Posted by kevin at 5:30pm EDT on Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Filed under: Drama, Future releases, New trailers
The website for Takashi Saito’s quirky romantic drama Biru to Dobutsuen (literally “office building and the zoo") is up with a teaser trailer. The story involves a young music student (Katsuya Kobayashi) who works part-time as a window-washer. One day he sees an office lady (Maki Sakai) through one of the windows of a local office building and the two exchange an awkward glance. He pursues her, but the age gap between them and circumstances at her job keep them apart. Eventually they get a chance to spend some time together at the zoo and fall in love. However, they’re forced to consider the viability of a future together when her father (Tetsu Watanabe) voices concerns about the relationship.
Posted by kevin at 2:17pm EDT on Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Filed under: Horror, Future releases
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
Posted by kevin at 4:50pm EDT on Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Filed under: Drama, Sci-Fi, Future releases, New trailers
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.
Posted by kevin at 9:19am EDT on Friday, May 23, 2008
Filed under: Horror, Future releases
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.
Posted by kevin at 4:27pm EDT on Monday, May 12, 2008
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Pink, Future releases, New trailers
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.
Subtitled releases:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|