Happy weekend, everyone!
I hope you are well!
Interesting week at work insofar as a new exhibition has opened and I’ve had a nice time introducing art to people whilst doing my regular job. I also met a progressive young artist who I think I had good chemistry with which inspires hope and I had a bunch of great conversations with trusted workmates. Still, I’ve got to do something more with my time…
I watched a whole grip of Japanese films although the horror film I chose for Halloween was a Japanese found footage film that sent me to sleep. I posted reviews for Snow Woman (1968) and Sore dake (2015).
What is released this weekend?
10 Years Japan 
十年Ten Years Japan 「Juunen Ten Years Japan」
Running Time:99 mins.
Release Date: November 03rd, 2018
Producer: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Three years ago, we had the award-winning indie omnibus film 10 Years Hong Kong (wikipedia) which offered some speculative fiction about the island territory’s future 10 years in the future. It was made at the time of student protests over the encroaching power of Mainland China so the stories have a mostly dystopian setting. Other Asian countries have got in on the act with Thailand and now Japan being up next.
Here, Hirokazu Kore-eda helps produce the stories of five young directors who bring different episodes together into one film that will be released in November.
The Air We Can’t See (Sono Kuki wa Mienai その空気は見えない)
Director: Akiyo Fujimura
Writer: Akiyo Fujimura (Screenplay)
Starring: Chizuru Ikewaki
Akiyo Fujimura was at the 2016 Osaka Asian Film Festival with Eriko Pretended (2016), a drama that got great reviews. I saw one of her short films recently and was impressed by the drama. Her story is about a girl named Mizuki who has been forced to relocate underground with the rest of the population of Japan due to pollution. She dreams of the surface world when one of her friends goes missing.
Four Our Beautiful Country (Utsukushii Kuni 美しい国)
Director: Kei Ishikawa
Writer: Kei Ishikawa (Screenplay)
Starring: Taiga, Hana Kino
Kei Ishikawa is probably famous for Gukoroku – Traces of Sin (2017), a disturbing crime drama. Here he is examining a Japan with conscription into the military is compulsory for everyone and the moral dilemma an advertising agency worker named Watanabe has when he is given the assignment of designing a poster.
PLAN 75
Director: Chie Hayakawa
Writer: Chie Hayakawa (Screenplay)
Starring: Satoru Kawaguchi, Kinuwo Yamada, Kazue Mitani, Motomi Makiguchi,
This story takes place in a Japan struggling to cope with the elderly. The government implements Plan 75 whereby elderly people who are sick or poor are recommended for death by public officials. One man, Itami, struggles with this while his wife is dealing with her own mother who has Alzheimer’s.
Mischievous Alliance (Itazura Domei いたずら同盟)
Director: Yusuke Kinoshita
Writer: Yusuke Kinoshita (Screenplay)
Starring: Jun Kunimura, Seiya Okawa, Bako Tsujimura, Ryu Nakano,
A group of schoolboys living in an area that has been transformed into a special IT zone play a prank on an old horse that is about to be put down.
DATA
Director: Megumi Tsuno
Writer: Megumi Tsuno (Screenplay)
Starring: Hana Sugisaki, Tetsushi Tanaka, Oshiro Maeda, Masaki Miura,
A girl inherits the digital memories of her mother and discovers a different side to her.
Biblia Used Bookstore Casebook 
ビブリア古書堂の事件手帖 「Biblia Koshodo no Jiken Techou」
Running Time: 121 mins.
Release Date: November 01st, 2018
Director: Yukiko Mishima
Writer: Ryohei Watanabe, Kana Matsui (Screenplay), En Mikami (Original Novel),
Starring: Haru Kuroki, Shuhei Nomura, Masahiro Higashide, Ryo Narita, Kaho,
Synopsis: There is a book store in Kamakura where old, rare and special books are collected by Shioriko Shinokawa (Haru Kuroki) and her assistant Daisuke Goura (Shuhei Nomura), a young man with an unusual condition that prevents him from reading books. They find their store targeted by a mysterious person searching for a specific book.
Sumaho o Otoshita dake 
スマホを落としただけなのに 「Sumaho o Otoshita dake」
Running Time: 116 mins.
Release Date: November 02nd, 2018
Director: Hideo Nakata
Writer: Tetsuya Oishi (Screenplay), Akira Shiga (Original Novel),
Starring: Keiko Kitagawa, Yudai Chiba, Ryo Narita, Miwako Kakei, Kenta Sakai, Jun Kaname, Taizo Harada, Kei Tanaka,
Synopsis: Asami Inaba (Keiko Kitagawa) finds her life flipped upside down when her boyfriend leaves his smartphone in a taxi and a mysterious man starts spreading all sorts of information on social media. Worse is to come when she gets involved in a strange murder case when a young woman’s body is found in the mountains…
Run! T High School Basketball Club 
走れ！T校バスケット部 「Hashire! T Ko Basuketto Bu」
Running Time: 115 mins.
