Happy weekend people!

There are lots of news stories and documentaries like Atomic, Living in Dread and Promise (dir. Mark Cousins) marking 70 years since the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and so this weekend we get quite a few films about Japan’s war time struggle. None of them really grab my attention the way Fires on the Plain did when it was released a couple of weeks ago. It’s indicative of a lack of bravery in the overall industry and rather it has been picked up on in wider circles. The Toronto International Film Festival’s initial line-up of films featured no Japanese entries. Following on from Venice and that festival’s lack of a Japanese presence it seems to indicate a lack of international interest in contemporary Japanese cinema. Having written these previews for a few years now I think it would be fair to say that 2015 has been a pretty dull year for Japanese cinema so far. In keeping with the unambitious slant of the current industry, there are few original concepts, and few films that look memorable. It’s franchise stuff, idol stuff, and things based on television and books with a degree of self-censorship and a lack of daring and risk-taking and, dare I say, unique artistic vision that characterised some of the best output from earlier ages of Japanese cinema. I’m probably being a grump but I grew up on the classics and ‘90s titles so I know how good Japanese cinema is.

I reviewed two films this week: the so-so Meatball Machine  (2006) and Tamami the Baby’s Curse (2008) which was a lot of fun!

What’s released in Japan this weekend?

Boruto Naruto the Movie  

Japanese: ボルト‐ナルト・ザ・ムービー

Romaji: Boruto: Naruto za Mūbī

Release Date: August 07^th, 2015

Running Time: 95 mins.

Director: Hiroyuki Yamashita

Writer: Masashi Kishimoto, Ukyou Kodachi (Screenplay),

Starring:  Yuko Sanpei (Boruto Uzumaki), Junko Takeuchi (Naruto Uzumaki), Nana Mizuki (Hinata Uzumaki), Kokoro Kikuchi (Sarada Uchiha), Akira Ishida (Gaara), Atsushi Abe (Inojin Yamanaka), Chie Nakamura (Sakura Uchiha), Daisuke Namikawa (Momoshiki), Hana Takeda (Kurotsuchi),

I know I stopped watching the anime a decade ago but I thought the Naruto franchise ended? Oh, he has a son. The films/TV anime continue.

Boruto is the son of the 7th Hokage Naruto and like a good son he resents his father and wants to beat him and become a hero. After meeting his father’s friend Sasuke he requests to become his apprentice…

Website

The Emperor in August   

Japanese: 日本のいちばん長い日

Romaji: Nihon no Ichiban Nagai hi

Release Date: August 08^th, 2015

Running Time: 136 mins.

Director: Masato Harada

Writer: Masato Harada (Screenplay), Kazutoshi Hando (Original Novel)

Starring:  Koji Yakusho, Tori Matsuzaka, Misako Renbutsu, Misuzu Kanno, Shinichi Tsutsumi, Tsutomu Yamazaki,

The story of how a few officers were prepared to sacrifice the lives of millions by refusing to surrender at the end of the war looks to be one with lots of men talking around tables. At a time when Prime Minister Abe is altering Japan’s constitution to allow for more militaristic slant and right-wingers are denying Japan’s war crimes and neutering political dissent in politics, education, and entertainment are this and Fires on the Plain the closest we will get to direct anti-war sentiment from cinema this year?

It is July, 1945 and World War II is about to end. The Allies want Japan to accept the Potsdam Declaration but the government cannot come to a decision. The U.S. drops atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. General Korechika Anami (Yakusho) and Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki (Tsutsumi) are negotiating what will happen and whether the Emperor Hirohito of Japan should announce the nation’s defeat but a cadre of young commissioned officers, who are against Japan surrendering, intend to occupy the palace and a radio broadcasting station and stop the announcement.

Website

This Country’s Sky   

Japanese: この国の空

Romaji: Kono Kuni no Sora

Release Date: August 08^th, 2015

Running Time: 130 mins.

Director: Haruhiko Arai

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

Starring: Fumi Nikaido, Hirok Hasegawa, Youki Kudoh, Yasuko Tomita, Go Riju, Koichi Ueda, Renji Ishibashi,

This is more typical of the type of war films that Japan releases – critics may say it has a focus on the human suffering of Japanese civilians living under allied air raids and not the suffering caused by the Japanese military such as the massacres and human experiments in China.

19-year-old Satoko (Nikaido) lives with her mother (Kudoh) and her aunt in Tokyo at the tail end of World War II. Satoko is near the age to get married but with the war closing and disaster seemingly imminent, she can’t even think of marriage. Satoko then begins to get to know her neighbour Ichikawa (Hasegawa), a man who has avoided military service due to failing his physical test, and she begins to care about him…

Website

Tomomichi Nakamura Films

Release Date: August 08^th, 2015

Tomomichi Nakamura is a self-taught artist/filmmaker who has worked on a number of animated shorts some of which have been secreened at museums and film festivals aroundthe world. His works are getting screened this weekend:

Ari (蟻) Duration: 11 mins.

Director: Tomomichi Nakamura

Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto

Tenshi Modoki (天使モドキ) Duration: 13 mins.

Director: Tomomichi Nakamura

Music: Masahiko Ishida, Yoko Ikeda,

Starring:  Chinatsu Onishi

Everyday a woman seeking a change that does not change, so embrace the dream of children born between the birds that are kept as pets. The children born between man and bird is called the “angel beetle”, it had the appearance, such as the angel, but ….

Boku no Machi (ぼくのまち) Duration: 17 mins.

Director: Tomomichi Nakamura

Music: Tomoko Ueyama

Website

The Legacy of Frida Kahlo   

Japanese: フリーダ・カーロの遺品　石内都、織るように

Romaji: Furi-da Ka-ro no ihin Ishiuchi Miyako, Oru you ni

Release Date: August 08^th, 2015

Running Time: 89 mins.

Director: Tadanori Otari

Writer: N/A

Starring:  Miyako Ishiuchi

The world-famous photographer Miyako Ishiuchi (winner of the Hasselblad International Photography Award) is invited to shoot the item of surrealist painter Frida Kahlo, the most famous artist from Mexico. She heads to Mexico and the Frida Kahlo Museum where she works with the costumes and accessories which make up the identity of Kahlo.

Website

The Emperor and the Army   

Japanese: 天皇と軍隊

Romaji: Tennou to guntai

Release Date: August 08^th, 2015

Running Time: 90mins.

Director: Kenichi Watanabe

Writer: Kenichi Watanabe

Starring:  Yoichi Komori, John W. Dower, Yoichi Higuchi, Yasukuni Ashizu, Hideo Den, Beate Sirota Gordon,

This film is a French documentary originally titled “Le Japon, l’empereur et l’armée” and released in 2009.

This documentary analyses all of the faults of Japanese militarism from the Emperor system and the Yasukuni issue and the messy issues surrounding the pos-war age and the Japan-US Security Treaty, especially the issues surrounding Article 9, which guards again the Self-Defense Forces engaging in military conflicts. We get interviews and archive footage that has been collected from all over the world.

Website

Drawing Days   

Japanese: ドローイング　デイズ

Romaji: Doro-ingu Deizu

Release Date: August 08^th, 2015

Running Time: 86 mins.

Director: Keinosuke Hara

Writer: Keinosuke Hara (Screenplay),

Starring: Yuya Ozeki, Kanji Furutachi, Toshie Neishi, Risa Sudo,

The actor who played the ghoulish little ghost-boy Toshio Saeki from The Grudge (2002/3) movies is all grown up and he’s a handsome man! He takes the lead in a decent-looking drama after bit-parts and stage-plays like Prince of Tennis.

Natsuki Urase has graduated from a technical school and now works in in old electrical shop. His real dream is painting and he uses the majority of his salary to on art supplies. His mother thinks that he’s  working for  bigger company and gets a surprise when she visits him…

Website

The next two films are about Super Sentai franchises and I got the help of outside websites because I don’t know all that much about the genre.

Kamen Rider Drive: Surprise Future  

Japanese: 劇場版　仮面ライダードライブ　サプライズ・フューチャー

Romaji: Gekijō-ban Kamen Raidā Doraibu: Sapuraizu Fyūchā

Release Date: August 08^th, 2015

Running Time: 86 mins.

Director: Takayuki Shibasaki

Writer: Riku Sanjo (Screenplay), Shotaro Ishinomori (Original Work),

Starring: Rio Uchida, Rei Yoshii, Ryoma Takeuchi, Kent Hamano, Miwako Kakei, Rikiya Koyama,

Thank you Kamen Rider wiki!

Little boy Toshio Saeki from The Grudge (2002/3) movies is all grown up and he’s a handsome man! He takes the lead

A mysterious enemy appears from the future with its partner vehicle; a car designated as Type Next, the NEXTridoron. Dubbed the strongest machine, the NEXTridoron and this mysterious enemy force Kamen Rider Drive and his aliies into a corner. The Tridoron, Kamen Rider Drive’s partner, must use its hidden power to surpass this threat. It is a symbol that represents the movie’s “future” theme.

One day, in the present era, a visitor from the future appears. Claiming that the Drive System will bring about despair in the future, this visitor has arrived to stop Kamen Rider Drive and protect the future’s peace. However, Shinnosuke refuses to listen as the mysterious machine NEXTridoron and its driver, Drive’s strongest enemy, arrive.

Website

Shuriken Sentai Ninninger   

Japanese: 手裏剣戦隊ニンニンジャー

Romaji: Shuriken Sentai Ninninja

Release Date: August 08^th, 2015

Running Time: 86 mins.

Director: Keinosuke Hara

Writer: Keinosuke Hara (Screenplay),

Starring: Shunsuke Nishikawa, Gaku Matsumoto, Kaito Nakamura, Yuuka Yano, Kasumi Yamaya, Hideya Tawada,

Thank you Power Rangers Wiki!

Little boy Toshio Saeki from The Grudge (2002/3) movies is all grown up and he’s a handsome man! He takes the lead

The evil warlord Gengetsu Kibaoni was defeated 444 years ago by the Igasaki Clan to which he swore to destroy humanity, and again later the Kibaoni Army once again rose in the times of Last Ninja (ラストニンジャ Rasuto Ninja?) in which he was sealed by Yoshitaka Igasaki (Last Ninja). Yet again exactly 444 years later in 2015 Kyuemon Izayoi and Raizo Gabi, the Generals of Kibaoni, rise and start building up the empire again and try to revive Gengetsu Kibaoni. In this time, Tsumuji Igasaki, son of Last Ninja gathers the five predicted cousin Ninjas and hands them the Ichibantou swords for fighting the Kibaoni Army.

Website

Top Ten Japanese Films:

1. Attack on Titan )2015/08/01)
2. Minions Movie (2015/07/31)
3. Hero (Release: 2015/07/25)
4. The Boy and the Beast (Release: 2015/07/11)
5. Inside Out (Release: 2015/07/18)
6. Pokémon the Movie: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages (Release: 2015/07/18)
7. Terminator Genesis (Release: 2015/07/10)
8. Love Live! The School Idol Project (Release 2015/06/13)
9. Avengers Age of Ultron (Release: 2015/07/04)
10. Let’s Go! Anpanman: Mija and the Magic Lamp (2015/07/04)

Random music video:

Title: Lychee Light Club ライチ☆光クラブ, Raichi☆Hikari Kurabu 

Author: Usamaru Furuya

Launched in 2005, 1 volume and completed

Lychee Hikari Club is a one-volume manga whose origins can be found in a stage play that was performed at the Tokyo Grand Guignol Theatre in 1985. Usamaru Furuya takes the story and crafts a disturbing tale with a potent atmosphere given gory life by great artwork, a strong setting, ero-guro (erotic grotesque) and the excesses of yaoi all of which made me shudder and shocked me at points.

The story takes place in an industrial town covered in a haze of smog.

In an abandoned factory a group of middle-school boys created a secret base for their “Light Club.” This place was once an innocent playground led by a lad of Tamiya. Under his leadership of the gang they played simple games of marbles and hide and seek but when a new kid at school named Zera (the kid with the glove emblazoned with a star) joined the boys things took a decidedly darker turn.  

Zera installed himself as the new leader of the gang, removing Tamiya in the process, and as the group matured their interests changed according to Zera’s whims. No longer were marbles and hide and seek enough, they started to learn philosophy, symbolism, eroticism, history, technology, and a form of aesthetics that favours beauty above all else. Under Zera’s leadership they endeavour to create a lychee-powered robot named… Lychee.

This AI will be programmed to abduct beautiful girls and it will be successful but the real horror will not be from the mechanical man but the boys themselves…

The story sounds silly – a lychee-powered robot? – but the kidnappings, violence, and febrile emotions are scary. It takes a gloomy and stifling world and invests it with the roiling emtoions of the gang of teenage boys which creates an even claustrophobic feeling.

The time period is uncertain. The sailor uniforms of the girls and the militaristic uniforms of the middle-school boys are timeless and, apart from the teacher who gets disembowelled, the adults are a shadowy mass of people in anonymous factory uniforms so fashion is hard to pick out. There are no phones or computers. The boys play chess instead of videogames.

The city itself is a prominent character. Whether we are in the abandoned factory that the boys have claimed for a base or not this is a ruined landscape. Nature is in short supply apart from the lychee used to power the robot. The ground is mostly concreted over and the sky is perpetually dark. Smoke stacks spew smog and in high-ceilinged buildings there are collapsing catwalks that lead into darkness. The stark black and white of the manga is effective at creating menace with shadows, industrial detritus, and pollution cluttering frames. There is a sense of miserable industrial landscape which reinforces the notion that the friendship the boys share is the most natural thing they have, a vital emotional outlet and something that Zera with his dreams of kidnpping girls and vaguely fascist ideologies has perverted.

The backstory I have given in the synopsis is shown in flashback panels scattered throughout the manga and it fleshes out the main narrative which is about innocence corrupted.

When we first join the club things are happening in media res. The boys are on the verge of killing a fellow student and a teacher is all trussed up. Body-parts will soon be removed, all the while the boys shout in German, mete out violence, and act like a group of hounds, a cult dedicated to Zera.

Events get even more disturbing and violent when Zera wants them to. He is massively charismatic with his beauty and pseudo-intellectual babble and for teens with gloomy circumstances and surroundings he shines bright like a star, promising excitement and adventure. Being in that industrial landscape, friendship is just as important but the jealousies and loves that are repressed become a prominent feature of the story because Zera plays on the desire of his fellow clubmates with mindgames to maintain his leadership of the club. It becomes clear that the boys are jockeying for position in the club and aim to win his favour by pleasing him any which way they can including sexually. The languid bodies of certain predatory boys wrap around each other, probing and exploring their passions and pushing each other emotionally with the promise of physical gratification and obedience.

As the club becomes increasingly depraved and jealousies and violence flares, the original leader, Tamiya, tries to reclaim his position after he becomes unhappy with the way Zera runs the club like a dictator and a gripping power-struggle ensues. Zera is seized with megalomania and paranoia and the various boys split into factions based on love, lust, and friendship while some innocents get caught in the middle. All those choking emotions of the boys work themselves up to a calamitous finale.

Although the boys wear the same uniforms throughout the entirety of the story they are given simple features and character traits such as Zera star-gloves, finger/thumb sucking, scars, eye-patches etc. and we come to know them but only a little bit. Apart from Tamiya, there’s no sense of them having a family or belonging anywhere which just reinforces that the club is all the emotional support they want.

Despite this knowledge, these kids take things to excessive levels and are deplorable as is fitting for a Grand Guignol production so it is pleasing to say that their creation, Litchi the robot, and the one girl they do manage to kidnap, Kanon, come across as heroes and defy them, helping to tear the club apart.

Litchi looks like the stereotypical image of Frankenstein’s monster but with Bela Lugosi-style slicked-back Dracula’s hair and a gnarly cape. Boxy instead of svelte and with patches of skin, random eyes and stitching that show they extent of how he is a patchwork of machine and flesh, he cuts an ominous figure but his AI becomes self-aware leading to the club’s already fractious unity fraying even more.

Kanon is a strikingly beautiful teenage girl with piercing intelligence and a strange moral code. She plays dead after the kidnapping and then coy and submissive, collecting information and getting to know the personalities of the characters and playing the boys off each other and being openly defiant in increasingly high-stakes games of survival. She develops feelings for Litchi and reveals herself to be a truly humane person and brave character and smarter than Zera.

Indeed, for all the talk about capturing women, it is male bodies and notions of male sexuality that are put on display and destroyed. Aside from the female teacher’s full frontal nudity at the start and the horrific aftermath of a gruesome torture we see more of the guys sensually sucking, f*cking and generally tearing each other apart in horrific acts of violence and desire (cat-nip for the girls who love yaoi). Their unblemished faces with fulsome lips, their long-limbed bodies and their caressing touches exemplify the shift from friendships to sexual desire and the homosexuality of the boys is on display in some steamy scenes made very erotic by the art shown in large panels to showcase the male body rent apart by obsession, love, and hatred.

I’m no fan of yaoi manga but I do like reading horror stories and this simple and effective tale is pretty good at nailing twisted psychologies and crafting operatic horror. The flash anime which I watched last year is pretty poor, a series of short gags per episode.

I was inspired to finish this review after news of a movie adaptation was announced a couple of weeks back on Anime News Network.

Here’s an excellent article on the casting of the film on Psycho-drama. It shows which actor is going to play which member of the club:

http://psycho-drama.com/index.php/45-casting-news/1321-news-round-up-july26-30

Images from here:

http://usamarus2001.blog100.fc2.com/blog-entry-588.html

http://dijjd.jugem.jp/?eid=400

http://usamarus2001.blog100.fc2.com/blog-entry-588.html

I reviewed the manga Lychee Light Club/Litchi Hikari Club at the beginning of the week and in the post I mentioned that there would be a live-action adaptation of the manga created by Usamaru Furuya in 2005. He was inspired to create it when he was a stage adaptation in 1985 that was put on by Tokyo Grand Guignol Theatre. Here are the details:

Litchi Hikari Club / Lychee Hikari Club

Japanese: ライチ☆光クラブ

Romaji: Raichi☆Hikari Kurabu

Release Date: Winter, 2015

Running Time: 114 mins.

Director: Eisuke Naito

Writer: Eisuke Naito, Keisuke Tominaga (Screenplay), Usamaru Furuya (Original Manga)

Starring: Shuhei Nomura (Tamiya), Yuki Furukawa (Zera), Shotaro Mamiya (Jaibou), Junya Ikeda (Niko), Amane Okayama (Yakobu), Ryo Matsuda (Raizou), Junki Tozuka (Kaneda), Kisetsu Fujiwara (Dafu), Reiya Masaki (Dantaku),

Website

The story focusses on nine students at an all-boys school who, under the leadership of the charismatic and slightly unhinged aesthete Zera, create a powerful robot named Lychee who is powered by lychee… His mission is to capture the beautiful women of the world but when Lychee becomes self-aware he becomes attached to one of his victims all the while the boys squabble and fight amongst themselves for power and Zera’s attention…

I was on the fence when I first heard about this one. The content is extreme with boy-on-boy violence and lust (see how the stageplay does it with this youtube video – it’s pretty funny and not as explicit as the manga despite the strings of liquid and noises. Also, spoilers) but Nikkatsu are a pretty ballsy studio who don’t skimp on violence and nudity when they are being extreme. This is the studio with a long history in great genre flicks like the Stray Cat Rock series and Tokyo Drifter (1966) but I’m thinking about more modern titles like their Sushi Typhoon stuff (some of which I am reviewing as part of my Splatter Season) like Cold Fish (2010) Deadball (2011). They also released the taboo-breaking Watashi no Otoko and Killers (2014). I’m pretty confident they won’t back down from this challenge.

I think there’s more cause for optimism because the director is Eisuke Naito. He has created an oeuvre of nasty horror flicks like Let’s Make the Teacher Have a Miscarriage Club (2012)  and he impressed me with one of his films, Puzzle (2014), a film about kidnappings and killings all played out to a seemingly childish game. I really, really dug that one and I wrote a review for it two months ago but I’m saving it for a special occasion. Admittedly, I hated one of his other films, The Crone (2013) which was pretty generic J-horror with an awful story and special effects. When Naito has money he makes some pretty over the top baroque horror films which utilise all sorts of editing and camera techniques to create an effect. Just looking at that PV one can see that he has captured the setting of the grimy industrial town. I love the rusted colours and the griminess of the setting we do see and the shots on the film’s website are also pretty evocative.

The casting is something I’m a little unsure of if only because I’m not too familiar with many of the actors.

For a film about young guys playing macabre games in a club, the actors lined up for the roles are appropriately fresh and handsome.

