Happy weekend people!

After a movie drought lasting nearly a month (I think the last film I watched was Kiki’s Delivery Service in the middle of August) I spent last weekend gorging myself on films. On Friday I attended the Raindance film festival with two friends and watched Slum-polis (2015) and Fires on the Plain (2014). I also met the director Shinya Tsukamoto and had a picture taken with him. Then on Saturday I went to the Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival with a friend and watched A Letter to Momo (2012), Short Peace (2014), and one of my most favourite anime of all time, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise (1987). On Sunday I went and watched Kazoku Game (198). It was an incredible series of films so expect reviews.

Only one post this week and that’s for Mutant Girls Squad.

What’s released this weekend?

The Empire of Corpses  

屍者の帝国　「Shisha　no Teikoku」

Release Date: October 02^nd, 2015

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Ryoutarou Makihara

Writer: Project Itoh (Original Novel),

Starring: Yoshimasa Hosoya (John H. Watson), Akio Ohtsuka (M), Kana Hanazawa (Hadary Lilith), Taiten Kusunoki (Frederick Barnaby), Ayumu Murase (Friday/Noble_Savage_007),

Website     ANN

Empire of Corpses is the first of three films from Project Itoh, a concerted effort to adapt novels by late author Project Itoh who died in 2009. The three novels are being turned into films by different directors and studios. The Empire of Corpses comes to us courtesy of WIT Studio (Attack on Titan, Hoozuki no Reitetsu) and is directed by Ryuotarou Makihara (Hal).

The other two films are Genocidal Organ is directed by Shukou Murase (Ergo Proxy) at Manglobe (House of Five Leaves) and Harmony which is directed by Takashi Nakamura (Fantastic Children) and Michael Arias (Tekkonkinkreet), at Studio 4°C (Berserk). Genocidal Organ is now subject to delays due to Manglobe going bankrupt.

Synopsis from Scotland Loves Anime: In 19th Century London, “corpse reanimation technology” has been developed, rendering the dead useful for basic physical labour.

Brilliant medical student John Watson is invited to join the UK government’s secret society, the Walsingham Institution. There he is given a clandestine mission: search for the legendary writings of Dr. Victor Frankenstein, left behind a century ago. These private papers allegedly detail the technology behind a more sophisticated reanimated corpse – the original – that could speak and even had free will.

The first clue leads Watson deep into Afghanistan. Alexei Karamazov, a military chaplain and genius corpse engineer for the Russian Empire, was seen leading an army of an unknown type of armed corpse there. He used them to instigate a rebellion before going underground, leading Watson to suspect he may know the whereabouts of Victor’s private papers.

Accompanied by Friday, a corpse that records all his activities, Watson begins the journey of a lifetime in search of Victor’s private papers.

Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova Cadenza   

劇場版　蒼き鋼のアルペジオ　アルス・ノヴァ Cadenza「Gekijouban Aoki Hagane no Arupejio Arusu Noba Cadenza」

Release Date: October 03^rd, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: Seiji Kishi

Writer: Makoto Uezu (Script), Ark Performance (Original Creator),

Starring: M.A.O (Hiei), Ayaka Fukuhara (Myoko), Jouji Nakata (Shozo Chihaya), Hiromi Igarashi (Haguro), Satomi Sato (Nachi), Rie Kugimiya (Musashi),

Website     ANN

The Arpeggio of Blue Steel franchise has two films released in 2015. The first was a compilation of the TV anime and was released at the end of January while this one features brand new content.

Synopsis: In Arpeggio of Blue Steel, humanity has lost a large quantity of its developed land as a result of global warming. They then lose the seas when a “Fleet of Fog” appears all over the world and overwhelms humanity. Seventeen years later, Gunzo Chihaya and his crewmates find themselves comandeering a “Fleet of Fog” submarine called I-401 and together with Iona, the submarine’s “mental model” (human representation of the submarine), they take the fight back to the Fleet of Fog.

Bakuman   

バクマン。「Bakuman」

Release Date: October 03^rd, 2015

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Hitoshi One

Writer: Hitoshi One (Screenplay), Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata (Original Manga)

Starring: Takeru Satoh, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Nana Komatsu, Takayuki Yamada, Shota Sometani, Lily Franky, Kankuro Kudo, Hirofumi Arai,

Website   IMDB

Bakuman comes from Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, the creators of Death Note. It is very popular and has been collected in over compiled volumes of manga and has been the basis of three television series produced by J.C. Staff since it was first published in Weekly Shounen Jump back in August, 2008. It has a star-laden cast and a director who has worked on indies and bigger budgeted films. All in all it looks like a decent adaptation from the early signs.

Synopsis: Moritaka Mashiro (Satoh) is a talented artist but after the death of his uncle, a manga-ka who died because of exhaustion, he resents art and wants to become an office worker. Then he meets and falls in love with a girl at school named Azuki Miho, an aspiring voice actress. Azuki tells Moritaka they can marry, but only after they both achieve their dreams. Moritaka then teams up with fellow classmate Akito Takagi (Kamiki), a talented writer, and they aim to publish their first manga.

Kiyamachi Daruma   

木屋町DARUMA「Kiyamachi Daruma」

Release Date: October 03^rd, 2015

Running Time: 116 mins.

Director: Hideo Sakaki

Writer: Hiroyuki Maruno (Screenplay/Original Novel)

Starring: Kenichi Endo, Susumu Terajima, Rina Takeda, Shohei Uno, Masaki Miura, Houka Karasuma, Setsuko Karasuma,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Shigeo Katsuura (Endo) was once the leader of the yakuza in Kiya but after losing his arms and legs he is forced to go around to his debtors’ homes to collect on debts and make money. He does this with the aid of his loyal henchman Kenta (Miura).

Tsumi no Yohaku    

罪の余白「Tsumi no Yohaku」

Release Date: October 03^rd, 2015

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Yuki Otsuka

Writer: Yuki Otsuka (Screenplay), You Ashizawa (Original Novel)

Starring: Seiyo Uchino, Miyu Yoshimoto, Wakana Aoi, Keisuke Hoibe, Masaya Kato, Mitsuki Tanimura,

Website   IMDB

This one is based on You Ashizawa’s novel of the same name which was published on September 1^st, 2012. https://eigakawaraban.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/15082701/

Synopsis: Ando’s (Uchino) daughter Kana supposedly committed suicide by jumping from a high ledge but he isn’t so sure. Ando starts an investigation and all signs point to foul play with his daughter’s former classmate, Saki (Yoshimoto) looking like a suspect. Behind her sweet façade it seems she is an ambitious girl who rules the school’s social scene. Can Ando find the truth?

Zenkai no Uta   

全開の唄「Zenkai no Uta」

Release Date: October 03^rd, 2015

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Yuuji Nakamae

Writer: Yuuji Nakamae, Kouki Yamamoto (Screenplay)

Starring: Yuya Endo, Kazuma Sano, Yuri Nakamura, Airi Nakajima,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Kenichi (Sano) is a guy on his university’s cycling team who falls for an emotionally unstable woman (Nakajima) and gets to know his team’s captain and a woman who works at a cabaret. Despite their problems, the four find themselves growing together.

Kodomo wa Kaze wo Egaku   

子どもは風をえがく「Kodomo wa Kaze wo Egaku」

Release Date: October 04^th, 2015

Running Time: 115 mins.

Director: Katsuhiko Tsutsui

Writer: N/A

Starring: Yoshiko Iguchi, Keiko Ueto, Masae Ishikawa, Akie Kawashima, Yasuko Murakami, Miho Morimoto,

Website

Synopsis: Suginami ward, Tokyo, a garden is the scene of a movie which looks at how children experience growth through nature, through insects and frogs and plants and all the wonderful things that nature (and adults) can come up with for them.

Journey to the Shore      

岸辺の旅 「Kishibe no Tabe」

Running Time: 128 mins.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Takashi Ujita (Screenplay), Kazumi Yumoto (Original Novel)

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

Website   IMDB

I have written about this a few times as it travels the festival circuit this year so here’s the entry for the Toronto International Film Festival:

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 critical reaction to it indicates that it is no Tokyo Sonata it has at least earned him the Best Director prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. 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 who put in a star turn in the crime drama Villain.

Synopsis: Mizuki’s (Fukatsu) husband Yusuke (Asano) disappeared three years ago. 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.

Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:

Heroine Shikkaku (Release: 2015/09/19)

Attack on Titan: End of the World (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)  

Helldriver   

ヘルドライバー 「Herudoraiba」

Release Date: May 23^rd, 2011

Running Time: 117 mins.

Directors: Yoshihiro Nishimura

Writer: Yoshihiro Nishimura, Daichi Nagisa (Screenplay)

Starring: Yumiko Hara, Eihi Shiina, Yurei Yanagi, Takumi Saito, Kazuki Namioka, Mizuki Kusumi, Yukihide Benny, Asami, Cay Isumi, Maki Mizui,

Splatter film director Yoshihiro Nishimura has one setting: extreme. His creatures designs are extreme. His action scenes are extreme. His use of special effects and blood splashed around on screen is extreme. If you thought that Tokyo Gore Police (2008) and Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl (2009) were extreme, you have seen nothing. Helldriver (2011) is a bone-crunching, head-splitting, and grotesque attempt at a zombie apocalypse epic on a shoestring budget and it is extreme action for its entire near two hour running time for better and for worse.

It begins with Kika (Hara), a beautiful high school girl beaten and bruised by her despicable mother Rikka (Shiina) and a creepy uncle. After seeing her kind disabled father get torched it looks like Kika is next until a meteorite strike takes out her mother’s torso. Alas, mother dearest is so bad-ass and just plain bad she steals her daughter’s heart and the two become crystallised.

Crysallised? It seems that this meteorite is an alien-crafted transporter which blankets the northern half of Japan with a mist that transforms people into zombies and it isn’t long before the people in the south of the country build a giant wall to keep the zed-heads out.

The north is a zombie wasteland where survivors are hunted while the south is an overcrowded and calamitous state where politicians argue about how to deal with the zombies – with aid or violence?!?

One shadowy member of the government retrieves Kika and in a shady operation
implants an engine into her chest to act as an artificial heart and as a power source for a chainsaw weapon. The government choose her to lead a special mission made up of desperate people and criminals formerly on death row to go north of the border and exterminate the newly discovered zombie queen with extreme prejudice and rid Japan of all zombies.

It won’t be simple. It turns out that the queen is Rikka and she has created a zombie country with zombie culture and zombie army.

It’ll be a hard and bloody drive up north to meet Rikka but Kika has the fire of vengeance driving her and a chainsaw to sweep zombies aside!

First things first despite the title, Helldriver, there isn’t as much driving as you might think. Kika doesn’t hop on a big rig and plough through zombies but there are epic fights and a ridiculously long zombie car chase and a zombie vs car fight to make up for it.

This is very much archetypal splatter film fare with a focus on physical effects and gags. It comes from one of the masters of the messy blood-red wave: Nishimura.

As is common with Nishmura’s films there is an attempt at a story and it runs on the same formula he tends to use as a set-up in his other films: life in post (insert disaster)-apocalypse Japan with a look into alternative societies before extended battle sequences and end credits. This time it is zombies and it allows for a few satirical takes on politics and pop-culture from adverts about human rights for zombies, the troubles of integrating with dead-heads, and quasi-fascist leaders with a hard-on for military hardware. The characterisation is slight, reduced to costumes for the most part and tending to veer onto the side of bizarre fetishes when a little more complicated which leads to outrageous fights and corny one-liners. Everything is intentionally simple because it serves as a skeleton to hang Nishimura’s true love: the fully-fleshed out and well-imagined zombie and monster designs and the special effects he has spent an entire career making.

Then he makes them all explode on screen in grotesque gouts of gore and bursts of bile and blood for most of the film.

For the first hour there is a lot of glee to be had for gorehounds and regular cinema goers with open minds and strong stomachs because the amount of imagination used to craft this truly diverse array of undead creatures is impressive. The zombie capital is like a flesh-eating bacchanal with caged humans screaming as they see their zombie captors gyrating to awful accordion music and snacking on flesh, dancing, playing games. The zombies come in all shapes and sizes from your regular run of the mill Night of the Living Dead lumbering types to athletic kung-fu zombies of Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 and a sword wielding ogre who acts as a sort of catapult sending zombie heads showering down on the characters:

The alternative zombie society features more monsters like go-go girls and heavy metallers, salary-men and sexy sword wielding biters geared up in geisha outfits.

These creatures take part in action scenes which are truly awesome and, yes, extreme. A zombie mother chucks her zombie fetus, still attached to an umbilical cord, as a weapon. A multi-armed, multi-legged zombie wields a dozen different katana’s and forks and guns. A zombie chases a car and wrestles with it. These actors in pretty gnarly zombie make-up throw themselves into the scenes with dedication and their performances the creature-effects are created by close-ups on a real actor, a mixture of make-up, physical effects such as a doll and prosthetic limbs, and CG. The whole thing works because editing and camera work is fast and frenetic but the sequences are never indecipherable until the final battle.

These action scenes are numerous. After the initial world-building it is a series of battles like the video game Metal Slug. Rika gets to battle a weird variety of zombies and so do her co-companions and their individual action sequences are cut together in tumultuous spurts of gore and body parts scored to rock music of varying quality. There is little to no downtime. Just when you think you’ll get a chance to breathe the next insane sequence will start and that one will last for ten minutes or so and an insane pace is kept up where battles keep coming. The gag gets worn out by the end.

The final hour is almost non-stop relentless zombie violence scored to some awful rock music and it all gets really tiresome which is my biggest complaint about the film. As much as the over the top action was Nishimura’s intention and what the viewer would have signed up for, by the time the ending came I was at risk of falling asleep and my irritation with the film grew. With the relentless action and the same extreme tone used in every sequence Nishimura’s film becomes tiresome and by the arrival of the zombie rocket fight sequence/zombie invasion (a zombie apocalypse doesn’t get any more extreme than this) I was bored and there was still plenty of the film to go. The finale felt long drawn out and the intercutting between fights, a common Nishimura technique, made the action even more ragged rather than extreme which is bad when you have twenty minutes of the film to go. You really do get the sense that he could have shortened the fights and ultimately the film.

Overall, Nishimura achieves the ultimate zombie apocalypse movie but overplays it. Yes, the multiple zombies are unique and not the generic type lathered in green/blue paint and they get to be showcased with their awesome makeup and the decent special effects but the fights feel like they go on much longer than they should even if the denouements are pretty genius and end in explosions and characters look cool as they pose in slow motion while a fountain of blood fountains up into the air or explosions blanket the sky, this is done to death in a deluge of over-indulgence. If it were shortened and the zombie rocket sequence excised, it would have scored higher with me.

3.5/5

Happy weekend, readers!

Well, I am back from my short trip to London and the BFI London Film Festival where I met a friend and did some touristy things. I only watched one film this year and it was Happy Hour, a five hour drama about four women in Kobe and the shockwaves from a divorce that jolt the friends from their dull relationships. I must admit that there were times during the film when I wished I were watching Yakuza Apocalypse or Ryuzo and His Seven Henchmen but Happy Hour proved to be a worthwhile watch.

Only one review this week and it was for Helldriver (2010).

What’s released this weekend?

Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade   

リトルウィッチアカデミア 魔法仕掛けのパレード「Ritoru Wicchi Akademia: Mahou Shikake no Pare-do」

Release Date: October 09^th, 2015

Running Time: 56 mins.

Director: Yoh Yoshinari

Writer: Masahiko Otsuka (Script), Yoh Yoshinari (Original Novel),

Starring: Megumi Han (Atsuko Kagari), Yoko Hikasa (Diana Cavendish), Fumiko Orikawa (Lotte Yansson), Michiyo Murase (Sucy Manbavaran), Noriko Hidaka (Ursula-sensei/Shiny Chariot),

Website     ANN

I can’t remember too much from the original Little Witch Acadameia other than it was a bit of goofy fun. This is the sequel and it was partially funded via Kickstarter.

Synopsis from Anime News Network: Student witches Akko, Sucy and Lotte are tasked with organizing a parade commemorating the role of witches for the annual town festival. Sleeping giants, ambitious mayors, insolent boys, the girls’ own squabbling and copious amounts of magic combine to create a spectacular event.

