The official website for Yudai Yamaguchi’s Akanbo Shoujo is up. The movie was screened at Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival 2008 on March 21st and will be released publicly on August 2, 2008.

Based on the 1967 Kazuo Umezu manga, the story of Akanbo Shoujo (literally “baby girl") involves a murderous girl stuck in a mutated baby’s body. Having spent most of her childhood in an orphanage after being separated from her family during an air raid, a beautiful 15-year-old girl named Yoko (Nako Mizusawa) finally returns home to meet them. When she arrives she discovers they live in a creepy western-style mansion surrounded by a vast forest. One night Yoko is alone in a room when she’s suddenly grabbed by a strange creature. It’s Tamami, Yoko’s jealous sister who’s hideously deformed and incapable of growing larger than a baby.

Links:
Official Website
Article - Crazy + crazy = Akanbo Shoujo at Kaiju Shakedown
Eigapedia

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The live-action movie based on Takafumi Mizuguchi’s light novel Ren, directed by Sadakazu Hori, has had a few preview screenings and will be coming out sometime later in the year. The story revolves around a girl named Ren (Rei Okamoto) who’s banished from the future and is now trapped in modern-day Tokyo as punishment. Akihito (Toru Baba) returns to school to find that all his classmates apparently know this girl and he quickly develops a rapport with her. She tells him her secret but things get complicated when a transfer student named Shu (Masei Nakayama) arrives with a message from the future.

Don’t expect any special effects or complex explanations of quantum physics in this one. Judging from the trailer (see below), the whole time-travelers from the future element will just be a plot device leading up to typical teenage romance and human drama.

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Japanese video game company Spike will be releasing a new Twilight Syndrome game called Twilight Syndrome: The Forbidden Urban Legend for Nintendo DS on July 24, 2008 which will be a precursor to two live-action movies continuing the series.

This will not be the first time Twilight Syndrome has been adapted to a live-action film. In 2000 Kenzou Maihara directed Twilight Syndrome: Sotsugyou, starring a young Wakana Sakai. In that film Sakai played one of a group of girls who attempt a ritual to summon ghosts as a goof. Of course it works, and she ends up having to figure out how to get rid of the evil spirits that show up to kidnap her friends.

As you can probably tell this is not a series that hangs its hat on new or unique ideas. Each story is self-contained and involves some sort of supernatural dabbling by teenagers who quickly get in over their heads by messing with things they don’t understand. The new films will continue that trend, but with the complete drought of cheesy teen idol J-horror in the past few years it’s nice to see something come out that may hearken back to the glory days of the late 90s/early 00s when fodder like this was being released on a weekly basis. I suppose it was too much of a good thing at the time - but J-horror kept western DVD-buyers interested in Asian cinema like nothing else has since, and anything that helps get back to that level of interest would be a good thing.

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We like to stay well-rounded in our coverage around here, so in the spirit of inclusiveness it’s time for some gravure idols fighting intergalactic crime in Eitoku Kawamura’s Spy Girl’s Mission Cord#005. It was actually announced back in April, but I’ve been waiting for synopsis that actually made sense. It never came, but here goes…

At Manazuru Peninsula strange UFO sightings are accompanied by killings in which the victims’ corpses are completely mummified. When the proprietor of the nearby Institute of Space and Astronautical Science decides to investigate and promptly disappears the Spy Girls (played by gravure idols Sawa Hashimoto, Megumi Kagurazaka, and Saya Hikita) are called in to get to the bottom of things. They eventually discover the cause of all the trouble, an alien seductress with murderous intentions known only as Gold Lady (Akiho Yoshizawa), and a ridiculously slow-paced battle ensues.

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The official website for the upcoming live-action movie adaptation of Motoro Mase’s manga serial Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit is now up, and with it comes a new teaser. Like most teasers actual movie footage is pretty sparse, but at least we get a peek at Shota Matsuda in the traditional Fujimoto “sorry dude, you’re dead” pose.

For those not familiar with the manga, the story basically involves a national death lottery in Japan meant to force citizens into becoming more productive members of society and reduce the suicide rate. Children are injected with a lethal nanocapsule along with a nationally-administered vaccine at a very young age. The capsule eventually makes its way to their pulmonary artery where it waits to be activated. Between the ages of 18 and 24 people become eligible for ikigami. 1 out of every 1000 people are chosen to die, being informed of their fate only 24 hours before it happens.

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