The week has been busy in movie terms. I watched four films, three of them were on DVD and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (one more tonight) and I had a trip to the cinema to see Elysium which was a decent sci-fi action film. Then there was plenty of anime. In terms of this blog, the week started with a review of The Story of Yonosuke, a great film that broke into my Top Ten of the year. I saw it all the way back in June at the Terracotta Far East Film Festival. I followed that up with my anime picks from the autumn season (part two comes next month) and I also looked at the Japanese films at the Toronto International Film Festival which looks so damn awesome.

Sadako 3D: Zokuhen      

Japanese Title:  貞子　3D2

Romaji: Sadako 3D: Dai-2-dan

Release Date: August 30th, 2013

Running Time: N/A

Director: Tsutumo Hanabusa

Writer: Koji Suzuki (Original Novel), Daisuke Hosaka, Noriaki Sugihara (Screenplay)

Starring: Mirori Takimoto, Koji Seto, Kokoro Hirasawa, Itsumi Osawa, Satomi Ishihara, Takeshi Onishi, Yusuke Yamamto, Ryosei Tayama

I have never been so angry with a film as I was with last year’s Sadako 3D. Within the first five minutes I was having melodramatic thoughts about how the franchise had been killed by the teen idol injection its makers had used to update it for a new audience. It looks like more of the same with this sequel. The film stars Miori Takimoto (Higanjima), Yusuke Yamamoto (Ninja Kids!!!) and Koji Seto (Ju-On: Girl in Black).

Fuko Ando (Takimoto) is a twenty-four-year-old graduate student in psychology who has to look after her four-year-old niece who has mysterious events occurring around her. It stems from an incident involving a cursed video and Fuko finds herself digging into the mystery.

Japan’s Tragedy                                

Japanese Title: 日本　の　悲劇

Romaji: Nihon no Higeki

Release Date: August 31st, 2013

Running Time: 101 mins.

Director: Masahiro Kobayashi

Writer: Masahiro Kobayashi (Screenplay)

Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Shinobu Terajima, Kazuki Kitamura, Akemi Ohmori

Japan’s Tragedy played at this year’s Rotterdam film festival and when I first looked at it I described it as “the ultimate bleakie” because the film’s synopsis read like an absolute misery-fest and it deals with dark subject matter. Par for the course for Masahiro Kobayashi who is not one to shrink from tough subject as proven with the film that allowed him a degree of international recognition, Bashing which followed the homecoming of a Japanese hostage released by terrorists in Iraq. I recently got that on DVD. I haven’t had the courage to watch it yet… The film’s biggest star is Shinobu Terajima (Vibrator).

Fujio Murai (Nakadai) is unemployed and a widower. Although living with his son Yoshio (Ohmori) life seems bleak as he has been diagnosed with lung cancer and Yoshio’s wife and daughter have not been seen since the 2011 earthquake. Fujio decides to lock himself in his room and mummify himself. Trapped in the room, he thinks back over the course of his life.

Moment Girl                           

Japanese Title:  瞬間少女

Romaji: Shunak Shoujo

Release Date: August 31st, 2013

Running Time: 101 mins.

Director: Kent Shimizu

Writer: Kent Shimizu (Screenplay)

Starring: Kanako Kataoka, Yura Komuro, Goshu, Tomimasa Kikuguchi, Mika Katsumura, Koichiro Kanzaki, Koichi Kase, Ryo Saeki

This teen relationship film full of final wishes and terminal illnesses looks rather more interesting than the usual idol junk. With lots of new acting faces like Kanako Kataoka and Yura Komura, it could be a refreshingly original take on familiar subject matter. It certainly has dark moments like murder. This only familiar name is the nurse played by Mika Katsuara who was in Bounce KO Gals.

Haruka Kobayashi (Kataoka) is an eighteen-year-old girl who only has three months left to live thanks to a terminal illness. She is alone in the world with no family and so decides to run away from her hospital to do something she has never done before. Aki Tsujima (Komuro) is also facing death and makes a bargain with Haruka to help her escape and fulfil her own wish.

The End of Summer            

Japanese Title:  夏の終り

Romaji: Natsu no Owari

Release Date: August 31st, 2013

Running Time: 114 mins.

Director: Kazuyoshi Kumakiri

Writer: Jakucho Setouchi (Original Novel), Takashi Ujita (Screenplay)

Starring: Hikari Mitsushima, Gou Ayano, Kaoru Kobayashi, Satoko Abe

Director Kazuyoshi and screenwriter Ujita have collaborated on lots of projets together (Blazing Famiglia for one) and they unite to adapt Jakucho Setouchi’s 1966 novel. It has a cast of good actors with promising youngsters Hikari Mitsushima (Sawako Decides, Villain, Love Exposure) and Gou Ayano (The Story of Yonosuke) taking the lead and getting support from Kaoru Kobayashi (The Great Passage). It looks like a pretty decent period drama and I’m always up for a film with Hikari Mitsushima, a great actress.

Tomoko (Mitsushima) is fed up of being the mistress of a promising but unnoticed writer named Shingo (Kobayashi) who has a wife and children. She enters into a purely physical relationship with a younger man named Ryota (Ayano) but is still unsatisfied.

Time Scoop Hunter                 

Japanese Title:  タイムスクープハンター

Romaji: Taimu Sku-pu Hanta-

Release Date: August 31st, 2013

Running Time: 102 mins.

Director: Hiroyuki Nakao

Writer: Hiroyuki Nakao (Screenplay)

Starring: Jun Kaname, Anne Watanabe, Kaho, Takashi Yamanaka, Saburo Tokito, Ken Utsui, Akito Kitsuka

This little sci-fi number is based on an NHK television show where a guy travels back in time to record events. Sounds like it could be educational but there’s a lot of gunfights and people getting shot with arrows in the trailer! It stars Jun Kaname (Wild 7), Anne Watanabe (Platinum Data, XXXHOLiC) and Kaho (Tokyo Girl).

The Time Scoop Company sends people back into the past through time travel to record how people once lived. Yuichi (Kaname) is a time scoop hunter who works with his navigator partner Minami Furuhashi (Watanabe). Their latest mission is to monitor Azuchi Castle which was built by Oda Nobunaga but burnt down six years later.

Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day 

Japanese Title:  劇場版　あの　日　見た　花　の　名前　を　僕達　は　まだ　知らない

Romaji: Gekijouban Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae O Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai

Release Date: August 31st, 2013

Running Time: 99 mins.

Director: Tatsuyuki Nagai

Writer: Mari Okada (Screenplay)

Starring: Ai Kayano (Meiko Honma), Haruka Tomatsu (Naruko Anjou), Miyu Irino (Jinta Yadomi), Takahiro Sakurai (Atsumu Matsuyuki), Takayuki Kondou (Tetsudo Hisakawa), Saori Hayami (Chiriko Tsurumi)

The movie version of the Anohana TV anime is a retelling of the story from Meiko’s point of view. It is directed by the chap who was in charge of the TV series, Tatsuyuki Nagai and written by Mari Okada, writer of the TV series.

After the death of Meiko Honma, five childhood friends who were part of the “Super Peace Busters” gang grow apart. Jinta is hit especially hard since he was leader of their gang and resorts to being a hikikomori and stays away from high school. It is he who can see the ghost of Meiko and she asks him to fulfil the forgotten wish she made as a child.

Messiah: Chapter of Eternity                       

Japanese Title:  メサイア　漆黒　の　章

Romaji: Mesaia Shikkoku no Shou

Release Date: August 31st, 2013

Running Time: N/A

Director: Hiroki Yamaguchi

Writer: Ise Naohiro, Hiroki Yamaguchi (Screenplay)

Starring: Kyosuke Hamao, Motohiro Ota, Ryo Matsuda, Kento Ono, Junya Ikeda, Ryo Yamada, Yuya Nakahara

This seems to be part of a multiplatform franchise – novels, drama CDs, manga, theatre performances – which takes place in a future world where nations are undergoing disarmament measures but are now engaging in information warfare. A group of pretty-boy Japanese spies are investigating some anti-government hackers.

Black Lizard: Looking for Miwa Akihiro 

Japanese Title:  美輪明宏　ドキュメンタリー　黒　蜥蜴　を　探して

Romaji: Miwa Akhiro Dokyumentari- Kuro Tokage o Sagashite

Release Date: August 31st, 2013

Running Time: 63 mins.

Director: Pascal = Alex Vincent

Writer: N/A

Starring: Miwa Akihiro, Kinji Fukasaku, Takeshi Kitano, Hayao Miyazaki

Who is Miwa Akihiro??? A singer, actor and Drag queen who has worked in various films directed by Kinji Fukusaku (Black Lizard), Takeshi Kitano (Takeshis’) and Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke and Howl’s Moving Castle). He has had an interesting life considering that he survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and has grown to be a massive cabaret/TV/film star in Japan.

Soul Flower Train            

Japanese Title:  ソウル　フラワー　トレイン

Romaji: Souru Furawa- Torein

Release Date: August 31st, 2013

Running Time: 91 mins.

Director: Koushi Nishio

Writer: Yuki Uehara (Screenplay), Robin Nishi (Original Work)

Starring: Mitsuru Hirata, Saki Seishi, Kensuke Owada, Mio Otani, Kaoru Kusumi, Megumi Wada, Shoichi Asano

Robin Nishi, the mind behind the comic/anime Mind Game has another of his works adapted. In this tale, a father named Amamoto  heads to Osaka to track down his daughter Yuki but ends up getting lost and caught up in a surreal adventure on the island. Soundtrack by Shounen Knife.

Zentai                

Japanese Title:  ゼンタイ

Romaji: Zentai

Release Date: August 31st, 2013

Running Time: 62 mins.

Director: Ryosuke Hashiguchi

Writer: Ryosuke Hashiguchi (Screenplay),

Starring: Atsushi Shinohara, Yuta Mori, Hitoshi Hisa, Tsutomu Yagihashi, Ayumu Nakajima

Zentai? Don’t you mean sentai? Where a team of people in extravagant costumes fight evil powers. The point of this film isn’t so much to be a straight sentai action title but to show the freedom men and women feel when they don those body hugging uniforms and masks. It’s a low-budget omnibus film shot quickly with six episodes full of impromptu performances.

Uchi no Hara no Uchi                    

Japanese Title:  ウチ　の　はら　の　うち

Romaji: Uchi no Hara no Uchi

Release Date: August 31st, 2013

Running Time: 55 mins.

Director: Chikako Iwashita

Writer: Chikako Iwashita (Screenplay),

Starring: Nanako Okochi, Matsunaga Nagisa, Udatakaki, Chihiro KAsahara, Yui Tokiya,

A teen drama about a girl named Chihiro (Matsunaga) who is the middle child of a family of five and is caught between her sisters. She heads to Tokyo where she meets a girl named Yayoi who wants to be an entertainer and the two live together.

R-18 Literary Prize Volume 2: Jelly Fish  

Japanese Title:  R-18文学賞 vol.2 ジェリー・フィッシュ

Romaji: R – 18 bungaku-shō vol. 2 Jerī fisshu

Release Date: August 31st, 2013

Running Time: 92 mins.

Director: Shusuke Kaneko

Writer: Miyuki Takahashi (Screenplay), Sarie Hinakura (Original Work)

Starring: Mio Ohtani, Rumi Hanai, Hiroki Kawata, Ryosuke Kawamura, Megumi Okina, Naomi Akimoto, Naoto Takenaka, Kotaro Kakimoto

This is the second film adaptation of a winner for the R-18 Literary Prize for Women (the last one was back in February) and it was written by Sarie Hinakura (雛倉さりえ). The concept is simple: the film captures the fragile and cruel, yet warm and beautiful world of adolescent girls who are amorous yet poisonous with a painful sting like a jellyfish but so full of love.

On the day that Hayao Miyazaki’s retirement from the production of feature-length films has been announced, I report about this year’s Scotland Loves Animation takes place in Glasgow (October 11^th-13^th) and Edinburgh (October 14^th-20^th). If the former bit of news is sad for the loss tat the film and anime world will suffer then the line-up offers positivity because these titles have so much imagination and originality that, even with the Miyazaki-sized hole in anime, great works will still be made.

The line-up features a lot of the biggest anime films released in Japan over the last two years. There are some genuinely lovely surprises like Fuse: A Gun Girl’s Detective Story, Garden of Words, and Gusko Budori and some great surprises like Hal and Patema Inverted. Some of these films already have UK distribution deals and some are classics that are getting re-released.

I have already covered a lot of the titles in previews and even reviewed one so here’s the list titles by location then that will be followed by the trailers:

Scotland Loves Anime Line-Up for Glasgow

Glasgow Film Theatre (October 11^th-13^th, 2013)

The guest is Jonathan Clements, a long time commentator and expert on anime who presented anime on the sci-fi channel during the 90’s and 2000’s and writes for Neo magazine and Manga Entertainment and has written the rather awesome Schoolgirl Milky Crisis: adventures in the Anime and Manga Trade. 

Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo

Fuse: A Gun Girl’s Detective Story

The Life of Guskou Budori

Hunter × Hunter: Phantom Rouge

Patema Inverted

Perfect Blue

The Place Promised in Our Early Days

Mystery Film

Scotland Loves Anime Line-Up for Edinburgh,

Edinburgh Filmhouse (October 14^th-20^th, 2013)

The guests are Jonathan Clements and Makoto Shinkai, director of The Garden of Words and The Place Promised in Our Early Days. He is an anime auteur who has major presence on the world stage. His tales are perfectly crafted slices of emotion that are beautiful to watch and always attract an audience and great critical reviews. 

Aura

Evangelion 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone

Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance

Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo

Fuse: A Gun Girl’s Detective Story

Garden of Words + Stage Discussion

Hal & Mystery OVA

The Life of Guskou Budori

Mystery Film

Patema Inverted

Steins;Gate – The Movie

Here are the trailers:

Aura: Maryūinkōga Saigo no Tatakai                           

Japanese Title: AURA ～魔竜院光牙最後の闘い

Romaji: Aura: Maryūinkōga Saigo no Tatakai

Running Time: N/A

Director: Seiji Kishi

Writer: Jun Kumagai (Script), Romeo Tanaka (Original Light Novel)

Starring: Kana Hanazawa (Ryōko Satō), Nobunaga Shimazaki (Ichirō Satō)

The film is directed by Seiji Kishi who was the director of Humanity has Declined, a gentle if surreal anime released this summer which I liked a lot and Persona 4 The Animation, a cool adaptation of the videogame. The script has been written by Makoto Uezu (Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka?) and Jun Kumagai (Persona 4, Humanity has Declined).

This film centres on a high school freshman named Ichirō Satō who forgets his book at school and sneaks back in at night. There he encounters a beautiful girl who claims to be a witch from a parallel world. Is she real or just a delusion?

Fuse: A Gun Girl’s Detective Story       

Japanese Title: 伏 鉄砲娘の捕物帳

Romaji: Fuse Teppō Musume no Torimonochō

Release Date:  October  20^th, 2012 (Japan)

Running Time: 110 mins.

Director: Masayuki Miyaji

Writer: Ichiro Okouchi (Script), Kazuki Sakuraba (Original Writer),

Starring: Minako Kotobuki (Hamaji), Katsuyuki Konishi (Dousetsu), Mamoru Miyano (Shino), Hirofumi Nojima (Iesada Tokugawa), Hiroshi Kamiya (Makuwari), Kanako Miyamoto (Meido), Maaya Sakamoto (Funamushi) 

The story follows a teenage girl named Hamaji who joins her brother in hunting dog-human hybrids known as Fuse as part of a karmic cycle of retribution. The movie is based on the novel Fuse Gansaku: Satomi Hakkenden which was written by Kazuki Sakuraba, author of the Gosick light novels. She was inspired by a 19^th century epic novel series named Nansō Satomi Hakkenden written by late Edo Period popular author Kyokutei Bakin. His tales dealt with themes based on Buddhist philosophy, Confucianism, and Bushido as it followed eight samurai serving the Satomi clan during the Sengoku (Warring States) period. These samurai are the reincarnations of the spirits that Princess Fuse mothered with a dog named Yatsufusa and they each represent a Confucianist virtue. Here’s my review.

Evangelion Films

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a landmark title which had a huge impact on the 90’s anime world as it re-wrote the rules for the mecha genre with its post-modern take that combined mecha tropes with a cast of characters undergoing various mental crises. It is also a very personal title as it came from anime veteran Hideaki Anno who was rather depressed and spat out his hatred for life and anime in the scripts and on the screen. With Evangelion he did what Lars von Trier did with Melancholia and gave us a devastating visual view of depression and other psychological maladies. Watching the teen pilots navigate the hell that is adolescence and deal with the psycho-sexual nightmarish monsters and emotionally complex adults was gripping, disturbing but ultimately uplifting (although very apocalyptic).

Hideaki Anno claimed he was not happy with the way the series developed and released a number of films which tried to retell the ending of the show, ending on an even darker note. Since then Evangelion has been a merchandise machine and has retained its popularity which is why Anno has been given a chance to remake the TV series into a number of film which offer what he considers to be his ultimate vision. The first three films in the four-part series have been released in the west to rapturous reviews and we are awaiting the fourth.

The cast has the familiar seiyuu from the television shows including major stars like the prolific and wonderful voice actress Megumi Hayashibara (Paprika in Paprika – she also turned up in The Wolf Children) who voices Rei Ayanami and Pen Pen, Megumi Ogata who plays Shinji Ikari, Akira Ishida (Keiju Tabuki in Mawaru Penguindrum), Yuko Miyamura (Casca in Berserk – the girl in the training video in Battle Royale), Hiro Yuuki (Takaomi in Mysterious Girlfriend X), Miki Nagasawa (Mutio in Blue Submarine No.6), Maaya Sakamoto (Hitomi in Escaflowne).

Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone                       

Japanese Title: ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版：序

Romaji: Evangerion Shin Gekijōban: Jo

Running Time: 101 mins.

Director: Hideaki Anno, Masayuki, Kazuya Tsurumaki,

Writer:  Hideaki Anno

Starring: Megumi Hayashibara (Shinji Ikari), Megumi Ogata (Rei Ayanami), Akira Ishida (Kaworu Nagisa), Yuko Miyamura (Asuka Langley Shikinami), Maaya Sakamoto (Mari Makinami Illustrious), Kotono Mitsuishi (Misato Katsuragi), Takehito Koyasu (Shigeru Aoba), Fumihiko Tachiki (Gendo Ikari), Yuriko Yamaguchi (Ritsuko Akagi), Motomu Kiyokawa (Kouzou Fuyutsuki), Hiro Yuuki (Makoto Hyuga), Miki Nagasawa (Maya Ibuki),

Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance                       

Japanese Title: ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版：破

Romaji: Evangerion Shin Gekijōban: Ha

Running Time: 108 mins.

Director: Hideaki Anno, Masayuki, Kazuya Tsurumaki, Mahiro Maeda

Writer:  Hideaki Anno

Starring: Megumi Hayashibara (Shinji Ikari), Megumi Ogata (Rei Ayanami), Akira Ishida (Kaworu Nagisa), Yuko Miyamura (Asuka Langley Shikinami), Maaya Sakamoto (Mari Makinami Illustrious), Kotono Mitsuishi (Misato Katsuragi), Takehito Koyasu (Shigeru Aoba), Fumihiko Tachiki (Gendo Ikari), Yuriko Yamaguchi (Ritsuko Akagi), Motomu Kiyokawa (Kouzou Fuyutsuki), Hiro Yuuki (Makoto Hyuga), Miki Nagasawa (Maya Ibuki),

Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo                       

Japanese Title: エヴァンゲリヲン新　新劇場版:Q Quickening

Romaji: Evangelion Shin Gekijoban: Kyu

Running Time: 101 mins.

Director: Hideaki Anno, Masayuki, Kazuya Tsurumaki, Mahiro Maeda

Writer:  Hideaki Anno

Starring: Megumi Hayashibara (Shinji Ikari), Megumi Ogata (Rei Ayanami), Akira Ishida (Kaworu Nagisa), Yuko Miyamura (Asuka Langley Shikinami), Maaya Sakamoto (Mari Makinami Illustrious), Kotono Mitsuishi (Misato Katsuragi), Takehito Koyasu (Shigeru Aoba), Fumihiko Tachiki (Gendo Ikari), Yuriko Yamaguchi (Ritsuko Akagi), Motomu Kiyokawa (Kouzou Fuyutsuki), Hiro Yuuki (Makoto Hyuga), Miki Nagasawa (Maya Ibuki),

The Life of Guskou Budori            

Japanese Title: グスコーブドリ　の　伝記

Romaji: Gusuko- Budori no Denki          

Running Time: 106 mins

Director: Gisaburo Sugii

Writer: Kenji Miyazawa (Original Novel), Gisaburo Sugii (Screenplay)

Starring: Shun Oguri (Gusko Budori), Shiori Kutsuna (Neri), Akira Emoto (Doctor Kubo), Kuranosuke Sasaki (Kotori), Tamiyo Kusakari (Budori’s Mother), Ryuzo Hayashi (Budori’s Father)

This is the anime movie adaptation of Kenji Miyazawa ‘s 1932 fairy tale The Life of Guskou Budori. It stars the actors Shun Oguri (The Woodsman & the Rain)  in the lead vocal role with Shiori Kutsuna (My Back Pages) and Akira Emoto (Villain, Starfish Hotel) providing support.

Guskou is a cat who lives in the Tohoku forests in north eastern Japan in the 1920’s. A series of droughts and natural disasters forces Guskou to leave hoe ad search for a new place to live. He soon falls in with a group of scientists at the Ihatov Volcano Department and discovers that they are dealing with the same natural disasters that have altered Guskou’s life.

The Garden of Words                               

Japanese Title: 言の葉の庭 

Romaji: Kotonoha no Niwa

Running Time: 46 mins

Director: Makoto Shinkai

Writer: Makoto Shinkai

Starring: Kana Hanazawa (Yukino), Miyu Irino (Takao)

Makoto Shinkai’s latest film has been released to great reviews and one look at the trailer will show you why because it looks and sounds stunning. Makoto Shinkai will be at the screening for a Q&A.