Gamba: Gamba to Nakama-tachi   

GAMBA ガンバと仲間たち「Gamba: Gamba to Nakama-tachi」

Release Date: October 10^th, 2015

Running Time: 92 mins.

Chief Director: Yoichi Ogawa, Director: Tomohiro Kawamura, Yoshihiro Komori

Writer: Ryota Kosawa (Screenplay), Atsuo Saito (Original Creator),

Starring: Yuki Kaji (Gamba), Sayaka Kanda (Tideway),

Website     ANN

Synopsis from Anime News Network: Atsuo Saitō’s original 1972 novel is set in Yumemigajima, an island ruled by a fierce white weasel named Noroi. The town mouse Gamba and his friends fight to save the island’s mice.

The Laws of the Universe Part 0 (UFO Gakuen no Himitsu)   

UFO学園の秘密「UFO Gakuen no Himitsu」

Release Date: October 10^th, 2015

Running Time: 125 mins.

Director: Isamu Imakake

Writer: UFO Gakuen no Himitsu Scenario Project (Screenplay), Ryuho Okawa (Original Creator),

Starring: Asami Seto (Anna), Hisako Kanemoto (Halle), Ryota Ohsaka (Ray), Daisuke Namikawa (Professor Yoake),

Website     ANN

Ryuho Okawa, the founder of the controversial religious organization Happy Science (Kōfuku no Kagaku), is credited with the original work and as the chief production supervisor for the film. Isamu Imakake (The Mystical Laws, The Laws of Eternity) is directing the film, and also serving as chief animation director and character designer at HS Pictures Studio (formerly SH Studio).

Synopsis from the film’s website: Ray, Anna, Tyler, Halle, and Eisuke are five high school students who are suddenly wrapped up in a mysterious incident.

An alien species called Grey abducts Halle’s sister and embeds her with a special chip inside her brain. The five stand up to save Halle’s sister and try to reveal the existence of aliens, but continue to be met with mysterious events.

The high school students’ story progresses into a shocking development!

What truths hide on the dark side of the moon? What are the true intentions of the aliens that are infiltrating America, Russia and China? What is the true crisis that is closing in on Earth and what hope can we have towards the future!? Going beyond the last movie, The Mystical Laws, The Laws of the Universe – Part 0 reveals stunning truth from beyond the star in animation form!

People of Earth, you cannot afford to miss this movie!

Sakana-kun Kenkyuujo Suggyo Osakana Dai Shugo! Janpu! Kakureru! Sekai Saidai! Hen    

さかなクン研究所　すっギョイおさかな大集合！　ジャンプ！隠れる！世界最大！編「Sakana-kun Kenkyuujo Suggyo Osakana Dai Shugo! Janpu! Kakureru! Sekai Saidai! Hen」

Release Date: October 10^th, 2015

Running Time: 45 mins.

Director: Tetsuya Fukuhara

Writer: N/A

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

Website

The popular television show Sakana-kun is on the big screen for the second time this year and the theme for this one is jump, hide, the world’s largest. Easy to understand commentary ensures that kids find out more about the world’s largest whale shark herds, the ancient fish arowana of the Amazon river who eat insects by jumping out of the water, and the sea anemone that hide, such as clownfish to protect themselves from predators.

The Next Generation Patlabor: Shuto Kessen Director’s Cut    

THE NEXT GENERATIONパトレイバー 首都決戦ディレクターズカット「The Next Generation Patlabor: Shuto Kessen Deirekuta-zu Katto」

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

Running Time: 119 mins.

Director: Mamoru Oshii

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

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

Website IMDB

This is the director’s cut of a film that was originally released in May. It adds over 20 minutes of content!

The project began with a seven-part series, which is composed of the “episode 0” and 12 full episodes helmed by chief director Mamoru Oshii and other directors. Each full episode is about 48 minutes long. The final feature length film ran at 94 minutes with the director’s cut clocking in at 119 minutes.

Synopsis: The story is set in Tokyo in 2013, and it represents the “third generation” of Patlabor. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police has disbanded its Section 2 Division 1 of police robots, and Section 2 Division 2 barely survived the budget cuts due to the long recession. The film will centre on the Section 2 team fighting against a terrorist group that has taken all of the 10 million residents of Tokyo hostage.

Nuclear Japan   

日本と原発 4年後「Nihon to genpatsu 4-nen-go」

Release Date: May 01^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 138 mins.

Director: Hiroyuki Kawai

Writer: N/A

Starring: Hiroyuki Kawai, Eiko Kanno, Yuichi Kaito, Tetsuya Iida, Noriko Kimoto,

Website

Synopsis from the film’s English language website: NUCLEAR JAPAN is a documentary film directed by a 70-year-old lawyer with remarkable record of winning very high-profile cases who elucidates the controversial issue of nuclear power industry in Japan.

On March 11th, 2011, a massive earthquake hit East Japan, which caused a catastrophic accident in Tokyo Electric Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant. Radioactive materials were released from its four nuclear reactors, and they have contaminated the people’s land as well as ocean. Today, the effort to clean up the radioactive materials is still ongoing, only too little effect.

There was one lawyer who had been actively voicing the absurdity and danger of Japanese nuclear power – Hiroyuki Kawai. Kawai has been fighting in many legal battles to halt nuclear power plants in Japan for over 20 years. Ever since the crisis at Fukushima No.1 power plant, his fight has been fuelled by even more drive and dedication.

Then, Kawai had a thought. What if he makes a movie about this issue? If he wants the public to understand the complicated issues of nuclear power, literature has its limits. Also, all the coverage by Japanese media has been biased. Only by providing the visual and giving the objective view, he can communicate the true absurdity and inhumanity of the nuclear power in Japan.

With the help of another lawyer Yuichi Kaido, Kawai’s old ally who also has been fighting in nuclear power plant lawsuits, Kawai completed this documentary film, NUCLEAR JAPAN.

The film not only features the interviews of many experts, a number of facts and evidences, but it also brings to light the immense pain of the people have been suffering from the nuclear crisis. NUCLEAR JAPAN is now being presented as evidence in many lawsuits to halt nuclear power plants all over Japan.

Teacher and Stray Cat   

先生と迷い猫「Sensei to Mayoi Neko」

Release Date: October 10^th, 2015

Running Time: 107 mins.

Director: Yoshihiro Fukagawa

Writer: Hitoshi Kobayashi (Screenplay), Chiaki Kizuki (Original Novel)

Starring: Issey Ogata, Shota Sometani, Kie Kitano, Pierre Taki, Kayoko Kishimoto, Takanori Takeyama, Masako Motai,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Kyoichi (Ogata) is a widower. He used to be happily married and a school principal but after the death of his wife and his retirement he keeps to himself. When his wife was alive she liked to feed a stray cat named Mii and since she has died Mii still visits, paying particular attention to his wife’s funeral picture on the Buddhist altar. This irritates Kyoichi who shoos the cat away each and every day. When Mii stops showing up at Kyoichi’s house he begins to worry and searches for the cat. He isn’t the only one. Kyoichi discovers that other people in the area are also looking for Mii.

Library Wars – The Last Mission   

図書館戦争 -THE LAST MISSION-「Toshokan Senso-The Last Mission-」

Release Date: October 10^th, 2015

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Shinsuke Sato

Writer: Hitoshi One (Screenplay), Hiro Arikawa (Original Light Novel)

Starring: Junichi Okada, Nana Eikura, Chiaki Kuriyama, Tao Tsuchiya, Sota Fukushi, Kei Tanaka, Aoi Nakamura, Tori Matsuzaka

Website   IMDB

So, Library Wars got a sequel. Here’s what I wrote for the first film:

“To be honest I have never taken the concept seriously but viewing the trailer has left me interested if only to see Chiaki Kuriyama on the big screen again.”

I’ll be honest and say that I found the first Library Wars movie deathly dull. For all the sound and fury of the gun battles, the drama was absent thanks to some rote characterisation, bland acting (especially from Fukushi and even Kuriyama), and a setting which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and irritated the heck out of me while I was watching it. I don’t know why it got a sequel except it’s based on a popular franchise and gives screen time to idol actors. Maybe I’m missing something…

Synopsis: In the near future an authoritarian government runs Japan. It has passed a law banning free expression and so the government has created an armed force to find and destroy anything it deems as objectionable content like books. Enter the Library Force which aims to protect books. Can Atsushi Dojo (Okada) and Kasahara (Eikura) defend their beloved books?

Decline of an Assassin   

野良犬はダンスを踊る「Norainu ha Dansu wo Odoru」

Release Date: October 10^th, 2015

Running Time: 100 mins.

Director: Shoji Kubota

Writer: Shoji Kubota (Screenplay),

Starring: Yoshimasa Kondo, Yuri Yanagi, Shogo Suzuki, Keisuke Kato, Hidetoshi Kubota, Kouta Kusano,

Website

Director Shoji Kubota and actor Yoshimasa Kondo have worked together more than once. This year saw Murder on D Street released at the start and now it is ending with this film which screened at the Montreal Film Festival (that festival had a great line-up of films).

Synopsis from the Montreal Film Festival: After serving 40 years as the hitman for a shadowy criminal gang, Muneyuki Kurosawa has recruited and trained two young men in his deadly art. They are both straining at the leash, eager to fill his shoes. Indeed, though Kurosawa’s mastery was once unmatched, he’s now beginning to make mistakes. As well, he’s beginning to fall in love with Miori. his favourite bargirl, even to feel protective of her. When a simple hit gets botched, Kurosawa realizes it’s time to call it quits. But after decades in violent crime, how can he ever get back to normal life?

Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:

Bakuman (Release: 2015/10/03)

Heroine Shikkaku (Release: 2015/09/19)

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

Antman (Release: 2015/09/19)

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

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

Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova Cadenza (Release: 2015/10/03)

Kingsman (Release: 2015/09/11)  

Kingsman (Release: 2015/09/11)  

Jurassic World (Release: 2015/08/07)

Alien vs Ninja   

AVN エイリアンVSニンジャ「AVN Eirian VS Ninja」

Release Date: July 23^rd, 2011

Running Time: 81 mins.

Director: Seiji Chiba

Writer: Seiji Chiba (Screenplay),

Starring: Shuji Kshiwabara, Mika Hijii, Ben Hiura, Masanori Mimoto, Donpei Tsuchihira,

The title says it all really. Aliens fighting ninjas. Two of the most iconic draws in cult movie history duke it out in a battle that should be cinematic gold but in the hands of director Seiji Chiba it is boring.

The rumble takes place in Sengoku era Japan where the Iga Ninja clan are spying on feudal lords and debating whether to throw their lot in with Oda Nobunaga or Tokugawa Ieyasu. Yamata, a young and impetuous ninja who revels in the thrill of the fight, is less interested in the politics so when a meteorite crashes into a village and unleashes a trio of aliens he finds himself facing his ultimate test as he fights katana against claw, shuriken against snakelike tail, and fist against fang.

As part of Sushi Typhoon’s opening gambit in seducing western audiences with low-budget weird Japan B-movie schlock, Alien vs Ninja fits the bill with its mock-serious setting containing a silly series of battles between ninjas and aliens which sees the script sacrificed for the spectacle but was there enough of a budget to go around?

Just enough, is the answer. Budget limitations result in a small cast and unambitious script and the lack of money in other departments is also clearly seen on screen. This is a splatter film minus much of the splatter and fun physical effects of the other titles in the genre that I have reviewed and the action mostly happens in non-descript forests and caves which saves the production money on set/location costs. A couple of exterior shots of a castle and village serve to ground the narrative in a time period but since locations are under-populated in terms of the cast everything feels lifeless, a sense exacerbated by the look of the film which is unexceptional especially since it is shot on digital camera so the visuals come across as flat. The lack of a budget can also be heard in the soundtrack, a combination of techno and traditional Japanese instruments, which is pretty ghastly.

The art design and costumes are not all that exciting aside from the sleek and futuristic ninja body armour. The titular alien is a guy in a rubber suit which is played up for all of the cheap silliness that it can evoke. The alien looks and acts a lot like the Xenomorph from Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) with its slick body, creeping movements, prehensile tale with which it stabs people with, and phallic protuberances that do just as much penetrating.

The plot and narrative are purposefully limited and characterisation is barebones at best but the lack of imagination in the alien is disappointing since the focus of the film is all about the fighting between aliens which are little more than knock-offs of the Xenomorph, and some cool-looking ninjas.

There are a variety of ninjas to be seen, all given visual traits to differentiate them: Nezumi the fat blonde cowardly comic-relief ninja, Jinnai the handsome slick-haired one, and Rin, a beautiful female ninja who serves as the source of some dated comedy that revolves around one pervy alien sexually harassing the one female ninja (and the only female character in the entire movie!). Much like the visuals, it is all unimaginative and unsurprising.

The focus is suitably on the fighting which puts the stress more on the performers and the action direction and at times the film comes to life.

The scenes which are orchestrated by the latest generation of low-budget action directors, Yuji Shimomura (Versus, The Warrior’s Way, The Princess Blade) and Kensuke Sonomura (Kunoichi: Ninja Girl, Hard Revenge Milly: Bloody Battle, Nowhere Girl). They lace the film with battles that feature a variety of ninja weapons like katanas, flying chain-blades called shoge, spinning bombs, as well as guns amid lots of physical fights which are imaginative at times as various characters battle with different fighting techniques. I have never seen a ninja perform a suplex on an alien before and the one sexually harassed kick-ass ninja girl does beat the crap out of an alien (director Seiji Chiba doesn’t miss a trick in this battle, ensuring her duel with the alien comes across as dry-humping, every camera angle leering at her body) and send a blade into his man parts – a bit of justice, one might say.

To be fair, Seiji Chiba’s editing and direction is steady and the fights are coherent, just not that exciting. He uses CGI moderately, mostly during the fights, to show the aliens’ weird physical abilities and a fight high in the sky. The best parts of the film are the performers Shuji Kashiwabara as Yamata and Mika Hijii as ninja girl Rin. Both have continued to float in and out of action films, although Kashiwabara has worked on dramas like Who’s Camus Anyway (2005) and horror like The Locker (2004) and The Locker 2 (2004). I would like to see more of Mika Hiji who is wonderfully athletic and sexy.

Overall, this is a rather boring bad film on the same level as Big Tits Dragon. Despite the premise offering up a silly action adventure the film does not take off. The experience is dull because the special effects aren’t so special and the film is stunted by its limited budget when it comes to ambition. The aliens are silly and the action scenes are separated by stretches of dull dialogue and drama which is needless. This is not a bad film in the technical sense. Everything is competently shot and the action is easy to follow. If you have ever wondered what might have happened if the Xenomorph in Alien had come across katana wielding bad-ass ninjas then wonder no more and give this a try. Just lament the lack of a budget and hope for a better stab at the concept from some other team.

2.5/5

Happy weekend, dear readers!

I may not be watching as many films at the London Film Festival this year as I have in others but I am still kept in the loop about events thanks to friends who tell me that Hirokazu Koreeda’s Our Little Sister (2015) is a brilliant film. Industry contacts have sent me news about the London East Asian Film Festival which launches at the end of next week so I’ll be posting about that next week. I finally watched The Martian (2015) as well and enjoyed it a lot. As for the new anime I am watching Subete ga F ni naru: The Perfect Insider and One Punch Man are two of the shows I’m picking up.

Only one review this week and it’s for Alien vs Ninja (2010).

What’s released this weekend in Japan?

Cyborg 009 Vs. Devilman   

サイボーグ009VSデビルマン「Saibo-gu 009 VS Deburuman」

Release Date: October 17^th, 2015

Running Time: 85 mins.

Director: Jun Kawagoe

Writer: Tadashi Hayakawa (Screenplay), Shotaro Ishinomori (Original Creator of Cyborg 009), Go Nagai (Original Creator of Devilman)

Starring: Jun Fukuyama (Cyborg 009/Joe Shimamura), Shintaro Asanuma (Akira Fudou/Devilman), Saori Hayami (Miki Makimura), Hozumi Goda (Cyborg 007/Great Britain),

Website     ANN

Two of anime’s older franchises get mixed together. Akira Nagai’s Devilman was ‘90s anime fare in the West with its sex and violence storyline earning it a release from Manga UK. Meanwhile, in the US, Shotaro Ishinomori’s Cyborg 009 got aired. The latter title seems more popular considering all of the reboots and re-releases you read about. According to Anime News Network Nagai worked as an assistant to Ishinomori and drew backgrounds for Cyborg 009 before launching Devilman.