Although no roles have been announced some internet users in Japan have speculated who will play which character.

映画『ライチ☆光クラブ』キャスト発表されたものの気になる配役は未発表だが特報の声からゼラは古川雄輝でほぼ確定の模様　ちな他配役はキャスト発表名前順で割り振るとこうなるが写真だけ見るとなかなか合ってる http://t.co/gaD3IrQKDf—
4415 (@kurumi4415) July 29, 2015

Although the characters in the manga are slimly written, they are visually distinct. This provides a certain degree of latitude for the actors to add ebellishments if they are skilled enough but one of the main roles, Tamiya, may be played by Shuhei Nomura who is an actor to watch (not least because he’s in the upcoming live-action Chihayafuru). Junki Kaneda put in a pretty good performance in the film Remiges (2013) and Amane Okayama made a favourable impression in My Little Sweet Pea (2013) and I can just about remember him in the live-action adaptation of Another (2012).

Source Source Source

Happy weekend!

It’s a slow weekend in terms of films released. There are plenty of documentaries about World War II just in time for the events surrounding Japan’s surrender to Allied forces. The most interesting one out of all these is not the documentary about the fighter pilots but Children’s Tears: Searching for a Japanese Father which is about the mixed-race children fathered by Japanese soldiers in Indonesia and left behind. In terms of drama there’s Dressing Up which looks like business as usual when you read the plot looks different because the trailer provides sound and images that are off-kilter.

In the process of writing this I mined the usual sites like Cinema Café and IMDB and also found this site, Eiga Kawaraban, which comes from a Japanese critic which lists the latest film news (all in Japanese). I also found this streaming/download site named Load Show which looks like a pretty legitimate way to watch indie films legally, thus paying for them and giving money directly to the filmmakers. I’ll do a little more digging into this one because I like the look of it.

In terms of what is going on with my site I uploaded more images for the header and continued my Summer of Splatter by posting a review of the horror manga Litchi Hikari Club and then a preview of the live-action film of the same name. Expect a return to Sushi Typhoon next week!

What’s released in Japan this weekend?

Dressing Up  

Japanese: ドレッシング　アップ

Romaji: Doressingu Appu

Release Date: August 15^th, 2015

Running Time: 68 mins.

Director: Yuka Yasukawa (More info on the director here)

Writer: Yuka Yasukawa (Screenplay)

Starring: Kirara Inori, Takuji Suzuk, Yuka Yasukawa, Karen Sato, Karen Sato, Marie Decalco, Tomoya Watanabe,

This was screened at the 2012 Nippon Connection and comes from Yuka Yasukawa, an up and coming voice who seems to be part of the wave of interesting and criminally neglected female filmmakers making the more interesting films coming from Japan. The story looks familiar – there was one released back in 2012 and shown at the Berlin International Film Festival called Just Pretended to Hear directed by Kaori Imaizumi – but the trailer has some emotionally frank and brutal moments of violence and the soundtrack is weird in the most intriguing way possible.

The film concerns the psychological struggle of a 13-year-old girl named Ikumi who has moved to a new town and lives with her father who finds it difficult to understand her. Ikumi only has memories of her mother to comfort her but she starts making friends at her new school. When she finds one of them being bullied she begins to act violently and have strange visions…

Website    IMDB

The Killing Curriculum   

Japanese: キリング・カリキュラム　人狼処刑ゲーム　序章

Romaji: Kiringu Karikyuramu Jinrou Shokei Gemu Joshou

Release Date: August 15^th, 2015

Running Time: 79 mins.

Director: Tomoyuki Furumaya

Writer: Hiroko Kanasugi

Starring: Ren Ishikawa, Sho Kasamatsu, Shuto Miyazaki, Yasukaze Motomiya, Takuya Negishi, Ami Saitô   , Hiromi Sakimoto, Kazuma Takeda, Kôsuke Yonehara,

Jin-Roh Game is back for another low-budget school horror tale but instead of violence this one has boys love. So anyway, for those who don’t know, some psycho locks up a bunch of people and they have to play the “werewolf game” where one of them is a killer. Of course, these people bring in their emotional baggage to the fight so they turn on each other.

Website    IMDB

D-Boys D Stage 14th Twelfth Night   

Japanese: Dステ14th 「十二夜」

Romaji: D Sute 14th Juuniyoru

Release Date: August 15^th, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: N/A

Writer: Gou Aoki (Screenplay), William Shakespeare (Original Play), Kazuko Masuoka (Translation),

Starring: Masahiro Usui, Masashi Mikami, Atsushi Arai, Kaji Masaki, Ryosuke Ikeoka, Yoichiro Oumi, Yusuke Yamada,

Originally released in 2013, this is the second the D-Boy’s adaptation of the Shakespearean comedy “Twelfth Night”, a tale of brother and sister getting their identities mistaken after a little cross dressing and mistaken identity and the love they find. It’s the 14^th D-Stage production cinema.

Website

D-Boys D Stage 12th 「TRUMP」TRUTH   

Japanese: Dステ12th 「TRUMP」 TRUTH

Romaji: D Sute 12th 「TRUMP」 TRUTH

Release Date: August 15^th, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: N/A

Writer: Gou Aoki (Screenplay), William Shakespeare (Original Play), Kazuko Masuoka (Translation),

Starring: D-Boys: Nishii Yukito, Mitsuya Ryou, Jinnai Sho, Yamada Yuuki, Yamaguchi Kenki, Omi Youichirou,

Source for the synopsis and the information on the play:

This play was originally performed in 2013 and it features the D-Boys in “casting rotation,” with two different versions featuring the

D-Boys taking on different roles. The “Truth” version features the boys in their original roles as shown in the initial poster, while the “Reverse” version shows the second cast line-up as in the new, reversed poster. There will also be one “Marble” performance which is a mixture of the two.

A feast of blood, by vampires who have lost their immortality, spanning 7500 years───.

The “gymnasium” (clan) set up to educate and discipline young vampires undergoing “metamorphosis” (corresponds with human puberty).

Sophie, who is a dhampir (of mixed human and vampire blood), is hated and seen as filthy by everyone around him. Ul, who was born into one of the most prominent and distinguished families in the completely hierarchical vampire society, somehow becomes fascinated by the abominable Sophie. Meanwhile, while researching the “power of immortality” that vampires once possessed, Ur learns of the existence of the original vampire “Trump” who was made to live forever, and begins to thirst for eternal life.

Before long, Sophie and Ul are caught up in a fate profoundly connected to the legend of immortality───.

The young vampires that have lost their immortality are trifled with by the legend of the immortal Trump in this fleetingly beautiful “vampire entertainment.”

Website

D-BOYS STAGE 10th Samishii Magnet Reds   

Japanese: D-BOYS STAGE 10th 「淋しいマグネット」 Reds

Romaji: D-BOYS STAGE 10th 「Smishi Magunetto」 Reds

Release Date: August 15^th, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: D-Boys – Yuya Endo, Koji Seto, Hirofumi Araki, Tomo Yanagishita,

Originally released in 2010, this is the cinema screening of the theatrical play “Samishii Magnet Reds” based on the play “OUR BAD MAGNET.” Performed by D-BOYS. Apparently, it was adapted from a stage play by Douglas Maxwell from Scotland.

Website

Mirai o Nazoru Shashinka Hatakeyama Naoya   

Japanese: 未来をなぞる　写真家・畠山直哉

Romaji: Mirai o Nazoru Shashinka Hatakeyama Naoya

Release Date: August 15^th, 2015

Running Time: 87 mins.

Director: Naoya Hatakeyama (IMDB)

Writer: N/A

Starring: Naoya Hatakeyama

Photographer Naoya Hatakeyama travelled to Iwate Prefecture to make this documentary which captures the devastation of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami and reveal what his hometown is like and the loss of his mother. He also shows the reconstruction of the areas that were affected and seeks to reveal the new relationship between cities and nature.

Website

Hitorihitori no Senjou Saigo no Reisen Pairotto   

Japanese: ひとりひとりの戦場　最後の零戦パイロット

Romaji: Hitorihitori no Senjou Saigo no Reisen Pairotto

Release Date: August 15^th, 2015

Running Time: 117 mins.

Director: Tadayuki Kusuyama

Writer: N/A

Starring: Tadayuki Kusuyama (Narration), Kaname Harada, Takeshi Tabei, Kishiro Horikawa, Tsuneharu Shigeta, Hideo Kaneshiro

The Zero Fighter plane has entered the history book as a legend of the sky up there with the Supermarine Spitfire, the P-51 Mustang, and the Messerschmitt. Tadayuki Kusuyama collects together former pilots from Japan and America (including Japanese Americans), historians and relatives who talk about the plane and why it became a legend, the workmanship that went into its construction, the personnel involved in supporting the plane and pilot, and its effect in dogfights in battles like Pearl Harbour and Midway.

The last time I featured a film by this director was August 2013.

Website

Children’s Tears Searching for Japanese Father   

Japanese: 子供たちの涙　日本人の父を探し求めて

Romaji: Kodomotachi no Namida Nihonjin no Chichi o Sagashimotomete

Release Date: August 15^th, 2015

Running Time: 49 mins.

Director: Yuki Sunada (IMDB)

Writer: Yuki Sunada (Screenplay),

Starring: N/A

During World War II, Japan snatched many European colonies and one of them was the Dutch East Indies, now known as Indonesia. This documentary looks at what happened when Japanese soldiers fathered children with Dutch/Eurasian women and the lives the children led after the conflict when they travelled with their mothers to Holland or remained in Indonesia. In trying to come to terms with discrimination and difference, they search for their fathers’, where the fathers’ went after the Japanese military were forced to withdraw and discover more about their own identity in the process. Yuki Sunada, the director, has an interest in World War II since her grandfather was a soldier. She looked at some of the fierce fighting that took place between the British Empire and Japanese soldiers in Burma in her last documentary, Dear Grandfather, I Am In England.

Website

Dear Grandfather, I am in England   

Japanese: 兵隊だったおじいちゃんへ

Romaji: heitaidatta ojīchan e

Release Date: August 15^th, 2015

Running Time: 28 mins.

Director: Yuki Sunada (IMDB)

Writer: Yuki Sunada (Screenplay),

Starring: N/A

No Trailer

Originally made in 2003 in the UK, this short documentary sees the grandchildren of Japanese soldiers who fought in Burma travel to the UK to get a better understanding of what their ancestors went through.

Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Weekend:

Jurassic World (Released: 2015/08/07)

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (Released: 2015/08/07)

Boruto Naruto the Movie (Released: 2015/08/07)

Minions Movie (Released: 2015/07/31)

Attack on Titan (Released: 2015/08/01)

Kamen Rider Drive: Surprise Future (Released: 2015/08/07)

The Boy and the Beast (Released: 2015/07/11)

Hero (Released: 2015/07/25)

Inside Out (Released: 2015/07/18)

The Emperor in August   (Released: 2015/08/07)

Random music videos which I wrote this post to:

Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions Battle Theme #19 – Antidote

Priest – The Game/ Waiting For The End To Come

Third Window Films continues to do justice to the back-catalogue of director Shinya Tsukamoto by picking up and releasing one of his most critically acclaimed and internationally known works, A Snake of June.

This film is a psycho-sexual thriller that continues his experimentation with subject and method and daringness in shooting style by placing the rather excellent and underused actor Asuka Kurosawa in the middle of a visceral tale of sexual repression and release. With its monochromatic colours and humid rainy season atmosphere it becomes rather steamy but retains a rather dread-inducing atmosphere thanks to Tsukamoto’s editing and shot composition which becomes rather surreal.

It’s emotionally stirring stuff with complex performances to match the complex script and direction. You can read more of what I thought in a review of a version released by Tartan that I wrote back in 2012 as part of my Shinya Tsukamoto season. You can check out the director review archives for reviews from other directors who are contemporaries of Tsukamoto.

Here are the details of the newer and updated DVD release coming from Third Window Films:

A SNAKE OF JUNE

Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Tokyo Fist)

One of the most talked-about Japanese cult films of all time makes its way onto blu-ray for the first time EVER with a brand new high definition transfer supervised by Shinya Tsukamoto!

Japan / 2002 / 77 Mins / In Japanese with English subtitles / Colour

Starring: Asuka Kurosawa, Yuji Kohtari, Shinya Tsukamoto, Mansaku Fuwa, Tomorowo Taguchi, Susumu Terajima,
Out on Blu-Ray 

September 28th, 2015

Special Features
New high definition transfer of the ‘blue’ version restored from original negatives by Shinya Tsukamoto
Collectable case with slip-case cover
New interview with the Shinya Tsukamoto
New audio commentary by Tom Mes, author of ‘Iron Man: The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto’
New UK Trailer

Synopsis

Rinko (Asuka Kurosawa from Cold Fish) and Shigehiko (novelist Yuji Kotari) are a strange couple, whose physical mismatch (she a lithe beauty, he an overweight, balding, obsessive-compulsive neurotic) is reflected in the complete lack of intimacy between them. They connect as human beings, but they live more like friends than as lovers and lead nearly independent lives. Both seem comfortable with this coexistence, but the desires that lurk beneath its surface are brought out with the introduction of a third element into the equation. When Rinko receives a package of candid photographs of herself masturbating and the sender (played by Tsukamoto himself) contacts her with the threat of exposing them to her husband, she submits herself to the anonymous voyeur’s sexual games. If she wishes to get hold of all the negatives and prints, Rinko is to comply with a set of assignments that place her constantly on the borderline between humiliation and pleasure – the voyeur knows exactly what Rinko’s personal erotic fantasies are and makes her act them out one by one.

Venice Film Festival – WINNER – Kinematrix Film Award & San Marco Special Jury Award
SITGES – WINNER – Best Art Direction / NOMINATED – Best Film
Fantasporto Film Festival – WINNER Best Actress & Special Jury Award

The Gift   

UK Release Date: August 07^th, 2015

Running Time: 108 mins.

Directors: Joel Edgerton

Writer: Joel Edgerton (Screenplay)

Starring: Jason Bateman, Rebecca Hall, Joel Edgerton, Wendell Pierce, Nash Edgerton,

When you meet the person of your dreams, the one you want to spend the rest of your life with, would you tell them about the less flattering moments in your history, the bad bits that make you ashamed? Or would you leave them out and make a future with them? I think we would all like to craft a new reality and leave out the bad bits even if it isn’t being totally honest.

The Gift is all about the differences between perception and reality. Through the way we speak, the way we cultivate our appearance, a few spoken sentences and the content we put into and omit from those sentences, we can create ideas of who we are and influence people’s perception of us. The characters all project their best selves to the world but when the past comes back to haunt one of them they find what they considered their reality shifting.

We meet a married couple named Simon (Bateman) and Robyn (Hall). They are our main protagonists and they are fresh into moving into a modernist house on a quiet street with friendly neighbours.

Simon is an ordinary but charming guy about to start work as a sales executive for a tech company while Robyn is his sensitive and beautiful wife who is trying to get back into work as an interior designer. Then they have a seemingly rather unexpected encounter with a guy from Simon’s high school past, a guy with the name Gordo (Edgerton).

Simon is seemingly uncertain around the guy and tells Robyn he can barely remember who Gordo is but it isn’t long before Gordo tracks down the happy couple, heads to where they live and starts showering them with housewarming gifts and help.

The more Gordo helps the more Robyn appreciates his friendliness but Simon is notably on edge and reveals that Gordo had a nickname while in high school – Gordo the Weirdo.

Simon might be justified in being worried since Gordo tends to show up uninvited – almost always when Robyn’s alone and sometimes when she is in a shower or just after.

In any case, Gordo inserts himself deeper and deeper into Simon and Robyn’s life and Simon decides to draw a line when a dinner party goes wrong and it looks like Gordo is a bit of an obsessive loser.

Things kind of get out of hand from this point as Gordo takes the severing of ties pretty hard. He sends a mysterious note that alludes to an “Incident” in the past that he shared with Simon. This past is something Simon refuses to talk about and it drives Robyn to dig into it and discover that Simon isn’t quite the nice guy she thought he was.

I’ll stop talking plot at this point but suffice it to say that things do get violent and the whole perception and reality thing comes into play as Edgerton shows his skill with direction by using familiar techniques skilfully to set up ideas in the viewer’s head about the characters and story to influence how we approach the film.

At first it’s like The Gift is a home invasion thriller with Gordo as the bunny boiler attacking the normal couple. The sight and behaviour of Gordo is strange. Edgerton cultivates an interesting look and plays him pitch-perfectly. He has the awkward manner of someone not comfortable with attention and the halting speech of a nervous person. He has a weird combed-forward hairstyle, an odd-looking earring and he sports some strange facial hair. Despite the helpfulness the audience is made increasingly uncomfortable by the frequency of his increasingly invasive visits but question whether they are being uncharitably mean because of the way he looks and acts which is mostly like a sad sack loser but is this reality?

Gordo’s presence added to the prowling camera that peers into the home of Simon and Robyn, a couple who we sympathise with from the get go, effectively sets us up to instinctively fear Gordo. Then there are the odd incidents such as taps turned on, dogs going missing, sounds heard off-screen, and the disappearing pets. It makes us think of all the home invasion movies of the past and this keeps the audience on edge because of these elements are rooted in real life fears of having the safety and security of the home overturned by an outsider.

This forces our characters to change and as the film progresses and we get to know the characters more we see that the initial perception we had aren’t as simple as we first expect and it becomes a psychological thriller as Gordo’s relation to Simon’s past comes into play and Robyn begin to question her safety, her surroundings and, more importantly, Simon’s behaviour.

Throughout the film your sympathy will probably flit between characters as Simon turns on Gordo and Robyn looks into what links the men and the story turns into a twisting and twisted tale of revenge. By the time comes you will realise that the film has played with the viewer’s perception of reality from the very beginning.

The seemingly idyllic town that Simon and Robyn have moved to is the place of a troubled past that Simon was involved with but he has conveniently not mentioned to Robyn. The house that Simon and Robyn have bought is all glass windows and steel beams. It’s the type of house where privacy is traded for showiness, the wonderful furnishings the couple have can be seen through the long windows and so forth and it demonstrates their wealth and happiness but they have moved from Chicago to Simon’s hometown to make a “fresh start,” a typical phrase hinting at some dark emotional turmoil that rears its head with arguments that flare up over Gordo’s presence.

The more time we spend with them the more we see their personas are a bit ragged.

Much like the showy house they have, the two carefully arrange a façade they want to show the world. Jason Bateman’s affable charmer performance seen in things like the television show Arrested Development is never used better as he dazzles people with jokes and his smile but that veneer of normality and affability is a cover for overbearingness and bullying. Watch Robyn as he introduces her to new people and see her irritation with the way he behaves. He is an alpha male and it is a trait he has long had and it reveals an ugly side to him.

Robyn herself is beautiful and intelligent and the sympathetic character who mediates between Gordo and Simon but there is a dark secret she is hiding, a habit that has created discord between herself and Simon which is exacerbated as she finds herself drawn to Gordo’s story. Rebecca Hall keeps her somewhat ambiguous in terms of reliability, flirting on the hysterical woman trope by mixing febrile emotions with common decency. What we may see as paranoia is certainly justified by Gordo’s actions but Simon’s increasingly erratic behaviour is even more upsetting for her.

The film is an interesting watch. I found the film intellectually intriguing rather than viscerally satisfying, visually interesting rather than dazzling and the complex performances compelling and deep rather than blow-out crazy. Some of the audience I saw this with were a bit more negative but I think it is vital, an adult drama in an age where superheroes and supernatural tales dominate. It is made Blumhouse Production, the team behind the Insidious franchise and it is like a real life horror film where people, the ideas they spread, and our realisation that our perception or reality may be false are the really scary things.

This film works best with the maximum of secrecy, much like the characters at the centre of the story. Suffice it to say that what starts out as a home invasion film turns into a psychological thriller as the script peels back the layers of the characters and reveals that what they show isn’t necessarily what they are and that not everything is black or white.

4/5

Joel Edgerton is a director to watch based on this. He started out as an Australian actor on television shows like Water Rats and successfully transitioned to Hollywood has appeared in a number of films such as the Oscar winning Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and the big-budget extravaganza, The Great Gatsby (2013). In between those projects he has appeared in character-driven drama Animal Kingdom and written his own films like The Rover (2014).

Happy weekend, readers!

There is plenty of anime released this weekend and some minor drama releases. The D-Boys are still getting their retrospective screenings. Nothing really grabs my interest but when researching at the different titles I stumbled across the website Tokyo Girls Update which contains lots of idol news so I’ll keep visiting that for updates on films.

