji Maeda (Screenplay)

Starring: Kuranosuke Sasaki, Hiromi Nagasaku, Hitomi Sato, Shuhei Takahashi,

Kota (Sasaki) is an aspiring writer but so wishy-washy he has yet to publish his first book despite a more than a decade of trying. His wife Yoko (Nagasaku) is a more free-spirited and outspoken person and pushes Kota (and criticises him when he needs it) to achieve his dreams regardless of the rejections he gets.

Their marriage produces a boy but soon after that happy event they find out that she has terminal colon cancer. They spend the little time they have together making happy memories and then she dies. Kota begins a blog which tells people about their life together and a publisher gets interested but success is not guaranteed and Kota may lose his will to continue but then Yoko’s ghost appears to Kota and she’s determined to push him even if it means doing so from beyond the grave.

Website

A Sower of Seeds 2   

Japanese: 種まく旅人　くにうみの郷

Romaji: Tanemaku Tabibito: Kuni Umi no Sato

Release Date: May 30^th, 2015

Running Time: 111 mins.

Director: Tetsuo Shinohara

Writer: Yukiko Yamamuro, Itaru Era (Screenplay)

Starring: Chiaki Kuriyama, Kenta Kiritani, Takahiro Miura, Toshiyuki Nagashima, Toshie Negishi, Mitsuki Tanimura,

The main character of the film is Keiko Kanno (Kuriyama) and she works for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. She is visiting Hyogo Prefecture’s Awaji Island as part of her job, surveying the land and meeting the people. She comes into contact with a farmer named Takeshi Toyoshima, who’s struggling to keep the farm going in the wake of his father’s death, and his fisherman brother Wataru who are in conflict. As the inhabitants of the island gear up for a “Kaibori” (pond-draining) event, all three change.

Website

Shinrei Shashin-bu Gekijouban   

Japanese: 心霊写真部　劇場版

Romaji: Shinrei Shashin-bu Gekijouban

Release Date: May 30^th, 2015

Running Time: 101 mins.

Director: Jiro Nagae

Writer: Osamu Fukutani (Screenplay)

Starring: Makoto Okunaka, Rei Toda, Yosuke Itou, Yuuka Ueno, Mio Kudou,

Former PASSPO☆ member Makoto Okunaka takes the lead role in the Psychic Photo Cub movie which is about a group of students who research psychic photos and the truth behind them. Predictably, bad stuff happens when dealing with the occult and supernatural and the shadow of a killer hovers over the gang…This doesn’t look too bad.

 Website

Durarara!!x2 Shou Episode 4.5 My Heart Shows Signs of Nabe   

Japanese: デュラララ!!×２ 承　第4.5話「私の心は鍋模様」

Romaji: Durarara!!x2 Shou 4.5 Watashi no Kokoro wa Nabe Moyou

Release Date: May 30^th, 2015

Running Time: 45 mins.

Director: Takahiro Omori

Writer: Noboru Takagi (Screenplay), Ryohgo Narita (Original Creator),

Starring: Daisuke Ono (Shizuo Heiwajima), Jun Fukuyama (Shinra Kishitani), Toshiyuki Toyonaga (Mikado Ryuugamine), Kana Hanazawa (Anri Sonohara), Hiroshi Kamiya (Izaya Orihara), Miyuki Sawashiro (Celty Sturluson),

The latest series of Durarara!! gets a special OVA that is based on a short story Watashi no Kokoro wa Nabe Moyou which translates as My Heart Shows Signs of Nabe. This story was published as part of the spin-off light novel Durarara!! Gaiden?! which was released to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Ryohgo Narita’s novel series.

 Website

Haiyore! Nyaruko-san F   

Japanese: 這いよれ！ニャル子さんF

Romaji: Haiyore! Nyaruko-san F

Release Date: May 30^th, 2015

Running Time: 61 mins.

Director: Tsuyoshi Nagasawa

Writer: Noboru Kimura (Screenplay), Manta Aisora (Original Creator),

Starring: Kana Asumi (Nyaruko), Eri Kitamura (Mahiro Yasaka), Aya Hisakawa (Yoriko Yasaka), Rie Kugimiya (Hasuta), Miyu Matsuki (Ku-On),

After two seasons of the TV anime we get this OVA ad it seems that Mahiro has become accustomed to his guardian and potential love of all time Nyaruko. Together with Kuko, and Hasuta they continue to face weird and monstrous creatures and situations from across the black gulfs of space. Will Nyaruko finally make Mahiro hers?

Website

Random music video:

The Edinburgh International Film Festival takes place from June 17^th to the 28^th and yesterday it launched its programme revealing the films that will be playing over the course of the event. While there is no anime on the bill there are a number of interesting live-action titles which will be screened.

I started covering the festival in 2013 (Edinburgh 2013) and continued in 2014 (Edinburgh 2014) but I’ll be honest and say that I think that the festival will not have as good a Japanese line-up as it did in 2012 when Chris Fujiwara took over as artistic director and programmed the Shinji Somai retrospective. I didn’t begin covering the festival until 2013 and now Chris Fujiwara has stepped down so I don’t expect a major injection of Japanese films on that scale again for quite a while. What has been selected is an interesting mix of dramas with 100 Yen Love being the most attractive and Parasyte the first part of a big-budget sci-fi action double-bill. Why not programme the second one as well because fans will be left hanging on the cliff-hanger? I think it may have something to do with the UK distributor Animatsu acquiring the first film and giving it as much fanfare as possible. The second film may not be theirs yet but we do know that they will release the anime. That’s a minor complaint, though because there are still interesting titles to be found.

Tickets and more information on the films are available by clicking on the links:

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,

Website

This film was shown at the Tokyo International Film Festival last year to some great reviews with the lead actor Sakura Ando proving she is one of Japan’s finest acting talents as shown in the way she stole Love Exposure from the rest of the cast with her performance as a demented cult leader. She proves to be the star attraction in this movie with a performance that won lots of praise. She is supported by talented co-stars such as Hirofumi Arai who gave a powerful performance in the drama The Ravine of Goodbye.

Ichiko (Sakura 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. Ichiko and her sister’s relationship is pretty rocky and the two fight which makes Ichiko move out and find a place of her own. She takes up a job in a 100 Yen shop but is still pretty miserable with her new life and stuck with unpleasant people for co-workers but while working at her store she keeps encountering a middle-aged boxer (Hirofumi 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.

Makeup Room   

Japanese: メイクルム

Romaji: Meikurumu

Release Date: May 09^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 86 mins.

Director: Kei Morikawa

Writer: Kei Morikawa (Screenplay),

Starring: Aki Morita, Beni Itoh, Riri Kuribayashi, Nanami Kawakami, Mariko Sumiyoshi,

Website

This indie title was the big winner of Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival’s Grand Prix earlier this year and has been picked up by Third Window Films for UK distribution. It’s a low-budget comedy that looks like a similar deal to Be My Baby in the sense that it’s effectively stuck with a limited set and lots of actors talking. Said actors are real life AV performers.

Director Kei Morikawa draws from his experiences as a former adult-video director for this comedy which stars some AV actresses. The comedy revolves around a porn shoot and the antics that happen in the make-up room. Make-up artist (Morita Aki) does her best to keep things running and her actors looking good as cast, staff, and agents invade the room.

Parasyte Part 1      

Japanese: 寄生獣 Part 1

Romaji: Kiseiju Part 1

Release Date: November 28^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, Kmiko Yo, Masahiro Higashide,

Website

This is the first of two movie adaptations of Hitoshi Iwaaki’s sci-fi horror manga, Parasyte (Kiseiju), which was originally serialised in Kodansha’s Afternoon magazine from 1990-1995. It is part of a multimedia adaptation that includes a TV anime that was a brilliant and gripping watch fro the first to the last episode but I hear the movies don’t quite measure up. The cast is lead by Shota Sometani, who gave an amazing performance in the Sion Sono film Himizu (2011).

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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 the invaded bodies! Shinichi Izumi (Sometani) was an ordinary high school student until he was attacked by a parasite and managed to fight it off. For the most part. The parasite still exists and lives in Shinichi’s right hand. Shinichi learns to co-exist with the parasite and because of this he discovers the presence of the other parasites around the world. This makes him a threat to the aliens and so they begin to monitor him by sending another parasite to inhabit the body of his teacher Ryoko Tamiya (Fukatsu). With only his best friend Satomi Murano (Hashimoto) to rely on, what can Izumi do?