Synopsis from Anime News Network: Joe Shimamura and his cyborg allies find themselves working against Akira Fudo, a kid who turns into Devilman after getting possessed by demonic powers. I bet both sides team up in the end…

Expedition Party’s Glory   

探検隊の栄光「Tankentai no Eiko」

Release Date: October 16^th, 2015

Running Time: 91 mins.

Director: Toru Yamamoto

Writer: Tatsuya Kanazawa, Koji Tokuo, Toru Yamamoto, (Screenplay), Gen Araki (Original Novel)

Starring: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Yusuke Santamaria, Yoji Tanaka, Hinako Sano, Yosuke Kawamura, Yukiyoshi Ozawa,

Website   IMDB

The first half of the trailer makes this look like a cool and funny riff on reality television shenanigans forced on a once popular actor with Tatsuya Fujiwara wrestling a crocodile but by the end it turns into a heart-warming journey of self-discovery. Will it be too saccharine sweet to bear?

Synopsis: Sugisaki (Fujiwara) is an actor who finds his career on the slide when he takes on the lead role in a low-budget reality adventure television show where he heads into the unknown to find a legendary creature. Sugisaki begins to take things seriously when the team find themselves in a dangerous situation.

Mr. Max Man   

Mr.マックスマン「Mr.Makkusuman」

Release Date: October 17^th, 2015

Running Time: 69 mins.

Director: Akihide Masuda

Writer: Takuro Fukuda, (Screenplay),

Starring: Yudai Chiba, Mizuki Yamamoto, Anju Suzuki, jun Kaname, Tasuku Nagase, Yuki Kubota, Rio Uchida,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Masayoshi Taniguchi (Chiba) is a clumsy presenter on a morning television programme during the day and a super hero nerd in his spare time. He works with his childhood friend Yuko (Yamamoto) who he has a crush on. When he finds a pair of glasses that give him superpowers he becomes a real life super hero which is handy because the girl he is sweet on gets kidnapped!

Senpai to Kanojo   

先輩と彼女「Senpai to Kanojo」

Release Date: October 17^th, 2015

Running Time: 103 mins.

Director: Chihiro Ikeda

Writer: Kiyohito Wada, (Screenplay), Atsuko Nanba (Original Manga)

Starring: Jun Shison, Kyoko Yoshine, Riria, Junki Tozuka, Kaho Mizutani, Makiko Watanabe,

Website   IMDB

Throughout August there were lots of D-Boy stage-plays screened at a certain cinema. Jun Shison is a member of D-Boys and he gets a big acting role in an adaptation of Atsuko Nanba’s shoujou manga.

Synopsis: Rika Tsuzuki (Yoshine) is a first year high school student who is in love with third year high school student Keigo Minohara (Shison) who is in love with Aoi Okita (Riria), a university student.

SCANDAL “Documentary film「HELLO WORLD」”   

Release Date: October 17^th, 2015

Running Time: 105 mins.

Director: Chie Okazawa

Writer: N/A

Starring: Haruna, Mami, Tomomi, Rina

Website

This is compiled from Scandal’s first world tour which covered eight countries and ten shows. Scandal visited the UK, France, Taiwan, and the US amongst other countries.

Messiah: Shinku no Shou   

メサイア　深紅ノ章「Mesaia shinku no Shou」

Release Date: October 17^th, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: Hiroki Yamaguchi

Writer: Hiroki Yamaguchi, Ayumi Yokoyama (Screenplay),

Starring: Tomoru Akazawa, Daisuke Hirose, Yuukie Igawa, Hiroaki Iwanaga, Taishi Sugie,

Website

Looking up low-budget movie adaptations of stage-plays often reveals a passionate fan-base that adores the actors and reveals areas of Japanese cinema I have no idea about which is why I refer to them in these trailer previews. Here are two examples: masayume85 and The Messiah Project. This film is developed by Hiroki Yamaguchi who is steadily making low-budget sci-fi films and while this doesn’t look to have the interesting visuals of Hellevator, it’s still good to see his unique visions getting made especially in an industry that doesn’t make many sci-fi films.

Synopsis from masayume85.tumblr: Focuses primarily on the relationship between Ariga and Mamiya and the mysterious terrorist organization: Quantum Cat. A spy is in the midst of Sakura, can the cadets figure it out before Japan explodes in flames? Meanwhile Amane continues to seek out his father while Misu is caught at a crossroads with Public Security. Introduces Sugie Taishi as Kagami Itsuki and features the return of Ota Motohiro as Gojou Souma.

Vietnam no Kaze ni Fukarete   

ベトナムの風に吹かれて「Betonamu no Kaze ni Fukarete」

Release Date: October 17^th, 2015

Running Time: 114 mins.

Director: Kazuki Ohmori

Writer:  Kazuki Ohmori (Screenplay), Miyuki Komatsu (Original Novel)

Starring: Keiko Matsuzaka, Reiko Kusamura, Akira Emoto, Reina Fujie, Koji Kikkawa, Eiji Okuda, Yoneko Matsukane,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Misao (Matsuzaka) and Shizue (Kusamura) are a daughter/mother team in Vietnam. Misao teaches Japanese and is recovering from a divorce in Japan while her mother Shizue has dementia and mist be cared for. The warmth of the people of Vietnam gradually help the two find a new take on life.

Boku wa Bosan  

ボクは坊さん。「Boku wa Bosan」

Release Date: October 17^th, 2015

Running Time: 114 mins.

Director: Yukinori Makabe

Writer:  Kenya Hirata (Screenplay), Missei Shirakawa (Original Novel)

Starring: Atsushi Ito, Mizuki Yamamoto, Junpei Mizobata, Gaku Hamada, Miyuki Matsuda, Issey Ogata, Yoneko Matsukane,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Koen Shirakawa (Ito) is shocked by the death of his grandfather, a priest at a local temple. This event makes him reassess life so he quits his job at a bookstore and becomes a monk at a temple.  

Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:

Library Wars – The Last Mission (2015/10/10)

Bakuman (Release: 2015/10/03)

The Intern (2015/10/10)

Heroine Shikkaku (Release: 2015/09/19)

UFO Gakuen no Himitsu (2015/10/10)

Fantastic Four (Release: 2015/10/09)

Gamba: Gamba to Nakama-tachi (2015/10/10)

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

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

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

Happy Hour   

Happy Hour ハッピーアワー(2015)

ハッピーアワー「Happi- Awa-」　

Release Date: December, 2015

Seen at the London Film Festival

Running Time: 317 mins.

Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Writer: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Tadashi Nohara, Tomoyuki Takahashi (Screenplay)

Starring:  Rira Kawamura, Hazuki Kikuchi, Maiko Mihara, Sachie Tanaka, Shuhei Shibata, Ami Kugai, Sachiko Fukunaga, Reina Shiihashi,

Website IMDB

Happy Hour is a film unlikely to get licensed in the West. With a five hour seventeen minute running time dedicated to showing the lives of four middle-aged women, distributors might think that the film is likely to test the patience of many and for some in the audience I was with when I saw it at the London Film Festival that proved to be true. For viewers with patience this is less the endurance test it sounds like and more an example of a character-driven story rich in small incidents and details that build up to show lives of three-dimensional characters whose stories are quietly compelling. While slow it paints a fascinating picture of contemporary Japan with a little social commentary added.

Happy Hour tracks the friendship between Fumi (Maiko Mihara), a cultured and elegant gallery curator always in fashionable attire, Akari (Sachie Tanaka), a nurse and a fiery character with a blunt and brave demeanour that matches her strong physicality, Sakurako (Hazuki Kikuchi), a beautiful and demure housewife who dresses plainly but catches the eye of others, and Jun (Rira Kawamura), a kitchen assistant and the most outgoing of the group.

When we first meet them they are on a daytrip. They have taken a cable car to the top of a mountain overlooking their home city of Kobe but their view is shrouded by rain and mist. Despite this, just being together is clearly fun for the girls. Away from their families and responsibilities they talk about anything and everything over their bento lunches and sandwiches, revealing dissatisfaction with relationships.

Sakurako is a dedicated housewife but would like more appreciation from her family made up of a stoic and loyal husband named Yoshihiko who works for the city and leaves all family matters to her, a secretive teenage son named Daiki who is dating a pretty girl at his school, and a mother-in-law who has recently moved in but proves hard to read.

Akari is well-respected in her hospital and often looked to as a source of strength by friends and colleagues, especially a new junior nurse who is a bit of a klutz. She works hard and she likes to play hard but since her divorce she feels she lacks a man and romance in her life and wants some passion.

Fumi is concerned by her husband Takuya’s lack of deep communication. They do small-talk well but she feels a distance growing between them despite the fact that they live comfortably together and she helps him by opening up her gallery space to showcase new authors he works with as an editor.

Jun doesn’t complain too much. Her husband Kohei is a scientist and she seems to be happy. However, she has a secret and that is she hasn’t told anybody about the divorce proceedings she has launched against her husband. Tired with his passionless demeanour she seeks a way out. Desperate to confide in someone she chooses to tell Sakurako, a friend since junior high. Jun’s divorce and the decision to tell just one of the group sparks a series of events and emotional upheavals that leads to the disappearance of Jun, the one who brought the four women together and forces the four to face the problems in their own lives, all of it based on the absence of love. It seems that all they have is each other and their friendship.

At the start of the film, they are four firm friends facing the future together, 37-year-old ladies with desires and fears but each supporting the other. By the end of the film with the friendship at risk and the support possibly waning, the four women are bringing about changes they would never have contemplated before and the audience has been taken through these dramatic incidents by following director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s lead which is established through assured skill and good performances from the lead actors.

The first question to answer is how does the long running time feel? I am sure that for some it will be a turn off especially with the small-scale nature of the tale but many people watching this will probably be aware of the type of film they are going to see. It is one that slowly takes its time to display the lives of the characters and allow the audience to access their emotions through showing the minutiae as well as the major events. I found that although the film plays out in what feels like real time it never drags, every second containing dialogue or acting or something that helps build a detailed depiction of what these character’s lives are like. There are always things to contemplate. Everything seen and heard on screen is crucial for understanding the gradual shifts in character’s perspectives as they find that they want more emotionally from life.

Shot over what seems to be the course of weeks and edited in a way that favours long takes and calmness, this is rather like watching real life unfold. We are embedded in the lives of these characters from the major dramas to the small things. This is a feeling enhanced by the filmmakers realistically grounding the action in the little scenes that may normally get cut from a film – an Yukihiko giving Jun a lift to a train station that turns awkward when they talk about Sakurako, Jun’s bus ride which includes a conversation with a young woman, Fumi fleeing a disastrous dinner date with her husband and his literary protégé through busy streets and along lonely walkways. This smallness and slowness is not often problematic or boring. Scenes go on for what feels like naturally long lengths of time before coming to the end at just the right moment where you get the sense that something has been achieved and your time has not been wasted.

The actual story is fairly basic and the characters have a slight archetypal feeling to them but their development is interesting and they become complex and unpredictable, like watching real people grappling with emotional problems that beset us all. The fallout from Jun’s revelations leads to a fracturing of relationships, the splintering of personas’ and the revelation of extreme alienation that the women feel from their loved ones and their growing desire to be desired and to be loved. There is a little social commentary as we see that the four women have lost their individuality in the eyes of others and those closest to them neglect their emotional and physical needs. The lack of communication and being stripped of their individual qualities by their families and friends has left the characters feeling somewhat hollow and it is interesting to watch them deal with this emotion and overcome it. They do so by trying to harness the primal energy or awakening the love inside of themselves and others and this leads to some wild moments where they break away from life. This is made more potent by the constant immersion we feel thanks to the deliberately slow running time.

This feeling of believability is something helped by the actors who are mostly non-professionals. Ryusuke Hamaguchi has drawn out good performances from cast members who are taking on their first acting role in a feature film. The four women at the heart of the story have seemingly formed a strong bond rather quickly and look like true friends on screen. The dialogue that they speak to each other rings true with fluctuating emotions they convey and don’t as they negotiate helping each other and protecting their friendship without giving in to anger and selfishness – and that’s not always a battle they win. This spices up every encounter the girls have with each other and adds dramatic impetus to the film.

The most charismatic characters are Akari and Jun. Sachie Tanaka as Akari, the nurse whose tough exterior and garrulous nature creates comedy as she butts heads with more reserved character but this covers up a sensitive side. The other shining light in the film is Rira Kawamura as Jun, the mischievous dark horse of the group and the most independent woman of the bunch. She is the glue that binds everyone together and despite coming across as weak at first, the audience will grow to love her and miss her after her disappearance much like her friends do.

A special mention should go out to Shuhei Shibata as Kei Ukai and Reina Shiihashi as Kozue Nose, two of the young characters who change the lives of the women. Shibata plays Ukai as the ultimate chancer with a silver-tongue. From the word go, both the audience and the women zero in on how much of a flake he is but the man does have charisma and whenever he is on screen the sparks fly. Reina Shiihashi is plays the novelist Kozue as a naturally beautiful but ultra-cute woman who is intelligent but deceptively shy since she is capable of brave acts like staking out her emotions to the man she has fallen for.

The people in this film are subject to sympathetic treatment from the script and visuals so it is very easy to engage with it emotionally.

There is always something to catch the eye in Yoshio Kitagawa’s cinematography and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s direction, something always helps symbolise and help bring out the story and inner feelings of the characters. There is the use of close-ups and extreme close-ups that the filmmakers use to make the audience study the characters more during dinner party conversations and confrontations so we in the audience, with knowledge of what characters think and believe can see how it affects their every physical aspect.

Indeed, the film’s aesthetic is a mostly unfussy one which captures the mundane aspects of urban life so we can appreciate the characters who exist in them – the bland but ordered streets, overpasses, clubs, cafes’ of the everyday Kobe the women know all too well and find stifling. Then there are the shots and sounds that give a new meaning and energy to the characters, the spectacular sights that jolt them (and some in the audience, most probably) from their stupor. This is especially true when the women are challenging their societal roles, the expectations of others and striking out into new territory or are just together, out and about doing their own thing and being independent of those around them – a woman riding a ferry alone as it slowly motors underneath a jaw-droppingly huge bridge and the camera tilts to capture the sight, a jaunt the four women take to the more beautiful and relaxing town of Arima with its hills studded with tree groves, winding paths, and waterfalls.

Ultimately, the film builds dramatic momentum from all of the character interactions and details and it culminates in a low-key climax where you know that their lives have changed forever and questions about the friendship remain but not in the way you expect. The film conveys the vagaries of life pretty well and the open ending is fitting. Whether it is satisfying will be up to the viewer to decide. It worked for me.

Movie-goers in the West have long complained about the lack of films about women with strong roles and detailed stories. Perhaps these film fans live in a mono-lingual world because Japanese and Korean filmmakers cater for the female market with a range of titles that span genres and there is a growing movement of female filmmakers who would put Hollywood and Europe to shame for the wealth of talent they have and stories they create. Happy Hour is a good example. It presents us with complex portraits of real women, three-dimensional characters and not stereotypes. The emotions are universal and believable. It provides a fascinating and profound story that draws its strength from revelling in the everyday details and actions that make up real life and thus gives us insight into lives as lived in contemporary Japan. Isn’t that one of the strongest aspect of films? That we can live and understand other lives?

4/5

I’ve overdone it with this review (the first in the English language as far as I can tell). I concede that this will not be a film for everyone. At times even my patience was strained and I did wonder whether I should have opted to watch the more entertaining sounding Yakuza Apocalypse (2015) but I ended up appreciating it. At times I felt like it could be a counter-point to something like Tokyo Sonata (2009), albeit less artful and ultimately satisfying. The film plays at the Leeds International Film Festival.

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

I’ll write something about the film Taksu for Gigan magazine at some point.

