Iwahashi (Tatsuya Nakadai), a member of the Enoki-ya gang, was recently released early from a 10-year prison sentence for killing the boss of rival Kan’non-gumi. However, he returns to find Kan’non-gumi and Enoki-ya finalizing the process of merging under the careful orchestration of a manipulative politician (Tetsuro Tamba). Iwahashi tries to be as supportive of the new changes as possible, even when he’s passed over as new boss, but when a pattern of corruption and assassination is slowly revealed he can no longer sit back and let it continue.

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Coinciding the recently-concluded Beijing Olympics, the 150-year anniversary of the opening of the port of Yokohama coming up in 2009, and the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, China and Yokohama have their own significant milestone. 100 years ago the first elementary school for the children of Chinese immigrants was established in Japan. Currently there are 5 of these Chinese schools throughout all of Japan, and two of them are located in Yokohama. Working with a grant from the Fund For the Promotion of Art and Culture, Nozomi Kataka filmed students at a Yamate Chinese School in Yokohama for 3 years, starting with their first day in elementary school. The end result is the documentary, Chukogakko no Kodomotachi (The Kids of Chinese School).

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Children at Yamate Chinese School in Yokohama are filmed over a 3-year period, starting with day 1 of first grade.

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Quint at AICN has some new exclusive production stills for Rian Johnson’s upcoming film, “The Brothers Bloom” starring Rachel Weisz (♥♥♥), Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo, and—most importantly—Rinko Kikuchi as an explosives expert named “Bang Bang”. Included in the stills is Bang Bang in all her detonation-poised glory, as you can see to the left. But you’ll have to check out their article for the huge version of awesomeness.

Also, you may recall from when I posted the trailer that this film was originally slated for release on October 24th. Well, I guess someone thought better of that, because instead of fighting for attention during a very crowded October and November, national release is being being pushed back to early 2009, with only a limited release in December. God forbid anyone miss gems like “Saw V” and “High School Musical 3: Senior Year”. What the flying F.. I’m moving to another planet.

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Apple recently uploaded a new HD quicktime trailer for the limited US release of Takashi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django by First Look Studios. It’s very stylized but the video quality is about 10x better than the interlaced piece of crap Apple uploaded to their Japanese site last year. Check out ryuganji for info and an interview with Miike. Incidentally, First Look’s Blu-ray and DVD releases of “Django” are slated for November 11th in the US.

Apple trailer page
Official website for the US release

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