Originally slated for September, Kensaku Watanabe‘s Cheer Cheer Cheer! (Fure Fure Shojo) is now officially scheduled for release in Japan on October 18, 2008.

In the years since Waterboys and Swing Girls set the bar impossibly high and created an insatiable market for similar movies, the zeroes-to-heroes formula has grown into sort of the Mad Libs of Japanese cinema. The plots pretty much always go something like this:

A group of [girls/boys/teens] decide to take up [quirky activity] simply to [shallow, selfish motive], but end up developing a genuine love for [aforementioned quirky activity] and decide to participate in the [local event with a big crowd to win over].

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Takeo Kimura’s feature-length debut. Scheduled for release on October 18, 2008.

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Takeo Kimura has been involved in the Japanese film industry for over 60 years; often working as art director, screenwriter, and production designer for Seijun Suzuki and other prominent filmmakers. In recent years he’s directed a few movies like “Mugen Sasurai” in 2004 and “Matouqin Nocturne” in 2007, but both of those are generally considered artsy short films, coming in at under an hour each with an emphasis on avant-garde symbolism. His new project, Yume no Manimani is a full-length movie and is bolstered by an amazing list of stars in supporting roles such as Tadanobu Asano, Kaori Momoi, and Rie Miyazawa to name a few. The film crosses generations as the head of a college; Mr. Kimuro (Hiroyuki Nagato) becomes concerned with an irrational young student named Daisuke (Yoshio Inoue). His exchanges with Daisuke bring him back to his own youth in WWII-era Japan. You can find the trailer here at the film’s official website. It will be released in Japan on October 18th.

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On Wednesday I posted a clip of an NTV morning show that showed the first glimpse of the new teaser for Takashi Miike‘s Yatterman. Welp, that very same teaser is now on the film’s official site. It’s just as short; but at least it’s bigger, very high quality, and not chopped up for TV consumption.

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Masayuki Miyano’s first feature film as a director, Lala Pipo is shaping up to be the most bizarre project announced for 2009 yet. The title is based on a misunderstanding of the English phrase “a lot of people” and the film stars Hiroki Narimiya as an enthusiastic adult video scout who recruits an office lady (Yuri Nakamura) to star in a porno. It’s based on a novel by Hideo Okuda, and the screenplay was adapted by filmmaker Tetsuya Nakashima (Kamikaze Girls, Memories of Matsuko). Comedienne and television personality Tomoko Murakami also appears as a tubby AV star. Teaser after the break.

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