Tag: credit card

Tokyo Pop

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 1 May 2025
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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

Tags ambush, angel, bath, bets, Blue Suede Shoes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Carrie Hamilton, catchphrases, censorship, chasu ramen, cheap hotel, composition, corporate toilet, credit card, demo tape, Diamond Yukai, exposure, fame, food bar, footwear is removed, Fran Rubel Kuzui, front office, gaijin, gorilla suit, grandpa, harbour, Hasumi Harukawa, heavy metal, Home on the Range, hostess bar, hotel, Itabashi, James Bond, Japan, Japanese, Japanese rock band, Japanese-American, karaoke, lavatory TV ad, leather, Makoto Fukuda, music business, music career, music producer, music venue, musician, New York, park, photographed, pick up girls, pick up lines, postcard, Red Warriors, religious shrine, romance, sexualised images, shower, singer, singing in English, singing telegram, support act, Taiji Tonoyama, taxi, Tetsuro Tanba, Thailand, Tokyo, TV porno, US, vocalist, Wish You Were Here, wrestling gig, You Make Me Feel (Like a Natural Woman)

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

Tags abandon, abandoned factory, action figurines, apartment, apparition, boss, capture, city and countryside, clothes laundering, cloud, computer, consumerism, corruption, credit card, customer, Daiken Okudaira, day job, delivery, designer handbag, designer handbags, discipline, dread, easy money, electric therapy devices, entrepreneur and consumer, ethical code, factory floor, fake, greed, internet reseller, inventory, investment, Japan, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Kotone Furukawa, lakeside house, leader, LEAFF, LEAFF 2024, legitimate business opportunity, livestreaming, local, London East Asia Film Festival, London East Asia Film Festival 2024, low price, Maho Yamada, making money, manufacturer, Masaaki Akahori, Masaki Suda, Masataka Kubota, mentor, moral code, move house, murder, online reviews, online selling, organised crime, personal assistant, personal ego-search, police, promotion, purchasing power., quit, revenge, ruthless, school acquaintance, sell out, shadow, shipment, supplier, Tokyo, torture, town and country, unemployed, unsaleable goods, van, window, woods, Yoshiyoshi Arakawa

Features Live Action Movies

Alice

Director – Josephine Mackerras – 2019 – UK, France, Australia – Cert. 15 – 103m

****

Available in the UK on Amazon Prime, Barbican On Demand, BFI Player, Curzon Home Cinema from Friday, July 24th

Working mum Alice Ferrand (Emilie Piponnier) has everything she wants in life – a devoted husband François (Martin Swabey), a young son – until one day her credit card is stopped. No money for shopping. No money from the cashpoint.

A visit to the bank reveals that François has been systematically withdrawing money from the joint account for the last year or so. Not only that, but he hasn’t been making the payments on the couple’s flat for the same period. The money from her parents is gone and she is weeks away from losing her home.

When she phones him, she gets his voicemail. Desperate to know what’s going on, she goes through his desktop computer and finds phone numbers. Some of these lead her to a high end escort agency who, as it happens, are holding job interviews. She goes along in the hope of finding out more information and is offered a job. Confronted with a daunting repayment schedule to save her home, after much soul searching she signs up in her new career.… Read the rest

Tags bank, call girl, credit card, debt, escort girl, foreclosure, France, home, marriage, parents and children, prostitute

Features Live Action Movies

Real

Director – Aki Omoshaybi – 2019 – UK – Cert. 15 – 78m

***

Boy meets girl but both are embarrassed by their economic circumstances so pretend to be much better off than they are – in cinemas and on BFI Player and Sky Store from Friday, September 11th

Kyle (director Aki Omoshaybi) and Jamie (Pippa Bennett-Warner) first meet in a newsagents in the city centre. Her credit card is stopped. He helps her out and pays the bill. She works in a local community centre, he in a solicitor’s. Actually, both of them are lying, desperate to make a good first impression and reluctant to reveal their true circumstances for fear of judgement.

They start dating. Jamie is the first to crack. She admits she has a child Felix (Taye Matthew). And works in a convenience store. However, Kyle can’t bring himself to come clean. Unfortunately for him, Jamie’s best mate Tash (Amy Manson from Run, Scott Graham / 2019) has had dealings with him and knows he’s an ex-offender. So it’s only a matter of time before Jamie finds out.

Kyle has become homeless, so begs his alienated mum (Karen Bryson) to let him stay at hers for a while.… Read the rest