Inspired by a best-selling 2002 novel by Kenichiro Nakamaru, Takahumi Motoki‘s upcoming weight-loss comedy Rock ‘n’ Roll Diet! follows the exploits of a tubby family man as he attempts to regain his former svelte rockstar glory. In the movie Gun-san (Daisuke Shima), a former rocker and current owner of rock ‘n’ roll bar “Gun’s” has recently started packing on the pounds. Now 42 and completely accustomed to wearing loose-fitting jersey outfits, his eldest daughter (Haru) is ashamed of him, his second daughter (Saaya) makes him the butt of her jokes, and his wife (Junko Mihara) becomes nostalgic for the old days. However, Gun-san is convinced that his big belly is simply a sign of his own happiness. That all changes one day when he meets a brash female guitarist named Nana (Nao Nagasawa) who drunkenly calls him out for letting himself go and losing his rock ‘n’ roll spirit in the process.

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The official website for Masahiko Nagasawa‘s Tengoku wa Mada Tooku (roughly “Heaven is still far away") is now live and features a full-length trailer. In the film, which is based on a best-selling Maiko Seo novel, Zexy CM girl Rosa Kato plays Chizuru, an office lady who’s literally given up on life. Unlucky in work and in love, Chizuru makes the decision that she’s going to end it all in a place she doesn’t know. She takes a taxi to a remote area and checks into a small bed and breakfast situated in the heart of a mountain. The proprietor of the bed and breakfast, a self-sufficient, upbeat man named Tamura (Yoshimi Tokui) greets her when she arrives. Over the course of her stay time seems to stand still as Tamura and other local villagers gradually restore Chizuru’s will to live.

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Geisha vs Ninjas is the upcoming directorial debut of Go Ohara and, as its title explains pretty thoroughly, involves a geisha named Kotono (Minami Tsukui) who sets out to avenge her father’s murder at the hands of a band of ninja assassins. Personally I’m relieved to see she actually does modify her style a bit before she goes back for the second round of whoop-ass, but either way it seems to be an overtly silly Japanese action flick that isn’t exactly hiding its intentions. A press conference for the film’s completion was held back in July and it’s slated for release in Japan on September 27, 2008. Trailers below.

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Here’s the new trailer for Hiroshi Nishitani’s Yougisha X no Kenshin. I posted the first teaser here last month but the new trailer seems to do a better job of conveying the tone of the film and the comedic rapport between Kou Shibasaki and Masaharu Fukuyama. Based on a Fuji TV drama that featured the same two actors, the film centers around a mysterious murder in which the victim’s hand is severely burned but the cause of death is actually strangulation. Detective Kaoru Utsumi (Shibasaki) attempts to corroborate the alibi of the victim’s ex-wife and discovers the woman’s neighbor, a genius high school math teacher named Tetsuya Ishigami (Shinichi Tsutsumi), went to Teito University—the same school as genius physicist Manabu Yukawa, aka “Galileo” (Fukuyama). Knowing it will take a genius to catch a genius she enlists the help of Yukawa to figure out Ishigami’s role in all of it.

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To be honest I’m a bit wary of even mentioning Toshikazu Nagae’s latest attempt at horror, Hoso Kinshi Gekijo Ban because the first attempt: “Ghost System” was one of my least favorite movies of all time. And yet, girls in blank masks are kind of creepy, so here goes. In 2003 Fuji TV started airing a series of documentaries called “Hoso Kinshi” (banned from broadcast) late at night about creepy events as told to the interviewer by the people who were supposedly involved. They were staged to seem as real as possible so it caused a lot of confusion that got people talking and all that buzz just ended up making it more popular.

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