Hello dear audience!
I have gorged myself on three Japanese films in my local arthouse cinema – Ran, Our Little Sister and Cesium and the Tokyo Girl. I watched them with family and friends and they got to see me do my film festival thing when I met the director of Cesium and a Tokyo Girl. The new spring anime season started a few weeks ago and while JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable is my favourite show, I’m totally taken with the OP for Kiznaiver:
The BFI is hosting a weekend of contemporary anime films at the BFI Southbank in June. This is a regular event which collects a diverse array of anime movies and a lot on offer in this year’s programme are some of the best and flashiest to be released in recent years.
Sci-Fi London is a festival of science fiction films and it has run for sixteen years. The event takes place from April 27th to May 06th It has played host to a number of Japanese films in the past but this is the first year that I am going to report on it. There are two indie films on the programme and they look good.
Sci-Fi London is a festival of science fiction films and it has run for sixteen years. The event takes place from April 27th to May 06th It has played host to a number of Japanese films in the past but this is the first year that I am going to report on it. There are two indie films on the programme and they look good.
Hello dear readers!
I am feeling very, very tired today. I attended a film festival last night and watched Cesium and a Tokyo Girl (2015) and then attended an after-party where I met the director and his translator and had a few drinks – mostly apple juice! I didn’t get home until late and that was after heading to a Chinese take-away and didn’t get to sleep until past midnight. I’m staying up late again to write this after wasting a whole Saturday. Tomorrow… I will go to a cinema to see Ran (1985). This week, I posted about the DVD/Bluray release of Uzumasa Limelight (2014) and the screening of Adrenaline Drive (1999) at the Japanese embassy.
What’s released in Japan this weekend?
This month’s film screening at the Japanese embassy is Adrenaline Drive which is a late ‘90s comedy action flick directed by Shinobu Yaguchi. Shinobu Yaguchi has made family friendly films as well as experimental ones. Waterboys (2001), Happy Flight (2008), Swing Girls (2007) and, most recently, Wood Job! (2014) are what I would see as broad comedies designed to appeal to wide audiences but as good as these are (and they are good) it’s his early experimental film The Rain Women which has me most intrigued after I wrote about it screening at the Berlin International Film Festival this year.
Anyway, this is a parody of action and romance movies and it contains slapstick comedy. It is held together by likeable performances from lead actors Masanobu Ando and Hikari Ishida.
Masanobu Ando should be familiar to J-film fans from his incredible performance as Shinji in Kids Return (1996) and Kiriyama in Battle Royale (2000). He has appeared in many other cult films and worked with a variety of directors and has proven himself to be a great leading man, so it is a shame he isn’t used more… Hikari Ishida is another underused actor although I must admit that the only other film I have seen her in is Séance (2000)…
Here are the details:
Third Window Films is going to release Uzumasa Limelight on DVD, Blu-ray and VOD on April 25th. It’s a totally great film as I revealed in my glowing review back in February just before it went on a theatrical tour of Britain as part of this year’s Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme.
Here are the details from the press release and two old trailer posts:
Continue reading “Uzumasa Limelight Released on DVD/BLU-RAY and VOD April 25th”
Hello dear readers!
The line-up for the Cannes film festival was announced and there are a couple of Japanese films. There will be a whole week full of preview and trailer posts next week! I reviewed Disciples of Hippocrates (1980) and posted about Reel Japan, a Japanese film festival taking place in London. I also posted about the theatrical release of Our Little Sister (2015) which I am going to see at my local art house later this month. I watched a bunch of films, all for review and all a surprise.
What’s released in Japan this weekend?
Our Little Sister, the latest film from Hirokazu Kore-eda, will be released in cinemas and on demand in the UK from today.
Continue reading “Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Drama Our Little Sister is out in Cinemas and On Demand From Today”
A new film festival called Reel Japan will take place at the end of April at The Yard Theatre, London. It is a two day event that takes place from Saturday 30th April 2016 to Sunday 1st May 2016 and its programme consists of eight films, all released in the UK by Third Window Films.
The festival is the latest event from the organisers of the Brick Lane Japan Film Festival which took place in January this year, an event that sold out quickly. Reel Japan’s artistic vision is to bring the best and most exciting Japanese cinema to the UK. This means that audiences get titles from Shinya Tsukamoto, Sion Sono, Takashi Miike and the others. The theme for this collection of films is “Twisted Love” and viewers will get the chance to explore the darker side of love and life through an exciting line-up of titles:
Continue reading “Reel Japan: Japanese Film Festival Preview”
Genkinahito 