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Dororo (DVD) (English Subtitled) (Hong Kong Version)
Shibasaki Kou (Actor)
| Tsumabuki Satoshi (Actor)
| Nakai Kiichi (Actor)
| Harada Mieko (Actor)
Based on the manga from Osamu "God of Manga" Tezuka, Dororo serves up an entertaining bit of manga-to-multiplex fun despite never finding the right tone. Director Koichi Chigira does a lot of things right but also a lot of things wrong, leading to long patches of boredom and the occasional unintentional laugh. Still, there's fun to be had along the way. Satoshi Tsumabuki stars as Hyakkimaru, a cursed fellow who lacks forty-eight vital pieces of his body. Once upon a time, warlord Kagemitsu Daigo (Kiichi Nakai) traded away forty-eight pieces of his unborn son's body to evil demon gods in exchange for unmatched power on the battlefield. The demon gods agreed, each asking for one part of the... [read more]
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Infection (DVD) (Hong Kong Version)
Sato Koichi (Actor)
| Hoshino Mari (Actor)
| Sano Shiro (Actor)
| Minami Kaho
Somewhere in Japan is a hospital that you REALLY do not want to be a patient in. Or a doctor. Or a nurse. Faced with bankruptcy the place is dangerously low on supplies and staff. The director is unavailable for questions, suppliers do not want to sell them goods anymore because of bad credit, nurses work double shifts while their wages aren't being paid and the few remaining doctors are worn eggshell thin. In short: everyone would rather leave but their patients can't be abandoned or moved. A recipe for disaster, it's not long before a lethal mistake happens and the hospital suddenly has an untimely dead patient extra. Faced with disgrace and possible future unemployment, the witnesses face... [read more]
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Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust (DVD) (Special Edition) (English Subtitled) (Japan Version)
Hirosue Ryoko
| Abe Hiroshi
| Yakushimaru Hiroko
| Fukiishi Kazue
It seems that every time we turn around there's a new time travel movie, and Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust fills that questionable need with yet another spin on time-jumping cinema shenanigans. When I say "spin", I mean it literally, because in Bubble Fiction, the method of era-hopping is none other than a Hitachi-branded washing machine, which besides possessing a mean rinse cycle, and can also send you to your desired era of choice. Basically, you get in, add some detergent, and presto, you can go back in time. Immediately, you should be able to tell: Bubble Fiction is not a film to be taken seriously. Ryoko Hirosue stars as Mayumi, who travels back in time to save the Japanese economy from... [read more]
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Retribution (DVD) (Hong Kong Version)
Yakusho Koji (Actor)
| Konishi Manami (Actor)
| Odagiri Joe
| Ihara Tsuyoshi
Perhaps in this day and age of blog and forum discussion, the word auteur is thrown around a little too lightly. Nevertheless, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's work of the 1990s and early 2000s has lifted the prolific filmmaker into auteur territory by the benchmark that you can simply tell you are watching one of his films by viewing only a few frames. It is fair to consider his latest work, the J-Horror police procedural whodunit Retribution, both a primer for and a culmination of his work. A woman in a red dress is drowned in a puddle on a dilapidated and non-descript landfill site. Kôji Yakusho, a very familiar face in Kurosawa films, is the competent, if rundown, police detective Yoshioka who is... [read more]
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NANA 2 (DVD) (English Subtitled) (Hong Kong Version)
Nakashima Mika (Actor)
| Ichikawa Yui (Actor)
| Narimiya Hiroki (Actor)
| Tamayama Tetsuji (Actor)
Sequels that don't retain primary cast members are always a shaky proposition. Call it the Speed 2 principle. Jason Patric may arguably be a better actor than Keanu Reeves, but that's not the point - audiences tend to want to see familiar faces in their sequels. But still, as a franchise, Ai Yazawa's mega-popular manga NANA is potentially bigger than any one actor, as it has been adapted in both film and anime forms. Like the manga its based on, the first filmic NANA tells the story of two young women who share the same name, but are polar opposite in terms of personality, fashion style, and overall outlook on life. One Nana (Mika Nakashima) is a punk rocker who wouldn't be caught dead... [read more]
