5TH ANNUAL TERRACOTTA FAR EAST FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES FULL LINE-UP

Tickets are now on sale for the fifth edition of the annual Terracotta Far East Film Festival. Due to Japanese language studies this post is about two weeks late but there is still time to order tickets.

The festival this year looks genuinely impressive with many UK premieres and a selection of films that cover a wide variety of genres and countries. There is strength and depth in this selection and it is heartening to see that the UK is getting to see these films.

For my part I have got four tickets thanks to fellow blogger Alua. I’m pretty hyped up at the prospect of seeing three Japanese films (A Story of Yonosuke, See You Tomorrow, Everyone, Land of Hope) and one Korean one (The Berlin File). Without further ado here is a word from the organisers followed by the line-up with some comments on the films I am familiar with and a preview of the Japanese films I will watch. Click on the titles to head over to the festival site for more information on the film and to order tickets!

5TH ANNUAL TERRACOTTA FAR EAST FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES FULL LINE-UP

Over the years the festival has seen the event go from strength to strength. This year is set to be the biggest yet, expanding to 27 films spread over 4 sections and 2 venues from 06 – 15 June 2013.

The core of the festival will remain a hand-picked selection of the best CURRENT ASIAN CINEMA at The Prince Charles Cinema. This all UK Premiere section reflects the vibrancy and energy in Asian filmmaking today. Ranging from realist dramas to romance, light comedies to spy action thrillers, swordfighting epics to gothic fairytales, the festival aims to balance the representation of Asian countries.

Terracotta Festival 2013 (TFEFF13) will open with Hong Kong action COLD WAR on Thursday 06 June 2013. 

This year’s edition will also see a return to last year’s Terror Cotta Horror night on Friday 07 June in association with Film 4 Frightfest. The triple bill has now extended to an all-night horror marathon.

The organisers also have added the “IN MEMORY OF” section to mark the tenth anniversary of two of Hong Kong’s best loved and most missed stars: Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui.

Terracotta Festival 2013 will close out at the ICA with “SPOTLIGHT ON: Indonesia”.  11 – 15 June will be an entire week dedicated to Indonesian cinema, from the country’s freshest emerging talent alongside work by established filmmakers. This new section will bring rare insight into one of Asia’s rising film powerhouses.

 

Terracotta Far East Film Festival full Programme:
IN MEMORY OF: Leslie Cheung & Anita Mui 

Both Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui were wonderful actors, two of the biggest stars in HK cinema, and they both died untimely deaths. It is pleasing to see that they will be remembered with this retrospective.

DAYS OF BEING WILD Dir: Wong Kar Wai, Hong Kong – Wed 29 May 2013, 20:45

1994/ Cantonese and Mandarin with English subtitles/ 94 mins/ starring Leslie Cheung, Maggie Cheung, Andy Lau, Tony Leung Chiu Wai

Days of Being Wild was one of Wong Kar Wai’s (WKW) earliest films and it contains all of WKW’s familiar from gorgeous cinematography to characters going trough deep existential self-questioning in a story about a man searching for his birth mother. It stars a whole gamut of HK stars.

ROUGE Dir: Stanley Kwan, Hong Kong – Thurs 06 June 2013, 17:50

1988/ Cantonese with English subtitles/ 96 mins/ starring Anita Mui, Leslie Cheung

Stanley Kwan’s film is described as Part Romeo & Juliet, part ghost story, an outstanding and timeless classic. It stars both Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung.

HAPPY TOGETHER Dir: Wong Kar Wai, Hong Kong - Fri 07 June 2013, 12:30

1997/ Cantonese and Mandarin with English subtitles/ 96 mins/ starring Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Chen Chang

I really like this film. I have watched it numerous times and I just love (and own) the soundtrack which is inspired by its Argentinian setting and don’t get me started about the ending.

 

The film follows the story of a gay love triangle slowly fragmenting and dislocating amidst the beautiful city of Buenos Aires.

CURRENT ASIAN CINEMA 

COLD WAR by Sunny Luk, Longman Leung, Hong Kong – Opening Film Thurs 06 June 2013, 19:50

UK Premiere/ 2012/ Cantonese with English subtitles/ 102 mins/ starring Aaron Kwok, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Andy Lau

This is a police thriller which reminds me a lot of Infernal Affairs and it looks to have similar impressive production values. It won big at the recent Hong Kong Film awards and UK film fans get to see it on the big screen with its premiere at the festival.

