The program of the 24th Japanese Film Festival Nippon Connection is complete! From May 28 to June 2, the festival offers the opportunity to delve into Japan's film and cultural scene. The festival presents around 100 short and feature-length films at eight venues, including numerous premieres. Over 60 filmmakers and artists will travel from Japan to Frankfurt am Main, Germany, to present their works to the audience. At the freely accessible grounds of the festival centers Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm and Produktionshaus Naxos, visitors can enjoy the festival atmosphere with a large Japanese market featuring numerous food and craft stands. Detailed information and tickets for all films and events are available at NipponConnection.com.
This year's film selection promises exciting discoveries. Fans of genre films can enjoy Shinji Araki's acclaimed time-loop thriller Penalty Loop, Kaz I Kiriya's apocalyptic drama From The End Of The World, and Shimako Sato's action-packed fantasy adventure The Yin Yang Master Zero.
This year's film selection promises exciting discoveries. Fans of genre films can enjoy Shinji Araki's acclaimed time-loop thriller Penalty Loop, Kaz I Kiriya's apocalyptic drama From The End Of The World, and Shimako Sato's action-packed fantasy adventure The Yin Yang Master Zero.
- 5/13/2024
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
[This story contains major spoilers from the finale of season two of Tokyo Vice, “Endgame.”]
Shinzo Tozawa (Ayumi Tanida) had dreams of becoming the one supreme oyabun (leader) of the yakuza crime syndicate in Japan.
In the season two finale of Tokyo Vice (now streaming on Max), those dreams ended with his violent demise — by his own hands.
Initially, it appeared in the series — which is filled with twists and turns of the bloody yakuza subculture in Japan, as it’s covered by American journalist Jake Adelstein, played by Ansel Elgort, who co-stars alongside Ken Watanabe — that Tozawa played a winning hand by murdering rival clan leaders, and threatening to kill police officers and reporters (and their families) who appeared to hurt his climb to absolute power in Tokyo and beyond.
But in all the yakuza leader’s ruthlessness, Tozawa made one major misstep. He showed blatant disrespect and dishonor toward his wife, Kazuko Tozawa (Makiko Watanabe), who fell in love with...
Shinzo Tozawa (Ayumi Tanida) had dreams of becoming the one supreme oyabun (leader) of the yakuza crime syndicate in Japan.
In the season two finale of Tokyo Vice (now streaming on Max), those dreams ended with his violent demise — by his own hands.
Initially, it appeared in the series — which is filled with twists and turns of the bloody yakuza subculture in Japan, as it’s covered by American journalist Jake Adelstein, played by Ansel Elgort, who co-stars alongside Ken Watanabe — that Tozawa played a winning hand by murdering rival clan leaders, and threatening to kill police officers and reporters (and their families) who appeared to hurt his climb to absolute power in Tokyo and beyond.
But in all the yakuza leader’s ruthlessness, Tozawa made one major misstep. He showed blatant disrespect and dishonor toward his wife, Kazuko Tozawa (Makiko Watanabe), who fell in love with...
- 4/4/2024
- by Demetrius Patterson
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
In the course of the 1960s, much of what was long overdue after the end of World War II took shape in the form of questioning authority, institutions and indeed social norms. Within the culture of several nations, this revolution (if you want to call it that) expressed itself in pieces of art which could no longer be categorized within the traditional patterns, resulting in many artists feeling a kind of uncprecedented freedom. It was only a brief period, but it surely had its consequences, as we can see in the highly influential cinema produced by Art Theatre Guild and its many directors. One of them, Yasuzo Masumura directed over 40 films during his career and was once regarded as one of the most promising talents of this new generation of filmmakers, even though many of his works remain underappreciated (and under-seen) in his home country and beyond its borders, for example,...
- 9/25/2023
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
by Palomo Lin-Linares
How does one categorize the films of Nagisa Oshima? Even among his brethren new wave directors, he stands as an auteur independent of any particular movement. “Japanese Summer: Double Suicide,” in all its absurdism, provocation, and politically charged imagery, is a perfect example of Oshima's non-conformist method of expression.
on Amazon by clicking on the image below
The film opens with a series of left hook vignettes, connected by cultural imagery which serve as an introduction to the film's language and style. Nejiko, a young sexually obsessed woman (Keiko Sakurai) meets Otoko, a man obsessed with death (Kei Sato). This pseudo romance is interrupted when the couple are taken prisoner by mysterious gangsters and placed in a hideaway. Here they meet the rest of the movie's characters that are composed of equally obsessed oddballs: a television loving fascist, a trigger happy kid, an anarchist,...
How does one categorize the films of Nagisa Oshima? Even among his brethren new wave directors, he stands as an auteur independent of any particular movement. “Japanese Summer: Double Suicide,” in all its absurdism, provocation, and politically charged imagery, is a perfect example of Oshima's non-conformist method of expression.
on Amazon by clicking on the image below
The film opens with a series of left hook vignettes, connected by cultural imagery which serve as an introduction to the film's language and style. Nejiko, a young sexually obsessed woman (Keiko Sakurai) meets Otoko, a man obsessed with death (Kei Sato). This pseudo romance is interrupted when the couple are taken prisoner by mysterious gangsters and placed in a hideaway. Here they meet the rest of the movie's characters that are composed of equally obsessed oddballs: a television loving fascist, a trigger happy kid, an anarchist,...
- 5/21/2023
- by Guest Writer
- AsianMoviePulse
Noboru Iguchi is a director and screenwriter. He was born in 1969 and he began his career in the 1990s as a director of porno films. His “Kurushime-san” of 1997, which combined horror and black comedy, revealed his interest in extreme genre cinema. The titles of his next films confirmed this passion – his filmography contains “A Larva to Love”, “Cat-Eyed Boy”, the famous “The Machine Girl” about a girl with an arm replaced with a machine gun, “Zombie Ass” and “Karate-Robo Zaborgar”. Starting with “Flowers of Evil” his filmography started taking a more “serious” turn, although the extremity never abandoned a filmmaker that now counts more than 70 titles as a director.
On the occasion of the release of his two latest films, “Tales of Bliss and Heresy” and “Idol Never Dies”, we speak with him about his personal trauma, the messages he wanted to convey, idols, Bataille, and many other topics.
“Tales...
On the occasion of the release of his two latest films, “Tales of Bliss and Heresy” and “Idol Never Dies”, we speak with him about his personal trauma, the messages he wanted to convey, idols, Bataille, and many other topics.
“Tales...
- 3/20/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
To mark the Blu-ray release of Big Time Gambling Boss and The Working Class Goes to Heaven, both out on 2nd January, we’ve been given a Blu-ray bundle of both movies to give away to 2 winners.
Big Time Gambling Boss
Tokyo, 1934. Gang boss Arakawa is too ill and a successor must be named. The choice falls on Nakai, but being an outsider he refuses and suggests senior clansman Matsuda instead. But Matsuda is in jail and the elders won’t wait for his release, so they appoint the younger and more malleable Ishido to take the reins. Clan honour and loyalties are severely tested when Matsuda is released, resulting in an increasingly violent internal strife. An atmospheric tale of gangland intrigue written by Kazuo Kasahara (Battles Without Honour and Humanity) and starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, and genre legend Koji Tsuruta, Big Time Gambling Boss is one of the all-time classics of the yakuza genre.