Release Date: November 03rd, 2018
Director: Takeshi Furusawa
Writer: Koji Tokuda (Screenplay), Hiroshi Matsuzaki (Original Novel),
Starring: Jun Shison, Hayato Sano, Akari Hayami, Junki Tozuka, You, Kippei Shiina, Naoto Takenaka, Yudai Chiba, Katsuhiro Suzuki,
Synopsis: Yoichi Tadokoro (Jun Shison) used to be the captain of his middle school basketball team. He enters a private high school on a scholarship. The basketball team at the high school is strong. Yoichi gets bullied at his high school and decides to transfer. His new school is named “T School.” He joins the basketball team there, but there are not very good. The “T School” team will go up against his previous private high school team.
Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2202: Ai no Senshi-tachi Chapter 6 “Kaisei-hen” 
宇宙戦艦ヤマト2202 愛の戦士たち 第六章「回生篇」 「Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2202: Ai no Senshi-tachi “Kaisei-hen”」
Release Date: November 02nd, 2018
Running Time: 98 mins.
Director: Nobuyoshi Habara
Writer: Harutoshi Fukui (Screenplay),
Starring: Daisuke Ono (Susumu Kodai), Takayui Sugo (Juzo Okita), Noriko Kuwashima (Yuki Mori), Kenichi Suzumura (Daisuke Shima), Aya Uchida (Yuria Misaki), Rina Sato (Makoto Kato), Aya Hisakawa (Kaoru Niimi),
Synopsis from ANN: Three years after the Yamato’s return from the planet Iscandar. The people of Earth restored their planet with the Cosmo Reverse System, and they signed a peace treaty with Garmillas. In addition to reconstruction, Earth developed a new defense fleet that includes the state-of-the-art battleship Andromeda. The Earth goes down a path of military expansion, despite Starsha Iscandar’s wishes. The Yamato helps accomplish this so-called peace, but it comes at the price of many invaluable sacrifices. The goddess Teresa, who prays for tranquility in space, calls the Yamato to a new voyage. The threat of Gatlantis is sweeping over the universe and approaching Earth.
No Where, Now Here 
どこでもない、ここしかない 「Doko demonai kko shikanai」
Running Time: 90 mins.
Release Date: November 03rd, 2018
Director: Lim Kah-wai
Writer: Lim Kah Wai (Screenplay), Hiroshi Matsuzaki (Original Novel),
Starring: Ferdi Lutviji, Nurdan Lutviji, Dejan Pesic, Anja Kyrmyza, Avgust Krsnik,
Synopsis: Ferdi is an ethnic Turk who runs guest houses and apartments in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. He has earned a lot of money from the tourism and real estate boom over the past few years and has had the help of his wife Nurdan but despite her faithfulness and his adherence to Islam, he chases single women who stay at his properties. Nurdan cannot endure Ferdi’s callous treatment of her and after a confrontation, she leaves. Ferdi gradually becomes aware of how much her existence is important to him and decides to go back to her home-town in Macedonia. Will he be able to win back her love or has Nurdan checked out of their marriage for good?
Nekkyo Sengen 
熱狂宣言 「Nekkyo Sengen」
Running Time: 75 mins.
Release Date: November 04th, 2018
Director: Kazuyoshi Okuyama
Writer: N/A
Starring: Atsuhisa Matsumura
Synopsis: Atsuhisa Matsumura is a successful company president who operates many restaurants, wedding venues, and amusement venues and he employs thousands of people. He was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s and so we see him from the perspective of his employees who were given cameras and allowed to record him.
K SEVEN STORIES Episode 5 「Memory of Red BURN」 
K SEVEN STORIES Episode5 「メモリー ・オブ・ レッド BURN」
Release Date: November 03rd, 2018
Running Time: 64 mins.
Director: Shingo Suzuki
Writer: Azano Kouhei (Screenplay), GoRA, GoHands (Original Creator)
Starring: Kenjiro Tsuda (Mikoto Suoh), Takahiro Sakurai (Izumo Kusanagi), Yuuki Kaji (Tatara Totsuka), Yui Horie (Anna Kushina), Jun Fukuyama (Misaki Yata), Yuichi Nakamura (Rikio Kamamoto),
Animation Production: GoHands
Website ANN MAL K Wiki ANN Honey
Synopsis: Mikoto Suoh is the Red King and he possesses a strong personality and many abilities that make him dangerous. He is fire personified. His clan is strong and he wants the members to be more than soldiers, they must become family and so they are fiercely loyal to each other. This film is their story.