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   

戦闘少女 血の鉄仮面伝説　「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

Happy weekend people!

After a movie drought lasting nearly a month (I think the last film I watched was Kiki’s Delivery Service in the middle of August) I spent last weekend gorging myself on films. On Friday I attended the Raindance film festival with two friends and watched Slum-polis (2015) and Fires on the Plain (2014). I also met the director Shinya Tsukamoto and had a picture taken with him. Then on Saturday I went to the Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival with a friend and watched A Letter to Momo (2012), Short Peace (2014), and one of my most favourite anime of all time, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise (1987). On Sunday I went and watched Kazoku Game (198). It was an incredible series of films so expect reviews.

Only one post this week and that’s for Mutant Girls Squad.

What’s released this weekend?

The Empire of Corpses  

屍者の帝国　「Shisha　no Teikoku」

Release Date: October 02^nd, 2015

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Ryoutarou Makihara

Writer: Project Itoh (Original Novel),

Starring: Yoshimasa Hosoya (John H. Watson), Akio Ohtsuka (M), Kana Hanazawa (Hadary Lilith), Taiten Kusunoki (Frederick Barnaby), Ayumu Murase (Friday/Noble_Savage_007),

Website     ANN

Empire of Corpses is the first of three films from Project Itoh, a concerted effort to adapt novels by late author Project Itoh who died in 2009. The three novels are being turned into films by different directors and studios. The Empire of Corpses comes to us courtesy of WIT Studio (Attack on Titan, Hoozuki no Reitetsu) and is directed by Ryuotarou Makihara (Hal).

The other two films are Genocidal Organ is directed by Shukou Murase (Ergo Proxy) at Manglobe (House of Five Leaves) and Harmony which is directed by Takashi Nakamura (Fantastic Children) and Michael Arias (Tekkonkinkreet), at Studio 4°C (Berserk). Genocidal Organ is now subject to delays due to Manglobe going bankrupt.

Synopsis from Scotland Loves Anime: In 19th Century London, “corpse reanimation technology” has been developed, rendering the dead useful for basic physical labour.

Brilliant medical student John Watson is invited to join the UK government’s secret society, the Walsingham Institution. There he is given a clandestine mission: search for the legendary writings of Dr. Victor Frankenstein, left behind a century ago. These private papers allegedly detail the technology behind a more sophisticated reanimated corpse – the original – that could speak and even had free will.

The first clue leads Watson deep into Afghanistan. Alexei Karamazov, a military chaplain and genius corpse engineer for the Russian Empire, was seen leading an army of an unknown type of armed corpse there. He used them to instigate a rebellion before going underground, leading Watson to suspect he may know the whereabouts of Victor’s private papers.

Accompanied by Friday, a corpse that records all his activities, Watson begins the journey of a lifetime in search of Victor’s private papers.

Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova Cadenza   

劇場版　蒼き鋼のアルペジオ　アルス・ノヴァ Cadenza「Gekijouban Aoki Hagane no Arupejio Arusu Noba Cadenza」

Release Date: October 03^rd, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: Seiji Kishi

Writer: Makoto Uezu (Script), Ark Performance (Original Creator),

Starring: M.A.O (Hiei), Ayaka Fukuhara (Myoko), Jouji Nakata (Shozo Chihaya), Hiromi Igarashi (Haguro), Satomi Sato (Nachi), Rie Kugimiya (Musashi),

Website     ANN

The Arpeggio of Blue Steel franchise has two films released in 2015. The first was a compilation of the TV anime and was released at the end of January while this one features brand new content.

Synopsis: In Arpeggio of Blue Steel, humanity has lost a large quantity of its developed land as a result of global warming. They then lose the seas when a “Fleet of Fog” appears all over the world and overwhelms humanity. Seventeen years later, Gunzo Chihaya and his crewmates find themselves comandeering a “Fleet of Fog” submarine called I-401 and together with Iona, the submarine’s “mental model” (human representation of the submarine), they take the fight back to the Fleet of Fog.

Bakuman   

バクマン。「Bakuman」

Release Date: October 03^rd, 2015

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Hitoshi One

Writer: Hitoshi One (Screenplay), Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata (Original Manga)

Starring: Takeru Satoh, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Nana Komatsu, Takayuki Yamada, Shota Sometani, Lily Franky, Kankuro Kudo, Hirofumi Arai,

Website   IMDB

Bakuman comes from Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, the creators of Death Note. It is very popular and has been collected in over compiled volumes of manga and has been the basis of three television series produced by J.C. Staff since it was first published in Weekly Shounen Jump back in August, 2008. It has a star-laden cast and a director who has worked on indies and bigger budgeted films. All in all it looks like a decent adaptation from the early signs.

Synopsis: Moritaka Mashiro (Satoh) is a talented artist but after the death of his uncle, a manga-ka who died because of exhaustion, he resents art and wants to become an office worker. Then he meets and falls in love with a girl at school named Azuki Miho, an aspiring voice actress. Azuki tells Moritaka they can marry, but only after they both achieve their dreams. Moritaka then teams up with fellow classmate Akito Takagi (Kamiki), a talented writer, and they aim to publish their first manga.

Kiyamachi Daruma   

木屋町DARUMA「Kiyamachi Daruma」

Release Date: October 03^rd, 2015

Running Time: 116 mins.

Director: Hideo Sakaki

Writer: Hiroyuki Maruno (Screenplay/Original Novel)

Starring: Kenichi Endo, Susumu Terajima, Rina Takeda, Shohei Uno, Masaki Miura, Houka Karasuma, Setsuko Karasuma,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Shigeo Katsuura (Endo) was once the leader of the yakuza in Kiya but after losing his arms and legs he is forced to go around to his debtors’ homes to collect on debts and make money. He does this with the aid of his loyal henchman Kenta (Miura).

Tsumi no Yohaku    

罪の余白「Tsumi no Yohaku」

Release Date: October 03^rd, 2015

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Yuki Otsuka

Writer: Yuki Otsuka (Screenplay), You Ashizawa (Original Novel)

Starring: Seiyo Uchino, Miyu Yoshimoto, Wakana Aoi, Keisuke Hoibe, Masaya Kato, Mitsuki Tanimura,

Website   IMDB

This one is based on You Ashizawa’s novel of the same name which was published on September 1^st, 2012. https://eigakawaraban.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/15082701/

Synopsis: Ando’s (Uchino) daughter Kana supposedly committed suicide by jumping from a high ledge but he isn’t so sure. Ando starts an investigation and all signs point to foul play with his daughter’s former classmate, Saki (Yoshimoto) looking like a suspect. Behind her sweet façade it seems she is an ambitious girl who rules the school’s social scene. Can Ando find the truth?

Zenkai no Uta   

全開の唄「Zenkai no Uta」

Release Date: October 03^rd, 2015

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Yuuji Nakamae

Writer: Yuuji Nakamae, Kouki Yamamoto (Screenplay)

Starring: Yuya Endo, Kazuma Sano, Yuri Nakamura, Airi Nakajima,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Kenichi (Sano) is a guy on his university’s cycling team who falls for an emotionally unstable woman (Nakajima) and gets to know his team’s captain and a woman who works at a cabaret. Despite their problems, the four find themselves growing together.

Kodomo wa Kaze wo Egaku   

子どもは風をえがく「Kodomo wa Kaze wo Egaku」

Release Date: October 04^th, 2015

Running Time: 115 mins.

Director: Katsuhiko Tsutsui

Writer: N/A

Starring: Yoshiko Iguchi, Keiko Ueto, Masae Ishikawa, Akie Kawashima, Yasuko Murakami, Miho Morimoto,

Website

Synopsis: Suginami ward, Tokyo, a garden is the scene of a movie which looks at how children experience growth through nature, through insects and frogs and plants and all the wonderful things that nature (and adults) can come up with for them.

Journey to the Shore      

岸辺の旅 「Kishibe no Tabe」

Running Time: 128 mins.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Takashi Ujita (Screenplay), Kazumi Yumoto (Original Novel)

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

Website   IMDB

I have written about this a few times as it travels the festival circuit this year so here’s the entry for the Toronto International Film Festival:

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 critical reaction to it indicates that it is no Tokyo Sonata it has at least earned him the Best Director prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. 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 who put in a star turn in the crime drama Villain.

Synopsis: Mizuki’s (Fukatsu) husband Yusuke (Asano) disappeared three years ago. 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.

Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:

Heroine Shikkaku (Release: 2015/09/19)

Attack on Titan: End of the World (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)  

Helldriver   

ヘルドライバー 「Herudoraiba」

Release Date: May 23^rd, 2011

Running Time: 117 mins.

Directors: Yoshihiro Nishimura

Writer: Yoshihiro Nishimura, Daichi Nagisa (Screenplay)

Starring: Yumiko Hara, Eihi Shiina, Yurei Yanagi, Takumi Saito, Kazuki Namioka, Mizuki Kusumi, Yukihide Benny, Asami, Cay Isumi, Maki Mizui,

Splatter film director Yoshihiro Nishimura has one setting: extreme. His creatures designs are extreme. His action scenes are extreme. His use of special effects and blood splashed around on screen is extreme. If you thought that Tokyo Gore Police (2008) and Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl (2009) were extreme, you have seen nothing. Helldriver (2011) is a bone-crunching, head-splitting, and grotesque attempt at a zombie apocalypse epic on a shoestring budget and it is extreme action for its entire near two hour running time for better and for worse.

It begins with Kika (Hara), a beautiful high school girl beaten and bruised by her despicable mother Rikka (Shiina) and a creepy uncle. After seeing her kind disabled father get torched it looks like Kika is next until a meteorite strike takes out her mother’s torso. Alas, mother dearest is so bad-ass and just plain bad she steals her daughter’s heart and the two become crystallised.

Crysallised? It seems that this meteorite is an alien-crafted transporter which blankets the northern half of Japan with a mist that transforms people into zombies and it isn’t long before the people in the south of the country build a giant wall to keep the zed-heads out.

The north is a zombie wasteland where survivors are hunted while the south is an overcrowded and calamitous state where politicians argue about how to deal with the zombies – with aid or violence?!?

One shadowy member of the government retrieves Kika and in a shady operation
implants an engine into her chest to act as an artificial heart and as a power source for a chainsaw weapon. The government choose her to lead a special mission made up of desperate people and criminals formerly on death row to go north of the border and exterminate the newly discovered zombie queen with extreme prejudice and rid Japan of all zombies.

It won’t be simple. It turns out that the queen is Rikka and she has created a zombie country with zombie culture and zombie army.

It’ll be a hard and bloody drive up north to meet Rikka but Kika has the fire of vengeance driving her and a chainsaw to sweep zombies aside!

First things first despite the title, Helldriver, there isn’t as much driving as you might think. Kika doesn’t hop on a big rig and plough through zombies but there are epic fights and a ridiculously long zombie car chase and a zombie vs car fight to make up for it.

This is very much archetypal splatter film fare with a focus on physical effects and gags. It comes from one of the masters of the messy blood-red wave: Nishimura.

As is common with Nishmura’s films there is an attempt at a story and it runs on the same formula he tends to use as a set-up in his other films: life in post (insert disaster)-apocalypse Japan with a look into alternative societies before extended battle sequences and end credits. This time it is zombies and it allows for a few satirical takes on politics and pop-culture from adverts about human rights for zombies, the troubles of integrating with dead-heads, and quasi-fascist leaders with a hard-on for military hardware. The characterisation is slight, reduced to costumes for the most part and tending to veer onto the side of bizarre fetishes when a little more complicated which leads to outrageous fights and corny one-liners. Everything is intentionally simple because it serves as a skeleton to hang Nishimura’s true love: the fully-fleshed out and well-imagined zombie and monster designs and the special effects he has spent an entire career making.

Then he makes them all explode on screen in grotesque gouts of gore and bursts of bile and blood for most of the film.

For the first hour there is a lot of glee to be had for gorehounds and regular cinema goers with open minds and strong stomachs because the amount of imagination used to craft this truly diverse array of undead creatures is impressive. The zombie capital is like a flesh-eating bacchanal with caged humans screaming as they see their zombie captors gyrating to awful accordion music and snacking on flesh, dancing, playing games. The zombies come in all shapes and sizes from your regular run of the mill Night of the Living Dead lumbering types to athletic kung-fu zombies of Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 and a sword wielding ogre who acts as a sort of catapult sending zombie heads showering down on the characters:

The alternative zombie society features more monsters like go-go girls and heavy metallers, salary-men and sexy sword wielding biters geared up in geisha outfits.

These creatures take part in action scenes which are truly awesome and, yes, extreme. A zombie mother chucks her zombie fetus, still attached to an umbilical cord, as a weapon. A multi-armed, multi-legged zombie wields a dozen different katana’s and forks and guns. A zombie chases a car and wrestles with it. These actors in pretty gnarly zombie make-up throw themselves into the scenes with dedication and their performances the creature-effects are created by close-ups on a real actor, a mixture of make-up, physical effects such as a doll and prosthetic limbs, and CG. The whole thing works because editing and camera work is fast and frenetic but the sequences are never indecipherable until the final battle.

These action scenes are numerous. After the initial world-building it is a series of battles like the video game Metal Slug. Rika gets to battle a weird variety of zombies and so do her co-companions and their individual action sequences are cut together in tumultuous spurts of gore and body parts scored to rock music of varying quality. There is little to no downtime. Just when you think you’ll get a chance to breathe the next insane sequence will start and that one will last for ten minutes or so and an insane pace is kept up where battles keep coming. The gag gets worn out by the end.

The final hour is almost non-stop relentless zombie violence scored to some awful rock music and it all gets really tiresome which is my biggest complaint about the film. As much as the over the top action was Nishimura’s intention and what the viewer would have signed up for, by the time the ending came I was at risk of falling asleep and my irritation with the film grew. With the relentless action and the same extreme tone used in every sequence Nishimura’s film becomes tiresome and by the arrival of the zombie rocket fight sequence/zombie invasion (a zombie apocalypse doesn’t get any more extreme than this) I was bored and there was still plenty of the film to go. The finale felt long drawn out and the intercutting between fights, a common Nishimura technique, made the action even more ragged rather than extreme which is bad when you have twenty minutes of the film to go. You really do get the sense that he could have shortened the fights and ultimately the film.

Overall, Nishimura achieves the ultimate zombie apocalypse movie but overplays it. Yes, the multiple zombies are unique and not the generic type lathered in green/blue paint and they get to be showcased with their awesome makeup and the decent special effects but the fights feel like they go on much longer than they should even if the denouements are pretty genius and end in explosions and characters look cool as they pose in slow motion while a fountain of blood fountains up into the air or explosions blanket the sky, this is done to death in a deluge of over-indulgence. If it were shortened and the zombie rocket sequence excised, it would have scored higher with me.

3.5/5

Happy weekend, readers!

Well, I am back from my short trip to London and the BFI London Film Festival where I met a friend and did some touristy things. I only watched one film this year and it was Happy Hour, a five hour drama about four women in Kobe and the shockwaves from a divorce that jolt the friends from their dull relationships. I must admit that there were times during the film when I wished I were watching Yakuza Apocalypse or Ryuzo and His Seven Henchmen but Happy Hour proved to be a worthwhile watch.

Only one review this week and it was for Helldriver (2010).

What’s released this weekend?

Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade   

リトルウィッチアカデミア 魔法仕掛けのパレード「Ritoru Wicchi Akademia: Mahou Shikake no Pare-do」

Release Date: October 09^th, 2015

Running Time: 56 mins.

Director: Yoh Yoshinari

Writer: Masahiko Otsuka (Script), Yoh Yoshinari (Original Novel),

Starring: Megumi Han (Atsuko Kagari), Yoko Hikasa (Diana Cavendish), Fumiko Orikawa (Lotte Yansson), Michiyo Murase (Sucy Manbavaran), Noriko Hidaka (Ursula-sensei/Shiny Chariot),

Website     ANN

I can’t remember too much from the original Little Witch Acadameia other than it was a bit of goofy fun. This is the sequel and it was partially funded via Kickstarter.

Synopsis from Anime News Network: Student witches Akko, Sucy and Lotte are tasked with organizing a parade commemorating the role of witches for the annual town festival. Sleeping giants, ambitious mayors, insolent boys, the girls’ own squabbling and copious amounts of magic combine to create a spectacular event.