Big Time Gambling Boss
Tokyo, 1934. Gang boss Arakawa is too ill and a successor must be named. The choice falls on Nakai, but being an outsider he refuses and suggests senior clansman Matsuda instead. But Matsuda is in jail and the elders won’t wait for his release, so they appoint the younger and more malleable Ishido to take the reins. Clan honour and loyalties are severely tested when Matsuda is released, resulting in an increasingly violent internal strife. An atmospheric tale of gangland intrigue written by Kazuo Kasahara (Battles Without Honour and Humanity) and starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, and genre legend Koji Tsuruta, Big Time Gambling Boss is one of the all-time classics of the yakuza genre.
- 12/28/2022
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Daniele Ledda is a musician, composer and teacher of electronic music at the Cagliari Conservatory of Music, with a curriculum full of experimentation, international collaborations and multidisciplinary artistic research activities. Clavius is the name he gave to a family of self-built instruments starting from the concept of “prepared piano” by John Cage, exploring the possibilities of fusion between analog and digital. The project has now given life to a LP/Digital album, “Clavius”, released at the end of September 2022 for Ticonzero.
We met him at the Cagliari Conservatory of Music, in a room full of vintage electronic keyboards and synthesisers, on the day after his live performance at the Across Asia Film Festival, where he accompanied with Clavius the screening of Yukio Mishima’s Patriotism (Yukoku).
We talked about working on Patriotism (Yukoku), the extraordinary figure of Yukio Mishima, the link between cinema and his music, the Clavius project and more.
We met him at the Cagliari Conservatory of Music, in a room full of vintage electronic keyboards and synthesisers, on the day after his live performance at the Across Asia Film Festival, where he accompanied with Clavius the screening of Yukio Mishima’s Patriotism (Yukoku).
We talked about working on Patriotism (Yukoku), the extraordinary figure of Yukio Mishima, the link between cinema and his music, the Clavius project and more.
- 12/18/2022
- by Adriana Rosati
- AsianMoviePulse
In general, there is very little distinction between the author Yukio Mishima and many of the characters he has created in his works in his lifetime. In his 1958 play “Rokumeikan”, which was a huge success in his home country, the concept of true patriotism was one of the most important aspects. From then on, over a time period of almost a decade, Mishima dedicated himself to classical Japanese theatre as well as the medium of film, two passions he would combine in works such as the 1966 film “Patriotism” or “The Rite of Love and Death”.
” Yukoku” is screening at Across Asia Film Festival with live musical accompaniment by artist Daniele Ledda
The 28-minute-long-feature tells the story of a couple, Lieutenant Shinji Takeyama (Yukio Mishima) and his wife Reiko (Yoshiko Tsuruoka). After a failed coupe d’état, which Takeyama helped planning but did not participate in actively because of his wife,...
” Yukoku” is screening at Across Asia Film Festival with live musical accompaniment by artist Daniele Ledda
The 28-minute-long-feature tells the story of a couple, Lieutenant Shinji Takeyama (Yukio Mishima) and his wife Reiko (Yoshiko Tsuruoka). After a failed coupe d’état, which Takeyama helped planning but did not participate in actively because of his wife,...
- 12/8/2022
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
Here is the full programme of Screenings and Events of the Across Asia Film Festival
(more info on the Official Website Here)
Wednesday 7th of December
Expanded
Circolo Arc – Polo Bibliotecario Falzarego 35, via Falzarego 35
On the language of men loving men in Japan
18:00 | Presentation of the book Whispering Catastrophe by Jacopo Miliani and Sara Giannini –A meeting with the artist Jacopo MIliani Stolen Flower
Screenings
In the heart of the beast
20:00 | Autobiography by Makbul Mubarak 22:10 | To Pick A Flower by Shireen Seno 22:30 | Myanmar Diaries by The Myanmar Film Collective Luxury Staycation Thursday 8th of December
Screenings
The Weird And The Eerie
19:00 | The Residents by Kahori Higashi 19:15 | Swallow di Mai Nakanishi 20:00 | House Of Time by Rajdeep Paul and Sarmistha Maiti Ore 22:00 | At Kinosaki by Shingo Ota | Everything Is Cinema by Don Palathara
Friday 9th of December
Screenings
The world is everything that happens...
(more info on the Official Website Here)
Wednesday 7th of December
Expanded
Circolo Arc – Polo Bibliotecario Falzarego 35, via Falzarego 35
On the language of men loving men in Japan
18:00 | Presentation of the book Whispering Catastrophe by Jacopo Miliani and Sara Giannini –A meeting with the artist Jacopo MIliani Stolen Flower
Screenings
In the heart of the beast
20:00 | Autobiography by Makbul Mubarak 22:10 | To Pick A Flower by Shireen Seno 22:30 | Myanmar Diaries by The Myanmar Film Collective Luxury Staycation Thursday 8th of December
Screenings
The Weird And The Eerie
19:00 | The Residents by Kahori Higashi 19:15 | Swallow di Mai Nakanishi 20:00 | House Of Time by Rajdeep Paul and Sarmistha Maiti Ore 22:00 | At Kinosaki by Shingo Ota | Everything Is Cinema by Don Palathara
Friday 9th of December
Screenings
The world is everything that happens...
- 12/4/2022
- by Adriana Rosati
- AsianMoviePulse
The ninth edition of Across Asia Film Festival, the international film festival focused on the independent languages of contemporary Asian cinema, will be staged from 7 to 11 December 2022 in Cagliari. With a careful selection of over 20 unpublished films from all over the Asian continent, including various Italian and European premieres, the event offers five days of screenings and meetings in various locations in the Sardinian capital city, Cagliari.
Across Asia Film Festival renews its format this year by proposing a wide-ranging program that abandons the previous focus dedicated to a single country or geographical area to embrace the entire Asian continent. Particular attention is directed towards independent and emerging productions, female cinema, young people, the destruction of genres, pop, the queer and politically incorrect universe that rotates on different proprietary axes in each country.
About the Programme
Among the women’s productions presented at this edition of Across Asia Film Festival is Yuni,...
Across Asia Film Festival renews its format this year by proposing a wide-ranging program that abandons the previous focus dedicated to a single country or geographical area to embrace the entire Asian continent. Particular attention is directed towards independent and emerging productions, female cinema, young people, the destruction of genres, pop, the queer and politically incorrect universe that rotates on different proprietary axes in each country.
About the Programme
Among the women’s productions presented at this edition of Across Asia Film Festival is Yuni,...
- 11/28/2022
- by Adriana Rosati
- AsianMoviePulse
Click here to read the full article.
American director and producer Alan Poul is best known to the industry for his work on prestige HBO series like Six Feet Under, The Newsroom and Big Love, but his career began, improbably, on a soundstage on the west side of Tokyo, Japan.
After graduating with a degree in Japanese language and literature from Yale University, Poul was working in New York as a Japanese cinema programmer in the mid-1980s when he was approached by maverick screenwriter and filmmaker Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, Light Sleeper) with an offer to serve as an associate producer on the movie project that would become Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) — Schrader’s now classic, semi-experimental biopic about the iconoclastic Japanese author Yukio Mishima. Poul accepted the job and decamped with Schrader to Japan, earning his entree into the film business at Tokyo’s Toho Studios,...
American director and producer Alan Poul is best known to the industry for his work on prestige HBO series like Six Feet Under, The Newsroom and Big Love, but his career began, improbably, on a soundstage on the west side of Tokyo, Japan.
After graduating with a degree in Japanese language and literature from Yale University, Poul was working in New York as a Japanese cinema programmer in the mid-1980s when he was approached by maverick screenwriter and filmmaker Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, Light Sleeper) with an offer to serve as an associate producer on the movie project that would become Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) — Schrader’s now classic, semi-experimental biopic about the iconoclastic Japanese author Yukio Mishima. Poul accepted the job and decamped with Schrader to Japan, earning his entree into the film business at Tokyo’s Toho Studios,...
