Welcome to the third trailer post of the week.
You can find the first post here and the second here.
I’ve continued covering festival films and also non-festival films. The titles I can talk about are Caddo Lake, Wolfs, and Joker: Folie a Deux, all from this year.
Caddo Lake and Hold Your Breath (which I watched earlier this week) are folk horror from rural America. The former is a slow-moving time slip drama with some nice twists while the latter is a breakneck supernatural thriller set in Dustbowl America. Both are female led and atmospheric with great performances and production values, but they didn’t particularly move me – I was probably too tired to enjoy them.
What are the last of the Japanese films released this weekend?
Or Utopia 
あるいは、ユートピア 「Arui wa, yu-topia」
Release Date: November 16th, 2024
Duration: 129 mins.
Director: Kim Yun-soo
Writer: Kim Yun-soo (Screenplay),
Starring: Kisetsu Fujiwara, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Mutsuo Yoshioka, Hideko Hara, Makiko Watanabe, Eisuke Sasai, Akaji Maro,
This was at the Tokyo International Film Festival where a Q&A report explains some of the background of the production.
Synopsis: An outbreak of giant monsters led to authorities ordering the evacuation of people but twelves strangers stick it out at a hotel. At first, they live peaceful and orderly lives based on the three principles of “non-violence, non-interference, and mutual support, all while the roar of the monsters rings out around them. Then, one day, the dead body of one of them is found… Is this hell, or utopia?
KY Rock! 
KYロック！ 「KY ROKKU!」
Release Date: November 16th, 2024
Duration: 99 mins.
Director: Tami Maeda
Writer: Tami Maeda (Screenplay),
Starring: Masaya Kato, Mikaka, Aya Kunitake, Shigefumi Oike, Jun Matsuo,
The film commemorates the 60th birthday of Masaya Kato, who turned 60 in April 2023. It was shot on location in Hiroshima and features Hiroshima musician Mikaka.
Synopsis: Just as he is about 60, Kosuke takes early retirement from the company he had worked at for many years and started up his rock band “KY Brothers” but their debut concert is cancelled when Kosuke’s one and only friend and band member, Yutaka, announces that he is leaving the band. Despite this, Kosuke tries to take a new step forward to start his new life…
Taiyo ga shoppai 
太陽がしょっぱい 「Taiyo ga shoppai」
Release Date: November 16th, 2024
Duration: 86 mins.
Director: Tatsuro Nishikawa
Writer: Tatsuro Nishikawa, Santa Ikegami (Screenplay),
Starring: Risa Shigematsu, Miho Kawano, Mariko Akama, Takashi Nomura, Sachi Odawara,
Twitter: @taiyofilm1116
This coming-of-age film looks at the themes of plastic surgery and lookism through the travails of a high school girl, with a complex about her looks, who seeks to “fix them” with plastic surgery.
Synopsis: High schooler Minami Kawai is part of a family that runs a temple in a rural town in Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture. To pass the time, she uses SNS and watches videos online and this is how she finds out that one of her classmates from junior high school has turned into a social butterfly, complete with good looks and lots of online followers thanks to some plastic surgery. Influenced by that and wrestling with insecurity over her own looks, Minami tells her family that she wants to have plastic surgery. They oppose it but Minami is determined to change her looks…
Expelled from Paradise 
楽園追放 -Expelled From Paradise- 「Rakuen Tsuihō – Expelled from Paradise」
Release Date: November 15th, 2014
Running Time: 104 mins
Director: Seiji Mizushima
Writer: Gen Urobuchi (Screenplay),
Starring: Rie Kugimiya (Angela Balzac), Hiroshi Kamiya (Frontier Settler), Shinichiro Miki (Zarik “Dingo” Kajiwara), Megumi Hayashibara (Christine Gillam), Minami Takayama (Veronica Kulikova),
Animation Production: Graphinica
Website Twitter: @efp_official ANN MAL
This film this is the first collaboration between Seiji Mizushima and Gen Urobuchi, a powerhouse director and screenwriter respectively a decade ago. I’m not sure how they are doing now but their work gets 4K up-converted revival and it will be screened under the title Expelled from Paradise Impelled by 10th Anniversary.
Synopsis: The year is 2400 A.D., when much of humanity has abandoned the Earth and has evolved into an existence consisting of data living in an electronic space called DEVA, a utopian society which governs its individuals through a virtual reality interface in a base above Earth´s atmosphere. However, someone claiming to be Frontier Setter starts hacking into the DEVA from Earth and is deemed a threat by authorities. A security agent named Angela Balzac is sent to Earth to investigate. She has a physical body and an exoskeleton suit named Arhan, which she uses for combat. She will be back up by Dingo, a terrestrian agent who refused to join DEVA.