“We met, for each of us to walk forward.

Takao is a 15-year-old boy with dreams of becoming a professional shoe designer and was skipping high school, sketching shoes in a Japanese garden when he encounters a mysterious older woman named Yukino who is 27. Without arranging it they end up meeting again and again, but only on rainy days, deepening their relationship and opening up to each other. But the end of the rainy season soon approaches…

HAL                                  

Japanese Title: ハル

Romaji: Haru

Release Date: June 08^th, 2013

Director: Ryōtarō Makihara

Writer: Izumi Kizara (Screenplay),

Starring: Yōko Hikasa (Kurumi), Yoshimasa Hosoya (Haru), Mamoru Miyano (Ryuu)

This near-future romance is called Hal and it sounds like a romantic Time of Eve with its mixture of androids and falling in love.  It stars the voices of Yōko Hikasa (Saeki in Aku no Hana), Mamoru Miyano and Yoshimasa Hosoya (Level E). The director Ryōtarō Makihara has a lot of experience with TV anime like directing an episode of Tatami Galaxy and Monster, Summer Wars and Le Chevalier D’Eon. Music comes from Michiru Oshima who scored the awesome flamenco inspired Fuse: A Gungirl’s Tale and the melancholy Le Chevalier D’Eon. The anime is produced by Wit Studio who are bringing a thrillingly dark title to television screens with Attack on Titan.

Kurumi (Hikasa) likes Haru (Hosoya) and the two seem happy life ends when a plane accident takes Haru from the mortal world. A robot version of Haru, Hal emerges as a substitute. As the two live together Kurumi gradually opens her memories and mind to him.

Hunter x Hunter: Phantom Rouge   

Japanese Title: 劇場版　HUNTER X HUNTER 緋色　の　幻影　（ファントム　フージュ）

Romaji: Gekijouban Hunter x Hunter: Hiiro no Genei (Fantomu Fu-jyu)

Running Time: 96 mins.

Director: Yuzo Sato (Original Creator)

Writer:  Shoji Yonemura (Screenplay), Yoshihiro Togashi (Original Creator)

Starring: Miyuki Sawashiro (Kurapika), Megumi Han (Gon Freecss), Mariya Ise (Killua Zoldyck), Aya Hirano (Retz), Keiji Fujiwara (Leorio), Naohito Fujiko (Omokage)

The film is directed by Yuzo Sato who has worked on a variety of anime from medieval demon hunting adventure Claymore to the more sci-fi leaning Biohunter. The Character designer is Takahiro Yoshimatsu who has also had a wide variety of experiences such as being an animation director on Black Cat. Music comes from Yoshihisa Hirano who scored the Death Note anime.

Hunting is respected profession. You can hunt money, criminals, animals, recipe ingredients… yes. You can hunt whatever you want so long as you have the talent to become a hunter. While the TV series focussed on a pre-teen boy named Gon, this one focusses on Kurapika who wishes to track down and take revenge on a group of criminals known as the Phantom Troupe. Why? They massacred his clan for having eyes that can turn scarlet during moments of emotional stress. These eyes are considered treasures and Kurapika’s eyes are in danger but with the help of Gon, Killua and Leorio, he is determined to have his revenge.

Patema Inverted                               

Japanese Title: サカサマ　の　パテマ 

Romaji: Sakasama no Patema

Running Time: N/A

Director: Yasuhiro Yoshiura

Writer: Yasuhiro Yoshiura (Screenplay/Original Creator)

Starring: Yukiyo Fujii (Patema), Nobuhiko Okamoto (Age), Shintarou Oohata (Porta), Shinya Fukumatsu (G), Masayuki Katou (Lagos),

Yasuhiro Yoshiura is the director/creator of the wonderful Time of Eve, a futuristic drama about androids in a café and the humans that visit them. It was a whimsical show full of great details and gorgeous animation and do you know what was best of all? The characters were relatable and funny. This is his latest film and it looks to be just as good. I love that poster!

The story takes place in an underground world where the inhabitants exist in tunnels and confined spaces and must wear protective clothing. Despite this, these underground people still enjoy life, especially Patema, the princess of her underground village who loves to explore. Her fascination with exploration leads her to a forbidden area where she meets a boy named Age who operates under different gravitational circumstances. The two may come from very different societies but will face strange situations together!

The Place Promised in Our Early Days  

Japanese Title: 雲　の　むこう、　約束　の　場所

Romaji: Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Basho

Running Time: 91 mins

Director: Makoto Shinkai

Writer: Makoto Shinkai

Starring: Masato Hagiwara (Takuya Shirakawa), Yuuka Nanri (Sayuri Sawatari), Hidetaka Yoshioka (Hiroki Fujisawa), Unshou Ishizuka (Okabe), Risa Mizuno (Maki Kasahara)

After losing World War II Japan is divided in two. Hokkaido was annexed by “Union” while Honshu and other southern islands were placed under the control of the US. A gigantic yet mysterious tower was constructed at Hokkaido and could be seen clearly from Aomori (the northernmost prefecture of Honshu). In the summer of 1996, three 9th-graders had made a promise that one day they’ll build an aircraft and unravel the tower’s mystery but one of their number Sayuri Sawatari, is transferred to Tokyo for treatment for sleeping sickness. A while later, one of her friends, Hiroki Fujisawa accidentally finds out that Sayuri had been in coma since leaving, and he asks the other member of the trio, Takuya Shirakawa to help him finding a way to revive her. What they don’t know yet is that Sayuri’s unconsciousness is somehow linked with secrets of the tower and the world.

Perfect Blue           

Japanese Title: パフェクト　ブルー

Romaji: Pafekuto Buru-

Running Time: 90 mins

Director: Satoshi Kon

Writer: Saduyuki Murai (Screenplay)

Starring:  Junko Iwao (Mimi Kirigoe), Rica Matsumoto (Rumi), Akio Suyama (Reader). Aya Hara (Mimi’s Mother),

This is getting re-released in the UK in October. It is a genuine classic and quite probably Satoshu Kon’s best work.

Mimi Kirigoe is one third of the chart topping girl-pop group “CHAM!” But she wants to be more than a pop star and become an actress. It seems her dream may be about to come true after she gets a part in an adult murder-mystery drama, but she finds out that crazed fans are stalking her and people around her are being murdered. Mimi soon begins to lose her sanity.

Steins;Gate The Movie                                                                         

Japanese Title: 劇場版 シュタインズ・ゲート 負荷領域のデジャヴ

Romaji: Shutainzu Ge-to: Fuka Ryouiki no Deja Bu

Running Time: 90 mins + 30 min discussion

Director: Kanji Wakabayashi (Director), Hiroshi Hamasaki, Takuya Satō (Chief Directors),

Writer: Jukki Hanada

Starring: Mamoru Miyano (Rintarou Okabe), Asami Imai (Kurisu Makise) Kana Hanazawa (Mayuri Shiina), Halko Momoi (Faris Nyannyan), Tomokazu Seki (Itaru Hashida), Yu Kobayashi (Ruka Urushibara), Yukari Tamura (Suzuha Amane), Saori Goto (Moeka Kiryuu)

Steins;Gate was my second favourite anime of 2011 and it is getting a UK release thanks to Manga Entertainement. The movie version sees us revisit Okabe and Makise and Mayuri. The film has the vocal talents of Mamoru Miyano (Fuse:  A Gun Girl’s Detective Story) and Kana Hanazawa (Bakemonogatari) and Halko Momoi who composed and performed the awesome song Mail Me which was used in Suicide Club.

Kurisu has returned to Akihabara after a year in America and meets up with Okabe but it does not last lone because he soon has images of other timelines, and disappears. Kurisu must fight against her own heart to decide whether to follow the path of a scientist and follow Okabe’s words to not go back in time to get him back, or let her emotions drive her to save him, no matter what dangerous effects it may have on the world.

Actually, that news about Miyazaki’s retirement has hit me hard. I’m going to watch Laputa: Castle in the Sky on Film4 and cry a little…

Today was supposed to be the start of a Kiyoshi Kurosawa season but news that Hayao Miyazaki is retiring from making feature films broke yesterday and I have to post about it. According to an NHK report as seen on Anime News Network, during a press conference at the Venice Film Festival on Sunday, Studio Ghibli President Koji Hoshino announced that “studio founder and world-renowned anime filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki will “retire from the production of feature-length films.””

I wrote about this briefly yesterday on the Scotland Loves Animation post but a sentence doesn’t seem fitting for a person who has achieved so much and made so many films I love. At 72-years-old and as one the most critically and commercially successful anime directors (the most successful?), Miyazaki has had a huge impact. He brought so many great works to the screen and was able to connect with both children and adults. His impact can be considered larger because thanks to the appeal of his films he has made anime more exportable. People come to the medium thanks to titles like My Neighbour Totoro.

Before I get melodramatic and emotional, retiring from feature-length films means that he is still open to the possibility of directing shorts and creating manga and writing scripts. It also leaves open the possibility of TV anime and other roles in film making such as being a writer and producer. It’s still sad news, though.

Personally, the reason I feel strongly about it is because I sort of grew up on Ghibli/Miyazaki’s works. When I was a kid I watched the TV anime Sherlock Hound which he directed and wrote episodes of. I didn’t know it was anime at the time (too young) and I had no idea who the director was (not a cinephile back then) but I loved it and little did I know that I would continue watching his works. I can remember my first Ghibli film in a cinema. It was when Spirited Away got its UK theatrical release I saw it in a packed cinema full of all sorts of people and I have rarely experienced a movie where everyone is so connected to what is going on in the film. There was a standing ovation at the end and I was so impressed and moved by the experience that I still remember so much from that night. Since then, I have made the effort to watch every Ghibli film released and reviewed their latest ones here.

My favourite is still Spirited Away with Princess Mononoke and Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro coming a close second. And Kiki’s Delivery Service and Porco Rosso and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind… Pretty much most of the films his he directed are favourites of mine and I have watched them each at least five times (which is easy because Film4 keep screening them) and I never tire of them.

When we consider the idea that one of the anime and film world’s great directors is retiring, talk inevitably comes to his successor.

As I right, the rather unfairly critically savaged film Tales from Earthsea, directed by Hayao Miyazaki’s son Goro, is on the UK television channel Film4. Due to a half-day at work I get to watch it again. It is very uneven in terms of pace and characterisation but it is still an interesting film and Goro’s latest effort From Up on Poppy Hill was much better received by critics and audiences but he seems to waver about committing to full-time directing.

If not Goro Miyazaki, then what about Hideako Anno the creator of Evangelion and a former animator over at Ghibli? He is very much like a darker version of Miyazaki, and if I think solely in terms of Evangelion he seems too dark but he made that was when he was in a psychologically dark place but what a masterpiece that turned out to be. Since then he also directed and wrote the school comedy/romance His and Her Circumstances and the light-hearted mahou-shoujo title Cutie Honey. Miyazaki collaborated with him on a live-action short based upon Nausicaa and was the lead voice actor in Miyazaki’s last ilm. Miyazaki has also revealed that he is open to a sequel to Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and would leave it under the control of Anno.

Mamoru Hosoda who is frequently compared to Hayao Miyazaki thanks to his skill at using magical realism. His last film The Wolf Children had all of the echoes of a Ghibli title but it traded in the whimsy for a dose of realism and humanity, leaving the film feeling refreshingly different from Ghibli’s output.

In recent years I have been rather cool with my reception to the latest Ghibli films like Arrietty and Ponyo and consider the 90’s/early 2000’s the best but I have to pay respect to Miyazaki. If the post comes off as negative then I apologise. Great anime will still continue to be made and there’s no real finality to this statement of retirement. Miyazaki-kantoku remains alive and very active and he hasn’t totally quit films. I’d rather he retired and was happy about his choice than any other alternative. He has achieved a lot and if anything is certain, Miyazaki has earned his retirement and I hope he enjoys it.

The 57^th BFI London Film Festival is running from Wednesday 09^th October to Sunday 20^th October, a mere week after the end of the Raindance Film Festival. The London Film Festival programme was announced earlier today and the Japanese selection is rather good. The big news for me is that Sion Sono’s latest film, Why Don’t You Play in Hell? has been selected to play! Other entries include Yuya Ishii’s Great Passage and Hirokazu Koreeda’s Like Father, Like Son. The latter was probably the most obvious choie for inclusion but it’s great to see Ishii getting noticed.

Here are the films (click on the titles for more info like dates and times):

Why Don’t You Play in Hell?           

Japanese Title: 地獄　で　なぜ　悪い Why Don’t You Play in Hell?

Romaji: Jigoku de Naze Warui Why Don’t You Play in Hell?

Running Time: 126 mins

Director: Sion Sono

Writer: Sion Sono (Screenplay),

Starring: Jun Kunimura, Shinichi Tsutsumi, Fumi Nikaido, Tomochika, Hiroki Hasegawa, Kotou Lorena, Gen Hoshino, Tak Sakaguchi

Why Don’t You Play in Hell? is coming to the UK? OHMYGOD! YES! SONOOOOOO is here and the day is won. So does this prove that if I cry loud enough and often enough about something, some big festival will pick it up? Because I posted about three different versions of the trailer before it was screened at Venice and then Toronto and finally London. I’m a Sion Sono fan and while I may not be the most eloquent, handsome or talented, I at least try to keep track of what he’s doing and covering his titles so it’s gratifying to see that in the year of release I get to see it and on the big screen.  I get to see the blood slide on screen!

He has had a short run of issue films. The critically lauded Himizu and The Land of Hope are serious dramas that look at the after-effects of the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami and radiation in Japan. Now he’s back making entertainment films like Love Exposure and Strange Circus , films that play with cinematic techniques, genre tropes, the audience and are bloody fun. The festival page has this descriptive line: “ingenious slice of high-octane insanity that is both a fresh take on the yakuza film and an affectionate tribute to the death of celluloid.” It forgot to mention the blood slide and the fact it’s probably God-tier entertainment as other reviewers have noted. Check out Bonjour Tristesse’s coverage of the critical reaction from the Venice Film Festival for more. Let’s go!

Muto (Kunimura) and Ikegami (Tsutsumi) are rival gangsters who despise each other especially since Muto’s wife Shizue (Tomochika) butchered a boss in Ikegami’s gang. She gets sent to prison and jeopardises her daughter’s acting career. Ten years later and days before Shizue is due to be released, Muto is desperate to make his daughter a big-screen star and recruits Koji (Hoshino), a timid passer-by who is mistaken for being a film director.

When dealing with gangsters you don’t mess about so Koji gets a cinephile friend named Hirata (Hasegawa) who dreams of being a movie director and has a ragtag film crew named The Fuck Bombers. Hirata seizes his chance and loses his mind as he casts Mitsuko in a fictional gang war but it soon goes wrong when it turns real.

Like Father, Like Son                          

Japanese Title:　そして　父　に　なる

Romaji: Soshite Chichi ni Naru

Running Time: 120 mins.

Director: Hirokazu Koreeda

Writer: Hirokazu Koreeda (Screenplay)

Starring: Masaharu Fukuyama, Machiko Ono, Yoko Maki, Jun Fubuki, Keita Ninomiya, Lily Franky, Jun Kunimura, Kiki Kirin, Isao Natsuyagi

Hirokazu Koreeda’s Like Father Like Son won an award for Cannes and was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and it’s here in the UK in the month of its Japanese release. Awesome. Koreeda is a director I picked up on after watching After Life on BBC Four back in 200… and something. I taped it on VHS and it’s hidden away. Anyway, when I say Koreeda is a great filmmaker I mean it. I know I’m prone to bouts of hyperbole in reviews but watch After Life, Still Walking, and Nobody Knows and you’ll agree. I’m pretty excited at the prospect of seeing a film of his on the big screen. The film stars Masaharu Fukuyama (Suspect X), Machiko Ono (Eureka, The Floating Castle), Yoko Maki (Infection, The Grudge), Lily Franky (Afro Tanaka), Jun Fubuki (Séance, Rebirth) Kirin Kiki (Kiseki) and Jun Kunimura (Outrage, Vital) and Isao Natsuyagi (The Land of Hope, Warm Water Under a Red Bridge).

Successful architect Ryota (Fukuyama) and his wife Midori (Ono) have a happy family life with their six-year-old son Keita (Nonomiya) but a phone call from the hospital informing them of the fact that their child was mixed up with another at birth shatters their happiness. Their birth-son Ryusei has been raised by a poorer but more easy-going family run by Yudai (Franky) and Yukari (Maki) Saiki. Ryota and Midori must decide whether to hand over the son they have carefully raised for the last six years and take back their biological son or not.

The Great Passage                

Japanese Title: 舟を編む

Romaji: Fune wo Amu

Running Time: 133 mins.

Director: Yuya Ishii

Writer: Shion Miura (Original Novel), Kensaku Watanabe (Screenplay),

Starring: Ryuhei Matsuda, Aoi Miyazaki, Joe Odagiri, Haru Kuroki, Misako Watanabe, Kumiko Aso, Shingo Tsurumi, Chizuru Ikewaki, Hiroko Isayama, Kaouru Kobayashi, Go Kato, Kaoru Yachigusa, Ryu Morioka, Shohei Uno, Kazuki Namioka

This is a surprise entry since it hasn’t appeared at any other major festivals but from what the film offers it totally fits in with the festival. I’m a fan of Yuya Ishii based on Sawako Decides  and this looks like more of the same, namely a film full of smart observations and intellectual humour and warmth for its characters. It has a cast list which is full of stars: Ryuhei Matsuda (Nightmare Detective), Aoi Miyazaki (Eureka), Joe Odagiri (Mushishi, Adrift in Tokyo), Haru Kuroki (The Wolf Children), Kumiko Aso (Pulse, License to Live), Kazuki Namioka (Thirteen Assassins), Chizuru Ikewaki (Josee, the Tiger and the Fish, The Cat Returns) and Shohei Uno (The Drudgery Train).

The eminent critic Tony Rayns describes this as “entertainment on a Dickensian scale, crammed with interesting characters and amusing details. Ishii delivers!” I said I wanted to see this when I placed it in a trailer post and I’m going to watch this at the festival.

Mitsuya Majime (Matsuda) is has the talent to comprehend different languages and is the most important member of the editorial team of a dictionary but he struggles to tell Kaguya Hayashi (Miyazaki), a cook and the granddaughter o the owner of Majime’s boarding home, how he feels about her.

The Ravine of Goodbye             

Japanese Title: さよなら渓谷

Romaji: Sayonara Keikoku

Running Time: 117 mins.

Director: Tatsushi Omori

Writer: Shuichi Yoshida (Novel), Tatsushi Omori (Screenplay)

Starring: Yoko Maki, Shima Onishi, Nao Omori, Arata, Hirofumi Arai, Anne Suzuki, Jyo Hyuga

This was another film I said I wanted to see. It was released on a weekend packed full of great dramas actually (two of which I’ll see at Raindance) but this… This is a drama! The trailer screams it out loud. It comes from a novel by Shuichi Yoshida, the man who wrote Villain and The Story of Yonosuke. It is directed by Tatsushi Omori, brother of the actor Nao Omori (Mushishi) who stars n this. Tony Rayns describes it as a “superbly acted mystery turns on female empowerment and male guilt.”

In a valley dense with trees a baby is killed and it’s mother, Satomi Tachibana (Suzuki) is the primes suspect. As the police are investigating the murder they are informed that Satomi is romantically involved with her next door neighbour Shunsuke Ozaki (Onishi) by Shunsuke’s lover Kanako (Maki). Magazine reporter Watanabe (Omori) digs into the case and discovers that Kanako was the victim of a rape 15 years ago and Ozaki was involved in the case…

Short Film Collections:

Contained Movement

This is described as exploring Juxtapositions, interpretations, interpolations, modulations. The films are all about how form and content “merge to create natural forms from dots, make substance from absence, speed up natural processes, make the abstract concrete, play with observation, challenge perception and – ultimately – vanish.”

Sounds groovy. The Japanese entry is called Between Regularity and Irregularity and it is directed by Masahiro Tsutani and it lasts eight minutes.

Love Will Conquer All

This is a collection of eight short films examining “an assortment of expressions of affection, from first love to unrequited love to unconditional love. With additional heartbreak, lust and resentment thrown in for good measure.” The Japanese entry is…

Kick-Heart

Director: Masaaki Yuasa

Running Time: 13 mins

The Japanese entry is Kick Heart by Masaaki Yuasa (Mind Game, The Tatami Galaxy) and animated by Production I.G (Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell). This was big news in the anime world last year because it was successfully funded by the public via Kickstarter, a first for an anime title since the traditional route is to use corporate investors.

Romeo is a successful pro-wrestler. Juliet is a nun who lives a secret double-life as a female pro-wrestler. Romeo’s secret is that he enjoys taking a beating in the ring, while Juliet feels invigorated when facing her opponents as a wrestler. When the two meet in the ring, the fireworks fly.

There will also be seven experimental films by the highly regarded film rebel Stom Sogo.

This week was all about festivals! It began with a post about the Scotland Loves Animation Festival 2013 and was followed by a post about the announcement that Hayao Miyazaki will be retiring from directing feature films (here’s a more in depth article about his decision which makes my post look silly. I totally want him to take a break now!) which was broken at this year’s Venice Film Festival. Then there was that post about the line-up of Japanese films at the BFI London Film Festival. Tomorrow there will be a post about the Raindance Film Festival. Those last two festivals… I’ll be attending them! There will be two more festivals I will write about before the year is out, the East Winds Film Festival and the Vancouver Film Festival. In the year when I resolved to cover more festivals I can safely say that I did it.

What’s released this weekend in Japan?

Space Pirate Captain Harlock                         

Japanese Title: キャプテン　ハーロック

Romaji: Kyaputen Harokku

Release Date: September 06^th, 2013

Running Time: 115 mins.