- 10/26/2022
- by Patrick Brzeski
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
“Life for Sale” is a novel by Yukio Mishima that was first serialised in the weekly magazine Playboy in 1968, and it’s the story of a young copywriter for Tokyo Ad who, after a suicide attempt, advertises his own life for sale in a Tokyo newspaper and receives bizarre requests. The concept of Taiwanese writer and director Tom Teng’s ambitious first feature “Life for Sale” is based on Mishima’s book which also has a meta-appearance in it.
Life for Sale is screening on New York Asian Film Festival
Realising he is in a field where every day he is forced to stick a price tag on people, disheartened life insurance salesman Liang (Fu Meng-po) starts taking into consideration the idea of offing himself. A clumsy attempt to do it swallowing industrial quantity of cinnamon, chewing gum and … carrots, only prove the Internet is not the right place to find suicide methods.
Life for Sale is screening on New York Asian Film Festival
Realising he is in a field where every day he is forced to stick a price tag on people, disheartened life insurance salesman Liang (Fu Meng-po) starts taking into consideration the idea of offing himself. A clumsy attempt to do it swallowing industrial quantity of cinnamon, chewing gum and … carrots, only prove the Internet is not the right place to find suicide methods.
- 7/27/2022
- by Adriana Rosati
- AsianMoviePulse
After “Confessions Among Actresses”, director Kiju Yoshida returned to his political trilogy with “Coup d’Etat”, an account of the attempted overthrow of the Japanese government on February 26, 1936. Similar to the other entries of the trilogy”, “Eros + Massacre” and “Heroic Purgatory”, this final feature was also inspired by true events and a historical figure, in this case ultra-nationalist author Ikki Kita, but is quite a diversion, aesthetically and narratively, from the other parts of the trilogy. In an introduction filmed in 2008, the director explains how the event plays a decisive role when it comes to understanding the way Japan developed towards a more nationalist and ultimately militarist power, which sparked its involvement in World War II, but also paved the way for the protest movement of the 1960s, events he portrayed and referred to in the other features of the trilogy.
on Amazon
After the suicide of his brother,...
on Amazon
After the suicide of his brother,...
- 2/27/2022
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
Jeremy O. Harris is not one for resting. “Basically my [writing] process has been chain-smoking at midnight, drinking a lot of coffee, thinking, and then when my body’s exhausted, my subconscious can sing. That’s where I do my writing,” the critically lauded playwright and newly minted screenwriter told IndieWire during a recent interview. “I’m also a Gemini, so there’s just always going to be some mania to my process.”
His process has already garnered him many accomplishments, on the stage and in an assortment of filmed works, both in the film and television spaces. A graduate of Yale’s School of Drama, the author of the most nominated play in the Tony Awards’ history, “Slave Play” — an antebellum set production concerning three interracial couples that kindles a convergence of race and sex in America — a style icon, an unabashed Black queer activist. And he’s not afraid to display his wide wit,...
His process has already garnered him many accomplishments, on the stage and in an assortment of filmed works, both in the film and television spaces. A graduate of Yale’s School of Drama, the author of the most nominated play in the Tony Awards’ history, “Slave Play” — an antebellum set production concerning three interracial couples that kindles a convergence of race and sex in America — a style icon, an unabashed Black queer activist. And he’s not afraid to display his wide wit,...
- 11/9/2021
- by Robert Daniels
- Indiewire
Osamu Dazai, born Shuji Tsushima, is one of the most well known figures in Japanese literature, with several hit novels, including “The Setting Sun” and “No Longer Human”. The latter, his last work released posthumously after his suicide, is considered to be his crowning glory and stands as the second highest-selling Japanese book of all time. Dazai himself had a very eventful life, dotted with his alcohol abuse, womanising ways and several suicidal attempts, all of which have been the inspirations of many representations in various forms of written and performed art, including films, manga, anime and more. The latest to tell his story is “Helter Skelter” director Mika Ninagawa. “No Longer Human”, as its Japanese title “Osamu Dazai and the Three Women” suggests, follows the latter part of his life and the three key partners that not only influenced some of his best works but also led to his ultimate demise.
- 8/18/2020
- by Rhythm Zaveri
- AsianMoviePulse
Writer and director whose screenplays included The Fox, The Mechanic and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
After early success, the writer Lewis John Carlino, who has died aged 88, attracted some criticism for abandoning experimental theatre and moving into mainstream cinema, as both writer and director. Broadway’s loss was cinema’s gain.
His screenplays were intriguingly diverse, and included The Fox (1967), adapted from Dh Lawrence’s novella, an uncharacteristically taut Michael Winner thriller, The Mechanic (1972), and several films dealing with organised crime. His sparse output as a director ranged from his adaptation of Yukio Mishima’s The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea (1976) to a glossy sex comedy, Class (1983), in which Jacqueline Bisset played a woman who has sex in a glass-sided lift with her son’s schoolfriend.
After early success, the writer Lewis John Carlino, who has died aged 88, attracted some criticism for abandoning experimental theatre and moving into mainstream cinema, as both writer and director. Broadway’s loss was cinema’s gain.
His screenplays were intriguingly diverse, and included The Fox (1967), adapted from Dh Lawrence’s novella, an uncharacteristically taut Michael Winner thriller, The Mechanic (1972), and several films dealing with organised crime. His sparse output as a director ranged from his adaptation of Yukio Mishima’s The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea (1976) to a glossy sex comedy, Class (1983), in which Jacqueline Bisset played a woman who has sex in a glass-sided lift with her son’s schoolfriend.
- 7/14/2020
- by Brian Baxter
- The Guardian - Film News
Lewis John Carlino, who wrote and directed The Great Santini, the film adaptation of Pat Conroy's autobiographical novel that starred Robert Duvall as a bullying U.S. Marine Corps pilot, has died. He was 88.
Carlino died Wednesday at his home on Whidbey Island in Washington state of myelodysplastic syndrome, a blood disease, his daughter, Alessa, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Carlino also adapted David Ely's novel for John Frankenheimer's paranoid sci-fi drama Seconds (1966), starring Rock Hudson; reworked Yukio Mishima's book for the intense The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea (1976) — he also directed the ...
Carlino died Wednesday at his home on Whidbey Island in Washington state of myelodysplastic syndrome, a blood disease, his daughter, Alessa, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Carlino also adapted David Ely's novel for John Frankenheimer's paranoid sci-fi drama Seconds (1966), starring Rock Hudson; reworked Yukio Mishima's book for the intense The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea (1976) — he also directed the ...
- 6/23/2020
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Lewis John Carlino, who wrote and directed The Great Santini, the film adaptation of Pat Conroy's autobiographical novel that starred Robert Duvall as a bullying U.S. Marine Corps pilot, has died. He was 88.
Carlino died Wednesday at his home on Whidbey Island in Washington state of myelodysplastic syndrome, a blood disease, his daughter, Alessa, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Carlino also adapted David Ely's novel for John Frankenheimer's paranoid sci-fi drama Seconds (1966), starring Rock Hudson; reworked Yukio Mishima's book for the intense The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea (1976) — he also directed the ...
Carlino died Wednesday at his home on Whidbey Island in Washington state of myelodysplastic syndrome, a blood disease, his daughter, Alessa, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Carlino also adapted David Ely's novel for John Frankenheimer's paranoid sci-fi drama Seconds (1966), starring Rock Hudson; reworked Yukio Mishima's book for the intense The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea (1976) — he also directed the ...