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Angel's Egg (DVD) (Hong Kong Version)
Sawajiri Erika (Actor)
| Ichihara Hayato (Actor)
| Konishi Manami (Actor)
| Togashi Shin (Director)
Directed by Shin Togashi, Angel's Egg undoubtedly belongs to the ridiculously popular "pure love" subgenre of romantic movies that have flooded Asian movie theatres in recent years. As I've detailed in past reviews, the plots of these films are rather simple: boy meets girl, love blooms, and tragedy ensues. The latest tearjerker, Angel's Egg, does little in the way of genre manipulation or innovation, although it does have a kind of charm all its own. Based on the novel by Yuka Muruyama, this 2006 big screen adaptation centers on a talented young artist named Ayuta Ipponyari (Hayato Ichihara). He has big dreams of pursuing a career in art despite the depressing fact that no one around him –... [read more]
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Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust (DVD) (Standard Edition) (English Subtitled) (Japan Version)
Hirosue Ryoko
| Abe Hiroshi
| Yakushimaru Hiroko
| Fukiishi Kazue
While pop icon Prince sang about how he wanted to party like it was "1999" in the 80s, I reckon some Japanese now lament about how they wish they could party again like it was the early 90s, during the height of their "Bubble Keiki" (Bubble Boom). 1990 seems like only yesterday, but in Baba Yasuo's silly yet entertaining Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust it seems like a fond memory to the Japanese. The early 90s were a great time to be in Japan - unemployment was almost nil, banks were loaning money at ridiculously low interest rates, property values were sky high, company bonuses were huge, tight "body-con" dresses, super mini skirts and permed hair were all the rage and the yen value was at an... [read more]
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The Cat Returns / Ghiblies Episode 2 (Japan Version - English Subtitles)
Suzuki Kyoka
| Ikewaki Chizuru
| Kobayashi Kaoru
| Tamba Tetsuro
Let me just say up front that The Cat Returns is a delight. I don't mean that in some hippy, old growth forest way. I mean I was so filled with such pure joy on leaving the cinema that I thought my chest would burst. How many films can you say that about? The Cat Returns is everything Disney animation used to be. While the Disney corporate vulture picks at the bones of its former greatness producing corpses that imitate life without the humanity that comes from the soul of imagination, Ghibli gives us a simple, fantastic tale that is suitable for any age. Haru is the beautifully drawn teenage heroine. She is lankier and slightly clumsy which sets her apart from her Studio Ghibli sisters.... [read more]
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Gemini (Japan Version)
Despite my enduring love for the work of Shinya Tsukamoto - in my view one of the most consistently challenging and rewarding film makers in the world - there haved been, until recently a pair of his films which I had never seen in their entirety. One is Tetsuo II, the other Gemini. The Tetsuo title remains on the 'to watch' list but thanks to a recent ultra low cost Japanese reissue of Gemini on DVD, I have finally been able to cross that one off of the list. Adapted from a short story by Edogawa Rampo, Gemini is one of only two work-for-hire projects Tsukamoto has accepted over the course of his career. Radically different from his early output, Gemini came as a surprise to many fans at... [read more]
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Koisuru Tomato (English Subtitled) (Japan Version)
Daichi Yasuo
| Alice Dixson
| Tomita Yasuko
| Murata Yuji
Want to see an honest-to-goodness romance, but you're tired of formulaic tearjerkers and trite romantic comedies? The curiously named Love Tomato might just be the solution. With its unconventional casting, cross-cultural setting, and subtle social commentary, Hideo Nanbu's 2007 film is like a breath of fresh air in a genre that has grown increasingly stale. Curiously, the plot begins with a setup straight out of a romantic comedy. Although a decent, hardworking farmer, Masao Noda (Yasuo Daichi) has been fairly unlucky in love. Now in his fifties, he has yet to find a wife and is still living with his parents. With his mom and dad getting older and the farm soon to be his sole... [read more]
