Posted by kevin at 10:43pm EDT on Monday, June 16, 2008
Filed under: Crime, Thriller, Movie people
Amongst fans of Japanese direct-to-video releases it’s pretty much set in stone that the first two actors of the “V-cinema big four” are Riki Takeuchi and Show Aikawa. There’s some room for argument beyond that, but it would be hard to dispute actor/director Hitoshi Ozawa being a solid #3. You’ve probably seen him before—he’s usually the hardboiled cop or vengeance-fueled Yakuza with a combed back mullet that isn’t Riki Takeuchi. Now 25 years into his career he’s had roles in over 200 movies, but most of those movies have never even been mentioned in the English-speaking world, let alone watched. Well no more, I say. It’s time for the well-coiffed sultan of shooting stuff to take his rightful place in the pantheon of V-cinema greats. As the first order of business on that front, we bring you two of his latest releases: the 2-part cliché-ridden gangster flick Taiyo ga Hajikeru hi followed by the slightly higher profile crime thriller Immoral: Kogoeru Shitai (frozen corpse) which he also directed.
Posted by kevin at 5:22am EDT on Sunday, June 15, 2008
Filed under: Movie people
On August 24, 2005 Japanese movie and PV director Toshiaki Toyoda (Blue Spring, 9 Souls) was arrested for having 5 packets (about 3.9g) of stimulants in his home. The incident almost derailed the release of “Hanging Garden” (Kuchu Teien) and he eventually received a 3-year suspended sentence for possession. The lack of new film projects after the incident coupled with an obvious language barrier has led to rumors in the west that he’s being blackballed by the Japanese movie industry. Now, I have no idea if that’s the case and I wouldn’t even begin to speculate on something like that here, but I did come across a bit of news involving him today for anyone that’s been worried he might have dropped off the face of the planet. Apparently he’s the producer for an instrumental rock band called Twin Tail. They’ve been together since ‘05 and will be releasing their first album on July 7, 2008 entitled “Subete ha Yurusarete Iru”. The band consists of only a violinist, a drummer, a bassist, and a video guy (Toyoda). Their live shows have a huge screen with lots of funky visuals which he’s responsible for creating. Check out a clip below to experience the weirdness.
Posted by kevin at 3:16am EDT on Sunday, June 15, 2008
Filed under: DVD releases, Movie people
Katsuhito Ishii, the man behind films like Funky Forest: The First Contact, The Taste of Tea, and the recently-released “Yama no Anata” has spent 2 years working on a project called “U-BEE”. With the help of Tohokushinsha Film Corporation, he used HD cameras to capture footage of natural scenery in Japan and Hawaii which will be featured on a set of 3 DVDs entitled “Scenery” (135min.). The footage will be accompanied by customizable piano background music and natural sound effects in 5.1ch surround sound. The point of the project is to turn TVs into pieces of furniture that can be enjoyed without actually having to watch them intently, instead of just being a useless black square when not in use.
Posted by kevin at 1:42am EDT on Sunday, June 8, 2008
Filed under: Comedy, Horror, Movie people, TV
With the recent release of The Machine Girl and the name Noboru Iguchi being thrown around on mainstream sites like Cinematical, I think it’s a good time to write about one of his projects that didn’t get nearly enough attention when it should have. Based on a Daijiro Morohoshi manga, Shiori to Shimiko no Kaiki Jikenbo (roughly “The bizarre case files of Shiori and Shimiko") is a horror/comedy series which aired Saturday nights at 12:50 AM - 1:20 AM on NTV from January 5, 2008 - March 29, 2008. During its 13-episode run I watched it religiously via torrents (sorry, don’t sue me) and it was always the undisputed highlight of my week.
The show stars Atsuko Maeda of the 48-member Jpop group AKB48 as Shimiko and current Victor Koshien poster girl Nao Minamisawa as Shiori. Shimiko is a quiet, shy girl who moves to a new town to live with an uncle. One of the first people she meets is Shiori, a tomboyish, self-confident girl who never seems to be phased by any dangerous or strange situation she gets herself into. The show was fairly formulaic; normally something odd or supernatural would happen in the town and Shiori would gather her group of friends for a meeting about it in the school bathroom. Then Shiori and Shimiko would venture out to investigate the situation and interview people. Something would usually place Shimiko in mortal danger until Shiori popped back in at the last minute to solve the entire mystery, giving an enthusiastic speech and finishing off with her customary thumb + index finger point of success. There were obviously many exceptions to the formula, but that’s the basic idea.
Posted by kevin at 7:31pm EDT on Thursday, May 22, 2008
Filed under: Events, Movie people
Film Forum will be holding a four-week, 24-film retrospective of prolific Japanese actor Tatsuya Nakadai from June 20th to July 24th in New York City. Nakadai will also be in the US from June 20th to June 24th for various events in New York and Washington DC. For full information on the event check out the newsletter here and the event’s homepage here.
Nakadai is a veteran of over 130 films in a career spanning over 50 years, making him arguably the most prominent living actor from the golden age of Japanese cinema. Aside from screenings of some of his more well-known films like Yojimbo and Harakiri Film Forum also has imported a few rare 35mm prints for the retrospective, including the late Kon Ichikawa’s Conflagration, Odd Obsession, and I Am Cat.
Update: More movies were added and the retrospective will now end on August 7.
Subtitled releases:
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