Gamba: Gamba to Nakama-tachi   

GAMBA ガンバと仲間たち「Gamba: Gamba to Nakama-tachi」

Release Date: October 10^th, 2015

Running Time: 92 mins.

Chief Director: Yoichi Ogawa, Director: Tomohiro Kawamura, Yoshihiro Komori

Writer: Ryota Kosawa (Screenplay), Atsuo Saito (Original Creator),

Starring: Yuki Kaji (Gamba), Sayaka Kanda (Tideway),

Website     ANN

Synopsis from Anime News Network: Atsuo Saitō’s original 1972 novel is set in Yumemigajima, an island ruled by a fierce white weasel named Noroi. The town mouse Gamba and his friends fight to save the island’s mice.

The Laws of the Universe Part 0 (UFO Gakuen no Himitsu)   

UFO学園の秘密「UFO Gakuen no Himitsu」

Release Date: October 10^th, 2015

Running Time: 125 mins.

Director: Isamu Imakake

Writer: UFO Gakuen no Himitsu Scenario Project (Screenplay), Ryuho Okawa (Original Creator),

Starring: Asami Seto (Anna), Hisako Kanemoto (Halle), Ryota Ohsaka (Ray), Daisuke Namikawa (Professor Yoake),

Website     ANN

Ryuho Okawa, the founder of the controversial religious organization Happy Science (Kōfuku no Kagaku), is credited with the original work and as the chief production supervisor for the film. Isamu Imakake (The Mystical Laws, The Laws of Eternity) is directing the film, and also serving as chief animation director and character designer at HS Pictures Studio (formerly SH Studio).

Synopsis from the film’s website: Ray, Anna, Tyler, Halle, and Eisuke are five high school students who are suddenly wrapped up in a mysterious incident.

An alien species called Grey abducts Halle’s sister and embeds her with a special chip inside her brain. The five stand up to save Halle’s sister and try to reveal the existence of aliens, but continue to be met with mysterious events.

The high school students’ story progresses into a shocking development!

What truths hide on the dark side of the moon? What are the true intentions of the aliens that are infiltrating America, Russia and China? What is the true crisis that is closing in on Earth and what hope can we have towards the future!? Going beyond the last movie, The Mystical Laws, The Laws of the Universe – Part 0 reveals stunning truth from beyond the star in animation form!

People of Earth, you cannot afford to miss this movie!

Sakana-kun Kenkyuujo Suggyo Osakana Dai Shugo! Janpu! Kakureru! Sekai Saidai! Hen    

さかなクン研究所　すっギョイおさかな大集合！　ジャンプ！隠れる！世界最大！編「Sakana-kun Kenkyuujo Suggyo Osakana Dai Shugo! Janpu! Kakureru! Sekai Saidai! Hen」

Release Date: October 10^th, 2015

Running Time: 45 mins.

Director: Tetsuya Fukuhara

Writer: N/A

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

Website

The popular television show Sakana-kun is on the big screen for the second time this year and the theme for this one is jump, hide, the world’s largest. Easy to understand commentary ensures that kids find out more about the world’s largest whale shark herds, the ancient fish arowana of the Amazon river who eat insects by jumping out of the water, and the sea anemone that hide, such as clownfish to protect themselves from predators.

The Next Generation Patlabor: Shuto Kessen Director’s Cut    

THE NEXT GENERATIONパトレイバー 首都決戦ディレクターズカット「The Next Generation Patlabor: Shuto Kessen Deirekuta-zu Katto」

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

Running Time: 119 mins.

Director: Mamoru Oshii

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

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

Website IMDB

This is the director’s cut of a film that was originally released in May. It adds over 20 minutes of content!

The project began with a seven-part series, which is composed of the “episode 0” and 12 full episodes helmed by chief director Mamoru Oshii and other directors. Each full episode is about 48 minutes long. The final feature length film ran at 94 minutes with the director’s cut clocking in at 119 minutes.

Synopsis: The story is set in Tokyo in 2013, and it represents the “third generation” of Patlabor. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police has disbanded its Section 2 Division 1 of police robots, and Section 2 Division 2 barely survived the budget cuts due to the long recession. The film will centre on the Section 2 team fighting against a terrorist group that has taken all of the 10 million residents of Tokyo hostage.

Nuclear Japan   

日本と原発 4年後「Nihon to genpatsu 4-nen-go」

Release Date: May 01^st, 2015 (Japan)

Running Time: 138 mins.

Director: Hiroyuki Kawai

Writer: N/A

Starring: Hiroyuki Kawai, Eiko Kanno, Yuichi Kaito, Tetsuya Iida, Noriko Kimoto,

Website

Synopsis from the film’s English language website: NUCLEAR JAPAN is a documentary film directed by a 70-year-old lawyer with remarkable record of winning very high-profile cases who elucidates the controversial issue of nuclear power industry in Japan.

On March 11th, 2011, a massive earthquake hit East Japan, which caused a catastrophic accident in Tokyo Electric Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant. Radioactive materials were released from its four nuclear reactors, and they have contaminated the people’s land as well as ocean. Today, the effort to clean up the radioactive materials is still ongoing, only too little effect.

There was one lawyer who had been actively voicing the absurdity and danger of Japanese nuclear power – Hiroyuki Kawai. Kawai has been fighting in many legal battles to halt nuclear power plants in Japan for over 20 years. Ever since the crisis at Fukushima No.1 power plant, his fight has been fuelled by even more drive and dedication.

Then, Kawai had a thought. What if he makes a movie about this issue? If he wants the public to understand the complicated issues of nuclear power, literature has its limits. Also, all the coverage by Japanese media has been biased. Only by providing the visual and giving the objective view, he can communicate the true absurdity and inhumanity of the nuclear power in Japan.

With the help of another lawyer Yuichi Kaido, Kawai’s old ally who also has been fighting in nuclear power plant lawsuits, Kawai completed this documentary film, NUCLEAR JAPAN.

The film not only features the interviews of many experts, a number of facts and evidences, but it also brings to light the immense pain of the people have been suffering from the nuclear crisis. NUCLEAR JAPAN is now being presented as evidence in many lawsuits to halt nuclear power plants all over Japan.

Teacher and Stray Cat   

先生と迷い猫「Sensei to Mayoi Neko」

Release Date: October 10^th, 2015

Running Time: 107 mins.

Director: Yoshihiro Fukagawa

Writer: Hitoshi Kobayashi (Screenplay), Chiaki Kizuki (Original Novel)

Starring: Issey Ogata, Shota Sometani, Kie Kitano, Pierre Taki, Kayoko Kishimoto, Takanori Takeyama, Masako Motai,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Kyoichi (Ogata) is a widower. He used to be happily married and a school principal but after the death of his wife and his retirement he keeps to himself. When his wife was alive she liked to feed a stray cat named Mii and since she has died Mii still visits, paying particular attention to his wife’s funeral picture on the Buddhist altar. This irritates Kyoichi who shoos the cat away each and every day. When Mii stops showing up at Kyoichi’s house he begins to worry and searches for the cat. He isn’t the only one. Kyoichi discovers that other people in the area are also looking for Mii.

Library Wars – The Last Mission   

図書館戦争 -THE LAST MISSION-「Toshokan Senso-The Last Mission-」

Release Date: October 10^th, 2015

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Shinsuke Sato

Writer: Hitoshi One (Screenplay), Hiro Arikawa (Original Light Novel)

Starring: Junichi Okada, Nana Eikura, Chiaki Kuriyama, Tao Tsuchiya, Sota Fukushi, Kei Tanaka, Aoi Nakamura, Tori Matsuzaka

Website   IMDB

So, Library Wars got a sequel. Here’s what I wrote for the first film:

“To be honest I have never taken the concept seriously but viewing the trailer has left me interested if only to see Chiaki Kuriyama on the big screen again.”

I’ll be honest and say that I found the first Library Wars movie deathly dull. For all the sound and fury of the gun battles, the drama was absent thanks to some rote characterisation, bland acting (especially from Fukushi and even Kuriyama), and a setting which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and irritated the heck out of me while I was watching it. I don’t know why it got a sequel except it’s based on a popular franchise and gives screen time to idol actors. Maybe I’m missing something…

Synopsis: In the near future an authoritarian government runs Japan. It has passed a law banning free expression and so the government has created an armed force to find and destroy anything it deems as objectionable content like books. Enter the Library Force which aims to protect books. Can Atsushi Dojo (Okada) and Kasahara (Eikura) defend their beloved books?

Decline of an Assassin   

野良犬はダンスを踊る「Norainu ha Dansu wo Odoru」

Release Date: October 10^th, 2015

Running Time: 100 mins.

Director: Shoji Kubota

Writer: Shoji Kubota (Screenplay),

Starring: Yoshimasa Kondo, Yuri Yanagi, Shogo Suzuki, Keisuke Kato, Hidetoshi Kubota, Kouta Kusano,

Website

Director Shoji Kubota and actor Yoshimasa Kondo have worked together more than once. This year saw Murder on D Street released at the start and now it is ending with this film which screened at the Montreal Film Festival (that festival had a great line-up of films).

Synopsis from the Montreal Film Festival: After serving 40 years as the hitman for a shadowy criminal gang, Muneyuki Kurosawa has recruited and trained two young men in his deadly art. They are both straining at the leash, eager to fill his shoes. Indeed, though Kurosawa’s mastery was once unmatched, he’s now beginning to make mistakes. As well, he’s beginning to fall in love with Miori. his favourite bargirl, even to feel protective of her. When a simple hit gets botched, Kurosawa realizes it’s time to call it quits. But after decades in violent crime, how can he ever get back to normal life?

Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:

Bakuman (Release: 2015/10/03)

Heroine Shikkaku (Release: 2015/09/19)

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

Antman (Release: 2015/09/19)

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

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

Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova Cadenza (Release: 2015/10/03)

Kingsman (Release: 2015/09/11)  

Kingsman (Release: 2015/09/11)  

Jurassic World (Release: 2015/08/07)

Alien vs Ninja   

AVN エイリアンVSニンジャ「AVN Eirian VS Ninja」

Release Date: July 23^rd, 2011

Running Time: 81 mins.

Director: Seiji Chiba

Writer: Seiji Chiba (Screenplay),

Starring: Shuji Kshiwabara, Mika Hijii, Ben Hiura, Masanori Mimoto, Donpei Tsuchihira,

The title says it all really. Aliens fighting ninjas. Two of the most iconic draws in cult movie history duke it out in a battle that should be cinematic gold but in the hands of director Seiji Chiba it is boring.

The rumble takes place in Sengoku era Japan where the Iga Ninja clan are spying on feudal lords and debating whether to throw their lot in with Oda Nobunaga or Tokugawa Ieyasu. Yamata, a young and impetuous ninja who revels in the thrill of the fight, is less interested in the politics so when a meteorite crashes into a village and unleashes a trio of aliens he finds himself facing his ultimate test as he fights katana against claw, shuriken against snakelike tail, and fist against fang.

As part of Sushi Typhoon’s opening gambit in seducing western audiences with low-budget weird Japan B-movie schlock, Alien vs Ninja fits the bill with its mock-serious setting containing a silly series of battles between ninjas and aliens which sees the script sacrificed for the spectacle but was there enough of a budget to go around?

Just enough, is the answer. Budget limitations result in a small cast and unambitious script and the lack of money in other departments is also clearly seen on screen. This is a splatter film minus much of the splatter and fun physical effects of the other titles in the genre that I have reviewed and the action mostly happens in non-descript forests and caves which saves the production money on set/location costs. A couple of exterior shots of a castle and village serve to ground the narrative in a time period but since locations are under-populated in terms of the cast everything feels lifeless, a sense exacerbated by the look of the film which is unexceptional especially since it is shot on digital camera so the visuals come across as flat. The lack of a budget can also be heard in the soundtrack, a combination of techno and traditional Japanese instruments, which is pretty ghastly.

The art design and costumes are not all that exciting aside from the sleek and futuristic ninja body armour. The titular alien is a guy in a rubber suit which is played up for all of the cheap silliness that it can evoke. The alien looks and acts a lot like the Xenomorph from Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) with its slick body, creeping movements, prehensile tale with which it stabs people with, and phallic protuberances that do just as much penetrating.

The plot and narrative are purposefully limited and characterisation is barebones at best but the lack of imagination in the alien is disappointing since the focus of the film is all about the fighting between aliens which are little more than knock-offs of the Xenomorph, and some cool-looking ninjas.

There are a variety of ninjas to be seen, all given visual traits to differentiate them: Nezumi the fat blonde cowardly comic-relief ninja, Jinnai the handsome slick-haired one, and Rin, a beautiful female ninja who serves as the source of some dated comedy that revolves around one pervy alien sexually harassing the one female ninja (and the only female character in the entire movie!). Much like the visuals, it is all unimaginative and unsurprising.

The focus is suitably on the fighting which puts the stress more on the performers and the action direction and at times the film comes to life.

The scenes which are orchestrated by the latest generation of low-budget action directors, Yuji Shimomura (Versus, The Warrior’s Way, The Princess Blade) and Kensuke Sonomura (Kunoichi: Ninja Girl, Hard Revenge Milly: Bloody Battle, Nowhere Girl). They lace the film with battles that feature a variety of ninja weapons like katanas, flying chain-blades called shoge, spinning bombs, as well as guns amid lots of physical fights which are imaginative at times as various characters battle with different fighting techniques. I have never seen a ninja perform a suplex on an alien before and the one sexually harassed kick-ass ninja girl does beat the crap out of an alien (director Seiji Chiba doesn’t miss a trick in this battle, ensuring her duel with the alien comes across as dry-humping, every camera angle leering at her body) and send a blade into his man parts – a bit of justice, one might say.

To be fair, Seiji Chiba’s editing and direction is steady and the fights are coherent, just not that exciting. He uses CGI moderately, mostly during the fights, to show the aliens’ weird physical abilities and a fight high in the sky. The best parts of the film are the performers Shuji Kashiwabara as Yamata and Mika Hijii as ninja girl Rin. Both have continued to float in and out of action films, although Kashiwabara has worked on dramas like Who’s Camus Anyway (2005) and horror like The Locker (2004) and The Locker 2 (2004). I would like to see more of Mika Hiji who is wonderfully athletic and sexy.

Overall, this is a rather boring bad film on the same level as Big Tits Dragon. Despite the premise offering up a silly action adventure the film does not take off. The experience is dull because the special effects aren’t so special and the film is stunted by its limited budget when it comes to ambition. The aliens are silly and the action scenes are separated by stretches of dull dialogue and drama which is needless. This is not a bad film in the technical sense. Everything is competently shot and the action is easy to follow. If you have ever wondered what might have happened if the Xenomorph in Alien had come across katana wielding bad-ass ninjas then wonder no more and give this a try. Just lament the lack of a budget and hope for a better stab at the concept from some other team.

2.5/5

Happy weekend, dear readers!

I may not be watching as many films at the London Film Festival this year as I have in others but I am still kept in the loop about events thanks to friends who tell me that Hirokazu Koreeda’s Our Little Sister (2015) is a brilliant film. Industry contacts have sent me news about the London East Asian Film Festival which launches at the end of next week so I’ll be posting about that next week. I finally watched The Martian (2015) as well and enjoyed it a lot. As for the new anime I am watching Subete ga F ni naru: The Perfect Insider and One Punch Man are two of the shows I’m picking up.

Only one review this week and it’s for Alien vs Ninja (2010).

What’s released this weekend in Japan?

Cyborg 009 Vs. Devilman   

サイボーグ009VSデビルマン「Saibo-gu 009 VS Deburuman」

Release Date: October 17^th, 2015

Running Time: 85 mins.

