The official website for Takahisa Zeze‘s Pandemic (Kansen Rettou) went live today and there have been all sorts of new developments since the movie was first announced at the beginning of the year. The release date has been officially set at January 17, 2009. Some new cast additions include Ryoko Kuninaka as a nurse named Takako, Yuji Tanaka as Takako’s husband, Chizuru Ikewaki as the wife of the first infected patient, Takanori Takeyama as a freelance virus researcher, Koichi Sato as an ER doctor, and Tatsuya Fuji as a university professor and expert on the influenza virus.

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Comedian Hiroshi Tamura’s autobiographical novel, Homeless Chugakusei, has sold over 2 million copies in Japan since it was released last year. As Tokyograph reported back in December, there was a bidding war for the film rights, with Toho winning out in the end. In recent months that popularity has also yielded a manga adaptation and a Fuji TV drama. Gee guys, overexpose much?

The movie stars WaT’s Teppei Koike as a 14-year-old who finds himself homeless for a summer when his family falls apart. He ends up living in a nearby park where he only has rain water to bathe and gets so hungry he tries to eat grass and cardboard. Akihiro Nishino and Chizuru Ikewaki also star. Check out the brand new full trailer below.

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Coming to Tokyo’s Theater Pole-Pole on July 26th is Yoko Tashiro’s new documentary, Kuusou no Mori about two families of vegetable farmers living together in Shintoku-cho, Hokkaido. Tashiro kept tabs on the Yamada and Miyashita families over a 7-year period as they raised their kids without much money and farmed vegetables without the benefit of machinery, but still managed to lead happy lives. The trailer, which you can find below, has only been viewed 300 times since it was posted a month and a half ago so this one probably isn’t primed to take the world by storm—but hey, if it’s worth 7 years to film it’s certainly worth 5 minutes to post something about.

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Café Isobe (Junkissa Isobe) was released on July 5th and since it didn’t crack the top 10 at the box office it hasn’t been generating much news lately. Even so, it’s generally getting a really solid fan reaction on sites with rating systems like MovieWalker compared to other comedies that have been released in recent months.

Director Keisuke Yoshida spent the bulk of his career as a lighting technician for Shinya Tsukamoto (his movies have lighting?) before making a minor splash with his 2006 film, “Raw Summer” about a salaryman who stalks a teenage schoolgirl (Sola Aoi). Café Isobe isn’t quite so seedy, however. It’s about an irresponsible, flighty single father named Yujiro (Hiroyuki Miyasako) and his easily-annoyed daughter Sakiko (Riisa Naka). When Yujiro’s father dies suddenly he uses his inheritance to buy his own café in a feeble attempt to impress chicks. Unfortunately the cafe’s furnishings are so tacky that it only seems to attract elderly clientele and weirdos. Yujiro doesn’t seem to mind though, because part-tme waitress Motoko (Kumiko Aso) has him completely entranced, much to the chagrin of Sakiko—who isn’t particularly good at hiding her angst.

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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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