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Christmas On July 24th Avenue (DVD) (Hong Kong Version)
Nakatani Miki (Actor)
| Osawa Takao (Actor)
| Murakami Shosuke (Director)
Rules for a Japanese television drama (romance): 1) Protagonist should introduce self and all the relevant characters in opening 10 minutes through pleasant voiceover. 2) Must have silly sidekick who is a bit of a self-deprecating, lovable loser, and may or may not have a crush on the protagonist. 3) Must show the romantic couple going about their own daily lives with melancholic frowns after some conflict drives them apart. 4) Must express all epiphanies in monologue form; length can vary between 2 to 4 minutes. All of the above rules show up in Christmas on July 24th Avenue, the second film from TV director Shosuke Murakami and screenwriter Arisa Kaneko, who made their debut with the hit... [read more]
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Sakuran (DVD) (English Subtitled) (Japan Version)
Shiina Kippei
| Tsuchiya Anna
| Kimura Yoshino
| Kanno Miho
Prostitution: The oldest profession in the world. Every country has its own laws (or not) regarding this infamous art, and every culture has been affected and altered to a certain extent by the men and women who are willing to ply their trade. At its grass roots, prostitution is a very unglamourous, perhaps miserable affair; but in some countries prostitutes were once the idols of their time. This is perhaps true no more than in Japan during the Edo era, when the Tokugawa regime decided to clean up its city centres by establishing walled-in entertainment districts on the outskirts of all the major cities. Within these walls, human desire would run wild, and prostitution became so ritualised... [read more]
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Kairo
Yakusho Koji (Actor)
| Takeda Shinji (Actor)
| Aikawa Sho
| Kato Haruhiko
I'm gonna start this review with a little literary diversion. Sometime fantasist John Crowley wrote a book a few years back entitled Aegypt. The title was a deliberate displacement, taking an archaic spelling of Egypt and infusing that name with a mythic, alternate reality. By the same token, the film Pulse is also known as Kairo. Now this is not a deliberate thing, of course, Kairo being Japanese for 'circuit' - bear with me here - but it works on a similar level. Kairo is a film that deals in displaced realities, an alternate and vaguely exotic world where the gaps between the spiritual and technical are dissolving. And so I like to think that maybe, just maybe, the title might... [read more]
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The Youth of Kamiya Etsuko (DVD) (English Subtitled) (Japan Version)
Harada Tomoyo
| Nagase Masatoshi
| Matsuoka Shunsuke
| Kuroki Kazuo (Director)
On the April 12, 2006 veteran film director Kazuo Kuroki slipped away at the grand old age of 75. He left behind a filmography that spanned 50 years, starting with documentary features in the 50s before switching to dramas in the 60s. He is perhaps best known to western audiences by his 1990 samurai classic Ronin-gai and the war movies Ashita and The Face of Jizo. Kuroki's final film returns back to the subject of World War Two as the late director examines the lives of a young couple-to-be who are faced with some life altering decisions near the end of the war. After losing both her parents in the final year of World War Two, young Etsuko Kamiya is living with her brother Yasutada and her... [read more]
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Umizaru 2: Test of Trust (DVD) (Hong Kong Version)
Kato Ai (Actor)
| Ito Hideaki (Actor)
| Sato Ryuta (Actor)
| Fukikoshi Mitsuru
Directed by Eiichiro Hasumi, Limit of Love: Umizaru is the third and presumably final chapter of the live-action franchise that began with the 2004 feature film Umizaru and continued with the 2005 television series Umizaru Evolution. Known internationally by the alternative title Umizaru 2: Test of Trust, the film once again revolves around Daisuke Senzaki (Ito Hideaki), a young diver for the Japanese Coast Guard, and his faithful girlfriend, Kanna (Ai Kato). Although deeply in love, Senzaki has reservations about marrying Kanna, and a confrontation between the two puts a serious strain on the relationship. Unfortunately for Kanna, Senzaki has to put his personal issues aside the next day... [read more]
