Only one trailer post this week because there aren’t that many films and by the time you read this I’ll probably be in London collecting my tickets for the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme. I will be enjoying two solid days of Japanese films and visiting art galleries before heading back home and writing about them. The films, not the galleries. I’ll leave gallery stuff to better bloggers like Sequins and Cherry Blossom.
Despite all this talk about films, I posted about two anime in the form of Galilei Donna and Coppelion.
Here are the trailers:
Dakishimetai – Shinjitsu no Monogatari
Japanese: 抱きしめたい － 真実 の 物語 －
Romaji: Dakishimetai – Shinjitsu no Monogatari
Running Time: 122 mins.
Release Date: February 01st, 2014
Director: Akihiko Shiota
Writer: Akihiko Shiota, Hiroshi Saito (Screenplay),
Starring: Keiko Kitagawa, Ryo Nishikido, Takumi Saito, Aya Hiryama, Eriko Sato, Megumi Sato, Mastaka Kubota, Jun Kunimura, Jun Fubuki
This is actually based on the story of a real life couple. Tsukasa (Kitagawa) was involved in a car accident that left her in a wheelchair and with memory impairment. Despite these setbacks, she carries on with life and falls in love with a taxi driver named Masaki (Nishikido) who plays basketball. Despite their differences they start a new life together and try to make a family but serious problems emerge…
Killers 
Japanese: キラーズ
Romaji: KILLERS KIRA-ZU
Running Time: 137 mins.
Release Date: February 01st, 2014
Director: Kimo Stamboel, Timo Tjahjanto
Writer: Kimo Stamboel, Timo Tjahjanto (Screenplay),
Starring: Kazuki Kitamura, Oka Antara, Rin Takanashi, Luna Maya, Mei Kurokawa, Denden, Ray Sahetapy
Killers is a co-production between an Indonesian and Japanese film company and executive produced by Gareth Evas, director of The Raid.
Nomura (Kitamura) is a serial killer who records a murder of a woman and places it on the internet. Bayu (Antara) is a journalist in Jakarta who stumbles upon the video and becomes attracted to what he sees as the beauty in the cruel visuals. When he kills a robber in self-defence he records the robber’s dying moments and uploads his own video. Nomura sees the video and a connection is made! A competition is initiated.
I Don’t Have Many Friends
Japanese: 僕は友達が少ない
Romaji: Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai
Running Time: 114 mins.
Release Date: February 01st, 2014
Director: Takuro Oikawa
Writer: Takuro Oikawa (Screenplay), Yomi Hirasaka (Novel)
Starring: Koji Seto, Kie Kitano, Mio Otani, Sara Takatsuki, Mao Kanjo, Sayu Kubota,
And this week’s lame live-action adaptation of a light novel/animation is this. I actually watched the first season of the anime back in 20…11 but didn’t bother with the second. The 2D anime characters were cute (especially the Fujoshi Rika) but seeing them in 3D is a disappointment plus the plot looks silly with the supernatural stuff. Silly in a bad way.
Kodaka Hasegawa (Seto) has transferred into Saint Chronica Academy. He’s an outsider, viewed as a “yankee” by his schoolmates due to his aggressive eyes and the blonde hair inherited from his English mother. Whilst wandering around school he encounters Yozora Mikazuki (Kitano) while she is talking to her imaginary friend Tomo. They realise that neither of them have friends and decide to make a club in order to make friends and learn how to interact with others. Soon others are joining the club including Sena Kashiwazaki (Otani), the principal’s daughter, an over-achiever and the girl all the boys in school fawn over, a feminine boy named Yukimura who hopes that Kodaka and his yankee reputation can turn him into a man and a scientific genius/fujoshi named Rika. From there on in we watch the growth of the club and its adventures in modern relationship etiquette.
No Man’s Land
Japanese: 無人地帯
Romaji: Mujin Chitai
Running Time: 105 mins.
Release Date: February 01st, 2014
Director: Toshifumi Fujiwara
Writer: N/A
Starring: N/A
This was originally released in 2012 and the blurb is taken from my Films about the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami Post: When the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami struck on March 11, 2011 the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant fell into a catastrophic crisis. Within 24 hours, thousands of people in a 200 km wide area were evacuated. Documentarian Toshifumi Fujiwara went into this zone to meet residents as they prepared for evacuation. They are on this film.
Fukushima: Is There A Way Out? 0.23μSv
Japanese: 福島の未来 0.23μSv
Romaji: Fukushima no mirai 0. 23 μSv
Running Time: 69 mins.
Release Date: February 01st, 2014
Director: Lee Hong-Gi
Writer: N/A
Starring: N/A
Just when you might have been concerned that the disaster at Fukushima might be forgotten… This is a Korean production about Japan’s nuclear disaster which is playing as a double-bill with No Man’s Land. In this documentary, Lee Hong-Gi follows some people displaced by the Fukushia Daiichi disaster as they visit Chernobyl and he looks at the state of Fukushima in 2013. The music for this is awful. It would be a better fit for some melodramatic action film not a serious documentary.
Topaz / Tokyo Decadence 
Japanese: トパーズ
Romaji: Topaz
Running Time: 113 mins.
Release Date: February 01st, 2014
Director: Ryu Murakami
Writer: Ryu Murakami (Script/Original Story)
Starring: Miho Nikaido, Sayoko Amano, Tenmei Kano, Masahiko Shimada, Chie Sema,
A pink film made back in 1992 gets a cinema outing? A sign of how slow things are this weekend… Nope, it’s a re-release using a new 35mm print. Anyway, Ryu murakami adapted one of his novels and had Ryuichi Sakamoto compose the music. Tokyo Decadence is in my local library… The story follows Ai, a timid college girl who descends into prostitution in an S&M club where the extreme desires of rich men are fufilled. She wants the love of an artist who ignores her but finds herself thrown headlong into dark situations…