Director: Shinji Aramaki

Writer: Harutoshi Fukui (Screenplay), Leiji Matsumoto (Manga)

Starring: Shun Oguri, Haruma Miura, Yu Aoi, Arata Furuta, Ayano Fukuda

Leiji Matsumoto is a big deal in Japan and his manga/anime keep getting remade. This year sees the big budget CG movie adaptation of his 1977 manga¹/1978 TV Asahi anime. The film is directed by Shinji Aramaki who has been in the anime industry for a long time with involvement in titles like Bubbegum Crisis, Megazone 23, Wolf’s Rain and Gundam. He knows how to make CG films having directed the recent Appleseed movies. The seiyuu (voice actors) are impressive with live-action film stars Shun Oguri (The Woodsman & the Rain) voicing the heroic Harlock, Yu Aoi (Penance, Hana and Alice, Mushishi), Arata Furuta (Thirteen Assassins,Ninja Kids!!!) and Ayano Fukuda voicing some of Harlock’s crew and Haruma Mirua (Tokyo Park) voicing an assassin. There are also full-time seiyuu like Maaya Sakamoto, Chikao Ohtsuka and Kiyoshi Kobayashi on the cast.

In the year 2977, mankind has become complacent and stagnant because machines perform all manner of tasks while humans indulge in entertainment. This is the moment when mysterious invaders from space invade the Earth. Rebelling against Earth’s inept government, Harlock (Oguri) and his crew of 40 use his space battleship to fight for humanity. This fight comes with risks beyond space battles as a young man named Yama (Miura) is ordered to kill Harlock.

Website

009-1: The End of the Beginning     

Japanese Title: 009-1 (ゼロゼロク-イチ) The End of the Beginning

Romaji: N/A

Release Date: September 07^th, 2013

Running Time: 84 mins.

Director: Koichi Sakamoto

Writer: Keiichi Hasegawa (Screenplay), Shotaro Ishinomori (Original Manga)

Starring: Mayuko IWasa, Minehiro Kinomoto, Nao Nagasawa, Mao Ichimichi, Aya Sugimoto, Naoto Takenaka, Hirotaro Honda, Minami Tsukui, Ryohei Abe

Koichi Sakamoto, director of sci-fi flick Travelers is back with a film with some dodgy CGI and cool action time. It is based on a manga by Shotaro Ishinomori, the creator of Masked Rider and 009 Re:Cyborg. This is a futuristic sci-fi spy film fill of plenty of good-looking women like Nao Nagasawa (Suicide Club, Travelers) who wear skimpy skin-hugging dresses and slink around with guns. The lead is played by Mayuko Iwasa (MILOCRORZE – A Love Story). Hirotaro Honda (Zero Focus) is also acting in this one.

In the future, the world has been divided between the Western and Eastern block. Mylee (Iwasa) is a spy for the West and she is heading into J country, a border state between East and West, to investigate human traffickers. On her mission, she meets a young immigrant named Chris, a man who will remain in her memories even if she should forget him…

Website

Backwater               

Japanese Title: 共喰い

Romaji: Kyou Kui

Release Date: September 07^th, 2013

Running Time: 102 mins.

Director: Shinji Aoyama

Writer: Haruhiko Arai (Screenplay), Shinya Tanaka (Original Novel)

Starring: Masaki Suda, Misaki Kinoshita, Ken Mitsuishi, Yukiko Shinohara, Yuko Tanaka

I have one Shinji Aoyama film and it’s the highly regarded Eureka. I have yet to watch it but he seems to be the type of director that makes dramas. You know, ones that examine existential and economic crises in modern Japan. Bleak ones. That would explain why Alua picked this one up for one of her trailer posts. This is one of Aoyama’s bleak films. And it’s written by Haruhiko Arai who writes bleak things like A Woman and War. It stars pretty boy Masaki Suda who has come in numerous Masked Rider films. It also stars Ken Mitsuishi (Noriko’s Dinner Table, Himizu). Oh, and if you don’t believe that this is a bleakie, the literal title is Eat Each Other.

It is 1989 and we follow Tooma (Suda) who lives with his father and his father’s lover. Tooma sees his father’s sadistic treatment of his lover and Tooma begins to act in a similar fashion…

Website

Hameln              

Japanese Title: ハーメルン

Romaji: Hamerun

Release Date: September 06^th, 2013

Running Time: 132 mins.

Director: Takushi Tsubokawa

Writer: Takushi Tsubokawa (Screenplay),

Starring: Hidetoshi Nishijima, Chieko Baisho, Nagatoshi Sakamoto, Hiroya Morita, Kenji Mizuhashi, Shungiku Uchida, Akiko Kazami, Masao Komatsu

Hidetoshi Nishijima was nowhere in my understanding of Japanese cinema until I saw him in Zero Focus earlier this year. Now I’m seeing him everywhere because he has something like five films out this year including a Korean one! He’s in a review I’ve got schedule for next week and apparently he was in Loft and if I remember hard enough I think I can make him out as the publishing agent… I’ll have to re-watch it. Anyway, in this drama he’s working in a place similar to where I work only in a more picturesque town and supported by Kanji Mizuhashi (the overly dramatic Taguchi in Pulse), Shungiko Uchida (Visitor Q), and Nagatoshi Sakamoto (A Woman Called Sada Abe). It’s a beautiful looking trailer.

A former school principle (Sakamoto) lives in an elementary school that was shut down and spends his days repairing the place. Until the decision to dismantle it is taken.

Noda (Nishijima) was a student at the school. He is back in town to take up work as a museum employee and visits his former school to seek out a time capsule he buried during the school’s last day.

Ayako is a former teacher at the school and Ritsuko (Baisho) is a former student. Ayako is being moved into a nursing home but wants to see the school one last time. Noda will meet his ex-principle, teacher and Ritsuko!

Website

Motoharu Sano “Film no Damage”                         

Japanese Title: 佐野元春「Film No Damage」

Romaji: Sano Motoharu “Film no Damage”

Release Date: September 07^th, 2013

Running Time: 71 mins.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: Motoharu Sano

This is a digitally remastered documentary of the rock star Motoharu Sano  and his 1983 “Rock & Roll Night Final Tour” which was called “No Damage”

Website

Ultraman Galaxy Theatre Special                                   

Japanese Title: ウルトラマン　ギンガ　劇場　スペシャル

Romaji: Urotoraman Ginga Gekjou Supesharu

Release Date: September 07^th, 2013

Running Time: N/A

Director: Abeyuichi

Writer: Akira Tanizaki (Screenplay),

Starring: Takuya Negishi, Mio Miyatake, Mizuki Ohno, Kirara, Takuya Kusakawa, Masahiko Tsugawa, Shohei Uno, Tomokazu Sugita

This is an omnibus film retelling the story of Ultraman Galaxy. Good and evil waged a war known as Dark Spark where the Ultramen and their allies fought against monsters and evil aliens from different universes. An evil being wielding a great dark power known as the Darkness Spark transformed all of the cobatants into figurines known as spark dolls. An Ultraman known as Galaxy had a similar item called the Galaxy spark but lost it and it fell to earth where a young man named Hikaru Raidou (Negishi) stumbled across it. Hikaru now uses this item to become an Ultraman and release his fellow good-guys from their imprisonment as figurines.

Website

Usotsuki Paradox                                   

Japanese Title: うそつき　パラドクス

Romaji: Usutsuki Paradokusu

Release Date: September 07^th, 2013

Running Time: 83 mins.

Director: Kota Yoshida

Writer: Kota Yoshida (Screenplay), Nanki Sato, Akira Kiduki(Manga)

Starring: Nami Motoyama, Akihiro Mayama, Rei Toda, Ruri Shinato, Miku Aono

This is based on a manga by the wife and husband team Nanki Sato and Akira Kiduki. It is directed by Kota Yoshida who has had some interesting dramas/dry comedies in Yuriko’s Aroma and Come as You Are.

Shunsuke Youkadou (Mayama)  is a salaryman in love with his co-worker, Hinako Seiyuu. Unfortunately for him Hinako is in a long-distance relationship but one day, while working overtime, the two almost start an affair until Hinako stops things. Since then, the two keep each other company to hold off their loneliness.

Website

Shining Beside Funny Moon       

Japanese Title: 冴え冴えて　なほ　滑稽な　月

Romaji: Saesaete Naho Kokkeina Tsuki

Release Date: September 07^th, 2013

Running Time: 118 mins.

Director: Kakuei Shimada

Writer: Louis Kayuki (Screenplay/Original Work)

Starring: Mei Kurokawa, Naomi Kawase, Yuki Sawada, Akio Otsuka, Maki Mizui, Kyosuke Hamao, Kotaro Furuichi, Daiamondo Yukai

Kakuei Shimada (Jap the Rock Revolver, Destroy Vicious) has an interesting looking film here. Okay, I was drawn by the poster full of beautiful ladies in skimpy clothes but there’s an interesting cast (honest): Naomi Kawase, an award-wining director who was on this year’s Cannes jury and Mei Kurokawa (The Story of Yonosuke) head up a dark tale about an SM club where one of its performers helps a detective investigating a string of suicides connected to the place. It’s the presence of Naomi Kawase and loads of J-rockers from bands like ARB that’s interesting. What could this be? Kind of like Suicide Club? Check the trailer.

Website

The films for the Raindance Film Festival (September 25^th – October 06^th ) have been announced and there are a lot of Japanese titles on offer in the Way Out East strand. There are some I have reviewed, some I have viewed and a lot that have come up in Saturday trailer posts I do every week. There are enough that I am willing to attend the festival. I will be heading down to London and watching Shindo, The Kirishima Thing, Shady and Remiges.

Here’s a trailer for the festival:

Here’s the line-up of titles:

Soul Flower Train            

Japanese Title:  ソウル　フラワー　トレイン

Romaji: Souru Furawa- Torein

Running Time: 97 mins.

Director: Hiroshi Nishio

Writer: Miyuki Uehara, Hiroshi Nishio (Screenplay), Robin Nishi (Original Manga)

Starring: Mitsuru Hirata, Saki Seishi, Kensuke Owada, Mio Otani, Kaoru Kusumi, Megumi Wada, Shoichi Asano, Marin Sayoko

Robin Nishi, the mind behind the manga/anime Mind Game has another of his works adapted. It’s a road-trip movie with a soundtrack by Shounen Knife. This trailer was featured just last weekend and I liked it a lot but the screening date is a little too early for me so I’ll have to miss it.

In this tale, a father named Amamoto leaves his small village and heads to Osaka to track down his estranged daughter Yuki. He hooks up with a friendly young woman who helps him but ends up getting lost and caught up in a surreal adventure on the island before he finds her and discovers she is keeping secrets.

The Kirishima Thing                                                   

Romaji: Kirishima, Bukatsu Yamerutteyo

Japanese Title: 桐島、　部活　やめるってよ

Running Time: 103 mins.

Director: Daihachi Yoshida

Writer: Ryo Asai (Original Novel), Kohei Kiyasu, Daihachi Yoshida (Screenplay)

Starring: Ai Hashimoto, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Suzuka Ohgo, Mayu Matsuoka, Motoki Ochiai, Masahiro Higashide, Kurui Shimizu, Mizuki Yamamoto,  

The Kirishima Thing is a teen drama featuring a collection of bright young things who prove that the Japanese acting world has a new and strong generation of talent. Its depiction of the social mores and strata in high school is well-observed and real and for its efforts it was the big winner at the recent Japanese Academy Awards scoring Best Film and Best Director prizes. I’ve seen it and reviewed it and I can confirm it is worth all of the accolades. I’m surprised that it turned up here and not at the London Film Festival but at least I get the chance to see it on the big screen.

When high school volleyball star player Kirishima quits the team shockwaves are sent through the school. This is the story of the students surrounding Kirishima from his friend Hiroki Kikuchi (Higashide), girlfriend Risa (Yamamoto), Aya (Ohgo) a brass band musician with a crush on Kirishima, badminton player Kasumi (Hashimoto), and the president of the film club Maeda (Kamiki). The students will cross social boundaries and defy groups as they attempt to redefine themselves.

Shady                                                                            

Japanese Title: かしこい狗は、吠えずに笑う

Romaji: Kashikoi Inu wa, Hoezu ni Warau

Release Date: June 22^nd, 2013

Director: Ryohei Watanabe

Writer: Ryohei Watanabe (Screenplay)

Starring: mimpi * β, Izumi Okamura, Isao Nakazawa, Gota Ishida, Ayumi Seko

This film was released in June 2013 and it has been wowing critics and distributors (Winner of the Entertainment Award at the PIA Film Festival) and has been picked up by Third Window Films for the UK. I’m doing my best to avoid details about this so I go in like a blank slate and can enjoy the surprises. Suffice it to say, I’m very excited at the prospect of watching this one.

Misa Kumada (mimpi * β), an outcast at her school who is mercilessly teased and has no friends. She hates the place but when the popular and pretty Izumi Kiyose (Okamura) befriends her the two develop bonds of friendship. What Misa doesn’t know is that the seemingly angelic Kiyose has quite a dark side.

Remiges                                                  

Japanese Title: 風切羽　かざきりば

Romaji: Kazekiribane ka Zakiriba

Running Time: 88 mins.

Director: Masato Ozawa

Writer: Masato Ozawa (Screenplay)

Starring: Mika Akzuki, Junki Tozuka, Maiko Kawakami, Osamu Shigematu, Yuki Terada, Futoshi Sato, Nobuyuk Ishida, Michiko Godai

Remiges was on the same trailer post I did for Shady (above) and it caught my attention because the trailer was compelling and it reminded me of the anime Aku no Hana, which was my craze at that moment. I even mentioned that I’d turn it into a series of Gifs. I never did turn it into a series of Gifs in the end. What I did was mention the film to Adam Torel of Third Window Films, the programmer of the Japanese strand of the Raindance Film Festival and sent him a link to the trailer. Then the director Masato Ozawa caught us talking about his film and it ended up here at the festival! I guess my trailer posts really do have an impact! I’m pleased to say that I’ll be heading to see this one to see if it lives up to expectations!

Sayako (Akizuk) was abused by her mother as a young child and has lived in a foster care facility with the emotional scars since then. She’s now a senior in high school and wants to attend a ballet school but she needs her parents to pay the tuition fees and so she turns to her father but he betrays her and pushes Sayako over the edge. She skips out on the foster care facility to search for her mother and sister but runs into another lost soul named Kenta (Tozuka) who cycles through town asking random people if they know him.

Shindo – The Beat Knocks Her World -

Japanese Title: 震動

Romaji: Shindo

Running Time: 74 mins.

Director: Asami Hirano

Writer: Asami Hirano (Screenplay),

Starring: Shumpei Kawagoishi, Kana Kita, Kyutaro, Takuya Matsunaga, Gen Ogawa, Yuji Kaneda, Maya Kondo

Shindo is Asami Hirano’s debut feature film and it is a very confident one at that. This is a simple coming-of-age movie but in its simplicity it gains power to move through its well-crafted characters and focussed direction. Nothing revolutionary but very satisfying. It played earlier this year at the Skip City International D-Cinema Festival which is where this trailer comes from.

Haruki (Kawagoishi) is an overly serious high-school student in a close relationship with Nao (Kita) a deaf high-school girl. They have both lived in the same orphanage since they were young children but Haruki is about to graduate and wants the two of them to live in together. When a schoolmate named Aki asks Haruki to play guitar for his band over the summer he finds it broadens his horizons but as Haruki becomes more devoted to music and gains fans, Nao feels jealousy emerging.

Ku_On             

Japanese Title: クオン 久遠　

Romaji: Ku_On

Running Time: 78 mins.

Director: Takayuki Hatamura

Writer: Takayuki Hatamura (Screenplay)

Starring: Hidemasa Shiozawa, Yusei Tajima, Sou Sato

Ku_on is a tight and fun little sci-fi film where the cast of characters have the ability to transfer their consciousness’s to different bodies. The only downside is that they are easy to track due to a unique mark. The focus is definitely on the action and not on character building but the plot is fun and the film is pacey so it remains fun.

Hiroyuki Sano is an ordinary office worker who discovers he can transfer his mind into another person’s body by touching them. Unfortunately, the transfer results in unconscious bodies being left around which is why the police start chasing him. Sano is now on the run and is aided by a detective named Yamamoto has similar body-hopping powers. He also explains that there is a serial killer named Ushio who is targeting them and with the aid of a tough martial artist named Sayo they aim to stop the killer.

Sake-Bomb            

Running Time: 91 mins.

Director: Koushi Nishio

Writer: Jeff Mizushima (Screenplay),

Starring: Gaku Hamada. Eugene Kim, Marlane Barnes, Josh Brodis, Samatha Quan, Hiroyuki Watanabe

I’m not too enthused with this one. For some reason I have lost interest in the lead actor Gaku Hamada. I liked him in The Foreign Duck, The Native Duck, I disliked him in See You Tomorrow, Everyone and now I’ve gone off him. More importantly to me I watched the trailer and thought the comedy and drama looked a little forced. I could be wrong about this one because it has an IMDB rating of 7.3 from 27 users, most of which are in the upper percentile. It certainly has an interesting premise around the divide between Asians and Asian-Americans and racial politics in general and Adam Torel of TWF said that the trailer may be awful but this one is very funny.

Naoto (Hamada) is a shy guy who just happens to have inherited a brewery. When his boss gives him a week off work, he heads to Los Angeles where he hooks up with his cousin Sebastian, a guy who hates Asian stereotypes and Amerucan attitudes to Asians. Naoto wants to look for his lost love and so Sebastian leads him on a road-trip. Hilarity ensues as they go on a journey both physical and metaphorical…

The Court of Zeus

Japanese Title:  ゼウス　の　法廷

Romaji: Zeus no Houtei

Running Time: 136 mins.

Director: Gen Takahashi

Writer: Gen Takahashi (Screenplay),

Starring: Hijiri Kojima, Hironobu Nomura, Shun Shioya, Shigeru Sugimoto, Jun Kawamoto

I know Gen Takahashi as the chap who directed the coming-of-age slow murder mystery Goth. He’s now seemingly carving out a career as a director exposing the problems in the Japanese criminal justice system with titles like Confessions of a Dog and this.

Megumi is going to marry to Kano, a judge with an iron fist and favours the police and prosecutors over defendants. Megumi’s decision is a shock to her friends because she is a liberal and she soon finds living with him difficult. Her former lover Yamoaka likens Kano to the omnipotent Greek god Zeus. Tellingly, he also reasons that this makes her Themis ­– Zeus’ wife who is considered to be the embodiment of justice. In a dramatic chain of events, Megumi finds herself in the dock as Kano takes on the hardest trial of his life.

A2-B-C

Running Time: 71 mins.

Director: Koushi Nishio

This is a 3/11 documentary from American documentary filmmaker Ian Thomas Ash who has lived in Japan for more than a decade. He has made a film about several families affected by the disaster. They live in Date City, 37 miles away from the Fukushima power plant, and the city was never evacuated so they know have to deal with living with radiation.

The Greatful Dead

Japanese Title:  グレイトフル デッド

Romaji: Gureitofuru Deddo

Running Time: 97 mins.

Director: Eiji Uchida

Writer: Eiji Uchida, Etsuo Hiratani (Screenplay),

Starring: Kumi Takiuchi, Takashi Sasano, Kkobbi Kim

Amidst all of the drama we get a film which is packed full of gore and black comedy which sounds pretty brutal.

Nami’s childhood was brutal: her mother ran away to Sri Lanka to help poor kids, her sister skipped town with her boyfriend and her father descended into despair and got himself a gothic mistress who played on this. Now that she’s grown up she takes pleasure in spying on people. Watching loners in society and enjoying seeing their pain.

The Black Square

Japanese Title:  黒い　四角

Romaji: Kuroi Shikaku

Running Time: 144 mins.

Director: Hiroshi Okuhara

Writer: Hiroshi Okuhara (Screenplay),

Starring: Hideo Nakaizumi, Dan Hong, Chen Xixu

This is a mysterious looking one. A meditative sci-fi drama? That’s the vibe from the trailer. The thing that’s interesting about this is that the film touches on the shared past of Japan and China.

Xhao-ping is an artist in Beijing who lives with his girlfriend named Hana and his younger sister named Lihua. When he sees a black square float across the city he follows it to a barren field where it lands. As he inspects it a naked man suffering amnesia emerges. Xhao-ping takes him home convinced he has met this man before, a feeling shared by his girlfriend and sister.

Friendship            

Japanese Title:  友達

Romaji: Tomodachi

Running Time: 75 mins.

Director: Mikihiro Endo

Writer: Mikihiro Endo, Hiroshi Okada (Screenplay),

Starring: Takeshi Yamamoto, Hana Matsumoto, Yusuke Oba

This is Mikihiro Endo’s feature-length debut and it has a concept similar to the film Noriko’s Dinner Table by Sion Sono where real life lonely and troubled people hire actors to play idealised characters from reality. It’s quiet and subtle and not operatic and intense like Sono’s film.

Shimada s a struggling actor who fails all of his auditions. His only supporters are his mother and his friend, a fellow actor. Said friend introduces him to a company named Friendship where, on custom built studio sets, he uses his acting skills to assume the role of a person requested by their customers. He finds that he brings happiness by being these people as people interact with him as a hated boss for a miserable salaryman, a spinster’s deceased husband and a terrorist for a disaffected high school girl.

Satoko Yokohama is an award-winning director and scriptwriter, considered to be one of the biggest breakout Japanese filmmaking talents to emerge in recent years. Identified early into her career as a filmmaker to watch, Satoko won many prizes for her indie films and has gone on to further develop an oeuvre of quirky and feel-good films. Often focusing on outcast protagonists and incorporating surrealism and extraordinary imagery, Satoko’s feature-length films German+Rain (2007) and Bare Essence of Life (2009), where Satoko worked with star actor Ken’ichi Matsuyama, toured internationally to many festivals, including the London Film Festival and the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme, to great critical acclaim.

