Happy Weekend
I hope you are well.
This is the second part of a two-part trailer post. The first part is here.
This week I posted reviews of Love’s Whirlpool and Call Boy. I finished my re-watch of the TV anime Monster and I began prepping for a Heroic Purgatory podcast recording that will cover Twilight Samurai. The latest episode of the podcast is about Hou Hsia-Hsien’s The Assassin (2015).
What else was released this weekend?
42-50 Nirvana 
42-50 火光（かぎろい） 「42-50 Kagiroi」
Release Date: October 07th, 2022
Duration: 94 mins.
Director: Yoshihiro Fukagawa
Writer: Yoshihiro Fukagawa (Script),
Starring: Miho Miyazawa, Yuji Katsura, Saya Yoshida, Chie Sunaga, Saori Yagi,
This drama appears to be based on director Yoshihiro Fukagawa’s relationship with his actress wife Miho Miyazawa (who plays the main character) as it depicts the life of a middle-aged married couple who both work in the film industry.
Synopsis: Kana has hit the age of 42 and this once-successful child actress is struggling in recent years. What is particularly on her mind is how she has no experience raising children and so she feels limited. That means she has to get a kid. This could be difficult because she lives with her 50-year-old screenwriter husband Yuji together with his mother in a house in Tokyo and relations with the mother are already difficult. To get a child, they will have to begin fertility treatment but then Kana’s father is diagnosed with ALS…
Ore no Kinenbi 
オレの記念日 「Ore no Kinenbi」
Release Date: October 08th, 2022
Duration: 104 mins.
Director: Kim Sung Woong
Writer: N/A
Starring: Shoji Sakurai, Keiko Sakurai, Takao Sugiyama, Iwao Hakamada, Hideko Hakamada,
Synopsis: This documentary follows Shoji Sakurai, a man who was interrogated by police and gave a false confession while under duress. He admitting to a robbery-murder in 1967. It has been labelled the “Nunokawa Incident” and it saw Shoji spend 29 years in prison. Director Kim Sung Woong follows the case, Shoji Sakurai’s release and discovers how the man’s positive mindset kept him going and inspires his reintegration with society.
Sasakure 
ささくれ 「Sasakure」
Release Date: October 08th, 2022
Duration: 30 mins.
Director: Kohei Ogawa
Writer: Kohei Ogawa, Kana Satouchi (Script),
Starring: Kana Satouchi, Naomi Akimoto, Yoko Hoshi, Itsuji Itao,
Actress Kana Satouchi has written and stars in two films that are released in cinemas today.
Synopsis: Things start in media res as it seems that Mizuki may have made the move to marry impulsively as she breaks off the engagement, quits her job, and returns to her parents’ home. She spends her days doing a whole lot of nothing while her mother looks on. Her estranged father gives her a wedding gift and Mizuki meets him to hand it back. When they meet, Mizuki senses a connection to him and her present situation.
Dare no Tame no Hi 
誰のための日 「Dare no Tame no Hi」
Release Date: October 08th, 2022
Duration: 16 mins.
Director: Shin Namura
Writer: Kana Satouchi (Script),
Starring: Kana Satouchi, Nanami Hidaka, Reiko Muranaka, Masahiro Tabuchi, Shunpei Kohinata, Anna Nagamine,
Synopsis: This is the second short film produced and written by Kana Satouchi. In it, we watch sisters attend a dinner party on the third anniversary of their mother’s death and an argument that erupts as the younger displays an negative attitude.
Se Yoshimasu Gouzou × Kuukan Gendai 
背 吉増剛造×空間現代 「Se Yoshimasu Gouzou × Kuukan Gendai」
Release Date: October 08th, 2022
Duration: 62 mins.
Director: Kei Shichiri
Writer: Kohei Ogawa, Kana Satouchi (Script),
Starring: Gozo Yoshimasu, Junya Noguchi, Keisuke Koyano, Hideaki Yamada,
Synopsis: This is a documentary film about Gozo Yoshimasu, one of Japan’s leading contemporary poets. Even at the age of 80, he still holds live reading concerts and in one he conducted with the alternative rock band Kuukan Gendai in Kyoto in 2019. The film traces the inspirations that went into the work he premiered on the stage as he spent the summer of that year thinking about tsunami’s, Mokichi Saito’s tanka poems, and how he could integrate the use of a mask and blindfold to perform the poem. See it all in this film.
Hadaka no Mura 
裸のムラ 「Hadaka no Mura」
Release Date: October 08th, 2022
Duration: 118 mins.
Director: Yukio Iokibe
Writer: N/A
Starring: N/A
Synopsis: Director Yukio Iokibe is a documentarian who has covered political irregularities in Toyama City Council on TV and this film expands further on the subject as it covers the fall of Ishikawa Governor Masanori Tanimoto’s 27-year-long administration due to a series of gaffes and blunders in its response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the transition to a new administration which has links to the old one. Meanwhile, the film also looks at the ordinary people of Ishikawa Prefecture through looking at a Muslim family and a family that live in a van.
Yoake Made Basutei de 
夜明けまでバス停で 「Yoake Made Basutei de」
Release Date: October 08th, 2022
Duration: 118 mins.
Director: Banmei Takahashi
Writer: Aki Kajiwara (Script),
Starring: Yuka Itaya, Ayaka Onishi, Takahiro Miura, Reiko Kataoka, Shiori Doi, Yuya Matsuura, Michiko Ameku, Ruby Moreno, Tasuku Emoto, Mariko Tsutsui,
Director Banmei Takahashi gathers together an impressive cast for a COVID-19 drama that stars Yuka Itaya in which she plays a woman who is forced to become homeless and sleeps at a bus stop.
Synopsis: Michiko is already struggling in life before COVID hits and when the pandemic starts, she loses her job at a yakitori restaurant and soon after her home. Reluctant to ask for help, with employment opportunities cut short and housing out of reach, she ends up at a bus stop homeless. She meets other homeless people. Meanwhile, people at her old yakitori restaurant also have their own struggles as sexual harassment is rife…