Category: Chambara

The official website for Toshiyuki Morioka’s Jyokyo Monogatari has been updated with a YouTube embed of the movie’s new trailer.

In yet another live-action adaptation of Rieko Saibara’s autobiographical manga, the film stars Kie Kitano as an aspiring artist named Natsumi Takahara who arrives in Tokyo to attend art school and starts living with a young man named Ryosuke (Sosuke Ikematsu). Although Ryosuke is kind-hearted, Natsumi gradually gets fed up with his inability to hold down a steady job and starts to feel like they’re growing apart. Meanwhile, she continues chasing her dream of getting…

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Former Momoiro Clover member Akari Hayami, who has recently been active in TV dramas and commercials, will get her first starring film role in Momose, Kocchi wo Muite.

Hayami will play a high school girl named Momose who becomes involved in a pseudo-romance with an emotionally awkward classmate. Showing her commitment to the role, Hayami cut off about 18 inches of hair, which she had been growing out over the past two years, in order to achieve Momose’s cropped look.

The film is based on a novel by Eiichi Nakata (one of several pen names used by popular…

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In spite of its bloody battle scenes, Shion Sono's upcoming action movie Why Don’t You Play in Hell? (Jigoku de Naze Warui) has been given a PG-12 rating by Eirin, Japan's regulating body for movies.

The PG-12 rating means parental guidance is suggested for kids under the age of 12, but there's no actual age restriction.

The film involves a yakuza boss named Mutoh (Jun Kunimura) who decides to produce a movie starring his daughter (Fumi Nikaido) in order to fulfill the dream of his jailed wife (Tomochika). The production sets the stage for a violent…

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A teaser trailer has been released for Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Like Father, Like Son, which is in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The film stars Masaharu Fukuyama as a successful family man named Ryota who discovers that his 6-year-old son was actually switched at birth with the son of another couple. Ryota, his wife Midori (Machiko Ono), and the other couple involved (Lily Franky and Yoko Maki) are forced to consider what it really means to be parents and which bonds are most important.

“Like Father, Like Son” will premiere at Cannes over the…

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Back in February, it was announced that veteran actress Kaoru Yachigusa will star in Kujikenaide, an adaptation of late poet Toyo Shibata’s best-selling anthology of the same name. Today it was revealed that her supporting cast will include Ran Ito, Rei Dan, Mana Ashida, Mizuho Suzuki, Yusuke Kamiji, and Pierre Taki.

Yachigusa hasn’t had a lead film role since starring in Carmine Gallone’s 1954 film adaptation of Madame Butterfly. In the new film, she’ll play Shibata from 77-92 years old and Tetsuya Takeda will play her son Kenichi.

Ito will…

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