Posted by kevin at 1:12am EDT on Saturday, June 21, 2008
Japanese distributor Pony Canyon will be releasing Norihiro Koizumi’s Gachi Boy on DVD with English subtitles on September 17, 2008. For those who haven’t heard of it, the story revolves around a genius college student in Hokkaido named Ryoichi Igarashi (Ryuta Sato) who joins professional wrestling school. During his training he carries around a little notebook in which he takes copious notes of every little thing he learns. Still, he seems to have problems remembering important details. When he completely forgets that his debut match at a local shopping mall is rigged he treats it like a real life or death challenge. Surprisingly, his enthusiasm gets the crowd on his side and he becomes a popular character with the fans. His little sister (Riisa Naka) witnesses the match and clues his fellow wrestlers in on the real reason he acted the way he did: he suffered a severe head injury the year before and now has a higher brain function disorder that renders him incapable of retaining new information for more than one day. That’s why he takes so many notes.
Posted by kevin at 2:33am EDT on Friday, June 20, 2008
According to director Ryuhei Kitamura, he first met Tak Sakaguchi after witnessing him beat some guy up in a street fight. Since Kitamura didn’t really know any real actors at the time, he offered Sakaguchi a role in Versus—the frenetically-paced action film that would launch both their careers as well as the career of his co-star, Hideo Sakaki. Given his humble beginnings, the idea that less than decade later Sakaguchi would be directing veteran actors like Akaji Maro and Shun Sugata in his own movie is frankly hard to believe. Even so, the final product of his directorial debut: Be a Man! Samurai School, ended up being both absurdly funny and oddly charming.
Posted by kevin at 4:09pm EDT on Thursday, June 19, 2008
Filed under: Comedy, Horror, Future releases
I’m in the middle of writing a few things, but I figured this might interest some people since the last one did. Here’s the new flyer art for the Japanese theatrical release of The Machine Girl along with the ticket which doubles as a scratch-off postcard. Both poses were drawn by animator and manga artist Hisashi Eguchi (Stop!! Hibari-kun!, Charamono). Click ‘em for bigger-ness.
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Posted by kevin at 12:19am EDT on Monday, June 16, 2008
Filed under: Comedy, DVD releases
Japanese distributor Gaga Communications will be releasing Bokutachi to Chuzai-san no 700-nichi Senso (roughly “our 700-day war with the police") on English-subtitled DVD in Japan on August 22, 2008. The movie, which I wrote about briefly here back in December, is a comedy based on a partially-fictional blog novel which was later adapted to manga in 2006.
Set in 1979, the story revolves around a local teenager—antagonistically nicknamed “Mamachari” for the girl’s bike he rides—who is the resident mastermind of pranks in his small, normally quiet town. Mamachari, played by Hayato Ichihara (God’s Puzzle, Check It Out, Yo!), leads a gang of high school pranksters who seem to always be able to find new ways to cause mischief.
Posted by kevin at 12:12am EDT on Saturday, June 14, 2008
Filed under: Comedy, Future releases, New trailers
When I saw the first teaser for Jersey no Futari a few months back, which basically consisted of Sheena & The Rokkets guitarist Makoto Ayukawa being completely baffled by his convenience store B.L.T. sandwich, it seemed quirky enough that it had to be something worth paying attention to. But the fact that it was written and directed by the notoriously “twisty” director Yoshihiro Nakamura made me a little bit hesitant to write about it yet for fear that there would be some major twist that changes the whole plot. Well, there’s a full trailer now that gives a clearer impression of the film’s tone. And since it’s based on a novel by Yu Nagashima (author of Dog in a Sidecar), chances are nobody will be getting trapped in any alternate dimensions or anything, so here goes.