I have been blogging for quite a while now and the next post is my 1000^th so I have what I consider to be a well-written review for a horror film that is one of the better titles I have watched as part of my splatter season. Stay tuned for that on Monday.

I have watched plenty of films this summer with the Indiana Jones films Studio Ghibli being a highlight amidst all of the splatter silliness. I must have watched Spirited Away for the 50^th time. Other than that, its nothing but zombies and mutants…

The Toronto International Film Festival has announced its full line-up and after a few rounds of updates a pretty healthy line-up of Japanese films are going to be screening there.

This week I posted about the upcoming Blu-ray release of A Snake of June and I posted a review of the psycho-thriller The Gift (2015)

What’s released in Japan this weekend?

Tokyo PR Woman   

Japanese: 東京PRウーマン

Romaji: Tokyo PR Uman

Release Date: August 22^nd, 2015

Running Time: 81 mins.

Director: Kosuke Suzuki

Writer: Makoto Hayashi, Junya Kato (Screenplay),

Starring: Mizuki Yamamoto, Yusuke Yamamoto, Arisa Sato, Ikumi Hisamatsu, Ren Kiriyama, Masahiro Inoue, LiLiCo,

Mizuki Yamamoto has risen from being in ensemble films The Kirishima Thing (2012) and supporting roles Black Butler (2014) and has now taken more leading roles with this light and frothy-looking film.

Rena Misaki (Mizuki Yamamoto) may lack self-confidence but she works for a PR company and this puts her at odds with her boss Kusakabe (Yusuke Yamamoto). To get further in her career she will change as a person.

Website  IMDB

at Home   

Japanese: at Home アットホーム

Romaji: at Home atto ho-u

Release Date: August 22^nd, 2015

Running Time: 110 mins.

Director: Hiroshi Chono

Writer: Teruo Abe (Screenplay), Takayoshi Honda (Original Novel),

Starring: Yutaka Takenouchi, Yasuko Matsuyuki, Kentaro Sakaguchi, Yuina Kuroshima, Jun Kunimura, Yuto Ikeda, Itsuji Itao, Seiji Chihara,

A thief named Kazuhiko (Takenouchi) and a swindler Satsuki (Matsuyuki) are a married couple with three children. The entire family makes money through crime. When the swindler is kidnapped and put up for ransom by her mark the family get together to get the mother back.

Website  IMDB

Yaru Otoko        

Japanese: 犯（や）る男

Romaji: Yaru Otoko

Release Date: August 22^nd, 2015

Running Time: 71 mins.

Director: Daisuke Yamauchi

Writer: Daisuke Yamauchi (Screenplay),

Starring: Kotomi Asakura, Ryoko Asamiya, Yota Kawase, Takahiro Nomura, Yuria Seto, Misa Wada, Ayane Shuzukawa,

OP Pictures seem like a new movie outfit and one of their new works is by Daisuke Yamauchi who has a background in pink movies. Two films in one trailer. The first part is for this movie:

In an all-too common story set-up this movie features a desperate man on the run from the law after an incident with his wife hooking up with a woman who was imprisoned by her husband (who we see get beaten up by the protagonist at the start of the trailer) and the two end up sharing each other’s despair and being attracted to each other.

Website  IMDB

Hontou ni atta kowai hanashi dai san juu ichi-yo kindan no asobi cha-ri ge-mu no noroi      

Japanese: ほんとうにあった怖い話第三十一夜　禁断の遊び　チャーリーゲームの呪い

Romaji: Hontou ni atta kowai hanashi dai san juu ichi-yo kindan no asobi cha-ri ge-mu no noroi

Release Date: August 22^nd, 2015

Running Time: 71 mins.

Director: Yasunari Konno

Writer: Yasunari Konno (Screenplay),

Starring: Yutaka Takenouchi, Yasuko Matsuyuki, Kentaro Sakaguchi, Yuina Kuroshima, Jun Kunimura, Yuto Ikeda, Itsuji Itao, Seiji Chihara,

Three short stories about three groups of people caught up in supernatural occurrences – school girls play “Charlies Game,” a variation on Kokkuri-san and summon a complete nutcase of a ghost; “Smoke of Death” sees a girl trying to save a childhood friend from some vague supernatural threat tat shows up in pictures; “Wraith” sees a man’s adulterous life come to a sticky end.

Website

Schoolgirl’s Cat Fight Often Starts in the Bathroom! / Joshi no jiken wa taitei, toire de okorunoda. Zenpen hairu? (Part 1 & 2)

Japanese: 女子の事件は大抵、トイレで起こるのだ。　前編　入る？

Romaji: joshi no jiken wa taitei, toire de okoru noda. Zenpen hairu?

Release Date: August 22^nd, 2015

Running Time: Part One: 71 mins. Part 2: 61 mins.

Director: Kazuya Shiraishi

Writer: Shuko Nemoto (Screenplay),

Starring: Nanase Akimoto, Jun Aonami, Momoka Gyoba, Naoya Gomoto, Miki Kamioka, Karin, Misako, Nana Morimoto, Nene Morimoto,

Director Kazuya Morimoto wrote and directed The Devil’s Path (2013), a rather tepid true-crime tale that failed to lift off despite a spirited villainous performance by Lily Franky.

This is based of a web dramedy uploaded on the website GYAO! earlier this year. It stars 17 girls who are in middle school and show business as idols.

Website  IMDB

Hikawa Maru Monogatari   

Japanese: 氷川丸ものがたり

Romaji: Hikawamaru Monogatari

Release Date: August 22^nd, 2015

Running Time: 94 mins.

Director: Shunji Oga

Writer: Kouji Miura, Ryouichi Matsushita (Screenplay), Genjiro Ito (Original Creator),

Starring: Chihiro Kusaka (Jirō Hirayama – 13-16 years old), Keisuke Koumoto (Jirō Hirayama – 24-years old) Jiro Saito (Tetsuzou Oukubo), Kiyohiro Yamaguchi (Seiichi Morimoto – nurse), Masahiro Yamanaka (Hiroshi Yamanaka)

Studio: Mushi Production

Anime News Network have agreat write-up of the film:

The film is based on essayist Genjirō Itō’s book of the same name. Kamakura Shunjuusha published a new edition of the book on June 05^th. The film commemorates the 85th anniversary of the completion of the maiden voyage of the Hikawa Maru ocean liner.

Jirou Hirayamais a boy who lost his mother in the Great Kanto Earthquake, and who runs a soba stall with his father. He decides to join the crew of the famous ocean liner Hikawa Maru, and finds work cooking in the ship’s galley. Through his eyes, the film explores the ship’s 85-year history which includes its time plying a route across the Pacific between Yokohama and Vancouver, it’s time when the Imperial Japanese Navy used it as a hospital ship and its post-war life.

Website    ANN

Gekijouban Date A Live: Mayuri Judgment   

Japanese: 劇場版デート・ア・ライブ 万由里ジャッジメント

Romaji: Gekijouban de-to a raibu mayuri jajjimento

Release Date: August 22^nd, 2015

Running Time: 81 mins.

Director: Keitaro Motonaga

Writer: Hidei Shirane (Screenplay), Koushi Tachibana (Original Creator),

Starring: Marina Inoue (Tohka Yatogami/Princess), Nobunaga Shimazaki (Shido Itsuki), Asami Sanada (Kurumi Tokisaki/Nightmare), Ayana Taketatsu (Kotori Itsuka), Iori Nomizu (Yoshino/Hermit), Maaya Uchida (Kaguya Yamai),

Studio: Production IMS

I don’t know too much about the Date A Live franchise despite writing about it in anime previews. It’s of a style that doesn’t grab me and the story reads like fantasy nonsense but it is popular so I must be missing something. The director for the film

Shidou Itsuka is an ordinary high school boy thrown into an extraordinary situation when he meets a spirit girl who has been rejected by a devastated world. The girl, whom Shidou names “Tohka,” happens to have wiped out much of humanity 30 years ago, and now she is back. The only way to stop her is to date her.

Website    ANN

Aikatsu! Music Award: Minna de Shou o Moraima SHOW!   

Japanese: アイカツ！ミュージックアワードみんなで賞をもらっちゃいまSHOW!

Romaji: Aikatsu! My-jikku awa-do Minna de Shou o Moraima SHOW!

Release Date: August 22^nd, 2015

Running Time: 56 mins.

Director: Shinya Watada

Writer: Bandai (Story/Original Creator),

Starring: Shino Shimoji (Akari Oozora), Tomoyo Kurosawa (Otome Arisugawa), Sumire Morohoshi (Ichigo Hoshimiya), Yuuna Mimura (Kaede Ichinose),

Studio: Bandai Namco Pictures

Ichigo Hoshimiya has entered Starlight Academy to enrol in their famous idol-training school and become an idol through intense training. The movie shows the awards ceremony and Ichigo’s adventures.

Website    ANN

D-BOYS STAGE 2010 trial-2 Last Game   

Japanese: D-BOYS STAGE 2010 trial-2 「ラストゲーム」

Romaji: D-BOYS STAGE 2010 trial-2 Rasuto Ge-mu

Release Date: August 22^nd, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: N/A

Writer: Daisuke Habara (Screenplay),

Starring: D-Boys: Masaya Nakamura, Osamu Adachi, Kotaro Yanagi, Hiroki Suzuki, Koji Seto,

The D-Boys play a bunch of students at Waseda and Keio Universities who play the American sport of baseball at the height of the Second World War.

Website

D-BOYS 10th Anniversary D Sute 15th `kake nukeru kazenoyouni’

Japanese: D-BOYS 10th Anniversary Dステ15th 「駆けぬける風のように」

Romaji: D-BOYS 10th Anniversary D Sute 15th `kake nukeru kazenoyouni’

Release Date: August 22^nd, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: Yutaka Narui

Writer: Yutaka Narui

Starring: D-Boys – Yuya Endo, Koji Seto, Hirofumi Araki, Tomo Yanagishita, Takahisa Maeyama, Tatsuya Okada, Masato Wada,

This is a stage play featuring the D-Boys in an Edo period setting that was originally staged in 2014.

Website

Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Weekend:

Jurassic World (Release: 2015/08/07)

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (Release: 2015/08/07)

Minions Movie (Release: 2015/07/31)

The Boy and the Beast (Release: 2015/07/11)

Boruto Naruto the Movie (Release: 2015/08/07)

Attack on Titan (Release: 2015/08/01)

Hero (Release: 2015/07/25)

The Emperor in August   (Release: 2015/08/07)

Inside Out (Release: 2015/07/18)

Pokémon the Movie: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages (Release: 2015/07/18)

Random music video which I wrote this post to:

Puzzle      

Japanese: パズル

Romaji: Pazuru

Running Time: 85 mins.

Release Date: March 08^th, 2014 (Japan)

Director: Eisuke Naito

Writer: Eisuke Naito, Makoto Sasaki (Screenplay), Yusuke Yamada (Original Novel),

Starring: Kaho, Shuhei Nomura, Kazuya Takahashi, Saori Yagi, Kokone Sasaki, Ryuzo Tanaka

Puzzle is based on a book by Yusuke Yamada, a popular writer of teen horror stories who has had many novels adapted into films. Despite this he is relatively unknown in the West but I think that Puzzle is a good introduction to his work with its twisting and twisted narrative that sucks teens into a vicious vortex of violence.

Puzzle lives up to its title by being a film told in fragments with characters who reveal themselves to the audience in parts that are never really clear until all the pieces are brought together to create a baroque tale of madness and pain. The film is broken up between different perspectives which recount the gruesome tale in non-chronological order. This is part of a wider approach to the story which is fragmented much like a puzzle. Various events occur to different characters with little to connect them other than everybody is involved with Tokumeikan High School:

A high school boy named Shigeo Yuasa (Nomura) is hiding from his fellow students so he can avoid building a sunflower figure for a hospital. On the surface everything seems nice but then… 

A high school girl named Azusa Nakamura (Kaho) throws herself off the school building. This is just the start of a chaotic series of events as…

A few days later the school is taken over by a bunch of male students wearing sunflower masks. They hold a pregnant teacher hostage and her colleagues are forced to play a bizarre and deadly game to free the teacher involving collecting puzzle pieces from RC cars which are also carrying explosives!

A person is seriously injured and the principal is kidnapped. The whole town is shaken by the incident but stranger things occur as the same students who carried out the incident go missing and the menacing teen leader of the gang reappears issuing broadcasts over the internet promising to cause more havoc and kill hostages including the principal unless the entire town takes part in his deadly game of finding more puzzle pieces.

The media and the citizenry speculate on what it could all mean as the town descends into panic and the police try to uncover what is going on. Little do they realise that these incidents are all related, all pieces of a puzzle that the whole town will see come together to create a picture of depravity.

Of course, we in the audience are also put though our paces by a tricky script and the deceptive candy-coloured look.

Puzzle is a teen horror movie of the highest calibre. It is brutally violent and very dark, the cute and innocent aesthetic contrasting with the flowing (quite often spraying) crimson blood while the script keeps everything off-kilter. Director Eisuke Naito has previously worked on horror films like The Crone (2013), a rather inept zero-budget film about a fast old demon hag haunting some pop idol girls, and Lets Make the Teacher Have a Miscarriage Club (2011), a brutal and ugly film that lives up to its name and with which Puzzle shares a lot of DNA.

To reveal anything of the plot is to pick-apart a pulse-pounding descent into madness and criminality and ruin some of the tricks and turns of the whip-smart story. Suffice it to say that things are not as simple as they look because what seems to play on the fear of teens (or ephebiphobia) and turning them into the “Other” through showing what they may get up to broadens out into a discourse on how adults mould and damage kids as sick crimes are gradually revealed.

Underneath the mysterious plot at Puzzle’s heart is a simple but effective story of abuse and the way it contaminates and destroys a person. There are Freudian motifs and ideas running through the film from the “primal scene” theory where a warped childhood creates a warped person to the villain’s Oedipus complex to the pathology of violence and sadism. The villain is a chilling sociopath of sorts and the contrasting rage and control the character displayed is terrifying. The targeting and evolution of Azusa’s character also fits into a narrative arc that lands firmly on blaming adults even if she is the final girl left holding the knife.

These psychological elements lend the film’s “villains” substance, strong and stirring characterisation that gets the audience thinking about isolation, violence, and crime.

Despite the lovely setting of this respectable sun-kissed little town with clean streets and nice-looking people the grisliest things happen behind closed doors and it’s not necessarily all down to the sunflower mask-wearing kidnappers.

The murderous set pieces are sure to stay in the memory (and may cause laughter) considering how they follow the film’s aesthetic by looking rather cute and/or childlike – big plastic torture devices attached to heads and male crotches, remote control cars with explosives, and a microwave with a “bun in the oven.”

These aren’t necessarily the worst bits of the violence and abuse. The more realistic and brutal stuff that audiences will find the most affecting involves adults exploiting and hurting vulnerable teens in scenes seen on screen and bought up in dialogue. From realistic beatings, and some physical mutilation carried out by a figure of justice in the clutches of rage, to some stomach-churning rape scenes, the worst transgressions are definitely committed by adults. The death games the sunflower villain organises are sadistic but it fits into the wider idea that adults are the problem, not kids answering the question as to why someone might try and commit suicide.

Naito’s direction is purposefully hyperactive at times, slow and contemplative when he wants the audience to think. He engages with all sorts of editing and framing techniques. The 80 minute run time feels a lot quicker due to the mixing and matching of styles and it fits in with the candy-coloured sugar-filled death romp.

Puzzle is a nasty film from the get-go. The director cloaks the darkness of the story at first with its visual approach. Initial suicide attempt aside, it presents itself with a smile, its cutesy aesthetics and a seemingly clean cut cast of characters living in what appears to be a normal town, but deep down drumming away beats a baleful heart of bitter blood and black bile as we experience just how rotten people can be. A dark and disciplined little exploration into the horrific side-effects of abuse, Puzzle is a film that will leave audiences reeling.

4.5/5

While there’s a term for a fear of kids and teens, there’s not one I could find for adults which says it all really…

I have reviewed one other adaptation of a Yusuke Yamada novel and that’s Oyayubi Sagashi (2006)

I may try and review The Crone.

This marks my 1000th post on this blog and I hope to continue going! Thanks for reading!

Happy weekend, readers!

The UK film festival season approaching and the imminent financial meltdown many Asian film fans will face when they want to attend Raindance, the London Film Festival and more (plus a screening of Hausu) is intimidating to think about. I’ll be busy over the next couple of months on trips to see some the films screening.

I wanted to finish off this splatter season in October and go back to reviewing dramas but there are plenty of films reviewed and still to be reviewed. I had hoped to get more horror manga reviews completed but I’m still standing at three with lots of films to cover so I guess they will be interspersed throughout the year. I did post one horror film this week and that was Puzzle (2014), a great little title from last year that seems to have gone unnoticed despite some fantastic directing and an intriguing story and characters.

What’s released this weekend?

This weekend’s releases feature a lot of sequels which meant I went back into previous trailer posts for information and updated trailers/changed information.

Round Trip Heart   

Japanese: at Home ロマンス

Romaji: Romansu

Release Date: August 29^th, 2015

Running Time: 97 mins.

Director: Yuki Tanada

Writer: Yuki Tanada (Screenplay),

Starring: Yuko Oshima, Koji Ookura, Yoshimi Nozaki, Masataka Kubota, Megumi Nishimuta,

We all know that former AKB48 idol Atsuko Maeda has blossomed into an actress of some talent but maybe we are missing out on another, less talked about former AKB48 girl… Yuko Oshima. She has been in a number of films for nearly a decade, always in a supporting role, but she won the attention of a lot of critics for her award-wiing turn in the drama Pale Moon (2014) last year. Today sees the launch of a film in which she takes the lead role and Mark Schilling over at the Japan Times gives her (and the film) a glowing review.

This one looks like down-to-earth fun. It comes from director Yuki Tanada, a leading voice in a generation of young women making more interesting films than their male counterparts. She has also written/directed critically admired films like One Million Yen Girl (2008), and The Cowards Who Looked to the Sky (2012).

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 involving a flighty mother abandoning her that have been holding her back from following her own path.

Website  IMDB

S: The Last Policeman: Recovery of Our Future   

Japanese: at Home ロマンス

Romaji: S – Saigo no Keikan – Dakkan Recovery of Our Future

Release Date: August 29^th, 2015

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Shunichi Hirano

Writer: Kazunao Furuya (Screenplay), Yoichi Komori, Yutaka Todo (Original Manga),

Starring: Osamu Mukai, Gou Ayano, Yui Aragaki, Nao Omori, Joe Odagiri, Munetaka Aoki, Anna Tsuchiya,

The National Police Agency has a Safety Rescue service which deals with extreme criminals and terrorists. Ichigo Kamikura (Mukai) and Iori Soga (Ayano) are two members of the Safety Rescue service and are assigned to case of a hijacked ship off the coast of Japan.

Website  IMDB

Yowamushi Pedal   

Japanese: 弱虫ペダル

Romaji: Yowamushi Pedaru

Release Date: August 28^th, 2015

Running Time: 90 mins.

Chief Director: Osamu Nabeshima, Director: Norihiro Naganuma

Writer: Reiko Yoshida (Script), Wataru Watanabe (Original Creator),

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

Studio: TMS Entertainment

Synopsis from ANN:

After winning the fierce Inter High race, Sakamichi and the other Sōhoku team members receive an invitation to compete in the Kumamoto Hi Province Mountain Range Race towards the end of summer. The top-tier teams from around the country compete in this race, including Sōhoku’s rivals Hakone Academy (which yearns to take down Sōhoku), Kyoto Fushimi, and Hiroshima Kureminami — as well as Kumamoto Daiichi High School’s team led by Shin Yoshimoto.

Website    ANN

Tamayura: Graduation Photo Part 2 – Hibiki  

Japanese: たまゆら　卒業写真　第2部　響　ひびき

Romaji: Tamayura: Sotsugyou Shashin Dai 1 2-bu Hibiki Hibiki

Release Date: August 29^th, 2015

Running Time: 52 mins.

Director: Junichi Sato

Writer: Reiko Yoshida, Yuka Yamada, Sayaka Harada (Screenplay), Junichi Sato (Original Creator),

Starring: Kana Asumi (Kaoru Hanawa), Mayu Iizuka (Suzune Maekawa), Yuko Gibu (Maon Sakurada), Yuka Iguchi (Norie Okazaki),

This is the second of four Tamayura films planned for release this year and they all revolve around the daily lives of high school girls Fuu, Kaoru, Norie, and Maon and recently graduated Kanae who are all in the photography club.