When police deal with a sophisticated hijacking of a police van they are outwitted at every turn and all the while the guys leading the police investigation are battling each other for positions of power in a tale of police corruption and politics.

The Complex, Maruyama, The Middle Schooler, Buddha Burning Human, Proof of the Child, Leaving on the 15th Spring, Peach Festival Films and Other Trailers and the Movie Box Office Chart

Aku no Hana/Flowers of Evil was the only post this week but I wanted to let this one have the spotlight for a couple of days because I think the anime is very, very brilliant. I also had to revise for my Japanese test on Wednesday. I think I passed this course but I’m not happy with the way my study habits floundered at points. There is definite room for improvement. No films watched but plenty of anime like Attack on Titan, My Youth Romcom, Aku no Hana and Red Data Girl. Next Saturday I will be attending a Japan Day Festival, which I posted on AUKN.

What does the Japanese Movie Box Office Chart look like for the weekend May 11^th-12^th?

1. Detective Conan Private Eye in the Distant Sea
2. Phone Call to the Bar 2
3. Iron Man 3
4. Prefecture’s Government Hospitality Division
5. Library Wars
6. Shield of Straw
7. Crayon Shin Chan! Gourmet Food Survival
8. Kamen Rider X Super Sentai X Space Sheriff: Super Hero Taisen Z
9. Saint Young Men
10. Steins;Gate: The Movie

Major changes in this week’s movie box office standings with three new entries in the top ten from last week’s crop. Saint Young Men comes in at nine, Prefecture’s Government Hospitality Division at four and Phone Call to the Bar 2 resting at two. Detective Conan continue to reign supreme at one for the fourth week in a row while Steins;Gate claws its way back into the top ten at ten.

What is released this week? I say this week because there is a film festival going on in Japan at the moment and they released some titles on the 16^th and 18^th. There are lots of cool trailers.

Peach Festival Films

Female filmmakers have been on the rise in Japan as well regarded films like Dreams for Sale, End of Puberty and Just Pretended to Hear reveal. To get a better taste of what other young female directors are doing we get a whole festival dedicated to showing the freshest works coming from them. The theme for this year is ‘Tears’. Here are three short films that will be on the big screen.

Peach Festival Presents Tears “Sayonara Mermaid”       

Japanese Title: 桃まつり presents なみだ “サヨナラ人魚”

Romaji: Momo Matsuri Presents Namida “Sayonara Ningyo”

Release Date: May 16^th, 2013 (Japan)

Running Time: 48 mins.

Director: Ayaka Kato

Writer: Ayaka Kato (Screenplay)                                                

Starring: Kazuha Komiya, Yuta Toda, Katsunori Teraoka, Minori Hagiwara

This is the debut of Ayaka Kato and it has a title which sounds like it could be strange. The trailer is intriguing. Two guys approach a mysterious woman previously seen on a beach. Is she a mermaid? Is she simply suicidal and disturbed? Guys, you better watch out! Mermaids can’t be trusted! Even foxy ones!

Actually this is a film where a woman named Sammy, who is attending a prep school, is in all sorts of relationships with instructors and fellow students and feels emptiness. We then follow a series of encounters with different people. Is this a riff on the Little Mermaid fairy tale and does she go through similar things? Well this short has 48 minutes to develop this story. If Ayaka Kato is skilled enough, it should be enough.

 

Peach Festival Presents Tears “Itai no Itai no Tonde Ike”

Japanese Title: 桃まつり presents “なみだ “いたいのいたいのとんでいけ”

Romaji: Matsuri Presents Namida “Itai no Itai no Tonde Ike”

Release Date: May 16^th, 2013 (Japan)

Running Time: 30 mins.

Director: Miwa Paku

Writer: N/A

Starring: Haruna Okawa, Mari Hayashida, Shioi Kasahara

I am totally unsure about this title. It looks like Pain of the Pain Fly Away but it sounds totally wrong… Arrgh. Frustration. Anyway, this film comes from Park Miwa who worked on the 3.11 shot-film compilation Tomorrow which gathered together staff originating from the areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. The story follows Kana, a young girl who is trying to get her parents to reconcile their differences during a domestic conflict. The biggest name for me is Mari Hayashida who was in Cold Bloom. No trailer.

Leaving on the 15^th Spring                               

Japanese Title: 旅立ちの島唄　十五の春

Romaji: Tabidachi no Shima Uta – 15 no Aru

Release Date: May 18^th, 2013 (Japan)

Running Time: 114 mins.