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The Kon Ichikawa Story (AKA: A Filmful Life) (DVD) (English Subtitled) (Japan Version)
Iwai Shunji (Director)
| Kon Ichikawa
Kon Ichikawa is one of Japan's most prolific filmmakers. Between 1948 and 2006, he made 76 films (that's 1.31 movies a year), including some featuring abhorrent sexuality, cannibalism in a war zone, murder mysteries, and even people in bird suits. At age 92, Ichikawa made Murder of the Inugami Clan, a self-remake of the 1976 classic The Inugamis. Directing the film at such an advanced age was an amazing feat, earning Ichikawa his own documentary, Filmful Life, simply named The Ichikawa Kon Story in Japanese. The strangest (and potentially the most brilliant) decision producer Taka Ichise made was picking director Shunji Iwai, who literally encompassed 58 years of Ichikawa's work into 80... [read more]
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Nada Sou Sou (AKA: Tears For You) (DVD) (English Subtitled) (Hong Kong Version)
Tsumabuki Satoshi (Actor)
| Nagasawa Masami (Actor)
| Koizumi Kyoko
| Aso Kumiko
Masami Nagasawa, star of Crying Out Love in the Center of the World, returns to the "Pure Love" genre with Tears for You, a film inspired by Rimi Natsukawa's hit song Nada Sou Sou. Directed by Nobuhiro Doi, Tears for You is a love story about two step-siblings, Yota (Satoshi Tsumabuki) and Kaoru (Nagasawa). Long ago, Yota's mother (Kyoko Koizumi) married Kaoru's jazz-playing father (Tatsuya Nakamura), effectively merging the two families. Unfortunately, Kaoru's father skipped town, and Yota's mother passed away, but not before imparting a dying wish to her young son to take care of Kaoru. In the meantime, the two young children were raised by Yota's grandmother on a small island off the... [read more]
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Stop The Bitch (DVD) (Hong Kong Version)
Aoi Sola
| Endo Kenichi
Adapted, like Ichi The Killer, from a Hideo Yamamoto comic, Stop the Bitch Campaign is an acquired taste that is as ramshackle as it is barmy. Eccentricity, in my view, is something the Japanese lead the world in and this exploitation piece has that quality in spades. In fact if there is ever a world shortage of doolalliness, I would suggest that this movie has a lot to answer for. It stars V-cinema faces like Kenichi Endo, a veteran of many of the more perverse of Miike's throwaway straight to video films, and the pornstar Sora Aoi in a role which leaves her surprisingly clothed bar the finale where she is assaulted by root vegetables attached to a kitchen mixer. The serene madness of this... [read more]
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Chi to Hone (BLOOD AND BONES) Collector's Edition (Limited Edition) (Japan Version)
Suzuki Kyoka (Actor)
| Odagiri Joe (Actor)
| Kunimura Jun (Actor)
| Tabata Tomoko (Actor)
Takeshi Kitano is Japan's true 'King of All Media.' A cultural icon in his home country as an actor, director, poet, comedian, painter and newspaper journalist, Kitano is best known to the rest of the world as a minimalist craftsman of gritty, nihilistic gangster films. In Blood and Bones, Kitano steps in front of the camera under the direction of someone other than himself for the first time in nearly a decade, and gives a career-affirming performance as one of the most unlikable characters ever seen on screen. Kitano plays Kim Shunpei, a Korean immigrant who comes to Osaka, Japan in 1920 as a teenager. Working at a fish paste roll store, Kim claws his way out of poverty to become a father... [read more]
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First Love (AKA: Hatsukoi) (DVD) (Hong Kong Version)
Miyazaki Aoi (Actor)
| Miyazaki Masaru (Actor)
| Koide Keisuke (Actor)
To be sure, Yukinari Hanawa's First Love is a heist film like no other. The title of the movie itself is perhaps the first hint that the big robbery is less important than the resolution of the love plot. Really, when a movie begins with a teenage girl asking, "What's the time limit on a wounded heart?" you know you're not in Ocean's 11 territory anymore. And yet even though budding teenage romance ends up trumping the thrills of cinematic grand larceny, the film's heist isn't a throwaway plot device. It's actually based on a real-life crime famously known in Japan as "Sanoku-en jiken" ("The 300 Million Yen Affair"). On December 10, 1968, three-hundred million yen was stolen from bank... [read more]
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