Satoko Yokohama Short Films

Satoko Yokohama has three of her latest short films screened at the festival with A Girl in the Apple Farm, Jump From the Midnight and The Granny Girl

These films have pretty good cast lists and she’s quite highly regarded so here’s a great chance to be at a director’s talk on September 27th which has been organised by the Japan Foundation:

Prior to the screening of three of Satoko Yokohama’s latest short films at this year’s Raindance Film Festival, the Japan Foundation has invited her to introduce her work and career. In this illustrative talk, Satoko, who has recently turned her attention back to making short films, will explore how her experience with short and feature-length films have influenced her approach to filmmaking and why she continues to make films based on her own original scripts. Considering the marked increase of female Japanese film directors experiencing international recognition, Satoko will also be joined by Kate Gerova, Creative Director at Birds Eye View Film Festival, to discuss her position in the world of Japanese cinema and the current climate for women filmmakers in Japan today.

Date:  27 September 2013 from 6.30pm

Venue: The Japan Foundation, London

Regular readers will know that I keep ranting about four directors: Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Sion Sono, Takashi Miike. and Shinya Tsukamoto. The reason these four men are always mentioned is that they have made a lot of my all time favourite live-action films. I’ve grown up watching a lot of Japanese films from classics to the most contemporary but it’s these four who have blown my mind with their imagination and use of the medium of film. There are few other directors out there who can match them, in my opinion. Sion Sono and Shinya Tsukamoto have had a season dedicated to them but my most favourite of all, Kurosawa, has not… UNTIL NOW!!!

This is going to be a short season dedicated to the maestro, Kiyoshi Kurosawa because I have reviewed most of his films that are available in the west already. It has come about because I have recently watched three of his lesser known works and two of them are going to be released in the UK this time next week! We start with a biography! A long and boring and incoherent biography! WAIT, COME BACK! There are pictures!

Kiyoshi Kurosawa was born in Kobe in the south of Japan on the 19th of July, 1955. Kurosawa studied filmmaking at Tokyo’s Saint Paul’s University (Rikkyo University¹). After graduating in the 1980’s he started making pink films (soft-core porn) and low-budget films like The Excitement of Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girl (1985). Despite budget restrictions his unique cinematic vision was apparent and his prodigious talent was spotted by one of the film’s actors, Juzo Itami, the most commercially successful director in Japanese cinema at the time.

Juzo Itami took Kurosawa under his wing and helped produce Kurosawa’s big-budget debut Sweet Home (1989), a haunted house survival horror title which gained a video game adaptation. Kurosawa wrote and directed the film and crafted a title with his favoured techniques of using lighting and shadows and elliptical editing and smart camera movement to create horror but Itami undermined Kurosawa’s efforts by adding his own elements like the comedy and gratuitous special effects. Itami went further and took the final cut away from Kurosawa, editing it to his own satisfaction. What resulted was a bitter legal battle which saw Kurosawa take Itami to court over the release of the film but his case failed.

After the Sweet Home legal dispute, Kurosawa was effectively blackballed from the industry so he took up teaching film and directing low-budget v-cinema (direct to DVD) genre titles. It wasn’t until the success of the low-budget slasher film The Guard from Underground (1992) that he began his big screen comeback as it was a modest success. His weird style and genre twisting is apparent here in a film that takes place in a decrepit office block with a basement wreathed in shadows and a killer who is a murderous sumo wrestler with an existential nihilist mind-set. Kurosawa continued to make a series of v-cinema/TV yakuza films known as Suit Yourself or Shoot Yourself!! Starring Sho Aikawa during the 90’s before he won a scholarship to the Sundance Institute where he studied filmmaking in America in the 1990’s.

When he returned from America he hit something of a stride because from 1997 with the psychologically intense serial-killer film Cure: The Power of Suggestion, which starred the big name actor Koji Yakusho. In this film, Kurosawa’s trademark imagery and genre blending is in full effect. What initially starts out as a serial killer film takes a dark turn into psychological horror and the supernatural as detective Takabe (Yakusho) journeys through a grim looking Tokyo looking for a fiendish serial killer who plays upon people’s pent up rage. Thanks to the international success of Hideo Nakata’s film Ring, Cure rode a J-horror tide into international film festivals and was a breakout hit gaining him an audience on the international stage where events like Cannes and the Rotterdam International Film Festival would screen his other films.

One of the major reasons for his success with critics and audiences alike is the effectiveness and intelligence of his scripts and visuals. He uses genres like horror and crime to explore the human condition. Genre and mise-en-scene, indeed, everything is used rigorously to explore all of the things that beset humanity which is what makes his films as effective at being scary and compelling as they are because ultimately, no matter how outlandish, his films are about us and the world we live in.

The easiest way to describe his visual style is bleak. Whatever the genre, whatever the story, he creates haunted worlds where he reveals the horrors to be seen in normal life. Visuals may be washed out and colours are subdued and there is patient and creative deployment of lighting and shadows and camera movement to guide the viewer to certain conclusions and scary sights. The locations he uses are frequently dilapidated buildings, abandoned rubbish strewn warehouses, long dust strewn rooms that stretch into infinity, grimy hazardous work places, smoky impersonal homes and cavernous hospital waiting rooms, dark corridors with menacing shadows ready to swallow anybody foolish enough to venture in. Bleak looking urban settings where characters full of self-doubt live their daily lives and find their inner faults exposed. The visuals portray everything as a brittle shell which something will puncture to expose the horror Kurosawa wants to explore, the various causes of existential crises that can emerge in modern society for various reasons, whether it’s the barely suppressed rage of a character under extreme pressure, profound soul destroying guilt, alienation from others through technology, fear of the future due to unemployment/family break-up or utter loneliness.

All of this has so much of an influence on a film it can be considered a character in itself. It is easiest to identify his style with his horror films, especially with what is unofficially known as his apocalypse trilogy which contains Cure, Charisma (1999) and Pulse (2001). Each film is like a supernatural mystery, the first two with a police detective played by Koji Yakusho and the last with a team of vaguely connected teens lead by Kumiko Aso exploring the disconnection that people suffer through modern technology. These are films where Tokyoites are stalked by a menacing supernatural power bent on exploiting their anxieties but they end in the most magnificent of supernatural apocalypses where that fragile façade of society crumbles unleashing some new age of terror and Kurosawa is there to document it.

These titles marked him out as something of a horror auteur and are quite highly regarded but with underrated titles Loft (2005) and Retribution (2006), he seemed to signal a break with the genre. Loft is a playful yet scary ghost story about a writer going to a countryside retreat (which looks just as barren and scary as any urban setting Kurosawa films) and coming under supernatural siege from ghosts. It utilises and mocks J-horror tropes and seems like a meta-comedy at times. Retribution is like a re-tread through familiar territory with regular leading-man Yakusho playing a detective delving through suppressed memories and emotions on the hunt for a supernatural killer. It is like a distillation of all-things Kurosawa loves to do with exquisite camera work, mise-en-scene tracking deadly ghosts tweaking the twisted psychologies of the poor souls on screen. The enigmatic and explosive ending saying farewell to yurei for now.

All of that written, some of Kurosawa’s best films aren’t  straight supernatural/horror genre pictures but are dramas or a mix. Séance (2000) is a prime example of the genre mixing skills Kurosawa possesses. Ostensibly a TV movie remake of the British film Séance on a Wet Afternoon, Kurosawa transported the story to modern Japan and inserted his trademark nihilist ghosts. What starts off as a conventional story of a little girl who has been kidnapped and a psychic (played by Jun Fubuki) who actually has supernatural powers looking for her, becomes one about a relationship that has faltered and a woman who is hugely unsatisfied with life and bitter with regrets and the lack of recognition. Long-denied the chance to prove her powers are real finds an opportunity to take the limelight which proves to be her downfall. While the film has ghosts it is more compelling as a drama and as a character study.

Perhaps some of the most interesting examples of his skill are from the year 1998 with the films Eyes of the Spider, The Serpent’s Path and License to Live.

With the first two titles, Kurosawa was offered the chance to make two low-budget films in two weeks with the same cast and so he came up with these gangster revenge films which have the same inciting incident for the story (a man named Nijima – played by Sho Aikawa) seeking revenge for his murdered daughter) only going off in two totally different directions. Of the two, The Serpent’s Path is the most conventional sticking to its gritty tone but it features a plot and performances that are genuinely compelling and unpredictable which makes the film a gripping watch. Eyes of the Spider is the least conventional film with its more elliptical editing and script and general bizarreness. At points it reminded me of Takeshi Kitano’s yakuza flick Sonatine with a conventional gangster thriller torn to shreds by Kurosawa’s surreal direction and scenes of gangsters acting like big kids.

Moving further into the realm of normality is License to Live which involves a man waking up from a ten year coma he went into at the age of fourteen. In the story, he must grow up in the space of days and come to terms with the fact that his family have broken up and moved on without him. There is little sentimentality given to family reunions, or lost childhoods just lots of irony. Indeed, rarely has a subject normally given melodramatic treatment focussing on tragedy in most films been the source of understated humour and intelligent in Kurosawa’s hands it is more like a dry comedy as he writes a sympathetic, compelling, and complex central character who is both a terrified and sulky teen and a burgeoning adult who has a haphazard and late in life coming-of-age.

Perhaps his greatest effort is Tokyo Sonata (2008) winner of the Prize Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival. No ghosts or gangsters, just a brilliantly crafted moving and ultimately uplifting family drama that shows the pitfalls and horror of a disintegrating family in an uncaring society.  Kurosawa captures the emotions and actions of a family reacting to and against their newly unemployed salaryman patriarch’s identity crisis as he struggles with ideas of self-worth and his role in society. Again, there are no big action pieces or monsters, just normal things like testy family dinners and humiliating job interviews. It came two years after Retribution and focusses on normality but Kurosawa still finds horror and madness in the world. It is seen in the uncaring nature of life and the dehumanising expectations of others, our jobs and society as a whole which gives rise to a disheartening existential landscape and the subconscious agonies people suffer through in reality. The normality of the film is what makes it scary but there is hope. Amidst all of the anger and uncertainty is humour and the chance for growth in life which culminates in one of cinema’s greatest end scenes ever.

If all this stuff about ghosts, anxiety, dehumanisation and people suffering sounds overwhelmingly scary and miserabilist then the ending to his experimental film Bright Future (2003), a title concerned about Japan’s lost-decade thanks to the economic downturn of Japan’s economy, shows that Kurosawa has hope for the future as we watch a group of young teens with Che Guevara T-shirts saunter down the street acting like kids and full of potential.

Right now, Kurosawa is recovering from the well-received and intellectually stimulating crime thriller Penance and Real. Real is a big-budget sci-fi film which has been getting mixed-reviews. Let’s not go into that. More interesting is Penance, a harrowing five-episode study of how four women who live lives under the shadow of the murder of a friend they were connected to as kids. Again, he mixes genres with familiar crime and supernatural and it works well.

If you made it this far down then thanks for the effort. As you can tell from the amount I wrote, I really love Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s films and while this bio does not do justice to the man or his works, it at least acts as a quick summary of his filmography as I know it. For a more in depth take on his films you can read the reviews (I bet you want to watch a funny video on YouTube instead). If I had to rank my favourites then it would look something like this:

1. Tokyo Sonata
2. Cure: The Power of Suggestion
3. Licence to Live
4. Pulse
5. Séance
6. Eyes of the Spider
7. The Serpent’s Path
8. Bright Future
9. Penance
10. Retribution
11. Loft
12. The Guard From the Underground
13. Sweet Home

¹ Shinji Aoyama of Eureka and Tokyo Park fame is another graduate

I’m a big Kiyoshi Kurosawa fan but when Third Window Films announced they had two Japanese films made by Kurosawa in the 90’s I had no idea what they could be and I had little to guide me but posters and a brief plot synopsis. Less than a year on from that announcement and Third Window Films has released the two films in a set. I have watched them and I have to admit that these are two excellent crime films.

The films originate from a single offer. Kurosawa was offered the chance to make two low-budget V-cinema films in two weeks with the same cast and so he came up with Eyes of the Spider and Serpent’s Path. Both have many similarities not least the cast and story about a about a man seeking revenge for the murder of his daughter but the similarities end there as Kurosawa’s execution of both films differ. This review covers Serpent’s Path.

Serpent’s Path                             

Japanese Title: 蛇の道

Romaji: Hebi no Michi

Release Date:  February 21^st,  1998 (Japan)

Running Time: 85 mins.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer:  Hiroshi Takahashi

Starring: Sho Aikawa, Teruyuki Kagawa, Yurei Yanagi, Shiro Shitamoto, Hua Rong Weng

The film starts with two men travelling by car in a bland urban environment. The two couldn’t be more different. The calm one who is driving is Nijima (Aikawa), a physics tutor, while his passenger who is tense and on edge is Miyashita (Kagawa) a former yakuza. The two pull up in their car outside an anonymous house. Pretending to be a deliveryman, Nijima forces his way into the house of a middle-aged man and kidnaps him, taking him to a warehouse, where he and Miyashita chain him to a wall and proceed to mistreat the man and threaten him with violence.

As Nijima hovers in the background with an air of indifference, Miyashita looks about ready to explode as he howls and paces about. He soon drags a television in front of the increasingly angry and defiant man and plays footage of a girl in a playground.

The man watches the footage incredulously but begins to get really scared when Miyashita paws at the video image of the girl and reveals she is his daughter then tells him she was brutally murdered and he wants a confession of guilt. The man is horrified and starts blaming others. Nijima and Miyashita have no choice but to continue down the path of vengeance.

The synopsis sounds rather formulaic but this film is anything but. Kurosawa does his usual trick of taking a familiar genre, in this case crime, and alters it through his fascination with human psychology to create something unique. At stake is the way people conform to their true nature and beliefs even when pushed to extremes.

Kurosawa once again exposes the horror hiding behind the mundane and in our heads. Those endless trips through an unrelenting suburb made by Nijima and Miyashita, their sojourns to abandoned warehouse where people are tortured are like liminal places where monsters in the form of yakuza lurk and a place where we can unleash our own monsters.

We accept that while Miyashita and Nijima are poles apart as characters, they are on a righteous mission of vengeance, especially after Miyashita reads out the litany of suffering his daughter endured and we see his emotional anguish. But it’s not so simple… Miyashita first appears to be an innocent and the death of his daughter has seemingly cracked his psyche and provided him the motivation to access a deep well of violence. He is like a madman ready to go over the edge and brutalise anyone who stands in the way but as the film goes on he shows that this is his true identity. The brute yakuza. It’s apparent in the way he places Nijima in the role of a beloved aniki while he plays at being a devoted underling and becoming a yakuza again to attain his vengeance. His violent personality which bubbles away is not be something new.

Nijima’s motivations are seemingly more clouded. With his thick-rimmed glasses and average build he seems an unlikely hit-man, an unlikely accomplice to a criminal and when we learn he is a physics professor it makes a better fit since he brings a professorial and studious approach to Miyashita’s journey for revenge. We cling to him as an island of sanity surrounded by corruption. But why does he do this? When he does explain his motivation as “I always wanted to try something like this”, we see an ocean of apathy for humanity. Even when under pressure he retains his cool and calculating demeanour. This is just another equation for him to set up and modify and solve and so he takes to hurting humans with ease.

The script, which comes from writer Hiroshi Takahashi (writer of Ringu, Ringu 2 and the recently released Tadaima Jacqueline) starts off conventionally and works in all of the clichés but as the narrative progresses and these fascinating characters grow it becomes a twisting and misleading as it plays with perspectives and motivations. Our conventional reading of revenge thrillers just won’t do here and what emerges is a snaking and delightfully sly story with an ending that is so unexpected and powerfully delivered it is like a slap to the face. Sounds horrible, but it was fun.

The film is shot patiently with long takes and a detached air and Kurosawa’s preference for an elliptical editing works in providing a degree of ambiguity which makes the film’s story that much more effective at being surprising. It is Kurosawa’s taste for long takes that makes the dry humour work. The increasing amount of yakuza Nijima and Miyashita have to work through to get to a culprit is full of blackly humorous moments such as the assault on the golf course in the deadpan way it is executed. The long takes also foregrounds the acting which is what makes the characters really come to life.

Kagawa oozes madness and grief but there is an air of seediness. In scenes he can go from being meek when remembering his daughter or dealing with Nijima to cackling at drop of a hat and unleashing furious tirades. Aikawa is more opaque next to Miyashita craziness and we believe in Nijima as a figure of sanity, a man who is intelligent and supportive and we hope this physics prof survives amidst all of the yakuza but it is not so simple which is the films greatest strength.

Ultimately, what unfolds is one of Kurosawa’s better written films which defies all attempts to pigeon-hole it by being unique through its use of perspective and subverting of character archetypes and our understanding of them. I found it an enthralling and exciting thriller which kept me hooked.

4/5

How have you lot been? All’s well? Plenty of films and anime to watch like me? A good week at work? Great weather? Perfect. Yet today is going to be even better because I have a lot of time set aside for the thing I like most… gazing at gravure idols… I mean, writing reviews! By the time this is posted I will be finishing reviewing a lot of films the process of which started at 5am this morning. It’s a good thing too because after posting about the Japanese films at Raindance I launched into my Kiyoshi Kurosawa Season and then a review of Serpent’s Path. Right after this I will watch Gatchaman Crowds. This week I watched Insidious 2 and The Drudgery Train and my heart was torn to shreds by the latest episode of Watamote.

I have also discovered great soundtrack to write reviews to with some 80’s inspired music. My day is set for fun with more films and anime. Enjoy the trailers for the Japanese films released this weekend!

Unforgiven                                                

Japanese Title: 許されざる者

Romaji: Yurusarezaru Mono

Release Date: September 13^th, 2013

Running Time: 119 mins.

Director: Lee Sang-Il

Writer: Lee Sang-Il  (Screenplay),

Starring: Ken Watanabe, Jun Kunimura, Eiko Koike, Yura Yagira, Koichi Sato, Akira Emoto, Shiono Kutsuna, Kenichi Takito, Youkiyoshi Ozawa, Takahiro Mirua, Sjiori Kutsuna

This is the remake of the 1992 Clint Eastwood film of the same name. It swaps out the US and cowboys for Japan in the late 1800’s and samurai. I have reviewed one Lee Sang-Il film and that was Villain where he got a fantastic performance from lead actor Satoshi Tsumabuki. This is his first film since Villain and he gets a star-studded cast with Ken Watanabe (Letters from Iwo Jima, Inception, Tampopo), the grizzled Akira Emoto (A Woman and War, Starfish Hotel), Koichi Sato (Infection), and two of my favourites, Eiko Koike (Rebirth, Penance, Kamikaze Girls, 2LDK) and Jun Kunimura (Outrage,Vital, Audition). It played at the Venice Film Festival.

Jubei Kamata (Watanabe) was once a loyal samurai for the Edo shogunate government. Famous for being a skilled and deadly fighter he killed many and became infamous in Kyoto but disappeared during the battle of Goryoukaku. Ten years later and he is living with his child, looking after his wife’s grave in peace after vowing never to pick up his sword again but being in poverty forces him to do just that as he accepts the assignment of being a bounty hunter.

Website

Taka no Tsume GO Utsukushiki Eriēru Shōshū Purasu

Japanese Title:  鷹の爪GO 美しきエリエール消臭プラス

Romaji: Taka no Tsume GO Utsukushiki Eriēru Shōshū Purasu

Release Date: September 13^th, 2013

Running Time: 110 mins.

Director: FROGMAN

Writer: FROGMAN (Screenplay),

Starring: FROGMAN, Junji Inagawa, Akie Suzuki, Mayuko Kawakita

According to Wikipedia, Eagle Talon (Taka no Tsume) was a popular Flash anime created by Ryo Ono (FROGMAN) where the evil villains are the protagonists of the story and the superhero, Deluxe Fighter, is a narcissistic and largely incapable bully. This is the film spin-off.

Website

ATARU The First Love & The Last Kill

Japanese Title:  劇場版　ATARU The First Love & The Last Kill

Romaji: Gekijouban ATARU The First Love & The Last Kill

Release Date: September 14^th, 2013

Running Time: N/A

Director: Hisashi Kimura

Writer: Takeharu Sakurai (Screenplay),

Starring: Maki Horikita, Masahiro Nakai, Chiaki Kuriyama, Kazuki Kitamura, Yuta Tamamori, Yasuko Matsuyuki, Haruka Shimazaki, Kaoru Mitsumune

The 2012 TBS television dorama Ataru gets a big screen sequel that was filmed extensively in the US – Las Vegas and Los Angeles. I’ve not watched it and the only stars familiar to me are the wonderful Maki Horikita (One Missed Call Final, The Locker 1 & 2) and Chiaki Kuriyama (Shikoku, Exte), my idol since her appearance in Battle Royale…

Ataru (Nakai) is a young man with autism who has extraordinary abilities in terms of his memory and deductive reasoning skills. He is able to process trivial details to get clear answers. As a result he is in demand from the police. In this film he has to match wits with Madoka (Horikita), a deadly killer who has the same abilities as Ataru. When a bombing occurs and a mystery virus is unleashed, Ataru and his friends in the police work with the FBI to track down Madoka.

Website

Miss Zombie

Japanese Title:  Miss Zombie

Romaji: Miss Zombie

Release Date: September 14^th, 2013

Running Time: 85 mins.

