It is almost Christmas!!! Ahem… Like last year, I am going to be wrapping presents up
while listening to awesome J-rock. I am looking forward to receiving my presents but I know few, if any, will be films. My tastes are too niche and I tend to buy a lot every month which puts people off buying them for me. To 
remedy this I bought myself a box set of Hiroshi Teshigahara films (Woman in the Dunes, Pitfall and The Face of Another) which was released by Criterion Collection (thanks go out to Goregirl for the tip!) and I bought a Haibane Renmei complete series box set. Anyway… this week I finished watching Le Chevalier D’Eon and I had a dinner date with a Japanese friend and a party at work and now I am on holiday for the next few days. In terms of films, for my Genki 
Christmas Season 2012, I reviewed Wishing Stairs, The Doll Master and Berserk Golden Age Arc I: Egg of the King. I have quite a few more films I want to review before the end of the year so stay tuned. I also watched I Saw the Devil and The Voice and I am going to watch Poetry (Dir. Lee Chang-Dong) tonight (thanks to the insistence of a Korean friend) so expect reviews for them next week apart from Poetry which isn’t K-horror but slow-cinema and will get reviewed next year when I finally stop reviewing horror films after nearly two years.
What do the Japanese charts look like today?
- One Piece Film Z
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
- Humanoid Monster Bem
- Love for Beginners
- Kamen Rider X Kamen Rider Wizard & Fourze: Movie War Ultimatum
- Skyfall
- Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo
- Frankenweenie
- Inazuma Eleven The Movie 2012
- Lesson of the Evil
- The Floating Castle
- A Chorus of Angels
- Trouble with the Curve
- Crow’s Thumb
Well anyone even vaguely familiar with One Piece will have guessed that it would top the charts and it had a $16 million opening. Humanoid Monster Bem, another film released last week, comes in at number three with decent numbers. Takashi Miike’s latest film Lesson of the Evil hangs in the top ten at ten! Head over to Sadako’s Movie Shack for a great review!
What are some of the Japanese titles released In Japan today?
The Castle of Crossed Destinies
Japanese Title: 大奥 永遠
Romaji: Ohoku Eien
Release Date: 22nd December 2012 (Japan)
Running Time: 124 mins.
Director: Shunsuke Kariyama
Writer: Osamu Suzuki (Script),Fumi Yoshinaga (original manga)
Starring: Masato Sakai, Miho Kanno, Machiko Ono, Jun Kaname, Emoto Tasuku
This is the film adaptation of Fumi Yoshinaga’s manga and it follows a television drama, The Lady Shogun and Her Men. It stars Masato Sakai (Key of Life) and Miho Kanno (Dolls).
It is 1716 and a mysterious epidemic has struck Japan slashing the number of men down to a quarter of their number. Now women are taking a dominant role in society and the inner chambers of the Shogun’s castle is a battlefield for 3,000 men who vie for the affection of a female shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (Kanno).
Joker Game 
Japanese Title: ジョーカー ゲーム
Romaji: Jo-ka- Ge-mu
Release Date: 22nd December 2012 (Japan)
Running Time: 99 mins.
Director: Takafumi Watanabe
Writer: Yu Takeuchi (Script),
Starring: Rie Kitahara, Sara Takatsuki, Yui Koike, Shotaro Okubo, Atsushi Shiramata, Manami Ikura, Madoka Yoshida, Takuya Mizoguchi, Takuya Negishi, Yukijiro Hotaru, Mika Akizuki, Tsutomu Nagai, Kanji Furutachi
Another AKB48 member (Kitahara), another teen horror movie. This is the debut movie for many of the cast apart from Takuya Mizoguchi who was in Sukiyaki Western Django and Ninja Kids!!!. He is supported by Yukijiro Hotaru (Mitsuko Deivers, A Man with Style) Kanji Furutachi (Dead Waves, The Woodsman and the Rain) and Mika Akizuki (Another). This looks like an extremely cheap Battle Royale…
Chinatsu (Kitahara) is at a camp with other high school seniors when their homeroom teacher announces that they must all play a game of “Old Maid”. Sounds like old-fashioned fun until they realise that as part of a scheme to reverse declining academic standards, students who lose the game will die.
Odayaka 
Japanese Title: おだやか な 日常
Romaji: Odayaka na Nichijou
Release Date: 22nd December 2012 (Japan)
Running Time: 102 mins.
