Tag: Japan

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Features Live Action Movies

Tokyo Pop

Director – Fran Rubel Kuzui – 1988 – US, Japan – Cert. 18 – 99m

****

A girl singer, fed up with being sidelined by the music business in New York, relocates to Tokyo and falls in with local rock band hopefuls there – select UK cinema screenings from Friday, April 25th prior to its Blu-ray release on Monday, May 5th

“Hey, Mike, when do I get to use my song?” asks the band’s disgruntled, leather-clad back-up singer, feeling redundant as she stands on stage holding a tambourine. Her music career in New York stalling fast, Wendy (Carrie Hamilton from Cool World, Ralph Bakshi, 1995; Shag, Zelda Barron, 1989) receives a “Wish you were here” postcard from her friend Jane in Japan and shoots back a reply: “Hope you meant it – ‘cos I’m coming.”

In Japan, a band does an English language cover of Blue Suede Shoes. When Wendy arrives in Tokyo, her girlfriend has moved on to Thailand. Barely speaking any Japanese, Wendy winds up in a cheap hotel in Itabashi the space of a small Japanese apartment where footwear is removed on entering and, as an Aussie resident tells her, everything operates on credit card and a shower is Y100 for ten minutes.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Cloud
(Kuraudo,
クラウド)

Director – Kiyoshi Kurosawa – 2024 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 124m

*****

The art of the deal. The past of an internet goods reseller driven by making money who has made enemies among his one-off suppliers and customers comes back to bite him – out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 25th

Ryosuke Yoshii (Masaki Suda) makes a take-it-or-leave it offer to Tonoyama (Masaaki Akahori), who manufactures electric therapy devices: ¥90 000 for his entire inventory. Tonoyama protests that at such a low price he will barely make any money after all the investment he has made. Tonoyama’s wife (Maho Yamada) is horrified and pleads with Yoshii, but he is ruthless. He explains that if he can’t sell the items, the ¥90 000 will ocver him to pay someone to take the unsaleable goods away. Returning home to his sometime live-in girlfriend Akiko (Kotone Furukawa), Yoshii puts the items online at ¥200 000 each. They quickly sell out. He tells her she can buy whatever she wants with his credit card.

At Yoshii’s day job, in what appears to be a factory floor for the laundering of clothes, his boss Takimoto (Yoshiyoshi Arakawa) holds him in high regard, feeling his talents are underused as a mere shop floor worker and regarding him as a future leader.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Before We Vanish
(Sanpo Suru Shinryakusha,
散歩する侵略者,
lit. Strolling Invaders)

Director – Kiyoshi Kurosawa – 2017 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 129m

***

Three humans claiming to be aliens steal ideas from people’s heads as they prepare for their race’s forthcoming invasion – from LEAFF, the London East Asia Film Festival 2017

This review is of a first viewing of this film. It really doesn’t happen often, but I can imagine liking this film more second time round. It’s a very strange movie.

Hands take a goldfish from a group in a white bathtub and transfer it into a metal pan. A sailor suited schoolgirl carries the fish in a bag to another house. Inside the latter, on its floor, the fish struggles to breathe as it lies on the ground out of water.

Spattered with blood, the girl (Yuri Tsunematsu) walks happily along the middle of a busy road. As she strolls without a care, swerving to avoid her, a lorry crashes headlong into an oncoming car.

Elsewhere, something is wrong with Shinji Kase (Ryuhei Matsuda from The Raid 2, Gareth Evans, 2014). His behaviour alarms his wife Narumi (Masami Nagasawa from Our Little Sister, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2015, and playing in LEAFF this Saturday 28/10).… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Shark Skin Man
and Peach Hip Girl
(Samehada Otoko
to Momojiri Onna,
鮫肌男と桃尻女)

Director – Katsuhito Ishii – 1998 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 108m

*****

Arresting and highly inventive thriller is out as a standalone Blu-ray release in the UK from Monday, April 14th 2025, also on digital, having previously appeared as the first disc of the three disc release Katsuhito Ishii Collection from Third Window Films just over a year ago (when the following piece was written for All the Anime).