Director: Yasuhiro Yoshida

Writer: Yasuhiro Yoshida (Screenplay),

Starring: Ayaka Miyoshi, Shinobu Otake, Karou Kobayashi, Saori Koide, Ryuya Wakaba, Jyo Hyuga,

I listed this one with the incorrect release date of April 17^th. Apologies. I was suspicious because the website I got the info from didn’t tally up with another, much more reliable one. Anyway the film trailer didn’t impress me that much on the first run but a review from the Japan Times film review site chalks this up as an impressive feature citing the fact that director, “Yoshida can universalize from the real without turning his people into case studies or stereotypes… Yoshida prefers to speak volumes with nonviolent, emotionally charged suggestion. That is, he brings an understated lyricism to what an ordinary documentary might have reduced to just-the-facts prose.” Ayaka Miyoshi, one of the stars of Good Morning Everyone, last year’s rock film which starred Kumiko Aso, takes the lead in this family drama which examines the lives of a family who are separated from each other due to geographical circumstances.

Minamidaito Island does not have a high school and so when teenagers hit 15 they must head to mainland Japan. Yuna Nakazato (Miyoshi) is about to make the same trip as her two older siblings leaving her father Toshiharu (Kobayashi) behind. She worries about him being left alone but she will be joining her mother Akemi (Otake), sister Mina (Koide) and brother in Naha. With her date of departure looming Yuna feels unease about her future but also has a curiosity about the wider world.

The Complex                                              

Japanese Title: クロユリ　団地

Romaji: Kuroyuri Danchi

Running Time: 106 mins.

Release Date: May 18^th, 2013 (Japan)

Director: Hideo Nakata

Writer: Hideo Nakata, Junya Kato, Ryuta Miyake

Starring: Atsuka Maeda, Hiroki Narimiya, Masanobu Katsumura, Naomi Nishida, Sosei Tanaka, Masaya Takahashi, Satomi Tezuka, Taro Suwa, Yurei Yanagi, Megumi Sato, Mayumi Asaka

Hideo Nakata, the director of J-horror classic Ringu and Dark Water returns with another urban supernatural chiller with The Complex which premiered at this year’s Rotterdam International Film Festival. Reviews suggest this is a return to horror form for the director and the trailer strikes all the right notes for me! It stars the beautiful Atsuka Maeda who is a former member of AKB48 and starred in The Drudgery Train, one of the more interesting titles released in Japan last year.  Hiroki Narimiya, Tooru in Mirror Hell part of Rampo Noir and the titular character in the Phoenix Wright movie Ace Attorney is her male co-star. The supporting cast include Naomi Nishida (Library Wars, Swing Girls) and Megumi Sato (Cyborg She, Exte). First trailer of the week! Go J-hora!

Asuka (Maeda) has moved into the Kuroyuri apartment complex. It is a place with a chequered history as mysterious deaths occurred there 13 years ago. It isn’t long before she starts hearing the sound “garigarigari” from the apartment next door where an old man lives and it isn’t long before he is found dead! This is the start of a series of horrifying events that strike the apartment. Asuka calls upon Sasahara (Narimiya), a man who cleans up the homes of the recently deceased, to help solve the mystery.

 

Maruyama, The Middle Schooler          

Japanese Title: 中学生　円山

Romaji: Chuugakusei Maruyama

Release Date: May 18^th, 2013 (Japan)

Running Time: 199 mins.

Director: Kankuro Kudo

Writer: Kankuro Kudo (Screenplay)

Starring: Hiroaki Takuma, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, Yang Ik-June, Maki Sakai, Toru Nakamura, Nanami Nabemoto, Yuiko Kariya,You, Fumina Hara,Kenji Endo, Tomorowo Taguchi, Maho Nonami

This one is my second trailer of the week. It premiered at the 15^th Udine Far East Film Festival last month where it got this review and this more recent Japan Times review makes the film sound really, really funny. Hiraoka Takuma (The Wolf Children) takes the lead in this comedy with Yang Ik-June (Breathless, Our Homeland), Maki Sakai (Paris Tokyo Paysage, The Samurai That Night), You (Nobody Knows, Still Walking), Maho Nonami (2LDK), Tomorowo Taguchi (Tetsuo: The Iron Man) and Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, member of J-pop group SMAP and star of Beautiful World. It’s directed by Kankuro Kuda, actor in Memories of Matsuko and Instant Swamp. The trailer is short and reading my synopsis is long but I like the look of this one!