The club gets two new members but despite new friends, their lively daily life remains unchanged. Yet, the four third-year students are slowly thinking about their own future dreams and paths as they face graduation in about a year.

Website ANN

Front and Back Chapter 2   

Japanese: 表と裏第2章

Romaji: Omote to Ura Dai 2-shou

Release Date: August 28^th, 2015

Running Time: 118 mins.

Director: Kenichi Fujiwara

Writer: Mayuko Yoshiyuki (Screenplay)

Starring: Kaname Endo, Shunsuke Daito, Hidekazu Akai, Masataka Fujishige, Manabu Hamada, Asuka Ishii,

A young and idealistic lawmaker named Kyoichi (Endo) and a yakuza named Shoji (Daito) who were childhood friends at the same orphanage. Both want to change a corrupt world but while Kyoichi does so through politics and charisma, Shoji uses violence and the two reunite to change society… “front and back.”

Website IMDB

Satchan Shochan Sengo Minshuteki Dokuritsu Puro Funsenki

Sat-chan and Sho-chan: Pioneers of Japanese Independent Filmmaking

Japanese: 薩チャン正ちゃん　戦後民主的独立プロ奮戦記

Romaji: Sat chan Shou Chan Sengo Minshuteki Dokuritsu Puro Funsenki

Release Date: August 28^th, 2015

Running Time: 94 mins.

Director: Hiroo Ikeda

Writer: Mayuko Yoshiyuki (Screenplay)

Starring: Yoji Yamada, Kyoko Kagawa, Miyako Tokuko, Saotome Katsumoto, Kei Yamamoto, Kaneto Shindo,

Satsuo Yamamoto and Tadashi Imai were two filmmakers who began work in the 1930s studio system before being conscripted into the army. Their filmmaking skills were first used to make propaganda but after the war they made anti-authoritarian works that explored social issues others, particularly right-wingers might like to sweep under the carpet. The two may have started out in the studio system but their most important films were self-produced during the post-war years, Japan’s golden age of cinema. They proved to be influential with all sorts of directors like Yoji Yamada and they all give their opinions and recollections of the directors.

Website

TERROR OF HOUSE   

Japanese: TERROR OF HOUSE テラーオブハウス

Romaji: Tera- Obu Hausu

Release Date: August 28^th, 2015

Running Time: 83 mins.

Director: Hiroaki Tsunoda

Writer: Season (Shi-zun) Noda (Screenplay), Bitter Oolong (Original Story),

Starring: Mami Yamasaki, Misaki Ikeda, Misaki Nomura, Kisu Konishi, Okayasu Tabito,

I think this is a parody based on the reality television show Terraced House and uses the set-up of its group of men and women in a nice house together to make a horror film. Each of the characters dreams of success in showbiz and love and they spend their time talking late ito the night which is when a strange woman shows up.

Website

Yuuwaku Yuujo Sora to Shido   

Japanese: 誘惑遊女　ソラとシド

Romaji: Yuuwaku Yuujo Sora to Shido

Release Date: August 30^th, 2015

Running Time: 70 mins.

Director: Tetsuya Takehora

Writer: Kosuke Komatsu (Screenplay),

Starring: Kasumi Kaho, RiKA, Riri Kouda, Darin Ishikawa, Atsushi Tsuda,

Two pink movie professionals make the move into more mainstream drama. Last week we had Yaru Otoko which was a story about a violent guy on the run from the cops meeting a woman chained up by her husband for a fetish video and this week we have two women who work in a sex shop and help out their customers… The director is Tetsuya Takehora.

Website

D-BOYS 11th “Ku-ru no Tanjou” Birth of the Cool   

Japanese: Dステ11th 「クールの誕生」

Romaji:  D Sute 11th “Ku-ru no Tanjou”

Release Date: August 22^nd, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: Kazuya Yamada

Writer: Satoshi Suzuki

Starring: D-Boys – Yuya Endo, Koji Seto, Hirofumi Araki, Tomo Yanagishita, Takahisa Maeyama, Tatsuya Okada, Masato Wada,

For the third week running we get to see a D-Boys stage play from around 2012 and it’s another historical musical. This time the D-Boys are salarymen in 1960s Japan and they are trying not to forget their dreams despite being swept away by the good times and hard work of an economy that is booming.

Website

Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Weekend:

Jurassic World (Release: 2015/08/07)

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (Release: 2015/08/07)

Minions Movie (Release: 2015/07/31)

The Boy and the Beast (Release: 2015/07/11)

Boruto Naruto the Movie (Release: 2015/08/07)

Attack on Titan (Release: 2015/08/01)

Inside Out (Release: 2015/07/18)

Hero (Release: 2015/07/25)

The Emperor in August   (Release: 2015/08/07)

Pokémon the Movie: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages (Release: 2015/07/18)

The Raindance Film Festival has announced the feature films that will be screened and it contains a lot.

I like to think I do a decent job shining a light on a lot of the Japanese films released every year, compiling information on the actors and filmmakers and trying to translate plot synopses and link to IMDB pages and websites. This is a bit of a hobby but it also helps when I write about film festivals because I have all the information on hand, the only difficulty I face is in how I present it. With specialist festivals like Japan Cuts and Nippon Connection I highlight films but with UK festivals where the programme isn’t as loaded I can show everything and so with Raindance 2015 I can preview all of these titles for you.

Asleep, Rolling, Fires on the Plain, That’s It, Slum-opolis, Out of My Hand, The Birth of Sake.

It’s a respectable list and that doesn’t include the short films. My own highlights (as in, the ones I hope to watch) are Rolling, Fires on the Plain, and Asleep. They come from great filmmakers like Shinya Tsukamoto and have great actors like Sakura Ando, and they have stories that grab my imagination like in the case of Rolling. Here are the trailers and information on the films:

Asleep  　　

白河夜船　「Shirakawa yofune」

Duration: 91 mins.

Director: Shingo Wakagi

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

Website

Originally released in April, this one is based on a book by Banana Yoshimoto is a slow moving drama and according to a review by Mark Schilling the acting by Sakura Ando and Arata Iura is fantastic. Sounds and looks like a character-driven film to get absorbed in.

Synopsis: 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?

Fires on the Plain     

野火   「Nobi」

Duration: 87 mins.

Director: Shinya Tsukamoto

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

Website

Shinya Tsukamoto is a legendary director and yet he spent ten years bringing this remake of Kon Ichikawa’s seminal war film to the big screen. He produced, directed, and did so much more for this film which was originally released in July but has featured at film festivals around the world since last year where it has garnered all sorts of reviews. It is a visual tour de force thanks to Tsukamoto’s imagination bringing to life the scary sequences of the lead character’s nightmarish disease-fuelled experiences as a rogue Japanese soldier trying to survive World War II as everything falls apart around him.

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

Obon Brothers 

お盆の弟    「Obon Otouto」

Duration: 107 mins.

Director: Akira Osaki

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

Website

Originally released in July, this one has a lot of great actors in it with indie film leading man Kiyohiko Shibukawa working with the great character actors Ken Mitsuishi and Makiko Watanabe. The trailer reveals that it is talky and small in scale but the emotions and storyline give a wide range for these great performers to show off their stuff. It is destined to be released in the UK thanks to film distributor Third Window Films.

Synopsis: 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?

Rolling   

ローリング　「Ｒｏ－ｒｉｎｇｕ」

Duration: 93 mins.

Director: Masanori Tominaga

Cast: Takahiro Miura, Elisa Yanagi, Yohta Kawase, Reiko Mori, Hirohiko Sugiyama,

Website

When I saw Fires on the Plain was playing at Raindance I was delighted but I am really, really interested in Rolling, a black dramedy of sorts from Masanori Tominaga, director of the rather good Vengeance Can Wait (2010). When it was originally released in June it seemed like a breath of fresh air in the sense that it dared to be original and dark with its story of a pervert trying to blackmail an idol. The film is probably the most interesting in the festival to me and stars Takahiro Miura, a rising talent. If you’re not convinced, how about this article by Don Brown at the Asahi Shimbun website.

Synopsis: The story takes place in a city called Mito and it concerns a former teacher named Gondo (Yohta) who was bounced from his job when it was discovered he secretly filmed his own students. At rock-bottom and ditched by his girl Mihari, he bumps into a student named Kanichi (Miura) who tells him that one of the girls in his video is now an idol. Gondo hatches a blackmail plot with an illicit recording at its centre.

Slum-Polis 

Duration: 112 mins.

Director: Ken Ninomiya

Cast: Horyu Nishimura, Hidenobu Abera, Ryoko Ono

Website

Due to be released on September 26th in Japan, this one is an unknown quantity since no critics have covered it but it is that underused genre in live-action Japanese films – sci-fi. It’s Escape from New York-esque setting has potential to be fascinating.

Synopsis: Slum-Polis is an island cut off from the rest of Japan because of the high levels of violence. The death of a powerful gangster creates a dangerous atmosphere as people vie for power. However a group of friends, all artists, wish for a better life and use their talents and dreams to escape their brutal reality… until it catches up with them.

That’s It    

それだけ 「soredake」   

Duration: 90 110 mins.

Director: Gakuryu Ishii

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

Originally released in May, it looks like twenty minutes have been shaved from its running time. I was interested in this one when it was first released but critical reaction has been mixed. Apparently Gakuryu Ishii martials some great actors into a story that degenerates into shouting and mindless action. Is that the case? The film will be available for people to find out.

Synopsis: Samao Daikoku (Sometani) is searching for his identity whilst battling the criminal underworld and trying to save the woman he lovesm Ami Nanmu (Mizuno). Mean gangsters like Daikichi Ebisu (Shibukawa) and Kan Senju (Ayano) stand in his way.

Here are two American films, one from Japanese filmmaker and the other from a Japanese-American:

Out of My Hand   

Duration: 90 mins.

Director: Takeshi Fukunaga

Cast: Bishop Blay, Zenobia Taylor, Duke Murphy Dennis

Synopsis: A former Liberian rubber plantation worker named Cisco (Blay) risks everything to discover a new life as a Yellow Cab driver in New York City.

The Birth Of Saké 

Duration: 90 mins.

Director: Erik Shirai

Cast: Tereyuki “Toji” Yamamoto, Yasayuki Yoshida, Chikahiro Yamazaki

Synopsis: Japan’s Yoshida Brewery was founded more than 140 years ago and is one of the last places to still practice the traditional method of creating sake which means that workers, eat, sleep and live together for half of the year, working long hours to create the liquor. Director Erik Shirai looks into the process of making sake, the skill and effort of the people involved including Toji Yamamato, the head brewmaster who has worked at Yoshida for more than 55 years, and a new generation of people at the brewery, and looks at the sake itself showing why it is an internationally famous beverage.

Shorts

Shabu Shabu Spirit

If you are in Canada you have three film festivals with Japanese films playing a significant part. Montreal (which I am not covering) has around twenty Japanese titles while Toronto has nine programmed and Vancouver has yet to announce any. I’ll be sticking to Toronto for the most part in this post.

I think the first thing I want to say is that the website is wonderfully designed and looks stylish. The information is easy to access unlike some other festival websites which are cluttered and hard to navigate and the use of images and white space is great.

In terms of the films on offer, the actual content of the festival, an early glimpse shows that Montreal has films from the lesser known talents of Japan, the indie side of the game, but the subject-matter is challenging. Toronto has quite a few titles that played at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and is once again screening films from familiar fan favourites like Takashi Miike, Sion Sono and Hirokazu Kore’eda. There are some gems particularly the anime The Wolf Children and the Sono film The Whispering Star. There are a few intriguing international co-productions as well.

To find out more and to order tickets on any of the films, click on the titles and you will be taken through to the festival page.

What’s playing at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival?

The Boy and the Beast   

バケモノの子 「Bakemono no Ko」

Running Time: 128 mins.

Director: Mamoru Hosoda

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

This was premiered at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and released in July in Japan and has gone on to amass a lot of money at the box office where it stayed in the top ten films for quite a while. 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. There is also veteran voice actor Mamoru Miyano who can carry entire television shows by himself but he’s in a supportin role here. Of course, the biggest name will be Mamoru Hosoda who crafts heartful films that remind us of the finer emotions in life and the importance of family as seen in previous works like The Wolf Children, Summer Wars, and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. I think it would be safe to say that this one looks like it will deliver action and adventure for the whole family.

A lonely boy named Kyuta is on the run from his family in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward following the death of his moter. He finds that there is another world, the bakemono realm, Jutenkai. Typically, the human world and Jutenkai do not meet and humans aren’t welcome in the world of the monsters 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 Whispering Star

ひそひそ星「Hiso Hiso Boshi」

Running Time: 100 mins.

Director: Sion Sono

Starring: Megumi Kagurazaka

This is one of six films Sono is tagged as having directed that is/has been released this year. Well, that’s not quite true. This one was screened as part of an art exhibition and not a theatrical release (that’s next year). The exhibition had the theme of dystopia running through it and it was shot on different locations in the Fukushima prefecture, turning depopulated and irradiated areas into a future landscape that speaks of hopelessness, pollution, and abandonment. It stars people who live in the areas and Sion Sono’s wife. No trailer but here’s a glimpse of the art installation.

Synopsis: A spaceship shaped like a Japanese bungalow careens through the galaxy. It carries a humanoid robot named Yoko (Megumi Kagurazaka), a sort of interstellar UPS delivery person. Her job is simple: to distribute packages to human beings scattered across sundry planets. But with so much spare time between deliveries, Yoko begins to wonder what’s in those packages.

Hide & Seek

かくれんぼ「Kakurenbo」

Running Time: 22 mins.

Director: Kimie Tanaka

Starring: Masaki Miura, Kuniaki Nakamura, Sachiko Matsuura, Hiroko Ninomira, Matsumi Fuku, Kaori Takeshita, Tadashi Mizuno,

Website

This is a short film with internatonal backing which is reflected in the make-up of the crew. The writing and directing is done by Kimie Tanaka who, like a few other female directors I have read/written about, started out in one career (banking) and then made the shift into filmmaking. This is her second short film.

Synopsis: Shoichi, a Japanese male nurse living in the city, returns home to the countryside after his mother’s sudden death to deal with younger brother Kotaro, who hasn’t left his room in over a decade. However, disappointment from the local bureaucracy leads Shoichi to a radical decision.

IMBISIBOL

インビジブル「Imbijiburu」

Running Time: 132 mins.

Director: Lawrence Fajardo

Starring: Allen Dizon, Ces Quesada, Bernardo Bernardo, Ricky Davao, JM De Guzman,

Website

Filipino’s sometimes crop up in contemporary Japanese films such as Permanent Nobara but this is the first film I have seen which is set in Japan and is directed by a Filipino with the cast/staff made up of his countrymen and women. It looks like a powerful drama about relationships of family and nationality being put to the test by the realities economic migration and deportation…

Synopsis: Lawrence Fajardo’s stark and heart-wrenching film incorporates several different narratives about unlicensed Filipino workers in Japan. Benjie and Edward are two middle-aged men who fell for each other in Japan, a secret they keep from the loved ones they’re supporting back home. Manuel is an aging gigolo who’s past his prime and finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. And the seemingly saintly Linda is there legally, but constantly fights with her Japanese husband because she rents rooms to undocumented Filipinos.

Journey to the Shore   

岸辺の旅 「Kishibe no Tabe」

Running Time: 128 mins.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Eri Fukatsu, Masao Komatsu, Yu Aoi, Akira Emoto,

Website

Kiyoshi Kurosawa is one of the best film directors working in Japan right now and while he may never make a horror film like Pulse or Cure again, he has settled into making dramas pretty well.

This one is an adaptation of the 2010 novel Kishibe no Tabi by Kazumi Yumoto and while it is no Tokyo Sonata it earned him the Best Director prize when it screened at Cannes. The film is an elegiac drama and has earned a reputation that suggests an audience might come away feeling this is profound or dull. I await the moment I finish watching the film before I make judgement but it has a great cast such as lead actor Tadanobu Asano, star of Vital, Ichi the Killer, and Gohatto and Watashi no Otoko. Eri Fukatsu is the leading lady awho put in a star turn in the crime drama Villain.

Synopsis: 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.

Our Little Sister

海街 Diary 「Umimachi Diary」

Running Time: 126 mins.

Director: Hirokazu Koreeda

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 (I prefer the title Umimachi Diary which sounds more evocative) was at this year’s Cannes Film Festival where it impressed critics and audiences alike with its sensitive drama that focusses on the relationship between a group of sisters and their new step-sister. It was then released in Japan in June where it did respectable box-office. 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 and Our Little Sister one has all the familiar hallmarks of those films.

Website

Synopsis: 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.

Yakuza Apocalypse: The Great War of the Underworld   

極道大戦争 「Goku dou dai sensou」

Running Time: 125 mins.

Director: Takashi Miike

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

Website

Yakuza Apocalypse: The Great War of the Underworld was at this year’s This first appeared at the Cannes International Film Festival where it was given a theatrical release in Japan back in June of this year where it was given mixed reviews even by fans of Takashi Miike’s films.

Synopsis: 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…

An   

あん「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.

Website

Naomi Kawase was at this year’s Cannes film festival with this film where it was used by critics as a whipping boy in their criticism of the festival always programming the same directors (it was Kawase’s sixth appearance) no matter how mediocre the films (this one seems to be generally considered dull by international critics). I don’t know. Perhaps there was more of an agenda at work in these reviews as well as criticism of the quality of the film. An was released in Japan at the end of May.

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.

That’s it for the Japanese films. Tickets are already on sale.

Happy weekend people!

The autumn film festival season has launched and I am previewing the Japanese films at five different events. This week saw me cover the Raindance Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival which both have an interesting mix of titles. I’ve got the London Film Festival and Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival geared up for next week.

Earlier in the year I was rather negative about the quality of films being released in Japan this year but after looking at the different festivals, 2015 is shaping up to be solid with a flood of smaller interesting titles at the  Montreal film festival.

What’s released in Japan this week?

The Virgin Psychics     

映画みんな！エスパーだよ「Eiga Minna! Esupa- Dayo!」

Release Date: September 04^th, 2015

Running Time: 114 mins.

Director: Sion Sono,

Writer: Sion Sono, Shinichi Tanaka (Screenplay), Kiminori Wakasugi (Original Manga),

Starring:  Shota Sometani, Elaiza Ikea, Erina Mano, Makita Sports, Anna Konno, Motoki Fukami, Ai Shinozaki, Tokio Emoto, Megumi Kagurazaka,

Website IMDB

This is directed by Sion Sono (Suicide Circle, Strange Circus, Noriko’s Dinner Table) one of the world’s great contemporary directors and it is based on a TV dorama that is based on a manga written by Kiminori Wakasugi, creator of the hilarious Detroit Metal City.

Synopsis: Yoshirō “Yocchan” Kamogawa (Sometani) is an ordinary (virgin) high school boy who finds his life literally changes overnight when he wakes up with the ability to read other people’s minds. Sounds awesome! But he uses it for trivial things. He’s not alone in gaining weird powers as a café worker named Teru-oichan (Sports) gains telekinetic powers. Sounds really awesome! But he uses them for sex toys. Yōsuke Enomoto (Fukami), a fellow school-pupil of Kamogawa and a basketball player, also gains a power, the ability to teleport. Sounds super-awesome! But it only works while he is naked. Get ready to see how they use their powers when they battle rival espers!

Neko Samurai 2: A Tropical Adventure  

猫侍南の島へ行く「Neko Zamurai Minami no Shima e iku」

Release Date: September 05^th, 2015

Running Time: 85 mins.

Director: Takeshi Watanabe

Writer: Yuji Nagamori, Hisakatsu Kuroki (Screenplay),

Starring:  Kazuki Kitamura, LiLiCo, Yoshihiro Takayama, Megumi Yoko Yama, Hana Kino,

Website IMDB

Neko Samurai 2 was at this year’s Japan Cuts and has received middling reviews such as this one in the Japan Times.

Synopsis: Taciturn unemployed samurai Kyutaro Madarame (Kitamura) lives with his nagging mother-in-law Tae (Kino) who insists that he gets a job. There’s one going in the Tosa Domain on Shikoku and it involves being a sword instructor. With his beloved cat Tamanojo and his sword, Kyutaro heads to the southern island where he gets into an insane adventure…

Piece of Cake   

ピースオブケイク「Pisu Obu Keiku」

Release Date: September 05^th, 2015

Running Time: 121 mins.

