The Japanese trailer for Max Mannix’s Rain Fall (Ame no Kiba); starring Gary Oldman, Kippei Shiina, and Kyoko Hasegawa has been added to the film’s official website.

In the film, which is based on the first in a series of six novels by American author Barry Eisler, Shiina plays a half-Japanese assassin named John Rain who’s forced to serve as bodyguard to the daughter of one of his victims (Hasegawa) who is thought to hold the key to exposing high-level governmental corruption. Rain is a former member of the U.S. Special Forces. While serving in Vietnam, he was betrayed by a man who later became the head of CIA operations in Tokyo, William Holtzer (Oldman). With nowhere to run, Rain depends on a trustworthy former adversary and Keisatsucho agent named Tatsu (Akira Emoto) when he needs guidance.

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Okay, who ordered the turd sandwich?

It’s ready:

Source: dbthemovie

And thanks to logboy for pointing out that the recorded-from-TV version that came out yesterday was replaced by this real one.

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The official website for Katsuhide Motoki‘s Kamogawa Harumo is now open and currently features a plot summary and a 30-second teaser trailer. But in distributor Shochiku’s infinite wisdom, they also posted a subtitled version of the trailer on their English site (direct link here).

The film’s story revolves around a club of Kyoto University students called “Kyoto University Azure Dragons”. Members play an ancient game called “Horumo” in which they control spirits known as “oni” and pit them against the oni of rival teams, sorta like pokemon. Freshman Akira Abe (Takayuki Yamada) falls in love with a classmate named Kyoko (Sei Ashina), and blindly joins the club to be closer to her. Takuya Ishida stars as Abe’s main rival. Chiaki Kuriyama will also appear as the often tempermental and always unfashionable supporting character Fumi Kusunoki.

The project promises to be chock full of CGI spirits—something Motoki is used to from his work on both Gegege no Kitaro movies. Production company Gonzo (Brave Story, Afro Samurai) handled the VFX aspects of the film.

No word on a release date yet, other than 2009.

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Indie filmmaker Yu Irie (Obsession, Japonica Virus) will soon be releasing the movie he filmed last year called SR: Saitama no Rapper. It’s a comedy about a small ground of hip-hop fans who live in the suburbs outside of Tokyo but dream of someday becoming famous rappers, even though they’re kind of dorky and untalented.

Here’s the plot from the website:

Fukuyama is an area in northern Saitama that doesn’t have a place for live music, or even a record store. Ikku (Shoukai Komakine) is a NEET (not engaged in employment, education, or training) who strolls through the streets of his small town, dreaming of someday becoming a famous rapper. Friends Tom (Shingo Mizusawa) and Mighty (Shoukai Okuno) supposedly record original tracks in their top secret recording studio, but in reality Tom spends all his time working at a strip club and Mighty is kept very busy with his family’s broccoli business.

One day, their former classmate Chinatsu (Mihiro) returns home from Tokyo after having quit high school early to become an AV (adult video) actress. A seemingly trivial encounter with Chinatsu gradually begins to erode Ikku’s confidence that he can succeed as a rapper. Because of this, he eventually loses hope, puts away his hip-hop clothes, and gets a normal job at a yakiniku restaurant. Saitama’s young, untalented rappers continue fumbling their way through everyday life in this youth movie that’s both sad and funny.

You’ll find the trailer embedded after the break.

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After playing Light Yagami’s little sister in two Death Note movies and landing a role in Shaolin Girl that was so tiny you had to squint to see her, Hikari Mitsushima‘s acting career seems to finally be taking off at the ripe old age of 23. With major roles in two movies coming out in January, Sion Sono’s “Love Exposure” and Shusuke Kaneko’s Pride, chances are we’ll be seeing a lot of her impossibly heart-shaped face over the next few years.

“Pride” is a live-action adaptation of Yukari Ichijo’s manga about two rival opera singers whose lives seem to always become entangled. Mitsushima plays Moe Midorikawa, an aspiring singer who grew up poor and was raised by her single mother. Her eventual rival, Shio Asami (Stephanie), grew up in a wealthy family and is naturally talented, but when her father’s company goes bankrupt she’s forced to give up her singing aspirations. When a record company represented by Jinno Takashi (Mitsuhiro Oikawa) sponsors a contest between the two, Moe manages to win by pulling a fast one on her opponent. To earn money, Shio is forced to get a job singing at a club in Ginza where her university acquaintance Ranmaru (Hiroshi Watanabe) plays piano. However, it just so happens that Moe works at the same place.

The trailer just came out today. You’ll find it below, along with a few production stills.

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