Katsuya Maruyama (Hiraoka) is 14, an age where a boys thoughts are consumed by carnal desires. Only his are strange. He wants to “to touch his own weeny with his tongue.” Perhaps his strangeness is a result of living a mundane life in a housing complex with his mother Mizuki (sakai)), a woman obsessed with Korean dramas, his fitness obsessed father Katsuyuki (Nakamura) and sharing his room with his sister Akane (Nabemoto). There are other, stranger characters around like Tatsuo Shimoi (Kusanagi), a single father who wheels his infant son in a buggy around everywhere and prying into his neighbours lives and irritating housewives and a Korean electrician named Park Hyeon-Hun (Yang Ik-June) who attracts the attention of Mizuki. When bodies start turning up in the apartment complex Maruyama begins to draw a manga about a superhero named Captain Fruit (based on his father) who comes to the rescue. He shares his crazy tales with Shimoi and the line between fantasy and reality become blurred.

  

Flowers of Evil / Aku no Hana First Impression

Aku no Hana

Director: Hiroshi Nagahama, Assistant Director: Tetsuo Hirakawa, Original Creator: Shuuzou Oshimi, Series Composition: Aki Itami, Character Designer: Hidekazu Shimamura, Art Director: Kentaro Akiyama
Voice Actors: Youko Hikasa, Shinichirou Ueda, Mariya Ise, Sayuri Hara
Studio: Zexcs

This was not one of my picks from the Spring 2013 anime season. When I was writing the synopsis for it during the spring season guide for Anime UK News I was very uncertain about it. I mean, on the one hand it sounds initially unpromising, a middle school student named Takao Kasuga steals the gym clothes of the girl he has a crush on, Nanako Saeki. Great.

But things get really interesting when we find out that he was spied stealing the clothes by a fellow student, the strange, creepy and rebellious loner named Sawa Nakamura. The class is shocked and Saeki is upset so Sawa is sitting on explosive information. Instead of informing people about Kasuga’s indiscretion, Sawa uses this information as a way to control Kasuga and draw him into her own twisted world. Kasuga has a difficult choice: Play her game or be revealed to the class as a perv.

After the spring season started and I was disappointed with Devil Survivor 2, I was drawn to this because I kept reading about how viewer reactions were extreme.

The art style has proven controversial amongst fans of the manga and anime in general. It is very different to that of the original manga by Shuzo Oshimi due to its use of rotoscoping, a technique where animators trace over live-action scenes frame by frame.

There are real actors portraying the characters.

Some hate it for this change but there is an opposing camp who love it. I am in the latter camp and not because I like being different (which I do). I have thought about this deeply (for once) and I have come to the conclusion that Aku no Hana is one of the most intentionally disturbing anime I have seen¹ and it is thanks to its art style.

I like it a lot because it is different and it is very effective at delivering this twisted existential love (?) story which captures adolescent feelings in a unique way.

Anybody walking in expecting bishounen or wild hair styles will be shocked. The characters look much more like normal human beings than in most other shows.

Rotoscoping lends the features and movements of the characters an added weight to every scene. They constantly move and react to the world in real ways and while some of the detailing is off (faces can disappear), the visuals are never boring and always have an impact. Indeed, their faces are very expressive thanks to the technique. It feels like watching real people. It is perfect for conveying both huge and subtle changes in emotional tones, priceless for monitoring the reactions of certain disturbed characters and their tormented prey as well as the moments when the blossoming of love, hope and admiration appear.

Saint Young Men, Home, Prefecture Government’s Hospitality Division, Phone Call to the Bar 2, Peach Film Festival Films Trailers and the Japanese Movie Box Office Chart

What did I do this week? Well I’ll tell you whether you’re interested or not. A post for the release of For Love’s Sake and a Competition to go to Hong Kong thanks to the lovely folks at the Terracotta Far East Film Festival. I took part in an interview with fellow cineblogger Lost in the Miso and I watched a lot of anime (more first impressions next week). No films. I am gearing up for the Terracotta Far East Film Festival with four films (three Japanese and one Korean) on the cards. I need to write a preview for this festival. I still need to write to reviews from the last film festival I attended. There are a lot of things I need to do and all of that will have to wait until I pass my Japanese exam next week.

What does the Japanese Movie Box Office Chart look like for the weekend May 04^th-05^th.