Deriving its odd title from a literal translation of the leads’ surnames, Katsuhito Ishii’s highly original gangster movie from 1998 is based on a familiar plot: a man runs off with the mob’s money, and a lady companion. Or, as pioneering French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard once put it: all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.

Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl has much the same strengths as Godard when he’s on form. Ishii demonstrates a similar flair for taking actors or actresses and having them do what they do on camera so that it’s completely absorbing to watch: look no further than the extraordinary title sequence which starts about five minutes in and consists of little more than names and images of all the major cast members against a white background with overlaid black line animation images.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

The First
Slam Dunk

All images: © I.T. PLANNING, INC. © 2022 THE FIRST SLAM DUNK Film Partners

Director – Takehiko Inoue – 2022 – Japan – Cert. 12a tbc – 124m

*****

A high school basketball team sets out to defeat the seemingly unstoppable league champions – on 4K UHD + Blu-ray Collector’s Edition, Steelbook, Blu-ray, and DVD on 24th March

The coastal town of Shohoku. 11-year-old Ryota Miyagi (voice: Miyuri Shimabukuro) lives in the shadow of his 14-year-old, elder brother and school basketball star Sota (voice: Gakuto Kajiwara). One evening, Sota takes his younger sibling out for a practice at the local court, playing as hard as he can to push Ryota, which makes the youngster want to push himself harder still. Sota then alienates Ryota by going on a fishing trip with his peer group rather than respond to Ryota’s demand to extend their practice session. When his elder brother is tragically killed at sea, Ryota must both step into both the role of man of the house and prove himself in the school basketball team.

By the time Ryota is 17 (voice: Shugo Nakamura), he is one of the players on the Shohoku school basketball team which itself faces challenges: specifically, if it is to win the national championships, it must defeat the the seemingly unstoppable reigning champions the Sannoh school basketball club and their star player Masashi Kawata (voice: Mitsuaki Kanuka), Ryota’s opposite number (both wear their team’s no.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Ghost Cat Anzu
(Bakeneko Anzu-chan,
化け猫あんずちゃん)

Director – Yoko Kuno, Nobuhiro Yamashita – 2024 – Japan – Cert. N/C 15+ – 97m

****

When her father leaves to sort out his loan shark debt problem, a man-sized, ghost cat is charged to look after her by her grandfather – animated fable plays UK cinemas in the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2025 which runs from Friday, 7th February to Monday, 31st March

A man, his arm in plaster, drags his daughter to the picturesque town of Iteru, self-proclaimed Town of Eternal Summer. The demeanour of down-at-heel Karin (voice: Noa Goto) couldn’t be more at odds with that sentiment. Climbing the steps to the local temple to arrive at the door of the monk’s residence, Tetsuya (voice: Munetaka Aoki) proclaims to his father his return, and the fifth grade status of his schoolgirl daughter. What’s he doing now, his father asks. “This and that,” comes the reply. His wife, the girl’s mother, died three years ago.

While Karin is outside looking at a giant statue of Buddha, a human-sized cat arrives on a motorcycle fielding mobile phone calls. Who are you?, the cat (voice: Mirai Moriyama) asks the girl. Tetsuya, meanwhile, asks his father for money to pay off a loan shark and is told never to show his face there again.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Detective Conan
The Million-Dollar Pentagram
(Meitantei Konan
Hyakuman Doru
no Michishirube,
名探偵コナン
100万ドルの五稜星)

Director – Chika Nagaoka – 2024 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 111m

****

Spin-off from a hugely populardetective mystery manga and anime franchise – and Japan’s biggest box office success of 2024 – impresses on the level of eye-candy provided you don’t attempt to follow the overly convoluted plot – out on UK digital from Monday, March 3rd 2025

Japanese property Detective Conan is huge, running as a serialised manga in Weekly Shonen Sunday for 30 years, and turned into an anime series two years after that. By 2024, the manga has been collected into over a hundred volumes, while the franchise has spawn both animated and live action features among other things. The current film is the 27th animated feature, and at the time of writing is the biggest film at this year’s Japanese box office.

