Happy weekend people!
My summer of splatter films/manga reviews is back on track after a few anime first impressions (Charlotte, Prison School, Ushio to Tora). This week I reviewed Deadball (2011)and Big Tits Zombie (2010). Expect more film and manga reviews over the coming months. Hopefully I can keep up with the reviews, There are only the Toronto and Vancouver film festivals to worry about since Venice doesn’t have any Japanese films programmed and so for the first time since I started covering film festivals, I won’t be covering the Venice film festival.
What’s released this weekend?
Attack on Titan
Japanese: 進撃の巨人 ATTACK ON TITAN
Romaji: Shingeki no Kyojin: Attack on Ttitan
Release Date: August 01st, 2015
Running Time: 98 mins.
Director: Shinji Higuchi
Writer: Yusuke Watanabe, Tomohiro Machiyama (Screenplay), Hajime Isayama (Original Manga),
Starring: Haruma Miura, Hiroki Hasegawa, Kiko Mizuhara, Kanata Hongo, Rina Takeda, Ayame Misaki, Jun Kunimura, Satomi Ishihara, Pierre Taki, Nanami Sakuraba, Takahiro Miura,
The live-action Attack on Titan is here and I must say that I am excited. I’m a fan of the manga and I’m a fan of the anime (first impression, mid-season thoughts, final thoughts) and I hear that the movie is meant to be really, really good which defies the expectations of some haters. There’s a great starry cast. I’ll let the trailer do the rest of the talking.
100 years ago, an-eating titans appeared out of nowhere and drove human civilization to the brink of collapse. The last remnants of humanity built a city behind a series of giant walls, bigger than the largest titan known to man, to defend themselves and for 100 years they have lived in peace. But then, one day, a titan bigger than any seen before appears and destroys a wall letting a flood of titans descend upon humanity. Eren Jaeger and his sister Mikasa Ackerman join the fight against the titans…
Corpse Party
Japanese: コープスパーティー
Romaji: Ko-pusu Pa-ti-
Release Date: August 01st, 2015
Running Time: 93 mins.
Director: Masafumi Yamada
Writer: Yoshimasa Akamatsu (Screenplay), Team GrisGris (Original Game),
Starring: Rina Ikoma, Ryousuke Ikeoka, Nozomi Maeda, Jun, Yoko Kita, Kazuhiko Kanayama,
The Corpse Party movie is based on the famous series of horror games which has spawned manga and anime adpatations. The live-action movie features AKB48 and Nogizaka46 member Rina Ikoma who takes the role of a third-year high school student named Naomi Nakashima. Acting alongside her is Ryousuke Ikeoka, a member of the male acting group D-BOYS and Popteen magazine model Nozomi Maeda. The film is directed by Masafumi Yamada. He is a specialist in the horror genre having worked on similar titles like Creepy Hide and Seek (2009), a film about a girl who gets haunted by demons when she plays a game of hide and seek, and X Game 2 (2012) which is about a group of people trapped in a school and stuck in a survival game.
On the last day of a high school festival a group of high school students are locked up at Tenjin Elementary School, a place haunted by students who were victims of a horrific murder that took place years ago.
Stray Dogz
Japanese: 闇金ドッグス
Romaji: Yamakin Doggusu
Release Date: August 01st, 2015
Running Time: 88 mins.
Director: Tetsuhiko Tsuchiya
Writer: Masao Ikegaya (Screenplay),
Starring: Yuki Yamada, Sousuke Takaoka, Ami Tomite, Kanji Tsuda, Saaya Irie, Miyoko Inagawa,
Tadaomy Ando (Yamada) was once a yakuza boss but because of the bad actions of his subordinate, he quit the yakuza and went into the illegal loan shark business but times are tough and his victims are giving him a hard time.
Make-believe Family
Japanese: 家族ごっこ
Romaji: Kazoku Gokko
Release Date: August 01st, 2015
Running Time: 100 mins.
Director: Eiji Uchida, Hanta Kinoshita
Writer: Eiji Uchida, Hanta Kinoshita, Momoko Fukuda (Screenplay),
Starring: Takumi Saito, Denden, Mayu Tsuruta, Reika Kirishima, Taro Yabe, Azuma Miwako, Eihi Shiina,
Eiji Uchida, director of Greatful Dead (2013) works with actor/director Hanta Kinoshita to bring to the screen starring a mixture of actors who have appeared in all sorts of indies and splatter films, some of which will be reviewed over the next few weeks – Takumi Saito (Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl (2009), For Love’s Sake (2012), Eihi Shiina (Tokyo Gore Police (2008), Audition (1999).