Director: Jun Kawagoe

Writer: Tadashi Hayakawa (Screenplay), Shotaro Ishinomori (Original Creator of Cyborg 009), Go Nagai (Original Creator of Devilman)

Starring: Jun Fukuyama (Cyborg 009/Joe Shimamura), Shintaro Asanuma (Akira Fudou/Devilman), Saori Hayami (Miki Makimura), Hozumi Goda (Cyborg 007/Great Britain),

Website     ANN

Two of anime’s older franchises get mixed together. Akira Nagai’s Devilman was ‘90s anime fare in the West with its sex and violence storyline earning it a release from Manga UK. Meanwhile, in the US, Shotaro Ishinomori’s Cyborg 009 got aired. The latter title seems more popular considering all of the reboots and re-releases you read about. According to Anime News Network Nagai worked as an assistant to Ishinomori and drew backgrounds for Cyborg 009 before launching Devilman.

Synopsis from Anime News Network: Joe Shimamura and his cyborg allies find themselves working against Akira Fudo, a kid who turns into Devilman after getting possessed by demonic powers. I bet both sides team up in the end…

Expedition Party’s Glory   

探検隊の栄光「Tankentai no Eiko」

Release Date: October 16^th, 2015

Running Time: 91 mins.

Director: Toru Yamamoto

Writer: Tatsuya Kanazawa, Koji Tokuo, Toru Yamamoto, (Screenplay), Gen Araki (Original Novel)

Starring: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Yusuke Santamaria, Yoji Tanaka, Hinako Sano, Yosuke Kawamura, Yukiyoshi Ozawa,

Website   IMDB

The first half of the trailer makes this look like a cool and funny riff on reality television shenanigans forced on a once popular actor with Tatsuya Fujiwara wrestling a crocodile but by the end it turns into a heart-warming journey of self-discovery. Will it be too saccharine sweet to bear?

Synopsis: Sugisaki (Fujiwara) is an actor who finds his career on the slide when he takes on the lead role in a low-budget reality adventure television show where he heads into the unknown to find a legendary creature. Sugisaki begins to take things seriously when the team find themselves in a dangerous situation.

Mr. Max Man   

Mr.マックスマン「Mr.Makkusuman」

Release Date: October 17^th, 2015

Running Time: 69 mins.

Director: Akihide Masuda

Writer: Takuro Fukuda, (Screenplay),

Starring: Yudai Chiba, Mizuki Yamamoto, Anju Suzuki, jun Kaname, Tasuku Nagase, Yuki Kubota, Rio Uchida,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Masayoshi Taniguchi (Chiba) is a clumsy presenter on a morning television programme during the day and a super hero nerd in his spare time. He works with his childhood friend Yuko (Yamamoto) who he has a crush on. When he finds a pair of glasses that give him superpowers he becomes a real life super hero which is handy because the girl he is sweet on gets kidnapped!

Senpai to Kanojo   

先輩と彼女「Senpai to Kanojo」

Release Date: October 17^th, 2015

Running Time: 103 mins.

Director: Chihiro Ikeda

Writer: Kiyohito Wada, (Screenplay), Atsuko Nanba (Original Manga)

Starring: Jun Shison, Kyoko Yoshine, Riria, Junki Tozuka, Kaho Mizutani, Makiko Watanabe,

Website   IMDB

Throughout August there were lots of D-Boy stage-plays screened at a certain cinema. Jun Shison is a member of D-Boys and he gets a big acting role in an adaptation of Atsuko Nanba’s shoujou manga.

Synopsis: Rika Tsuzuki (Yoshine) is a first year high school student who is in love with third year high school student Keigo Minohara (Shison) who is in love with Aoi Okita (Riria), a university student.

SCANDAL “Documentary film「HELLO WORLD」”   

Release Date: October 17^th, 2015

Running Time: 105 mins.

Director: Chie Okazawa

Writer: N/A

Starring: Haruna, Mami, Tomomi, Rina

Website

This is compiled from Scandal’s first world tour which covered eight countries and ten shows. Scandal visited the UK, France, Taiwan, and the US amongst other countries.

Messiah: Shinku no Shou   

メサイア　深紅ノ章「Mesaia shinku no Shou」

Release Date: October 17^th, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: Hiroki Yamaguchi

Writer: Hiroki Yamaguchi, Ayumi Yokoyama (Screenplay),

Starring: Tomoru Akazawa, Daisuke Hirose, Yuukie Igawa, Hiroaki Iwanaga, Taishi Sugie,

Website

Looking up low-budget movie adaptations of stage-plays often reveals a passionate fan-base that adores the actors and reveals areas of Japanese cinema I have no idea about which is why I refer to them in these trailer previews. Here are two examples: masayume85 and The Messiah Project. This film is developed by Hiroki Yamaguchi who is steadily making low-budget sci-fi films and while this doesn’t look to have the interesting visuals of Hellevator, it’s still good to see his unique visions getting made especially in an industry that doesn’t make many sci-fi films.

Synopsis from masayume85.tumblr: Focuses primarily on the relationship between Ariga and Mamiya and the mysterious terrorist organization: Quantum Cat. A spy is in the midst of Sakura, can the cadets figure it out before Japan explodes in flames? Meanwhile Amane continues to seek out his father while Misu is caught at a crossroads with Public Security. Introduces Sugie Taishi as Kagami Itsuki and features the return of Ota Motohiro as Gojou Souma.

Vietnam no Kaze ni Fukarete   

ベトナムの風に吹かれて「Betonamu no Kaze ni Fukarete」

Release Date: October 17^th, 2015

Running Time: 114 mins.

Director: Kazuki Ohmori

Writer:  Kazuki Ohmori (Screenplay), Miyuki Komatsu (Original Novel)

Starring: Keiko Matsuzaka, Reiko Kusamura, Akira Emoto, Reina Fujie, Koji Kikkawa, Eiji Okuda, Yoneko Matsukane,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Misao (Matsuzaka) and Shizue (Kusamura) are a daughter/mother team in Vietnam. Misao teaches Japanese and is recovering from a divorce in Japan while her mother Shizue has dementia and mist be cared for. The warmth of the people of Vietnam gradually help the two find a new take on life.

Boku wa Bosan  

ボクは坊さん。「Boku wa Bosan」

Release Date: October 17^th, 2015

Running Time: 114 mins.

Director: Yukinori Makabe

Writer:  Kenya Hirata (Screenplay), Missei Shirakawa (Original Novel)

Starring: Atsushi Ito, Mizuki Yamamoto, Junpei Mizobata, Gaku Hamada, Miyuki Matsuda, Issey Ogata, Yoneko Matsukane,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Koen Shirakawa (Ito) is shocked by the death of his grandfather, a priest at a local temple. This event makes him reassess life so he quits his job at a bookstore and becomes a monk at a temple.  

Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:

Library Wars – The Last Mission (2015/10/10)

Bakuman (Release: 2015/10/03)

The Intern (2015/10/10)

Heroine Shikkaku (Release: 2015/09/19)

UFO Gakuen no Himitsu (2015/10/10)

Fantastic Four (Release: 2015/10/09)

Gamba: Gamba to Nakama-tachi (2015/10/10)

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

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

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

Happy Hour   

Happy Hour ハッピーアワー(2015)

ハッピーアワー「Happi- Awa-」　

Release Date: December, 2015

Seen at the London Film Festival

Running Time: 317 mins.

Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Writer: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Tadashi Nohara, Tomoyuki Takahashi (Screenplay)

Starring:  Rira Kawamura, Hazuki Kikuchi, Maiko Mihara, Sachie Tanaka, Shuhei Shibata, Ami Kugai, Sachiko Fukunaga, Reina Shiihashi,

Website IMDB

Happy Hour is a film unlikely to get licensed in the West. With a five hour seventeen minute running time dedicated to showing the lives of four middle-aged women, distributors might think that the film is likely to test the patience of many and for some in the audience I was with when I saw it at the London Film Festival that proved to be true. For viewers with patience this is less the endurance test it sounds like and more an example of a character-driven story rich in small incidents and details that build up to show lives of three-dimensional characters whose stories are quietly compelling. While slow it paints a fascinating picture of contemporary Japan with a little social commentary added.

Happy Hour tracks the friendship between Fumi (Maiko Mihara), a cultured and elegant gallery curator always in fashionable attire, Akari (Sachie Tanaka), a nurse and a fiery character with a blunt and brave demeanour that matches her strong physicality, Sakurako (Hazuki Kikuchi), a beautiful and demure housewife who dresses plainly but catches the eye of others, and Jun (Rira Kawamura), a kitchen assistant and the most outgoing of the group.

When we first meet them they are on a daytrip. They have taken a cable car to the top of a mountain overlooking their home city of Kobe but their view is shrouded by rain and mist. Despite this, just being together is clearly fun for the girls. Away from their families and responsibilities they talk about anything and everything over their bento lunches and sandwiches, revealing dissatisfaction with relationships.

Sakurako is a dedicated housewife but would like more appreciation from her family made up of a stoic and loyal husband named Yoshihiko who works for the city and leaves all family matters to her, a secretive teenage son named Daiki who is dating a pretty girl at his school, and a mother-in-law who has recently moved in but proves hard to read.

Akari is well-respected in her hospital and often looked to as a source of strength by friends and colleagues, especially a new junior nurse who is a bit of a klutz. She works hard and she likes to play hard but since her divorce she feels she lacks a man and romance in her life and wants some passion.

Fumi is concerned by her husband Takuya’s lack of deep communication. They do small-talk well but she feels a distance growing between them despite the fact that they live comfortably together and she helps him by opening up her gallery space to showcase new authors he works with as an editor.

Jun doesn’t complain too much. Her husband Kohei is a scientist and she seems to be happy. However, she has a secret and that is she hasn’t told anybody about the divorce proceedings she has launched against her husband. Tired with his passionless demeanour she seeks a way out. Desperate to confide in someone she chooses to tell Sakurako, a friend since junior high. Jun’s divorce and the decision to tell just one of the group sparks a series of events and emotional upheavals that leads to the disappearance of Jun, the one who brought the four women together and forces the four to face the problems in their own lives, all of it based on the absence of love. It seems that all they have is each other and their friendship.

At the start of the film, they are four firm friends facing the future together, 37-year-old ladies with desires and fears but each supporting the other. By the end of the film with the friendship at risk and the support possibly waning, the four women are bringing about changes they would never have contemplated before and the audience has been taken through these dramatic incidents by following director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s lead which is established through assured skill and good performances from the lead actors.

The first question to answer is how does the long running time feel? I am sure that for some it will be a turn off especially with the small-scale nature of the tale but many people watching this will probably be aware of the type of film they are going to see. It is one that slowly takes its time to display the lives of the characters and allow the audience to access their emotions through showing the minutiae as well as the major events. I found that although the film plays out in what feels like real time it never drags, every second containing dialogue or acting or something that helps build a detailed depiction of what these character’s lives are like. There are always things to contemplate. Everything seen and heard on screen is crucial for understanding the gradual shifts in character’s perspectives as they find that they want more emotionally from life.

Shot over what seems to be the course of weeks and edited in a way that favours long takes and calmness, this is rather like watching real life unfold. We are embedded in the lives of these characters from the major dramas to the small things. This is a feeling enhanced by the filmmakers realistically grounding the action in the little scenes that may normally get cut from a film – an Yukihiko giving Jun a lift to a train station that turns awkward when they talk about Sakurako, Jun’s bus ride which includes a conversation with a young woman, Fumi fleeing a disastrous dinner date with her husband and his literary protégé through busy streets and along lonely walkways. This smallness and slowness is not often problematic or boring. Scenes go on for what feels like naturally long lengths of time before coming to the end at just the right moment where you get the sense that something has been achieved and your time has not been wasted.

The actual story is fairly basic and the characters have a slight archetypal feeling to them but their development is interesting and they become complex and unpredictable, like watching real people grappling with emotional problems that beset us all. The fallout from Jun’s revelations leads to a fracturing of relationships, the splintering of personas’ and the revelation of extreme alienation that the women feel from their loved ones and their growing desire to be desired and to be loved. There is a little social commentary as we see that the four women have lost their individuality in the eyes of others and those closest to them neglect their emotional and physical needs. The lack of communication and being stripped of their individual qualities by their families and friends has left the characters feeling somewhat hollow and it is interesting to watch them deal with this emotion and overcome it. They do so by trying to harness the primal energy or awakening the love inside of themselves and others and this leads to some wild moments where they break away from life. This is made more potent by the constant immersion we feel thanks to the deliberately slow running time.

This feeling of believability is something helped by the actors who are mostly non-professionals. Ryusuke Hamaguchi has drawn out good performances from cast members who are taking on their first acting role in a feature film. The four women at the heart of the story have seemingly formed a strong bond rather quickly and look like true friends on screen. The dialogue that they speak to each other rings true with fluctuating emotions they convey and don’t as they negotiate helping each other and protecting their friendship without giving in to anger and selfishness – and that’s not always a battle they win. This spices up every encounter the girls have with each other and adds dramatic impetus to the film.

The most charismatic characters are Akari and Jun. Sachie Tanaka as Akari, the nurse whose tough exterior and garrulous nature creates comedy as she butts heads with more reserved character but this covers up a sensitive side. The other shining light in the film is Rira Kawamura as Jun, the mischievous dark horse of the group and the most independent woman of the bunch. She is the glue that binds everyone together and despite coming across as weak at first, the audience will grow to love her and miss her after her disappearance much like her friends do.

A special mention should go out to Shuhei Shibata as Kei Ukai and Reina Shiihashi as Kozue Nose, two of the young characters who change the lives of the women. Shibata plays Ukai as the ultimate chancer with a silver-tongue. From the word go, both the audience and the women zero in on how much of a flake he is but the man does have charisma and whenever he is on screen the sparks fly. Reina Shiihashi is plays the novelist Kozue as a naturally beautiful but ultra-cute woman who is intelligent but deceptively shy since she is capable of brave acts like staking out her emotions to the man she has fallen for.

The people in this film are subject to sympathetic treatment from the script and visuals so it is very easy to engage with it emotionally.

There is always something to catch the eye in Yoshio Kitagawa’s cinematography and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s direction, something always helps symbolise and help bring out the story and inner feelings of the characters. There is the use of close-ups and extreme close-ups that the filmmakers use to make the audience study the characters more during dinner party conversations and confrontations so we in the audience, with knowledge of what characters think and believe can see how it affects their every physical aspect.

Indeed, the film’s aesthetic is a mostly unfussy one which captures the mundane aspects of urban life so we can appreciate the characters who exist in them – the bland but ordered streets, overpasses, clubs, cafes’ of the everyday Kobe the women know all too well and find stifling. Then there are the shots and sounds that give a new meaning and energy to the characters, the spectacular sights that jolt them (and some in the audience, most probably) from their stupor. This is especially true when the women are challenging their societal roles, the expectations of others and striking out into new territory or are just together, out and about doing their own thing and being independent of those around them – a woman riding a ferry alone as it slowly motors underneath a jaw-droppingly huge bridge and the camera tilts to capture the sight, a jaunt the four women take to the more beautiful and relaxing town of Arima with its hills studded with tree groves, winding paths, and waterfalls.

Ultimately, the film builds dramatic momentum from all of the character interactions and details and it culminates in a low-key climax where you know that their lives have changed forever and questions about the friendship remain but not in the way you expect. The film conveys the vagaries of life pretty well and the open ending is fitting. Whether it is satisfying will be up to the viewer to decide. It worked for me.

Movie-goers in the West have long complained about the lack of films about women with strong roles and detailed stories. Perhaps these film fans live in a mono-lingual world because Japanese and Korean filmmakers cater for the female market with a range of titles that span genres and there is a growing movement of female filmmakers who would put Hollywood and Europe to shame for the wealth of talent they have and stories they create. Happy Hour is a good example. It presents us with complex portraits of real women, three-dimensional characters and not stereotypes. The emotions are universal and believable. It provides a fascinating and profound story that draws its strength from revelling in the everyday details and actions that make up real life and thus gives us insight into lives as lived in contemporary Japan. Isn’t that one of the strongest aspect of films? That we can live and understand other lives?

4/5

I’ve overdone it with this review (the first in the English language as far as I can tell). I concede that this will not be a film for everyone. At times even my patience was strained and I did wonder whether I should have opted to watch the more entertaining sounding Yakuza Apocalypse (2015) but I ended up appreciating it. At times I felt like it could be a counter-point to something like Tokyo Sonata (2009), albeit less artful and ultimately satisfying. The film plays at the Leeds International Film Festival.