It may not be a good place to start with the franchise. Unlike Spy x Family Code: White (Kazuhiro Fusuhashu, Takashi Karagiri, 2023), which does a surprisingly effective job at getting the newcomer up to speed on a well-established anime franchise, Detective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram doesn’t bother to explain its characters and their complex network of relationships, so you may find yourself completely lost before it starts throwing its increasingly convoluted plot developments at the viewer (as it does almost immediately with disorienting speed).… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Cottontail
(コットンテール)

Director – Patrick Dickinson – 2023 – UK, Japan – Cert. 12a – 94m

****

A Japanese widower comes to England to scatter his late wife’s ashes at Lake Windermere – out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 14th

Kenzaburo (Lily Franky from Shoplifters, 2018; After the Storm, 2016; Like Father, Like Son, 2013, all Hirokazu Kore-eda), on occasion abbreviated to Ken, seems somehow lost as he wanders around Tokyo, looking out over a cityscape of roofs, travelling in passenger train carriages, wandering round a food market in search of octopus for he and his wife’s anniversary meal. 

He wistfully observes a live specimen in a tank. It’s not yet in season and the prices are ridiculous, so he shoplifts a packet, taking it to the restaurant where he and his wife Akiko had their first date all those years ago. She (Yuri Tsunematsu from Wife of a Spy, 2020; Before We Vanish, 2017, both Kiyoshi Kurosawa) comes in young as ever, as is he (Kosei Kudo), that pendant on her neck. He ignores the question from the present day chef (Hiroshi Okawa) as to how she’s doing.

Back at his flat, his panicking, besuited son Toshi (Ryo Nishikido) gets him ready for the funeral.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Qualia
(Qualia,
クオリア)

Director – Ryo Ushimaru – 2023 – Japan – 96m

*****

A bizarre drama plays out among a group of people running a chicken farm – plays UK cinemas in the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2025 which runs from Friday, 7th February to Monday, 31st March

Wheelchair-bound Satomi (Maya Kudamatsu) likes to hunt. So sister-in-law Yuko (Kokone Sasaki) takes her out game shooting. Yuko is a people pleaser: she likes to help. Disability nothwithstanding, Satomi is the type that likes to order people around. She has Yuko wrapped around her little finger to the extent that she can get Yuko to phone the air con repair man on his annual leave, insist he come and fix the system while he’s on holiday and even absolve Satomi of any involvement during the phone call. Yuko is, to say the least, compliant, while Satomi is a bully.

Yuko’s small holding, battery chicken farmer husband Ryosuke (Kenta Kiguchi) delivers freshly laid eggs to the egg station every morning, where he pretends not to know his mistress Saki (Ruka Ishikawa), instead confining their relationship to a hidden away hotel room later in the day. Here, she shows him her positive pregnancy test.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies Music

The Colors Within
Kimi no Iro,
きみの色,
lit. Your Color)

Director – Naoko Yamada – 2024 – Japan – Cert. PG – 101m

*****

A Catholic schoolgirl with synaesthesia inadvertently forms a rock band who find themselves playing a gig at her school – out in UK cinemas on Friday, January 31st

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

That’s the Serenity Prayer, and it opens this remarkable story of a schoolgirl in a boarding school as she prays it to a statue of Mary in the school chapel. A scene of her as a small girl attending the dance class, and scenes of her seeing other pupils in the corridor, are rendered in vivid, blinding colour where bright white light constantly threatens to engulf the pastel shades in which the girl sees. For more on synaesthesia, see A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things (Mark Cousins, 2024).

If you were to land in the middle of this film with no context, for a frame, or a scene (drawn animation parlance for a single shot), you could be forgiven for thinking there was something wrong with the print, or the colour balance. I am immediately reminded of the reviewer who said of Black Narcissus (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1947) that the film was so visually perfect that it could be shown out of focus and upside down and the audience would still be enraptured by its kinetic abstract colour properties.… Read the rest