When Honey Kisaragi (Eriko Sato) finds out her uncle has been kidnapped by the evil organization Panther Claw she uses her father’s invention, the “Love System”, to transform into Cutie Honey and rescue him. It turn’s out Panther Claw’s intentions are more insidious than a simple kidnapping. Their leader, Sister Jill, wants the Love System and will stop at nothing to get it. Honey teams up with reporter Seiji Hayami (Jun Murakami) and uptight police office Natsuko (Mikako Ichikawa) to stop Panther Claw’s activities once and for all. Alternate trailer available here.

watch »

Permalink      0 Comments

Nozomi (Eiko Koike) and Lana (Maho Nonami) are two actress roommates who are up for the same role in a major upcoming film project. Their patience with each other gradually wears off and mild annoyance escalates into a final showdown of extreme violence utilizing an arsenal of common household objects.

watch »

Permalink      0 Comments

In this prequel to Ichi the Killer we see Ichi (Nao Omori) as a timid high school student who gets caught in the middle of an escalating bully rivalry. One of these bullies, Onizame (Koji Chihara), attempts to provoke Ichi to unleash the power hidden inside him.

watch »

Permalink      0 Comments

For being a prequel to such a popular movie like Ichi the Killer it’s kind of surprising how far 1-Ichi flew under the radar. It could be the lack of Takashi Miike‘s involvement in the project, the inconspicuous DVD cover art (I thought it was an anime for the first few months after its release), or the fact that the title consists of words that are so commonly found next to one another that any kind of web search comes up with hundreds of pages of completely unrelated results. Regardless of the reason, the end result is that nobody’s really missing out on much. 1-Ichi was an extremely low-budget movie filmed on a tight schedule and in the end it really offers no new insight into Ichi’s origin. Nevertheless, what it lacks in overall quality it makes up for in campy violence and a specific brand of completely inappropriate black humor only Sakichi Sato is capable of injecting into a script.

continue reading »

Permalink      0 Comments

I’m not much of a fan of visual kei or J-pop aside from a mild obsession with downloading torrents of Japanese variety shows so the prospect of watching a movie written by and starring Gackt wasn’t very appealing to me. Knowing that Moon Child was somehow vampire-related I went into it completely expecting this film to be a vehicle for Gackt and Hyde to show off their ultra-mopey outward personas while occasionally pausing in those I-want-to-die poses that drive the fangirls crazy. I’ll admit I was mostly wrong in that assumption, but not quite wrong enough to warrant a glowingly positive review.

continue reading »

Permalink      5 Comments