Director: Tomorowo Taguchi

Writer: Kosuke Mukai (Screenplay), George Asakura (Original Manga)

Starring:  Gou Ayano, Mikako Tabe, Tori Matsuzaka, Fumino Kimura, Kaoru Mitsumune, Masaki Suda, Tasuku Emoto, Kazunobu Mineta, Tamae Ando,

Website IMDB

Tomorowo Taguchi is famous for being an actor and his most famous role is arguably the salaryman in Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) but he is also a director in his own right and this is his second feature film.

Synopsis: Shino Umemiya (Tabe) dates lots of guys because she is lonely. This leads to her boyfriend becoming violent and the two breaking up. Shino moves to a new place and meets Kyoshiro Sugahara (Ayano) who intrigues her. However, he lives with another woman named Akari (Mitsumune)…

Seishun Gunjyoiro no Natsu   

青春群青色の夏「Seishun Gunjyoiro no Natsu」

Release Date: September 05^th, 2015

Running Time: 115 mins.

Director: Yuwa Tanaka

Writer: Yuwa Tanaka (Screenplay),

Starring:  Kosuke Endo, Yui Nakamura, Yusei Kaneko, Yusuke Kamikawa, Midori Suiren, Atsushi Yamada, Ayaka Yuhara,

Website

Synopsis: High school student Kosuke Akiyama (Endo) and his parents are about to move to the country and so he wants to spend his last summer alone and in peace but his childhood friend Shintaro (Kaneko) has other ideas…

Tokyo City Girl   

Tokyo City Girl「Tokyo City Girl」

Release Date: September 05^th, 2015

Running Time: 100 mins.

Director: Yoshitatsu Yamada, Michihito Fujii, Kentaro Shima, Hiroto Hara, Tomokazu Yamada, Kento Yamaguchi,

Writer: Yuji Nagamori, Hisakatsu Kuroki (Screenplay),

Starring:  Rina Takeda, Moe Miura, Miharu Tanaka, Rino Higa, Himeko Toya, Misato Aoyama, Koki Maeda, Chiyoko Asami, Kensuke Takahashi,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: This is an omnibus film about various girls in Tokyo of different ages and social classes. One girl is mourning the loss of her mother and trying to cheer up her father, another girl hoped to be an actor but is working in a bar and is dating another failed actor, then there is the one about a hitwoman who doesn’t believe in romance until she meets the right guy and in another story a girl discovers her friend has aids and she might have contracted it.

Unfair: The End    

アンフェア the end「Anfea the end」

Release Date: September 05^th, 2015

Running Time: 108 mins.

Director: Shimako Sato

Writer: Shimako Sato (Screenplay), Takehiko Hata (Original Story)

Starring:  Ryoko Shinohara, Koichi Sato, Kento Nagayama, Sadao Abe, Masaya Kato, Susumu Terajima, Kotaro Yoshida, Mion Mukaichi,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: Natsumi Yukihira (Shinohara) is a Tokyo homicide cop with a reputation for being a badass and a loner. She brings in her targets by any means necessary and this has led to her killing a man and getting a bad reputation. She isn’t just a cop, she’s a mother to a little girl and a divorcee so she struggles to balance her life. In this movie she investigates a series of murders which has led to her ex-husband Kazuo dying. Natsumi investigates and it seems that each new victim is the lead suspect from the previous murder.

Tell the Prime Minister   

首相官邸の前で「Shusoukantei no Mae de」

Release Date: September 05^th, 2015

Running Time: 109 mins.

Director: Eiji Oguma,

Writer: N/A

Starring:  Naoto Kan, Risa Yoshida, Yukiko Kameya, Masanori Oda, Misao Rewolf, Lisa Yoshida,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: Ever since the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on March 11th, 2011, many people have been demonstrating in front of the prime minister’s office against nuclear power. 2015 sees nuclear power plants get restarted and Eiji Oguma, a lecturer at Keio University, recrods some of these protests.

XXX Kiss Kiss Kiss 

XXX Kiss Kiss Kiss「XXX Kiss Kiss Kiss」

Release Date: September 05^th, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: Hitoshi Yazaki

Writer: Ai Igarashi, Momoko Nakamori, Katsuko Ohkura, Chie Takeda (Screenplay),

Starring:  Yurika Fukaya, Hiroki Hatsumi, Mari Hayashida, Asuka Hinoi, Kotaro Kakimoto, Ryosuke Kato, Shinobu Kawamata, Naoki Kawano, Tomoaki Kimura, Kôta Kusano, Megumi Maeno, Masaki Matsuda, Wakana Matsumoto,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: Hitoshi Yazaki, director of San Gatsu no Lion oversees an omnibus movie put together by five screenwriters.

Tokyo Ghoul: “Jack” OVA   

OVA 東京喰種トーキョーグール JACK「OVA Toukyou To-kyo- Gu-ru」

Running Time: 30 mins.

Director: Shoichi Shimada

Starring: Daisuke Namikawa (Kishou Arima), Ryohei Kimura (Taishi Fura), Rintarou Nishi (Yamori), Rumi Ookubo (Aki),

Website  ANN

Synopsis (from ANN): An incident involving a human-devouring Ghoul occurs in Tokyo’s 13th Ward. To seek the truth behind what happened to his friend, the rebellious high school boy Taishi Fura pursues the Ghoul named Lantern with the young ace investigator Kishō Arima. The story follows how the ace investigator Arima and the talented 7th Ward investigator Taishi Fura first met. (from manga)

Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Weekend:

Ted 2 (Release: 2015/08/28)

Jurassic World (Release: 2015/08/07)

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (Release: 2015/08/07)

Minions Movie (Release: 2015/07/31)

S: The Last Policeman: Recovery of Our Future (2015/08/28)

The Boy and the Beast (Release: 2015/07/11)

Inside Out (Release: 2015/07/18)

Boruto Naruto the Movie (Release: 2015/08/07)

Attack on Titan (Release: 2015/08/01)

Hero (Release: 2015/07/25)

The programme for the BFI London Film Festival was announced last week and it has a selection of interesting titles. A lot of the features have been in festivals since the start of the year and two of them have gotten mixed reviews from critics which is disappointing if you want to see new work. The chances of some of these showing up on DVD and possibly theatrically is guaranteed which makes me wonder why I should go to the festival but… BUT… There are plenty of Japanese films so I shall refrain from complaining anymore. There are also some quality titles and two surprises. There are films not yet released in Japan and ones that must be seen on the big screen!

The ones that audiences should seek out, in my opinion, are Love & Peace, Happy Hour, Our Little Sister, The Boy and the Beast, and possibly Ghost Theatre.

Here are the films for you to see so you can make up your mind as to what looks good!

Love & Peace      

ラブ＆ピース 「Rabu&Pisu」

Running Time: 117 mins.

Director: Sion Sono

Starring:  Hiroki Hasegawa, Kumiko Aso, Tohiyuki Nishida, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Eita Okuno, Makita Sports, Erina Mano, Megumi Kagurazaka, Miyuki Matsuda

Website

Released in June, this was the third film directed by Sion Sono this year and it looks like his best. It has been picked up for UK distribution by Third Window Films so we’re guaranteed a home format release but this looks like one to see on the big screen thanks to the spectacle featured in the trailer. The film has been described as “pure Sono: a bonkers and uproarious one-of-a-kind that simply has to be seen to be believed.” Surely that shoul convince you to go!

Taking the lead is Hiroki Hasegawa, the mad cinephile in the yakuza movie comedy Why Don’t You Play in Hell? and Kumiko Aso, the waif running around in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s horror film Pulse.

Ryoichi (Hasegawa) once dreamed of becoming a punk rocker but he became a timid salaryman at a musical instrument parts company. Life is calm but he has feelings for an office lady (Aso) he can’t express and he feels he wants more which is when fate strikes!

One day, he randomly buys a turtle and names it Pikadon, A series of events occur and Ryoichi’s dreams of being a rock star ight be about to come true! However, it might also lead to the end of the world…

Ghost Theatre   

劇場霊「Gekijourei」　例

Running Time: 99 mins.

Director: Hideo Nakata

Starring:  Haruka Shimazaki, Rika Adachi, Riho Takada, Keita Machida, Mantaro Koichi,

Website

Hideo Nakata has directed three truly brilliant works – Ringu, Dark Water, and Ghost Actress or, Don’t Look Up, as it is also called. Ghost Actress lasts just over an hour and is a slow-build but the tension and gradual horror is superbly executed. It seems like Ghost Theatre is inspired by that last film and the festival site describes Nakata’s latest as “a deliciously unhinged piece of work, arguably his most satisfying since the acclaimed Dark Water.” This sounds like a return to form to me! A note of caution for fans of his more serious work, the festival page for the film also notes Nakata takes a “a more playful, even slightly tongue in cheek approach” and he has hired an AKB48 idol for the lead role. Is this more fun like POV: A Cursed Film than chills like Ghost Actress?

Synopsis: Sara (Shimazaki) is an actor at a theatre troupe under the direction of Gota Nishikino (Koichi). When the lead actors in the play retire due to strange accidents, Sara is thrust into the spotlight and given the lead role. Sara soon realises that amidst all of the jealousy is a supernatural threat that is haunting the play…

Happy Hour   

ハッピーアワー「Happi- Awa-」　

Running Time: 317 mins.

Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Starring:  Rira Kawamura, Hazuki Kikuchi, Maiko Mihara, Sachie Tanaka

Website

Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi made waves with his short film, Touching the Skin of Eeriness and now he is back with a five hour drama about a four women in the city of Koby. It’s a prize-winning, the four lead actors walked away with the best acting prize at the Locarno Film Festival earlier this year.

Synopsis (from the festival page): Four friends; a nurse, curator, cafe worker and housewife move through the entanglements of their work and romantic lives attempting to find some balance. The women talk frankly, often to the point of social humiliation, and the unfolding of various infidelities feels painfully true, as does the incomprehension of the men who love them.

The Boy and the Beast   

バケモノの子 「Bakemono no Ko」

Running Time: 128 mins.

Director: Mamoru Hosoda

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

This was released in July in Japan and has gone on to amass a lot of money at the box office where it stayed in the top ten films for quite a while. 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. There is also veteran voice actor Mamoru Miyano who can carry entire television shows by himself but he’s in a supportin role here. Of course, the biggest name will be Mamoru Hosoda who crafts heartful films that remind us of the finer emotions in life and the importance of family as seen in previous works like The Wolf Children, Summer Wars, and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. I think it would be safe to say that this one looks like it will deliver action and adventure for the whole family.

Synopsis: A lonely boy named Kyuta is on the run from his family in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward following the death of his moter. He finds that there is another world, the bakemono realm, Jutenkai. Typically, the human world and Jutenkai do not meet and humans aren’t welcome in the world of the monsters 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).

When Marnie Was There      

思い出のマーニー 「Omoide no Mani」

Running Time: 103 mins.

Director: Hiromasa Yonebayashi

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

Website

Proving that the UK always gets Studio Ghibli films ages after their Japanese release, this one came out in Japan in July 2014. It is reputedly the last film from Studio Ghibli and is directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, the chap who helmed Arrietty.  The film is an adaptation of a book written by British novelist Joan G. Robinson’s and published in 1967 but the setting has moved from Britain to modern Japan.

Synopsis: A twelve-year-old girl named Anna has journeyed to a small coastal town in Hokkaido from her native Sapporo to better cope with her asthma. She is staying with relatives and leads a solitary existence because she finds it hard to deal with other children due to a dark incident in her past. One day, she sees a western-style house that the villagers refer to as Marsh House and spies a mysterious blonde girl named Anna in the windows. She heads over there and the two become friends but Anna has a dark secret…

Ryuzo And The Seven Henchmen       

龍三と七人の子分たち「Ryuzo to Shinichinin no Kobuntachi」

Running Time: 111 mins.

Director: Takeshi Kitano

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

Website

Released in April this year, this is Takeshi Kitano’s latest film about old yakuza gangsters cleaning up the crime world and it has gotten decent reviews. 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, and, more recently, Bright Future).

Synopsis: Ryuzo (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.

Our Little Sister   

海街 Diary 「Umimachi Diary」

Running Time: 126 mins.

Director: Hirokazu Koreeda

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 (I prefer the title Umimachi Diary which sounds more evocative) was at this year’s Cannes Film Festival where it impressed critics and audiences alike with its sensitive drama that focusses on the relationship between a group of sisters and their new step-sister. It was then released in Japan in June where it did respectable box-office. 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 and Our Little Sister one has all the familiar hallmarks of those films.

Website

Synopsis: 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.

Yakuza Apocalypse: The Great War of the Underworld   

極道大戦争 「Goku dou dai sensou」

Running Time: 125 mins.

Director: Takashi Miike

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

Website

Yakuza Apocalypse: The Great War of the Underworld was at this year’s This first appeared at the Cannes International Film Festival where it was part of the Director’s Fortnight and it was given a theatrical release in Japan back in June of this year where it was given mixed reviews. This seems like one for the fans!

Synopsis: 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…

An     

あん「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.

Website

Naomi Kawase was at this year’s Cannes film festival with this film where it was used by critics as a whipping boy in their criticism of the festival always programming the same directors (it was Kawase’s sixth appearance) no matter how mediocre the films (this one seems to be generally considered dull by international critics). I don’t know. Perhaps there was more of an agenda at work in these reviews as well as criticism of the quality of the film. An was released in Japan at the end of May.

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.

There are also three shorts:

Angelo Lives (Dir: Yu Araki)

Shape Shifting (Dir: Elke Marhöfer, Mikhail Lylov)

Sound of a Million Insects, Light of a Thousand Stars (Dir: Tomonari Nishikawa)

That’s it for the Japanese films. Tickets are on sale on September 17^th.

The Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival takes place in Wales later this month in Cardiff and again at the end of October in Aberystwyth. It is the only film event in Wales to show anime on the big screen and takes place over the course of a day in the two locations. The programming team has brought out a selection of classics and some newer titles that show some of the best modern animated films from Japan.

This year’s events once again take place in the Chapter Arts Centre  and the Aberystwyth Arts Centre and there are titles from Madhouse and Production I.G with the psycho-thriller Perfect Blue (directed by the genius auteur Satoshi Kon) and Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise, the film which launched studio Gainax, being two highlights.

I’ll be travelling to the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff to see the festival there.

Here’s an article I wrote for Anime UK News which gives the times and dates. Here’s more about the films themselves. To find out when the festival is screening and the prices of tickets, click on the links to the venues (tickets are already on sale at Chapter):

A Letter to Momo (2011)   

ももへの手紙「Momo e no Tegami」

Running Time: 120 mins

Director/Writer: Hiroyuki Okiura

Starring: Karen Miyama (Momo Miyaura), Yuka (Ikuko Miyaura), Cho (Mame), Toshiyuki Nishida (Iwa), Takeo Ogawa (Koichi),

I first posted about A Letter to Momo back in 2011 (and on Anime UK News) and since then it has floated around different festivals totally because it is a high quality film.

This is the second film from director Hiroyuki Okiura and it was a passion project he spent seven years developing following the critically acclaimed sci-fi thriller Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999), a magnificent ultra-masculine political tale of life in an alternate world Japan where a right-wing government cracks down on dissent with brutal force.  This is completely different…

A Letter to Momo is a supernatural comedy-drama about a little girl coming to terms with the loss of her father. Audiences will see shades of Studio Ghibli in the painstaking work which has gone into making the beautiful hand-drawn animation produced by Production I.G as well as the story which features a mixture of the realistic and fantastical and a well-written young female protagonist people will be able to relate to.

Following the death of her father a young girl named Momo and her mother Ikuko move from the bustling metropolis of Tokyo to Ikuko’s childhood home on the remote island of Shio. Momo finds it difficult to adjust to the loss of her father and her new surroundings but when she explores the attic of her new big house and finds an antique picture-book with sketches of fantastical creatures strange things happen and she discovers she is sharing a house with three mischievous yokai.

Tiger & Bunny: The Rising (2014)   

劇場版 TIGER & BUNNY -The Rising- 「Gekijouban Tiger & Bunny -The Rising- 」

Running Time: 108 mins

Director: Yoshitomo Yonetani, Writer: Masafumi Nishida

Starring: Hiroaki Hirata (Kotetsu T. Kaburagi/Wild Tiger), Masakazu Morita (Barnaby Brooks, Jr.), Yuuichi Nakamura (Ryan Goldsmith/Golden Ryan), Rina Hidaka (Kaede Kaburagi),

Tiger & Bunny: The Rising is a continuation of the hugely popular TV anime and acts as an epilogue to the series that adds some great character development and melds together 2D and 3D animation in thrilling action sequences.

The heroes of TIGER & BUNNY Kotetsu T. Kaburagi, a.k.a. Wild Tiger, and Barnaby Brooks Jr. resume their careers as heroes fighting crime in HERO TV’s Second League following the events of the Maverick incident but the new owner of Apollon Media, Mark Schneider, splits up their partnership and pairs Barnaby with a new hero, the powerful and egotistical Golden Ryan. The two are sent to investigate a series of events linked to Stern Bild city’s Goddess Legend and discover new super powered NEXTs plotting to destroy everything. Barnaby and Golden Ryan must overcome their differences to save the lives of millions while Kotetsu rediscovers what it means to be a hero.

Short Peace (2013)   

ショート　ピース「Sho-to Pi-su」

Running Time: 68 mins

Short Peace is a compilation of four short films written and directed by four different directors each giving their take on the theme of Japan. It’s notable for being the brainchild of Katsuhiro Otomo, the director of the seminal sci-fi title Akira and one of the short films, Possessions, was nominated for the best animated short Oscar. The director of Possessions, Shuehei Morita, went on to direct the TV anime Tokyo Ghoul. Some of these shorts look absolutely fantastic!

Possessions              

九十九「Tsukumu」

Director/Writer: Shuhei Morita

Starring: Takeshi Kusao (Kaeru Hebisakka), Aoi Yuuki (Komachi Sorimono), Kouichi Yamadera (Frog),

In 18th Century Japan, a lone traveller deep in the mountains loses his way on a stormy night and chances upon an abandoned shrine which houses otherworldly creatures.

Combustible

火要鎮「Hi no youjin」

Director/Writer: Katsuhiro Otomo

Starring: Masakazu Morita (Matsuyoshi), Saori Hayami (Owaka),

In 18th Century Edo-period Japan, Owaka and Matsukichi long to be together but when Matsukichi becomes a fireman he is disowned by his family and Owaka’s family set up an arranged marriage for her, it seems that fate is against them but a fire will bring them together.

Gambo   

Director: Hiroaki Ando, Writer: Katsuhito Ishii, Kensuke Yamamoto

Starring: Mutsumi Tamura (Kao), Daisuke Namikawa (Nigenji),

A giant red demon appears and attacks an isolated village in a mountainous region of northeast Japan at the end of the 16th century. A young village girl named Kao seeks the help of a mysterious white bear in defending her home.

A Farewell to Weapons

武器よさらば「Buki yo Saraba」

Director/writer: Hajime Katoki

Starring: Issei Futamata (Marl), Tomoyuki Dan (Rohm). Ryotaro Okiayu (Junky), Akio Otsuka (Jin), Shigeru Ushiyama (Gimlet)

In a war-torn future Tokyo, a platoon of armoured soldiers battles a robotic tank.

Extra Short Films

Before the main feature, there will also be three additional short films that have been at film festivals around the world like Annecy:

Maku   

Director: Yoriko Mizushiri

Duration: 5m 26s

Kyogen Stage/Eye Examination Room/Sushi Bar Counter – There are two people who face each other in each space. Each pair keeps a few distance between their partners and find some fearful, tender, and comfortable feelings that fascinate them. The feelings are put into practice immediately, and they start groping each feeling.

The Night of the Naporitan

Director: Yusuke Sakamoto

Duration: 6m 18s

The Naporitan Spaghetti, the main character of the film, is neither Italian nor Japanese cuisine. Having lost his identity, Naporitan Spaghetti embarks on a journey of self-discovery around the world. This is a tragic story of Naporitan Spaghetti who never learnt how to love others. This animated film has been both produced and directed by Yusuke Sakamoto, who also provided the voiceover for Naporitan Spaghetti.

