Ever since she made a splash in the movie industry at 18 for playing the 14-year-old daughter of a divorced manzai comedy team in Jun Ichikawa's Osaka Story, Chizuru Ikewaki has kept herself steadily employed by getting cast in supporting or co-starring roles alongside some of Japan's biggest stars in big budget movies and dramas on all the major Japanese networks. While this has certainly lead to a fairly successful career, she probably hasn't gotten as much credit as she deserves for her acting chops. Hopefully a leading-role in Banmei Takahashi's upcoming Oka o Koete (Over the Hill) will buck that trend.

In the film Chizuru plays Yoko, a recent graduate who's looking for work in early Showa era Tokyo. Her friend sets her up with an interview at Bungeishunju publishing company and she immediately catches the eye of Kan Kikuchi, eventually landing a job as his personal assistant. Kikuchi, played by character actor Toshiyuki Nishida, is a real historical figure who founded Bungeishunju and later went on to head Daiei Motion Picture Company. The story in the film, however, is completely fictional.
continue »

(0) Comments

The official website for Tokyo! was updated yesterday with a few new sections and a short production footage teaser trailer. The film features 3 short films taking place in Tokyo but directed by non-natives. Joon-ho Bong's film, "Shaking Tokyo" is about a 10-year recluse (Teruyuki Kagawa) who works up the courage to go out and find the pizza delivery girl he's fallen in love with (Yu Aoi) only to be caught in an earthquake. Michel Gondry directs the highly metaphorical "Interior Design" in which Ayako Fujitani plays a girl who moves to Tokyo to live with her boyfriend (Ryo Kase), but when she feels useless she begins to slowly transform into a wooden chair - a condition that oddly causes her great relief from her recent frustration. Finally Leos Carax directs "Merde", a story about a strange man (Denis Lavant) who appears from the sewers, horrifying nearby citizens like a phantom. However, when an incident occurs and he gets arrested, his trial sparks mixed feelings about what should happen to him.

Still no solid release date but it should be sometime in 2008.

Links:
Official Website
Eigapedia

(0) Comments

The official website for Wang Ye-ming's Taiwan/Japan co-produced movie Tea Fight added a trailer earlier today. The film involves an ancient "tea curse" passed down through generations of the Yagi family. When the wife of a tea shop owner (Teruyuki Kagawa) dies, he believes she was a victim of this curse and decides to shut down his business. His daughter (Erika Toda) takes it upon herself to research the curse on the Internet, and discovers a special tea in Taiwan that can counteract her family's misfortune. Her father follows her, thinking that she's falling into some sort of trap set up by Taiwanese tea makers. Eventually, this all leads to a rematch of a "tea fight" which originally took place nearly 1,000 years ago. Confused? Me too. The trailer won't particularly help matters, but it looks pretty interesting anyway.

Links:
Official website - The trailer auto-plays when you load the page
Kaiju Shakedown's take
TokyoGraph announces Toda's involvement

(0) Comments

Okay, chances are this one will be of interest to me and about 4 other people, but the trailer for Oku Shuntaro's Death of Domomata (Domomata no Shi) was recently posted on its official website. I've been keeping tabs on this one for months now because I really like the cast, but I must admit I really don't know all that much about it other than it revolves around a bunch of emotionally-volatile drug-addicted girls putting on a production of Takeo Arishima's 1922 stage play "Domomato no Shi," which itself was based on Mark Twain's short story "Is He Living or Is He Dead?"
continue »

(0) Comments

Because I just haven't written enough about Kaho this year, here's the trailer for her upcoming teen romance drama, Tokyo Girl, aka Tokyo Shojo. She plays Miho, an aspiring science fiction writer and high school student who drops her cell phone into a temporary "time slip" caused by an earthquake. When she attempts to call the number she hears a male voice she doesn't recognize. It's a boy named Tokijiro (Kazuma Sano) living in the Meiji era. The two continue talking and a romance begins to bloom even though they're separated by a century, but their relationship hits a snag when faced with the inevitable mortality of a lithium battery.
continue »

(0) Comments