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,

Website

Nobuhiro Yamashita is the master of mixing melancholy and hilarity, his offbeat films ostensibly belong in one easy to describe genre like rom-coms but they end up flirting with misery and despair as demonstrated by The Drudgery Train (2012) which features a pretty unlikely hero. This one looks like another great title with Fumi Nikaido (Himizu, Watashi no Otoko) and idol guy Subaru Shibutani (he is a part of the boy band Kanjani Eight) forming an unconventional relationship based on rock music and amnesia.

In this oddball romantic-comedy a man named Shigeo (Subaru Shibutani) is released from prison and set upon by some pretty nasty characters. Following the attack he loses his memory. What he doesn’t lose is his singing voice which he displays when he rushes the stage at an outdoor concert held by a band and takes the mic. The band’s manager Kasumi (Fumi Nikaido) is blown away by his voice and decides to take him in and let him lead her band, letting him live with her and her grandfather and work in the studio her parents used to run. The young man soon becomes the singer for the band and makes a new life for himself, but when his memories start to return, he isn’t happy…

Our Family   

Japanese Title:  ぼくたちの家族

Romaji: Bokutachi no Kazoku

Running Time: 117 mins

Release Date: May 24^th, 2014 (Japan)

Director: Yuya Ishii

Writer: Kazumasa Hayami (Original Novel), Yuya Ishii (Screenplay)

Starring: Satoshi Tsumabuki, Mieko Harada, Sosuke Ikematsu, Kyozo Nagatsuka, Mei Kurokawa, Yusuke Santamaria, Shingo Tsurumi, Mikako Ichikawa

Website

Yuya Ishii has rocketed from his indie roots (Sawako Decides, Mitsuko Delivers) to mainstream success and respectability following his success with The Great Passage which swept more than a few trophies at last year’s Japanese academy awards. His latest project is based on a semi-autobiographical book and deals with everything from disease to a stagnant economy and is very serious. It has a great line-up of actors including Satoshi Tsumabuki (Judge!, The World of Kanako, For Love’s Sake) and Sosuke Ikematsu (How Selfish I Am!).

Reiko (Harada) hasn’t been feeling good lately. She is getting forgetful and it looks like she may have Alzheimer’s… It’s worse. Cancer. Her family, split apart due to disputes unite around her. Husband Katsuaki (Nagatsuka), first son Kousuke (Tsumabuki), and second Son Shunpei (Ikematsu) rally around her when she finally starts to speak her mind and tells of her desire for everyone to get together again.

Kyoto Elegy

Japanese Title:  マンガ肉と僕

Romaji: Manga Niku to Boku

Running Time: 94 mins

Release Date: May 24^th, 2014 (Japan)

Director: Kiki Sugino

Writer: Shiki Asaka (Original Short Story), Kotaro Wajima (Screenplay)

Starring: Takahiro Miura, Kiki Sugino, Eri Tokunaga, Chisun, Shima Ohnishi, Taiga,

Kiki Sugino’s Website

No trailer for this interesting title from Korean-Japanese Kiki Sugino but it has played at the 2014 Tokyo International Film Festival. Sugino has quietly been carving out an interesting career as a producer/actor with films like Au revoir l’ete on her resume. This is her directorial debut and it’s a film about outsiders and bullying.

A selfish university student named Watabe (Takahiro Miura) finds his life complicated by a trio of women including an overweight student named Satomi (Kiki Sugino) who is being bullied by other female students. She follows hm around all day which isn’t an annoyance until Watabe meets a girl named Nako (Tokunaga)…

And that’s it for this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival.

The Annecy International Animation Film Festival takes place later this month (from June 15^th to the 20^th) with a number of anime movies playing at the festival, many of which I have already written about because of the quality of titles. Here’s what will be playing:

Features

There are quite a few features showing in the festival, some of them the biggest and most interesting anime movies that will be released this year. Top of the bill are The Case of Hana & Alice (Hana to Alice Satsujin Jiken), and Miss Hokusai (Sarusuberi -Miss HOKUSAI–) both selected for the Official Feature Film Competition.

The Case of Hana & Alice     

Japanese Title: 花とアリス 殺人事件

Romaji: Hana to Alice: Satsujin Jiken

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),

Website

Have you watched the live-action Hana and Alice (2004) directed by Shunji Iwai? It’s brilliant. Imagine people’s surprise when he came back to that story and made a prequel telling how the titular Hana and Alice, two girls with an intense friendship at the centre of the story, became friends. 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. Here is my preview for the film.

Miss Hokusai    

Japanese Title: 百日紅 ～Miss HOKUSAI～

Romaji: Sarusuberi ～Miss HOKUSAI～

Director: Keiichi Hara

Writer: Miho Maruo (Screenplay), Hinako Sugiura (Original Creator),

Starring: Anne Watanabe (O-Ei), Yutaka Matsushige (Tetsuzo/Katsushika Hokusai), Shion Shimizu (O-Nao), Kumiko Aso (Sayogoromo), Kengo Kora (Utagawa Kuninao),  Gaku Hamada (Zenjiro/Keisai Eisen), Jun Miho (Koto), Michitaka Tsutsui (Katsugoro/Totoya Hokkei), Danshun Tatekawa (Manjido),  

Website

This is based on Hinako Sugiura’s manga Sarusuberi which ran from 1983 to 87). The story is a carefully researched historical tale about the daughter of the legendary Japanese artist Hokusai O-Ei. She is a woman who is talented in her own right and assists her father in his work (and may have painted or at least collaborated with him on his later works) but goes uncredited. I have only seen one of director Keiichi Hara’s films and that was Colorful but based on that one film (which made me cry) I feel confident in saying that he is a good director interested in and capable of bringing intense and profound emotions from little stories. He is very humanistic. His approach will be an interesting one for bringing to life Japan’s most famous artist of the 19^th Century and his criminally overlooked daughter. Here’s an interesting interview from the Japan Times. I posted two previews for this film (here’s the link to the last one).

The latest film from Mamoru Hosoda, The Boy and the Beast will be featured in the Work in Progress section which will involve the film’s producer Seiji Okuda giving a talk on the film. I am unclear about how much will be shown but Hosoda has shown his films at Annecy before starting with The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2007) and Summer Wars (2010).

The Boy and the Beast  

Japanese Title: バケモノの子

Romaji: Bakemono no Ko

Director: Mamoru Hosoda

Writer: Mamoru Hosoda (Screenplay),

Starring: Koji Yakusho (Kumatetsu), Shota Sometani (Kyuuta – Teen), Aoi Miyazaki (Kyuuta – Young), Haru Kuroki (Ichirohiko – Young), Yo Oizumi (Tatara), Lily Franky (Monk Momoaki), Mamoru Miyano (Ichirohiko – Old),

Website

In my preview for this film I highlighted many aspects of the production that were impressive, not least the voice actors for the boy Aoi Miyazaki (Eureka) and Shota Sometani (Himizu) who both worked with Hosoda in The Wolf Children. They are acting alongside Koji Yakusho, (13 Assassins, Licence to Live) who is voicing the beast.

A lonely boy in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward finds that there is another world, the bakemono realm (“Juutengai”). Typically, the human world and Juutengai do not meet but the boy gets lost in the bakemono world and becomes the disciple of a lonely bakemono named Kumatetsu (Yakusho) who takes the boy under his wing and renames him Kyuuta (Miyazaki/Sometani).

The new Ghost in the Shell: The Movie, is the latest part of the Ghost in the Shell Arise reboot which has seen the franchise adapted by character designer and chief director Kazuchika Kise. Although many were sceptical about the Ghost in the Shell having enough life left in it for the arise reboot, it seems that this new series has won a lot of fans. Here’s the info:

Ghost in the Shell: New Movie  

Japanese Title: 攻殻機動隊 新劇場版

Romaji: Kōkaku Kidōtai Shin Gekijō-ban

Release Date: June 20^th, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 100 mins.