- 6/23/2020
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Within the world of sports, when observing athletes competing in a race or training their bodies for the occasion, no one would deny the closeness of concepts such as purity and clarity in these images. Even though the world around us may be mostly chaotic, a mirror at times of our lives, the idea of sports, their clear aims and requirements are often what attracts people to join a sports club or at least go to the gym. At the same time, these images of purity have opened the door for interpretations driven by questionable or controversial ideologies, if we think, for example, of the way director Leni Riefenstahl portrays athletes following a deeply fascist agenda. In a similar way, the idea of perfecting the body and the mind, preparing the body to reach a state of absolute purity can also be found in the writings of author Yukio Mishima,...
- 3/15/2020
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
Masami Nagasawa (Our Little Sister) stars in the story of a young boy and his alcoholic mother.
Japan’s Gaga Corp is handling international sales on Tatsushi Omori’s Mother and will introduce the title to buyers at the upcoming European Film Market (Efm) in Berlin.
Starring Masami Nagasawa (Our Little Sister) and marking the first feature of child actor Daiken Okudaira, the film follows a young boy struggling with an alcoholic mother who forces him to extract money from his grandparents, rather than sending him to school. The cast also includes Sadawo Abe (Birds Without Names).
Currently in post-production,...
Japan’s Gaga Corp is handling international sales on Tatsushi Omori’s Mother and will introduce the title to buyers at the upcoming European Film Market (Efm) in Berlin.
Starring Masami Nagasawa (Our Little Sister) and marking the first feature of child actor Daiken Okudaira, the film follows a young boy struggling with an alcoholic mother who forces him to extract money from his grandparents, rather than sending him to school. The cast also includes Sadawo Abe (Birds Without Names).
Currently in post-production,...
- 1/22/2020
- by 89¦Liz Shackleton¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
Masami Nagasawa (Our Little Sister) stars in the story of a young boy and his alcoholic mother.
Japan’s Gaga Corp is handling international sales on Tatsushi Omori’s Mother and will introduce the title to buyers at the upcoming European Film Market (Efm) in Berlin.
Starring Masami Nagasawa (Our Little Sister) and marking the first feature of child actor Daiken Okudaira, the film follows a young boy struggling with an alcoholic mother who forces him to extract money from his grandparents, rather than sending him to school. The cast also includes Sadawo Abe (Birds Without Names).
Currently in post-production,...
Japan’s Gaga Corp is handling international sales on Tatsushi Omori’s Mother and will introduce the title to buyers at the upcoming European Film Market (Efm) in Berlin.
Starring Masami Nagasawa (Our Little Sister) and marking the first feature of child actor Daiken Okudaira, the film follows a young boy struggling with an alcoholic mother who forces him to extract money from his grandparents, rather than sending him to school. The cast also includes Sadawo Abe (Birds Without Names).
Currently in post-production,...
- 1/22/2020
- by 89¦Liz Shackleton¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
Japanese author, playwright and director Yukio Mishima took part in a debate with Tokyo University students just one year before his death.
Japan’s Gaga Corp will handle international sales on documentary, Mishima: The Last Debate, featuring restored footage of a famous debate between Yukio Mishima and students at Tokyo University in 1969, just one year before the filmmaker’s death.
Footage of the debate, which took place during the mass political uprisings of the late 1960s, has only recently been discovered and given a 4K restoration.
Mishima was an internationally acclaimed author, poet, playwright, actor and film director, whose novels...
Japan’s Gaga Corp will handle international sales on documentary, Mishima: The Last Debate, featuring restored footage of a famous debate between Yukio Mishima and students at Tokyo University in 1969, just one year before the filmmaker’s death.
Footage of the debate, which took place during the mass political uprisings of the late 1960s, has only recently been discovered and given a 4K restoration.
Mishima was an internationally acclaimed author, poet, playwright, actor and film director, whose novels...
- 1/8/2020
- by 89¦Liz Shackleton¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
Restored footage of an infamous Tokyo University debate between controversial Japanese poet and novelist Yukio Mishima and university students is the centerpiece of a documentary “Mishima: The Last Debate” by Keisuke Toyoshima, which will be released theatrically in Japan in March.
Mishima, real name Hiraoka Kimitake, is known equally as one of Japan’s most important 20th century literary figures, nominated for the Nobel Prize,, and as an unrepentant Japanese nationalist who wanted the powers of the Emperor to be restored.
The heated debate was held in 1969 at a time of mass protests in Japan, that included an uprising among students. A year later after failing to inspire an army mutiny, Mishima killed himself in ritual Japanese fashion.
The original footage of the debate was believed to have been lost, but was discovered by film makers during the process of making the documentary. It has been restored and preserved in 4K.
Mishima, real name Hiraoka Kimitake, is known equally as one of Japan’s most important 20th century literary figures, nominated for the Nobel Prize,, and as an unrepentant Japanese nationalist who wanted the powers of the Emperor to be restored.
The heated debate was held in 1969 at a time of mass protests in Japan, that included an uprising among students. A year later after failing to inspire an army mutiny, Mishima killed himself in ritual Japanese fashion.
The original footage of the debate was believed to have been lost, but was discovered by film makers during the process of making the documentary. It has been restored and preserved in 4K.
- 1/8/2020
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
Fighting ElegyLately, unstable times are shaking countries the world over. While in the West we’re dealing with breakups and a resurgence of conservative politics, the East is not faring well either. The past few months have seen news of escalating tensions between South Korea and Japan on the matter of apparently unresolved issues of compensation for Korean forced laborers during World War II, but frictions between these two countries never ceased to exist after the period of Japanese imperialism came to an end in 1945. Proposing yet again its successful formula of pairing classic new wave films with contemporary experimental shorts, this year’s London-based Japanese Avant-garde and Experimental Film Festival dove deep into the concept of nation and explored Japan’s multifaceted and problematic relationship with its own past and national identity. Putting together a thriving selection, the festival proved once again to be attentive to current political turmoil and social trends.
- 9/25/2019
- MUBI
In general, there is very little distinction between the author Yukio Mishima and many of the characters he has created in his works in his lifetime. In his 1958 play “Rokumeikan”, which was a huge success in his home country, the concept of true patriotism was one of the most important aspects. From then on, over a time period of almost a decade, Mishima dedicated himself to works for classical Japanese theatre as well as the medium of film, two passions he would combine in works such as the 1966 film “Patriotism” or “The Rite of Love and Death”.
“Patriotism” is screening at Japanese Avant-Garde and Experimental Film Festival 2019
The 28-minute-long-feature tells the story of a couple, Lieutenant Shinji Takeyama (Yukio Mishima) and his wife Reiko (Yoshiko Tsuruoka). After a failed coupe d’état, which Takeyama helped planning but did not participate in actively because of his wife, he is forced to...
“Patriotism” is screening at Japanese Avant-Garde and Experimental Film Festival 2019
The 28-minute-long-feature tells the story of a couple, Lieutenant Shinji Takeyama (Yukio Mishima) and his wife Reiko (Yoshiko Tsuruoka). After a failed coupe d’état, which Takeyama helped planning but did not participate in actively because of his wife, he is forced to...
- 9/22/2019
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
To some it may seem ironical to see American filmmaker Paul Schrader’s “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters” experience a similar notoriety as the man Yukio Mishima himself during his lifetime. Despite the fact it was shot in Japan and Schrader’s careful recognition of the country’s culture as well as its difficult relationship with the author, to this day the film has not been released in Mishima’s home country. Even though the reasons for that may be quite nebulous to many – an essay titled “Banned in Japan”, included in the Criterion release of the film might shed some light into that affair –, the significance of the film as a portrayal of a controversial artist fits perfectly into Paul Schrader’s predilection as a filmmaker and writer for the anti-hero, the protagonist who cannot be categorized and will challenge its viewer, even after the end credits.
“Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters...
“Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters...
- 9/19/2019
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
With our opening night just days away, we are very excited for all of the attention Nation has received. Starting this Friday 20th and running through Sunday 22nd at the Barbican, Close-Up and MetFilm School, this year we examine national identity, cultural memory and perceptions of history in Japan with a programme of five feature-length films paired with seven short-form pieces, a panel discussion and a free filmmakers’ workshop.
Friday 20th September 2019
Barbican Cinema 3 – Opening night screening 18:00:
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters by Paul Schrader, 1985 + Patriotism (Yūkoku) by Yukio Mishima, 1966.
With intro by Damian Flanagan.
Saturday 21st September
Close-Up Cinema – 20:30 screening:
Fighting Elegy (Kenka erejii) by Seijun Suzuki, 1966 +
Bright Beyond Bearing by Monika Uchiyama, 2017 +
How Can You Know Where to Go If You Do Not Know Where You Have Been by Mizuki Toriya, 2017 +
Chiyo by Chiemi Shimada, 2019.
With intro by Jasper Sharp.
Sunday 22nd September
Barbican...
Friday 20th September 2019
Barbican Cinema 3 – Opening night screening 18:00:
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters by Paul Schrader, 1985 + Patriotism (Yūkoku) by Yukio Mishima, 1966.
With intro by Damian Flanagan.
Saturday 21st September
Close-Up Cinema – 20:30 screening:
Fighting Elegy (Kenka erejii) by Seijun Suzuki, 1966 +
Bright Beyond Bearing by Monika Uchiyama, 2017 +
How Can You Know Where to Go If You Do Not Know Where You Have Been by Mizuki Toriya, 2017 +
Chiyo by Chiemi Shimada, 2019.
With intro by Jasper Sharp.
Sunday 22nd September
Barbican...
- 9/17/2019
- by Adriana Rosati
- AsianMoviePulse
“Queer Japan,” a documentary about the Lgbtq community as it exists today in Tokyo and several smaller (but still major) Japanese cities, is a movie that makes you realize that liberation movements have become more global, in spirit and in fact, than anyone might have expected. The director, Graham Kolbeins (who also co-shot and edited the film), introduces us to a panoply of Japanese citizens who wear the diversity of their identities with a casual hard-won fierceness, and who give off a one-world cosmopolitan vibe that’s inspiring — and, for those of us in the U.S., gratifyingly familiar.
Japan has an annual Pride parade, modeled on the one in New York. It has a bold and vibrant trans community, and the country is making strides toward the establishment of gay marriage as a legal right. If there is not, as yet, a Japanese version of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,...
Japan has an annual Pride parade, modeled on the one in New York. It has a bold and vibrant trans community, and the country is making strides toward the establishment of gay marriage as a legal right. If there is not, as yet, a Japanese version of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,...
- 7/26/2019
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Tickets are now on sale for Jaeff 2019: Nation!
This year’s festival will be held at the Barbican Centre, Close-Up Film Centre and MetFilm School from Friday 20 September through Sunday 22 September. Jaeff 2019: Nation will see five feature-length films screened alongside seven short-form films. We will again be hosting a panel discussion at the Barbican, and are very excited to announce a free filmmakers’ workshop at the MetFilm School.
Friday 20 September 201 – Barbican Cinema 3 – 6pm
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
USA 1985, Dir Paul Schrader, 120 mins, Digital presentation
+ Patriotism (Yūkoku)
Japan 1966, Dir Yukio Mishima and Domoto Masaki, 28 mins, Digital presentation
Reimagined in vibrant, expressionist colour, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters marries an author to his fiction—a vivid middle where man and myth collide. Yukio Mishima (Ken Ogata) is considered to be one of Japan’s most important novelists, and via Paul and Leonard Schrader’s unique framing, is...
This year’s festival will be held at the Barbican Centre, Close-Up Film Centre and MetFilm School from Friday 20 September through Sunday 22 September. Jaeff 2019: Nation will see five feature-length films screened alongside seven short-form films. We will again be hosting a panel discussion at the Barbican, and are very excited to announce a free filmmakers’ workshop at the MetFilm School.
Friday 20 September 201 – Barbican Cinema 3 – 6pm
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
USA 1985, Dir Paul Schrader, 120 mins, Digital presentation
+ Patriotism (Yūkoku)
Japan 1966, Dir Yukio Mishima and Domoto Masaki, 28 mins, Digital presentation
Reimagined in vibrant, expressionist colour, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters marries an author to his fiction—a vivid middle where man and myth collide. Yukio Mishima (Ken Ogata) is considered to be one of Japan’s most important novelists, and via Paul and Leonard Schrader’s unique framing, is...
- 7/19/2019
- by Adriana Rosati
- AsianMoviePulse
Probably Yukio Mishima’s best known acting part, “Afraid to Die (aka Man of the Biting Wind) is a lesser known Yakuza film, that eventually led the Nobel Prize nominee to write the novella “Star”, based on his experiences starring in the movie. On the occasion of the English translation of the novella, Japan Society is screening the film Friday, May 10.
The film revolves around Takeo Asahina, who is released from prison as the story begins, after serving a few years for stabbing a sub-boss of a rival Yakuza clan, Sagara. With a murder attempt aimed at him just before his release, Takeo is forced to go into hiding, ending up in an old cinema the family is running. Despite the fact that the whole Sagara gang and an asthmatic killer-for-hire are on his heels, Takeo continues his criminal endeavors with his lawyer-degree associate Aikawa, under the instructions of the clan’s uncle Gohei.
The film revolves around Takeo Asahina, who is released from prison as the story begins, after serving a few years for stabbing a sub-boss of a rival Yakuza clan, Sagara. With a murder attempt aimed at him just before his release, Takeo is forced to go into hiding, ending up in an old cinema the family is running. Despite the fact that the whole Sagara gang and an asthmatic killer-for-hire are on his heels, Takeo continues his criminal endeavors with his lawyer-degree associate Aikawa, under the instructions of the clan’s uncle Gohei.
- 5/4/2019
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Japan Society will be celebrating the English translation of Yukio Mishima’s novella “Star”, based directly on his experience starring in Yasuzo Masumara’s film “Afraid to Die” with a 35mm screening of the film on Friday, May 10th, 2019 at 7pm.
Clad in a black leather jacket, renowned Japanese writer Yukio Mishima struts and preens as a small-time yakuza underboss in this oddity of postwar Japanese cinema directed by Yasuzo Masumura. Fresh out of jail and hiding out above a rundown Tokyo movie theater, the unsympathetic tough is hounded by a rival gang and an asthmatic killer-for-hire as he struggles to reconcile his criminal life with a newfound love interest (Ayako Wakao). “Afraid to Die” screens in celebration of a brand new English translation of Mishima’s 1961 novella Star (New Directions Publishing, 2019), a fictionalized account of his experience working on Masumura’s film.
The screening will be introduced by Star...
Clad in a black leather jacket, renowned Japanese writer Yukio Mishima struts and preens as a small-time yakuza underboss in this oddity of postwar Japanese cinema directed by Yasuzo Masumura. Fresh out of jail and hiding out above a rundown Tokyo movie theater, the unsympathetic tough is hounded by a rival gang and an asthmatic killer-for-hire as he struggles to reconcile his criminal life with a newfound love interest (Ayako Wakao). “Afraid to Die” screens in celebration of a brand new English translation of Mishima’s 1961 novella Star (New Directions Publishing, 2019), a fictionalized account of his experience working on Masumura’s film.