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

I’ll write something about the film Taksu for Gigan magazine at some point.

Happy weekend, readers!

The Tokyo International Film Festival launched this week and there are quite a few good-looking films. I should cover it but around this time of the year I am super busy. I’m also spending less time writing about films these days. I need to practice Japanese more so something has to get cut, not that I’m happy about it especially since I’m seeing anime and films I think are brilliant. For example, Subete ga F ni Naru: The Perfect Insider has me hooked so I bought the book.

With that written, I posted on film review this week and it was for Happy Hour (2015) which I saw at the London Film Festival. It gets its release in Japan this December.

I went to see Sicario (2015) in a cinema yesterday and it was a well-crafted and tense film full of great performances. I am tempted to review it.

What’s released in Japan this weekend?

Dear Deer   

ディアーディアー「Dia Dia」

Release Date: October 24^th, 2015

Running Time: 107 mins.

Director: Takeo Kikuchi

Writer:  Noriaki Sugihara (Screenplay),

Starring: Yuri Nakamura, Koji Kiryu, Yoichiro Saito, Rinko Kikuchi, Shota Sometani, Wakana Matsumoto, Yurei Yanagi,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: When three siblings named Fujio (Kiryu), Yoshio (Saito) and Akiko (Nakamura) were children, they lived in a mountain village and saw the elusive “Ryoumou Deer,” but nobody believed them. As adults their paths have diverged. The eldest child Fujio still lives in the same village and runs small factory but he is in serious debt. The middle child, Yoshio is living in the psychiatric ward of a hospital. The youngest child, Akiko, lives Tokyo, having fallen in love with a man and ran away there. When their father becomes ill the three siblings reunite in their mountain village.

Galaxy Turnpike  

ギャラクシー街道「Gyarakushi Kaido」

Release Date: October 24^th, 2015

Running Time: 110 mins.

Director: Koki Mitani

Writer: Koki Mitani Screenplay),

Starring: Shingo Katori, Haruka Ayase, Shun Oguri, Yuka, Takanori Nishikawa, Sayaka Akimoto,

Website   IMDB

Koki Mitani is back and he has made the Japanese version of The Jetsons. Okay, that was a lie. This is an original sci-fi film from the Japanese master of comedy and it doesn’t look remotely funny. The signs for this looked bad from the promo pictures alone, never mind the trailer. The terrible costumes and makeup and the dodgy looking sets look worse in motion as is revealed by this review by Mark Schilling over at the Japan Times.

Synopsis: It is the year 2265 and a married couple, Noa (Katori) and Noe (Ayase), run the space diner Sandsand Burger which is 150 years old. Located on a path which connects Earth to a space colony located between Jupiter and Saturn, they get all sorts of customers including space pimps and space police, intergalactic mimes, aliens and more. Everything is fine until Noa’s alien ex-girlfriend (Yuka) shows up and tries to steal him from Noe who is the romantic target of a customer herself.

Kagura Me   

かぐらめ「Kagura me」

Release Date: October 24^th, 2015

Running Time: 112 mins.

Director: Yasuo Okuaki

Writer:  Nozomu Namba (Screenplay), Yasuo Okuaki (Original Novel)

Starring: Rina Takeda, Ren Osugi Mariko Tsutsui. Tomomitsu Adachi, Keiko Shirasu, Masayuki Imai, Mei Kurokawa, Komai Se,

Website   IMDB

This one was at the Montreal Film Festival and it caught my eye because t seemed like a decent drama plus it stars the legend that is Ren Osugi and the shooting star that is Rina Takeda who continues to move between mainstream and indie with ease. The story is familiar but the actors are favourites of mine so it can work.

Synopsis: When Akine (Takeda) was a child, her mother was seriously ill and at the height of her mother’s illness Akine’s father, Kyoujiro (Osugi), went to perform a traditional dance called shishi kagura. Akine’s mother passed away. Since then, Akine has held a grudge against her father and as soon as she graduated from high school she left her hometown.

Five years later, Akine has returned to her hometown on the anniversary of her mother’s death and finds a woman who looks just like her mother with her father who is preparing to perform the traditional shishi kagura dance at a festival again. This will be his final performance. Unfortunately Kyoujiro falls ill. Will Akine step in to perform for him?

A Summer Day, Your Voice   

夏ノ日、君声「Natsu no hi kimi no koe」

Release Date: October 24^th, 2015

Running Time: 94 mins.

Director: Tomoyuki Kamimura

Writer:  Tomoyuki Kamimura (Screenplay),

Starring: Chika Arakawa, Shono Hayama, Wakana Matsumoto, Reiya Masaki, Daisuke Nagakura, Seika Furuhata, Yuki Konoe, Maiko Kikuchu, Kengo Okuchi,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Tetsuo Togami (Hayama) is a high schooler who is in hospital after getting into a fight. He meets fellow patient Maiko Takashiro (Arakawa) who is deaf and has an incurable disease. Tetsuo doesn’t want anything to do with her at first but then they begin exchanging text messages and a relationship grows until Tetsuo pledges to take Maiko out on a date on her birthday but her condition worsens.

Only 4 You   

Release Date: October 24^th, 2015

Running Time: 85 mins.

Director: Keisuke Toyoshima, Madoka Kumagai, Yu Katsumata, Yosuke Fujita,

Writer:  N/A

Starring: Micro, Ayako Omura, Daiki Yamagaki, Satoshi Ogawa, Mina Yamakawa,

Website

Synopsis: This is an omnibus film from four directors including Yosuke Fujita (Fuku-chan of Fukufuku Flats, Fine, Totally Fine), which has stories of “modest miracles encountered in daily life.” The stories revolve around music and the characters include rakugo artists and enka singers getting a new lease of life. 

Ninja Hunter   

忍者狩り「Ninja-gari」

Release Date: October 24^th, 2015

Running Time: 102 mins.

Director: Seiji Chiba

Writer:  Seiji Chiba (Screenplay), Missei Shirakawa (Original Novel)

Starring: Mitsuki Koga, Mei Kurokawa, Masanori Mimoto, Kazuki Tsujimoto, Kentaro Shimazu,

Website   IMDB

I think that my review of Seiji Chiba’s 2011 film Alien vs Ninja made clear that I am no fan. Everything I dislike about that film is evident in this trailer – the same non-descript cave and forest he uses for sets, the dull look and cheap aesthetics, the same the lack of ambition. It’s a shame because we need more hot-blooded ninja action!

Synopsis from Shochikufilms.com: In 1581 during a gruelling feud between 2 ninja clans, Tao, a ninja from the Iga Clan, wakes up with amnesia. 40 ninjas lie dead in front of him and off to one side lies a dead female ninja. He doesn’t remember how and why he got there. His assignment is to retrieve a document that will reveal the traitor’s identity. Who killed all the ninjas? Is one of them the traitor? Little by little Tao solves the mystery.

Halloween Nightmare 2   

ハロウィンナイトメア 2 「Harouin Naitomea 2」

Release Date: October 24^th, 2015

Running Time: 62 mins.

Director: Yosuke Yamashita

Writer: Yosuke Yamashita (Screenplay), Ivory Dice (Original Work)

Starring:  Rena Takeda, Mizuki Masuda, Chie Sasaki, Reiko Igarashi, Takako Kitagawa, Tetsuya Nakanishi,

Website

Synopsis: Based on the free horror game, Halloween Nightmare 2 involves a mysterious murderer who wears a jack o lantern on his head and kills people on Halloween day. This time some cosplay girls are getting stalked…

Tobidasu PuriPara: Minna de Mezase! Idol☆Grand Prix   

とびだすプリパラ　み～んなでめざせ！アイドル☆グランプリ「Tobidasu PuriPara: Minna de Mezase! Aidoru☆Guran Puri」

Release Date: October 24th, 2015

Running Time: 60 mins.

Director: Nobutaka Yoda

Writer: Hitomi Mieno (Screenplay)

Starring: Miyu Kubota (Sophie Houjou), Himika Akaneya (Laala Manaka), Yui Makino (Aroma Kurosu), Chinatsu Akasaki (Falulu Vocaldoll), Yuki Wakai (Leona West),

Website MyAnimeList

This is the sequel to a PriPara film released in March where girls join idol units and perform in the PriPara amusement park. It’s a 3D feature for little girls who enjoy this sort of thing.

Boku wa Bosan   

ボクは坊さん。「Boku wa Bosan」

Release Date: October 24^th, 2015

Running Time: 114 mins.

Director: Yukinori Makabe

Writer:  Kenya Hirata (Screenplay), Missei Shirakawa (Original Novel)

Starring: Atsushi Ito, Mizuki Yamamoto, Junpei Mizobata, Gaku Hamada, Miyuki Matsuda, Issey Ogata, Yoneko Matsukane,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Koen Shirakawa (Ito) is shocked by the death of his grandfather, a priest at a local temple. This event makes him reassess life so he quits his job at a bookstore and becomes a monk at a temple.  

Tanemaki usagi Fukushima ni mukiau seishun   

種まきうさぎ　フクシマに向き合う青春「Tanemaki usagi Fukushima ni mukiau seishun」

Release Date: October 24^th, 2015

Running Time: 87 mins.

Director: Yasuyuki Mori

Writer:  N/A

Starring: N/A

Website

Synopsis: The Great East Japan Earthquake has been covered from numerous angles in documentaries from animals to surveying the wreckage, farmers removed from their land to the rescue operations and reuniting people with their saviours to anti-nuclear protestors. Here’s another doc but it focusses on teaching high schoolers from Fukushima about nuclear energy from the 3/11 disaster to Hydrogen bombs and the Cold War and the way people are opposed to nuclear energy around the world.

Nihon zero nen: fukushima kara no kaze dai 2 sho   

日本零年　フクシマからの風　第二章「Nihon zero nen: fukushima kara no kaze dai 2 sho」

Release Date: October 24^th, 2015

Running Time: 91 mins.

Director: Tetsu Kato

Writer:  Tetsu Kato (Screenplay),

Starring: Hinako Saeki, Mitsunori Furusawa, Otowa Kidoguchi, Miori Kiuchi, Rinne Konno, Sayuri Sakaguchi, Atsumi Sakurai,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: The protagonist of the film (called “shujinko S” “main character S” in English) lives in Tokyo and when the meltdown in Fukushima occurs his wife Sakiko (Saeki) disappears with their child. It turns out that Fukushima is where Sakiko is from so the main character searches for her and finds the place is a disaster zone.

Trash    

TRASH トラッシュ「TRASH TORASSHU」

Release Date: October 24^th, 2015

Running Time: 88 mins.

Director: Hajime Gonno

Writer:  Masao Iketani (Screenplay),

Starring: Elly, Kaname Endo, Yuya Endo, Masayasu Yagi, Yuri Nakamura, Kosei Amano,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: TRASH stars ELLY of the dance vocal unit “The third J Soul Brothers from EXILE TRIBE”, and he takes the role of Kent Hondo, a musclebound fighter who flits between his hometown and Tokyo with an old flame in tow. The two find themselves being pursued by gangsters.

Koryu Minatoya IN-TUNE   

港家小柳IN-TUNE「Minatoya Koryu IN-TUNE」

Release Date: October 24^th, 2015

Running Time: 33 mins.

Director: Atiqa Kawakami

Writer:  N/A

Starring: Koryu Minato, Toyoko Sawamura,

Website

Synopsis: This documentary records a performance by Koryu Minato. She has been a storyteller from her first performance in 1969 and she displays her skills in this 33 minute performance which is accompanied by a shamisen player.

Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:

Library Wars – The Last Mission (2015/10/10)

The Intern (2015/10/10)

Bakuman (Release: 2015/10/03)

Heroine Shikkaku (Release: 2015/09/19)

John Wick (2015/10/16)

UFO Gakuen no Himitsu (2015/10/10)

Gamba: Gamba to Nakama-tachi (2015/10/10)

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

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

Fantastic Four (Release: 2015/10/09)

Makeup Room   

メイクルム 「Meikurumu」

Japanese Release Date: May 09^th, 2015

UK Release Date: October 26^th, 2015 Third Window Films

Running Time: 86 mins.

Director: Kei Morikawa

Writer: Kei Morikawa (Screenplay),

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

Website IMDB

This indie comes from director Kei Morikawa who draws from his experiences as a former adult-video director for this comedy which stars some real life AV actresses. The comedy revolves around the egos and chaos involved in a porn shoot and the antics that happen in the makeup room. It looks like a similar deal to Be My Baby in the sense that it’s effectively a stage play with a limited set, shot on a shoestring budget and features actors doing lots of acting rather than porn. 

I suppose I should say don’t go in expecting a flesh parade. It’s actually a funny and intelligent peek behind the pink curtain that covers the Japanese porn industry and while it avoids the uglier side of the trade it delves into taboos and problematic areas that the performers encounter in real life.

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

I’ve already posted about it on Anime UK News so here is my blog post to spread the word!

MAKEUP ROOM

Directed by Kei Morikawa
(Director of more than 1000 Japanese porn films! His fiction feature debut)

Japan / 2014 / 86 Mins / In Japanese with English subtitles / Colour
Starring Japanese porn stars: Riri Kuribayashi, Nanami Kawakami & Beni Ito alongside indie-film actress Aki Morita (Henge, Sharing)

On DVD October 26th

DVD Special Features:
Interview with Cast & Crew

Synopsis: For the production of a new adult video, make-up artist Tsuzuki (Aki Morita) finds herself in all sorts of chaos when she ends up as the only person taking care of a large and varied cast of adult video stars. From the low-end, ‘will do anything’ Sugar Sato (Mariko Sumiyoshi) to the stuck-up pro Masami Ayase (Beni Ito), seasoned nymph Masako (Riri Kuribayoshi) and the shy newbie Toshiko (Nanami Kawakami), Tsuzuki must navigate a minefield of egos, controlling directors, production issues and more to keep the cast and crew calm during a long and tiresome shoot!  

All shot in just one room and starring many real-life adult video actresses, director Kei Morikawa looks at his own experiences as a director in the adult video industry to make a smart, funny and touching comedy of Japan’s porn industry!

Director’s Biography-
-Kei Morikawa


After working as an assistant director, production assistant and camera operator, Kei Morikawa joined production company E-Staff Union, established by the famous pink and AV director Rokuroh Mochizuki.

Kei Morikawa has directed over 1,000 AV films and his latest work “Ekusute Musume Gekijoban” (roughly translated to ‘The Girl of Hair Extensions’ – a play on the Sion Sono film EXTE: Hair Extensions – a bloody funny film), in which Tomomi Nakatsuka, a former AKB48 member, plays the lead role.

Makeup Room is not a documentary, but a touching and hilarious look behind the curtain of Japan’s porn industry starring some of its top stars and directed by one of its most legendary directors!

Shot in just 2 days with a budget of $2000 it has still gone on to be a hit at many international film festivals!

Yubari Fantastic Film Festival – Winner: Grand Prix
Official Selection – Edinburgh International Film Festival, Udine Far East Film Festival, Japan Cuts, Taipei Film Festival

Happy weekend, people!

I have gone and published this trailer post early because Halloween falls on a Saturday this year and I traditionally post a film review on Halloween so this Saturday is reserved for a review of a film I think is pretty special and scary on a soulful level and just right for Halloween. So far this week I have spent more time watching television shows like The Walking Dead, Subete ga F ni Naru: The Perfect Insider, and lots of time practicing Japanese –passive form, transitive/intransitive.

Earlier this week, I posted an announcement about the release of Makeup Room. Expect a film review on Saturday.

What’s released this weekend?

Remember in my review for Happy Hour (2015) when I praised Japan and Korea for producing and sustaining more female filmmakers than the West? Take a look at the names of the directors and you’ll notice that nearly half of the releases are directed by women and for most it is not their first feature but their third or fourth and they cast plenty of middle-aged women. Western films fans! Broaden your horizons and look East.

Sideline   

サイドライン「Saidorain」

Release Date: October 31^st, 2015

Running Time: 94 mins.