1. Detective Conan Private Eye in the Distant Sea
2. Iron Man 3
3. Library Wars
4. Shield of Straw
5. Crayon Shin Chan! Gourmet Food Survival
6. Kamen Rider X Super Sentai X Space Sheriff: Super Hero Taisen Z
7. Dragon Ball Z Battle of the Gods
8. Lincoln
9. Wreck-It Ralph
10. The Great Passage

No new entries in the top ten but it is encouraging to see The Great Passage hanging in the top ten. Detective Conan retains the top spot for the third week in a row, Library Wars and Shield of Straw round out the top five in their second week out.

What is released this week? A lot more than the paltry two titles of last week!

Saint Young Men                          

Japanese Title: 聖☆おにいさん

Romaji: Sei  聖☆Onīsan

Release Date: May 10^th, 2013 (Japan)

Running Time: N/A

Director: Noriko Takao

Writer: Rika Nezu

Starring: Mirai Moriyama, Gen Hoshino, Reiko Suzuki, Ryoko Kinomiya

Imagine if Buddha and Jesus shared an apartment in the Tachikawa area of Tokyo and experienced life as humans in Japan. This is the concept of Hikaru Nakamura’s manga and it sounds amusing enough and it now has an anime film. The staff are experienced. Noriko Takao has worked as an episode director on gag anime K-ON! And Lucky Star. The screenplay comes from Rika Nezu who wrote for the live-action Kimi ni Todoke. There are great actors fulfilling the roles of seiyuu. Mirai Moriyama (The Drudgery Train) voices Jesus and Gen Hoshino (Why Don’t You Play in Hell?) voices Buddha. The animation is very gorgeous and detailed and the character designs are great, check out the trailer.

Home                               

Japanese Title: 家

Romaji: Ie

Release Date: May 11^th, 2013 (Japan)

Running Time: 80 mins.

Director: Masatoshi Akihara

Writer: Shimizaki Fujimura (Original Novel)

Starring: Tomomi Nishimura, Yoji Matsuda, Anri Ban, Yuki Kimoto, Takuya Nakayama, Mitsuho Otani, Ichiro Ogura

Masatoshi Akihara, director of the rather amusing looking Lupin no Kiganjo (2011) is directing an adaptation of Shimizaki Fujimura’s novel of the same name which charts the fortunes of members of two families in the Kiso area of Nagano prefecture, one of which runs a brewery which will pass to a daughter and the other which is more humble and consists of teachers. It stars Tomomi Matsuda (Life on the Longboard), Yoji Matsuda (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, The Hidden Blade), and Anri Ban (Go, Tokyo Rhapsody). To be quite honest the trailer didn’t interest me in the least but I am thankful I did the research because that Lupin film (ルパンの奇巌城) looks very amusing!

Prefecture Government’s Hospitality Division    

Japanese Title: 県庁おもてなし課

Romaji: Kenchou Omotenashi Ka

Release Date: May 11^th, 2013 (Japan)

Running Time: N/A

Director: Yoshinage Miyake,

Writer: Hiro Arikawa (Original Light Novel), Yoshikazu Okada (Screenplay)

Starring: Kengo Kora, Ryo Nishikido, Mari Horikita, Eiichiro Funakoshi, Megumi Seki, Masahiro Komoto, Satoru Matsuo

Anime fans will know that prefectures in Japan are falling over themselves to use anime to promote their regions. Well here’s an example of a film doing it. The film trailer looks dull, like an advertisement for the locations (it was shot mostly in Koichi prefecture) with some light drama thrown in and so I was eager to get to the end of it and watch something else. Script comes courtesy of Yoshikazu Okada who wrote Space Travelers. The cast looks pretty, the ones of note for me are Mari Horikita who was one of the brighter aspects in the J-horror films The Locker 1 and 2 and One Missed Call Final, Kengo Kora who was in Norwegian Wood, The Woodsman & the Rain and The Drudgery Train and Megumi Seki (The Foreign Duck, Christmas in August). It’s nice to see Horikita moving on to better films with bigger bugets.

Koichi prefecture needs to promote itself for tourism purposes so who are they gonna call? The hospitality division, that’s who.

Or so you might think but there’s a strict rule banning advertisements so a popular writer from Koichi named Kyosuke Yoshikado (Kora) is appointed as the special envoy for tourism in the area and has the help of hospitality division employees Fumitaka (Nishikido) and Taki (Horikita).

So what’s the plan? Well Kyosuke is pointed in the direction of Seien, a former employee of Koichi Prefecture who was fired when his plan to import pandas fell apart. When Fumitaka and Taki visit Seien they get a frosty welcome (more like a bucket of water thrown at them) from Seien’s daughter Sawa (Seki). Can this group work together?