The Small Garden

Director: Shunsuke Saito

Duration: 12m 22s

Did the universe begin with a yin-yang globe or with an egg? The most plausible, science-based insight into the mystery of everything since The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise (1987)    

王立宇宙軍オネアミスの翼「Ouritsu Uchuugun – Oneamisu no Tsubasa」

Running Time: 121 mins

Director/Writer: Hiroyuki Yamaga

Starring: Leo Morimoto (Shirotsugh Lhadatt), Mitsuki Yayoi (Riguinni Nonderaiko), Bin Shimada (Yanalan), Aya Murata (Manna Nonderaiko), Hiroshi Izawa (Darigan), Hirotaka Suzuki), Kazuyuki Sogabe (Marty), Yoshito Yasuhara (Nekkerout),

I’m really in this festival to see The Wings of Honneamise. It is magnificent and many long-time anime fans hold this up as a great watch. Not everybody felt that way when it was first released.

The Wings of Honneamise was the first commercial movie project created by legendary anime studio Gainax and features early work by director Hideaki Anno and character designer Yohiyuki Sadamoto who both went on to find fame with Evangelion. Initially a large commercial flop it has gone on to achieve cult status and is now regarded as a classic. It is one of my top three anime of all time and I have multiple copies of the film. It is a profound and moving tale of human endeavour and belief in trying for a better future all told through some sterling character development. The soundtrack by Ryuichi Sakamoto (which I also have) is a mixture of traditional Japanese instruments, piano pieces, and synthesizers but despite being dated it remains one of the best I have heard and I still play tracks from it.

In a world somewhat similar to our own, two nations are on the verge of war and use their technology for destruction. An amiable dreamer from the Kingdom of Honneamise named Shirotsugh Lhadatt fails to make the grade as a navy pilot and finds himself in the underfunded and unloved Royal Space Force. He is inspired to reach for the stars after a chance encounter with a pacifist but he finds himself in a race against time to leave the Earth and become the first man in space because war looms large and there are those supporting his mission that have an ulterior motive.

Perfect Blue (1997)      

パーフェクトブルー「Pa-fekutoburu-」

Running Time: 80 mins

Director: Satoshi Kon, Writer: Sadayuki Murai

Starring: Junko Iwao (Mima Kirigoe), Rica Matsumoto (Rumi), Shinpachi Tsuji (Tadokoro), Me-Mania (Masaaki Okura), Shiho Niiyama (Rei),

This is the debut film of Satoshi Kon, a man who would push the boundaries of anime with dark psychological stories such as Millennium Actress (2001), Paranoia Agent (2004), and Paprika (2006). Satoshi Kon’s works are the type that many anime fans hold up to show how mature the medium is and it’s easy to see why because he uses animation to make a twisting and devious story hacking into a character’s fractured psyche as she battles to establish what is reality and a nightmare. The story comes off as something Brian DePalma might make only it’s much more high quality and it supposedly served as an inspiration to the film Black Swan.

Mima Kirigoe was a member of a successful J-pop idol group named “Cham!” but she turned her back on music to pursue a career as an actress on a television crime drama called “Double Blind.” This decision unleashes the anger of obsessive fans who stalk her online through a website called “Mima’s Room” and their obsessions enter her real life when one stalker named Me-Mania enters the scene and threatens her life. Soon people involved in Mima’s career start showing up dead and Mima looks like the chief suspect. As her life begins to unravel, Mima finds herself in the grip of paranoia begins to lose track of what is reality and nightmare

It’s also gratifying to see that the Cardiff portion of the festival features the return of the popular family-friendly marketplace with Japanese food and goods and the raffle with great prizes such as a subscription to Neo magazine.

To find out more and stay in contact with the festival, you can use Twitter the Kotatsu Website and the festival’s Facebook page.

Happy weekend people!

The summer 2015 anime season is winding down now and so I am preparing to embark upon one of those lengthy autumn season guides for Anime UK News. Stop by at the site to see some of the Japan-related events that are due to take place which I post on the front page and not here.

This week saw me posting about the London Film Festival and the Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival. I’ve got one more festival to cover this month before heading back to reviews.

What’s released in Japan this weekend?

Uchimura Summers the Movie: Angel   

内村さまぁ～ず THE MOVIE エンジェル「Uchimura Samazu The Movie Enjeru」

Release Date: September 11^th, 2015

Running Time: 85 mins.

Director: Hiroyuki Kudo

Writer: Hayashi Mori, Yoshibumi Takahashi (Screenplay),

Starring:  Masakazu Mimura, Teruyoshi Uchimura, Kazuki Ootake, Reiko Fujiwara, Yuki Kubota, George Takahashi, Ami Onuki,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: Masaru Mitamura, Jiro Uchiyama and Kosaku Oshima all work at the “Enjeru-sha” which is a drop in spot for people who need problems solved. They take client’s requests by making a fictional scenario and as characters from their scripts.

Red Ball    

赤い玉、「Akai Tama」

Release Date: September 12^th, 2015

Running Time: 108 mins.

Director: Banmei Takahashi

Writer: Banmei Takahashi (Screenplay),

Starring:  Eiji Okuda, Fujiko, Yukino Murakami, Shota Hanaoka, Shiori Doi, Tasuku Emoto, Keiko Takahashi,

Website  IMDB

Synopsis: Shuji Tokita (Okuda) is a film director and a professor at a university but despite his success he is struggling to make his latest movie until he meets a female high school student named Ritsuko (Murakami)…

Girl’s Step    

ガールズ・ステップ「Ga-ruzu Suteppu」

Release Date: September 12^th, 2015

Running Time: 115 mins.

Director: Yasuhiro Kawamura

Writer: Michiro Egashira (Screenplay),

Starring:  Anna Ishii, Fuka Koshiba, Karin Ono, Mika Akizuki, Miku Uehara, Hayato Isomura, Miyabi Matsuura, Shunsuke Daito, Kei Otozuki,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: Azusa (Ishii), Narumi (Koshiba), Hazuki (Ono), Tamaki (Akizuki) and Mika (Uehara) are high school students who lack confidence and ambitions but when they are inspired to form a dance club they soon find a direction in life and how to express themselves.

Watashitachi no Haa Haa   

私たちのハァハァ「Watashitachi no Haa Haa」

Release Date: September 12^th, 2015

Running Time: 90 mins.

Director: Daigo Matsui

Writer: Daigo Matsui (Screenplay),

Starring:  Sonoko Inoue, Reika Oozeki, Saku Mayama, Toko Miura, Sosuke Ikematsu, Eriko Nakamura, CreepHyp,

Website IMDB

CreepHyp helped create and played in the Daigo Matsui film How Selfish I Am! (2013). The film was all about how a group of people in tough circumstances coped with CreepHyp’s music providing solace. This looks like more of the same only a coming-of-age variant with a far simpler narrative. Sosuke Ikematsu and Eriko Nakamura return from the first film.

Synopsis: Four high school students travel from Fukuoka to Tokyo to attend a concernt put on by their number one rock band “CreepHyp.” The road is long and fraught with all sorts of incidents.

Kaiketsu Zorori: Uchuu no Yuusha-tachi   

かいけつゾロリ うちゅうの勇者たち「Kaiketsu Zorori: Uchuu no Yuusha-tachi」

Release Date: September 12^th, 2015

Running Time: 49 mins.

Director: Tomoko Iwasaki

Writer: Akiko Waba, Keigo Koyanagi, Mari Okada (Screenplay), Yutaka Hara (Original Creator)

Starring: Koichi Yamadera (Zorori), Rikako Aikawa (Ishishi), Motoko Kumai (Noshishi), Ai Kayano (Clara),

Website  ANN

Synopsis: Master thief Zorori and his partners in crime Ishishi and Noshishi go from looking for treasure at the bottom of the sea and up into space where they land on the mystery of star Mumun. Zorori meets Pretty Clara and a weird alien who threatens her.

Mizu to kaze to ikimono to Nakamura Keiko · Seimeishi wo tsumugu

水と風と生きものと　中村桂子・生命誌を紡ぐ「Mizu to kaze to ikimono to Nakamura Keiko · Seimeishi wo tsumugu」

Release Date: September 12^th, 2015

Running Time: 119 mins.

Director: Michio Fujiwara

Writer: N/A

Starring:  Keiko Nakamura, Toyo Ito, Norio Akasaka,

Website

Synopsis: The scientist Keiko Nakamura is the director of JT Biohistory Research Hall, an organisation dedicated to the study of what it means to be alive. After the East Japan Earthquake Keiko Nakamura reread the works of Kenji Miyazawa, a native of Hanamaki, Iwate Prefecture, a place hit hard by the disaster. She was inspired to stage a version of his story, Gauche the Cellist and visit the hometown of Kenji and meet a wide variety of people who live there to understand how human beings and nature work together.

The Big Bee   

天空の蜂「Tenku no Hachi」

Release Date: September 12^th, 2015

Running Time: 138 mins.

Director: Yukihiko Tsutsumi

Writer: Ichiro Kusuno (Screenplay), Keigo Higashino (Original Novel)

Starring:  Yosuke Eguchi, Masahiro Motoki, Yuke Nakama, Gou Ayano, Akira Emoto, Jun Kunimura, Ken Mitsuishi, Hana Matsushima, Kei Ishibashi,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: When a terrorist threatens to ram a remotely operated helicopter with a child onboard into a nuclear power plant Yuhara (Eguchi), the helicopter designer, and Mishima (Motoki), a nuclear power engineer, and a team of rescue workers aim to stop a disaster happening.

BLACK ROOM   

ブラックルーム「Burakku Ru-mu」

Release Date: September 12^th, 2015

Running Time: 90 mins.

Director: Masato Tsujioka

Writer: Masato Tsujioka (Screenplay),

Starring:  Masato Tsujioka, Yu Yuuki, Ryo Asagiri, Jiro Dan, Kyoko Aizome,

Website

The trailer for this lasts over three minutes and most of that time is spent showing the title of the film and playing some awful music. The real action is in the first twenty seconds.

Synopsis: Mario (Tsujioka) is a news show director who is jealous of his co-worker Hideki Shindo’s life. Or, more specifically, his fiancé Seira Kiyozumi. Mario s plans to lockup Seira Kiyozumi in a specially constructed dungeon…

Halloween Nightmare   

ハロウィンナイトメア「Harouin Naitomea」

Release Date: September 12^th, 2015

Running Time: 75 mins.

Director: Kotaro Terauchi

Writer: Kotaro Terauchi, Keiji Sagami (Screenplay), Ivory Dice (Original Work)

Starring:  Aki Asakura, Reiko Igarashi, Tetsuya Nakanishi, Erina, Takako Kitagawa, Emi Yoshida,

Website

Synopsis: Based on the free horror game, Halloween Nightmare is all about a girl who longs to work for a fashion magazine but ends up editing an occult magazine which is full of what she thinks of silly stories. However she investigates one particular story of a mysterious attacker killing people on Halloween day and she gets close to the world of the weird than she would like…

Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:

Unfair: The End (Release: 2015/09/05)

Ted 2 (Release: 2015/08/28)

Jurassic World (Release: 2015/08/07)

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (Release: 2015/08/07)

Minions Movie (Release: 2015/07/31)

S: The Last Policeman: Recovery of Our Future (2015/08/28)

Yowamushi Pedal the Movie (Release: 2015/09/05)

Boruto Naruto the Movie (Release: 2015/08/07)

The Boy and the Beast (Release: 2015/07/11)

Piece of Cake (Release: 2015/08/29)

La Maison de Himiko    

メゾン・ド・ヒミコ「Mezon do Himiko」

Release Date: August 27^th, 2005

Running Time: 131 mins.

Director: Isshin Inudo

Writer: Aya Watanabe (Screenplay),

Starring:  Kou Shibasaki, Joe Odagiri, Min Tanaka, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Hiroki Murakami, Hirokazu Inoue, Chiharu Muraishi, Kira Aoyama, Hiroshi Okochi, Shinichi Hatori,

Website IMDB

La Maison de Himiko is the title of the film and the name of the retirement home, for gay men, which is at the centre of the narrative. It is a place where people are open and accepting of others when the outside world can be judgemental and sometimes cruel and it is the place where one young woman finds herself coming to terms with the darkest of emotions that have hampered her life.

It all starts with Saori (Kou Shibasaki), the unhappiest woman in town. She is working two dead end jobs, her most important being secretarial one at Nippon Paint, a small firm where the boss, Hosokawa (Nishijima)  is sleeping with his office staff and she isn’t paid enough to put up with her boorish colleagues. Desperate for cash to pay off debts she is considering working for a phone sex company when a handsome young man named Haruhiko (Joe Odagiri) appears at her workplace with an intriguing offer of a paying job – every Sunday she will work as a maid at La Maison de Himiko, a seaside retirement home for gay men, where she will help run errands and look after its dying owner, Himiko.

Saori flatly refuses. It’s a routine she has heard before. What’s the problem?

Her estranged father is the owner of La Maison de Himiko. Her father is Himiko (Min Tanaka), he is gay and Haruhiko is his boyfriend.  Saori cannot forgive her father for abandoning his family and for his decision to be openly gay.

Haruhiko ups the offer and states that there is an inheritance and with her father about to die she will soon come into some money. With little cash and no decent jobs on the horizon, Saori takes up the offer. What she finds at the house is a space for a group of men to be themselves be it reserved and quiet or outrageous and camp. This space soon opens up for her as she begins to deal with feelings for her father and her future.

Writer Aya Watanabe and director Isshin Inudo quietly lay out Saori’s journey from anger to acceptance (or near enough) with the ease and gentleness of seasoned professionals, allowing the story to flow naturally and rather conventionally. The audience delves into the story through Saori’s perspective as she, and by extension the audience, discovers that people are complex and it is best to understand the emotions that make up humans. This realisation, in turn, helps Saori unburden herself from her emotional problems. While gay issues are dealt with, the film dovetails these into more complex and universal ones about acceptance of difference and other people’s feelings. This is neatly laid out by the script and in the visual language and performances in the film.

Saori begins the film trapped in miserable circumstances.

In a society where people are sensitive to emotions and make sure to regulate them in public to maintain their roles, Shibasaki gleefully plays a character whose physicality broadcasts her inner anger to the world with little regard for what people may think. She uses comic and dramatic skill to show Saori’s inner turmoil in the fullest sense. Slight in build but curdling with an ocean of inner ire she slouches around in every scene as if powered by resentment over having to engage with life. Forget makeup, she has a permanent frown plastered on her face. Her manner is curt and her disgust for others, and herself, is plain to see.

It is understandable when you consider her broken family background and her present financially straitened circumstances. Her apartment, just glimpsed is cramped and rather bland while her office work is pure monotony with a predatory boss looking to sink his claws into his female workers. Most of the shots of her city life are of drab, rainy, humid anonymous urban locations.

When she travels to the coastal town where La Maison de Himiko is, the atmosphere of the film changes into a more vibrant one and Saori begins to open up in her new surroundings. The titular house rests on the coast basking in the warm embrace of the sun for most of the day. The interior of the house is refined, with fine art adorning walls and rococo furniture for people to use as they read Ed McBain’s novels and watch Lady Lawyer Mystery Files. Most of all, it is a place that encourages people to be together as can be seen by sofas, the long dining tables and the swimming pool and an open kitchen where everyone contributes to the cooking and eating together.

The men who reside in the building are a mixture of archetypes given a slice of backstory or a few  traits that makes them feel a little more real and diverse – the ex-yakuza, the school teacher, transvestites – than stock clichés and these people bring their experiences and nuanced opinions to the story, helping each other and Saori in the process. These personal experiences and the items they bring such as family photographs, reminisces of mothers or children, past jobs, all humanise a supporting cast who play their roles with coolness and respect.

Saori’s engagement with the men at la Maison de Himiko is initially one of
suspicion and sometimes outright hostility and disgust with a few homophobic epithets thrown in. As she gets to know the band of gays she works for, this hatred is soon mixed with grudging interest that gradually becomes acceptance and friendliness as she becomes part of a supportive group of people who act as a family and she gets to know the men who reveal more
about themselves to this outsider. Of course, being a gay-themed film there is clubbing (plus a fun dance sequence to the tune “Mata au hi made” “Till we Meet Again”) and dress up for the characters to engage with but these serve to show the prejudices that they suffer as heterosexual characters of different types show up to pour scorn on some of the loveliest and shyest characters.

At this point, both Saori and the audience have gotten to know the characters and we suddenly get a taste of what it’s like to feel an individual threaten to tear your social standing apart because of your sexuality. Sympathy arises as La Maison de Himiko has allowed the audience to see that these men are people and thus complex and lets us make the connection for ourselves with little manipulation.

This is a lesson that Saori learns herself when she comes to understand her father Himiko and his lover Haruhiko are no longer easily dismissed as the root cause of her misery.

Min Tanaka, swathed in feminine robes, makes few appearances as Himiko, bedridden as the character is, but his presence is felt throughout the film thanks to his strong and cool masculinity which gives the sense of an unshakable and uncompromising belief in what he is and has done. Himiko’s patience with Saori and her growing understanding of the characters makes her learn that she needs to reconsider him and her own mother before jumping to conclusions about abandonment and what her parents meant to each other.

As Haruhiko, the handsome Joe Odagiri is smoking with sensual and dangerous vibes but it is his vulnerability, the moments of fluid sexuality that undercut the binary oppositions and social definitions that people cling to, and the uncertainty with life after Himiko’s passing that provides the conduit for Saori to understand these men on more profound levels and thus, let go of her anger in a series of emotionally cathartic scenes that build up to an ultimate but low-key epiphany.

When we first see Saori it is with a scowl but  as the film moves forward and she shows the difficulty she has in coming to terms with things and our last sight of her is with a beaming smile.

The story is not perfect. There are a few raging stereotypes and clichéd gay-themed story tropes running around such as flouncing drag queens and a homophobic bully who may be uncertain in his heterosexuality. These elements give the story a slightly schematic feeling, as if boxes are ticked as gay-related issues are neatly dealt with and audience expectations met, but they are couched between the other, more down-to-earth characters and there is that wonderful Japanese ambiguity and darkness that gives it an edge. Happiness for the characters is never certain, forgiveness is not something easily found, total acceptance of homosexuality is something these men may never see in their lifetime but as long as Le Maison de Himiko remains open and they look out for each other, things will work out.

Indeed, this is the wonderful thing about the film. The titular Le Maison de Himiko genuinely does become a safe place that is a joy to hang out at as Saori discovers for herself and it is thanks to the direction of Isshin Inudo and the actors that we understand why. There is the sense that the filmmakers care about the people on screen and just allow them to be who they are, regardless of their faults and prejudices, and to learn and grow as the get to know each other. It is hard to resist joining in their lives and caring thanks to the actors’ performances which are spirited and engaging and as Saori makes a return trip to the house at the end of the film, you’ll wish you could join her and spend more time with the residents.

4/5  

My Japanese teacher let me borrow the film and I’m pretty happy to say it’s a great title and one any audience member can return to and enjoy. I enjoy watching Kou Shibasaki (formerly a lead in teen-centric films like Battle Royale and One Missed Call, wasted in her latest film roles like Bolt from the Blue and 47 Ronin) and Joe Odagiri (Mushishi, Adrift in Tokyo) so it’s great to see them work together in this film.

I cannot stress enough that with this film Kou Shibasaki proves that she is a fantastic actor. The way she stays in character and paints a picture of misery that gradually morphs into happiness and freedom as the film progresses, the way she matches gazes with characters and shows the troubled emotions she has, is all convincing and moving.

I have reviewed one other film by director Isshin Inudo and that is Zero Focus.

Here’s that delightful dance sequence I mentioned earlier:  “Mata au hi made” “Till We Meet Again” by Ozaki Kiyohiko remixed by Yoshihiro Sawasaki.

Here’s the original song:

Much like the titular Maison de Himiko, the film offers a safe space for people to relax and be in the presence of friends.

I only published one review this week and that was for the wonderful Maison de Himiko.

What’s released in Japan this weekend?

Haikyu!! the Movie: Winners and Losers   

劇場版ハイキュー!! 勝者と敗者「Gekijōban Haikyu! ! Shōsha to Haisha」

Release Date: September 18^th, 2015

Running Time: 88 mins.

Director: Susumu Mitsunaka

Writer: Taku Kishimoto (Series Composition), Haruichi Furudate (Original Creator),

Starring: Ayumu Murase (Shouyou Hinata), Kaito Ishikawa (Tobio Kageyama), Hiroshi Kamiya (Ittetsu Takeda), Kaori Nazuka (Kiyoko Shimizu), Kazunari Tanaka (Keishin Ukai), Kouki Uchiyama (Kei Tsukishima), Miyu Irino (Koushi Sugawara), Nobuhiko Okamoto (Yuu Nishinoya),

Website     ANN

This is the second of a two-part movie adaptation/compilation of the TV anime Haikyu!! which is Production I,G’s adaptation of Haruichi Furudate’s manga of the same name.

