Starring: Anna Ishibashi, Kenta Suga Koudai Asaka, Kanji Tsuda, Shimako Iwai, Kurea Mori, Hitomi Kurihara, Ryosuke Kawamura,
Pet Peeve is a really awful title for a film, any film, and it is best to pay attention to the Japanese one, Seeds of Anxiety (Fuan no Tane) which sums up the content perfectly.
Moving towns is something a lot of us go through and it can be daunting but spare a thought for a group of outsiders settling in the rather strange Funuma city.
2013 has ended and I haven’t published my best ofs yet. I better start now. I have to admit that 2013 year has been rather excellent in terms of my experience with Japanese films considering I saw so many in their year of release, played a small part in helping bring one over to the UK and interviewed a few directors and yet, and yet… There were a few releases that I wish I had seen. Every trailer post always brings up a few titles I wish I could see in a cinema and so here’s a list of 14 Japanese films released in 2013 I hope I get to see in 2014!
Shin Shing Shin is a film which was directed by Kouhei Sanada who was mentored by Kiyoshi Kurosawa at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. That same university played a massive part in another title below, Fairy Tale. The film’s title comes from a song of the same name by the folk rock band Happy End who hail from the 70’s. Is this it and it is a road movie which stars Miwako Wagatsuma who was in Sentimental Yasuko and End of Puberty and Megumi Kagurazaka who was in Cold Fish and The Land of Hope.
Tomoyuki (Ishida) is a high school student who lives with the Tekiya family, a group of strangers with no other place to go. A girl named named Yuki (Wagatsuma) joins the group but when their home is demolished they head off on a journey that leads them from town to town with no particular destination in mind.
This was a victim of my bad translation skills… The first in a long line of victims… Anyway this is written and directed by the poet Kenji Fukuma, a man with two other directorial efforts to his name – Summer for the Living (2011), which starred Saori Kohara, and My Dear Daughter of Okayama (2008). He reunites with the actress Kohara for this fantasy drama about the emotions of a 20-year-old Tokyoite which interweaves interviews, poetry and dances so that the film blurs dreams and reality.
Watashi wa Sasaki Yuki. Hatachi desu.
20-year-old Yuki Sasaki who lives by herself in Tokyo. One day she chances upon a poetry reading by poetess Yumi Fuzuki and the experiences makes her lose sight of her purpose in life. In the process, another Yuki (Kawano) appears before her. We see her reality and dreams in a series of interviews and performances like dancing and poetry that are captured on film.
Ah! Summer. Although I hate the heat I feel the potential of life now more than ever before. This week has been quite a good one. Nice weather, eating out and work has been fun because I met Japanese and Spanish people during/after work and babbled about films in Japanese and Spanish while I was all dressed up kind of like Ryan Gosling in Only God Forgives, white shirt, black trousers, tie and all). Speaking of work (and getting back to films), I joined the film club and have managed to talk the organisers into screening anime and Japanese short films! Potential!
It’s weeks like these I appreciate life and what I have so I’ll try and up the work rate. I managed a good rate of anime with Sunday Without God episode 2, Attack on Titan episode 14 and It’s Not My Fault I’m Unpopular episode 2. I watched some indie Japanese flicks and Source Code. Even better and I even got to watch Pacific Rim which was fun and appealed to the mecha fan in me and it reminded me that Rinko Kikuchi is a great actress and a goddess. Expect more first impressions and film reviews as I round-up reviews from the Terracotta Far East Film Festival (at the insistence of someone important) and start covering newer Japanese films and doramas. This week I posted about Gatchaman Crowdswhich is awesome and did a spring 2013 anime round-up.
What’s released today in Japan? J-HORROR!!!!
Pet Peeve (English Title) / Seeds of Anxiety (Literal Title)
Starring: Anna Ishibashi, Kenta Suga Koudai Asaka, Kanji Tsuda
J-HORROR! This looks so damn awesome! Ah, a horror manga adaptation! This omnibus movie comes from Toshikazu Nagae (Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night) who is adapting Masaaki Nakayama’s horror manga collection which is full of creepy tales. How do I know? I actually remember some of them, so they must have been effective. It stars Anna Ishibashi (Milocrorze – A Love Story), Koudai Asaka (The Kirishima Thing, Lesson of the Evil) and Kanji Tsuda who has worked with great directors like Beat Takeshi, Takeshi Miike and SABU.
When a motorbike accident occurs it unleashes a series of strange phenomenon which Yoko (Ishibashi) can see.
Starring: Gou Ayano, Haru Kuroki, Kanji Furutachi, Ayumi Ito, Rio Yamashita, Yuiko Kariya
I have reviewed two films by Gakuryu Ishii and they were both hugely different. Isn’t Anyone Alive? Was a slow moving quiet Armageddon film while Angel Dust was a deliciously twisting serial killer thriller. Unlike someone like Kiyoshi Kurosawa who is quite easy to identify from his visuals, Ishii’s diverse range of films are hard to categorise. This one is even more different than expected, a quiet sci-fi romance. It stars Gou Ayano (A Story of Yonosuke), Haru Kuroki (Tokyo Oasis, The Great Passage, The Wolf Children), Kanji Furutachi (The Woodsman and the Rain), Ayumi Ito (Penance)
The Shanidar Institute is is home to a strange process where a beautiful flower blooms on a selected woman’s body. These flowers go under the name Shanidar and when they are n full bloom they are harvested and sold to drugs companies for high costs. A rookie botanist named Otaki (Ayano) and his colleague Kyoko (Kuroki), who is a therapist, both work for the Shanidaru Institute. They come to question their employer when it comes to light that constantly harvesting these flowers causes great strain on and even the death of the women hosting these plants.
