Welcome to the third and final trailer post for this week.
You can find part one here and part two here.
Last week I posted a preview of Osaka Asian Film Festival 2025 (OAFF 2025) and review of Tattoo Ari (1982), an award-winning work from Banmei Takahashi whose latest film, I Am Kirishima closes OAFF 2025.
This week I posted a preview article for Junk World and I will soon post a review of the film Midnight Sun (2024), which is playing today at OAFF 2025.
The festival starts on Thursday with free screenings of Housen-supported student films. I’ve already written about them and they are good films. I chose Midnight Sun to write about first. I intend to cover as many films from the fest over the next couple of months. You can read my writing about various films on the festival website already. What I will post will be reviews.
What are the last set of trailers for new Japanese film releases?
The Escape 
逃走 「Tousou」
Release Date: March 15th, 2025
Duration: 110 mins.
Director: Masao Adachi
Writer: Masao Adachi (Screenplay)
Starring: Kanji Furutachi, Rairu Sugita, Mutsuo Yoshioka, Yota Kawase, Yuya Matsuura, Soran Tamoto, Tomomitsu Adachi, Eriko Nakamura,
Website Twitter: @adachigumi22 IMDB
Last year, Satoshi Kirishima, a fugitive pursued by the police for over 50 years due to his involvement with the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front’s bombing campaign that terrified Tokyo in the 70s, broke cover while in hospital dying of cancer and this year sees two biopics made about him.
This one is from writer/director Masao Adachi, the left-wing filmmaker (and former member of the Japanese United Red Army) whose previous film, REVOLUTION+1 (2022), was dedicated to portraying the life of Shinzo Abe’s assassin.
The other film is I Am Kirishima, which will be screened at OAFF 2025. That’s by Banmei Takahashi, another left-wing filmmaker but one whose filmography stretches from political films to pink.
While the latter film has one actor portray Satoshi throughout the entirety of his life, Adachi’s film has the younger Satoshi portrayed by Rairu Sugita (Sanka: Nomads of the Mountains (2022, interview) and the more recent Missing Child Videotape (2025).
Kanji Furutachi plays the older Satoshi. He is often in a supporting roles like the mad curry chef in Fukuchan of FukuFuku Flats (2014) and the teacher in GFP Bunny (2013) but sometimes the leading Hospitalite (2011) and Harmonium (2016).
Eriko Nakamura (Lonely Glory, (2023)) also stars.
Synopsis: During the 1970s, the East Asian Anti-Japanese Armed Front bombed buildings owned by business associated with Japan’s colonisation of Asia. The “Scorpion” unit was one of the cells of this left-wing extremist group and Satoshi Kirishima was a member. His actions made him a wanted man and he became a fugitive. To evade the police, he became a live-in construction worker getting paid cash in hand while hiding under the alias “Hiroshi Uchida.” This film depict this and the rest of his life, including his end in a hospital bed with terminal cancer.
CARPET BOMBING of Tokyo 
東京大空襲 CARPET BOMBING of Tokyo 「Tukyou daikushu CARPET BOMBING of Tokyo」
Release Date: March 14th, 2025
Duration: 96 mins.
Director: Kazumi Matsumoto
Writer: N/A
Starring: N/A
Website Twitter: @harunokaori_mov
Kazumi Matsumoto has made a lot of documentaries in a short space of time: Dog and People (2023), -25℃ Simple Life (2023), THE POWER OF LIFE FROM NAGASAKI (2022) For You – Hiroshima A-Bomb Survivor Story (2022), and Tabi no Hajimari (2022).
Synopsis: In this documentary, Kazumi Matsumoto records the testimonies of 31 people who experienced the Tokyo Air Raid on March 10th, 1945, when US bombers dropped incendiary bombs on the city. 100,000 people were estimated to have died.
Two films by Kenta Tanaka
Kenta Tanaka has worked on the technical side of many projects, including sound recording on Meta Meta (2023). He has form as a director because his graduation project at Osaka University of Arts was Boku to dagashi no ie, which is one of the films being screened.
Kazetachi no Gakkou 
風たちの学校 「Kazetachi no Gakkou」
Release Date: March 15th, 2025
Duration: 77 mins.
Director: Kenta Tanaka
Writer: N/A
Starring: N/A
Website Twitter: @bokutodagashi
Synopsis: This documentary follows the students of Tsugeno High School, a boarding school in Oku-mikawa, Aichi Prefecture. This place accepts children who have experienced difficulties in schooling and those who have never attended school and the documentary captures the students as they live their lives to the fullest as the end of their three-year school life approaches, a time when the school festival is near and students consider their future.
Boku to dagashi no ie 
ぼくと駄菓子のいえ 「Boku to dagashi no ie」
Release Date: March 15th, 2025
Duration: 61 mins.
Director: Kenta Tanaka
Writer: N/A
Starring: N/A
Website Twitter: @bokutodagashi
This film was director Tanaka’s graduation work from Osaka University of the Arts and has previously been screened at Cine Nouveau, a mini-theatre in Osaka, back in 2017. Now that Kenta Tanaka’s latest film is out, this one will have its theatrical premiere in Tokyo.
Synopsis: This documentary is centred on a sweet shop in Tondabayashi, Osaka Prefecture, which is run by Akemi Matsumoto and Yoshie, a mother-daughter duo who give children experiencing difficult circumstances a safe space to go, even going as far as to treat them as if they are family.
Perfect Shared House 
パーフェクト・シェアハウス 「Pa-fekuto Sheahausu」
Release Date: March 15th, 2025
Duration: 107 mins.
Director: Ami Sakurai
Writer: Ami Sakurai (Screenplay)
Starring: Arisa Sasaki, Tatsuomi Hamada, Amon Hirai, Sayoko Oho, Kanji Tsuda,
Website Twitter: @psh_movie
Novelist Ami Sakurai has made a few films as director already, her last being Situation Love (2021). She has worked wiih Amon Hirai, an actor whose career has exploded with lots of roles in indie dramas over the last few years.
Synopsis: Two men and two women stay at a share house near a beach. They are Rin, an actress with a visual impairment, Kento, a former caregiver with a stutter, Mei, a female doctor, and Sho, a popular live streamer. They stream videos as couples doing fun things but there is an unsettling undercurrent lurking beneath their cheery façade and it comes out one day when something unusual happens to Rin’s body…
Soshite, Ainu 
そして、アイヌ 「Soshite, Ainu」
Release Date: March 15th, 2025
Duration: 96 mins.
Director: Koichi Oomiya
Writer: N/A
Starring: Teruyo Usa, Makiko Ui, Hwang Soo-eon, Yoshitomo Nara,
Website Twitter: @soshite_ainu
Synopsis: The documentary follows Teruyo Usa, the owner of the Ainu restaurant HaruKor in Okubo, Tokyo, and an Ainu cultural advisor who performs dances and plays musical instruments to pass on culture. She and her mother opened the restaurant in 2011, inspired by her grandmother and other ancestors. It has now become a gathering place for people from Hokkaido. The film traces Teruyo’s family history and examines the activities of people who have encountered Ainu, including artist Yoshitomo Nara, to address questions such as cultural inheritance and identity, development and diversity, and colonialism and human rights.