Chief Director: Kazuchika Kise, Director: Kazuya Nomura

Writer: Tow Ubukata (Screenplay),

Starring: Maaya Sakamoto (Motoko Kusanagi), Kenichirou Matsuda (Batou), Ikkyuu Juku (Daisuke Aramaki), Tarusuke Shingaki (Togusa),

The first trailer features a potted history of the GitS franchise with new footage at the end.

Story:

March 2029, the first minister gets assassinated and Motoko Kusanagi’s former manager is one of the collateral victims. After assembling a team with Batō,Togusa and others, Kusanagi starts an investigation.

The second trailer features the new film. Fans should be at ease because it looks like the franchise is in safe hands with Production I.G bringing this to life under the direction of Kazuchika Kise, the guy behind the Arise reboot plus a Production I.G vet with work on all of the Ghost in the Shell movies and other titles like City Hunter, Goku II: Midnight Eye, Giovanni’s Island and Patlabor. The director is another interesting chap. Kazuya Nomura has directed episodes of incredible anime like Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Dennou Coil and was involved in Ghost Hound and Mind Game. The script comes from Tow Ubukata who has written good cyberpunk titles like Mardock Scramble.

All the voice actors are returning to their roles and the visuals on the reboot look great.

The Out of Competition section features Stand by Me Doraemon, the latest in the massive franchise that spans decades and at least 35 titles with another due this year. Here are the details:

Stand By Me Doraemon   

Japanese Title: STAND BY ME ドラえもん

Romaji: Stand By Me Doraemon

Director: Ryuichi Yagi, Takashi Yamazaki

Writer: Takashi Yamazaki (Screenplay)

Starring: Megumi Oohara (Nobita), Wasabi Mizuta (Doraemon), Yumi Kakazu (Shizuka), Tomokazu Seki (Suneo), Subaru Kimura (Gian),

Website

The film is directed by Takashi Yamazaki (Space Battleship Yamato) and Ryuichi Yagi.

A clumsy boy named Nobita lived Tokyo with a cat robot named Doraemon who come from the future. The cat is an amazing creation with all sorts of secret gadgets and the ability to travel through time which explains how he got back to the past. Why has the cat travelled back in time? Nobita’s descendant, Sewashi claims that his family is suffering from the debts Nobita made and so in order to change this disastrous future, he sent Doraemon back to act as Nobita’s caretaker to bring happiness to his future. Can he do it?

Shorts

Japan has a strong showing in the short animation section with some weird titles like Yusuke Sakamoto’s The Night of the Naporitan (6 mins.), a tragic story about “Spaghetti who never learned to love others.” Also competing in the short films category and is experienced animator Mirai Mizue who has teamed up with Yukie Nakauchi to make Shugo Tokumaru Poker (3 mins), a music video about a baby bird which flies around the world to transform.

There are three Japanese student films at this year’s Graduation Films category. They are Sayaka Kihata’s I Can’t Breathe (6 mins) a ghoulish-sounding tale about a boy who drowns his friend done in the interesting technique of powder animation, Sawako Kabuki’s Master Blaster (04 mins), the story of a girl who would like to hide in her sweeetheart’s anus (I’m not making this up) and sounds similar to another animation short named Anal Juice (I’m not making it up, honest) which was at last year’s Vancouver International Film Festival, and Shishi Yamazaki’s Tsukiyo & Opal (3 mins) about a person on the edge of sleep who becomes one with the universe.

The Lost Breakfast (6 mins) a short about a man who has turned his morning wash into a ceremony and that is by Q-RAIS and is screened out of competition.

Television

There’s no TV anime per se but audience members will get a dose of Masaaki Yuasa when they watch his “Food Chain” episode of Adventure Time which is in the TV Films category and Making Of category. Masaaki Yuasa needs no introduction but if you really don’t know who he is, he is famous for Ping Pong The Animation, Space Dandy, and The Tatami Galaxy and Mind Game, four of the best anime to be screened on TV in recent years. I saw a clip from Food Chain and it was okay (I’ve never watched Adventure Time, to be honest). Yuasa and Eunyoung Choi, his protégé and frequent collaborator (see their work together on Space Dandy), are listed as guest speakers.

And that’s it for the Japanese part of the festival (unless I missed something). Looks like a good line-up!

Source Source

Happy weekend!

I only watched three films this week the first, Breakmode (2014), a Japanese-Korean film about a salaryman chasing after a stolen car in Korea with the aid of his high-kicking Korean colleague. The second was Drugstore Girl (2003), a silly comedy written by Kankuro Kudo about old men drawn into the dog-eat-dog world of lacrosse because they are lusting over a female player. The third film I watched was Caravaggio (1986), a film about the great artist which features performances from a young Tilda Swinton and Sean Bean. In terms of anime, Ore Monogatari!! (oh, the emotions on the latest episode) and the entire series of The Record of Lodoss War, a nice anime with great character designs and a simple story. I also started Baccanno!!, a series I haven’t seen since university.

Anyway, there were two posts this week, the first about the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the second about the Annecy International Animation Festival.

What’s released in cinemas this week?

Mother’s Tree   

Japanese: おかあさんの木

Romaji: Okaasan no Ki

Release Date: June 06^th, 2015

Running Time: 114 mins.

Director: Itsumichi Isomura

Writer: Itsumichi Isomura (Screenplay), Etsuo Okawa (Original Novel),

Starring:  Kyoka Suzuki, Mirai Shida, Takahiro Miura, Takehiro Hira, Ren Osugi, Yoneko Matsukane, Jun Nishiyama,

Mitsu Tamura (Suzuki) has seven sons and they are called up to fight in the war. For every son sent to battle she has planted a paulownia tree. With the death of each son she talks to the tree.

Website

Pieta in the Toilet   

Japanese: トイレノピエタ

Romaji: Toire no Pieta

Release Date: June 06^th, 2015

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Daichi Matsunaga

Writer: Daichi Matsunaga (Screenplay), Osamu Tezuka (Part of an Original Manga that inspired script),

Starring:  Yojiro Noda, Hana Sugisaki, Lily Franky, Saya Ichikawa, Shinobu Otake, Rie Miyazawa,

Hiroshi (Noda) once had ambitions of being a painter but has given up and now works cleaning office windows.That’s not the worst thing that has happened to him because he has found out that he has three months left to live. It is during these final months that he falls for a high school student named Mai (Sugisaki)…

Website

Prophecy   

Japanese: 予告煩

Romaji: Yokokuhan

Release Date: June 06^th, 2015

Running Time: 119 mins.

Director: Yoshihiro Nakamura

Writer: Daichi Matsunaga (Screenplay), Tetsuya Tsutsui (Original Manga),

Starring:  Toma Ikuta, Erika Toda,YosiYosi Arakawa, Gaku Hamada,

Yoshihiro Nakamura is a good director. Ignore See You Tomorrow, Everyone (2013) which has scripting issues that make the protagonist a wretch, in my opinion, and watch the scathing social media satire The Snow White Murder Case (2014) and the late devestating-twist The Foreign Duck, The Native Duck & the God in the Coin Locker (2007) to see why. He’s adapting Tetsuya Tsutsui’s manga, and he has assembled a decent cast such as YosiYosi Arakawa (Fine, Totally Fine), Erika Toda (one of the leads in the SPEC series), Toma Ikuta and Gaku Hamada.

There is a man covered by newspapers issuing threats to launch a campaign of violent crime and he does so through the website “Yourtube.” The threats come from a group named “Shinbunshi,” and they are lead by a man named Geitsu (Ikuta). The cybercrimes unit of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department are investigating and they are lead by Inspector Erika (Toda).The two forces will clash!

Website

Seven Days: Monday – Thursday   

Japanese: 予告煩

Romaji: Yokokuhan

Release Date: June 06^th, 2015

Running Time: 66 mins.

Director:  Takeshi Yokoi

Writer: Natsuko Takahashi (Screenplay), Benio Tachibana, Rihito Takrai (Original Manga),

Starring:  Tomoki Hirose, Takeshi James Yamada,

This one is based on a boy’s love manga and that’s enough to make me flee. I watched the first four episodes of yaoi/boys-love title Love Stage, the scariest romance I have ever seen and never again. Never a-flipping-gain am I treading in the halls of fujoshi bait. I’ll stick to girls piloting giant robots, thank you:

Anyway, this is the first of two films. The first film has the title Seven Days: MONDAY→THURSDAY and that’s the one released today. The second film has the title Seven Days: FRIDAY→SUNDAY, and that’s released on July 4th.

