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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It’s been a long time since anything interesting has happened on the Crows Zero II front. The last update was the addition of Haruma Miura as the main antagonist from Housen Gakuen back in August. Before that was basically a teaser full of rehashed footage. And before that was some info gleaned from a casting call for extras. So until something interesting happens, here’s a pair YouTube clips with brief interviews and behind the scenes footage. There’s no telling how long these videos will last though, since networks like TBS are usually lightning quick about DMCA’ing everything of theirs. But it’s there as of right now. Have at it, after the break.

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It’s spatter or be spattered in Taishi Kaneko‘s upcoming Seifuku SurviGirl I and II, yet-another schlockfest featuring fame-starved gravure idols utilizing katanas, guns, and chainsaws to protect themselves against the undead. It seems like this sort of thing has been done to death over the past two years, but I guess they wouldn’t keep going to the well if it didn’t have a built-in audience. Both movies will be screened this Saturday (12/6) at Tokyo’s Kineka Omori with some of the idols in attendance for stage greetings.

That title is a lot less clunky in Japanese, by the way. Seifuku means uniform (in this case, sailor outfits) and Survi (sabai) is one of those abbreviations of an English word (survival) you only see in Japan—usually in henshin stuff—presumably in this case because it’s a lot easier to say “sabaigaaru” than “sabaibarugaaru”.

Big ups to The Gomorrahizer for spotting the trailer and Quiet Earth for spreading the gospel. You can find it embedded after the break, along with cast info, production stills, and plot info.

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Ki-duk Kim‘s Dream (Bi-mong), starring Joe Odagiri and Na-yeong Lee will be released by Odagiri-friendly distributor Stylejam in Japan this coming February with the Japanese title “Himu” (literally “sad dream”). It was released in South Korea on October 9th.

In the film Odagiri stars as a man named Jin who dreams of a car crash, only to discover it actually happened exactly as he saw in his dream. He follows police to the home of person they suspect of causing the accident, a woman named Ran (Lee), but she denies having any involvement and explains that she was sound asleep the entire night. Jin comes forward and asks to be arrested in her place, but having no basis for his claim they dismiss him as a random nut and arrest Ran anyway. Jin becomes absolutely convinced that he has a special connection with Ran that causes her to act out his dreams while sleepwalking. Because of this, he takes it upon himself to protect her.

The Japanese trailer was just released today; you’ll find it embedded after the break.

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A sequel to the 2008 hit, “The Glorious Team Batista” is now in the midst of filming and is slated for release on March 7, 2009. The sequel is based on the third novel in the series entitled General Rouge no Gaisen (translation: The Triumphant General Rouge).

According to Tokyograph, the film brings back Taguchi (Yuko Takeuchi) and Shiratori (Hiroshi Abe) to investigate a situation involving emergency medical care. Shiro Sano and Tetsuji Tamayama will also return to reprise their roles from the first film, and Masato Sakai will play the director of an emergency medical center.

And there’s already a teaser. How’s that for timely PR? Check it out after the break.

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