 

Phone Call to the Bar 2                    

Japanese Title: 探偵はBARにいる2

Romaji: Tantei wa Bar ni Iru 2

Release Date: May 11^th, 2013 (Japan)

Running Time: 119 mins.

Director: Hajime Hashimoto,

Writer: Naomi Azuma (Original Novel), Ryota Kosawa (Screenplay)

Starring: Yo Oizumi, Ryuhei Matsuda, Machiko Ono, Atsuro Watabe, Gori, Tomorowo Taguchi, Eisuke Sasai, Kazuki Namioka, Koen Kondo, Mariko Tsutsui, Yutaka MAtsushige, Kenichi Yajima

The sequel to the popular and, according to a friend who saw it on a flight from Japan, rather entertaining Phone Call to the Bar! This is based on Naomi Azuma’s 2001 novel and it has quite the cast. Yo Oizumi, Ratman in the Gegege no Kitaro films, the impossibly handsome Ryuhei Matsuda, star of The Foreign Duck and Nightmare Detective, Yutaka Matsushige, the scary killer in The Guard from the Underground, Mariko Tsutsui who was in One Missed Call, Atsuro Watabe who looked effortlessly cool in Heat After Dark, Machiko Ono who was in Eureka and Tomorowo Taguchi who was the eponymous protag in Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man. This trailer looks pretty damn awesome actually wth Ryuhei Matsuda mixing it up in the action department and Atsuro Watabe looking like a political slickster. Some pretty good humour emerges as well. Trailer of the week.

Masako (Gori) is a magician at a Japanese pub and s friends with a Private Detective (Oizumi). When Masako dies at a magic show convention, private detective and Takada (Matsuda) begins investigating and find that Gori may have been involved with political figures. As this rumbles on, a woman who has been following the private detective consults him with a mystery of her own.

Third Window Films Release For Loves Sake on DVD & Blu-Ray

Long time readers of the blog will remember that I attended last years BFI London Film Festival and saw For Love’s Sake. My review was positively overflowing with love, praise and fervour for the film and it landed at number 2 in my Top 10 Films of 2012. I can still remember whole swathes of the film and how I felt during the screening. When I found out that Third Window Films was releasing it I was rather pleased and I highly, highly (very, very highly) recommend it. Enough from me, here’s the details:

 

FOR LOVE’S SAKE

Director: Takashi Miike (13 Assassins, One Missed Call, Audition, Ninja Kids!!!)

 Starring: Satoshi Tsumabuki (Villain, Tokyo Family, Tokyo!, Dororo)

Emi Takei (Rurouni Kenshin)
Sakura Ando (Love Exposure, Our Homeland, Penance)

Japan / 2012 / 134 Mins / In Japanese with English subtitles / Colour

Out on Double-disc DVD & Blu-ray 

June 10th, 2013

DVD and Blu-ray Special Features
Anamorphic Widescreen transfer with 5.1 Surround Sound
Making Of, Skip to a Song Selection, Theatrical Trailer

 

Takashi Miike, the director of ’13 Assassins’, ‘Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai’ and ‘Audition’ brings us as Bollywood-style musical action/comedy/love story!
 
Not exactly a director that plays along with genre rules, the prolific Takashi Miike now takes his talent in genre bending to the pure romance world with For Love’s Sake (a.k.a. Ai to Makoto), based on Kajiwara Ikki’s 1973 manga series. An epic story of a rich high school girl who falls in love with a tough young gangster, Miike’s take on the story breaks all the rules with musical numbers (with music by popular music producer Kobayashi Takeshi), tongue-in-cheek humour, and in-your-face violence. Starring Satoshi Tsumabuki (Villain) and Emi Takei (Rurouni Kenshin) as the star-crossed lovers, For Love’s Sake is a unique and incredibly wild ride that will change your definition of what a pure romance can be.

Terracotta Festival’s “Asia In London” Short-Film Competition Information

The Terracotta Far East Film Festival is a month away and the line-up of films will be released tomorrow. I have been a bit tardy in posting this information on a short-film competition with the awesome prize of a trip to Hong Kong but there is still plenty of time left to enter.

Here are the details:

Terracotta Festival’s “Asia In London” Short-Film Competition, in association with Cathay Pacific

Terracotta Festival, in association with Cathay Pacific, present an exciting competition to win a trip to the vibrant city of Hong Kong.