Toji Seryo is a popular first year high school student who is famous for  dating anyone who confesses their affection for him on a Monday and then breaking up with that person by Sunday. Yuzuru Shino is a third year student at the same high school. and although he’s handsome, girls still break up with him. He’s intrigued by this Toji character and so half serious & half joking, Yuzuru Shino asks Toji Seryo to date. 

Website

Typhoon Noruda   

Japanese: 台風のノルダ

Romaji: Taifu no Noruda

Release Date: June 05^th, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: Yojiro Arai

Writer: N/A

Starring:  Daichi Kaneko (Kenta Saijou), Kaya Kiyohara (Noruda), Shuhei Nomura (Shuuichi Azuma),

Former Ghibli animator Yōjirō Arai is making his directorial debut on the film, though he previously served as animation director on short anime for Studio Colorido. Hiroyasu Ishida, who previously directed award-winning shorts such as “Fumiko’s Confession” and “rain town,” is designing the characters and serving as animation director. Masashi Hamauzu (Good Luck Girl!) is composing the music.

On a certain isolated island, at a certain middle school, on the eve of the culture festival, Shūichi Azuma quits baseball after playing his whole life. He has a fight with his best friend Kenta Saijō. Then they suddenly meet a mysterious, red-eyed girl named Noruda, and a huge typhoon hits the middle school.

Website

Anata wo Zutto Aishiteru   

Japanese: あなたをずっとあいしてる

Romaji: Anata wo Zutto Aishiteru

Release Date: June 06^th, 2015

Running Time: 82 mins.

Chief Director: Kazumi Nonaka, Director: Choi Gyonsoku

Writer: Tatsuya Miyanishi, Hisao Masuda (Screenplay), Tatsuya Miyanishi (Original Book),

Starring:  Marina Watanabe (Serra), Junko Takeuchi, Kengo Takanashi, Kappei Yamaguchi, Yumi Kakazu, Kentaro Hayami,

This anime is a Japanese-Korea co-production based on Tatsuya Miyanishi’s Tyrannosaurus book series. It is the sequel to Omae Umasou Da Na. The story is about a Tyrannosaurus who is lonely because everybody is scared of him and he decides to become respectable, going on a long journey in the process.

Website

Hito mazususume    

Japanese:　ひとまずすすめ

Romaji: Hito mazususume

Release Date: June 06^th, 2015

Running Time: 30 mins.

Director: Keisuke Shibata

Writer: Maki Komori (Screenplay),

Starring:  Natsumi Saito, Masato Yamada, Tomoki Kimura, Yuto Kobayashi, Hatsune Yazaki, Akari Kinoshita,

Director Keisuke Shibata and writer Mki Komori collaborated last year on Otome no Reshipi and are reunited here with an award winning short about a girl named Miyuki struggling to live her life at more than a slow pace and a potential love interest.

Website

Happy Landing   

Japanese:　ハッピーランディング

Romaji: Happi Randingu

Release Date: June 06^th, 2015

Running Time: 109 mins.

Director: Chihiro Amano,

Writer: Yoshinobu Kamo (Screenplay),

Starring:  Yuri Nakamura, Takashi Nagayama, Megumi Sato, Kunito Watanabe. Keisuke Minami, Rina Koike

Oooohhh, everybody is getting married in this film! Seven couples with different backgrounds see proposals, preparations and the actual event. Here’s a video that gives the tone of the film:

To be honest, I’d die of embarrassment being at the centre of a dance and expected to laugh and compliment people for three minutes. I’m not normal, I’m weird. Perhaps I’m better off living in a log cabin in a snowy forest far away from people.

Website

Eyes   

Japanese:　アイズ

Romaji: Eyes

Release Date: June 06^th, 2015

Running Time: 95 mins.

Director: Yohei Fukuda,

Writer:  Yohei Fukuda (Screenplay), Koji Suzuki (Original Story)

Starring:  Marika Ito, Seiko Ozone, Taichi Yamada, Keiji Nakagawa, Yasushi Endo,

Did any of you watch The Complex (20120, directed by Hideo Nakata and starring Atsuko Maeda? It was terrible. THIS film which looks similar, however, looks REALLY GOOD!

Nogizaka46 idol Marika Ito takes the lead role of Yukari Yamamoto in a movie based on a Koji Suzuki story. She see’s a mysterious letter F on her apartment’s nameplate and finds that her family becomes haunted and suffers mysterious deaths! More strange things happen and she begins to see more ominous signs… Is she hallucinating?

Website

Samurai Rock   

Japanese:　 サムライ・ロック

Romaji: Samurai Rokku

Release Date: June 06^th, 2015

Running Time: 102 mins.

Director: Ryo Nakajima

Writer: Chieko Nakagawa, En Hayano (Screenplay),

Starring:  Yutaka Kobayashi, Shunsuke Tanaka, Takafumi Honda,

This films about a rock band who meet Oda Nobunaga, Toyotom Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu after they time travel to the future and become idols/rock musicians. The 11 idols of Boys and Men play the characters.

Website

Senritsu kaiki fairu chou kowa sugi! FILE – 01 kyoufu kpurin! Kokkuri-san Japanese: 戦慄怪奇ファイル超コワすぎ！FILE-01 恐怖降臨！コックリさん    

Romaji: Senritsu kaiki fairu chou kowa sugi! FILE – 01 kyoufu kpurin! Kokkuri-san

Release Date: April 11^th, 2015

Running Time: 89 mins.

Director: Koji Shiraishi

Writer: Koji Shiraishi (Screenplay),

Starring: Shigeo Osako, Koji Shiraishi, Chika Kuboyoama

Koji Shiraishi (Noroi: The Curse, The Slit-Mouthed Woman), is a genius at creating low-budget horror. He takes a digital video camera and creates found-footage stories. I’ve seen five and while I wouldn’t describe them as scary. They are fun and inventive and everybody looks like they are having fun which is rather infectious.

This is the first instalment of a straight-to-video series and it features kokkurisan, a spirit who is called by playing a game. Highs school girls caught it on film so their video is investigated! I’ve heard so many bad stories surrounding ouiji boards and the like, I wouldn’t go anywhere near one but this looks like a riot!

Website

Random music video of the week:

I watched Suicide Club, recently, and I have had this on repeat all week. Haruko Momoi, I love you!!!

Japan Cuts is North America’s largest festival dedicated to contemporary Japanese cinema and the 2015 edition of the event will be its ninth year since it first began. The dates for this year’s festival have been announced and it takes place in New York from July 09^th to the 19^th. Also confirmed are the films that have been programmed and the stars attending, all of which can be found on the site as well as details on special offers on tickets which go on sale today.

When I think of New York I think of the New York-set anime Baccano! so here’s some music to listen to while you read the rest of this.

There’s an awesome amount of films on offer, a great selection with some of this year’s big releases and some that have not been screened in Japan yet, so international premieres are plentiful and there are guests invited over to take part in Q&As and parties! In some way this can be called the Sakura Ando, Fumi Nikaido and Sosuke Ikematsu festival because films there are so many films that they stars or feature in. This is a great way to get introduced to three of Japan’s hottest young actors. Alternatively you could read my long-winded reviews of films they have appeared in but that probably wouldn’t be as much fun…

Overall, there are lots of films to list so like I did with the Nippon Connection post I choose highlights. Some of these will be available on DVD but others will be harder to track down especially the indies and documentaries (believe me, I’ve tried with older titles) so I would suggest getting to screenings of the one’s highlighted. Of course, it’s all down to what you want to see and I have included all of the titles plus links so you can make a selection.

Here’s the list of films which I think looks brilliant:Thursday, July 09^th

The festival opens with a double-bill of World War II all action spy adventure Joker Game and 2014’s rock and roll comedy Hibi Rock: Puke Afro and the Pop Star which stars Fumi Nikaido. Both films are directed by Yu Irie and he’s present to take part in Q&A’s and will be at the opening night party that follows the screening of the two films.

Friday, July 10^th

Friday sees the festival continue with Round Trip Heart, which stars former AKB48 member Yuko Oshima.

