A female cop named Rei (Miki Sugimoto) kills a perverted murderer, but because he was an important foreign government official her own department throws her in jail to avoid a scandal. When the daughter Naguno (Tetsuro Tamba), the future prime minister, is kidnapped by a gang of violent thugs, he wants the situation dealt with as quietly as possible so as not to sully his public image. For this reason, the expendable Rei is released from jail and sent to infiltrate the gang and eliminate them one by one without alerting the others to her identity. However, when Naguno discovers his daughter has been repeatedly gang-raped and drugged the image-obsessed politician changes the plan.

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The official website for Shimako Sato‘s K-20: Kaijin Niju Menso Den added a trailer within the past few hours. Thankfully it’s the real deal, not just a teaser. The movie is based on a So Kitamura novel which itself was inspired by Edogawa Rampo’s original source material.

The story is set in 1949 in the fictional capital city of Teito, where aristocrats monopolize most of the wealth. K-20, a mysterious man with the ability to change his appearance frequently targets the rich for his theft. One day he manages to trick police into thinking a circus acrobat named Heikichi Endo (Takeshi Kaneshiro) is the real criminal, leaving it up to Endo to escape jail and prove his innocence.

Meanwhile K-20 targets his next victim, Yoko Hashiba (Takako Matsu)—an heiress whose fiancé is Kogoro Akechi (Toru Nakamura), the famous detective who arrested Endo. But Endo still has a score to settle, and picks a fight with K-20.

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Guilty pleasures don’t get much guiltier than Noboru Iguchi’s geeky 2006 fleshfest, Sukeban Boy. Iguchi, who’s sort of a 14-year-old trapped in an adult’s body, caters to a fanbase of likeminded otakus by putting out no-budget releases that incorporate elements from his porn background, goofy comedy, and copious amounts of gore. His cheaply produced, easy to market style of exploitation is probably the reason Fever Dreams/Media Blasters tapped him to direct their recent DVD hit, The Machine Girl, but if you really want to understand what the guy is about “Sukeban Boy” is probably a purer representation (i.e., free from the influence of US expectations).

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Here’s the second full-length trailer for the first installment of Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s 20th Century Boys trilogy. It’s the longest one yet, coming in at over 2 minutes, but is still careful to hold back on footage of the giant plague-spreading robot that will likely be the “money shot” segment of the movie. Jason Gray got to see it in its entirety a few weeks ago and seemed pretty positive. The rest of Japan will get their chance this Saturday (8/30) when the film gets its nation-wide domestic release, courtesy of Toho.

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A man named Kenji and his group of friends try to save the world from destruction by a mysterious conspiracy. The story spans parts of 6 decades, and the live-action version will be filmed as a trilogy with hundreds of actors involved. For the first trailer, see this link. For the teaser, see this link.

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