Welcome to the first trailer post of the week
Come back tomorrow for the next one and come back on Thursday for the third and final one.
No reviews or anything of the sort since I have festival work to concentrate on and I’m doing more overtime at my regular job. I have had a number of productive sessions on Project X Zone while commuting to and from work and during lunch breaks as I try to complete it this week. I’m just over halfway through and enjoying it. The 3DS is a nifty console that I can slip in and out of my pockets and it has decent battery life which makes hospital visits go by quickly.
What are the first batch of films released this weekend?
Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 – The Last Human 
攻殻機動隊 SAC_2045 最後の人間 「Koukaku Kidoutai SAC_2045 Saigo no Ningen」
Release Date: November 23rd, 2023
Duration: 126 mins
Episode Directors: Kenji Kamiyama, Shinji Aramaki, Film Director: Michihito Fujii
Writer: Dai Sato, Daisuke Daito, Harumi Doki, Kenji Kamiyama, Kurasumi Sunayama, Ryou Higaki (Screenplay), Masamune Shirow (Original Creator)
Starring: Atsuko Tanaka (Motoko Kusanagi), Akio Ohtsuka (Batou), Koichi Yamadera (Togusa), Megumi Han (Purin Ezaki), Hiroshi Naka (Daisuke Aramaki), Sakiko Tamagawa (Tachikoma),
Animation Production: Production I.G, Sola Digital Arts
This is a compilation movie based on the series that was released on Netflix in May 2022. Episodes have been pulled together by live-action director Michihito Fujii (The Journalist). They have been “reconstructed” and have additional scenes.
Synopsis: It is the year 2045 and economic disasters and the evolution of AI has meant that a new industry has emerged: sustainable wars. Public Security Section 9 are en route to Tokyo, left in ruins after a war, to track down a cyber criminal and investigate a new species of “post-humans” that have emerged. Meanwhile, America has deployed nuclear submarines in that classic American move of break everything in sight.
Kubi 
首 「Kubi」
Release Date: November 23rd, 2023
Duration: 11 mins.
Director: Takeshi Kitano, Shuta Takahata
Writer: Takeshi Kitano, Takehiko Minato (Screenplay), Takeshi Kitano (Original Book)
Starring: Ken Watanabe, Beat Takeshi, Hidetoshi Nishihima, Ryo Kase, Nao Omori, Shido Nakamura II, Tadanobu Asano, Kenichi Endo, Susumu Terajima, Kenta Kiritani, Jun Soejima, Ittoku Kishibe, Yoshiyoshi Arakawa, Kanji Tsuda,
Six years since his last directorial effort, Kitano is back with a historical film.
This is the 19th film by Takeshi Kitano and it is based on a novel he wrote. For this production, he also wrote the script and edited the footage.
Looking at various notes, it seems that this was conceived 30 years ago, around the same time as Sonatine (1993), his breakthrough hit internationally. It even attracted the attention of Akira Kurosawa who had shown an interest in the work.
Takeshi Natsuno, president and representative director of Kadokawa studio has said, “It is a rare film, on a scale similar to Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai and Kagemusha, with a tragicomic quality that feels Shakespearean.” The scale of the story certainly sounds impressive based on the convoluted synopsis based on the real-life incident at Honno-ji of 1582 as the film retells the assassination of Oda Nobunaga in a temple in Kyoto.
The cast is incredible as it features familiar Kitano collaborators and the cream of the crop of acting talent to emerge in the 80s and 90s. It stars Ken Watanabe, Tadanobu Asano (Bright Future), Hidetoshi Nishijima (License to Live, Drive My Car), Susumu Terajima (Hole in the Sky), and Ryo Kase (Outrage).
Synopsis: As Oda Nobunaga (Ryo Kase) wages his campaign to unify Japan, a general named Murashige Araki (Kenichi Endo) rebels and disappears. Nobunaga summons his generals, Mitsuhide Akechi (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and Hideyoshi Hashiba (Beat Takeshi), and orders them to search for and capture Murashige. Plotting between generals and a former ninja escalates as they are unable to kill Murashige and this frustrates Nobunaga’s plans. He soon comes to believe that Tokugawa Ieyasu (Kobayashi Kaoru) is the mastermind behind everything and orders the assassination of Ieyasu. MEANWHILE, peasants take to the battlefields to improve their station in life. All of these characters and storylines converge on Honno-ji.
Intimate Space 
水いらずの星 「Mizuirazu no Hoshi」
Release Date: November 24th, 2023
Duration: 164 mins.
Director: Michio Koshikawa
Writer: Michio Koshikawa (Screenplay), Masataka Matsuda (Original Story),
Starring: Masahiro Umeda, Tomomi Kono, Ryoko Takizawa,
Michio Koshikawa, director of After the Sunset (2019) and producer of Sketches of Kaitan City (2010), Sakura Ando films Torso (2009), Asleep (2015) and Our Homeland (2012), has adapted a work by playwright/director Masataka Matsuda. It is said to have an experimental theatrical presentation.