Director: SABU

Writer: SABU (Screenplay),

Starring: Ayaka Komatsu, Makoto Togashi, Riku Ohnishi, Taro Suruga, Tateto Serizawa, Takaya Yamauchi, Toru Tezuka

When I first started looking at Japanese film reviews online back in 2001 or thereabouts, Sabu was a name that kept coming up thanks to his popular action comedies like Drive and Monday. He directed the very popular adaptation of Usagi Drop back in 2011 and has been quiet… until this grim looking film appeared. Grim, maybe, but very special. The scenes in the trailers look like something out of Lars von Trier’s awful film Breaking the Waves what with a woman exploited and hounded. It’s probably less misogynistic. Anyway, the use of black and white and the interesting camera movements and the crisp visuals make this look interesting at the very least.  Gravure idol Ayaka Komatsu plays a zombie named Sara (resists urge to Google her name) and she has a cast including Makoto Togashi (Cure), Tateto Serizawa (Isn’t Anyone Alive?) and Toru Tezuka (Noriko’s Dinner Table, The Land of Hope).

Sara (Komatsu) rocks up at a in a town in a cage wth numerous scars on her body and glazed eyes. There is also a gun and a note that reads “Do not give it meat”. The people around her are disgusted and treat her cruelly but when a young boy named Kenichi drowns her zombie skills are called into action and she brings him back to life… undead life… at the behest of Kenichi’s mother Shizuko (Togashi). This brings a spark of life to Sara and the people of the town become fascinate with her, especially the men…

Website

Code Geass: Akito the Exiled Second Volume: Wyvern Torn Apart 

Japanese Title:  コード　ギアス　亡国　の　アキト　第2章　「引き裂かれし翼竜」

Romaji: Kudou Koudogiasu Boukoku no Akita Dai 2-shou ‘Hikisaka Reshi Yokuryu’

Release Date: September 14^th, 2013

Running Time: 59 mins.

Director: Kazuki Akane

Writer:  Miya Asakawa (Screenplay), Goro Taniguchi, Ichiro Okouchi (Original Creator)

Starring: Maaya Sakamoto (Layla Malkal), Miyu Irino (Akito Hyuga), Ai Kayano (Anna Clement), Keiji Fujiwara (Klaus Warrick), Mamiko Noto (Maria Shaingu), Yoko Hikasa (Ayano Kousako)

More than a year after the release of the first part, we get the continuation of the side story of the Lelouch rebellion where the Holy Britannian Empire invade the Euro Universe with a special division of “Wyvern” Knightmare corps. Who are comprised entirely of Japanese teens commanded by Layla Malkal (Sakamoto), a former Britannian Aristocrat.

Website

Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions The Movie 

Japanese Title:  小鳥遊六花　改　劇場版　中二病でも　恋がしたい！

Romaji: Kotoriasobu Rokka Aratame Gekijouban Chuunibyou Demo Koigashita!

Release Date: September 14^th, 2013

Running Time: 97 mins.

Director: Tatsuya Ishihara

Writer: Jukki Hanada (Screenplay), Torako (Original Work)

Starring: Jun Fukuyama (Yuta Togashi), Maaya Uchida (Rikka Takanashi), Azumi Asakura (Kumin Tsuyuri), Chinatsu Akasaki (Shinka Nibutani)

Kyoto Animation have a habit of bringing high quality, gorgeous slice of life anime to Japanese television screens. Chūnibyō demo Koi ga Shitai! Is one of their popular titles and this film compiles the first television season but from Rikka’s eyes. This has long been o my to-watch list so I better hurry up!

Yūta Togashi is a boy who used to suffer from something called “Chū-2 byō”. “Eighth-Grade Syndrome”, refers to matured individuals with an absurd self-created persona. Remember the times as a child when there was a TV character you found appealing and you pretended to possess their superhuman abilities in real-life? A chuunibyou is a teenage or adult form of that, but to such an extent that the fictional persona defines their entire lifestyle. However he outgrew this phase when he left middle school and wants to start anew with high school. Unfortunately, Rikka Takanashi knows his secret past and she has the same syndrome. Cue hilarity as she does her best to embarrass him in various social situations.

Website

SAIBAKU Made ~Ini Shamisen Kanaderu be         

Japanese Title:  祭爆 SAIBAKU までぃに三味線奏でるべ

Romaji: SAIBAKU Made ~Ini Shamisen Kanaderu be

Release Date: September 14^th, 2013

Running Time: 91 mins.

Director: Mitsuru Tomizawa

Writer: N/A

Starring: Yujiro Takahashi

Yujiro Takahashi was an important figure in Japanese music. A master of the tsugaru shamisen, he was known for his performances of folk songs and teaching and became famous on the world stage. This documentary captures the history of the man all the way to his death in September 2012.

Website

To the Bottom of the Month                

Japanese Title:  月　の　下　まで

Romaji: Tsuki no Shita Made

Release Date: September 14^th, 2013

Running Time: 96 mins.

Director: Morito Okumura

Writer: N/A (Screenplay),

Starring: Takashi Naha, Takumi Matsuzawa, Tomita Kudo, Maki Takayama,

Katsuo (Naha) is a fisherman who lives in a port city with his son Yusuke (Matsuzawa). Life is tough because he is a single father and Yusuke has mental disabilities and his mother is nowhere to be found but Katsuo takes responsibility for his situation.

Website

Venetia’s Garden of the Four Seasons     

Japanese Title:  ベニシャさん　の　四季　の　庭

Romaji: Benishia-san no Shiki no Niwa

Release Date: September 14^th, 2013

Running Time: 92 mins.

Director: Shusuke Kaneko

Writer: Miyuki Takahashi (Screenplay), Sarie Hinakura (Original Work)

Starring: Venetia Stanley-Smith, Tadashi Kajiyama

Venetia Stanley-Hastings? Sounds thoroughly British. So this is a film about a member of the British aristocracy who fled Britain at the age of 19 during the 1960’s to go to Japan despite having no money (on her person not because she was poor or anything) and ended up teaching English, marrying a Japanese man and having kids and starting her own NHK show where she teaches the value of British herbs that she grows in her garden in Kyoto. Read this Japan Times article for a great summation of a thoroughly interesting lady.

Website

Canada has two awesome film festivals at this time of year. The first is the Toronto International Film Festival and the second is the Vancouver International Film Festival. The line-up for Vancouver looks pretty good although a lot of the films have already been screened at events like London. I didn’t cover the Japanese films at Vancouver last year but I did follow the coverage (Amusing! Insightful!) from great cinebloggers Goregirl and Bonjour Tristesse so check in on them every day of the festival to see what they thought. There are some little gems here in terms of the Japanese line-up so let’s take a look.

Like Father, Like Son                          

Japanese Title:　そして　父　に　なる

Romaji: Soshite Chichi ni Naru

Running Time: 119 mins.

Director: Hirokazu Koreeda

Writer: Hirokazu Koreeda (Screenplay)

Starring: Masaharu Fukuyama, Machiko Ono, Yoko Maki, Jun Fubuki, Keita Ninomiya, Lily Franky, Jun Kunimura, Kiki Kirin, Isao Natsuyagi

Hirokazu Koreeda’s Like Father Like Son won an award for Cannes and was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival will be screened at the BFI London Film Festival. Awesome. It’s worth making a trip out not just because of the awards buzz but the fact that Koreeda is a great filmmaker. A modern-day Ozu with his interest in family life. The film stars Masaharu Fukuyama (Suspect X), Machiko Ono (Eureka, The Floating Castle), Yoko Maki (Infection, The Grudge), Lily Franky (Afro Tanaka), Jun Fubuki (Séance, Rebirth) Kirin Kiki (Kiseki) and Jun Kunimura (Outrage, Vital) and Isao Natsuyagi (The Land of Hope, Warm Water Under a Red Bridge).

Successful architect Ryota (Fukuyama) and his wife Midori (Ono) have a happy family life with their six-year-old son Keita (Nonomiya) but a phone call from the hospital informing them of the fact that their child was mixed up with another at birth shatters their happiness. Their birth-son Ryusei has been raised by a poorer but more easy-going family run by Yudai (Franky) and Yukari (Maki) Saiki. Ryota and Midori must decide whether to hand over the son they have carefully raised for the last six years and take back their biological son or not.

The Great Passage                

Japanese Title: 舟を編む

Romaji: Fune wo Amu

Running Time: 133 mins.

Director: Yuya Ishii

Writer: Shion Miura (Original Novel), Kensaku Watanabe (Screenplay),

Starring: Ryuhei Matsuda, Aoi Miyazaki, Joe Odagiri, Haru Kuroki, Misako Watanabe, Kumiko Aso, Shingo Tsurumi, Chizuru Ikewaki, Hiroko Isayama, Kaouru Kobayashi, Go Kato, Kaoru Yachigusa, Ryu Morioka, Shohei Uno, Kazuki Namioka

Yuya Ishii is great at low-key character based comedies where roles are flipped as I discovered with Sawako Decides. This is his mainstream debut what with the star cast but he is still reaping warm, good-natured comedy from the small details in life and quirky characters. It stars Ryuhei Matsuda (Nightmare Detective), Aoi Miyazaki (Eureka), Joe Odagiri (Mushishi, Adrift in Tokyo), Haru Kuroki (The Wolf Children), Kumiko Aso (Pulse, License to Live), Kazuki Namioka (Thirteen Assassins), Chizuru Ikewaki (Josee, the Tiger and the Fish, The Cat Returns) and Shohei Uno (The Drudgery Train).

Mitsuya Majime (Matsuda) is has the talent to comprehend different languages and is the most important member of the editorial team of a dictionary but he struggles to tell Kaguya Hayashi (Miyazaki), a cook and the granddaughter o the owner of Majime’s boarding home, how he feels about her.

The Ravine of Goodbye             

Japanese Title: さよなら渓谷

Romaji: Sayonara Keikoku

Running Time: 118 mins.

Director: Tatsushi Omori

Writer: Shuichi Yoshida (Novel), Tatsushi Omori (Screenplay)

Starring: Yoko Maki, Shima Onishi, Nao Omori, Arata, Hirofumi Arai, Anne Suzuki, Jyo Hyuga

When this was released on a weekend months ago, I had little idea it would be travelling outside of Japan this extensively but it’s going to be at the BFI London Film Festival It is based on a novel by Shuichi Yoshida, the man who wrote Villain and The Story of Yonosuke. It is directed by Tatsushi Omori, brother of the actor Nao Omori (Mushishi) who stars in this.

In a valley dense with trees a baby is killed and it’s mother, Satomi Tachibana (Suzuki) is the primes suspect. As the police are investigating the murder they are informed that Satomi is romantically involved with her next door neighbour Shunsuke Ozaki (Onishi) by Shunsuke’s lover Kanako (Maki). Magazine reporter Watanabe (Omori) digs into the case and discovers that Kanako was the victim of a rape 15 years ago and Ozaki was involved in the case…

The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki                           

Japanese Title: おおかみ　こども　の　雨　と　雪

Romaji: Okami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki

Running Time: 117 mins.

Director: Mamoru Hosoda

Writer: Mamoru Hosoda, Satoko Okudera (Screenplay)

Starring: Aoi Miyazaki, Takao Osawa, Yukito Nishii, Haru Kuroki, Amon Kabe, Momoka Oona, Shota Sometani, Kumiko Aso, Mitsuki Tanimura,

I loved this film when I saw it at last year’s BFI Film Festival and I think my affections were communicated in the writing because a number of other bloggers have picked up on the title including Goregirl. I hope it lives up to expectations. Just for a bit of background, it is directed by Mamoru Hosoda who is frequently called the next “Hayao Miyazaki” who likes to mix realism with fantasy. Prior to this, Hosoda had two films, his debut  The Girl who Leapt Through Time which was brilliant and bittersweet and the rather dull (at least I found it dull) Summer Wars which made me cynical about all the hype surrounding him. The Wolf Children revived my interest in Hosoda’s work.

A story of love between parents and children that takes place over thirteen starts when a university student named Hana falls in love with Ōkami who is a “wolf man”. The two marry and have children named after the weather on the day they were born – Yuki (snow) the older sister and Ame (rain) the younger brother. The four live quietly in a city concealing the true existence of their relationship until an incident happens and Hana decides to move to the country…

 
Flashback Memories 3D                                                   

Japanese Title: フラッシュ　バック　メモリーズ 3D

Romaji: Furasshu Bakku Memori-zu 3D

Release Date: January 19^th 2013 (Japan)

Running Time: 72 mins.

Director: Tetsuaki Matsue

Writer: N/A

Starring: GOMA, Kosuke Tsuji, Kenta Tajika, Kyoichi Shiino

This is an interesting choice and as soon as I saw it on the festival website I couldn’t help but smile because I remembered writing about it back in January. This film is about the didgeridoo musician Goma who was hit from behind by a car which resulted in traumatic brain injuries resulting in his medium- and short-term memories and emotional responses. In this music documentary we hear his account of the car accident, his near-death experience, see the damage done to the brain through prismatic 3D recreations and his subsequent recovery and how he copes with the loss of a fully functioning memory and his new take on life. We are also allowed to listen to his music and view past performances dating back to the 1990’s and his comeback concert which was performed just after the 3/11 disaster.

The short My Socks (Dir: Ikuo Kato, 7 mins.) will be screened before this film.

Zentai                

Japanese Title:  ゼンタイ

Romaji: Zentai

Running Time: 61 mins.

Director: Ryosuke Hashiguchi

Writer: Ryosuke Hashiguchi (Screenplay),

Starring: Atsushi Shinohara, Noriko Iwasaki, Ellen, Koji Yamashita,

I would never have thought that this little number released a fortnight ago would get to a big festival like Vancouver but it did. Why didn’t I think it would? It’s about full-body-suit fetishists, normal men and women and the freedom they feel when they don those body hugging uniforms and masks. It’s a low-budget omnibus film with six episodes full of impromptu performances such as one where same-sex groups are in conversation and we have to guess which person is a zentai fetishist and one in a karaoke bar where one room has a zentai group and the other has housewives.

My First Love               

Japanese Title:  初恋

Romaji: Hatsukoi

Running Time: 82 mins.

Director: Keiko Tsuruoka

Writer: Keiko Tsuruoka (Screenplay),

Starring: Kazunari Yanagitani, Rio Tomita, Ikuya Motoki, Akemi Takeda, Rino Oikawa

This one is totally new to me so here’s the info on the festival page as written by expert film critic Tony Rayns:

Ivan Turgenev’s much-filmed novella First Love was proposed by Kurosawa Kiyoshi as a challenge for students on the Masters program at Tokyo University of the Arts. Each of them adapted the story into a script, and Tsuruoka Keiko’s was the one chosen for production; it was shot, with her classmates as crew, over 14 days in January-February 2013.

Tsuruoka stays pretty close to Turgenev’s characters and plot, but transposes the story to Tokyo in 1994. Tamiya Kyoichi is an 18-year-old who moves to Tokyo with his mother and stepfather after the death of his grandmother—to sort through her effects and dispose of her assets. Those assets include an old building with a derelict piano studio upstairs and a small bar on the ground floor, and it’s when Kyoichi first lays eyes on Murasaki Megumi, one of the two sisters who run the bar, that he’s smitten. He’s too shy to even speak to her at first, but before long he’s drinking in the bar and neglecting his cramming for the university entrance exams. Megumi seems aware of his growing infatuation and half-encourages it, but Kyoichi gradually realizes that she’s becoming close to someone else…

Tsuruoka presents the story in flashback (the older Kyoichi is pushed into reminiscing) and directs with a keen sense of telling glances, gestures and compositions.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa backs this? Intriguing! Haven’t read the novel it’s based upon but I am interested. It is proceeded by the short film Shisso Love Letter which has something to do with sperm as represented by these guys in white shirts…

Kids Return: the Reunion            

Japanese キッズ　リターン　再会　の　時

Romaji: Hatsukoi

Running Time: 82 mins.

Director: Hiroshi Shimizu

Writer: Takeshi Kitano (Screenplay),

Starring: Yuta Hiraoka, Takahiro Miura, Kana Kurashina, Akiyoshi Nakao, Bengal, Tetta Sugimoto Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, Hisahiro Ogura

Have you watched Kids Return? If you have, can you remember the end when Shinji (Ando Masanabu) and Masaru (Ken Kaneko) are riding on the bike and the music kicks in? I remember it well. The two have been bruised by life but they still face the world with smiles and as Joe Hisaishi’s wonderful theme kicked in. It was the perfect ending. A great summation for a film which made me feel like I had seen a beautiful reflection of life as lived by real people but told with a little poetry and highly stylised visuals to make it more interesting.

That film was by Takeshi Kitano.

This is the sequel. Director Hiroshi Shimizu has been an assistant director to Takeshi Kitano for such great projects like Sonatine, Kids Return, Hanabi, and Kikujiro. This doesn’t look like anything special despite the presence of Kitano as script-writer and it misses the soundtrack from Joe Hisaishi which played a major part in the original film. Maybe that’s my affection for the first talking… This is the sequel where we follow Shinji and Masaru as they try to navigate their chosen paths again.

Anatomy of a Paperclip               

Japanese Title:  山守クリップ工場の辺り

Romaji: Yamamori Kurippu Koujou no Atari

Running Time: 99 mins.

Director: Akira Ikeda

Writer: Akira Ikeda (Screenplay),

Starring: Sakae Tomomatsu, Kazutoshi Kato, Yukari Hara, Toshiyuki Takahashi, Akiko An, Hirofumi Shiba, Wani Kansai, Shu Ono.

This one looks very interesting. Tony Rayns again:

Ikeda Akira says that his starting point was his wish to create the modern equivalent of a Japanese folk tale… which must mean that any resemblances to Eraserhead are purely coincidental. 

This is a droll, deadpan story about Kogure, a sad-sack loner who finds himself living through—or perhaps imagining—a relationship with a butterfly in human form. Kogure has a McJob on the production line of a small workshop which makes paperclips by hand. His boss is a bully, and Kogure is also bullied by two thugs, one tall, one short, who keep ambushing him on the street and routinely steal his clothes. The butterfly shows up in his room one night, and when he releases it back into the wild it returns as a woman speaking an unknown language and consuming unknown food and drink. To tell more of the story would be to spoil the film’s surprises, so let’s just say that Kogure moves slowly towards a kind of liberation: it’s a neo-folk-tale with a kind-of happy ending. Even better, it has a moral: stay away from the kanage juice!

 Ikeda’s control of imagery, mood and patterns of repetition and variation is impressive; he’s a striking new voice on the Japanese indie scene.

This will be preceeded by the six minute short Mirror (Dir: Hirotoshi Iwasaki) which is described as a disturbing animation about dualities.

The shorts Ninja & Soldier (Dir: Isamu Hirabayashi, 10 mins), Maze King (Dir: Kim Hak-hyun, 7 mins.), and Futon (Dir: Yoriko Mizushiri, 6 mins) will also be screened.

I’m a big Kiyoshi Kurosawa fan but when Third Window Films announced they had two Japanese films made by Kurosawa in the 90’s I had no idea what they could be and I had little to guide me but posters and a brief plot synopsis. Less than a year on from that announcement and Third Window Films has released the two films in a set. I have watched them and I have to admit that these are two of the finest crime films I have seen.

The films originate from a single offer. Kurosawa was offered the chance to make two low-budget V-cinema films in two weeks with the same cast and so he came up with Eyes of the Spider and Serpent’s Path. Both have many similarities not least the cast and story about a about a man seeking revenge for the murder of his daughter but the similarities end there as Kurosawa’s execution of both films differ. This review covers Eyes of the Spider.

Eyes of the Spider                              

Japanese Title: 蜘蛛　の　瞳

Romaji: Kumo no Hitomi

Release Date:  February 21^st, 1998 (Japan)

Running Time: 83 mins.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer:  Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Starring: Sho Aikawa, Dankan, Ren Osugi, Sadao Abe, Susumu Terajima, Moe Sakura, Kumi Nakamura, Satoshi Kajiwara, Shun Sugata

When we first see Nijima (Aikawa) we find him in the process of taking vengeance.

He has kidnapped the person who murdered his daughter Mitsuko six years ago. After taking revenge. Nijima cannot adjust to normal life with his wife Noriko and is unsettled, life has lost its meaning and he’s haunted by his actions. Then he runs into Iwamatsu (Dankan), an old friend from high school.

Iwamatsu offers Nijima a job. Iwamatsu runs what he calls an “import and export” business from a warehouse stacked with empty boxes and toys. This is a front for a kidnapping business overseen by a larger yakuza clan, where he and his three employees kidnap and murder to order.  

It’s an intriguing job offer for Nijima who finds that he has a talent for the job and enjoys exercising it. But when he is approached by Naomi (Osugi), the gangster who oversees his small band of kidnappers, he finds out that he may be being double-crossed. 

If Serpent’s Path was all about how trauma makes us narrow our behaviour to our essential core values then Eyes of the Spider is all about how trauma breaks those values. Again, at the heart of this film is the death of a daughter the trauma of which drives a man outside the bounds of normal behaviour, erasing moderation and civility in favour of digressions into the extremes of a dark side which social constructs like family and law keep bound. If all this sounds serious and grim then you will be surprised because it is pretty amusing… or maybe I’m just twisted… Whatever the case, it is fun to watch.

At the heart of the film is the character break Nijima goes through. After he transgresses normal morality with his act of vengeance, this caring husband, this mild-mannered man, this bored company employee flirts and embraces an increasingly violent but detached gangster persona to fill in an emotional vacuum created by the trauma of his daughter’s death. Nijima lives in relatively comfortable home with his wife Noriko and his job looks safe although he clearly finds it unfulfilling.

Their lives have been robbed of meaning with the death of their daughter. The trauma of the act and the emptiness it brings means that although they continue to function, they do so apathetically and the two are hiding wounds that literally haunt them in the film but as dialogue exchanges and behaviour reveals, they are supportive of each other. It’s not enough for Nijima who seeks vengeance and gets it but the act simultaneously awakens a darker side that grows to define him and alerts the criminal underworld to his presence.

In steps Iwamatsu.

I was looking for a guy like you. Someone I know. Wanna work for me?

This is where things become comedic. The set-up is conventional but Kurosawa has no time for genre conventions and pretty much throws them down his stairs of surrealism and out the door marked dry-humour and films the results. His long-takes and elliptical editing are utilised to create the sense of absurdity in the film which is full of scenes tweaking genre clichés that are usually done seriously and conventionally. It comes off strange and wonderful, preventing this from being a conventional thriller title and making it a lovely little gem of a crime film.

