Posted by kevin at 5:19pm EDT on Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Filed under: Sci-Fi, Future releases, New trailers
Here’s the second full-length trailer for the first installment of Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s 20th Century Boys trilogy. It’s the longest one yet, coming in at over 2 minutes, but is still careful to hold back on footage of the giant plague-spreading robot that will likely be the “money shot” segment of the movie. Jason Gray got to see it in its entirety a few weeks ago and seemed pretty positive. The rest of Japan will get their chance this Saturday (8/30) when the film gets its nation-wide domestic release, courtesy of Toho.
Posted by kevin at 6:32am EDT on Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Filed under: Drama, Future releases, New trailers
In Koji Hagiuda‘s adaptation of Akira Saso’s manga series Kodomo no Kodomo (literally “child of a child"), newcomer Haruna Amari plays an 11-year-old 5th grader (also named Haruna) who gets pregnant. Now, the obvious question you may be asking right now is, “Gahhh?!” From what I can gather the actual knocking up involves a seemingly innocent and completely oblivious “Let’s put these together” experiment between Haruna and her male friend Hiroyuki. It’s really not that bizarre when you think about it. Avoiding mistakes like that is basically the main reason there’s sex education in grammar schools in the first place.
The new full-length trailer (see below) seems to back up Jason Gray’s thoughts on the film. It appears to be tactfully handled without any sort of creep-out factor that people may have been worried about when this adaptation was first announced.
Posted by kevin at 12:07am EDT on Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Filed under: Comedy, Future releases, New trailers
In 19-year-old Tokyo Visual Arts College student Tomoko Fukai‘s directorial debut, Umeda Yuko no Kokuhaku (Yuko Umeda’s Confession), she wanted to tell a story that draws from her own experiences and the experiences of her friends to make it as realistic as possible.
In the film, 20-year-old TVA graduate Remi Yakihiro plays Yuko, a young woman who works at a gyūdon (beef bowl) shop by day and a sexy cabaret club by night. Yuko hates to lose and has an unyielding spirit. She believes men are good-for-nothing creatures but that doesn’t keep her from dating them—a lot of them. In fact she even keeps a journal in which she rates each of her conquests accordingly. However, one day she begins obsessing over a specific intellectual-looking man named Yamada (Kikujiro Honda) who’s been coming into her gyūdon shop. And what’s worse, he seems to be immune to her favorite sexy pose.
Posted by kevin at 9:56pm EDT on Monday, August 25, 2008
Filed under: Drama, Future releases, New trailers
Oh time slip, you cheapest of plot devices. No need to explain the science behind it or worry about grandfather paradoxes. Just “slip” back in time and let the hijinx commence. Following in the time-traveling footsteps of movies like Metro ni Notte and Tokyo Girl is Takashi Kubota‘s Yesterdays, starring Takashi Tsukamoto (Battle Royale, Blue Spring).
The story involves a young man named Satoshi who’s been bouncing around between part-time jobs in recent years because he stubbornly refuses to follow the same path as his father (Jun Kunimura). After 3 years without contact Satoshi receives the news that his dad has cancer and doesn’t have much longer to live. When he visits, his father has one final request—that Satoshi find a former lover named Mio Miyama that he hasn’t seen in 32 years. With only a sketchbook full of drawings to go on, Satoshi eventually finds his dad’s old apartment. However, when he steps through the door he also steps back in time and meets Akihiko (Asahi Uchida) who is actually his father at the age of 22. By interacting with the young version of Akihiko and his then girlfriend Mio (Natsuki Harada), Satoshi eventually discovers that he had more in common with his father than he ever knew.
Posted by kevin at 7:10pm EDT on Saturday, August 23, 2008
Filed under: Music, Sci-Fi, Future releases, New trailers
Here’s a plot that sort of defies normal explanation. In Yoshihiro Nakamura’s Fish Story, an unsuccessful punk band on the verge of breaking up records a song in 1975, one year before the debut of the Sex Pistols. The song isn’t initially a hit, but somehow it manages to transcend normal spacetime, affecting people across several time periods. In the original timeline Earth should have been destroyed in 2012, but because of the effects of the song that fate can be delayed or even completely avoided.
The song used in the film was produced by musician Kazuyoshi Saito in a collaboration with Kotaro Isaka, the author of the original novel on which the film is based. Check it out in the first teaser after the break.