The trailer for Rian Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom is now online. In the movie Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo play scam artist brothers that come up with all sorts of elaborate schemes to separate rich people from their money. When they meet a young eccentric heiress named Penelope (Rachel Weisz) they initially plan to scam her, but instead end up enlisting her help on their next con. However, when one of the brothers falls for Penelope things get complicated. Rinko Kikuchi plays a quirky explosives expert appropriately named “Bang Bang” who’s also part of the team. Trailer embedded after the break.

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A press conference was held yesterday at Space FS Shiodome to announce completion of Go Ohara’s directorial debut, Geisha vs Ninjas. Ohara joined the film’s stars, Minami Tsukui and Masaki Nomura to offer greetings from the stage before a preview screening. Also in attendance were 3 guys in ninja costumes for the sake of corny photo ops.

In the film Tsukui, who was chosen from over 2,000 young actresses, plays a geisha named Kotono who faces off against the ninjas who killed her father. She initially found the the intense fight scenes to be difficult because she had never worn a geisha wig before, but eventually she got used to it. Co-star Nomura praised the acrobatic skill and strength Tsukui showed during their scenes.

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Straight from the “I’m not exactly sure how to feel about this” department comes word that Ryuhei Kitamura recently made an announcement at Fantasia that he will be remaking his brainless-but-fun zombie action flick Versus in the US. So far there’s not much word on the potential production other than he’s finalizing the script and is quoted as saying, “The US Versus will be insane!”

The original Versus came out in 2000 and quickly became a cult hit with western fans of Asian extreme cinema. This overseas success was not lost on Kitamura, and if you’ve listened to his DVD commentary for the film you’d notice how fascinated he was by the reaction of US audiences to his work compared to Japanese audiences. Well, times have changed—we have short memories around here—and it will be interesting to see how this one develops over time. I’m sure the viability of the project will at least partially hinge on the success of his Hollywood debut, Midnight Meat Train (trailers at Twitch). Certainly something to keep tabs on in the future though, and we will.

via Quiet Earth

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It suddenly occurred to me that prior to today I have never once written about an anime title on this site. Well, where better to start than from the beginning; and Vampire Hunter D was the first anime I ever watched. I’m guessing I was in junior high when I heard about some weird foreign vampire cartoon with a mix of gore and gratuitous nudity. Obviously I was fascinated, as any respectable 12-year-old would be, so I managed to get my hands on a VHS copy. Because I watched this at such an impressionable age it’s nearly impossible for me to step back and develop a new opinion from the perspective of an adult who’s seen a few hundred Japanese movies and animes. So instead of trying, I’m just going stick with my original wide-eyed, non-jaded perspective: this movie is totally badass.

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Originally slated for September, Kensaku Watanabe‘s Cheer Cheer Cheer! (Fure Fure Shojo) is now officially scheduled for release in Japan on October 18, 2008.

In the years since Waterboys and Swing Girls set the bar impossibly high and created an insatiable market for similar movies, the zeroes-to-heroes formula has grown into sort of the Mad Libs of Japanese cinema. The plots pretty much always go something like this:

A group of [girls/boys/teens] decide to take up [quirky activity] simply to [shallow, selfish motive], but end up developing a genuine love for [aforementioned quirky activity] and decide to participate in the [local event with a big crowd to win over].

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