Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 12123 Location: It was fun while it lasted. Country:
Posted: Sat Jan 16, 2010 9:11 pm Post subject:
Otake, Miyazaki co-star in "Okan no Yomeiri"
Actresses Shinobu Otake (52) and Aoi Miyazaki (24) will play mother and daughter in an upcoming film titled "Okan no Yomeiri." The movie is based on a story by writer Tsukine Sakuno and is being directed by Mipo O.
Set in Osaka, Otake plays the role of Yoko, a 45-year-old nurse and single mother who has raised a single daughter (Miyazaki). One day, she brings home a 30-year-old man (Kenta Kiritani) and introduces him as her fiance, much to the shock of her daughter.
Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 12123 Location: It was fun while it lasted. Country:
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 9:08 pm Post subject:
Horipro anniversary film assembles all-star cast
Management office Horipro is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and one of its commemorative projects is a major movie production titled "Inshite Miru," or "The Incite Mill." The story is based on the 2007 psychological suspense novel of the same name by writer Honobu Yonezawa.
Director Hideo Nakata is in charge of the film, which will have 10 of Horipro's top stars making up the main cast. Eight have been announced so far: Nagisa Katahira (50), Tatsuya Fujiwara (27), Haruka Ayase (24), Aya Hirayama (26), Shinji Takeda (37), Kinya Kitaoji (66), Tsuyoshi Abe (27), and Satomi Ishihara (23). The other two will be announced soon, with one being an actor from Horipro, and the other being decided on January 31 in a new talent audition that the company is holding.
In the story, ten people respond to a job advertisement promising 112,000 yen per hour. They are gathered and locked in a building, forced to participate in a "murder game."
Filming is scheduled to start in March, with theatrical release targeted for this fall.
Joined: 08 May 2007 Posts: 2331 Location: in South Atami Country:
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 10:07 pm Post subject:
bmwracer wrote:
Just noticed that Su-Ki-Da with Miyazaki Aoi and Eita is available for download at AsianDVDClub...
Anyone seen this? Review?
Recommended! It's very slow and has artistic ambitions (long shots, odd frames, filmed by hand camera etc) but you'll be rewarded. The first half of the movie about two akward teens who never get together and the second half is set 20 years later, when they meet again, turned into akward adults.
Recommended! It's very slow and has artistic ambitions (long shots, odd frames, filmed by hand camera etc) but you'll be rewarded. The first half of the movie about two akward teens who never get together and the second half is set 20 years later, when they meet again, turned into akward adults.
Yeah, that's what I read from the synopsis... Guess I'll download it.
Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 12123 Location: It was fun while it lasted. Country:
Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 9:29 pm Post subject:
64th Mainichi Film Awards: "Shizumanu Taiyo" wins grand prize
The presentation ceremony for the 64th Mainichi Film Awards has been scheduled for February 8. The winners were already announced on Tuesday, revealing that the Grand Prize is being given to Setsuro Wakamatsu's "Shizumanu Taiyo." The movie, starring Ken Watanabe (50), is based on the struggles of a real-life JAL employee in the aftermath of the Flight 123 disaster.
