Tag: Osaka

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Features Live Action Movies

Normal
(2025)

Director – Ben Wheatley – 2025 – US – Cert. 15 – 90m

*****

Following the recent death of the town’s sheriff, an interim sheriff takes on the job at Normal, Minnesota – a town harbouring dark secrets related to Japanese yakuza – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 15th

Osaka, Japan. Three yakuza gang members who have failed to carry out a job properly must atone in front of their boss by cutting off their little finger. The two that do so are sent to the US on their next mission.

Normal, Minnesota. Following the recent death of old Sheriff Gunderson, Interim Sheriff Ulysses (Bob Odenkirk from Nobody, Ilya Naishuller, 2021; Better Call Saul, TV series, 2015-22) is getting to grips with his new job, driving around with Deputy Mike (Billy MacLellan from Nobody; Maudie, Aisling Walsh, 2016). Ulysses will be in the town for a mere eight weeks and his philosophy is, don’t upset anything and leave the place as you find it.

Normal may hold a few surprises for Ulysses. Such as the day he discovers a trail of red outside the door which turns out to have been caused by the local moose with a can of red paint dangling from one antler, of which he takes a photo.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Kokuho
(Kokuho,
国宝,
lit. National Treasure)

Director – Lee Sang-il – 2025 – Japan – Cert. – 175m

*****

The son of a murdered yakuza is taken under the wing of a respected kabuki actor, who trains him alongside his own son – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 8th

In kabuki theatre, an onnagata is a man who performs women’s roles, following the banning of women performing in kabuki by the shogunate, who feared it would result in moral decline, in the 17th century.

In 1964, as the snow falls outside, a large, new year restaurant meal for his yakuza family in Nagasaki turns into a pivotal event for teenager Kikuo Tachibana (Soya Kurokawa from Monster, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2023), for two reasons. One, he is able to perform as an onnagata in a kabuki play, The Snowbound Barrier, for visiting celebrity actor Hanai Hanjiro (Ken Watanabe from Fukushima 50, Setsuro Wakamatsu, 2020; Pokemon; Detective Pikachu, Rob Letterman, 2019; Inception, Christopher Nolan, 2010; Letters from Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood, 2006; Tampopo, Juzo Itami, 1985); two, a rival yakuza group bursts in and wipes out his family. He vows revenge, but fails in his attempt to murder the killer of his his father (Matsatoshi Nagase from The Box Man, Garyuku Ishii, 2024; Paterson, Jim Jarmusch, 2016; Sweet Bean, Naomi Kawase, 2015; Gojoe, Sogo Ishii, 2000; Cold Fever, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, 1994; The Most Terrible Time in My Life, Kaizo Hayashi, 1993; Mystery Train, Jim Jarmusch, 1989).… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Tokyo Story
(Tokyo Monogatari,
東京物語)

Director – Yasujiro Ozu – 1953 – Japan – Cert. U – 136m

*****

Plays in the BFI Japan 2021 season October / November at BFI Southbank. Also currently streaming on BFI Player as part of the Japan programme alongside 24 other Ozu films together with a much wider selection of Japanese movies.

Elderly couple the Hirayamas (Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama) live in the seaside town of Onomichi, a day’s train ride from Tokyo at the time the film was made. Of their five children, Kyoko (Kyoko Kagawa) still lives at home with them and works locally as a primary school teacher, two live in Tokyo, one in Osaka and one went missing in action during the war, presumed dead. The son and daughter in Tokyo, Koichi (So Yamamura) and Shige (Haruko Sugimura), work as a doctor and a beauty parlour owner respectively. Both are married while the missing son has left behind a widow Noriko (Setsuko Hara). The fifth child is a son Keizo (Shiro Osaki) in Osaka which is on the train between Onomichi and Tokyo. The couple want to visit their offspring and see how they are doing for themselves.… Read the rest

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John Wick
Chapter 4

Director – Chad Stahelski – 2023 – US – Cert. 15 – 169m

** The first hour or so.

***** The last hour and a half or so.

The eponymous assassin is given a path to follow that will rid him and others of his obligations to shadowy organisation The High Table once and for all – available in Collector’s Editions, Steelbook, 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD from Monday, June 12th

The fourth episode in the John Wick franchise is not a film to come to without seeing the previous three first – and in the recent past, so they’re fresh in your memory. That was the mistake this reviewer made. Too much in the first hour or so refers back to what has gone before. Characters wander through vast urban or other sets (there’s an early sequence in the open North African desert) often spouting ponderous dialogue.

This works if you have an actor of the calibre of Ian McShane, who plays Winston, the deferential owner of the New York Continental Hotel, and, perhaps surprisingly, it also works with the franchise’s action star Keanu Reeves, who has got the delivery of grunts and one word dialogue lines (“yeah”) down to a fine art.… Read the rest