Posted by kevin at 12:39am EDT on Monday, June 2, 2008
It’s no secret that the Asian extreme cinema wave of the late 90s/early 00s has slowed down quite a bit in recent years. Directors like Takashii Miike and Ryuhei Kitamura have been working on very different projects than the ones they were churning out back then and as a whole the trend seems to be more toward comedy and drama. The recent collapse of Tartan USA can probably be attributed to this, having made its bones in the Asian horror heyday. So one has to wonder how a label geared around these movies can possibly stay afloat when there’s only a tiny pool of appropriate new titles coming out each year and plenty of bigger companies overbidding for distribution rights. The answer, at least for Tokyo Shock/Media Blasters, is to fund some of your own. I have to admit I’ve been pretty ambivalent about the process, but I did enjoy Yuji Shimomura’s Death Trance in a “mindless fun” sort of way. 2008 brings us two of these US-funded corkers - Yoshihiro Nishimura’s Tokyo Gore Police which comes out later this year, and Noboru Iguchi’s The Machine Girl which I’m reviewing here.
Posted by kevin at 9:52pm EDT on Saturday, May 31, 2008
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, No US distribution
I will preface this review by making these three things clear: I hate dancing, I hate dance clubs, and I hate movies about dancing in clubs. So when I say that I actually enjoyed “The Backdancers!” I don’t want anyone to think it’s because I’m a closet hip-hop dance fan who has “You Got Served” in my Netflix queue. Frankly it took me by surprise that a movie about a unit of backup dancers without a pop star to dance behind could possibly be fun or interesting, but “The Backdancers!” does a good job at poking fun at the whole “idol” industry without actually ever condemning it. The plot seems even more poignant now than when the movie first came out in early 2006, considering how many high-profile Jpop stars have abruptly quit companies like Upfront Agency recently, most likely leaving countless dancers, fellow unit members, and support staff in the lurch.
Posted by kevin at 5:19pm EDT on Friday, May 30, 2008
Filed under: Drama, Future releases, New trailers
When it comes to recent Japanese period dramas, there’s probably not a surer thing than adapting a Shuhei Fujisawa novel. Yoji Yamada’s samurai trilogy - The Twilight Samurai, The Hidden Blade, and Love and Honor were all based on Fujisawa’s work and now Tetsuo Shinohara (Heaven’s Bookstore, Riding the Metro) is trying his hand at adapting the short story Yamazakura. In the movie Rena Tanaka (Drugstore Girl, Gegege no Kitaro) plays Noe Isomura, a woman in the midst of her second marriage. After her first husband died, she had the choice of several possible candidates for an arranged marriage. She finally settled on Shouzaemon Isomura (Tetsuya Chiba), choosing him over a man named Tezuka (Noriyuki Higashiyama) because Tezuka already had a child. Unfortunately Isomura is kind of a pompous jerk who’s completely obsessed with the samurai lifestyle and amassing wealth. Noe is soon trapped in a miserable home life that her own fairly arbitrary decision caused.
Posted by kevin at 4:53pm EDT on Thursday, May 29, 2008
Filed under: Adventure, Comedy, Future releases, New trailers
Apparently Miki Mizuno is well on her way to becoming a bona fide action star in her mid-30s. With two high body count revenge thrillers scheduled to come out later in the year, Hard Revenge, Milly and Sasori, she’ll apparently also be whooping up on some fools in this summer’s Katana Karumono: Nihonmatsu no Bouken. In the movie she plays the ex-lover of an electrician (Usoh Ozaki) who works part time as a “benriya”, which is basically someone willing to solve general problems in exchange for money - no questions asked. A past incident drove the two of them apart but when he gets hired by a hot widow (Natsuki Okamoto) to retrieve a collection of mysterious swords they’re brought back together for the mission.
Posted by kevin at 5:30pm EDT on Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Filed under: Drama, Future releases, New trailers
The website for Takashi Saito’s quirky romantic drama Biru to Dobutsuen (literally “office building and the zoo") is up with a teaser trailer. The story involves a young music student (Katsuya Kobayashi) who works part-time as a window-washer. One day he sees an office lady (Maki Sakai) through one of the windows of a local office building and the two exchange an awkward glance. He pursues her, but the age gap between them and circumstances at her job keep them apart. Eventually they get a chance to spend some time together at the zoo and fall in love. However, they’re forced to consider the viability of a future together when her father (Tetsu Watanabe) voices concerns about the relationship.