The complete list of awards is as follows:
•Grand Prize: Shizumanu Taiyo (directed by Setsuro Wakamatsu)
•Best Film: Tsurugidake: Ten no Ki (directed by Daisaku Kimura)
•Best Foreign Film: Gran Torino (directed by Clint Eastwood)
•Best Actor: Kenichi Matsuyama (Ultra Miracle Love Story)
•Best Actress: Manami Konishi (Nonchan Noriben)
•Best Supporting Actor: Ittoku Kishibe (Osaka Hamlet)
•Best Supporting Actress: Kaoru Yachigusa (Dear Doctor)
•Sponichi Grand Prix Newcomer Award: Takahiro Nishijima, Hikari Mitsushima (both for Ai no Mukidashi)
•Kinuyo Tanaka Award: Keiko Takahashi
•Best Director: Sion Sono (Ai no Mukidashi)
•Best Screenplay: Yozo Tanaka (Viyon no Tsuma)
•Best Cinematography: Daisaku Kimura (Tsurugidake: Ten no Ki)
•Best Art Direction: Yohei Taneda, Kyoko Yauchi (Viyon no Tsuma)
•Best Music: Shigeomi Hasumi (Watashi wa Neko Stalker)
•Best Sound: Kenichi Ishidera (Tsurugidake: Ten no Ki)
•Best Animated Film: Summer Wars (Mamoru Hosoda)
•Noburo Ofuji Award: Denshin-Bashira Elemi no Koi (Hideto Nakata)
•Best Documentary: Annyeong Yumika (Tetsuaki Matsue)
•Tsutaya Fan Award (Domestic Film): ROOKIES -Sotsugyo- (Yuichiro Hirakawa)
•Tsutaya Fan Award (Foreign Film): Michael Jackson's This Is It (Kenny Ortega)
•Special Awards: actor Hisaya Morishige, actress/producer Takiko Mizunoe
A review (by Mark Schilling of the Japan Times) of Yamada Yoji's newest film. Looks like the master craftsman, at age 78, is still going strong.
Selected as the closing film of the upcoming Berlin Film Festival, "Ototo" ("Younger Brother") is Yoji Yamada's first contemporary drama in a decade, since "Jugo-sai Gakko 4" ("A Class to Remember 4: Fifteen," 2000). In that time Yamada's image has changed from money-spinning maker of the hit "Tora-san" series (48 altogether from 1969 to 1996) to internationally celebrated auteur, whose many honors include an Oscar nomination for the period drama "Tasogare Seibei" ("Twilight Samurai," 2002).
Ototo Rating: (5 out of 5)
Sayuri Yoshinaga and Tsurube Shofukutei in "Ototo" (C) 2010 "OTOTO" SEISAKU IINKAI"
Director: Yoji Yamada
Running time: 126 minutes
Language: Japanese
Opens Jan. 30
[See Japan Times movie listing]
"Ototo" reunites Sayuri Yoshinaga and Tsurube Shofukutei, who played a long-suffering mother and a scampish uncle, respectively, in Yamada's World War II drama "Kabei" ("Kabei: Our Mother," 2008).
This time, Yoshinaga is Ginko, the proprietor of a small drug store in Tokyo and mother to Koharu (Yu Aoi), a chipper, sweet-tempered girl who is engaged to be married to a young doctor.
All goes swimmingly until the day of the wedding, when Tetsuro (Shofukutei), Ginko's ne'er-do-well younger brother, appears. A failed actor and a drunk, Tetsuro has been cast out of the family for various offenses �\ and shows why by turning the reception into a rowdy farce.
This should be the end, but it isn't because Ginko has been covering for Tetsuro all his life. When his ex-lover comes begging for money, she has to give and when he falls ill with cancer in Osaka, she has to go.
Good characters in Japanese melodramas are forever making similar sacrifices with noble grimaces and shining eyes, as the violins swell. Ginko, however, is no cardboard saint, but an ordinary woman who is deeply pained by the waste Tetsuro has made of his life �\ and can't forget the hardships they endured together as children.
Yamada strips this story to its essentials, with no showy camera moves, syrupy music or overwrought acting. Instead he keeps the camera at a respectful, but observant, middle distance, steadily building to the moments when pretenses fall away and the truth emerges. Some of those moments are immensely sad and even terrifying, but some are beautiful as well.
Now well into his fifth decade as a director, Yamada says exactly what he wants to say with a master's sureness, finesse and economy.
Many Japanese directors try to jerk tears �\ it's among the surest routes to box office success here. But Yamada is one of the few who can touch the heart �\ and he's seldom done it better than in "Ototo."