Synopsis from Anime News Network: The story follows Shōyō Hinata (voiced by Ayumu Murase), who began playing volleyball after seeing the “Small Giant” who played the sport when he was in elementary school. He suffers a crushing defeat in his first and last tournament in middle school at the hands of his rival Tobio Kageyama (Kaito Ishikawa). So, Hinata joins Karasuno High School’s volleyball team, vowing revenge against Kageyama.

However, Kageyama is also on Karasuno’s team. The former rivals form a legendary combo with Hinata’s mobility and Kageyama’s precision ball-handling. Together, they take on the local tournaments and vow to meet Kurasuno’s fated rival school in the nationals.

Attack on Titan: End of the World   

進撃の巨人 ATTACK ON TITAN エンド　オブ　ザ　ワールド　「Shingeki no Kyojin: Attack on Titan – Endo obu za Wa-rudo」

Release Date: September 19^th, 2015

Running Time: 87 mins.

Director: Shinji Higuchi

Writer: Yusuke Watanabe, Tomohiro Machiyama (Screenplay), Hajime Isayama (Original Manga),

Starring: Haruma Miura, Hiroki Hasegawa, Kiko Mizuhara, Kanata Hongo, Rina Takeda, Ayame Misaki, Jun Kunimura, Satomi Ishihara, Pierre Taki, Nanami Sakuraba, Takahiro Miura,

Website   IMDB

This is the second live-action Attack on Titan film. Critical reactions for the first one started out positive but have been mixed since its release. Can the second film please viewers?

Synopsis: Eren Jaeger (Miura) is tasked with sealing a hole in a wall that the Titans are flooding through but he is swamped by the enemy despite the help of Shikishima and others. Even Armin (Hongo) is in trouble as a titan swallows him but a new, black-haired titan appears and begins to help the human forces…

The Letters   

ポプラの秋「Popura no Aki」

Release Date: September 19^th, 2015

Running Time: 98 mins.

Director: Kenichi Ohmori

Writer: Kenichi Ohmori (Screenplay), Kazumi Yumoto (Original Novel)

Starring:  Miyu Honda, Tamao Nakamura, Nene Otsuka, Eri Murakawa, Tomoko Fujita, Takashi Naito,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: When Chiaki’s (Honda) father dies she and her mother, Tsukasa (Otsuka) move to Popura apartment building. It is here that she meets the proprietor, an old woman (Nakamura) who claims to be able to send letters to the dead. Chiaki writes a letter hoping it will reach her father in Heaven.

Heroine Shikkaku / Heroine Disqualified (International Title)   

ヒロイン失格「Popura no Aki」

Release Date: September 19^th, 2015

Running Time: 112 mins.

Director: Tsutomu Hanabusa

Writer: Erika Yoshida (Screenplay), Momoko Koda (Original Manga)

Starring:  Mirei Kiritani, Kento Yamazaki, Kentaro Sakaguchi, Ayano Fukuda, Miwako Wagatsuma, Maryjun Takahashi, Mari Hamada, Riki Takeuchi,

Website IMDB

This one is the adaptation of a popular manga. Ah, the lovely Miwako Wagatsuma is in this one playing a “plain” girl who acts as a love rival to the heroine.

Synopsis: Hatori Matsuzaki (Kiritani) is a strong-willed girl who is in love with her childhood friend Rita Terasaka (Yamazaki). It’s a one-sided love, unfortunately, since she doesn’t declare her feelings to him. Things get a lot more complicated when Kosuke Hiromitsu (Sakaguchi), the most popular boy in school, starts circling Hatori and Rita starts dating quiet girl Miho Adachi (Wagatsuma).

The Anthem of the Heart   

心が叫びたがってるんだ。「Kokoro ga Sakebitagatterun Da.」

Release Date: September 19^th, 2015

Running Time: 88 mins.

Director: Tatsuyuki Nagai

Writer: Mari Okada (Script),

Starring: Inori Minase (Jun Naruse), Kouki Uchiyama (Takumi Sakagami), Sora Amamiya (Natsuki Nido), Yoshimasa Hosoya (Daiki Tazaki),

Website     ANN

Tatsuyuki Nagai is a director and Mari Okada is a writer who specialise in telling dramatic stories in anime. Their greatest collaboration is arguably anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day but their latest looks good.

Synopsis from the official English-language website: Jun is a girl whose words have been sealed away. She was once a happy girl, but because of a [certain thing] she said when she was very young, her family was torn apart. One day, the egg fairy appeared in front of her and sealed away her ability to talk in order to stop her from hurting anybody else. Since this traumatic experience, Jun lives in the shadows away from the limelight. But, one day she is nominated to become an executive member of the “community outreach council.” On top of that, Jun is also appointed to play the main lead in their musical…

Norin Ten: A Gonjiro Inazuka Story       

NORIN TEN 稲塚権次郎物語「NORIN TEN Inazuka Gonjiro Monogatari」

Release Date: September 19^th, 2015

Running Time: 110 mins.

Director: Hidetaka Inazuka

Writer: Hidetaka Inazuka (Screenplay),

Starring:  Tatsuya Nakadai, Kenji Matsuzaki, Mami Nomura, Yumiko Fujita, Kumiko Komiya,  Go Ohshio, John Coldwell, Maki Hirai,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: Man in news: Director of film on wheat Norin-10 developer

Director Hidetaka Inazuka is a distant relative of the subject of the film, Gonjiro Inazuka. He is famous for developing the wheat strain Norin-10 which significantly contributed to the Green Revolution, averting a global food crisis by ushering in a spectacular increase in food production and hunger reduction in developing countries led by American agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, during the 1960s.  Source Source

Suguru hi no yama neko   

過ぐる日のやまねこ「Suguru hi no yamaneko」

Release Date: September 19^th, 2015

Running Time: 92 mins.

Director: Keiko Tsuruoka

Writer: Keiko Tsuruoka (Screenplay),

Starring:  Misaki Kinoshita, Yuki Izumisawa, Jin Kusanagi, Mao Nakagawa, Mari Nishio, Natsumi Seto, Yoji Tanaka,

Website IMDB

Keiko Tsuruoka made waves and won awards with her 2012 film The Town of Whales which was at the 2013 Berlin Film Festival. This is her latest.

Synopsis: Two teens who have both lost loved ones in the mountains surrounding their town meet up and search for a mysterious and rare mountain cat. Though ther interaction, they heal the wounds that the loss of their family members created.

Chigasaki Story   

3泊4日、5時の鐘「3-paku 4-nichi, 5-ji no kane」

Release Date: September 19^th, 2015

Running Time: 89 mins.

Director: Takuya Misawa

Writer: Takuya Misawa (Screenplay),

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

Website IMDB

Chigasaki Story was at this year’s Rotterdam International Film Festival but was on the festival circuit back in 2014 where it garnered reviews as being a drama but one done in the style of Ozu and from a director who is new to the game and it’s produced by Kiki Sugino who is becoming an. The Hollywood Reporter review makes this one sound like another film to watch:

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

A Room of Her Own – Rei Naito and Light   

あえかなる部屋　内藤礼と、光たち「ae ka naru Heya Naitō Rei to, kotachi」

Release Date: September 19^th, 2015

Running Time: 87 mins.

Director: Yuko Nakamura

Writer: N/A (Screenplay),

Starring:  Rei Naito, Hina Yukawa, Ran Yaniguchi, Keiko Oyama, Kyoko Tanaka,

Website IMDB

This was at the Aichi International Women’s festival last week and that’s where I got the synopsis from!

Synopsis: Contemporary artist Rei Naito is reputed for her work “Matrix” which is exhibited in Teshima Art Museum in Kagawa Prefecture. Highlighting the two-year communications between Naito, an artist who has never revealed her creating processes to the outside world, and director Yuko Nakamura, this film shows the quest of five women, all invariably enchanted by Naito’s art, as they explore her artistic world based on the question of whether it is in itself a blessing to be alive.

Shironagasu kujira ni sasageru ballet / A Dance for Blue Whales  

シロナガスクジラに捧げるバレエ「Shironagasu kujira ni sasageru barei」

Release Date: September 19^th, 2015

Running Time: 72 mins.

Director: Katsumi Sakaguchi

Writer: Katsumi Sakaguchi (Screenplay),

Starring:  Kana Matsushita, Mayumi Niikura, Hiori Ohkubo, Shiori Shiraki, Haruka Tachibana, Sunao Yamashita

Website IMDB

Katsumi Sakaguchi directed the powerful documentary Walking with My Mother (2014) which was a moving portrait of the director’s elderly mother dealing with the sudden life-shattering loss of her daughter and her husband which precipitated a sudden deep despair. His latest film is also about loss but as see through the eyes of two little girls, sisters searching for a new home and family after the 3/11 Earthquake and Tsunami.

Synopsis from the English language part of the film’s website: This film depicts the lives of an 8-year-old and 11-year-old sister, who have lost their beloved family to the Great Disaster and Tsunami. As they return to where their home used to stand, now a village lost in sand, they retrace their memories in search for their family, and work together to build their “new home,” in silence. This film expresses new hope and repose to the 20,000 lost and missing souls from the Great East Earthquake that hit Japan three years ago.

The Vancouver International Film Festival takes place at the end of September and throughout a lot of October and it caps a series of international festivals jam-packed with Japanese content. It has a great selection of shorts and features with many different types of titles on offer for festival-goers – a strong programme of dramas are a highlight thanks to the festival’s traditional Dragons & Tigers section which is programmed as ever by Asian cinema specialist Tony Rayns.

The highlights are many and I think that this is my favourite looking line-up of films out of all but Japanese cinema specialist festivals like Nippon Connection, Japan Cuts, Camera Japan and Rotterdam. To the programmers at Vancouver, well done. You’ve made a great selection of films. To the reader, I hope you find something you enjoy!

Here’s the line-up!

Our Little Sister      

海街 Diary 「Umimachi Diary」

Running Time: 126 mins.

Director: Hirokazu Koreeda

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

Website

Our Little Sister needs no introduction since it was at the Cannes Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, and it will be at the London Film Festival. 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 and Our Little Sister one has all the familiar hallmarks of those films as Tony Rayns confirms with his write up, describing it as “sensitive, emotionally acute and, of course, beautiful.”

Synopsis: 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.

100 Yen Love     

百円の恋 「Hyaku-en no Koi」

Running Time: 113 mins.

Release Date: December 20th, 2014

Director: Masaharu Take

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

Website

This film is a genuinely great one. It stars Sakura Ando in a career-best performance as a woman who goes from zero to boxing hero with all of the clichés and tropes but done brilliantly and in a rather gritty way. It’s an entertaining and tough watch with a lot of heart thanks to Sakura (one of the best actors in Japan) Ando’s performance. Tony Rayns agrees: “it’s really Ando’s film: she does deadbeat-coming-back-to-life better than anyone you’ve ever seen.”

Synopsis: Ichiko (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 (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.

Rolling   

ローリング　「Ｒｏ－ｒｉｎｇｕ」

Duration: 93 mins.

Director: Masanori Tominaga

Cast: Takahiro Miura, Elisa Yanagi, Yohta Kawase, Reiko Mori, Hirohiko Sugiyama,

Website

This one was programmed for the UK’s Raindance Film Festival but I won’t be going to see it due to time/money constraints. It’s a decision I feel like I might regret since it is the latest work from Masanori Tominaga, director of the rather good Vengeance Can Wait (2010) and it stars Takahiro Miura, a rising talent. It’s a dark dramedy which takes a dip in the sleazy end of the entertainment world and drags the audience into a twisted tale of voyeurism and crime and nasty characters who blackmail, double-cross ad hurt each other to dramatic and darkly comedic effect.

Synopsis: The story takes place in a city called Mito and it concerns a former teacher named Gondo (Yohta) who was bounced from his job when it was discovered he secretly filmed in the girls’ locker room. At rock-bottom and ditched by his girl Mihara, he bumps into a student named Kanichi (Miura) who soon strikes up a relationship with Mihara. This slightly testy mix becomes explosive when Kanichi tells Gondo that Tomomi, one of the girls in his videos is now an idol. Gondo hatches a blackmail plot with an illicit recording at its centre.

Man from Reno    

リノから来た男 「Rino kara kita otoko」

Duration: 111 mins

Director: Dave Boyle,

Starring: Ayako Fujitani, Kazuki Kitamura, Pepe Serna, Elisha Skorman, Hiroshi Watanabe,

Website

The Man from Reno is an intriguing little neo-noir title that reverses the gender roles and has the guy playing the beautiful dame luring our female hero into danger. It’s an American film with a heavy Japanese influence and a lot of Japanese actors. It has been out and about in various festivals where it picked up a lot of great reviews.

Synopsis:  A Japanese bestselling crime novelist visiting San Francisco finds herself embroiled in a real life mystery after a night with a handsome stranger. The man–Japanese and supposedly from Nevada–disappears the next morning, after which increasingly strange and dangerous events begin to occur.

A Midsummer’s Fantasia    

Duration: 96 mins

Director: Jang Kun-Jae

Starring: Kim Saebyuk, Ryo Iwase, Lim Hyungkook, Kan Suon

This one is a Japanese-Korean co-production that has garnered some great reviews. It is directed by indie kid Jang Kun-Jae and it is described as having scenes reminiscent to Richard Linklater’s film, Before Sunrise (1995). This Screen Daily review should convince you of its worth.

Synopsis:  The first part of the film, shot in monochrome, is about a “Korean director who is preparing to shoot a film in a remote area of Japan. The second half shows the results of the film shoot in colour: a moving retrospective of a possible love between a guide and a female Korean visitor.

The Name of the Whale

いさなとり 「Isanatori」

Duration: 91 mins

Director: Fumito Fujikawa

Starring: Shunto Tanaka, Yuto Kimura, Sanshiro Takehiro, Yuki Kimura, Masana Hirabuki,

The Name of the Whale was at this year’s Pia Film Festival and it hasn’t shown up at any other festival I have written about which is a surprising since it looks better than some of the other films I have seen – post-rock music, beautiful visuals, a laid-back feel and naturalistic acting. I guess film is too indie.

Synopsis from the festival page:  Shot in Miyoshi and nearby Hiroshima, Fujikawa’s exquisitely crafted film is a kind of prologue to a coming-of-age story. Junior-high-schooler Yuta lives alone with his mother in sleepy Miyoshi; his grandmother recently died and his grandfather is seriously ill in a Hiroshima hospital. His school assignment for the summer is to find fossils of ancient whales and shellfish, plentiful around the town’s Saijo River, and he’s helped by friends Sanshiro and Naito. (Sanshiro has also been cast as a masked dancer in one of the town’s festivals.) Nothing earth-shaking happens that summer, but Yuta does experience some formative changes. Yuta’s mother takes a new partner, one friend moves away to live with his divorced father, and Yuta impulsively runs away to visit his dying grandfather. The non-pro cast is great, and so is the integration of documentary elements. But the real star is Fujikawa himself, showing real mastery of his medium.

Oyster Factory　　

牡蠣工場  「Kaki kouba」

Duration: 145 mins

Director: Kazuhiro Soda

Starring:

Website

This two hour plus documentary ostensibly looks at life inside an oyster factory but takes in the lack of young people entering the works, the generational divide and Chinese-Japanese relations as Chinese workers are brought in to help keep an oyster factory running.

Synopsis from the film’s website: In the Japanese town of Ushimado, the shortage of labor is a serious problem due to its population’s rapid decline. Traditionally, oyster shucking has been a job for local men and women, but for a few years now, some of the factories have had to use foreigners in order to keep functioning. Hirano oyster factory has never employed any outsiders but finally decides to bring in two workers from China. Will all the employees get along?

Three Stories of Love   

恋人たち 「Koibito-tachi」

Duration: 140 mins

Director: Ryosuke Hashiguchi

Starring: Atsushi Shinohara, Toko Narushima, Ryo Ikeda, Ken  Mitsuishi, Lily Franky

Website

Thisone is released in November and as a star-packed cast and it looks absolutely great in terms of drama and visuals and Tony Rayns makes this one sound ike a treat for drama lovers: “Nobody will fail to recognize and empathize with the ups and downs in their lives; Hashiguchi says he wanted to give voice to “a sense of loss, frustration and indignation felt by many”—and adds that some of the incidents and emotions are drawn from his own experience. The film is wildly funny in parts, but the overall tone is worldly and very, very wise.”

Synopsis from the festival’s website: Three protagonists, a bereaved bridge-repairman, an unhappy housewife with creative ambitions and an elite gay lawyer live lives full of love and loss. Their lives are largely separate, but briefly intersect.

Gonin Saga   

GONIN サーガ「Gonin Sa-ga」

Duration: 130 mins

Director: Takashi Ishii

Starring: Masahiro Higashide, Kenta Kiritani, Masanobu Ando, Koichi Sato, Anna Tsuchiya, Naoto Takenaka, Rila Fukushima,

Website

I don’t know about America but in Britain during the mid to late ‘90s there was a wave of neo-noir films full of gangsters and deadly dames with dark secrets that flooded in from Japan and one of the biggest names in term of directors was Takashi Ishii, a manga artist and filmmaker. I have seen many of his films and Gonin is one of his best so to see him revisit the story with a cast including Masanobu Ando, Masahiro Higashida, Anna Tsuchiya and more is pretty exciting. Tony Rayns makes this sound like the business: “You may not follow the plot’s twists and turns, but don’t worry: all the acts of treachery and betrayal cohere into an ultra-hard-boiled vision of “yakuza DNA.”

Synopsis from the festival’s website: Ishii Takashi’s Gonin (VIFF 1995) set the standard for neo-noir yakuza movies with its tale of five down-on-their-luck men taking on a powerful yakuza gang, the Goseikai—and facing deadly reprisals. Twenty-years-later, the sequel Gonin Saga brings this story up to date. Several of the original five mavericks had families: Hisamatsu, for example, left a wife and son. Hisamatsu’s son Hayato (new star Higashide Masahiro) has an honest, crime-free life but is best friends with Ogoshi’s son Daisuke, who’s still working as a bodyguard for the gang. It all kicks off when a reporter asks Hayato’s mother to reveal the truth about the original attack on the Goseikei—and soon history is threatening to repeat itself.

Shorts

There are many short films at the festival all with a seemingly dark bent whether as comedies or dramas. Many of these accompany features such as 100 Yen Love and The Name of the Whale.

Omura Plant Specimens (Dir: Natsumi Sato, 19 mins) is all about a girl getting to know her long-dead grandfather through a collection of botanical specimens. It is shown before The Name of the Whale.

As is usually the case with Vancouver, there’s a strong selection of animated shorts. A Place to Name (Dir: Ataru Sakagami, 5 mins) features straw monsters attacking an abandoned house and Am I Dreaming of Others, or are Others Dreaming of Me? (Dir: Shigeo Arikawa, 11 mins) explores life, death self and others. Meanwhile, The Console (Mitsuo Toyama, 8 mins) features a rather large and rather dead Grass-hopper getting a send-off from different creatures and Dark Mixer (Dir: Hirotoshi Iwasaki, 5 mins), which is described on its festival page as “Made from 20 loops used in an installation. Dark, indeed.” I have no idea what that means.

Veil (Dir: Yoriko Mizushiri, 6 mins) comes from the experienced animator Yoriko Mizushiri and features a story of two people meeting in different environments and negotiating emotional spaces.

The dark imagination of children is on offer in the shorts Master Blaster (Dir: Sawako Kabuki, 4 mins), which is all about a girl who wants to be eaten imagining what such an experience might be like, and I Can’t Breathe (Dir: Sayaka Kihata, 6 mins), which is all about water externalising what is happening in the mind of a young boy.

All of these aforementioned titles screen with the film Reflection (Dir: Yoju Matsubayashi, 47 mins) which is directed by Yoju Matsubayashi who was on last year’s festival circuit and at last year’s Vancouver International Film Festival with the documentary Horses of Fukushima. It looks like while he was travelling with his last film he recorded footage in 17 cities and concentrated on reflected images seen in glass, mirrors and n puddles. It’s described as “a sketch a critique of a world gone wrong,” and “poetic, affectionate and cynical in equal measure.”

Before Rolling screens, there’s Kim (Dir: Shumpei Shimizu, 40 mins) which is a drama about Kim, a Zainichi (Korean-Japanese) who hates Zainichi. He’s an ex-boxer who was pretty good but is now in debt. According to the festival site, the director, Shimizu is currently in the graduate school of Tokyo University of the Arts and has recently worked as a production assistant on Martin Scorsese’s upcoming Silence. Kim won him the Grand Prix at the Tokyo Student Film Festival.

