Here’s a teaser and full trailer for the upcoming Koki Mitani comedy, The Magic Hour, starring Satoshi Tsumabuki and Koichi Sato. As reported over at Kaiju Shakedown last year, Tsumabuki plays a gangster who gets caught having an affair with his boss’s wife (Toshiyuki Nishida). To redeem himself he promises to hire a famous hitman to work for them. Instead, he finds a 2-bit actor (Sato) to play the role until he can find a real hitman.

continue reading »

Permalink      0 Comments

Shozin Fukui, whose directorial style is often compared to that of Shinya Tsukamoto, put out two extremely strange DV-shot cyberpunk horror films in the 90s, 964 Pinocchio in 1991 and Rubber’s Lover in 1996. Both of these were picked up by Unearthed Films and got released on R1 DVD in 2004 packaged with his previous shorts. After that he sort of dropped off the radar until 2006 when he put out two DVD releases, Onne and Den-Sen (Infection) - both of which went largely unnoticed. His latest offering, The Hiding (Senpuku) will be part of Cinema Artone Shimokitazawa’s late show rotation from May 10th - June 6th 2008. 964 Pinocchio, Rubber’s lover, and a completely re-edited version of Onne will also get separate screenings during the event.

continue reading »

Permalink      0 Comments

Well people, if there ever was a video game series begging to be adapted to mindless exploitive movie form it was “Onechanbara”, and now that seems to be reality. The movie will be directed by Yohei Fukuda (cinematographer for Chikan Otoko) and will star Eri Otoguro as the main protagonist/zombie slasher Aya, Chise Nakamura as her little sister Saki, and Manami Hashimoto as Reiko the mystery woman. I’m not sure about the plot yet but if it’s true to the video games it probably goes something like this: Sparsely-dressed girls kill waves and waves of zombies to protect their city.

continue reading »

Permalink      4 Comments

Earlier today an announcement was posted on the website for Makoto Tanaka’s upcoming comedy Sing, Salmon, Sing! (Utatama) that the film will be released on April 5th. For those who haven’t been following the project, Utatama has been marketed as sort of a torchbearer for the recent string of megahit feel-good zero-to-hero comedies like Waterboys, Swing Girls, and Hula Girls. This time around the subject is a school choir lead by the mildly uptight perfectionist Kasumi (Kaho).

continue reading »

Permalink      0 Comments

The creators of the upcoming Stephen Chow-produced film Shaolin Girl are having a hard time convincing Japanese bloggers it’s about Shaolin Kung-Fu at all. While some people have been mistaking the martial arts used in the film and its Hong Kong predecessor “Shaolin Soccer” for Shorinji Kempo - a Japanese martial art inspired by Shaolin Kung-Fu, others are convinced it’s about Kobayashi Shorin-ryu, an Okinawan style of karate. Apparently the kanji for “Shaolin” (少林) is so close to the kanji for “Kobayashi” (小林) that many Japanese blogs and online media outlets have been reporting on the two films under the titles “Kobayashi Soccer” and “Kobayashi Girl”.

continue reading »

Permalink      0 Comments