Based on a 1997 television drama, Bayside Shakedown begins as a corpse is found floating in the river near Bayside Precinct. Not only that, but their own commissioner has been kidnapped. To complicate matters, The Metropolitan Police Department gets put in charge of the case over the local cops, and refuse to clue them in on any of the details of their investigation. But Aoshima (Yuji Oda) will have none of that, and forces himself into the fray; much to the chagrin of the MPD. Luckily for Aoshima, his friend Muroi (Toshiro Yanagiba) is heading the MPD investigation, and had promised Aoshima long ago that he would do his best to use his position in the MPD to make things easier for beat cops—but will he keep his word? You can find the full trailer here.

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The music of Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale is probably as memorable as the film itself, setting the mood for just about every scene. Amazingly, Masamichi Amano only had one week to compose all the music for the film. Not an easy task, considering music is constantly prevalent in the film and he needed to fill 90 minutes. Working without sleep, Amano conducted a symphony orchestra of 120 musicians for two days while continuing to compose during breaks. Unfortunately the film’s soundtrack, originally distributed by Culture Publishers Inc. in Japan, went out of print a long time ago and has been difficult to track down ever since. Amazon currently has 2 copies of the import CD in stock and they’re priced at a staggering $63.99 USD. Well from now on there will be no need to scour Ebay or pay jacked up import prices because Milan Records is releasing the OST exclusively through iTunes on July 22nd. Full track details below.

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A blind shamisen player named Ichi (Haruka Ayase) travels alone along the road. Upon noticing her disability and seemingly helpless state, unscrupulous people constantly try to take advantage of her. However, what they don’t realize is that in spite of her frail image she is an accomplished sword master, and she makes short work of anyone that confronts her with the aid of a blade hidden in her walking cane. One day she gets caught in a battle between two rival yakuza groups, and eventually discovers love for the first time. You can find the full trailer here.

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Director Fumihiko Sori joined Ichi stars Haruka Ayase and Takao Osawa yesterday for a preview screening of the film and greetings from the stage. As is typical for these press events nothing particularly informative came out of it, but a lot of praise was poured on Ayase for being able to handle all her own fight scenes without the benefit of a stand-in and a relatively short amount of time to train. Sori was particularly impressed by her natural reflexes and fighting spirit.

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Two weeks ago the official website for Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata added a trailer to the upper left corner of the front page. Earlier today Fortissimo Films uploaded the same trailer in much higher resolution along with a teaser. To find them go here and click the button highlighted in the image below. Once you get to the player the buttons on the side of the TV switch between teaser and trailer.

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