Terracotta are partnering with Cathay Pacific to celebrate the launch of their 5^th daily London Heathrow to Hong Kong flight. Accommodation is provided by the five star Design Hotels ™ member, The Mira Hong Kong.

To enter the competition, make and submit a short film on the theme: “Asia In London”. The film must last no more than 3 minutes in length.

Submissions are open from Tuesday 23 April and close at 12 noon 20 May.

Return to Iitate Village of Radiation, Innervision Trailers and the Japanese Movie Box Office Chart

A new week a new dorama. With xxxHOLiC ending on a nice note I have picked up Shinya Shokudo, a recommendation from fellow Japanese dorama fan Tired Paul. So far it reminds me of Bartender. Expect a review in the coming weeks. I was also impressed with episode 4 of Attack on Titan (WHAT AN ENDING!) and My Youth Rom-Com. This season has been the best in terms of shows since Autumn 2011. The highlight of my week in film had to be two titles, A Woman Named Abe Sada, an awesome 1975 Roman Porno and Bakumatsu Taiyo-den, a 1957 comedy set in a cat house. Expect reviews of them as well.

This week in terms of blogging began with a God-tier teaser trailer for Sion Sono’s latest film, Why Don’t You Play in Hell? Awesome title! To say that it made my day would be an understatement. I felt so damn refreshed! I also posted my answers to a Liebster Blog Award and my first Impressions for Devil Survivor 2 The Animation. I’m going to try and finish my First Impressions up next week and get back to films.

Anyway… What do the Japanese film charts look like this week (April 27^th-28^st)?

1. Detective Conan Private Eye in the Distant Sea
2. Iron Man 3
3. Crayon Shin Chan! Gourmet Food Survival
4. Lincoln
5. Dragon Ball Z Battle of the Gods
6. The Last Stand
7. Steins;Gate Fuka Ryoiki no Deja Vu
8. The Great Passage
9. Wreck-It Ralph
10. Killing Them Softly

Last week’s number one, Detective Conan remains at the top while everything else drops down a place to make way for Iron Man 3. I’m not really a fan of superhero movies andrpefer things like Steins;Gate and The Great Passage which remain in the top ten at seventh and eighth respectively.

What Japanese films are released in Japan this weekend? Only two???

Return to Iitate Village of Radiation　　　　　　　　　　　

Japanese Title: 飯舘村　放射能　と　帰村

Romaji: Ītatemura Hōshano to Kison

Release Date: May 06^th, 2013 (Japan)

Running Time: 119 mins.

Director: Doi Toshikuni

My Japanese isn’t all that great so my translations can be wrong as I suspect they are in this case because it sounds very melodramatic and the trailer is rather undramatic with a lot of talking head interviews and observation. This documentary comes from Doi Toshikuni who released one earlier this year about Burmese in Japan. This documentary records the travails of two families in Iitate village, Fukushima Prefecture, which suffers the consequences of the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake. Rain, snow and wind all carry radiation and both the Shiga and Hasegawa families are forced to leave. The Shiga family, dairy farmers by trade, find themselves in a new town and working in factories while the Hasegawa family split up.

Innervision                                                             

Japanese Title: Innervisionインナーヴィジョン

Romaji: Innervision inna-vuijon

Release Date: May 06^th, 2013 (Japan)

Running Time: 45 mins.

Director: Makoto Sasaki

Writer: N/A

Starring: Hideyuki Kato, Kiyoshi Yaamoto, Hirotoshi Kobayashi, Masanori Kobayashi, Robert Harris

Innervision is another documentary but this one follows Hideyuki Kato, a musician who is visually impaired, who supervises the creation his own science fiction movie using equipment and digital technology James Cameron developed for Avatar. The main character looks to be an interesting chap and the short running time should ensure that the film does not outstay its welcome.

That’s it for this week. There are more films released next week. I also have a Japanese test but thankfully I have finished posts early and have the scheduled. The final video for this post is a cool AMV.

Devil Survivor 2 The Animation First Impression

Devil Survivor 2 The Animation         

Director: Seiji Kishi, Series Composition: Makoto Uezu, Music: Kotaro Nakagawa

Voice Actors: Aya Uchida, Hiroshi Kamiya, Junichi Suwabe, Nobuhiko Okamoto, Takahiro Sakurai, Ami Koshimizu, Kana Asumi, Kikuko Inoue, Yuka Iguchi

Studio: Bridge

My first impression of the anime? It’s dull. Here’s a post full of why.