The screening will be introduced by Star...
- 4/27/2019
- by Rhythm Zaveri
- AsianMoviePulse
Gaspar Noé shot his riveting dance-party-gone-wrong thriller “Climax” in just 15 days, but the year he’s spent on the road promoting it has made it hard for him to keep up with other people’s movies. As the Argentine finally returned to his home in Paris, however, he has had the chance to catch up on a few Oscar contenders — but won’t be tuning into the ceremony.
“I really don’t care about the Oscars,” Noé said in a Skype interview over the weekend. “I would never watch the Oscar ceremony. If I cared about who was winning the Oscar, it was when I was a kid when they were giving awards to ‘Midnight Cowboy’ or ‘The Godfather.’”
When “Climax” premiered at Cannes last May, Noé expressed a minority opinion about one future Oscar contender, saying in an interview that he had walked out of “Black Panther.”
Nevertheless, in his most recent interview,...
“I really don’t care about the Oscars,” Noé said in a Skype interview over the weekend. “I would never watch the Oscar ceremony. If I cared about who was winning the Oscar, it was when I was a kid when they were giving awards to ‘Midnight Cowboy’ or ‘The Godfather.’”
When “Climax” premiered at Cannes last May, Noé expressed a minority opinion about one future Oscar contender, saying in an interview that he had walked out of “Black Panther.”
Nevertheless, in his most recent interview,...
- 2/17/2019
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Nobuhiko Obayashi's Hanagatami (2017) is showing January 24 – February 22, 2019 exclusively on Mubi as part of the series Direct from Rotterdam.It may be easy to dismiss Nobuhiko Obayashi as a cult horror film director due to the notoriety of his celebrated debut feature, Hausu (1977), but what does not get discussed often enough is Obayashi as a thinker who has always pushed the boundaries of the cinematic medium. He was a central figure in the 1960s Japanese 8mm and 16mm experimental film scene, his pop-star vehicle “idol” films in the 1980s were national sensations, and he continues to make convention-defying movies with his abundant use of green screens in digital cinema. His diverse and prolific filmography spans across genres including horror, crime, comedy, documentary, family dramas, coming-of-age dramas and even animation. Watch Exchange Student (1982) and you'll see that Makoto Shinkai's Your Name (2016) was made decades earlier. Many may know that Obayashi was...
- 1/24/2019
- MUBI
“Death As Art”
By Raymond Benson
Note: I reviewed the Criterion Collection’s 2008 DVD release of this film here at Cinema Retro. The product has now been upgraded to Blu-ray by the company. Much of the following is excerpted and/or revised from the original review, while also addressing the new Blu-ray.
Paul Schrader has always opined that Mishima—A Life in Four Chapters is his best film as a director, and I must agree. Originally released in 1985 (and executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas), the film is a fascinating bio-pic about controversial Japanese author/actor Yukio Mishima. Schrader, a successful screenwriter who has also had an interesting hit-and-miss career as a director, co-wrote the film with his brother Leonard and filmed it in Japan with a Japanese cast and crew. Ironically, the film was banned in Japan upon its release due to the controversial nature of...
By Raymond Benson
Note: I reviewed the Criterion Collection’s 2008 DVD release of this film here at Cinema Retro. The product has now been upgraded to Blu-ray by the company. Much of the following is excerpted and/or revised from the original review, while also addressing the new Blu-ray.
Paul Schrader has always opined that Mishima—A Life in Four Chapters is his best film as a director, and I must agree. Originally released in 1985 (and executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas), the film is a fascinating bio-pic about controversial Japanese author/actor Yukio Mishima. Schrader, a successful screenwriter who has also had an interesting hit-and-miss career as a director, co-wrote the film with his brother Leonard and filmed it in Japan with a Japanese cast and crew. Ironically, the film was banned in Japan upon its release due to the controversial nature of...
- 6/16/2018
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
More than a few foreign filmmaker have tried relocating to Hollywood, but it’s less often the case that an acclaimed Hollywood artist takes their talents overseas. Paul Schrader, at the height of his post-Taxi Driver, post-Raging Bull success, proved a notable example. In the mid-1980s, he took an opportunity to capitalize on his longstanding fascination with Japan by directing an entire film with an all-Japanese cast and script, his sister-in-law Chieko Schrader serving as linguistic and artistic interpreter. Its subject: Yukio Mishima, a controversial figure whose death so deeply shocked Japan that the film, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, remains banned there. Now — in the U.S. at least — the Criterion Collection is giving the film Schrader considers his finest directorial achievement a new 4K transfer and Blu-ray release.
Mishima, portrayed by Ken Ogata, was one of Japan’s most internationally acclaimed authors, and likely the country’s most infamous suicide.
Mishima, portrayed by Ken Ogata, was one of Japan’s most internationally acclaimed authors, and likely the country’s most infamous suicide.
- 6/11/2018
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Stars: Ken Ogata, Masayuki Shionoya, Junkichi Orimoto, Naoko Ôtani, Masato Aizawa, Gô Rijû | Written by Paul Schrader, Leonard Schrader, Chieko Schrader | Directed by Paul Schrader
Lucasfilm isn’t just about lightsabers, high fantasy and hunky archaeologists, you know. Occasionally it has produced films like this one: Paul Schrader’s truly original biopic about the Japanese author Yukio Mishima (real name Kimitake Hiraoka), a right-wing artist who spearheaded the infamous “Mishima Incident” in 1970. Despite winning awards for production design, cinematography and music (Philip Glass’s theme is instantly recognisable) at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival, the film has never been released in Japan.
“Words are insufficient,” Mishima (Ken Ogata) laments early on. He’s seeking a new form of expression. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is a portrait of a frustrated artist, so it’s easy to see why Schrader – the man who wrote Taxi Driver over a fevered fortnight – would be attracted to the story.
Lucasfilm isn’t just about lightsabers, high fantasy and hunky archaeologists, you know. Occasionally it has produced films like this one: Paul Schrader’s truly original biopic about the Japanese author Yukio Mishima (real name Kimitake Hiraoka), a right-wing artist who spearheaded the infamous “Mishima Incident” in 1970. Despite winning awards for production design, cinematography and music (Philip Glass’s theme is instantly recognisable) at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival, the film has never been released in Japan.
“Words are insufficient,” Mishima (Ken Ogata) laments early on. He’s seeking a new form of expression. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is a portrait of a frustrated artist, so it’s easy to see why Schrader – the man who wrote Taxi Driver over a fevered fortnight – would be attracted to the story.
- 6/11/2018
- by Rupert Harvey
- Nerdly
In a nice bit of cinematic serendipity, Paul Schrader’s singular 1985 film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters arrives on Blu-ray from Criterion at the same moment that his latest movie, First Reformed, is enjoying a deservedly successful art house run. Mishima remains perhaps Schrader’s most original and idiosyncratic film, which is really saying something; a meditation on the life and writings of Japanese author Yukio Mishima, it’s neither a conventional bio-pic nor a straightforward literary adaptation, though it combines elements of both forms. Schrader, writing in collaboration with his brother Leonard (Kiss of the Spider Woman) and sister-in-law Chieko, […]...
