Posted by kevin at 12:42am EDT on Thursday, July 3, 2008
Filed under: Business
Not 100% Japanese movie-related but I just saw this article on how Google is being forced to hand over all records of videos watched on YouTube along with users’ IP addresses to Viacom in an attempt to prove that infringing material is more popular than user-created, and it reminded me of some finger-wagging I’ve been meaning to do. I’ve been a fan of YouTube since the beginning and I’ve probably learned more stupid, pointless crap there than anywhere else (which I enjoy immensely), but it’s not without its negatives. In the beginning YouTube was a seemingly-endless wonderland of Japanese variety shows, movie clips, and hard to find odds and ends. Then Google bought them out and every mega corporation, foreign and domestic, started seeing them as a target.
Posted by kevin at 2:10pm EDT on Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Filed under: Drama, Future releases, New trailers
Cinema fans and my F5 key should thank Jason Gray for pointing out that the trailer for Kiyoshi Kurosawa‘s Tokyo Sonata has finally been added to its official website. The film took home the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes back in May. Its story revolves around a salaryman whose family slowly falls apart after he loses the job that defined him. I’m sure that’s a drastic over-simplification given Kurosawa’s past work, so check out Midnight Eye for an early review with lots of words. I notice the trailer’s theme music is Debussy’s “Clair de Lune”. Hopefully this film can live up to the last critically-acclaimed masterpiece to make use of that, School Day of the Dead.
Posted by kevin at 10:06pm EDT on Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Future releases, New trailers
Talk about coming out of nowhere. Today we present you with Gachi-ban, a movie that seems to have appeared out of thin air and yet already has a trailer and is primed for a limited 1-week showing starting July 19 at Cinemart Roppongi. Does this lack of prior PR mean it sucks? Quite possibly, but judging from the trailer it will at least give the kids some over-the-top delinquent schoolboy ass-kicking to tide them over until Crows Zero 2 comes out next year.
Created by long-time pinku director Hideo Jyoujyou and co-written by Masao Iketani (Yakuza’s Kindergarten), the film is pretty much a direct spoof that makes no effort to hide that fact that it’s trying to capitalize on the success of Takashi Miike‘s Crows Zero with a quickly-produced “high-tension yankee movie”. The difference, however, is that they’re replacing Miike with Jyoujyou and Shun Oguri with Shunsuke Kubozuka (Saikano, Yo-Yo Girl Cop). Something tells me they won’t be hitting the 2.4 billion yen mark that “Crows” reached.
Posted by kevin at 3:13pm EDT on Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Based on Suzuki Matsuo‘s own award-winning novel, Welcome to the Quiet Room stars former Jpop idol Yuki Uchida as a writer who suddenly finds herself in a psychiatric hospital for a suicide attempt she doesn’t remember. Matsuo directed this film adaptation himself, having previously directed the manic 2004 manga comedy Otakus in Love. Some people may get turned off by the quick shifts between absurd comedy and intense drama, but it’s something Matsuo is obviously adept at; having often worked with the likes of Satoshi Miki, Kankuro Kudo, and Sakichi Sato—all of whom enjoy dabbling in the absurd whenever possible.
“Gegege no Kitaro” is a long-running series in Japan, appearing first in manga form and then in many different incarnations of anime at sporadic intervals since the 1960s. Usually once a decade or so a new Gegege animated series comes out in Japan and recaptures the imaginations of children with its oddball cast of yokai (monster) characters and somewhat scary moral lessons about things like protecting nature and not disturbing ancient shrines. Humans that act like jerks in the manga and cartoons usually meet a pretty horrendous fate at the hands of the yokai that aren’t as sympathetic as the title character. In contrast, the 2007 live-action movie version, now going by the shortened international title of Kitaro, is not nearly as graphic or even mildly scary. It’s a fun movie geared toward kids, with none of the plot elements really seeming particularly consequential. Fans of the original series usually hate it with a passion for that very reason, but people who have no predetermined ideas of what it should be may be able to find some enjoyment in the special effects and silly comedic elements laced throughout.
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