Joined: 14 Feb 2009 Posts: 6884 Location: Syracuse, NY Country:
Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 2:49 pm Post subject:
Watched for possibly the 20th time the first Stray Cats Rock film ...there were 5 films in the series, all starred the queen of 70's films, Meiko Kaji. I've seen the first 3, all are good, but #1 is such a classic, it also starred one of the big J-Pop singers of that era, Wada Akiko. Not easy to find, but if you ever get the chance to watch any of them, don't hesitate. _________________
Available for download at asiandvdclug.org: Miki Satoshi's Instant Swamp
Satoshi Miki's comedy about an endearingly flaky woman's search for her eccentric antique (i.e., junk) dealer dad is packed with small comic gems, delivered in Miki's trademark dry style of spot-on timing and blithe disregard for logic. After being forced to resign from her publishing company job when her magazine goes out of circulation, office worker Haname Jinchoge (Kumiko Aso) is given the name of her real father-Noburo Jinchoge when her mother (Keiko Matsuzaka) falls into a coma after nearly drowning in a pond while searching for kappa. Unsure if Noburo (Morio Kazama) is her father, Haname decides to visit him but tells him that she is a distant relative, he happens to be the shopkeeper at an odd antiquities shop called Light Bulb Co., working for her father is a punk rocker named Gas (Ryo Kase). Haname becomes fascinated with the various oddities and charm of Light Bulb Co., and discovers that she, like her father has a knack for selling things so she decides to become a shopkeeper herself. Customers are hard to come by, but she listens to her dad's strange advice....
Joined: 14 Feb 2009 Posts: 6884 Location: Syracuse, NY Country:
Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 11:39 am Post subject:
^^ Seeing that pic is what made me choose jikou keisatsu as my next drama, Kumiko is #1 on my list! Not a huge city here, but we do have such a great indie movie/music store, so many obscure titles, went down to purchase this tonight, hard to beat those 50's and 60's flicks from Japan, can't wait to watch these, but....
...may have to view this first, blew my mind when I saw it on the shelf, scooped it right up and prayed I wouldn't get mugged going to the register, just made Kaz so, so jealous! _________________
Joined: 14 Feb 2009 Posts: 6884 Location: Syracuse, NY Country:
Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 2:04 pm Post subject:
bmwracer wrote:
You could've downloaded it from asiandvdclub.org.
Yeah, but when I saw it just couldn't resist. Don't mind buying DVDs from Japan, figure someone has to, it's the non-Asian DVDs I very very rarely buy. _________________
Joined: 14 Feb 2009 Posts: 6884 Location: Syracuse, NY Country:
Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 3:34 pm Post subject:
bmwracer wrote:
Thing is, that release is from Criterion/Eclipse... An American company, not Japanese.
True, most companies that import them I think are except for perhaps Tokyo Shock, Sony doesn't really have that many films. Just hate to see any of my money go to any of those spoiled, over-rated, rich Hollywood actors or producers or directors. My rant for the night, but looking at the reviews for the Nikkatsu Noir films I'm really getting psyched to see it, especially for the Joe Shishido flicks! _________________
Joined: 14 Feb 2009 Posts: 6884 Location: Syracuse, NY Country:
Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 4:06 pm Post subject:
bmwracer wrote:
Ahh, chipmunk guy.
So you have Branded to Kill, Detective Bureau 2-3, and others?
Also Youth of the Beast, Yakuza Paper #4, Most terrible time in my life and now Cruel Gun Story and A Colt is my Passport, but I haven't seen either Detective Bureau. Would also like to find Territorial Dispute that he's in, also has a very young Meiko Kaji in it, hard to find pre-1970 stuff from her. Gonna have to look for the Detective films if they are out there anywhere. _________________
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scooped it right up and prayed I wouldn't get mugged going to the register, just made Kaz so, so jealous! 
Don't mind buying DVDs from Japan, figure someone has to, it's the non-Asian DVDs I very very rarely buy. 
Just hate to see any of my money go to any of those spoiled, over-rated, rich Hollywood actors or producers or directors. 
My rant for the night, but looking at the reviews for the Nikkatsu Noir films I'm really getting psyched to see it, especially for the Joe Shishido flicks! 
Would also like to find Territorial Dispute that he's in, also has a very young Meiko Kaji in it, hard to find pre-1970 stuff from her. 
Gonna have to look for the Detective films if they are out there anywhere. 
