Let’s say we meet in a dark alley and from the get go you tell me ” I love japanese cinema and elephants”. A few minutes earlier i would have thought “who’s that crazy bum ?” and run away from you as fast as i possibly can.
But now i would reply in a proud voice “Go see Shining boy and Little Randy you freak !”.
Shining boy and Little Randy (Hoshi ni natta shounen) is the true story of Sakamoto Tetsumu who at an early age went to Thailand to learn the trade of elephant trainer. He dies in Japan while trying to build an elephant park. That’s it.
The big promotion point here is that Shining boy and Little Randy is the next movie of Yagira Yuya, the kid who won best interpretation at the cannes film festival last year for his performance in Kore-eda’s Nobody Knows (daremo shiranai).
And of course there’s an official site and two trailers, one here, the other one should be there.
Yet one another whacky japanese flick. I know you love it as much as i do. Ok, maybe not but still.
Kamikaze Girl ( Shimotsuma Monogatari) is about the friendship of two very different girls and their adventures in the slums of Ibaraki prefecture. Momoko is a french-maid looking lolita longing for the refinements of the lost french aristocracy while Ichiko is a hard-boiled biker gang leader.
They somehow end up friends and do crasy things for an hour and a half then it’s over. You also have an anime part to keep you entertain.
Why wouldn’t you want to watch this movie ? Come on, watch it ! Please.
For once the official site can be found in english here along with the trailer (more like a music video actually).
The two girls are Kyoko Fukada and Anna Tsuchiya, two fairly well-known pop stars in Japan. Rock n’roll.
Even if i’m almost always disapointed, i cannot resist the urge to watch stupid whacky japanese flicks. Sakigake !! Kuromati Koukou (Sakigake!! Cromartie High School) is one of those. It’s going to be terribly bad but i still want to go watch it.
I guess it’s like hollywood blockbusters, you know it’s gonna suck but you can resist the urge to go, if only for the eye-candy. I guess we have all inside of us the desire to see things exploding and giant monsters.
Now i guess you wanna know what Sakigake!! Kuromati Koukou is about. Well it’s about a crazy high school and that’s all you need to know. I mean it’s not like the story is going to be relevant to anything anyway.
So here’s my summary of the movie : Pencil-eating bad guy, two men, dressed as bunny rabbit talking, can-shapped robot, alien invasion.
This should give you an idea about what’s the movie is all about. A part from that, it’s an adaptation of a succesful whacky manga. Oh, as a side note, the name of the high school is actually the name of a guy who used to play base ball in Japan, Warren Cromartie. The guy is suing the producers of the movie because he feels the movie makes him look like an ass.
In the meantime here’s the official site and trailer.
Actor-singer Hagiwara Kenichi has just been found guilty of extortion and condemned to one year and six months, suspended for three years. He threatened the producers of the movie Toko no ki after being fired from it for causing troubles on the set.
Hagiwara has acted in Kagemusha and Itsuka giragirasuruhi (known as Triple Cross in the west) amongst other things.
Thanks for the kine japan mailing list and Aaron Gerrow for the info.
It’s not a Japanese movie and the teasing was not as big as when the Matrix or Last Samurai invaded all the billboards available in Shibuya, but the marketing people behind Batman Begins actually spent a bit of time thinking about making the launch localized. They came up with those two shots of Tokyo and Osaka invaded by the zillions of bats. Batman begins… Pretty nice.
Note: My pics of the billboards are not perfect, but you can click on them to get a much larger version.
The official wallpaper downloads are here, the “Japan Special Content” website is here (and it has cool wallpapers too, with “Batman Begins” in Japanese on it too), and the trailers are here.
Did they do that for all the major cities worldwide? Anyone have some photo of NYC, Paris or Berlin to share?
Imagine, you’re messing with time as usual and then you end up in the 16th century facing Nobunaga Oda and his army. Would it make a good movie ?
Ok, now what if, on top of that, you have helicopters, tanks and all kind of crazy ’splosions causin’ devices. Would that make a good movie ?
To tell you the truth i’m not convinced. But if you think that would make a “kick-ass” movie, well you owe it to yourself to see Sengoku 1549.
Here’s the trailer and the official site.
Yes that’s all i have to say about Sengoku 1549. What do you want me to say anyway. I’m not going to say this looks good, ok. We get to see Star Wars after everybody so no, i’m not going to to write a detailed review about Sengoku 1549.
Metropolis, the free paper every gaijin read in tokyo has a feature about foreign films in Japan.
If you want to market your home movies to the japanese market you should start here.
Shinya Tsukamoto is probably one of the most interesting director working in Japan. I think he’s also one of the few directors whose’s new films are better than the last. That’s pretty amazing actually.
Anyway he released Vital last year, and of course it went totally unnoticed here, that’s why i’m only talking about it now.
Also i’m a lazy bastard so i don’t keep up with the news. Who can blame me anyway. Nobody reads this. It stars Tadanobu Asano who shaved for the occasion. It’s a love story about an amnesic guy, anatomy and a corpse and it’s beautiful.
You can see the trailer here, the official site here and a review from the Rolls Royce of japanese movies websites midnight eye, here.
The
ninjas are back ! After
Azumi 2 i was talking about a few
weeks ago, here comes
Shinobi, heart under blade. Starring three big
stars.
Nakama Yukie, famous for here role in
Trick. She also happens to be one of the most beautiful
human being on
earth.
Odagiri Jô, or Odagiri Joe as it is written on the
poster. Odagiri Jô acted in
Kyoshi Kurosawa’s
Bright Futur,
Blood and Bones, and in the next
Suzuki Seijun,
Operetta tanuki goten. And last but not least
Kippei Shina who was in
Arata’s
Totsunyûseyo, and in a lot of
Ishii and
Miike’s.
Ok, this was my attempt to make a
metafilter kind of
post to cover the fact than i know nothing of that movie.
Anyway, here’s the
official site and the
trailer.
And no, i don’t think it’s related to the
sega videogame, but then again who knows ? ha ha ha !
Now Tadanobu Asano is one of my favorite japanese actor. He began his career as a young tortured kid who make schoolgirls all dizzy because he’s so mysterious and cool and went on to drink as much beer as he could, grow long and greasy hair and sing in a noise band. Also he’s doing comercials for beer, where he only drinks and smile. Now he’s officially kimoi (nauseating) with every girl in the country. Take that in the nose Johnny Depp, that’s how you destroy a hearthrob image.
Susumu Terajima is also another of my favourite. The guy’s born with a yakuza ’s face.His parents are scared of him and when he asks for change at a convenience store, the cashier just shit their pants. That guy is also everywhere. He plays in everything, drama, tv shows, movies you name it, Terajima doesn’t stop. He’ll play anything mind you. He’ll play a good father as well as a dirty scumbag rapist or a guitar player or some carrots, he doesn’t give a shit.
Those two were supposed to meet at some point in their career. The Kirin can coffee brand Fire made it happen. The campaign is called okanemochikyoudai which roughly translate as the rich brothers or rather the brothers who have gold, the product being a can coffee named Goldrush.
Those are truly stupid commercials. It’s like the guys from Kirin went to see Asano and Terajima and told them “Do whatever the fuck you want,we’ll film it, and don’t forget to say Fire goldrush from time to time.”
The result is like watching two dead drunk hobos laughing and screaming FIRE GOLDRUSH all the way to the bank. Those guys rule. (the videos are in .asx)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Official website
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