- 5/25/2018
- by Jim Hemphill
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
In a nice bit of cinematic serendipity, Paul Schrader’s singular 1985 film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters arrives on Blu-ray from Criterion at the same moment that his latest movie, First Reformed, is enjoying a deservedly successful art house run. Mishima remains perhaps Schrader’s most original and idiosyncratic film, which is really saying something; a meditation on the life and writings of Japanese author Yukio Mishima, it’s neither a conventional bio-pic nor a straightforward literary adaptation, though it combines elements of both forms. Schrader, writing in collaboration with his brother Leonard (Kiss of the Spider Woman) and sister-in-law Chieko, […]...
- 5/25/2018
- by Jim Hemphill
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
May is going to be a good month for fans of the Romanian New Wave, as Cristian Mungiu’s two most recent films are both joining the Criterion Collection. “Graduation” and “Beyond the Hills” will be released alongside new additions “Midnight Cowboy,” “The Other Side of Hope,” and “Moonrise”; “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters” and “Au hasard Balthazar,” which have already been released on DVD, are getting Blu-ray upgrades.
“Au hasard Balthazar”
“A profound masterpiece from one of the most revered filmmakers in the history of cinema, director Robert Bresson’s ‘Au hasard Balthazar’ follows the donkey Balthazar as he is passed from owner to owner, some kind and some cruel but all with motivations outside of his understanding. Balthazar, whose life parallels that of his first keeper, Marie, is truly a beast of burden, suffering the sins of humankind. But despite his powerlessness, he accepts his fate nobly.
“Au hasard Balthazar”
“A profound masterpiece from one of the most revered filmmakers in the history of cinema, director Robert Bresson’s ‘Au hasard Balthazar’ follows the donkey Balthazar as he is passed from owner to owner, some kind and some cruel but all with motivations outside of his understanding. Balthazar, whose life parallels that of his first keeper, Marie, is truly a beast of burden, suffering the sins of humankind. But despite his powerlessness, he accepts his fate nobly.
- 2/16/2018
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
Evil spreads faster than justice — that’s one of the things that makes it so sinister. It’s hard to contain, it’s always on the offensive, and it isn’t bound by the tactfulness of the truth. Love must be fought for, hate needs only to be permitted. There’s a lot to sort through in Matt Heineman’s profoundly harrowing “City of Ghosts,” the latest in a long line of recent documentaries about the atrocities that are being committed in Syria, but that grim dichotomy emerges from the chaos intact and more striking than ever. Almost everything else is lost in the rubble, sacrificed at the altar of a film whose horrors are so upsetting that they ultimately represent little more than their own madness.
“City of Ghosts” may be concerned with a death-defying group of citizen journalists, but the film isn’t particularly concerned with context — it...
“City of Ghosts” may be concerned with a death-defying group of citizen journalists, but the film isn’t particularly concerned with context — it...
- 7/7/2017
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Exclusive: Toshimasa Kobayashi makes his feature debut with the manga adaptation
Japan’s Gaga Corp has picked up international rights to comedy drama Almost Coming, Almost Dying based on the Kumoman manga created by Manabu Nakagawa.
The film is about Nakagawa’s own experiences and subsequent shame when he was struck down by a brain hemorrhage on the point of orgasm in a massage parlour. Toshimasa Kobayashi, who worked with Nakagawa on TV drama I Still Don’t Have Any Friends, is making his feature debut with the film.
Starring comedian Nou Misoo, the film is produced by Creative Nexus Inc and was released by Tripleup in Japan on February 4.
New titles on Gaga’s Berlin slate also include sci-fi drama A Beautiful Star, an adaptation of literary giant Yukio Mishima’s novel, which is directed by Yoshida Daihachi (Pale Moon). Lily Franky, Kazuya Kamenashi and Tomoko Nakajima head the cast of the film about a family...
Japan’s Gaga Corp has picked up international rights to comedy drama Almost Coming, Almost Dying based on the Kumoman manga created by Manabu Nakagawa.
The film is about Nakagawa’s own experiences and subsequent shame when he was struck down by a brain hemorrhage on the point of orgasm in a massage parlour. Toshimasa Kobayashi, who worked with Nakagawa on TV drama I Still Don’t Have Any Friends, is making his feature debut with the film.
Starring comedian Nou Misoo, the film is produced by Creative Nexus Inc and was released by Tripleup in Japan on February 4.
New titles on Gaga’s Berlin slate also include sci-fi drama A Beautiful Star, an adaptation of literary giant Yukio Mishima’s novel, which is directed by Yoshida Daihachi (Pale Moon). Lily Franky, Kazuya Kamenashi and Tomoko Nakajima head the cast of the film about a family...
- 2/10/2017
- by lizshackleton@gmail.com (Liz Shackleton)
- ScreenDaily
Remember the Nineties? Specifically, that decade's subgenre of films that proliferated during the A.T. (After Tarantino) era, the ones featuring retro-hip musical deep cuts and gallows-humor dialogue dotting horrific gunfights? Usually the antiheroes were criminals; in the case of writer-director John Michael McDonagh's tart-tongued throwback, they're police officers. And from the moment that Terry (Alexander Skarsgård) and Bob (Michael Peña) show up, chasing down a street performer – "Always wondered if you hit a mime, does he make a sound?" – you realize you've entered some sort of Lethal Weapon through the looking glass.
- 2/2/2017
- Rollingstone.com
Pale Moon’s Daihachi Yoshida [pictured] directed the sci-fi tragicomedy, currently in post-production.
Gaga Corporation will represent sales on Beautiful Star (working title), an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Japanese literary giant Yukio Mishima, at the Asian Film Market in Busan later this month.
Directed by Pale Moon helmer Daihachi Yoshida, the sci-fi tragicomedy focuses on a family who suddenly come to believe that they are extraterrestrials.
The family members are played by Lily Franky (Like Father, Like Son), Kazuya Kamenashi (It’s Me, It’s Me), Ai Hashimoto (Little Forest) and Tomoko Nakajima (Tokyo Family).
Gaga also produced the project, which was filmed in the Tokyo area earlier this year. It will bow in Japan next May.
Probably better known to modern generations for his death by seppuku, or ritual disembowelment, while trying to overthrow the Japanese government in 1970, Mishima was a prolific novelist and playwright who typically wrote serious dramas.
First published...
Gaga Corporation will represent sales on Beautiful Star (working title), an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Japanese literary giant Yukio Mishima, at the Asian Film Market in Busan later this month.
Directed by Pale Moon helmer Daihachi Yoshida, the sci-fi tragicomedy focuses on a family who suddenly come to believe that they are extraterrestrials.
The family members are played by Lily Franky (Like Father, Like Son), Kazuya Kamenashi (It’s Me, It’s Me), Ai Hashimoto (Little Forest) and Tomoko Nakajima (Tokyo Family).
Gaga also produced the project, which was filmed in the Tokyo area earlier this year. It will bow in Japan next May.
Probably better known to modern generations for his death by seppuku, or ritual disembowelment, while trying to overthrow the Japanese government in 1970, Mishima was a prolific novelist and playwright who typically wrote serious dramas.
First published...
- 10/3/2016
- ScreenDaily
Mubi is showing Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Last Life in the Universe (2003) in the United States from August 13 - September 11, 2016.“Let’s not know too much about what we’re going to do, let’s just look for the film.” —Pen-ek RatanaruangThere are films that you sleep through and films that guide you through sleep. Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s 2003 film Last Life in the Universe falls under the latter category, invoking that lull between wake and slumber. That slow-motion moment when your eyes are still open as you’re dreaming, where the most nonsensical fantasies make perfect sense. It is also a film labeled as quintessentially “art-house” and “Thai New Wave,” known as the hit that propelled director Pen-ek Ratanaruang into the international spotlight once dominated by his friend and colleague, Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Yet with each viewing Last Life in the Universe ceases to be anything at all. Maybe that is the point,...