Director: Sakurako Fukuyama

Writer:  Sakurako Fukuyama (Screenplay),

Starring: Yusuke Fukuda, Koichi Yoshino, Yuki Murata, Reina Asami, Ryoga Funatsu, Takuya Kusakawa, Kai Ogasawara, Takashi Matsuo,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Daigo (Yusuke Fukuda) and his friends are part of the young men’s club of their neighborhood association and have been friends since childhood. As adults they are drifting apart but are reunited when they meet an eight-year-old girl named Hana and discover that Hana’s mother Usage (Reina Asami) is raising her alone since the death of her husband. The guys get together for the festival and aim to perform a male cheerleading routine.

My Love Story!!   

俺物語!!「Ore Monogatari!!」

Release Date: October 31^st, 2015

Running Time: 105 mins.

Director: Hayato Kawai

Writer:  Akiko Nogi (Screenplay), Kazune Kawahara, Aruko (Original Manga),

Starring: Ryohei Suzuki, Mei Nagano, kentaro Sakaguchi, Sawa Suzuki, Yasufumi Terawaki,

Website   IMDB

I like the anime adaptation of Ore Monogatari!! a lot and I feel that the live-action film will have to do a lot to live up to. The trailer looks decent enough. The actors managed to do a decent job of portraying the characters but where will the story go?

Synopsis: Takeo Goda (Ryohei Suzuki) is an ultramasculine guy who I best friends with Makoto Sunakawa (Kentaro Sakaguchi), a bishounen. Takeo is super popular with the guys because of his athletic abilities but the girls ignore him in favour of Makoto. That changes when Takeo saves high school girl Rinko Yamato (Mei Nagano) from a pervert on a train. Takeo falls in love with her but thinks Rinko likes Makoto. This changes when Rinko tracks Takeo down…

Inu ni namae wo tsukeru hi   

犬に名前をつける日「Inu ni namae wo tsukeru hi」

Release Date: October 31^st, 2015

Running Time: 107 mins.

Director: Akane Yamada

Writer:  Akane Yamada (Screenplay)

Starring: Satomi Kobayashi, Takaya Kamikawa, Misato Aoyama, Saori Imamura, Satoshi Fujii,

Website

Synopsis: Kuno Kanami (Satomi Kobayashi) is a woman who works at an animal protection centre and one of a number of people who help rescue the animals left to fend for themselves after the Great East Japan Earthquake. She works on a television show called “a dog’s life” which is all about animals left behind in the disaster.

Onna no ko yo shitai to odore / Girls, Dance with the Dead   

女の子よ死体と踊れ「Onna no ko yo shitai to odore」

Release Date: October 31^st, 2015

Running Time: 70 mins.

Director: Kayoko Asakura

Writer:  Kayoko Asakura (Screenplay)

Starring: Ano, Chibo, Chiffon, Kechon, Mone, Yonapi, Keiko Furuuchi, Fukiko Hara, Hiroaki Kawatsure, Teruhiko Nobukuni,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: The Yurumerumo! girls more about them on Tokyo Girls Update take part in a horror comedy where one of the members of the group, Ano, is a corpse brought back to life through an occult ceremony. Ano was quite happy being dead so the Yurumerumo! Girls start trying to kill her off… permanently.

Tokyo no Hi   

東京の日「Tokyo no Hi」

Release Date: October 31^st, 2015

Running Time: 102 mins.

Director: Chihio Ikeda

Writer:  Chihiro Ikeda (Screenplay)

Starring: Kyoko Kagawa, Makiko Watanabe, Shuri, Saki Tanaka, Jundai Yamada, Chizuru Asano, Daisuke Sasaki,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Akari has made a very capricious decision to move to Tokyo. With no plan and no experience to help her she stuffs everything into her suitcase and wanders around until she reaches a café where a man named Yusuke works. He offers her the opportunity to stay at his place and so two lonely people being living together and warm to each other…

Fukushima: Ikimono no kiroku 3   

福島　生きものの記録　シリーズ3 拡散「Fukushima: Ikimono no kiroku 3」

Release Date: October 31^st, 2015

Running Time: 91 mins.

Director: Masanori Iwasaki

Writer:  N/A

Starring: Hiroaki Koide

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Here’s an update on the animals in the Fukushima area courtesy of director Masanori Iwasaki’s series which explores the environmental impact of radition from Fukushima Daiichi.

We Are Perfume: World Tour 3^rd Document   

Release Date: October 31^st, 2015

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Taketoshi Sado

Writer:  N/A

Starring: Perfume: Yuka Kashino, Ayaka Nishiwaki, Ayano Ohmoto

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: It has been years since I last listened to Perfume but I am aware of their growing global popularity and this documentary covers their world tour which included a visit to this year’s SXSW festival. Expect behind the scenes, exclusive interviews and more.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin   ‘Artesia’s Sorrow’    

機動戦士ガンダム THE ORIGIN II 哀しみのアルテイシア「Kido Senshi Gundam: The Origin II Kanashimi no Aruteishia」

Release Date: October 31^st, 2015

Running Time: 58 mins.

Chief Director: Yoshikazu Yasuhiko,Director: Takashi Imanishi

Writer: Katsuyuk Sumisawa

Starring: Mayumi Tanaka (Casval Rem Deikun – young), Megumi Han (Artesia Som Deikun), Shuuichi Ikeda (Char Aznable), Ayumi Tsunmatsu (Astraia Tor Deikun) Eizou Tsuda (Zeon Zum Deikun), Miyuki Sawashiro (Crowley Hamon),

Website ANN

Synopsis: This is the second in a four part series that will tell the story of Casval Rem Deikun and Artesia Som Deikun (Char and Sayla, before Char became known as the Red Comet) before the One-Year War in UC.0068. The episode’s story moves three years ahead to U.C. 0071. The story will follow the tearful separation of the siblings Casval and Artesia (before they became known as Char and Sayla). It will also feature more of the development of the mobile suits, particularly on the Zeon side. It will play for two weeks in 15 Japanese cinemas. Find out more at Anime News Network.

Eiga Go! Princess Precure Go! Go!! Gōka 3-bon Date!!!   

映画Ｇｏ！プリンセスプリキュア Ｇｏ！Ｇｏ！！豪華３本立て！！！「Eiga Go! Princess Precure Go! Go!! Gōka 3-bon Date!!!」

Release Date: October 31^st, 2015

Running Time: 75 mins.

Director: Akifumi Zako, Hiroshi Miyamoto, Yukio Kaizawa

Writer: Kaori Yamagata (Screenplay)

Starring: Hibiku Yamamura (Kirara Amanogawa/Cure Twinkle), Masumi Asano (Minami Kaido/Cure Mermaid), Yu Shimamura (Haruka Haruno/Cure Flora), Cho (The King) Kaori Yamagata (The Queen), Kana Hanazawa (Princess Pampururu), Hinata Uegaki (Princess Prefi),

Website ANN

This is at the Tokyo International Film Festival which is heavily laden with anime.

Synopsis: The movie this time around is the first for Pretty Cure: Go! Go!! Gorgeous Triple Feature!!! It’s a sparkling Happy Halloween party at the movie theater!! This fall, the highly popular TV series Go! Princess Pretty Cure (ABC, tv asahi affiliates) is coming to the big screen! It’s a Halloween-themed super-gorgeous triple feature, with “A Precious Treasure of Pumpkin Land”, “Lefy’s Wonderful Night”, and “Cure Flora and a Mysterious Mirror”. “Strongly, kindly, and beautifully” Pretty Cures get a glamour power-up, including CG anime and the appearance of their mini-sized versions!

Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:

Galaxy Turnpike (2015/10/24)

Library Wars – The Last Mission (2015/10/10)

The Intern (2015/10/10)

Bakuman (Release: 2015/10/03)

Maze Runner 2 The Scorch Trials (2015/10/23)

Transporter Ignition (2015/10/24)

Heroine Shikkaku (2015/09/19)

UFO Gakuen no Himitsu (2015/10/10)

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

John Wick (2015/10/16)

Mutant Girls Squad   

戦闘少女 血の鉄仮面伝説　「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

Happy weekend people!

After a movie drought lasting nearly a month (I think the last film I watched was Kiki’s Delivery Service in the middle of August) I spent last weekend gorging myself on films. On Friday I attended the Raindance film festival with two friends and watched Slum-polis (2015) and Fires on the Plain (2014). I also met the director Shinya Tsukamoto and had a picture taken with him. Then on Saturday I went to the Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival with a friend and watched A Letter to Momo (2012), Short Peace (2014), and one of my most favourite anime of all time, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise (1987). On Sunday I went and watched Kazoku Game (198). It was an incredible series of films so expect reviews.

Only one post this week and that’s for Mutant Girls Squad.

What’s released this weekend?

The Empire of Corpses  

屍者の帝国　「Shisha　no Teikoku」

Release Date: October 02^nd, 2015

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Ryoutarou Makihara

Writer: Project Itoh (Original Novel),

Starring: Yoshimasa Hosoya (John H. Watson), Akio Ohtsuka (M), Kana Hanazawa (Hadary Lilith), Taiten Kusunoki (Frederick Barnaby), Ayumu Murase (Friday/Noble_Savage_007),

Website     ANN

Empire of Corpses is the first of three films from Project Itoh, a concerted effort to adapt novels by late author Project Itoh who died in 2009. The three novels are being turned into films by different directors and studios. The Empire of Corpses comes to us courtesy of WIT Studio (Attack on Titan, Hoozuki no Reitetsu) and is directed by Ryuotarou Makihara (Hal).

The other two films are Genocidal Organ is directed by Shukou Murase (Ergo Proxy) at Manglobe (House of Five Leaves) and Harmony which is directed by Takashi Nakamura (Fantastic Children) and Michael Arias (Tekkonkinkreet), at Studio 4°C (Berserk). Genocidal Organ is now subject to delays due to Manglobe going bankrupt.

Synopsis from Scotland Loves Anime: In 19th Century London, “corpse reanimation technology” has been developed, rendering the dead useful for basic physical labour.

Brilliant medical student John Watson is invited to join the UK government’s secret society, the Walsingham Institution. There he is given a clandestine mission: search for the legendary writings of Dr. Victor Frankenstein, left behind a century ago. These private papers allegedly detail the technology behind a more sophisticated reanimated corpse – the original – that could speak and even had free will.

The first clue leads Watson deep into Afghanistan. Alexei Karamazov, a military chaplain and genius corpse engineer for the Russian Empire, was seen leading an army of an unknown type of armed corpse there. He used them to instigate a rebellion before going underground, leading Watson to suspect he may know the whereabouts of Victor’s private papers.

Accompanied by Friday, a corpse that records all his activities, Watson begins the journey of a lifetime in search of Victor’s private papers.

Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova Cadenza   

劇場版　蒼き鋼のアルペジオ　アルス・ノヴァ Cadenza「Gekijouban Aoki Hagane no Arupejio Arusu Noba Cadenza」

Release Date: October 03^rd, 2015

Running Time: N/A

Director: Seiji Kishi

Writer: Makoto Uezu (Script), Ark Performance (Original Creator),

Starring: M.A.O (Hiei), Ayaka Fukuhara (Myoko), Jouji Nakata (Shozo Chihaya), Hiromi Igarashi (Haguro), Satomi Sato (Nachi), Rie Kugimiya (Musashi),

Website     ANN

The Arpeggio of Blue Steel franchise has two films released in 2015. The first was a compilation of the TV anime and was released at the end of January while this one features brand new content.

Synopsis: In Arpeggio of Blue Steel, humanity has lost a large quantity of its developed land as a result of global warming. They then lose the seas when a “Fleet of Fog” appears all over the world and overwhelms humanity. Seventeen years later, Gunzo Chihaya and his crewmates find themselves comandeering a “Fleet of Fog” submarine called I-401 and together with Iona, the submarine’s “mental model” (human representation of the submarine), they take the fight back to the Fleet of Fog.

Bakuman   

バクマン。「Bakuman」

Release Date: October 03^rd, 2015

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Hitoshi One

Writer: Hitoshi One (Screenplay), Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata (Original Manga)

Starring: Takeru Satoh, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Nana Komatsu, Takayuki Yamada, Shota Sometani, Lily Franky, Kankuro Kudo, Hirofumi Arai,

Website   IMDB

Bakuman comes from Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, the creators of Death Note. It is very popular and has been collected in over compiled volumes of manga and has been the basis of three television series produced by J.C. Staff since it was first published in Weekly Shounen Jump back in August, 2008. It has a star-laden cast and a director who has worked on indies and bigger budgeted films. All in all it looks like a decent adaptation from the early signs.

Synopsis: Moritaka Mashiro (Satoh) is a talented artist but after the death of his uncle, a manga-ka who died because of exhaustion, he resents art and wants to become an office worker. Then he meets and falls in love with a girl at school named Azuki Miho, an aspiring voice actress. Azuki tells Moritaka they can marry, but only after they both achieve their dreams. Moritaka then teams up with fellow classmate Akito Takagi (Kamiki), a talented writer, and they aim to publish their first manga.

Kiyamachi Daruma   

木屋町DARUMA「Kiyamachi Daruma」

Release Date: October 03^rd, 2015

Running Time: 116 mins.

Director: Hideo Sakaki

Writer: Hiroyuki Maruno (Screenplay/Original Novel)

Starring: Kenichi Endo, Susumu Terajima, Rina Takeda, Shohei Uno, Masaki Miura, Houka Karasuma, Setsuko Karasuma,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Shigeo Katsuura (Endo) was once the leader of the yakuza in Kiya but after losing his arms and legs he is forced to go around to his debtors’ homes to collect on debts and make money. He does this with the aid of his loyal henchman Kenta (Miura).

Tsumi no Yohaku    

罪の余白「Tsumi no Yohaku」

Release Date: October 03^rd, 2015

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Yuki Otsuka

Writer: Yuki Otsuka (Screenplay), You Ashizawa (Original Novel)

Starring: Seiyo Uchino, Miyu Yoshimoto, Wakana Aoi, Keisuke Hoibe, Masaya Kato, Mitsuki Tanimura,

Website   IMDB

This one is based on You Ashizawa’s novel of the same name which was published on September 1^st, 2012. https://eigakawaraban.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/15082701/

Synopsis: Ando’s (Uchino) daughter Kana supposedly committed suicide by jumping from a high ledge but he isn’t so sure. Ando starts an investigation and all signs point to foul play with his daughter’s former classmate, Saki (Yoshimoto) looking like a suspect. Behind her sweet façade it seems she is an ambitious girl who rules the school’s social scene. Can Ando find the truth?

Zenkai no Uta   

全開の唄「Zenkai no Uta」

Release Date: October 03^rd, 2015

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Yuuji Nakamae

Writer: Yuuji Nakamae, Kouki Yamamoto (Screenplay)

Starring: Yuya Endo, Kazuma Sano, Yuri Nakamura, Airi Nakajima,

Website   IMDB

Synopsis: Kenichi (Sano) is a guy on his university’s cycling team who falls for an emotionally unstable woman (Nakajima) and gets to know his team’s captain and a woman who works at a cabaret. Despite their problems, the four find themselves growing together.

Kodomo wa Kaze wo Egaku   

子どもは風をえがく「Kodomo wa Kaze wo Egaku」

Release Date: October 04^th, 2015

Running Time: 115 mins.

Director: Katsuhiko Tsutsui

Writer: N/A

Starring: Yoshiko Iguchi, Keiko Ueto, Masae Ishikawa, Akie Kawashima, Yasuko Murakami, Miho Morimoto,

Website

Synopsis: Suginami ward, Tokyo, a garden is the scene of a movie which looks at how children experience growth through nature, through insects and frogs and plants and all the wonderful things that nature (and adults) can come up with for them.

Journey to the Shore      

岸辺の旅 「Kishibe no Tabe」

Running Time: 128 mins.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Takashi Ujita (Screenplay), Kazumi Yumoto (Original Novel)

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

Website   IMDB

I have written about this a few times as it travels the festival circuit this year so here’s the entry for the Toronto International Film Festival:

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 critical reaction to it indicates that it is no Tokyo Sonata it has at least earned him the Best Director prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. 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 who put in a star turn in the crime drama Villain.

Synopsis: Mizuki’s (Fukatsu) husband Yusuke (Asano) disappeared three years ago. 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.

Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:

Heroine Shikkaku (Release: 2015/09/19)

Attack on Titan: End of the World (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)