Iwamatsu’s kidnapping business is not the most professional outfit. Iwamatsu is a bit of an amateur wrestler, taking out his anger issues on cardboard boxes. He is working with two young guys and a beautiful girl full of dumb stories who practice roller-blading. The youngsters appear to be more like bored youths who treat kidnapping, shooting people, playing ball games and fishing with the same moral equivalence.

Then there’s the supposedly serious yakuza side such as the taking of an oath of brotherhood and paying respects to clans and betrayals and violence. None of this carries any dramatic weight because Kurosawa subverts everything with a touch of humour like the amateurishness of the acts or the weird behaviour of people. There’s also the staccato rhythm of the scenes as they come one after the other with little to join them other than the fact we know this the route conventional thrillers follow.

The induction into the yakuza family led by Shun Sugata who is an amateur paleontologist who leads Nijima on a merry chase:

The moral dilemma offered by a friend and the sexy gangster girl is stripped of the usual eroticism:

The conversation about betrayal with Ren Osugi who is not leaning out of the window of the car he is in as you would see in a lot of movies but standing out of a sunroof and following Nijima who changes directions (I found the clip on youtube and I wish I kept it), all of it is like a parody of the genre especially because the sequences and relationships don’t play out how we would expect them to.

Sho Aikawa, Ren Osugi and Shun Sugata regularly crop up in and are more famous for their roles in gangster films by Takashi Miike and Takeshi Kitano but Kurosawa likes to get them to play against type. The Japanese comedian Dankan (Getting Any? Boiling Point), with his straight faced delivery of nonsense is another clue to how seriously Kurosawa is taking the clichés. Then the fossil hunting sequence which is almost as fun as the antics seen in Kitano’s Sonatine. Yakuza acting goofily in the sun as relaxing music plays.

Kurosawa pulled a similar trick with another genre he likes, horror. In that case it was Loft which starred Miki Nakatani of Ring 2 fame. It veered from his classic hair-raising hauntings to parodies of melodrama and overbearing music seen in other J-horror. The only real through line to follow with Eyes of the Spider and the thing that makes it so fascinating is the trauma that afflicts Nijima and Noriko. It is tragically clear they are hurting more than they let on and these sections of the films are like being doused with cold water. While Noriko does not have access to the traditionally male ability to lash out at the world over injustice, Nijima does and he goes down a path of violence familiar to other films but Kurosawa makes it weird and winding.

As one character says, “emptiness isn’t misery. It’s the beginning of something new.” Emptiness is an idea Kurosawa loves to explore as his yurei in Pulse and the relationship as seen at the heart of the film Séance are defined by them. It is tragic in that film but both funny and tragic here. Tragic because happiness and normality are sacrificed and sort of funny chaos ensues. By the time the end comes, existential values are ultimately changed as Nijima’s normality is irrevocably gone and his office-drone existence is shattered. Perhaps it was necessary for his sanity.

What I do know is that I had a lot of fun watching the film and you don’t need to know references to 90’s yakuza films to get a lot out of it because it’s entertaining anyway. Strangely, I found it relaxing and easy to watch.

4.5/5

The Guard From Underground  

Japanese Title: 地獄の警備員

Romaji: Jigoku no Keibin

Release Date: 1992

Running Time: 97 mins.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Kunihiko Tomioka (Screenplay),

Starring: Makiko Kuno, Yutaka Matsushige, Hatsunori Hasegawa, Ren Osugi, Taro Suwa

Akebono Corporation is a major business and Akiko Narushima (Kuno) is on her way to a new job. She used to be a curator at a gallery and is now the new adviser for the purchases of paintings for the corporation. Akebono are also hiring a new security guard in the rather tall and solidly built shape of former sumo wrestler Fujimaru (Matsushige), a man who is wanted by the police investigating the case of the murder of his lover and her lover, another sumo wrestler…  He was released due to being insane but the police are looking to prosecute again. Akiko starts her first day brightly and meets her new colleagues, the flighty Hanae Takeda, the rather useless Ken Nomura, and anonymous bald dude Minoru Yoshioka (Suwa). Her workmates are great… apart from her lecherous manager Kurume (Osugi), a carefree head of human resources named Hyodo (Hasegawa) and the mighty Fujimaru who takes a liking to her.

I’m sure that reading the plot synopsis you noted the absurdity of Fujimaru’s employment. A mentally insane criminal as security guard? Who the hell conducted the interview? Or maybe Kurosawa just wants to set up an almighty clash between Akiko and Fujimaru! Anyway The Guard from Underground cares little for irrelevant things like logic or characterisation, forget that. This is a slasher film so we’re going for terror!

Kurosawa is good at creating scary worlds. His cities are desolate, haunted places (Pulse) filled with ghosts and people who carry rage (Cure) and regret (Séance). A trip to the river (Retribution) reveals haunted memories and more ghosts and even when he goes on holiday outside of the city he takes us to haunted swamps and introduces even more yurei. With this film we see a haunted workplace.

Despite the low-budget, Kurosawa is able to work his usual magic in making a scary set. The office building is like something from Silent Hill. There is low-lighting used and the overall colour scheme is a sickly green hue plunging into the darkest shade of black. Everything looks damp and dingy. Rotten. Corridors are lined with horrendous looking metal doors, grimy tiles line pokey little kitchens which have opaque plastic sheeting as a door and shadows are everywhere for the killer to lurk in and attack victims! There’s even a basement where a foxy female electrician works but that has wires and trash strewn everywhere so it’s still scary and I wouldn’t visit despite her foxiness…

It is atmospheric stuff but the overuse of shadows occasionally makes it hard to see what sort of horrific things happen to the dull characters.

Miss, never offend sumo wrestlers or you’ll live to regret it

Dull characters? Dull as in stupid. This is a slasher film so intelligence is not a major factor in building these characters which partly explains why Fujimaru was hired and the cast get picked off so easily. They are clichés found in any typical office. An OL (office lady), a well-meaning but useless guy and an over-bearing manager who spends his time fantasising about the sexy new hire and an impetuous bold human HF boss who cares not a jot for conventional office-politics or his office underlings (even when they are being bumped off) which, again, partly explains why Fujimaru was hired. They do not hold a lot in terms of characterisation  but they are fun to watch. Osugi as a sexual predator desperately perving over Akiko has many humorous moments but the film’s focus is on Akiko and Fujimaru as they take centre stage.

Final girl Akiko, is a bright, intelligent female and the only one sensible enough to see the threat posed by an implacable nihilistic sumo psycho. Akiko is by far the most sensible and good-natured heroine in a horror film ever. While she does get cornered in some silly situations, she is brave and she outlasts her colleagues, those lecherous men in the workplace.

Now Fujimaru is a crazy serial-killer sumo security guard murdering office workers. Sounds fun but he is not the most inventive of killers. His defining attribute is that he is physically huge (tall, he is shot from low angles etc.). He may be a sumo wrestler but he does not use sumo moves, which is a bit of a disappointment because the best parts of a slasher film are the kills and this could have been a funny and unique element. So this almost lacks teeth but Yutaka Matsushige looks intimidating, a tower of merciless muscle who stalks the corridors of Akebono. As Fujimaru, he favours using blunt objects or his hands to kill people with nasty bone smashing blows. His actions are pretty violent by Kurosawa’s horror film standards. A lot of it is left to sound effects and performances, painful and horrified reaction shots, because most of the kills are obscured by the shadow drenched sets but the blood still flows which is something I have not seen from other films by Kurosawa and when Fujimaru goes on the rampage, it becomes fun and we dread and delight in hearing the sound of Fujimaru’s walk.

So while Fujimaru will not be joining the pantheon of horror bad-guys due to the lack of sumo action, he at least provides a decent villain and even gets a bit of existential philosophising at the end. We know the killer, we know the heroine, all that matters is seeing her negotiate the shadowy path to survival, dodging the corpses left littered by Fujimaru along the way.

Overall, while there are plenty of enjoyable bits the whole thing is let down by a killer who doesn’t quite reach the heights of absurd fun suggested by psycho sumo security guard. The atmosphere is great but the kills, when they can be seen, are unimaginative. This is more of a film for Kurosawa fans who want to see him pay tribute to a genre he likes and his nascent horror abilities.

3/5

For anybody living in London and into Japanese films here’s something you may be interested in. When I was at the BFI London Film Festival I was subject to trailers for their Gothic season which has already started and one of the films screening for the Gothic season is Ringu in December at the BFI Southbank Centre. I forgot about it (I picked up a brochure) until a friend sent me the details. Seeing this on the big screen would be spine-chilling and perfect for December where the dark nights draw in quickly, cold weather pushes against the windows and scary movies get played. Even if you have seen it more than twice the shock moments should still retain their effectiveness. Plus the talk would be fascinating because the film is a very intelligent horror film in the way it mixes traditional yurei imagery with modern (for the time) technology.

I love this film and I love the novel it is based on I studied gothic fiction at university so I wish I could see it! Sometimes I hate not living in London so much I want to punch someone.

From http://sukaretto.tumblr.com/

All of those awesome Asian films screened at cultural centres and embassies and film festivals. If only I worked in a gallery in London and I could finish work and head on over to a cinema… Sorry! Rambling… Back to the events:

The talk takes place on December 03^rd at 6:20 PM. The film then screens on December 07^th at 8:30 PM.

Thanks go out to Tired Paul for alerting me! Here’s the info on the talk followed by info for the film:

The latest in our series exploring film through a philosophical lens stages a theoretical intervention into our Gothic season, exploring the idea of media technologies as potentially horrific in their very nature, haunted by (sometimes monstrous) ghosts of the living. Through analysis of the 1998 Japanese horror film Ring, John Mullarkey (author of Philosophy and the Moving Image: Refractions of Reality) considers cinema’s capacity to establish macabre ties between the living and the inert, in a manner prompting both wonder and horror. He finds that in Ring, it is the ghostly image on a videotape that is itself monstrous, horrifically animated by media technology, with deadly effects on its spectators. After the screening and his talk, Mullarkey will be joined for a discussion by film scholar Lucy Bolton.

Tickets £11, concs £8.50 (Members pay £1.50 less)

Ring                                  

Japanese: リング

Romaji: Ringu

Running Time: 95 mins.

Release Date: January 31^st, 1998

Director: Hideo Nakata

Writer: Hiroshi Takahashi (Screenplay), Koji Suzuki (Original Novel)

Starring: Nanako Matsushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Miki Nakatani, Yuko Takeuchi, Hitomi Sato, Yutaka Matsushige, Yurei Yanagi, Yoko Oshima, Kiriko Shimizu

Reiko Asakawa (Matsushima) is a TV reporter and single-mother to Yoichi (Otaka). When she is drawn into an investigation into her teenage niece’s mysterious death she finds herself involved in an investigation centring on rumours of a video tape which school kids are all talking about. The tape has grainy images of a woman with long hair and a volcanic explosion and anyone who watches it gets cursed and dies a week later. Reiko tracks down the tape and watches it… 

Ha, the second week of the Republic of Thieves Read-Along and the questions come from Over the Effing Rainbow! Week one got off to a great start with lots of interesting responses and the book is still exciting to read in week two so there will be more interesting responses, I’m sure. Check them all out at Little Red Reviewer’s blog.

Blood And Breath And Water: Patience tells Locke that the ritual to save him is serious business. She wasn’t kidding… What did you make of this scene, and do you think any of it might (perhaps literally) come back to haunt Locke?

That scene was <Epic Voice>EPIC</Epic voice>. It was physically and spiritually soul-destroying for all involved from the Bondsmagi conducting the spell to Jean observing and Locke getting the poison sucked out of him. That and there’s the possibility of an afterlife and the Gods being real. That’s scary. Kudos goes to Lynch for choreographing the whole thing.

Orphan’s Moon: Back to the childhood of the Gentlemen Bastards, and here we get another ritual, this one in service to the Nameless Thirteenth. It looks as though it might be Locke vs. Sabetha, round two – but this time Locke seems to be a little slow on that uptake… Who do you think deserves to be given the final oath? Locke or Sabetha?

Locke seems to be a natural-born thief and judging from his mysterious path, moments in the last two books and certain comments made by Bondsmagi, he’s probably got divine backing from the Nameless Thirteenth and the other Gods. It would explain why he’s so skilled and he’s able to get out of any situation. Sabetha might not make as many mistakes, heck, she might even be a better person on paper, but when fate has your back you’re unbeatable and Locke is just that, no matter how many times he messes up.

Across The Amathel: This chapter takes a breather for quite a bit of Eldren history, while Locke starts recovering. What do you think of the history lesson, and Patience’s ominous speculation regarding the Eldren? Is this something you’d like to know more about?

YES, YES, BLOODY, BLOODY YES. Every read-along post in every read-along has a comment from me about how I want to see the Eldren, know more about them, how I think their relics have affected the world and how I think the Bondsmagi got their powers from them. Put it down to reading too much H.P. Lovecraft by the Eldren are definitely reminding me of the The Great Old Ones, Shoggoths and whatnot.

The history lesson was good, the ominous warning about them being chased off by something nasty was oh so tantalising and I. Want. More.

Striking Sparks: The gang’s off to Espara, after a bad summer and a pretty thorough dressing-down from Chains, and we finally get to the source of the book’s title – they’re bound for the stage! What are your thoughts on this latest ‘challenge’ and the reasons for it?

Those difficult teenage years. The hormones are running wild and the opposite (or same) sex hold new terrors and possibilities. Lots of teenagers also become rude, lazy, self-centred bastards who think they are right, the world is wrong and everybody sucks and should die and it’s amusing to see that the Gentlemen Bastards are no different.

It was amusing to see the Sanza twins became sex mad, Jean and Locke became tight and swagger about as teenage boys are wont to do. The big change is that Sabetha’s horizons have opened up much more than the boys because she’s a girl and, well, girls have to fight a lot harder to be considered equals. She has taken her studies seriously and while all of the boys are slacking off. Actually, the whole group has become very complacent, the skills taught by Chains have made them and they are squandering those skills. Left alone, the Gentlemen Bastards will become lazy and fail in the mission that Chains has set them: to be the ultimate thieves.

The challenge is a great way to test the GB’s. It’s way outside of their comfort zone – outside of Camorr, a regular job… compared to thievery at least, and all the while it is a form of training because they use acting for their cons. Chains is a genius.

In real life teenagers have to go to school and that’s weird enough:

The Five-Year Game: Starting Position: The election gets underway with a party (as you do) and before it’s even over, the Deep Roots party has problems – and not just thanks to Sabetha. What do you make of Nikoros and his unfortunate habit?

As much as all that flashback stuff was good, this is entertaining and what I want to see more of. Sabetha and Locke matching wits in a foreign city where they have unlimited resources. Nikoros being a dust-head was very funny. I’m not sure how much of a role it will play in the future but Sabetha will probably exploit t. I honestly want the guy to turn into Tony Montana. That would be too funny.

Bastards Abroad: The gang arrives in Espara, and already they’ve got problems (nicely mirroring the Five Year Game!)… This aside, we’ve also seen some more of what seems to be eating at Sabetha. Do you sympathise with her, or is Locke right to be frustrated with her?

This was a great passage because it built up Sabetha’s character. I sympathise with her to a certain extent. She is the lone female in a gang of boys and, as mentioned above, she has to fight extra hard to be taken seriously. She does fight hard and yet the leadership and loyalty all seems to be gifted to Locke who must seem pretty witless to her. So yeah, I sympathise. It’s not easy being an outsider or looked down upon because you were made a certain way…

That written, you can over-think your position in a group, your identity and that’s what she’s doing and the result is that she has become paranoid and defensive and she cannot see how deeply Locke feels about her. No wonder Locke is frustrated. It’s all part and parcel of the teen years.

Sabetha does make a good point about Locke being in love with an idea and not a real person, a mistake we all make. Sabetha will have to feel her own way to some sort of personality and Locke will just have to wait and adjust to it, understand that Sabetha has her own personality and is an individual.

Hopefully whenever Locke meets Sabetha he stops acting inept like this guy:

From http://kaiwaredaisuki.tumblr.com/post/61852961504

I doubt it.

Here are the others:

Over the Effing Rainbow

The Little Red Reviewer

Dab of Darkness

Lynn’s Book Blog

Tethyan Books

Violin in a Void

Just Book Reading

Joma’s Fantasy Books

Theft and Sorcery

Samurai Flamenco              

Director: Takahiro Omori, Original Character Designer: Chinatsu Kurahara, Series Composition: Hideyuki Kurata, Character Designer: Yoshimitsu Yamashita, Art Director: Hiroshi Kato

Voice Actors: Ryota Ohsaka (Masayoshi Hazama), Iori Nomizu (Hidenori Goto), Chie Nakamura (Sumi Ishihara), Chiwa Saito (Mari Maya), Juurouta Kosugi (Joji Kaname), Satoshi Mikami (Akira Konno), Emi Sarah Bridcut (Moe Morita), Ryohei Kimura (Mizuki Misawa)

Studio: Manglobe

One of my long anime posts (because I love the show!) so get a cup of coffee and read on if you are brave.

Goto is a cop in Japan. Japan is a safe country so his days are spent standing outside the police-box giving directions to people who are lost. While he’s diligent about doing his job he spends more time texting his girlfriend than enforcing minor laws.

One night, when off-duty, Goto heads out to a nearby convenience store to get dinner and is shocked to discover a naked man lurking in an alley.

Little does he know that the naked guy is not a pervert but the handsome model Masayoshi Hazama and the reason he is naked is because his superhero costume was torn after he tried stopping an evil villain… in the form of a drunk salaryman jaywalking… then Masayoshi’s costume is set on fire thanks to a stray cigarette dropped by Goto from the shock of seeing a naked man.

With no clothes Masayoshi is in a predicament but Goto, convinced the poor guy with delusions of being a hero needs protecting, offers him a spare set and walks him home where he finds out more about Masayoshi.

Masayoshi is trying to be a superhero. Ever since he was a schoolboy he grew up on super sentai shows and has wanted to be a superhero, a fantasy that persisted even after his teachers told him it was no real career option. Masayoshi is no idiot. He knows that his favourite superhero Harakiri Sunshine is made-up but he figures there’s a work-around that will allow him to be a real hero.  

Fresh out of high school he was scooped up by an entertainment production company called Ceasar Pro to become a model because he was uncommonly good-looking and through his modelling connections he got a fashion designer to create a superhero uniform for his alter ego Samurai Flamenco. Now he spends his days modelling and his nights patrolling the suburbs stopping small crimes like housewives putting the bins out too early as practice for tackling more serious crimes later.  

Goto is not amused especially because his police box is getting calls from housewives who are worried about a pervert in a red uniform ordering them about. Goto insists on trying to dissuade Masayoshi but to no avail. Masayoshi believes in his cause and his idealism, borne on a love of superhero shows, will not fade.

So, to protect the brave, innocent and extremely good-looking Masayoshi, cynical Goto decides to keep an eye on him little realising how far Masayoshi’s escapades will escalate.

When I wrote the Autumn Preview for Anime UK News I had little indication about what the show would be because of the lack of info released at the time. All I knew was that it was a riff on the super sentai formula and the show’s taglines read “To those ‘adults’ who don’t want to become adults…” and “Hero will never give up, never hide, never be defeated, never accept evil.” Consider this my favourite show of the season. This is a Noitamina production by the Studio Manglobe and as such it aims to be an original title that goes for quality and boy does it hit it!

Five episodes in and, if you will allow me to make a crass comparison, this strikes me as a good-natured version of Kick-Ass only with likeable characters and genuinely amusing humour based less on teen-boy favourites of gratuitous violence, swearing and sex and more on characters and social observations. The requisite “normal guy being a superhero” gags are here but there’s also the sense that the writer and director are addressing bigger real-world issues through the loveable characters in absurd situations. It feels more adult and real than a lot of anime I watch, clearly aiming for the seinen/josei demographic as signalled by the tagline.

At its heart is the story of a growing web of relationships between twenty-something’s and oldsters, some who lead normal lives while others work in the entertainment industry, most of whom grew up on superheroes and/or cultivated big expectations and aspirations while the rest of the nation that has become apathetic and less than idealistic. Speaking as someone from the same generation and in similar circumstances it is easy to identify with the characters and care about them.

Masayoshi is easy to root for.

He is highly idealistic and enthusiastic as a hero but he couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag. It makes clear that he is really inept at anything that does not include being good-looking but he genuinely cares about justice and making life better for ordinary people, standing up for respect and good behaviour. He tackles crime that Goto and the government would typically ignore or don’t have time for because it is too low-level – gangs of rowdy kids intimidating people, drunks in public and people stealing umbrellas.

These things sound banal compared to bank robberies, yes, and while it is amusing seeing Masayoshi’s un-tempered idealism and burgeoning vigilante actions tackle these minor things in extreme ways we still root for him because these issues do matter, they do affect everyone’s quality of life. Furthermore seeing his background allows us to understand that far from being a weirdo he’s an innocent and very naïve which is kind of charming.

From http://secretotaku.tumblr.com/

He comes across as an earnest kid and this sense is added to by the unalloyed friendship he seeks from and offers to Goto after the latter discovers his secret.  Masayoshi invites Goto into his apartment, paid for by the talent agency he is signed up to, and shows his action-figure collection. It is clear that Masayoshi is treated like a child by his management company and he is lonely. I loved that half of the first episode was Masayoshi and Goto eating curry and having an adult conversation so we got to know them.

The characters grow, we get insights into why they act the way they do and it is open for both character-building and satire of things like old super sentai shows.

The opposite side of the relationship, the counter-balance to youthful idealism is Goto. While not much older, Goto is the more realistic and mature of the two. He has a wider network of friends and responsibilities which he carries out. Perhaps analogous with the audience and reflecting their reactions, he is the sceptical one, the first to burst Masayoshi’s fantasies, pull him back from crazy decisions and offer serious advice.

