Ever since she made a splash in the movie industry at 18 for playing the 14-year-old daughter of a divorced manzai comedy team in Jun Ichikawa’s Osaka Story, Chizuru Ikewaki has kept herself steadily employed by getting cast in supporting or co-starring roles alongside some of Japan’s biggest stars in big budget movies and dramas on all the major Japanese networks. While this has certainly lead to a fairly successful career, she probably hasn’t gotten as much credit as she deserves for her acting chops. Hopefully a leading-role in Banmei Takahashi’s upcoming Oka o Koete (Over the Hill) will buck that trend.

In the film Chizuru plays Yoko, a recent graduate who’s looking for work in early Showa era Tokyo. Her friend sets her up with an interview at Bungeishunju publishing company and she immediately catches the eye of Kan Kikuchi, eventually landing a job as his personal assistant. Kikuchi, played by character actor Toshiyuki Nishida, is a real historical figure who founded Bungeishunju and later went on to head Daiei Motion Picture Company. The story in the film, however, is completely fictional.

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The official website for Tokyo! was updated yesterday with a few new sections and a short production footage teaser trailer. The film features 3 short films taking place in Tokyo but directed by non-natives. Joon-ho Bong’s film, “Shaking Tokyo” is about a 10-year recluse (Teruyuki Kagawa) who falls in love with his pizza delivery girl (Yu Aoi) and gets flushed out of his apartment by an earthquake. Michel Gondry directs the highly metaphorical “Interior Design” in which Ayako Fujitani plays a girl who moves to Tokyo to live with her boyfriend (Ryo Kase), but when she feels useless she begins to slowly transform into a wooden chair - a condition that oddly causes her great relief from her recent frustration. Finally Leos Carax directs “Merde”, a story about a strange man (Denis Lavant) who appears from the sewers, horrifying nearby citizens like a phantom. However, when an incident occurs and he gets arrested, his trial sparks mixed feelings about what should happen to him.

Still no solid release date but it should be sometime in 2008.

Links:
Official Website
Eigapedia

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The official website for Wang Ye-ming’s Taiwan/Japan co-produced movie Tea Fight added a trailer earlier today. The film involves an ancient “tea curse” passed down through generations of the Yagi family. When the wife of a tea shop owner (Teruyuki Kagawa) dies, he believes she was a victim of this curse and decides to shut down his business. His daughter (Erika Toda) takes it upon herself to research the curse on the Internet, and discovers a special tea in Taiwan that can counteract her family’s misfortune. Her father follows her, thinking that she’s falling into some sort of trap set up by Taiwanese tea makers. Eventually, this all leads to a rematch of a “tea fight” which originally took place nearly 1,000 years ago. Confused? Me too. The trailer won’t particularly help matters, but it looks pretty interesting anyway.

Links:
Official website - The trailer auto-plays when you load the page
Kaiju Shakedown’s take
TokyoGraph announces Toda’s involvement

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The sequel to 2007’s Gegege no Kitaro, now officially titled Gegege no Kitaro: Sennen Noroi Uta (millennium curse song), will be released on July 12th, 2008. The official website now has a trailer up which you can view by clicking on the speech bubble next to Medama-oyaji (the little eyeball dude).

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Phantom Film released the poster art and a new trailer for the live-action adaptation of Shrill Cries of Summer (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni) today. The movie, which will be released on May 10th, is a murder mystery based on a visual novel which was later adapted to a manga and anime series. In the story a boy named Keiichi (Goki Maeda) moves to the small village of Hinamizawa in 1983 and quickly fits in with his new peers. However, after the annual Watanagashi Festival some of his friends start to act weird and it’s revealed through conversations with a veteran police officer (Tetta Sugimoto) that every year around this time mysterious murders and disappearances occur. Judging from the characters involved the movie is most likely limited to the first visual novel, Onikakushi-hen.

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