The story concerns the limited express “Romancecar” railway service (a real thing) which links Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station with tourist destinations such as Odawara, Enoshima, and Kamakura and every day it carries twenty-something train attendant Hachiko Hojo (Oshima) back and forth. One trip sees her meet a sleazy movie producer passenger who helps her rediscover the gorgeous Hakone of Kanagawa prefecture and get past some memories that have been holding her back from following her own path.

There is an introduction and Q&A with director Yuki Tanada directing her first original screenplay since the rather good 2008 drama One Million Yen Girl.

That film is followed up by an award-winning indie:

Makeup Room メイクルム Meikurumu   

Running Time: 86 mins.

Director/Writer: Kei Morikawa

Starring: Aki Morita, Beni Itoh, Riri Kuribayashi, Nanami Kawakami, Mariko Sumiyoshi,

Makeup Room gets played on Friday and it’s a good way for American audiences to get acquainted with vibrant and daring indie films that we see coming from Japan. This title was the big winner of Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival’s Grand Prix earlier this year and has been picked up by Third Window Films for UK distribution (so you could import it but seeing things at a cinema with a receptive audience is much more fun). It’s a low-budget comedy that looks like a similar deal to Be My Baby in the sense that it was originally designed for the stage, has a limited set and lots of actors talking. Director Kei Morikawa draws from his experiences as a former adult video director for this comedy which stars some real life AV actresses.

The comedy revolves around a porn shoot and the antics that happen in the make-up room. Make-up artist (Morita Aki) does her best to keep things running and her actors looking good as cast, staff, and agents invade the room.

Belladonna of Sadness 哀しみのベラドンナ Kanashimi no Beradonna

Running Time: 89 mins.

Director: Eiichi Yamamoto, Writer: Jules Michelet (Original Novel)

Starring: Aiko Nagayama, Takao Ito, Tatsuya Nakadai.
This is what festivals are for, seeing titles you may never find elsewhere and on the big screen. Audiences get a sneak preview of this animation which has just undergone 4K restoration based on the original negatives and it is the third and last of the adult-oriented Animerama trilogy produced by the “Godfather of Manga” Osamu Tezuka and directed by his long-time collaborator Eiichi Yamamoto (Astro Boy). It is based on the book Satanism and Witchcraft by French writer Jules Michelet. Synopsis straight from the festival site plus a clip from an older version of the film:

Young and innocent Jeanne is ravaged by the local lord and makes a pact with the Devil himself. The Devil–voiced by legendary actor Tatsuya Nakadai (Ran, The Human Condition)–appears in phallic forms and, through Jeanne, incites the village into a sexual frenzy.

Saturday, July 11^th

The day starts with a comedy and it’s one that will ease you into the drama of the rest of the day. And the Mud Ship Sails Away initially starts off as a talky Jim Jarmusche-esque dry comedy which goes in some very weird and wonderful directions for a patient audience. You really won’t see what’s coming.

That is followed by the big-budget wartime drama The Vancouver Asahi is about Japanese immigrants in 1930s Canada carving a place for themselves through baseball. It played at last year’s Vancouver International Film Festival where it won the audience award.

That film is followed by one from a New York resident! Hokkaido-born, Brooklyn-based filmmaker Takeshi Fukunaga is proving himself a truly international filmmaker with his feature Out of My Hand which was shot in Liberia and tells the tale of some Liberians trying to struggle out of poverty and seek a better life in New York City. It has an introduction and Q&A with director Takeshi Fukunaga and writer/producer Donari Braxton.

After a day packed with movies from new talent, sit back and watch on directed by a master!

Seven Weeks 野のなななのか No no Nanana no Ka  

Running Time: 106 mins

Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi, Writer: Nobuhiko Obayashi, Tadashi Naitoh (Screenplay), Koji Hasegawa (Original Novel)

Starring: Yumi Adachi, Kazunari Aizawa, Akane, Toshiaki Chiku, Christine, Satoshi Hara, Tokie Hidari, Natsuki Harada, Minam Inomata

This is the latest film from Nobuhiko Obayashi and is based on a novel by Koji Hasegawa and it concerns the gathering of family and friends in Sapporo. They are drawn together by the death of an old man. As the film delves into memories of the old man the story expands and spans many decades from the Pacific War and the Soviet invasion of the Sakhalin islands all the way through to 3.11.

Sunday, July 12^th

Sunday starts with a film aiming straight for the female market and it comes from Ryuichi Hiroki’s fine ensemble drama Her Granddaughter which is all about a magazine editor (played by the charming Nana Eikura) nursing some heart break and the recent death of her grandmother. She heads to her grandmother’s house and meets a handsome older guy (the smouldering Etsushi Toyokawa) at the picturesque place. 

If that film proves to be uplifting be prepared for some fiery drama with the next selection:

Cruel Story of Youth has been released in the west before and version are floating around but this a restored version of the film and it has been doing the rounds at festivals such as Toronto. It is famous as the film that introduced Nagisa Oshima to the world. It was his second feature film and it took as its subject two young people and the darkness of the world. The story concerns the guy using his high school girl to extort money from lecherous old men. They live on the grimy side of life and are in an unstable relationship that could explode.

The next film and the final one of the day  looks like a real treat!

I Alone   この世で俺／僕だけ Kono yo de ore/boku dake   

Running Time: 109 mins.

Director: Sho Tsukikawa, Writer: Akihiro Murase (Screenplay)

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

If you don’t see Sosuke Ikematsu in the drama, The Vancouver Asahi then you can choose this one which sounds like a real riot.

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 baby and find themselves fighting to save their town from corrupt government officials and yakuza.

But if I’m being honest, the hottest title of the festival for me is the delightfully zany-looking…

Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory 春子超常現象研究所 Haruko Chojo Gensho Kenkyujo

Running Time: 76 mins.

Director/Writer: Lisa Takeba

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

This, out of all the indies looks to be the most fun. Take one look at the trailer and tell me that it’s not fun! People who attended last year’s Japan Cuts will have seen The Pinkie (2014) and know that Lisa Takeba is a director who can combine all sorts of genres and filmic techniques to create a weird and exciting brew. I’ve long been interested in Lisa Takeba’s works ever since seeing them a Rotterdam International Film Festival some years ago so I am very jealous of people getting to attend this festival. It looks like so much fun!!!

Haruko (Nozaki) is a lonely oddball who has longed for a“real paranormal phenomenon” since childhood and is in the habit of bitching at her television. It’s an old, analogue set, which one day breaks down – then starts talking back to her. It seems her wish has been granted. 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 art and absurdist comedy, drawing on cult TV shows and romantic children’s television. Beneath all the craziness, however, a love story unfolds in this strange movie which contains romance and pokes fun at contemporary Japanese culture.

The day ends with Experimental Spotlight: Mono no Aware, a series of avant-garde and experimental films produced by, to quote the festival page, “the New York-based Mono No Aware, and Tokyo-based [+] (Plus). Some of the featured films and videos emphasize elements of collaboration and transnational exchange, and influence between artists, spaces and technologies in Japan and the U.S. Juxtaposing works by artists loosely associated with the creative networks of Mono No Aware and [+] produces a visually and aurally stimulating 90+ minutes of unexpected connections and discoveries.” There will be an introduction and reception with filmmakers Steve Cossman, Akiko Maruyama, Tomonari Nishikawa, Joel Schlemowitz, Ted Wiggin.

The second week of the festival starts with some sword-swinging action with…

Snow on the Blades 柘榴坂の仇討 Zakurozaka no Adauchi

Running Time: 119 mins.

Director: Setsuro Wakamatsu, Writer: Yasuo Hasegawa, Kenzaburo Iida, Hironobu Takamatsu (Screenplay), Jiro Asada (Original Novel),

Starring: Hiroshi Abe, Kiichi Nakai, Ryoko Hirosue, Kichiemon Nakamura, Masahiro Takashima, Sei Matobu, Eisaku Yoshida, Tatsuya Fuji,

A Japanese film festival would not be complete without a jidaigeki and this one is based on the events of the Sakuradamon Incident of 1860. It has a set of big actors with Hiroshi Abe taking the lead and support being given by Ryoko Hirosue and Tatsuya Fuji. The trailer looks gorgeous.

It is 1860 and Japan is transitioning into the Edo period and samurai culture is losing its importance. A samurai named Kingo Shimura (Nakai) is facing the shame of failing to protect is his lord from brutal assassins and in order to restore his honour he must break and search for the killers. After 13 years, he kills them one by one and he is on the verge of finding the last one, a mysterious samurai named Jyubei Sahashi (Abe)!