He is also the one who rescues Masayoshi when the kid gets into serious situations. Through dialogue and actions it is clear that Goto finds Masayoshi eccentric but not unreasonable. He plays a sort of older brother figure trying to keep Masayoshi out of trouble but behind the heavy sighs of frustration over his job being complicated by a masked inept pretty-boy vigilante you can sense a sort of grudging admiration.

It looks like Masayoshi will reawaken Goto’s desire to tackle crime. There seems to be the indication that behind the cynicism, Goto harbours a degree of sympathy for Masayoshi and could end up wearing a costume himself but that’s for further down the line.

The world is made believable in the sense it takes place in quiet suburbs and empty parks, convenience stores lit up with cold fluorescent lighting, seedy neon-lit red-light districts. The mise-en-scene and action both correspond to a real-world aesthetic so far. No shiny, sparkly scenes with outrageously camp costumes or blindingly gorgeous lighting and no giant robots. Not outside the film studios that is. The strange and distorting mirror of the hype-driven media, the raucous action and visuals of silly variety shows and movies is perfectly captured. Indeed the media sections are entertaining to watch and speaking as someone who watches a lot of Japanese television shows and films I found the details were really entertaining as the life of an idol is skewered in every episode.

Witness episode three’s variety show discussion panel crammed full of pointless celebrities like Masayoshi and with more on-screen text than a news channel, much like real life:

The on-set rehearsals

Even the scripts get shown

Outside of the studio Masayoshi gets recognised by fans who watch the shows

Samurai Flamenco has a well-thought out entertainment eco-system and takes the time to display it. Throughout it all Masayoshi remains charming but there is an element of danger because his midnight antics could potentially blow his modelling career or make it sky-rocket. Samurai Flamenco quickly ties in the social media phenomena with videos uploaded to NicoNico and internet forums abuzz with his activities. Many moments of justice delivered – a stolen umbrella recovered – is recorded by everyone on their smart-phones.

This brings me to another character I like, Sumi Ishihara, Masayoshi’s scarily focussed manager at Ceasar Pro.

First off, she’s an adult (my age, even!). She is a tenacious and ambitious woman who works hard, constantly grooming and pushing Masayoshi to sign up for dramas and shows, very much aware that he is her next pay cheque as much as he is a talent and a person. She seems scarily aggressive and controlling to some characters but she is just doing her job and looking out for her and Masayoshi’s best interests.

Her initial reactions to the idea that Masayoshi may be Samurai Flamenco is horror but one gets the sense that she could turn that element into a major marketing boon.

She is beautiful but not a doll. Intelligent and sharp, not a dimwit. One character’s attempts to flirt with her hilariously fall on stony ground as she flatly turns him down. It’s a relief to find a woman who isn’t chasing after men and is career focussed. It is also as much a sign that the show is more adult oriented and aiming for a broader demographic than teen boys and it is funny to see the gender reversal in the idol/manager equation.

Outside of the more obvious humour to be had from poking fun at idol culture and having bad guys get the stuffing beaten out of them in realistically exaggerated ways there are lots of more subtle things going on. The innocent bystanders caught up in Masayoshi’s crime fighting and the way they react to the action, the way Goto panics when Masayoshi drags him into embarrassing situations. These comic moments are littered throughout the episodes and chime with how the viewer would react in real life. They have to be caught and tracked but they are there and I think it is a sign of the trust in the audience that the writer and director have in the audience to catch and interpret them.

As of episode five things take unexpected and darker turns and fun is still a major factor. Even if it goes off into the fantastical there will always be the characters to watch and I can see myself writing another lengthy post about this a month down the line and maybe even picking it up when it gets released in the UK by Anime Limited.

If Samurai Flamenco continues being as amusing and sharp with its satire and the characters remain likeable this has a pretty good chance of being one of my shows of the year.

This week was all about trying to get my anime first impressions underway… even though I have a dozen or more film reviews to do. I’ve pretty much started hacking away at the numbers and I’ll spend the rest of the year posting them so no more seasons like a Hideo Nakata one that I had promised. My first First Impression was for Samurai Flamenco. It was the last show I checked from my Autumn Anime 2013 List and it became my favourite. I posted news of a Ringu screening and talk and I followed that up with week two of the Republic of Thieves Read-along. In terms of Japanese stuff watched, I’m on top of all my anime and I’ve started the drama Galileo which is amusing.

This week’s movie trailer post is split into two because something like 20+ Japanese films were released. I needed the macho hetero fabulous music of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure to power me through writing this stuff. There’s just too many for one post so the next part is tomorrow. I hope I don’t bore you.

Judge                                 

Japanese: ジャッジ

Romaji: Jajji

Running Time: 76 mins.

Release Date: November 08^th, 2013

Director: Yo Kohatsu

Writer: Yo Kohatsu (Screenplay), Yoshiki Tonogai (Original Manga)

Starring: Koji Seto, Kasumi Arimura, Jiro Sato, Yuko Nishimaru, Sotaro Tanaka, Fukino Kawate, Kazuyoshi Taira

This week’s death game movie is Judge based on Yoshiki Tonogai’s manga and starring Koji Seto (Sadako 3D, Ju-On Girl in Black), Kasumi Arimura (Little Maestro), Sotaro Tanaka (The Land of Hope).

The seven deadly sins are lust, pride, gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, and wrath. Seven people who committed them are locked in a room by someone and must play a death game while wearing animal masks.

 Website

The Kiyosu Conference    

Japanese: 清須　会議

Romaji: Kiyosu Kaigi

Running Time: 138 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Koki Mitani

Writer: Koki Mitani (Screenplay)

Starring: Koji Yakusho, Miki Nakatani, Koichi Sato, Eisuke Sasai, Kyoka Suzuki, Fumiyo Kohinata, Ayame Gouriki, Tadanobu Asano, Yuki Amami, Denden, Kenichi Matsuyama, Shota Sometani, Kankura Nakamura, Yusuke Iseya, Satoshi Tsumabuki

According to the Japan Times film review Koki Mitani’s films are supposed to be very funny (Hello Mr McDonald and Magic Hour do look funny) but underappreciated in the west, and his latest title based on his novel is supposed to be good but may fail to catch foreign interest due to its extensive reliance on historical figures. It certainly is star-packed (Koji Yakusho!, Miki Nakatani!, Tadanobu Asano!, Denden!) so that shouldn’t be a barrier if the characters are fun.

Oda Nobunaga is dead! Betrayed by the troops of Akechi Mitsuhide, the head of the Oda clan commits seppuku! Now another battle rages at the Kiyosu Conference where various factions meet to discuss which of Nobunaga’s sons should become the new leader! The fiery Shibata Katsuie (Yakusho) is in favour of Oda’s third son Nobutaka while wily Hashiba Hideyoshi (Oizumi) backs Oda’s second son (Tsumabuki). Personalities as family, generals and various clan functionaries negotiate and the audience are sure to laugh!

 Website

Bad Boys J The Movie                                                

Japanese: 劇場版 BAD BOYS J 最後に守るもの

Romaji: Gekijouban Baddo Boizu J Saigo ni Mamorumono

Running Time: 97 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Rikiya Imaizumi

Writer: Rikiya Imaizumi

Starring: Sexy Zone, Kis-My-Ft2, ABC-Z, Nogizaka 46, AKB48

A movie adaptation of a TV show where bishounen battle, stare wistfully, and have emotional confessions with and at each other and have emotional confessions. It’s a hugely popular genre where idols from groups like Sexy Zone, Kis-My-Ft2, and ABC-Z play members of three gangs battling each other in Hiroshima while some of the girls from Nogizaka 46 and AKB48 (they invaded London recently) bring much needed oestrogen.

Website

Fu-Zoku Changed My Life                                           

Japanese: 風俗　行ったら　人生　変わった WWW

Romaji: Fuuzoku Ittara Jinsei Kawatta WWW

Running Time: 99 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Ken Iizuka

Writer: Ken Iizuka (Screenplay), @Ryotari (Original Novel)

Starring: Shinnosuke Mitsushima, Nozomi Sasaki, Tori Matsuzaka, Honoka, Mitsuki Tanimura, Satoshi Kaneda, Jiro Sato

A film based on reality where a 2-channel member published his experiences at a brothel.

Ryotaro (Mitsushima) is twenty-nine and a virgin. He doesn’t want to be. A virgin that is, so he heads to a brothel for the first time in his life but instead of having heavenly delights he hyperventilates. A prostitute named Kay (Sasaki) takes pity on the poor guy and looks after him. Ryotaro falls for her hard and discovers she hates working their  so with the help of some internet pals he tries to rescue Kay from the place.

 Website

Ken and Mary: The Asian Truck Express             

Japanese: ケン　と　メリー　雨上がり　の　夜空に

Romaji: Ken to Meri Ameagari no Yozorani

Running Time: 87 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Kenta Fukasaku

Writer: Ichiro Kusuno

Starring: Naoto Takenaka, Kei Kitano, HuBing

Kenta Fukasaku (X-Cross) directs a film involving people from three Asian countries – Japan, China and Malaysia.

Ken Katakura (Takenaka) is a salaryman on his way to Kuala Lumpur to stop his daughter Midori’s (Kitano) wedding! Unfortunately his plane makes an emergency landing in a jungle far from the city and he now relies on a Chinese truck driver named Mary (HuBing) to get him to his destination!

 Website

I am Ichihashi – Journal of a Murderer     

Japanese: I am Ichihashi -逮捕されるまで

Romaji: Taiho sareru made

Running Time: 83 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Dean Fujioka

Writer: Tatsuya Ichihashi (Original Book)

Starring: Dean Fujioka, Jyo Hyuga

I remember the murder case this is based upon. I had just started university and was browsing Japan Probe and it was a major headline about a Japanese man who murdered a British woman who was his English teacher and evaded the Japanese police who, quite frankly, seemed rather useless in catching him. The whole sorry tale can be read here. The movie is based on the murderer’s book.

2007, Chiba, Japan, Tatsuya Ichihashi (Fujioka) has murdered the English teacher Lindsay Ann Hawker and is now on the run from the police. He heads to plastic surgeon to alter his appearance.

 Website

Mourning Recipe                                           

Japanese: 四十九日　の　レシピ

Romaji: Shi juu ku niche no Reshipi

Running Time: 129 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Yuki Tanada

Writer: Hisako Kurosawa (Screenplay), Yuki Ibuki (Original Novel)

Starring: Hiromi Nagasaku, Renji Ishibashi, Masaki Okada, Fumi Nikaido, Taizo Harada

Female director Yuki Tanada is building an impressive filmography with titles like Fugainai, One Million Yen and the Nigamushi Woman and now this drama scripted by Hisako Kurosawa (Yellow Elephant). It stars Renji Ishibashi (One Missed Call), Hiromi Nagasaku (Rebirth), Masaki Okada (Confessions) and the incredible Fumi Nikaido (Why Don’t You Play in Hell?, Himizu).

When Ryohei’s (Ishibashi) wife passes away he is left devastated. Worse news comes when he finds out that his daughter Yuriko’s (Nagasaku) marriage is about to end. When a woman visits Ryohei and gives him a recipe for living happily created by Ryohei’s wife, the family begin to move on.  

Website

Roommate

Japanese: ルーム　メイト

Romaji: Ru-mu Meito

Running Time: 110 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Takeshi Furusawa

Writer: Takeshi Furusawa (Screenplay), Aya Imamura (Original Novel)

Starring: Keiko Kitagawa, Kyoko Fukada, Kengo Kora, Hiroyuki Onoe, Mariko Tsutsui, Taguchi Tomorowo, Chihiro Otsuka

Takeshi Furusawa, we meet again. I know you as assistant director on the rather good J-horror film Pulse, writer of Doppelganger and the director of the awful Ghost Train. You’ve certainly come up in the world with this flashy looking title which stars sexy thesps. Let’s see…

Keiko Kitagawa (After-Dinner Mysteries), Kyoko Fukada (Ring 2), Tomorowo Taguchi (Strange Circus, Tetsuo: The Iron Man) and Kengo Kora (The Story of Yonosuke, The Drudgery Train). What about the trailer? Beautiful women, murder and mayhem? LOOKS FUN!

When Harumi (Kitagawa) has a car accident she is hospitalised. While recovering she meets a nurse named Reiko (Fukada) and the two become such close friends that they decide to become roommates when Harumi is discharged. Weird things start happening around Reiko including a murder. Just as Harumi begins to fear Reiko, she meets a woman named Mari who looks just like her… Doppelganger?

 Website

TAP Perfect Education

Japanese: TAP 完全　なる　飼育

Romaji: TAP Kanzen naru Shiiku

Running Time: 106 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Ikki Katashima

Writer: Hitoshi Raion? (Screenplay) Michiko Matsuda (Original Novel)

Starring: Reisa Maekawa, Narimi Arimori, Jinta Nishizawa, Naoto Takenaka, Seiji Chihara

A yakuza in Okinawa falls in love with the daughter of his boss’s mistress, kidnaps her and locks her up. As you do. It’s yandere love. You just don’t understand.

Website

Bikini Ramen

Japanese: ビキニ　ラメン

Romaji: Bikini Ramen

Running Time: 70 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Tsuyoshi Koizumi

Writer: Tsuyoshi Koizumi (Screenplay)

Starring: Rei Ayana, Asami, Ryuhei Sakata, Hiroko Naruse, Kana Nagamura,

This is described as an action comedy set in the future where a gang terrorise people and ramen is an important food-staple and a sexy woman seems to promise liberation or something.

Website

This is the second part of my trailer post for this week. Normally I would publish one a week to capture the films getting shown in cinemas in Tokyo but there were too many to fit into one post – 25 embedded YouTube videos will derail an average browser with lots of tabs open. So yesterdayI posted a bunch of trailers for great looking films released this weekend. Today’s post is packed full of documentaries and while it looks larger than the first, there are fewer trailers due to the distributor of some of the 3/11 documentaries not releasing any clips. A look at next week’s release schedule shows that I’ll have to split up the weekly trailer post again.

What was my soundtrack for this post? This music and this music! Nostalgia for the 80′s, a time I barely remember.

The Tiger Mask                        

Japanese: タイガー　マスク

Romaji: Taiga Masuku

Running Time: 91 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Ken Ochiai

Writer: Ken Ochiai (Screenplay), Ikki Kajiwara (Original Manga)

Starring: Eiji Wentz, Natsuna Watanabe, Sho Aikawa, Mao Miyaji, Aya Hirano

Ikki Kajiwara’s hugely popular Tiger Mask manga undergoes the movie treatment following the adaptation of his other major hit, Ai to Makoto. The film stars Eiji Wentz (Kitaro films) and the brilliant Sho Aikawa (Serpent’s Path, Eyes of the Spider, License to Live).

Naoto Date was once an orphan selected by the mysterious organisation Tiger’s Cae to become a villainous wrestler and earn big money. Naota survived the harsh training to become the fearsome Tiger Mask but rebels against Tiger’s Cave to prevent other orphans facing the same fate. Not only that, he donates all of his earnings to the orphan he grew up in. Considered a threat, Tiger’s Cave send assassins! Something tells me that these assassins are wrestlers and don’t pack guns!

Website

Patema Inverted                            

Japanese Title: サカサマ　の　パテマ

Romaji: Sakasama no Patema

Running Time: 99 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Yasuhiro Yoshiura

Writer: Yasuhiro Yoshiura (Screenplay/Original Creator)

Starring: Yukiyo Fujii (Patema), Nobuhiko Okamoto (Age), Shintarou Oohata (Porta), Shinya Fukumatsu (G), Masayuki Katou (Lagos),

Yasuhiro Yoshiura is the director/creator of the wonderful Time of Eve, a futuristic drama about androids in a café and the humans that visit them. It was a whimsical show full of great details and gorgeous animation and do you know what was best of all? The characters were relatable and funny. This is his latest film and it looks to be just as good. I love that poster!

The story takes place in an underground world where the inhabitants exist in tunnels and confined spaces and must wear protective clothing. Despite this, these underground people still enjoy life, especially Patema, the princess of her underground village who loves to explore. Her fascination with exploration leads her to a forbidden area where she meets a boy named Age who operates under different gravitational circumstances. The two may come from very different societies but will face strange situations together! 

Website

Tokyo Newcomer                                  

Japanese: 東京　に　来た　ばかり

Romaji: Toukyou ni Kita Bakari

Running Time: 100 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Qinmin Jiang

Writer: Qinmin Jiang (Screenplay)

Starring: Chieko Baisho, Hao Qin, Hideo Nakaizumi, Junning Zhang, Shunsuke Kubozuka, Toru Kazama, Yuan Tian, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi

There’s an actual company called China-Japan Cooperation? Really? Chinese and Japanese politicians might be at loggerheads over certain issues but the film industries of the two nations are working together and this is yet another example.

A young Chinese man named Xiang (Hao) arrives in Japan to train in the board game Go but he doesn’t speak Japanese and become embarrassed. When he drops his Go stones he meets an old Japanese woman named Kimie Igarashi (Baisho) interested in the game and the Chinese man moves in with the old woman and her grandson Shoichi (Nakaizumi).

Website

Undressed Minako                                   

Japanese: ハダカ　の　美奈子

Romaji: Hadako no Minako

Running Time: N/A

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Toshiyuki Morioka

Writer: Toshiyuki Morioka (Screenplay), Minako Hayashishita (Original Novel)

Starring: Tomoko Nakajima, Tetsuya Sugaya, Natsumi Hirajima, Ami Tomite, Ai Miyoshi, Ruri Shinato, Kuisu Natsumi

Apparently this is connected to a documentary TV show called Tsuukai! Big Daddy! Which followed the lives of Kiyoshi Hayashishita and his family. It’s connection is derived from the fact that the film follows Hayashishita’s ex-wife Minako and tells the story of her life including her time with an abusive father and a teenage pregnancy.

Website

Sunk into the Womb                 

Japanese Title: 子宮に沈める

Running Time: 95 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Takaomi Ogata

Writer: Takaomi Ogata (Screenplay),

Starring: Emiko Izawa, Kino Tsuchiya, Eiki Tsuchiya, Momoka Nishina, Aoi Tatsumi,

Holy crap, I reviewed a Japanese film before it hit Japanese cinemas? Working for a film magazine is awesome! That’s right, I reviewed this for Gigan magazine and, to put it bluntly, thought it was a slightly inferior version of Nobody Knows. It was a tragic tale of child neglect which was sometimes ponderous, sometimes harrowing but ultimately not without areas I could praise such as the performances. I wanted to know more about Yukiko’s character not least because she was played by the foxy Emiko Izawa.

When Yukiko’s (Izawa) husband she finds it a struggle to raise their two children (Kino Tsuchiya, Eiki Tsuchiya) while studying and working a part time job. She begins to feel isolated from life and soon takes to visiting host clubs leaving her kids alone at home…

Website

Hinata no Aoshigure                  

Japanese: 陽なたのアオシグレ

Romaji: Hinata no Aoshigure

Running Time: 18 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Hiroyasu Ishida

Writer: Hiroyasu Ishida (Screenplay)

Starring: Anju Inami (Hinata), Saori Hayami (Shigure)

Hiroyasu Ishida’s first ever project was a two-minute short called Fumiko’s Confession and it was a wild hit amongst anime fans when Ishida released it online when he was still a student at university. His latest short will be playing in cinemas alongside another short anime called Shashinkan. It might be worth heading to the YouTube channel of the animation production house Colorido to see what else they have.

Hinata is very good at drawing but poor at talking to people which means that when he falls in love with his classmate, Shigure he finds it difficult to talk to her. When Shigure’s family move to another town, Hinata says to himself, “I must tell her my feelings!” and starts to chase after the train which is taking Shigure away. Will his drawings aid him?

Website

Shashinkan             

Japanese: 寫眞館

Romaji: Shashinkan

Running Time: 18 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Takeshi Nakamura

Writer: Takeshi Nakamura (Screenplay)

Starring: N/A

Playing alongside the above film is this one by Takeshi Nakamura (Fantastic Children) called Shashinkan – shashin photograph – kan – hall, Shashinkan – photograph museum?

The story takes place before World War II in a photo studio run for generations by the family of the main character. When a married couple visits the studio, the shy wife is a shy wife keeps facing her head down, but by various means the photographer is able to get her to smile for the camera. A year later, the couple come back with their stern-faced daughter. The photographer then tries desperately to get the young girl to smile. No voice actors just the music of Chopin.

Website

Gachiban Z Proxy War                                     

Japanese Title: ガチバン　Z 代理戦争

Romaji: Gachiban Z Dairi Sensou

Release Date: November o9th, 2013

Running Time: 75 mins.

Director: Takashi Motoki

Writer: Masao Iketani (Screenplay),

Starring: Reiya Masaki, Shuzunosuke, Kyosuke Yabe, Ryo Kato, Yuya Matsuura,

Another entry in the Yankee franchise. I’ve lost count… Not that I ever started counting these things but it seems like one a month.

Website

Miyuki Nakajima “Ball Vol 17 2/2” The Movie  

Japanese: 中島みゆき「夜会 VOL.17 2/2」劇場版

Romaji: Nakajima Miyuki ‘Yakai Vol. 17 2/2’ Gekijouban

Running Time: N/A

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: Miyuki Nakajima, Yoko Ueno, Chiaki Kosaka, Yoichi Kohiyama

This is a film based on popular singer. song-writer and radio personality Miyuki Nakajima and a series of performances from 1989 drawing on experimental theatre.