Synopsis: A woman sits alone at a portside hostess bar beneath a colossal bridge in Sakaide-shi, Kagawa Prefecture. This is where she sells her body to make ends meet. Her life has dwindled away just like Japan’s shipbuilding industry. What led her to this point is abandoning her husband in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, when she ran away with another man six years earlier. On this rainy night, she encounters her husband again. The two fall back into each other’s arms and try to bridge the gap of time lost and, as they lie together, space and time become blurred.
Hokage (Shadow of Fire) 
ほかげ 「Hokage」
Release Date: November 25th, 2023
Duration: 95 mins.
Director: Shinya Tsukamoto
Writer: Shinya Tsukamoto (Screenplay),
Starring: Shuri, Ouga Tsukao, Hiroki Kono, Go Riju, Tatsushi Omori, Mirai Moriyama,
Shinya Tsukamoto (Tokyo Fist, Vital) gives audiences a tale of broken people in the black markets of post-war Japan. It stars Shuri (Love at Least), Mirai Moriyama (The Drudgery Train), and Hiroki Kono, director of the Pia Film Festival Grand Prix award-winning film J005311. This is apparently part of Tsukamoto’s war trilogy, which includes Fires On the Plain and Killing.
Synopsis: As Japan rebuilds itself from the ruins of war, one person, a woman living alone in a half-burnt ramen restaurant, looks after a boy who lost his family in an air raid. The two survive by her selling her body and the occasional stealing of food from the black market. When a former soldier comes seeking her services, he gets close to both the woman and the little boy but violence soon erupts between the adults who cannot escape their traumas and the boy finds himself on the road with a man who is haunted by nightmares of his past. The man’s reason for travelling with the boy are soon revealed to be connected to taking revenge on the person who left him with those nightmares.
The IDOLM@STER Shiny Colors Part 2 
アイドルマスター シャイニーカラーズ第2章 「Aidoru Masuta- Shaini- Kara-zu Dai ni Shou 」
Release Date: November 24th, 2023
Duration: 92 mins
Director: Mankyuu
Writer: Yoichi Kato (Screenplay),
Starring: Hitomi Sekine (Mano Sakuragi), Akiho Suzumoto (Natsuha Arisugawa), Anna Yamaki (Sakuya Shirase), Honoka Kuroki (Amana Ōsaki), Mayu Mineda (Meguru Hachimiya),
Animation Production: Polygon Pictures
This is the second of a three-part movie adaptation of a 12-episode TV anime based on a Namco Bandai game that will premiere in spring 2024. Each film will cover four episodes.
Synopsis: The story depicts the struggles of new idols in four idol units that belong to the talent agency, 283 Pro.
Pole Princess!! Movie 
劇場版 ポールプリンセス!! 「Gekijouban Po-ru Purinsesu!!」
Release Date: November 23rd, 2023
Duration: 60 mins
Director: Hitomi Ezoe
Writer: Touko Machida (Screenplay), Tsuchika Nishimura (Original Creator),
Starring: Anna Suzuki (Lilia Saijou), Minami Hinata (Subaru Nanyou), Rio Tsuchia (Hinano Hoshikita), Yui Ogura (Mio Tosaka), Rie Kugimiya (Azumi Shino),
Animation Production: Tatsunoko Production
This is the movie adaptation of a YouTube anime all about girls inspired to enter the “Pole Dance Japan Cup” competition after finding beauty in pole dancing.
Synopsis: Four girls, Hinano, Lilia, Mio, and Subaru, form a team named “Galaxy Princesses” and enter the “Pole Dance Japan Cup,” a competition featuring the best pole dancers from all over Japan. Each girl overcomes different challenges and grows with the help of their teammates as they practice hard.
The Fools Orokamono-tachi no Uta Kanzen-han 
THE FOOLS 愚か者たちの歌 完全版 「The Fools Orokamono-tachi no Uta Kanzen-han」
Release Date: November 24th, 2023
Duration: 119 mins.
Director: Shinichi Takahashi
Writer: N/A
Starring: Ko Ito, Ryo Kawada, Seiji Fukushima, Masayasu Murakami, Hiroshi Sekiguchi, Kazuya Wakabayashi,
This is the “complete” version of a documentary that was released in January. The complete version includes excerpts from the press conference dedicated to Ko Ito’s time spent in and death in prison and the legal settlement won by his widow.
Synopsis: A documentary about THE FOOLS, an underground rock band that has been active since the 1980s. The director has been a long-time fan and the film goes into details about the lives, repeated arrests for drugs, successive illnesses and deaths of band members, and more.