Welcome to the second trailer post of the week.
You can find the first post here.
I’m taking a break this week, although I did a podcast recording for Heroic Purgatory about the Johnnie To films The Heroic Trio and Executioners (both released in 1993) which will get released some time nest week. I also hope to get a review of Inch Forward released by the end of this week.
Outside of work, I am using My Japanese Coach on the Nintendo DS and watching Twin Peaks.
What are the rest of this week’s films?
Hard-boiled Recipe 
ハードボイルド・レシピ 「Ha-do Boirudo Reshipi」
Release Date: April 26th, 2024
Duration: 71 mins.
Director: Hajime Matsuura
Writer: Hajime Matsuura (Screenplay),
Starring: Chiaki Mayumura, Luna Fujimoto, Sen Fujimaru, Ayane Tomiya, Ayane, Tomoki Kimura, Mariko Tsutsui,
Hajime Matsuura reunited with All About Chiaki Mayumura (Provisional) star, the singer-songwriter Chiaki Mayumura, to make this film. She produced it.
The film features Ayane of Mad Cats and veteran actors Tomoki Kimura and Mariko Tsutsui.
Synopsis: Mayumura plays a bodyguard who gets assigned to protect a courier involved in a big deal taking place in the Japanese underworld. Foreign gangsters, corrupt police, and criminals make the situation dangerous. It gets even more volatile with the appearance of the evil Manila Sisters…
Seigi no Yukue 
正義の行方 「Seigi no Yukue」
Release Date: April 27th, 2024
Duration: 158 mins.
Director: Kazutaka Kidera
Writer: N/A
Starring: N/A
Website Twitter: @seiginoyukue
Kazutaka Kidera made a documentary about Kiki Kirin back in 2019. He has worked on a number of NHK documentaries and this is one of them.
Synopsis: Michitoshi Kuma was arrested in 1994 for the murder of two junior high school girls and was given the death penalty. After his execution, a request for a retrial was filed with his solicitors stating that the conviction was based entirely on circumstantial evidence and retrials were asked for but denied. This film covers the case from various perspectives while also looking at the judicial system in Japan. More background on the case can be found here and here.
Echigo Okumiomote Digital Remaster 
越後奥三面 山に生かされた日々「Echigo Okumiomote Yama ni Ikasareta Hibi」
Release Date: September 21st, 1984
Duration: 145 mins.
Director: Tadayoshi Himeda
Writer: N/A
Starring: N/A
Website Twitter: @mineiken IMDB
From a Japan Times article about the director’s passing… Tadayoshi Himeda moved from Kobe to Tokyo in 1954 and studied under folklorist Tsuneichi Miyamoto. Himeda began filming folk cultures throughout Japan in the early 1960s and established the Centre for Ethnological Visual Documentation in 1976.
He was considered a pioneer in recording disappearing cultures and made films like Ainu no Kekkonshiki (1971), and supervised TV documentaries, including Nihon no Shijo.
He received the French honour “Officier in the Order of Arts and Letters” in 1989.
Synopsis: Tadayoshi Himeda and the Centre for Ethnological Visual Documentation set out to record fading cultures across the country. In 1980, he and his crew travelled to Okumimomote, a mountain village located in the Asahi mountain range in northern Niigata Prefecture, that was going to be closed due to the construction of a dam. The way they farm, hunt, and live with nature were recorded for posterity after the crew rented a house and a field and filmed village life for four years starting in 1980.
A digitally remastered version is now available.
Rajio Shimokojiro 
ラジオ下神白 あのとき あのまちの音楽から いまここへ 「Rajio Shimokojiro ano Toki ano Machi no Ongaku kara ima koko e」
Release Date: April 27th, 2024
Duration: 70 mins.
Director: Haruka Komori
Writer: N/A
Starring: Residents of Shimokojiro Housing Complex, Wataru Asada, Hiromi Sakaki, Shiori Suzuki,
Website Twitter: @shimokajiro
Haruka Komori, co-director of Double Layered Town / Making A Song To Replace Our Positions (2019) returns with a documentary about how art helps support people through disasters. The residents of a danchi (public housing complex) in Fukushima Prefecture are the subjects.
Synopsis: Shimokajiro is the name of a public housing complex) in Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture. The residents are people who were evacuated from the towns of Namie, Futaba, Okuma, and Tomioka after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdown in 2011. Since 2016, a radio programme has been interviewing the residents about their backgrounds and the recordings have been released on CD. A band has also been formed to support the residents through live singing sessions and music video productions.