Website

The next four films are documentaries about 3/11

Singer                           

Japanese: うたうひと

Romaji: Utau Hito

Running Time: N/A

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Ryusuke Yamaguchi, Kou Sakai

March 11^th, 2011 will be remembered due to the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami. Keeping the memory current are documentary and drama filmmakers like Ryusuke Yamaguchi and Kou Sakai who have made a trilogy of films. This documentary collects the interactions between Kazuko Ono who collects historical and sociological fragments like dialect, folklore and from the victims of the disasters,

The Sound of Waves

Japanese: うたうひと

Romaji: Utau Hito

Running Time: 142 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Ryusuke Yamaguchi, Kou Sakai

In this first part of a documentary trilogy the director journeys from Taro all the way down south visiting people affected by the disaster such as an old lady and her sister who remember other natural disasters. As the director listens to the people he questions why anyone would want to live in the region.

Voice of Waves Kesennuma

Japanese: なみ　の　こえ　気仙沼

Romaji: Nami no Koe Kesennuma

Running Time: 142 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Ryusuke Yamaguchi, Kou Sakai

This is another part of a trilogy of documentary films put together by Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Kou Sakai and it follows on from Sound of the Waves as they shoot a collection of sequences showing the tsunami damage in Miyagi prefecture and follow a group of people and their recovery efforts.

Voice of Waves Shinchi Town

Japanese: なみ　の　こえ 新地町

Romaji: Nami no Koe Kesennuma

Running Time: 103 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Ryusuke Yamaguchi, Kou Sakai

This is another part of a trilogy of documentary films put together by Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Kou Sakai and it follows on from Sound of the Waves Kesennuma as they shoot a collection of sequences showing the tsunami damage in Fukushima prefecture and follow a group of people and their recovery efforts. This is the most recent entry since its production year is marked as 2013.

Website

Watch Rakugo on the Cinema Screen: “Master Storytellers of the Showa Period 6”

Japanese Title: スクリーンで観る高座　シネマ落語「落語研究会　昭和の名人　六」

Romaji: Sukuri-n de Miru Kōza Shinema Rakugo ‘Rakugo Kenkyūkai Shōwa no Meijin Go’

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013 (Japan)

Running Time: 123 mins.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: Yanagiya Kosan, Kokontei Shinshō, Katsura Bunraku

This is the sixth in a series of films focussing on Rakugo, a form of verbal entertainment where a lone storyteller sits on a stage and depicts a long and complicated comical story with nothing but a paper fan and a small cloth for props and a change in pitch and tone in voice to provide life to different characters. The film shows us three such entertainers: Yanagiya Kosan, Kokontei Shinshō and Katsura Bunraku. The last one was way back in May.

Website

Seiza                             

Japanese: 星座

Romaji: Seiza

Running Time: N/A

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Shutaro Oku

Writer: Shutaro Oku (Screenplay)

Starring: Ikuyo Kuroda, Fabien Prioville, Fusako Urabe

Ikuyo Kuroda is a leading figure in the world of dance and this film is full of dancing and drama. It’s a story of a deaf-mute woman who falls for an illegal immigrant who may be a criminal. The police are after him but wil she give him up? I know nothing about dancing and dread being asked to dance (it does happen) but this looks good.

Website

Tightrope                                                                  

Japanese: タイトロープ　アウトサイダーという生き方

Romaji: Taito Roupu Autosaidaa to iu Ikikata

Running Time: 95 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Masahiro Honda

Writer: N/A

Starring: Koji Kikkawa (Narration), Dagurasu, Teppei Hori, Kintaro, Takahiro Kuroishi, Masaya, Takaaki, Syusaku Wada, Keinosuke Yoshinaga

A documentary that follows a group of men who are involved in mixed martial arts. These are semi-professional guys ranging in age from the young to the old (35) and each has different jobs.

Website

Takamiy Melodic Metal History 2007 – 2013 “Steel Angel’s Feast”                     

Japanese: Takamiy Melodic Metal History 2007 – 2013 鋼鉄　天使　の　宴

Romaji: Takamiy Melodic Metal History 2007 – 2013 Koutetsu Tenshi no Utage

Running Time: N/A

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: Toshihiko Takamizawa aka Prince Takamiy

The weekly music documentary is here and it’s following a guy named Takamiy and his band THE ALFEE with scenes from live performances and Takamiy narrating. Here’s an English language fan site so you can learn more!

Neo Ultra Q Special Screening Part 1          

Japanese: ネオ・ウルトラQ 特別上映 part I

Romaji: Neo Urutora Q Tokubetsu Jouei Part 1

Running Time: 138 mins.

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

Director: Gakuryu Ishii, Yu Nakai, Yu Irie, Kiyotaka Taguchi

Writer: Koki Mitani (Screenplay)

Starring: Rin Takanashi, Seiichi Tanabe, Hiroyuki Onoe, Shota Sometani

I found information for this on Sci-fi Japan

Three people: a psychologist doing research on the supernatural, a young beautiful journalist with an inquisitive mind and a bartender who has sympathy towards other forms of life. Together the trio set out to look into the paranormal and futuristic phenomena that confront our life and society.

– Tsuburaya Productions publicity materials for NEO ULTRA Q

This is the latest in a series of a popular sci-fi project created by Eiji Tsuburaya, special effects director on Godzilla, about three characters who investigated supernatural and alien phenomena. Apparently the show ran for 28 episodes from January to July in 1966, received a radio drama and movie edition. This latest one is a collection of 12 episodes from the TV sequel and features excellent actors like Rin Takanashi (Goth: Love of Death) and Shota Sometani (Himizu) and has the director Gakuryu Ishii (Isn’t Anyone Alive?). Each movie will collect three episodes and be released on the 9^th day of each month which will now be known as “Q Day”. Furthermore, each screening has a Q&A. Sounds and looks fun.

Website

Dragon Force                                  

Japanese: ドラゴン　フォース

Romaji: Doragon Fo-su

Running Time: N/A

Release Date: November 09^th, 2013

General Director: N/A Director: Tommy Wong

Writer: Tommy Wong (Screenplay)

Starring: Yuki Ono, Junichi Suwabe, Yuichi Nakamura, Jun Fukuyama, Aya Uchida

China-Japan Cooperation again? Well here’s an anime produced by them. The only problem with it is that it’s in CG. Bad CG at that. The more I look at it, the more it hurts. I shouldn’t make fun of other people’s works but this is worse than that Final Fantasy movie starring Hollywood actors. It actually features pretty good voice actors who take on the roles of a secret unit named Dragon Force who are out to stop an alien invasion. Expect giant robots.

Website

Unseen World of Childcare               

Japanese: こどもこそミライ　まだ見ぬ保育の世界

Romaji: Kodomo Koso Mirai Mada Minu Hoiku no Sekai

Running Time: 84 mins.

Release Date: November 10^th, 2013

Director: Katsuhiko Tsutsui

This is a documentary following children in Yokohama who are about to graduate from kindergarten. Some of these children are handicapped and yet they are allowed to play freely with others… I think

Website

I’ve been a bit tardy with posting some of the latest releases from Terracotta and Third Window Films due to all of the festival coverage and reviews/anime so here’s a selection of their releases this month and one that is already released.

Tokyo Fist                                           

Japanese Title：東京　フィスト

Romaji: Tōkyō Fuisuto

UK Release Date: November 25th, 2013

Running Time: 87 mins.

Director: Shinya Tsukamoto

Writer: Shinya Tsukamoto

Starring: Shinya Tsukamoto, Kahori Fujii, Koji Tsukamoto, Naomasa, Musaka, Naoto Takenaka, Tomorowo Taguchi, Koichi Wajima, Nobu Kanaoka

Yeah, this is my release of the month. I reviewed it last year and I was blown away by the film and gave it 4.5/5. It was a powerful and tough watch, hyper-kinetic and with all of the visual It comes from Shinya Tsukamoto, a master filmmaker whose films I love so much I made a season of posts dedicated to him. I’m tempted to buy this film for a second time because Shinya Tsukamoto handled the digital restoration from original negatives and gave an interview. If this is anything like the Tetsuo transfer and extras, it’s going to be awesome. Here’s the trailer:

Tsuda (Shinya Tsukamoto) is an insurance salesman who spends his days selling policies to people and his nights sprawled out on a sofa watching films like The Third Man. He is counting down the days until he gets married to Hizuru (Fujii), a seemingly normal office worker. Then, when delivering an insurance policy to a boxing gym, he meets a former friend named Kojima (Koji Tsukamoto) who has taken up boxing and finds himself in the grip of a rage that has festered for years which is linked to a traumatic incident that left psychic scars on him but Tsuda has forgotten. Angry at Tsuda’s life, Kojima decides to destroy him.

DVD Specifications:  Brand new digital restoration by Shinya Tsukamoto from his original negatives, 5.1 Surround Sound, Anamorphic Widescreen with removable English subtitles

DVD Bonus Features:  New exclusive interview with Shinya Tsukamoto, Original Theatrical Trailer

God, I love the Tokyo Fist poster!!!

Shackled                    

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 100 mins.

Release Date: November 25^th, 2013

Director: Upi

Starring: Abimana Aryasatya, Avrilla, Imelda Therinne, Laudya Cynthia Bella, Jajang C. Noer

Here’s an Indonesian horror film (few of those if any get released in the UK) and it is directed by a woman but that’s not what makes this look special. Out of all the films that don’t have the words Tokyo and Fist in their title this one looks the best, very atmospheric and with that Silent Hill aesthetic (rotten apartment building) we all know and love. It looks really good.

Elang is haunted by images of bizarre murders involving a killer with a rabbit costume. His efforts to solve the mystery and save the lives of those he thinks are in danger have trapped him in a downward spiral and so he himself becomes a suspect. Elang believes the mysterious rabbit figure was the key to solving the murder mystery. Unfortunately, no one believes him. In proving his innocence, he will be forced to unveil a horrible and long-buried secret.

The Lady Assassin                              

Running Time: 138 mins.

Release Date: N/A

Director: Nguyen Quang Dung

Starring: Kim Dzung, Tang Thanh Ha, Thanh Hang, Thai-Hoa Le, Diem My, Ngoc Quyen

Terracotta are releasing this Vietnamese film which is about four beautiful sword-wielding women who run a tavern and lure businessmen and corrupt officials to a bloody death. The girls take on a new recruit who want to avenge her family’s massacre!

Here’s some more info from Terracotta:

THE LADY ASSASSIN is a 3-D martial arts film in the vein of classic Shaw Brothers film. It broke local box office records for its domestic release and took $3m at the box-office on opening weekend in L.A. alone. Their will be a preview screenings at the Prince Charles Cinema, London November 27^th.

FAIRY TALE KILLER                      

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 90 mins.

Release Date: OUT NOW

Director: Danny Pang, Oxide Pang

Starring: Sean Lau, Wang Bao Qiang, Elanne Kwong, Suet Lam, Elana Kong, Joey Meng

I haven’t watched a Pang brothers’ film since The Eye but they have built up a reputation as solid thriller and action filmmakers. This is their latest title. To be honest the trailer gives way too much away so watch it at your own risk.

A disturbed man is set free by the police after falsely confessing to an imaginary murder.

Days later, the alleged victim turns up dead with his stomach cut open and stuffed with rocks. 
Inspector Wong realises he has let a dangerous killer go free and becomes obsessed with tracking him down whilst covering up his mistake.
A game of cat and mouse ensues, with more and more bloody murders committed laying reference to Cinderella, The Red Shoes and Hansel & Gretel.

DVD Bonus Features: Introduction from Danny Pang, Interview with Sean Lau, Making Of

It’s the third week of the Republic of Thieves Read-Along and we’re over half way through the book. Week one was all about getting to know the characters again while week two was all about revealing Sabetha. As the story unfolds we find out more about Locke and Sabetha’s shared history and I can only hold my head in my hands as I read Locke’s romantic endeavours… Clockwork maids sound better and better

Locke and Jean also find out that Sabetha might just outwit them in the election. Again clockwork maids would be easier to deal with. This week’s questions come from the fabulous Lynn over at Lynn’s Book Blog.

The election competition.  Sabetha isn’t wasting any time throwing pranks at Locke and Jean.  Mostly it seemed fairly harmless, or at least not overly serious, until they were kidnapped and put onto a ship and taken out to sea.  What did you make of Sabetha’s latest plan? And what did you think about the way she executed it?

Sabetha’s plan was pretty much in line from what I expected from her – mindbogglingly thorough and ruthlessly executed. At first I had to laugh because it was ingenious and over the top and unexpected and then I admired it. As soon as she separated Locke from Jean, alarm bells were ringing. She suckered him in with his desires and put him out to sea… I was staggered at that turn of events.

Overall it was well-thought out and executed with every detail thought of… apart from Locke’s ability to improvise his way out of things although she placed spies on the city wall so I guess she anticipated it might happen. So it was mostly air-tight. Her reasoning for the plan was to both win the election and keep Locke from hurting himself and while the first point is fine the second one makes her seem like an abusive wife!!!

During the escape overboard and Jean’s rather subtle nose dive into the water – I was curious about the lights Locke saw deep in the water when he was performing his rescue – Locke thought they looked different once he was under the waves which I suppose they would but he also had the feeling that he was being watched?  Do you think this relates back to the Eldren or some other presence?

This is the weekly Eldren question and whenever that crops up in every read-along I start babbling on about Lovecraftian things like shoggoths, fishmen and elder gods.

I hope the lights relate to the Eldren. Do you know what the lights were? Probably creatures. Evil sea creatures. But I secretly hope that they are the bright lights of the sunken city of R’lyeh or the dread creatures that lurk in it.

Oh R’lyeh? Yes.

Check the city out! We should all head there once it rises out of the sea. Just be careful when traversing odd angles.

Given that Locke hadn’t seen Sabetha for five years how did you think their first meeting together went (well, it wasn’t strictly speaking their first meeting of course – were you surprised that Jean and Locke hadn’t figured out that the woman pickpocket was Sabetha?) and also what did you make of Jean and Sabetha’s reaction to each other?

The three have been apart for so long and through so much that I bet if Locke and Jean had been false-facing Sabetha might not have known it was them. I thought the meeting went as well as it could. Again, they have spent a lot of time apart and a lot of stuff has happened, they have lost a lot of people, and now they are together again so of course there is going to be distance between them. Jean’s reaction, when seen in the context of the fact that they have been pitched against each other as rivals by the Bondsmagi, is perfectly reasonable because he knows how dangerous she can be and Locke won’t be cool. If Locke had adopted his caution then they wouldn’t have had a boat trip!

So, the gang have arrived in Espara and already the plans have gone wrong through no fault of their own!  Jail for a year plus lose a hand for slapping a noble?? What do you think of the justice system in Espara and how does this bode for the gang?

The justice system seems to be in line with the brutality of the world the gang inhabit. Because Espara is a dirt town (in comparison to Camorr) where rich and poor are more likely to rub shoulders, justice must be draconian to keep people in their places. Filthy commoners

The gang just have to be that little bit more careful with the way they interact with the locals because they are far from home and foreigners.

The acting company are finally coming together and we’re watching the gang as they try to read, act and grab the best parts – are you all ‘happy face’ with the whole theatre scenes or, sad face!  Also, I can’t help feeling like this whole storyline is a step out of character for the gang.  Any ideas of how it will play out??

I actually like these scenes a lot. I think the storyline is perfect for the characters. They all have to act out roles when False Facing and it is fun to see the gang actually have to play identities not created by them and get to grips with a text – motivation, performance etc. The interludes will probably culminate in a performance.

We are also being introduced to a number of new characters, particularly Moncraine and Boulidazi.  What are your first impressions of these two and the other new characters in the Company and any particular likes or dislikes so far?

Moncraine is an arrogant ass. Sorry, I know he’s meant to be a melodramatic genius thespian but he is way too arrogant – what type of person would sacrifice their hand for their pride?!?!? That written, you’ve got to have an ego to get ahead in acting but it’s going to cause trouble if it isn’t kept under control. More drama for the GBs!

Boulidazi is danger writ large. He comes across as a brute and despite pretensions, he’s a fighter. Our dynamic duo Sabetha and Locke are running a dangerous con here and he will have to be treated carefully because if he finds out that a con is on and he’s the mark he can bring pain both judicially and personally to the dynami… I mean, dysfunctional duo. MORE drama for the GBs!

None of the other characters have really grabbed me. Chantal and her husband, maybe. I just imagine them to be a cool couple.

The rooftop scene and the apology.  How did it all go so wrong?  And how will Locke get out of this latest fix with Boulidazi?

Gods, emotions are messy. The rooftop apology was pretty much the continuation of the omnishambles that is Locke’s attempt to get closer to Sabetha. Here’s some prime British comedy to explain what I think of Locke’s chat-up techniques:

This is a continuation of the idea that the two are really blind to each other and others, only interested in their own interpretations of the world, painfully self-conscious and quite self-absorbed. So Locke has this image of Sabetha as a Goddess and doesn’t realise she’s a girl with thoughts and feelings and he runs into a major hang-up Sabetha has – one based on a horrific fact – that has defined her life. I don’t think he could have avoided it unless he was really aware of what happened to girls like Sabetha and it’s never established if he is or not.

Sabetha is like some impossible video game where the levels keep getting harder with some beast of a boss at the end. Seriously Locke, play something else! If she is still a tsundere, she ain’t as cute as this one!

Enough from me, here are the answers from the rest!

Lynn’s Book Blog

Jomafantasy

The Little Red Reviewer

Dab of Darkness

All I Am – a redhead

Violin in a Void

Many a True Nerd

Ku_On                                          

Japanese Title: クオン 久遠　

Running Time: 78 mins.

Seen at the Raindance Independent Film Festival

Director: Takayuki Hatamura

Writer: Takayuki Hatamura

Starring: Hidemasa Shiozawa, Haruna Isaoka, Seiko Seno, Yusei Tajima, Sou Sato, Shizuka

We begin 200 years in the past in a small village in the Tohoku region. A man is about to commit suicide.

Cut to a prison where a man in an orange jump-suit named Ushio is having a parole meeting. His interviewer takes a gander at his art. It’s all abstract (enough of a crime for some) but the colours and shapes are violent.

Cut to a mental hospital where two women talk to each other. The talk turns into an argument and one named Sayo leaves.

These incidents will link up when weeeeee…

Cut to Hiroyuki Sano, a 26-year-old office drone and our protagonist. He is standing over his body after inadvertently transferring his mind into that of a work colleague. Now his original body lies on the floor, an empty husk devoid of life.

Panicking, he tries his best to revive himself, shaking his former body manically only to be discovered by an OL who was out for coffee. Understandably she freaks out at the sight of him shaking an unconscious man about but Sano could still save the situation by explaining that he has run across a chap who has collapsed or maybe is acting or anything but what he does next… he makes the mistake of running.

Now Sano is on lamb with police on his tail but he narrowly avoids being arrested by the police by body-hopping into the flesh sack of a hapless deliveryman he runs across. Not that he knows how to use his body-switching powers. He heads back to his body to see if he can get back into it where he’s picked up by a police detective named Yamamoto who has similar powers in the body-hopping arena but is more experienced. Yamamoto gives him a quick briefing:

“They are both descendants from a little mountain village a meteor hit 200 years ago and everyone descended from the village has the power. Some developed straight away, others in later generations. Now, they hide from the government to avoid getting experimented on. You get no training, no warning. One day you can just possess people.”

After explaining the rules he states that their number is growing smaller thanks to a serial killer named Ushio who is targeting them. With the aid of a tough female martial artist named Sayo they aim to stop the killer who threatens them.

If that choppy synopsis sounds off-putting, don’t worry. Watching it is easier than reading about it.

Ku_on can be read as eternity in Japanese and it is linked to the ability of the main characters to transfer their individual consciousness into different bodies and, presumably, live forever. The film exploits this conceit and it is used well by an adventurous script to create a non-linear narrative that offers many exciting twists and turns to be an unpredictable adventure.

Ku_on’s main strength is its central body-switching conceit which allows the plot to be a freewheeling ride. It rapidly introduces a wide array of characters in different locations and it creates a twisting complicated non-linear narrative ensnaring an ever-growing number of people as it jumps back and forth between different perspectives and temporal locations. Thanks to this, the film has many surprises that will amuse and shock the audience as a carefully and intelligently constructed puzzle comes together.

Plot is not everything, just the bones to hang the meat of the film and so it is with a little regret that I have to say that the idea that powers the film is under-explored since the focus is strictly on creating a crisp action film that maintains a quick clip and never flags so characters are quickly set up and unleashed to spin around and ping off each other. Characterisation is neatly sketched but aspects like the psychological toll of the abilities is glossed over creating certain ambiguities in motivations and connections which could have provided an interesting aspect for the film to explore and added more substance – a tantalising glimpse of Ushio in the killing fields of World War II in one dream and the poster hint at what could have been. As such it comes across like a shounen anime like Darker than Black or Night Head Genesis – people with super powers operating in a largely real world defined by its urban setting.

The cast manage to imbue their roles with a degree of humanity – Sano develops a slight cockiness which is amusing to watch (although his best lines are after the credits have run!), Yamamoto has the typical world weariness of a veteran cop and Sayo is a great action girl who is pretty nifty with guns and a staff weapon. My personal favourite had to be the psychotic girlfriend of Ushio’s who is a foxy demented pixie who you should never take your eyes off.

Everyone is likeable and even compelling but with its compact running time the emphasis is on the action and plot which is what the film does well.

The direction and editing is slick and pacey like a mid-budget science fiction film with not a moment dragging or looking unprofessional. For a debut feature from Takayuki Hatamura it is very impressive as it surges along with a cool and clean look thans to its crisp cinematography. There is CGI but it is very subtle as Hatamura prefers to place his faith in a balance with fine performances and narrative to create a confidently shot and fast flowing film. The action scenes are littered throughout the story and provide brief shots of adrenaline. They are a mix of gunplay and martial arts with Sayo and Ushio squaring off with each other as formidable foes and the fights can be unpredictable.

Overall, if Ku_On comes off like a plot-driven shounen action anime title it would be one of the better ones thanks to its narrative full of surprising tricks. When the ending comes it will floor you. It is a neat, smart and fast-paced sci-fi thriller with likeable actors that provides fun entertainment for its tight duration.

4/5