Kuzue Hibiki and his friend Shijima Daichi are on the verge of going to college. They meet in Shibuya and discuss what they will do in their future. Daichi has dreams of going on dates and trips and playing around while Kuzue feels a degree of uncertainty about his future. Then Diachi introduces Kuzue to a phone app called Nicaea.

If you register with the app you can take a picture of a friend and see the face of your friend when they die. These short videos are called Dead Face clips and they are all the rage because people want to see how their friends will die.

Liebester Blog Award Number Three

Lynn from Lynn’s Book Blog has passed on the Liebster Blog Award to me. Not one for ignoring praise (please give me praise, I have writer’s syndrome) and never one for ignoring Lynn (a blogger with great taste in films as well as books) or any of my fellow commenters/bloggers, I have put up my responses here. Here are the rules:

1. Tell us 11 things about yourself

2. Answer 11 questions the blogger who awarded you asked

3. Pass the award to 11 people

4. Give them 11 questions.
5. Tell them about the award
6. Don’t award people who are recipients already

I have done this before so I’ll skip the formalities and the whole nominating people bit because I doubt anybody I would nominate has the time to reply to be quite frank.

11 Things About Me Updated for 2013

1. I have met Doctor Who.
2. I have met the film director Isshin Inudo.
3. I have Japanese relatives, I own Japanese things, I obsess over Japanese films, I speak Japanese but I have yet to go to the country.
4. I have a sister who is much younger than me and more beautiful, cooler and smarter than me. She has developed a cool taste in films.
5. I watch at least two films a week, usually both Japanese.
6. I spent most of my childhood watching subtitled films from France and Hong Kong.
7. I like rainy weather.
8. I work in an art museum with a famous collection.
9. I sometimes like to watch trashy anime like Haiyore! Nyaruko-san and Haganai.
10. I am trying to write a novel.
11. This is Year II of My Time of Getting Things Done.

Why Don’t You Play in Hell? Teaser Trailer Sion Sono’s Next Film Release

Why Don’t You Play in Hell?           

Japanese Title: 地獄　で　なぜ　悪い Why Don’t You Play in Hell?

Romaji: Jigoku de Naze Warui Why Don’t You Play in Hell?

Release Date: September 28^th, 2013 (Japan)

Running Time: N/A

Director: Sion Sono

Writer: Sion Sono (Screenplay),

Starring: Jun Kunimura, Shinichi Tsutsumi, Fumi Nikaido, Tomochika, Hiroki Hasegawa, Kotou Lorena, Gen Hoshino

Sion Sono has three projects on the go. I have posted about the live-action dorama All Esper Dayo! which is screening on Japanese television. I have also posted about the casting call for Tokyo Tribes in pre-production. His third feature is Why Don’t You Play in Hell? and a teaser trailer was recently released for it. Thanks to fellow hardcore Sion Sono fan Tired Paul I found out about the trailer and I have to say that watching the trailer made me really happy.

Muto (Kunimura) and Ikegami (Tsutsumi) are rival gangsters who despise each other but there’s a catch for Ikegami… he loves Muto’s actress daughter Michiko (Nikaido). Part of the reason she’s an actress is because it is the dream of her mother Shizue (Tomochika) and so Muto is out to make that dream happen. Enter Koji (Hoshino), a passer-by who is mistaken for being a film director. When dealing with gangsters you don’t mess about so Koji gets indie film director Hirata (Hasegawa) to cast Michiko as the lead actress in his film but it soon goes all wrong.

I’m sure you’re happy after watching the trailer. The violence! The blood! Twisted kissing! Swords and knives! The screaming! The rainbow colours! The opera! A waterslide flowing with blood in a house! OH GOD, A REBELLIOUS CRAZY SONO FILM! LIFE IS WORTH LIVING.

The cast is pretty damn awesome with the ever-watchable Jun Kunimura (Vital, Outrage) playing a Yakuza. His rival is Shinichi Tsutsumi, the male lead in One Missed Call and a pretty good actor. Fumi Nikaido (Himizu), one of Japan’s rising actresses looks like a sadistic and cool character who might run with Aiko in with Cold Fish.

It looks like Sono is veering back to the crazy, careening, balls out and intense films from early in his career that his fans love him for. The script for this was originally written as an action film 15 years ago which would make it before Suicide Club and Strange Circus so that sounds just about right for the tone. The carnage and the locations shown remind me of the climax of Noriko’s Dinner Table. I’m babbling now. I think I’ll watch the teaser for the 30^th time!