- 8/26/2016
- MUBI
Every week, the CriticWire Survey asks a select handful of film and TV critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday morning. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?” can be found at the end of this post.)
This week’s question: This past weekend saw the release of “Indignation,” which has been rather faithfully adapted from the Philip Roth novel of the same name. In the hopes of shining some light on what makes for a great adaptation, is there a film that you believe is better than the book from which it was adapted?
Christopher Campbell (@thefilmcynic) Nonfics/Film School Rejects
This is a difficult question as I admit I haven’t read a lot of the books of movies I love (unless we count my childhood interest in novelizations), so I can’t think of any favorite films I...
This week’s question: This past weekend saw the release of “Indignation,” which has been rather faithfully adapted from the Philip Roth novel of the same name. In the hopes of shining some light on what makes for a great adaptation, is there a film that you believe is better than the book from which it was adapted?
Christopher Campbell (@thefilmcynic) Nonfics/Film School Rejects
This is a difficult question as I admit I haven’t read a lot of the books of movies I love (unless we count my childhood interest in novelizations), so I can’t think of any favorite films I...
- 8/1/2016
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this first episode of a two-part series, David and Trevor are joined by Pablo Knote to discuss two films (Black Sun and Thirst for Love) from Eclipse Series 28: The Warped World of Koreyoshi Kurahara.
About the films:
Over the course of his varied career, Koreyoshi Kurahara made meticulous noirs, jazzy juvenile-delinquency pictures, and even nature films. His free-form approach to moviemaking was perfectly suited to the radical spirit of the 1960s, when he was one of the biggest hit makers working at the razzle-dazzle, youth-oriented Nikkatsu studios. The five films collected here hail from that era of the Japanese New Wave, and encompass breathless teen escapades, cruel crime stories, a Yukio Mishima adaptation, and even a Hollywood-inspired romantic comedy.
About the films:
Over the course of his varied career, Koreyoshi Kurahara made meticulous noirs, jazzy juvenile-delinquency pictures, and even nature films. His free-form approach to moviemaking was perfectly suited to the radical spirit of the 1960s, when he was one of the biggest hit makers working at the razzle-dazzle, youth-oriented Nikkatsu studios. The five films collected here hail from that era of the Japanese New Wave, and encompass breathless teen escapades, cruel crime stories, a Yukio Mishima adaptation, and even a Hollywood-inspired romantic comedy.
- 7/14/2016
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
Editor’s note: On Friday, Kanye West premiered “Famous,” an extended music video for his single in which he portrayed a variety of recognizable faces sleeping in the nude. The 10-minute video has naturally sparked a mixture of outrage and confusion. Here, critics Eric Kohn and David Ehrlich attempt to figure out what the rapper is trying to say.
Eric Kohn: It may have commandeered the cultural dialogue within moments of its release, but Kanye West’s “Famous” video is about as intellectually basic as the celebrity-obsessed terrain it’s designed to deconstruct: Stars — they’re just like us! Whether it’s Chris Brown or Donald Trump, everybody snores. And yet West’s titillating provocation is fundamentally amusing precisely because it’s such a lark. Minutes drag by as grainy digital video of his sleeping subjects slowly reveals more and more participants, setting the stage for an epic zoom that...
Eric Kohn: It may have commandeered the cultural dialogue within moments of its release, but Kanye West’s “Famous” video is about as intellectually basic as the celebrity-obsessed terrain it’s designed to deconstruct: Stars — they’re just like us! Whether it’s Chris Brown or Donald Trump, everybody snores. And yet West’s titillating provocation is fundamentally amusing precisely because it’s such a lark. Minutes drag by as grainy digital video of his sleeping subjects slowly reveals more and more participants, setting the stage for an epic zoom that...
- 6/27/2016
- by Eric Kohn and David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this first episode of a two-part series, David and Trevor are joined by Pablo Knote to discuss three films from Eclipse Series 28: The Warped World of Koreyoshi Kurahara.
About the films:
Over the course of his varied career, Koreyoshi Kurahara made meticulous noirs, jazzy juvenile-delinquency pictures, and even nature films. His free-form approach to moviemaking was perfectly suited to the radical spirit of the 1960s, when he was one of the biggest hit makers working at the razzle-dazzle, youth-oriented Nikkatsu studios. The five films collected here hail from that era of the Japanese New Wave, and encompass breathless teen escapades, cruel crime stories, a Yukio Mishima adaptation, and even a Hollywood-inspired romantic comedy.
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About the films:
Over the course of his varied career, Koreyoshi Kurahara made meticulous noirs, jazzy juvenile-delinquency pictures, and even nature films. His free-form approach to moviemaking was perfectly suited to the radical spirit of the 1960s, when he was one of the biggest hit makers working at the razzle-dazzle, youth-oriented Nikkatsu studios. The five films collected here hail from that era of the Japanese New Wave, and encompass breathless teen escapades, cruel crime stories, a Yukio Mishima adaptation, and even a Hollywood-inspired romantic comedy.
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- 6/22/2016
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
A prolific screenwriter who emerged from the late 1970s as a promising American film director, Lewis John Carlino wouldn’t get behind the camera following his third, and least successfully received feature, Class (1983), an item which, in passing, looks to have the stamp of John Hughes and the Brat Pack all over it. Aggravating in its considerable inconsistencies, this was the director’s first attempt to film a treatment he didn’t write or adapt himself, scripted by Jim Kouf and David Greenwalt (both writers who would move into mainstream film and television). The result is a rather wishy-washy prep school version of The Graduate, but the comparison is merely a pale echo, trapped inside a banal resolution with troubling misogynist tendencies.
Immediately upon meeting his new roommate Skip (Rob Lowe) at prep-school, Johnathan (Andrew McCarthy) is thrust into a rigorous new environment. Initial misgivings are set aside for a...
Immediately upon meeting his new roommate Skip (Rob Lowe) at prep-school, Johnathan (Andrew McCarthy) is thrust into a rigorous new environment. Initial misgivings are set aside for a...
- 3/8/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
“I remember my mother, on my eighteenth birthday, she brought me to see Pasolini’s Salò,” Gaspar Noé recently told us. “I said, ‘Why did you show me this?’” She said, “You’re old enough to understand human cruelty.” [Laughs] To her, it was important that I see that movie. ‘Now you’re a man. You have to face what the humankind is.'”
It’s no surprise that the director, while doing press for Love here in New York City, picked the aforementioned film upon a stop-in at the Criterion Collection closet. His other choices included Seconds (which says he had planned to remake), Pigs, Pimps, and Prostitutes: 3 Films by Shohei Imamura, Master of the House, Safe (a film he’s seen “two or three times”), State of Siege, Sundays and Cybèle, Jigoku, Island of Lost Souls, The Naked Prey, and his optimal double bill: Yukio Mishima‘s Patriotism and...
It’s no surprise that the director, while doing press for Love here in New York City, picked the aforementioned film upon a stop-in at the Criterion Collection closet. His other choices included Seconds (which says he had planned to remake), Pigs, Pimps, and Prostitutes: 3 Films by Shohei Imamura, Master of the House, Safe (a film he’s seen “two or three times”), State of Siege, Sundays and Cybèle, Jigoku, Island of Lost Souls, The Naked Prey, and his optimal double bill: Yukio Mishima‘s Patriotism and...
- 11/5/2015
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
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