That film is followed by Pieta in the Toilet which was released last weekend!

Two heavy-hitting films for today with one documentary and one very fine drama!

Nani wo osoreru Feminizumu wo ikita onnatachi 何を怖れる　フェミニズムを生きた女たち Nani wo osoreru Feminizumu wo ikita onnatachi   

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Hisako Matsui

Starring: Mitsu Tanaka, Chizuko Ueno, Kimiko Tanaka, Tomoko Yonetsu, Keiko Higuchi,

I think this documentary will be  useful and extremely fascinating for Japanophiles, and people interested in social aspects of the country, listening to actual Japanese feminists from Japan who give an insight into what it is to be a woman and a feminist in Japan from the 1970s onwards and what they are fighting for. It looks like it will provide valuable insight into a society we find so intriguing.

A (her)story told through the very people involved in the women’s liberation movement beginning in Japan in the 1970s, filled with personal accounts of why they joined the movement and ideas about work that is still left to be done. Female director Hisako Matsui draws out episodes from these torch-bearing women, touching on a wide range of subjects from gender inequality, marriage, social structures, women’s studies and journalism to aging. A testament to feminism in different forms, the film serves as both a powerful introduction to those unfamiliar with the history and a celebration of the women who paved the way and continue to work for a better future.

The Light Shines Only There そこのみにて光輝くSoko nomi nite

Hikari Kagayaku

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Mipo O, Writer: Yasushi Sato (Screenplay), Ryo Takada (Original Novel)

Starring: Gou Ayano, Chizuru Ikewaki, Masaki Suda, Kazuya Takahashi, Shohei Hino, Hiroko Isayama

I reviewed this a fortnight ago and I think it is a flawless drama and, while not being too showy in terms of camera angles and special effects, it is extremely beautiful and the impact of seeing the action unfold on the big screen makes the drama hit home hard. It stars two brilliant actors, Gou Ayano (Rurouni Kenshin, The Story of Yonosuke) and Chizuru Ikewaki (Shokuzai), and it introduces Masaki Suda to the world through his fantastic performance.

Tatsuo Sato (Ayano) is suffering from some trauma in his past and does little with his days except wander around bars and pachinko parlours, getting drunk and sleeping. That is until he meets Takuji Oshiro (Suda) at a pachinko parlour and strikes up a friendship. Takuji invites Tatsuo back to his ramshackle home where he lives with is sick father, a stressed mother and an older sister named Chinatsu (Ikewaki). Tatsuo becomes attracted to Chinatsu, who has profound problems of her own but she still shines even in her difficult situation. Can Tatsuo and Chinatsu find happiness?

Thursday, July 16th 

The Centrepiece Presentation

The big news so far is that the Centerpiece Presentation is dedicated to Sakura Ando who will be picking up the CUT ABOVE Award for Outstanding Performance in Film. Festival attendees will get the chance to see her in these films:

100 Yen Love 百円の恋 Hyaku-en no Koi  

Running Time: 113 mins.

Director/Writer: Masaharu Take

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

Released at the tail-end of 2014, this has picked up all sorts of awards and Sakura Ando has won a lot of plaudits for her performance which is the backbone of the film

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.

Asleep 白河夜船 Shirakawa yofune  

Running Time: 91 mins.

Director: Shingo Wakagi, Writer: Shingo Wakagi, Kai Suzumoto (Screenplay), Banana Yoshimoto (Original Novel)

Starring: Sakura Ando, Arata Iura, Mitsuki Tanimura, Guama, Maki Izawa, Aya Takekou, Yoshiaki Takahashi,

This one was released in 2015 and looks like a solid drama.

Terako (Ando) sleeps a lot. She only wakes when she gets a call from her married middle-aged lover, Iwanaga (Arata), a controlling man. She wants to break it off and her life is made even more confused because she is mourning the suicide of her close friend Shiori (Tanimura), whose unusual occupation was sleeping with strangers – no sex just a comforting presence for when they wake – for pay. Every day she falls into a deep sleep, Iwanaga calling her, unsure over whether she wants to continue. Is she depressed?

If you aren’t already familiar with Ando, she is a mainstream and indie actor who you need to check out!

Joel Neville Anderson, the festival curator, has stated: “For her breathtaking performances and work ranging from indie to studio productions, she is perhaps comparable to Chloë Sevigny or Scarlett Johansson in the American context,” says Anderson. “Combine these two and multiply by ten in terms of intensity and ingenuity of performance and diversity of roles to get a sense of her place in the pantheon of contemporary world cinema.”

She has earned her award, believe me. She is often the highlight of a film even when she isn’t the star.

Friday, July 17^th

A great way to start the day (and recover from some heavy films) is this funny-looking broad comedy which might be your thing A Farewell to Jinu. It has a lot going for it considering it has a great director (Suzuki Matsuo) and cast (Ryuhei Matsuda! Fumi Nikaido, YosiYosi Arakawa!).

And back to the drama…

The Voice of Water 水の声を聞く Mizu no Koe wo Kiku   

Running Time: 129 mins.

Director/Writer: Masashi Yamamoto

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. If it sounds serious there’s some comedy to have but what’s valuable here is that it’s another indie film plus it’s one about Zainichi and takes a respectful look at the culture. The director is in town to talk about the film!

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.

Saturday, July 18^th

There’s a real mix of subjects today with the documentary The Wages of Resistance: Narita Stories taking the lead covering the heyday of student and worker protests and a battle between farmers and big business/corporations, topics that regularly come up in films and anime. That’s followed by a drama set in the past…

Undulant Fever 海を感じる時 Umi wo Kanjiru Toki   

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, this looks like a steamy drama and it stars Sosuke Ikematsu so if you still haven’t seen him in a film this will be your best chance! The film is directed by Hiroshi Ando who has made pink films so I guess that’s why it’s steamy!

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.

This Country’s Sky この国の空 Kono Kuni no Sora

Running Time: 130 mins.

Director: Haruhiko Arai, Writer: Yuichi Takai (Original Novel)

Starring: Fumi Nikaido, Hiroki Hasegawa, Youki Kudoh.
This is the world premiere and it was an introduction and Q&A with director Haruhiko Arai and star Youki Kudoh. It’s an adaption of Yuichi Takai’s prize-winning 1983 novel of the same name, This Country’s Sky. It is described as a nuanced drama and with Fumi Nikaio in a lead role you can bet it’s going to be good!

Synopsis from the site: The film is set in Suginami, Tokyo towards the destitute final years of WWII. Satoko (Fumi Nikaido) is a 19 year old girl falling passionately in love with her older married neighbor (Hiroki Hasegawa), who has been spared combat due to his failing the military physical examination. Even away from the battlefield, as they grow closer their feelings are caught up in the violence of war.

The film finishes with Neko Samurai 2: A Tropical Adventure, which if the first film was anything to go by, looks like it will be a barrel of laughs!

Sunday, July 19^th
It wouldn’t be a Japanese film festival without a gentle coming-of-age school romance story which is why the final day starts with the sweet high-school romance Forget Me Not. Things kick into higher gear with the North American premiere of …

Strayer’s Chronicleストレイヤーズ・クロニクル Sutoreiyazu Kuronikuru

Running Time: 126 mins.

Director: Takeshi Zeze, Writer: Takayoshi Honda (Original Novel)

Starring: Masaki Okada, Shota Sometani, Riko Narumi, Yuina Kuroshima, Mayu Matsuoka,

This one sounds just like the anime Zankyou no Terror what with people who are former victims of Japanese government experiments who now have super powers they use to fight for justice or chaos. Let’s hope it doesn’t have a badly mishandled ending…

The final film of the festival is Sanchu Uprising: Voices at Dawn, an independent jidaigeki shot in black and white:

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That’s it for this festival. I hope this has proven quite useful to you and you make some great choices and have fun watching these great-looking films.

Japan Society is located at 333 East 47th Street between First and Second avenues (accessible by the 4/5/6 and 7 subway at Grand Central or the E and M subway at Lexington Avenue). For more information, call 212-832-1155 or visit www.japansociety.org.

Happy weekend!

