A new website for Atsushi Sanada‘s coming-of-age film Honokaa Boy is now up. So far it only has a teaser trailer, release date, and basic cast info. The film stars Masaki Okada (Osawa in A Gentle Breeze in the Village) as a love-scorned college student who travels to Hawaii and meets various people who have an impact on him, lot the least of which being an older woman whom he falls in love with (Jun Hasegawa). Hasegawa is a fashion model who was born in New Hampshire (huzzah!) and grew up in Hawaii until moving to Japan at the age of 14 to begin her career. She has not appeared in a feature film since Toshiya Ooe’s “Spirit” in 2004, which was also set in Hawaii.

Find the teaser at the film’s official website
Plot details via Tokyograph

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In the late 80s, first-time director George Iida was given the go-ahead to film his ultra bizarre debut, Battle Heater, by production company Amuse on the condition that he cast lots of people from their in-house talent pool—especially up-and-coming rock band Bakufu-Slump. As luck would have it, Bakufu-Slump broke through just before the movie came out, netting it an avalanche of free PR. This was a bit of a double-edged sword at the time, because people saw the entire thing as a promotional project made for the band (it wasn’t). Nevertheless, what started out as a silly idea about a demonic space heater actually became a moderate success and launched the careers of quite a few of the cast and crew involved.

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When the older brother of Saori (Mirai Shida) is arrested for murder, police protect her family by changing their name and take them out of contact with the rest of society for a while. Saori is then sent to live with Detective Katsuura (Koichi Sato) for futher protection from the media onslaught. Katsuura is in a tricky situation trying to deal with Saori’s fragile mental state while carefully trying to get her testimony about what happened. Meanwhile, his own family is coming apart at the seams. Slated for release in Japan on January 24, 2009. For the first teaser, see this link. For the second teaser, see this link.

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Sion Sono‘s latest, due out in January 2009. Having grown up in a devout Christian family and forced to confess his sins to his priest father, Yu (Takahiro Nishijima) decides to rebel against his upbringing and become a master of taking sneak upskirt photos of unsuspecting girls. One day he meets a girl named Yoko (Hikari Mitsushima) and immediately falls in love. However, Yoko is involved in a strange religious cult and he decides that he must save her.

Sources: Twitch / Official website

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In a confusing, and somewhat unnecessary twist, the sequel to Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness is actually a prequel. Why didn’t they just put them out in the right order, you ask? Well, the original was a “for hire” project and the script was already written when Shimako Sato was tapped to direct. In “Birth of the Wizard”, Sato wrote the screenplay herself and wanted to show Misa as a regular teenager, before she became a badass dark wizard with all the answers. The result is a relatively exciting action/horror movie with its fair share of corny moments.

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