Director: Nobuteru Uchida
Writer: Nobuteru Uchida (Script),
Starring: Kiki Sugino, Yukiko Shinohara, Takeshi Yamamoto, Ami Watanabe, Ami Watanabe, Yu Koyanagi, Makiko Watanabe, Maho Yamada, Susumu Terajima, Maki Nishiyama, Kotaro Shiga, Kanji Furutachi, Yuko Kibiki, Yuya Matsumura, Kan Takashima, Eriko Oguchi,
This is a film which covers the March 11th earthquakes. This is another fiction film addressing the March 11th Earthquake and Tsunami following Women on the Edge, The Ear Cleaner and The Land of Hope. It is written and directed by Nobuteru Uchida (Love Addiction).
Saeko (Sugino) and Yukako (Shinohara) are neighbours in a Tokyo apartment complex. Following the March 11th Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami both find their lives affected by newfound fears. Saeko is undergoing a divorce and fears her daughter may get radiation exposure. Yukako also fears the radiation and asks her husband to move. When Saeko saves Yukako from suicide, the two become close.
Genkinahito 
“I bought a Haibane Renmei complete series box set” Ohhhh! Where did you buy that? Did you get rich suddenly? Or is this a Region 1 edition?
Region 1… I ordered it from the US. Price is currently around £20 on Amazon. I was going to tell you but I remembered you didn’t have a multi-region DVD player.
Yeah, I just went and checked and saw that…
I HATE DVD regions.
I would even buy a multi-region DVD player but from all that I have read on the internet, connecting it to a computer is complicated and difficult.
*not going to start thinking about this because I’ll just get really upset*
Programming a DVD player to be region free is relatively simple (and cheaper than buying one) but I know little about hooking one up to a computer… I’ll have to look into it.
I think I would be lost without my DVD player. Cradles it in his arms
I hope you’re having a merry Christmas!
I just wish computers (incl. Macs) would come with region-free DVD drives. I’m a globally-mobile person. I commute between different countries that happen to have DIFFERENT DVD REGIONS. I purchase my DVDs legally. You can’t expect me to purchase a TV (to go with a multi-region DVD player) to lug around the world with me whenever I move (or travel), because it’s costly and, frankly, a hassle. I feel like I’m being punished (I own DVDs I legally purchased but cannot watch), and like I’m told go illegally download things because that’s the only option there seems to be.
I sympathise with your situation. I don’t intend on staying in the UK, I’d like to travel and I’d quite like to cart some of my DVD collection with me.
The more you travel, the less you want to lug things around the world with you. I buy e-books whenever they are available now. I can’t wait until films and music can be purchased by download, rather than having to buy physical copies. You can’t take much on a plane and it’s very costly to ship things, especially once you are speaking internationally.
And I should add, I have even (inofficially) started my ‘moving’ process for leaving the UK – it’s still a year and half or two away (approx.), but now that I travelled to my parents’ I brought a pile of books I’m not using back and I’m going to start doing that every time I travel home from now on. (Luckily I can store things at my parents, given that I don’t know yet for certain where I’ll be heading after London.)
I have recently mused about what I will do with my film/anime collection and considered stopping buying films and spending the money on moving.
Ah, Alua… You know how to break a guy’s heart!
So long as we can communicate over the internet but then nothing beats the personal…
How is it heart-breaking what I wrote?
Although, admittedly, there’s a mental check-out process involved too – but we are not yet that far down the line. But once I know my actual leaving date, even it’s a year ahead, yeah, you start ‘checking out’ of friendships and things of the sort too… It’s a bit harsh, but it’s a survival tactic. For myself, having a ‘leaving date’ (even the approximate one I’ve got at the moment) actually keeps me sane…
Actually, you don’t want spend money on moving, you just try and figure out how you can spend as little as possible and live on the very bare basics…. (there are things I’ll never purchase, and others I purchase very knowingly that I’ll leave them behind. Already told my flatmates that they can fight over the toaster that we are all buying together because I’m NOT bringing it with me!).
You are a highly organised person (something I will become when I finally kill off the lackadaisical side of me ~bang~) and very fascinating. I suppose travelling has made you that way. In any case I think I understand what you mean, especially the notion that having an ending in sight is a relief.
You sound a bit like Kondo in Key of Life although I know an anime character who is a brilliant fit for you although you’ll have to wait for my New Year’s Eve post to find out who it is.
As for now, I want to watch some slow cinema. おやすみ！
Video for you.
I like the female twist in The Castle of Crossed Destinies plot, but towards the end it looked a little drippy…and that music scared me. Joker Game definitely has a strong Battle Royale vibe. Damn I love Battle Royale…I should watch that again soon!
Gender swapping is pretty popular for comedies in anime. Imagine warlords like Nobunaga as girls… Anyway, I felt the same way about the trailer. Ah, women in power, that’s interesting. Oh, she’s crying and the music is awful.
Joker Game looked unimpressive… I won’t be watching Battle Royale until I do a Kinji Fukasaku season.