I have been busy writing away this week for a season of film and manga reviews I will announce on Monday. I spent a couple of hours during the first part of this month updating old reviews with information and posters and whilst doing that I got a bit nostalgiac for a period four years ago (for various reasons) and decided I wanted to watch lots of films and write about them once again for fun so I hit my DVD/film backlog and purchased some new ones. I only watched one film this week and that was the Dutch horror film The Elevator (1983). Only one post this week and that was for Japan Cuts 2015.

What’s released in Japan this weekend?

Love Live! The School Idol Movie   

Japanese: ラブライブ！The School Idol Movie

Romaji: Rabu Raibu! The School Idol Movie

Release Date: June 13^th, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: Takahiko Kyogoku

Writer: Jukki Hanada (Original Screenplay), Sakurako Kimino (Original Concept), Hajie Yatate (Original Creator),

Starring:  Aina Kusuda (Nozomi Tojo), Aya Uchida (Kotori Minami), Emi Nitta (Honoka Kosaka) Yoshino Nanjou (Eri Ayase),

The film begins directly after the second season, at the graduation ceremony of the third-year students. With the graduation of the third-year members, it looks like the group μ’s will be no more so the nine girls take one last walk around the school together but when they attempt to leave the school, a single email is sent to them, and the curtain on a new story for μ’s begins…

Website

Yowamushi Pedal Re: ROAD   

Japanese: 弱虫ペダル Re:ROAD

Romaji: Yowamushi Pedal Re: ROAD

Release Date: June 12^th, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: Osamu Nabeshima

Writer: Reiko Yoshida (Series Composition), Wataru Watanabe (Original Creator),

Starring:  Daiki Yamashita (Sakamichi Onoda), Jun Fukushima (Shokichi Naruko), Atsushi Abe (Touichirou Izumida) Kousuke Toriumi (Shunsuke Imaizumi),

Yowamushi Pedal is all about an otaku named Sakamichi Onoda who loves anime and games so much he rides his bicycle to and from Tokyo’s Akihabara shopping district on 60-mile round trip over steep slopes after school. Onoda’s life changes when he encounters his school’s cycling team, and he ends up joining the competitive sport of bicycle racing. The film compiles episodes from the second season of the TV anime and will also include new animation.

Website

Sakana-kun Kenkyuujo Sakana no Sekai he Rettsugyo-! Tobu! Tatakau! Odoru! Hen   

Japanese: さかなクン研究所　さかなの世界へレッツギョー！　飛ぶ！闘う！踊る！編

Romaji: Sakana-kun Kenkyuujo Sakana no Sekai he Rettsugyo-! Tobu! Tatakau! Odoru! Hen

Release Date: June 12^th, 2015

Running Time: 45 mins.

Director: Osamu Nabeshima

Writer: N/A

Starring:  Sakana-kun, Naoki Tatsuta, Sara Nakayama,

Kids, this is your chance to see the popular television show Sakana-kun on the big screen and learn more about fish and researching them. The theme for this one is fly – Tobu, Fight – Tatakau, dance – odour and we see examples of that fro a fierce turf war in the seas to flying fish!

Website

Our Little Sister (International Title) / Umimachi Diary

Japanese: 海街 Diary

Romaji: Umimachi Diary

Release Date: June 13^th, 2015

Running Time: 126 mins.

Director: Hirokazu Koreeda

Writer: Shin Adachi (Screenplay), Akimi Yoshida (Original Manga)

Starring: Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa, Kaho, Suzu Hirose, Shinobu Otake, Shinichi Tsutsumi, Ryo Kase, Jun Fubuki, Ryohei Suzuki, Oshiro Maeda, Lily Franky, Kirin Kiki

Our Little Sister/Umimachi Diary was at this year’s Cannes Film Festival  where it impressed critics in the first week and then sank without a trace. Is the story too slight? It is based on an award-winning josei manga series created by Akimi Yoshida and the film is directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, the auteur behind Kiseki, Nobody Knows, After Life, Still Walking, and Like Father, Like Son,  films which prove very popular with international audiences.. He brings back a lot of collaborators from previous films like Lily Franky (Judge!) and Jun Fubuki (Like Father, Like Son), Kirin Kiki, Oshiro Maeda (the cuter younger brother in Kiseki), and Haruka Ayase (Real). It looks like a solid drama.

29-year-old Sachi Kouda (Ayase), 22-year-old Yoshino Kouda (Nagasawa), and 19-year-old Chika Kouda (Kaho) live in a house once owned by their grandmother in Kamakura. Their parents are divorced, their father having left them fifteen years ago. When they learn of their father’s death they decide to attend his funeral where they meet their 14-year-old sister Suzu Asano (Hirose) who has nobody to care for her. Sachi invites her to join them in Kamakura.

Website

Lyre no Inori   

Japanese:　 ライアの祈り

Romaji: Raia no Inori

Release Date: June 13^th, 2015

Running Time: 119 mins.

Director: Hiroyuki Kurokawa

Writer: Toshio Terada (Screenplay), Akio Morisawa (Original Story)

Starring:  Anju Suzuki, Takashi Ukaji, Rina Takeda, Takayuki Takuma Yoko Oshima, Takehiro,

Rina Takeda, the martial artist, continues to prove her acting abilities with an appearance in a love story centred on archeology. Takashi Ukaji (Wild 7). It’s all about people connecting with each other because of their interest in a historical era in Japan, the Jomon period. The last film I watched with this very theme was Mai Mai Miracle!

Goro (Ukaji) is an archeologist, fascinated with the Jomon period and the national treasure Gassho-Dogu clay figurine. Another person with an interest in the period is Momoko (Suzuki) who seems to have memories of a past life from the Jomon period. Goro is fascinated by these dreams and the two start a timid relationship.

Website

Rolling   

Japanese:　 ローリング

Romaji: Ro-ringu

Release Date: June 13^th, 2015

Running Time: 93 mins.

Director: Masanori Tominaga

Writer: Masanori Tominaga (Screenplay),

Starring:  Takahiro Miura, Elisa Yanage, Reiko Mori, Hirohiko Sugiyama,

This is an original film (not an adaptation of a book or dorama) from the director of Vengeance Can Wait and it looks really good!

The story takes place in a city called Mito and it concerns a man named Kanichi (Miura). He comes into contact with a former teacher named Gondo who was fired from his job as a teacher for secretly filming girls. Gonda seems to have reformed because he is in a relationship with a hostess named Mihari but Kanichi falls in love with her and this is the first part of a disastrous chain of events for Gondo who may not have given up old habits…

Website

Aru Torishirabe   

Japanese:　 ある取り調べ

Romaji: Aru Torishirabe

Release Date: June 13^th, 2015

Running Time: 90 mins.

Director: Akio Murahashi

Writer: Ryota Nakanishi (Screenplay),

Starring:  Ryota Nakanishi, Yoichiro Saito, Ayumi Nishi, B-saku Sato,

In this film we see a man arrested on suspicion of killing his wife and son and the guy pleads for the death penalty! A veteran detective is brought in to interrogate the man.

Website

Shiro Majo Gakuen Owari to Hajimari (Innocent Lilies: The end and the beginning   

Japanese:　 白魔女学園　オワリトハジマリ

Romaji: Shiro Majo Gakuen Owari to Hajimari

Release Date: June 13^th, 2015

Running Time: 90 mins.

Director: Koichi Sakamoto

Writer: Reiko Yoshida (Screenplay),

Starring:  Dempagumi.inc members – Mirin Furukawa, Risa Aizawa, Nemu Yumemi, Eimi Naruse, Ayane Fujisaki and Moga Mogami, regular actors/seiyuu Fuuka Nishihira, Nina Endo, Shou Tomita, Ibuki Tsuji, Rin Honoka, Usa Sakurano, Kasumi Yamaya, Haruka Tomatsu, Shusuke Saitou, Rina Koike, Mao Shido, Miyuki Torii, Kasumi Yamaya, Haruka Tomatsu

Back in September 2013, TV Asahi and Toei partnered up to create  the Innocent Lilies series and film which starred the members of the Japanese idol girl group Dempagumi.inc. The sequel gets released today!

The girls at the White Witch Academy all want to become a White Witch and are learning witchcraft techniques to develop their magical powers but there is a lot of danger involved!