There are also two shorts from that unique auteur Takeshi Kitano – Asa (4 mins) and News (5 mins), which both screen with the feature film 100 Yen Love.

There is the rather intriguing looing short named Octopus (Dir: Isamu Hirabayashi, 25 mins) which draws on director Isamu Hirabayashi’s experience in the Japanese entertainment and advertising industry as he tells a comedic story about an actor struggling to make an ad with a broke production company and an impossible client and an Octopus that goes from being a prop to lunch…

And I think that’s it! What a great line-up for the 2015 Vancouver International Film Festival.

Happy weekend readers!

As you’re reading this I am at my second film festival in the mighty month of September. The first was the Raindance Film Festival where I watched Slum-polis and Fires on the Plain. The second is the Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival where I am going to watch A Letter to Momo, Short Peace, and Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise. I will also be meeting friends, going out for food and helping out with the festival in what ways that I can.

Only one post this week and that’s for this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival.

I am looking to wind up my Summer of Splatter Films season with some Noboru Iguchi and Tak Sakaguchi films as well. After that I have been thinking of posting more sporadically so I can concentrate on learning Japanese and becoming even more fluent in the language. I have my reasons…

What’s released in Japan this weekend?

Wake Up, Girls! Seishun no Kage   

Wake Up, Girls! 青春の影「Wake Up, Girls! Seishun no Kage」

Release Date: September 25^th, 2015

Running Time: 54 mins.

Director: Yutaka Yamamoto

Writer: Touko Machida (Series Composition),

Starring: Airi Eino (Airi Hayashida), Kaya Okuno (Kaya Kikuma), Mayu Yoshioka (Mayu Shimada), Minami Tanaka (Minami Katayama), Miyu Takagi (Miyu Okamoto), Nanami Yamashita (Nanami Hisami), Yoshino Aoyama (Yoshino Nanase),

Website     ANN

This is the first of a two-part movie adaptation of the TV anime Wake Up, Girls! which debuted in 2013. A Compilation film was released in January last year and this looks to further the story.

Synopsis from Anime News Network: In the story of the original anime and previous film, Green Leaves Entertainment is a tiny production company on the verge of going out of business in Sendai, the biggest city in Japan’s northeastern Tohoku region. The agency once managed the careers of magicians, photo idols, fortune-tellers, and other entertainers, but its last remaining client finally quit. In danger of having zero talent (literally), the president Tange hatches an idea of producing an idol group. On the brash president’s orders, the dissatisfied manager Matsuda heads out to scout raw talent. Matsuda makes a fateful encounter with a certain girl…

The new films will follow the group as they make their debut in Tokyo.

ARIA The AVVENIRE   

Release Date: September 26^th, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: Junichi Sato

Writer: Reiko Yoshida (Screenplay), Junichi Sato (Series Composition),

Starring: Erino Hazyki (Akari Mizunashi), Ai Kayano (Anya), Chinami Nishimura (President Aria), Chiwa Saito (Aika S. Granzchesta), Junko Minagawa (Akira E. Ferrari),

Website     ANN

This is that healing anime where cute girls and Cait Sith ride gondolas on an alien planet. It’s very relaxing!

Synopsis from Anime News Network: The anime will consist of three episodes: the first episode is titled “Sono Aitakatta Anata ni…” (To You, Who I Wanted to Meet…), the second episode is titled “Sono Atataka na Sayonara wa…” (That Warm Goodbye…), and the third episode is titled “Sono Harukanaru Mirai e…” (To That Far Away Future…). The first two episodes are two stories from the original manga that were not previously adapted into anime.

The first episode’s story starts with Ai practicing on the gondola with Akari. As they travel through a canal, they meet Aika and Alice. All three have not had much time to meet since becoming Prima undines. Considering even the little time they spend together a “miracle,” Akari remembers a certain incident and relates it to Ai.

The second episode’s story begins with Ai relating a story to Akari of her experiencing a “miracle” while she was practicing. She saw Cait Sith as she was traveling down an unfamiliar path. When she disembarks from her gondola to follow it, she meets two Single undines from Himeya company and Orange Planet in the middle of practice.

The new films will follow the group as they make their debut in Tokyo.

Antonym   

螺旋銀河「Rasen Ginga」

Release Date: September 26^th, 2015

Running Time: 73 mins.

Director: Natsuka Kusano

Writer: Natsuka Kusano, Tomoyuki Takahashi (Screenplay),

Starring: Yuri Ishizaka, Asami Shibuya, Kuniaki Nakamura, Tetsu Onji, Seitaro Ishibashi, Mihoko Watanabe,

Website   IMDB

This is a female driven film with a lady directing and co-writing the film and ladies taking the lead in this drama about two women working on a radio play. They become “frenemies” which is a genre that Japanese women have taken over.

Synopsis: Aya (Ishizaki) is beautiful but self-centered woman who has few friends. While she works in an office her dream is to be a scriptwriter and she attends night school to learn the craft. Her hard work pays off when a radio programme selects her script but there’s one condition: Aya needs to have a co-writer. So close to her dream, Aya thinks hard and selects Sachiko to be the second person. Aya believes Sachiko has a quiet and modest personality but things go awry when Sachiko starts acting and dressing like Aya…

SLUM-POLIS   

Release Date: September 26^th, 2015

Running Time: 113 mins.

Director: Ken Ninomiya

Writer: Ken Ninomiya, Yoshie Konishi (Screenplay),

Starring: Horyu Nishimura, Hidenobu Abera, Ryoko Ono

Website   IMDB

This film is at the Raindance Film Festival and I saw it yesterday! It is  really well-made and beautiful film with a great soundtrack.

Synopsis: Slum-Polis is an island cut off from the rest of Japan because of the high levels of violence. The death of a powerful gangster creates a dangerous atmosphere as people vie for power. However a group of friends, all artists, wish for a better life and use their talents and dreams to escape their brutal reality… until it catches up with them.

Gonin Saga      

GONIN サーガ「Gonin Sa-ga」

Duration: 130 mins

Director: Takashi Ishii

Writer: Takashi Ishii (Screenplay)

Starring: Masahiro Higashide, Kenta Kiritani, Masanobu Ando, Koichi Sato, Anna Tsuchiya, Naoto Takenaka, Rila Fukushima,

Website IMDB

I wrote about this earlier in the week for my Vancouver International Film Festival post so here’s the information:

I don’t know about America but in Britain during the mid to late ‘90s there was a wave of neo-noir films full of gangsters and deadly dames with dark secrets that flooded in from Japan and one of the biggest names in term of directors was Takashi Ishii, a manga artist and filmmaker. I have seen many of his films and Gonin is one of his best so to see him revisit the story with a cast including Masanobu Ando, Masahiro Higashida, Anna Tsuchiya and more is pretty exciting. Tony Rayns makes this sound like the business: “You may not follow the plot’s twists and turns, but don’t worry: all the acts of treachery and betrayal cohere into an ultra-hard-boiled vision of “yakuza DNA.”

Synopsis from the festival’s website: Ishii Takashi’s Gonin (VIFF 1995) set the standard for neo-noir yakuza movies with its tale of five down-on-their-luck men taking on a powerful yakuza gang, the Goseikai—and facing deadly reprisals. Twenty-years-later, the sequel Gonin Saga brings this story up to date. Several of the original five mavericks had families: Hisamatsu, for example, left a wife and son. Hisamatsu’s son Hayato (new star Higashide Masahiro) has an honest, crime-free life but is best friends with Ogoshi’s son Daisuke, who’s still working as a bodyguard for the gang. It all kicks off when a reporter asks Hayato’s mother to reveal the truth about the original attack on the Goseikei—and soon history is threatening to repeat itself.

Dust and Fantasy   

ホコリと幻想「Hokori to Gensou」

Release Date: September 26^th, 2015

Running Time: 92 mins.

Director: Satoshi Suzuki

Writer: Satoshi Suzuki (Screenplay),

Starring:  Shigeyuki Totsugi, Minami, Kaname Endo, Asahi Uchida, Yoshie Okuyama, Hirotaro Honda,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: Matsuno (Totsugi) hasn’t visited his hometown of Asahikawa since he graduated from high school. When he does return he tells people that he is an artist in Tokyo. When he sees a flyer announcing that the city would like make a wood monument Matsuno boasts that he is the perfect person for the job but when he fails to make any progress in making the monument his former classmates wonder if he is really an artist. To prove himself, Matsuno focuses on building the monument.

Gassoh   

合葬「Gassou」

Release Date: September 26^th, 2015

Running Time: 87 mins.

Director: Tatsuo Kobayashi

Writer: Aya Watanabe (Screenplay), Hinako Sugiura (Original Manga)

Starring:  Yuya Yagira, Koji Seto, Amane  Okayama, Joe Odagiri, Mugi Kadowaki, Minami Sakurai, Reiko Fujiwara, Lily, Yuko Takayama,

Website IMDB

I wrote about Hinako Sugiura in relation to the anime adaptation of her work Miss Hokusai. She was an manga artist who was fascinated by historical aspects of Japan and her works won many awards. This film is based on the manga series Gassowhich won the Excellence Award at the 13th Japan Cartoonists Association Award in 1984.

Synopsis: It is 1868 and the Shogunate is facing calamity as many in the country seek to overturn feudal society and usher in an age of modernisation. Three young men join the elite Shogitai division that stands opposed to the dismantling of the Shogunate. One is Kiwamu Akitsu (Yagira), a follower of Yoshinobu Tokugawa, and the fiancé of the sister of another young man who joined up named Teijiro Fukuhara (Okayama). The third is a childhood friend of the two, Masanosuke Yoshimori (Seto) is a childhood friend of Kiwamu Akitsu and Teijiro Fukuhara. After he is kicked out by his adopted family he joins the Shogitai.

Haikai mama rin 87-sai no natsu perapera  

徘徊　ママリン87歳の夏「Haikai mamarin 87-sai no natsu perapera」

Release Date: September 26^th, 2015

Running Time: 77 mins.

Director: Yukio Tanaka

Writer: N/A

Starring:  Asayo Sakai, Akiko Sakai

Website

Synopsis: This documentary examines how dementia affects the lives of a mother and daughter in Osaka. Asayo Sakai tends to wander around her local neighbourhood and the residents are familiar with the lady and her daughter, the artist Akiko Sakai, who is always on hand to look after her.

Kumakawa Tetsuya K Ballet Company `Cinderella’ in Cinema   

熊川哲也 Kバレエ カンパニー 「シンデレラ」 in Cinema「Kumakawa Tetsuya K barē kanpanī `Shinderera’ in Cinema」

Release Date: September 26^th, 2015

Running Time: 115 mins.

Director: Tetsuya Kumagawa

Writer: N/A

Starring:  Rina Kobe, Ryo Izawa,

Website

Synopsis: The recent ballet adaptation of the Cinderella tale by the choreographer Tetsuya Kumagawa and the K Ballet Company was performed in Kumagawa to commemorate Kumagawa’s appointment as artistic director of the Bunkamura Orchard Hall. Audiences can see his interpretation of the story and the skilled ballet dancers of K-Ballet on the cinema screen.

Genealogy of One Cup      

一献の系譜「Ikkon no Keifu」

Release Date: September 26^th, 2015

Running Time: 103 mins.

Director: Kaori Ishii

Writer: N/A

Starring:  Rina Kobe, Ryo Izawa,

Website

Synopsis: Master brewers in Ishikawa Prefecture talk about the art of making sake and how it affects their lives and the lives of their families.  

Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:

Attack on Titan: End of the World (Release: 2015/09/19)

Heroine Shikkaku (Release: 2015/09/19)

Antman (Release: 2015/09/19)

Unfair: The End (Release: 2015/09/05)

The Anthem of the Heart (Release: 2015/09/19)  

The Big Bee (Release: 2015/09/19)

Pixels (Release: 2015/09/12)      

Ted 2 (Release: 2015/08/28)

Jurassic World (Release: 2015/08/07)

Kingsman (Release: 2015/09/11)  

Mutant Girls Squad   

Japanese: 戦闘少女 血の鉄仮面伝説

Romaji: Sento shojo: Chi no tekkamen densetsu

Release Date: May 22^nd, 2010

Running Time: 90 mins.

Directors: Tak Sakaguchi, Noboru Iguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura

Writer: Jun Tsugita, Noboru Iguchi

Starring: Yumi Sugimoto, Yuko Takayama, Suzuka Morita, Kanji Tsuda, Maiko Ito, Tak Sakaguchi, Asami, Chiharu Kawai,

Splatter outfit Sushi Typhoon (a subsidiary of Nikkatsu) was founded in 2010 and one of its earliest releases was Mutant Girls Squad (2010) which features three of the company’s biggest talents directing individual chapters of the film. The first part is orchestrated by action star/fight choreographer Tak Sakaguchi, and special effects maestros Noboru Iguchi and Yoshihiro Nishimura follow him up in parts two and three. What starts out as an outrageously silly splatter-tastic tale of kick-ass girls taking on corrupt authorities in a tidal wave of blood and mutant body-parts falls apart by the end as Nishimura over-indulges his fetish for splatter special effects.

Being a teenager can be hard enough what with all the hormones and physical changes but it gets much harder also being a member of a super-powered ancient mutant race reviled by mankind so spare a thought for Rin (Sugimoto), a seemingly normal high school girl with latent supernatural abilities about to burst forth!

Despite being beautiful but mousey Rin is bullied at school by the rich kids and she has no friends. She may be an adolescent but she is plagued by really strange pains in her arms and her right hand which surely go beyond growth spurts. She’s living a miserable existence but the one bright spot are her loving and supportive parents who cheer her up.

Alas, this is going to be taken away from her on the night of her sixteenth birthday because what she doesn’t know is that she is a mixed-race girl, part human (her mother’s side) and part Hiruko (her father’s side). Being a Hiruko means that Rin has access to super powers which transform a person when they turn sixteen, which sounds awesome, but the government sees this as a threat so they employ agents to hunt mutant Hiruko down. Rin is shocked to find this out but it explains why she has the strange pains and why her right hand is developing into a claw! 

Just as her father reveals all, in the shape of some freaky appendages and family history, the government trained Racial Supervision Unit crash Rin’s party by bursting into the house and gunning her parents down in a bloody mess. She sees her mother’s head explode in a gout of gore and a gush of blood while her father’s head takes a tumble onto Rin’s birthday cake!

Just as Rin is about to be executed she gains to access her own burgeoning powers – armoured arms and claws!

Rin beats back the government forces but finds her ENTIRE hometown is out to get her.

Fortunately she hooks up with a group of girls who are also Hiruko mutants and, under the command of their cross-dressing leader Kisaragi (director Tak Sakaguchi himself!) they plan on striking back against the humans who hunt them!

As an opener to the world of Sushi Typhoon and the splatter genre it’s a pretty good one because it delivers gory special effects, unrestrained action and comedy and gives a good indication of what the three biggest names of this horror subgenre can do in their individually directed parts which show their different styles.

The best section by far is the first with Tak Sakaguchi’s action-heavy opener setting up the story and immediately throwing Rin into a relentless anime-esque series of battles punctuated by gore and comedy all shot with some flair.

The meat of the action is Rin’s escape from government forces which begins at home after the massacre with her father’s headless body punching out katana-wielding police goons. This precipitates a city-wide chase seemingly involving the entire population of Rin’s town. The audiences can witness careening section full of sight gags as Rin, with her knife-like claws, takes on hunters, housewives, hoteliers, cooks, cross-dressers, and cops, all wielding everyday props like knives, bouquets, chainsaws, frying pans and lanterns, and even their friends/partners!

With steady editing and a swift camera, the film keeps pace with sailor-suited Rin’s relentless run and riotous battles through alleys, bakeries, a mall and streets. Everything is well-filmed, brilliantly showing the comedy deaths and CGI blood spray, the cool physical effects as people die horribly (and humorously). Yumi Sugimoto displays solid martial arts skills (and her panties which flash from round-house kicks). The energetic fighting involves people who look as if they were pulled off the street mixed in with a bunch of stunt men/women. Everybody is having a ball spinning through the air and dying dramatically, spitting out blood and issuing death groans.

Iguchi’s gag-laden script sets up some gags that threaten to detract from the action but Sakaguchi’s swift editing and lithe handling of camera movement ensures that the action doesn’t slow down. There’s a running gag about a variety show camera crew filming the action (an interviewer, boom operator, and cameraman intruding in and narrating the battles) which leads to a varied camera shots and a nice comedic pay-off as they get caught up in the action. Sakaguchi cannot resist a show of bad-assery and the final part of the chase, which doesn’t feature a an edit, sees Sugimoto stalking down a street, clawing and kicking down a dozen different people to some country and western.

The momentum of this first part wears off in the second and third chapters of the film as Iguchi and then Nishimura take over.

Iguchi’s section furthers the story by providing a boot-camp sequence and while there is action Iguchi is more interested in mining the comedy and playing up Nishimura’s weird physical effects. We get the introduction of the bizarre and varied Hiruko mutant girls that show up which plays up all sorts of fetishes to go along with Rin the schoolgirl. Witness a tsundere bird girl named Rei (Takayama), a cosplay nurse named Yoshie (Morita) who sprouts tentacles and a trunk, a girl in a maid outfit who has katanas coming out of her breasts, another girl with a fully functioning chainsaw that sprouts out from her ass, and more with strange powers (for some reason there’s a girl who has a red face and can sing well, which I’m not sure constitutes a weird power but whatever). There’s also director Sakaguchi’s effeminate, softly spoken cross-dressing leader Kisaragi who has a wicked sharp crotch claw that suffers something akin to erectile dysfunction. Don’t snigger at it or you’ll get decapitated!

Some of these creature effects are too dumb to countenance but the sight gags work and fit in with the goofy and extreme atmosphere.

Iguchi races past the clichéd boot-camp section, which acts as a great way to get some exposition done and into the attack on an evil general where the girls’ showcase their stuff by cutting people down and, in a reversal of the cliche, the cute girl Yoshie raping most of the men in sight with her tentacles. There’s also a funny stand-off with a cyborg which is effectively a guy painted silver with an arm cannon that shoots crazy cool laser bolts.

This entire section, from tentacle rape to laser battles is funny and fast if you lower your comedy threshold, not least the moment that Rin has visions of her father’s head, still on her cake, giving her spiritual advice. The audience can enjoy dozens of gags and some decently silly effects.

And then we get to Nishimura’s part.

Even for someone as tolerant as I am about splatter films I found Nishimura’s section irritating. Despite seeing some of Nishimura’s great gloopy blood and guts physical effects and some decent CG body destruction and transformation he throws so much blood and so many monster suits on screen that the film goes beyond humour and becomes dull as he drags out the gags for too long. Everything is so extreme in a series of brutal fights between various girls that the film can find no other tone other than hyperactive and all of the weirdness on display becomes tiresome.

The editing is wild as Nishimura intercuts between different battles sequences which strung out the rhythm and story of final chapter of the film too much and made it feel longer and more incoherent than it actually is. In contrast, Sakaguchi’s opening was tight, rapid and fun and I replayed it multiple times. The disappointment of the final part is a shame because throughout the film Nishimura’s effects are pretty good in a goofy sort of way.

While this is very much a showcase film where the three directors work on their own segments and display their different styles they share their skills across the entire endeavour so Noboru Iguchi contributes the mostly comedic script, Tak Sakaguchi choreographs the many action sequences, and Yoshihiro Nishimura’s CG/special effects paint the screen with weird costume and blood. As well as behind the scenes work, the three directors also appear on screen Iguchi and Nishimura being victims of the mutant girl squad while Sakaguchi, a great actor in his own right, takes on a dramatic role as the cross-dressing sword wielding leader of the mutant girls.

Mutant Girls Squad does not hold any intellectual value beyond its ingenious use of budget to create effects and costumes but it is whole heaps of fun so you can watch and enjoy it for the most part. Tak Sakaguchi’s more action-oriented opening section is fast fluid and funny and is the highlight of the movie. Noboru Iguchi earns some points for his use of comedy and bizarre action. The downside is Yoshihiro Nishimura’s section which is the weakest as he reveals that he is an undisciplined director and overindulgent with his effects. As is sometimes the case with Nishimura, he drags out the joke to far until it loses coherence. Overall, two thirds brilliant trashy fun that should please gore-hounds, action fans and those seeking bizarre comedy.

3/5

The DVD comes with a short movie called Yoshie Zero, directed by Noboru Iguchi. It gives background to the cosplay nurse Yoshie and Kisaragi, explaining why he took to cross-dressing. There’s some action and more of Nishimura’s special effects.

Website