Christmas is just over a week away and my consignment of Japanese horror films has arrived so no more skimping on reviews – I’ll dial it back up to two a week! I’ve got quite a few anime reviews on ice with Noein coming in for New Years Eve – a year after I last watched it.
I’m also going to try and get a little order into my trailer posts so commenting on charts and the latest releases will continue on Saturdays and brand new trailers for future releases get their own posts on Fridays.
Japanese Film Chart Top 5
- OOO, Den-O, All Riders: Let’s Go Kamen Riders
- Kaibutsu-kun The Movie
- Real Steel
- K-ON! The Movie
- Genji Monogatari: Thousand Year Mystery
I have never paid any attention to the Kamen Rider series and I don’t intend to start now even if the number one film is part of the mega popular franchise. Interesting to see that K-ON! Is still hanging in the top five beating Genji Monogatari which debuted last Saturday and entered the charts at number 5.
New Releases for today
The latest Japanese films to be released are a refreshing mix of original ideas and familiar horror and a kids film thrown into the mix:
Mitsuko Delivers
Japanese Theatrical Release: 17th December, 2o11
UK DVD Release Date: May 2012 via Third Window Films
Running Time: 109 min.
Director: Yuya Ishii
Starring: Riisa Naka, Aoi Nakamura, Ryo Ishibashi, Shiro Namiki, Miyoko Inagawa, Miyako Takeuchi, Momoka Oono, Yoshimasa Kondo, Yukijiro Hotaru, Keiko Saito
I only heard about this when I did a little coverage of the BFI London Film Festival where the film was playing. It stars Ryo Ishibashi, a familiar face from many Miike Takashi works including Audition, as well as Takeshi Kitano films like the brilliant Kids Return and Brother. I’m familiar with the lead actress through her work in anime like Summer Wars and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time Aoi Nakamura was one of the actors in the Third Window Films release Quirky Guys and Gals.
Mitsuko (Riisa Naka) is a young woman who is nine-months pregnant, broke and alone in Tokyo. Her parents think that she’s in America with her boyfriend but she’s actually in dire straits as she is forced to move out of her apartment and yet she remains positive and believes that things will turn out alright. She doesn’t know where she will go but decides to revisit her past including a boy who had a crush on her (Aoi Nakamura).
Cut
Japanese Theatrical Release: 17th December, 2o11
Running Time: 132 min.
Director: Amir Naderi
Writer: Amir Naderi, Shinki Aoyama
Starring: Hidetoshi Nishijima, Takako Tokiwa, Denden, Takeshi Sasano, Shun Sugara,
The Iranian director of Cut is unknown to me but the film looks to combine a love of film with gritty violence. Oh, and it stars Denden.
A struggling filmmaker Shuji (Hidetoshi Nishijima) becomes a human punching bag to pay off his brother’s debts. These debts were incurred in order to fund films and the non-payment resulted in the brother being killed by the Yakuza.
Ousama Game
Japanese Theatrical Release: 17th December, 2o11
Running Time: N/A
Director: Tsuruta Norio
Writer: Junya Kato, Nobuaki Kanazawa (Mobile phone novel)
Starring: Yurina Kumai, Airi Suzuki, Dori Sakurada, Hitomi Yoshizawa
Based on a mobile phone novel by Nobuaki Kanazawa, Ousama Game (Ousama means King) looks to be a neat little thriller with an interesting premise – reminds me of One Missed Call Final.
Chiemi Honda (Yurina Kumai) and her friend Nobuaki Kanazawa (Dori Sakurada) receive an email from a mysterious person named The King. The email asks them to perform some actions, failure to do so resulting in “Punishment”. They weren’t the only ones to receive the email because the rest of their class did. At first everybody performs the tasks thinking it is something of a joke but when the tasks get worse and people who refuse to do them start to disappear Chiemi is on the hunt for the culprit.
Friends Naki on Monster Island 3D
Release Date: 17th December 2011
Running Time: N/A
Director: Takashi Yamazaki, Ryuichi Yagi
Writer: Takashi Yamazaki
Starring: Shingo Katori, Koichi Yamadera, You, Seishiro Kato, Sadao Abe
A CG anime aimed at kids.
There is an island that is populated entirely by monsters. FRIENDLY MONSTERS! They ,live in fear of humans who live in fear of them. When a child named Kotake winds up on the island a grumpy ogre named Naki takes care of him. Naki shuns contact with others a[art from a blue ogre named Gunjo so it’s strange that Naki develops a bond with the child. When the Kotake wants to go back to his parents Naki takes him but the humans wind up attacking Naki and snatching Kotake away causing Naki great sadness. Fortunately he his friend Gunjo helps him out.
Genkinahito 
That CGI film looks to be good fun. I haven’t see any Japanese CGI films in that Pixar style. I’m a bit cautious of that school thriller to be honest, as the last Japanese school thriller I saw was the supposedly ‘acclaimed’ Confessions, which I thought to be utterly pants. Cut looks pretty bizarre and not really like my kind of film. Mitsuko looks pretty bizarre as well but also like it could be quite fun.
Cut is more my sort of thing – post-modern look at cinema + violence? I’m watching this! Mitsuko Delivers is by Yuya Ishii who is fast becoming one of Japan’s most interesting directors so I’m willing to give it a go because Sawako Decides was very funny.