This is an omnibus film about five sets of strangers who gather together to pretend to be the Suzuki and the Tanaka family and so on. Expect comedy.
Bad Moon Rising
Japanese: バッドムーンライジング
Romaji: Baddo Mu-n Raijingu
Release Date: August 01st, 2015
Running Time: 107 mins.
Director: Ichiro Kita
Writer: Kenji Kurata (Screenplay),
Starring: Shun Sugata, Natsuna, Jun Miho, Sola Ohtsuka, Reita Serizawa, Hisako Ohkata, Rina Wakatsuki, Figt, Haruna Takeuchi, Chihiro Seko,
Keiji (Sugata) is a middle-aged man who has lost his mother in an industrial accident. Keiji returns to his hometown and on the way he meets a young woman, Towako (Natsuna) who is lost in a mountain road. She is suffering amnesia and looking for her family. The two, having lost relatives, travel onwards in the car…
Summer on the Frontline: A 15 year old boy’s story /Soman kokkyo 15 sai no natsu
Japanese: ソ満国境 15歳の夏
Romaji: Soman kokkyo 15 sai no natsu
Release Date: August 01st, 2015
Running Time: 94 mins.
Director: Tetsuya Matsushima
Writer: Tetsuya Matsushima, Naoyuki Tomomatsu (Screenplay), Kazuo Tahara (Original Novel),
Starring: Ryuichiro Shibata, Min Tanaka, Satoshi Nikaido, Isao Natsuyagi, Miho Kanazawa, Ritsuko Tanaka,
Full synopsis from the film’s IMDB page:
Keisuke, 15-year-old junior-high school boy, has been forced to live as refugees with his family in temporary housing apart from a hometown as a result of the Great East Japan Earthquake.In 2012, he belongs to a broadcasting club of his junior-high, to which he has to be admitted for the earthquake. He spends time with some fellows of a club. But all equipment to make their works of it has been washed away by the tsunami. He decides to give up his filmmaking in this summer, which will be the last time of his junior-high days to make a work. But one day a man who lives in a small village in Heilongjiang, China donates the equipment for filmmaking to Keisuke’s school. Also Keisuke, his fellows and his teacher have been invited by him to shoot a film in China. And they are travelling to shoot around the boundless Chinese land. Then they have known the Japanese boys’ story in China in the end of the Second Sino-Japanese war. It is a true story that 120 Japanese junior-high students were …
Tsukuba Naval Air Corps
Japanese: 筑波海軍航空隊
Romaji: Tsukuba kaigun kokutai
Release Date: August 01st, 2015
Running Time: 99 mins.
Director: Osamu Wakatsuki
Writer: N/A
Starring: Kazuomi Yanai, Yoshio Hashimoto, Masayuki Nagare, Nobuya Kinase,
Kamikaze is a term in the news quite frequently recently because the Japanese government is pushing for letters and personal effects of Kamikaze pilots enshrined as world heritage and movies/doramas like The Eternal Zero are made. This documentary has testimonies from real kamikaze pilots who were traine at the Tsukuba Naval Air Base. 84 young men were drafted into this deadly force at the Battle of Okinawa and 60 of them died for their country. Get the real story of ther training, how their families reacted and what battle was like.
Hadenya ni ikiru hitobito
Japanese: 波伝谷に生きる人びと
Romaji: Hadenya ni ikiru hitobito
Release Date: August 01st, 2015
Running Time: 134 mins.
Director: Kazuki Azuma
Writer: N/A
Starring: N/A
Hadenya was a vibrant closely-knit village with strong traditions dating back centuries. It was built on fishing and other industries that harnessed nature. Then 3/11 happened and the village was wiped out. This documentary captured the vibrant lives of the people before the disaster and the aftermath of the disaster. The New York Times has a stirring article about the villagers and the way they survived the ordeal and how their traditional communal ways gave them strength.
Top Ten films in Japan and some notable entries:
Hero (Release: 2015/07/25)
The Boy and the Beast (Release: 2015/07/11)
Inside Out (Release: 2015/07/18)
Pokémon the Movie: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages (Release: 2015/07/18)
Terminator Genesis (Release: 2015/07/10)
Avengers Age of Ultron (Release: 2015/07/04)
Love Live! The School Idol Project (Release 2015/06/13)
Let’s Go! Anpanman: Mija and the Magic Lamp (2015/07/04)
Shaun the Sheep the Movie (2015/07/04)
Mad Max: Fury Road (Release: 2015/06/20)
Random music video of the week: Nostalgia… aaaahhhh natsukashi