Simple gift haimari no utagoe 
シンプル・ ギフト はじまりの歌声 「Shinpuru gifuto haimari no utagoe」
Running Time: 90 mins.
Release Date: November 03rd, 2018
Director: Shinji Shinoda
Writer: N/A
Starring: John Caird, Tamai Yoshiomi, Kento Ito, Maria Kusaka, Sharon, Pius, Anitah, Samantha Smith, Miranda Reese, Christine Howlett,
At a time when we’re all arguing and trying to kill each other and throw borders up, a documentary reminding us that we can actually take all that energy and money and use it to help others and yes, it isn’t simple, but let’s try something different because what we’re doing now just isn’t working. And art helps out a lot!
Synopsis from the official website: About a century ago, the novel Daddy-Long-Legs came out in the United States. A Japanese person inspired by the book collected 100 billion yen in donations over 50 years, and has continued to provide educational support for 100,000 orphaned children. That man, now over 80 years old, has targeted poverty-stricken Africa as “the last big job of his life”. He believes that motivated young Africans can study at universities in developed countries and if they eventually return to their home country and participate in nation-building, such contributions will surely lead to the eradication of poverty. But to accomplish that, worldwide support is needed. So he came up with a stunning PR strategy-to persuade the great theatre director of the musical, Les Miserables, to hold a Broadway concert in New York. Uganda’s AIDS orphans, the Great East Japan Earthquake tsunami orphans, the American college chorus that became a model for the novel-all those who appeared in the performance, were amateurs. However, they received a standing ovation at the end of the deeply moving performance. This is a story of the four years in which the characters learned what was important in life and grew enormously.
Tetsuya Kumagawa K Ballet Company “Coppelia” in Cinema 
熊川哲也 Kバレエ カンパニー 「コッペリア」 in Cinema 「Kumakawa tetsuya K barē kanpanī `Kopperia’ in Cinema」
Running Time: N/A
Release Date: January 06th, 2018
Director: Tetsuya Kumakawa
Writer: N/A
Starring: Mina Kobayashi, Masaya Yamamoto, Stuart Cassidy,
Synopsis: This is the eighth in a series of films that bring the performances of the Kumagawa Tetsuya K Ballet Company to the cinema screen. The performance took place in May of this year and it is a rendition of “Coppelia”. The story of this ballet is set in a village in Europe in the middle of the 19th century. An inventor named Coppelius creates a mechanical doll modelled on his ideal woman – the most beautiful girl in the village. Her sweetheart gets confused when he sees the doll…
Bokemasukara, yoroshiku onegaishimasu 
ぼけますから、よろしくお願いします。 「Bokemasukara, yoroshiku onegaishimasu」
Running Time: 102 mins.
Release Date: November 03rd, 2018
Director: Naoko Nobutomo
Writer: N/A
Starring: N/A
Synopsis: Award-winning television and film director Naoko Nobutomu looks at her parents in this documentary. Her mother has dementia and her father is distant from her. They still live in Kure City, Hiroshima Prefecture, while Nobutomo has lived in Tokyo for nearly 40 years and has focussed on her career instead of marrying. Mother and daughter were in a documentary together and that subject was breast cancer the director suffered. Her mother helped her overcome that illness and so this film is an emotional follow-on and a moment to get to know her father as he cares for the mother.
Good to see a long-lived marriage with a happy couple.
Boku ha boku, kujira ha kujira de, oyoide iru 
ボクはボク、クジラはクジラで、泳いでいる。 「Boku ha boku, kujira ha kujira de, oyoide iru」
Running Time: 117 mins.
Release Date: November 03rd, 2018
Director: Tomoyuki Fujiwara
Writer: Makoto Kikuchi (Screenplay)
Starring: Rina Takeda, Masato Yano, Rei Okamoto, Takuma Sueno, Orie Akiyoshi, Shin Nagahama,
Synopsis: Taiji town in Wakayama prefecture is the location for a film about young people trying to draw more people to a museum dedicated to whales and other sea creatures. They need an increase in visitor numbers of the place will be shit down!!! They get help from all sorts of places including a lady with connections to an aquarium in Tokyo.
The Darkness of Pure White 
まっ白の闇 「Masshiro no Yami」
Running Time: 115 mins.
Release Date: November 03rd, 2018
Director: Masafumi Uchiya
Writer: Masafumi Uchiya (Screenplay/Original Work)
Starring: Saku Momose, Ryota Ozawa, Kuniharu Tokunaga, Asami Shinohara, Takehiro Murata, Juri, Eri Mitsuto,
Synopsis: Masafume Uchiya’s movie is about a guy who gets sucked into the world of drugs thanks to his brother. Said brother regrets this and tries to get him out.