Website

NEET of the Living Dead   

Japanese:　 ニート・オブ・ザ・デッド

Romaji: Nito Obu Za Deddo

Release Date: June 13^th, 2015

Running Time: 38 mins.

Director: Akio Nanki

Writer: Akio Nanki (Screenplay),

Starring:  Mariko Tsutsui, Houka Kinoshita, Suzuko Kaneko, Horiken.

A home drama about a family with a NEET in their midst mixed with the horror of a zombie siege. Is the NEET son a zombie already?

Website

Yuigon   

Japanese:　 遺言

Romaji: Yuigon

Release Date: June 13^th, 2015

Running Time: 32 mins.

Director: Kosuke Kibe

Writer: Kosuke Kibe, Naoyuk Sumita (Screenplay),

Starring:  Zatsutaro Idenshi, Kazuo Kaneko, Motoi Koyanagi, Kyoko Matsumoto, Naho Nakajima, Nobuyoshi Nishida, Makoto Obata,

The cast for this is great because it includes the actor who performed motion capture procedures for Lightning Naho Nakashima (IMDB has her listed as Naho Nakajima), in Final Fantasy XIII and one of the seiyuu for the anime Shirobako, Motoi Koyanagi.

Kyoko coul not kill her husband who had been zombified, she found it too tough. Instead she gets a vigilante to do the deed and take her other half to an execution ground for zombies but the task proves far more difficult than any of them could have imagined…

Website

The Guidepost   

Japanese:　 道しるべ

Romaji: Michishirube

Release Date: June 13^th, 2015

Running Time: 97 mins.

Director: Shigeyuki Tanaka,

Writer: Mitsuru Osumi (Screenplay),

Starring: Makiko Watanabe, Mari Hideyuki Kanaya, Takashi Nishima,

This looks like a mistaken identity comedy where a fraudster and an apprentice care-giver with the same name and waaiting at the same spot get picked up by the wrong cars which were meant for the other guy and driven to the wrong workplace.

Website

Random music video:

It has been a while since I have done a season based on something or someone…

I spent a couple of hours during the first part of this month updating old reviews with information and posters and whilst doing that I got a bit nostalgiac for a period four years ago, in the early years of this blog, when I spent many days a week watching and enjoying J-horror films and then writing reviews of them – Uzumaki, Loft etc. I covered a variety of titles that were available in the West from famous auteurs such as Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Takashi Miike, and Takashi Shimizu to unknowns. Since then I have moved on to writing about dramas, comedies, and film festivals but the love of ridiculous and scary movies has not gone away and neither has my DVD pile which has actually grown. This coupled with the fact that many of the directors I reviewed are still working in the Japanese film industry makes me want to hit my film backlog over the next few months so that when I write my trailer posts I can fill out filmographies. So, for the foreseeable future of this blog, I’m going to review splatter/horror films and I’ll cheat and throw in some horror manga I have read/collected over the lifetime of this blog plus cinema releases I haven’t written about.

Expect titles like Kakashi and Deadball mixed in with Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends and Leviathan.

My collection is large so I’ll call a stop to it on October 31^st when I do my annual Halloween post. I must admit that judging by even my most extreme posting pattern (four times a week, sometimes more) this season won’t include all of my horror films and I have some held back in reserve for other things… I may do something for the dramas I have collected.

Before that… it’s time to get messy!

White Panic   

Japanese:　 怖来

Romaji: Fu-Rai

Release Date: June 13^th, 2005

Running Time: 70 mins.

Director: Shugo Fujii

Writer: Shugo Fujii (Screenplay), Akio Morisawa (Original Story)

Starring:  Shugo Oshinari, Ayaka Maeda, Kazuo Yashiro, Fumiaki Mitsuyama

Fu-Rai has a start that could potentially grip the viewer:

The first thing we hear is the sound of panting. The first thing we see is a foot. The camera leeringly pans from the foot to the thigh of a naked young woman and she is covered in a mysterious powdery white substance. She is not alone. A man clutches her. Despite the focus on the young woman’s body, there is nothing remotely sexy about this scene. We view them from a high angle shot and see them bathed in red light with a look of fear on their faces as they stare at a point just above the camera. Cut to a POV shot and we see what they are looking at: an electronic counter is nearing 0. The closer it gets the more ragged their breathing becomes and then… Cut to black as they scream.

And then the film gets into the real meat of the action which is when it falls apart.

The next thing we see is a man waking up in the room. He is named Ken Goubara (Oshinari). He is one of a group of four young naked people trapped in a small room covered in white powder. The others are a woman named Yumi Umezawa (Maeda), a Korean named Sayoon Kim (Yashiro) and an overweight guy named Boo Motokawa (Mitsuyama). At first they fight each other for possession of one of three towels and as they try to establish who they are and why they are together. All each can remember is that they were leading difficult lives and then kidnapped but the more they talk the more they begin to piece together but progress is halted as every so often the room they are in is pumped full of gas and they are attacked by men wearing gas masks who force them to drink a mysterious liquid. One attack goes wrong for the captors after the four form an alliance and fight back. Even though they escape the room they do no trust each other but that is just the start of their nightmare…

Director Shugo Fuji has spent a lot of his career churning out horror films and judging by the trailers I have seen, they get cheaper and cheaper. This one can only be described as no-budget, something made painfully clear when the actors leave the room and explore their surroundings and try to find out more about the masked men who have captured them.

What happens in this part is that the characters have to avoid the (incredibly stupid) traps that are placed around the buildings to catch the captives out. Razor wire stretches out across doorways (someone, tell the cleaners that thing is there) and there’s a sticky mat in a vent. That’s about it.

The cheapness extends to the location which can best be described as bland. The actors stumble around blank, dimly lit corridors, up and down stairways and fire escapes, and crawl through ventilation ducts and cower in crowded store rooms, trying to evade their captors. Perhaps it is deliberately bland when the twisted nature of the organisation that kidnaps people is cosidered, but it is still visually dull because nearly every location looks the same. Was there are art department involved in this or was the director ready with a digital camera, a boom operator and some actors willing to bumble about corridors in a towel. It is as if Fuji and his team were given two hours to film in a local office space and told to keep out of the way of people who are working.

Occasionally there are exterior shots and scenes in other locations but these are so flat and dull they sink into a general morass of grey.

It would have been forgivable if the editing and shot composition made the film more interesting to watch but despite a few subjective camera shots the whole thing is conventional, like something from a ‘90s television show.

Ultimately it’s competently shot but not a cinematic film.

It is not particularly well-written either. The scenario is told with an ominous feeling that is built up over the course of the script but the shooting style and poor editing hamstring this atmosphere as we spend too much time watching characters wander around and bicker. Worse still, the characters are merely caricatures with unpleasant and wafer-thin personalities so it is hard to get invested in their fate. Ken is handsome and we should root for him because of that. Yumi, the girl, is reduced to being a quivering wreck and collapsing a lot. The Korean character is comic-relief (but he does get a bit of redemption) and so forth.

Where this story ends up going isn’t too hard to guess but the journey to get to the conclusion is a pain (despite the film being just over an hour long) because these two-dimensional figures are shackled to a script that gives them poor back-stories that lazily exploit rape and murder. These are told awkwardly in flashbacks shown through the course of the story. Okay, I do have one thing nice to say about the inept shooting style which is that at least those sections were brief and not too sleazily exploitative.

I feel sorry for the actors who bravely run around half-naked with nothing but towels strapped around them (amazing towels that don’t fall off!) for nearly an hour. The only survivors from this acting massacre are Shugo Oshinari as the main character Ken. He has graduated to indie and mainstream films like Kabukicho Love Hotel (2015) and Buzz (2015). The beautiful Ayaka Maeda (前田綾花) who appeared in The Suicide Manual (2012) has disappeared as far as I can tell (come back to us!).

They are tryng hard to give their characters some life but their co-stars are wooden or their melodramatic performance is pitched so high they have shot through the stratosphere.

Out of all the low-budget J-horror movies I have watched, this is pretty much the worst. I try and highlight something good in every film but the only thing with this one is that it lasts about an hour.  It has an intriguing start and a decent premise undone by some poor work. A bigger budget may have saved this. It is compentently shot but doesn’t do anything new or exciting for too much of its execution. I couldn’t remember the music from the film and re-watching the trailer I think it was because my mind wanted to block out the horrible memories.

1/5