Category: Eiga  

Thermae Romae
Eiga

Time-slip bath-related comedy

May 16, 2012 | No Comments | 295 views
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Potechi
Eiga

Quirky and engaging

May 9, 2012 | No Comments | 292 views
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Sentimental Yasuko
Eiga

Passable but flawed thriller

May 2, 2012 | No Comments | 479 views
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Momo E No Tegami
Eiga

Writer/director Hiroyuki Okiura and Production I.G. have produced a winner

Apr 25, 2012 | No Comments | 587 views
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Kotoko
Eiga

Effective and powerful

Apr 11, 2012 | No Comments | 522 views
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Salvage Mice
Eiga

Subpar and silly

Apr 6, 2012 | No Comments | 365 views
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Bokutachi Kyuko A Ressha de Iko
Eiga

The posthumous release of top director Yoshimitsu Morita

Mar 28, 2012 | No Comments | 632 views
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Pray For Japan
Eiga

A not-for-profit doc helping to heal the wounds

Mar 17, 2012 | No Comments | 810 views
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River
Eiga

For those who like quiet, contemplative work

Mar 17, 2012 | No Comments | 430 views
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Ikiteiru Mono wa Inai no ka
Eiga

Atmosphere enough to carry trademark Ishii piece

Mar 5, 2012 | No Comments | 665 views
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Seiji—Riku no Sakana
Eiga

Hope within the ennui of youth

Feb 28, 2012 | No Comments | 519 views
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Kitsutsuki to Ame
Eiga

Treads a fine line between sweet and saccharine

Feb 14, 2012 | No Comments | 668 views
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Dothack: Sekai no mukou ni
Eiga

A guide to what 3-D animation will look like in the future

Feb 10, 2012 | No Comments | 670 views
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Always: Sanchome no Yuhi 64
Eiga

A massively popular film franchise can do wonders for your career

Feb 2, 2012 | No Comments | 816 views
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Himizu
Eiga

Shrill times ten

Jan 19, 2012 | No Comments | 1,153 views
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Rengo Kantai Shirei Chokan: Yamamoto Isoroku
Eiga

Not a bad watch for those interested in a Japanese view of the war

Jan 5, 2012 | No Comments | 1,449 views
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Mitsuko Kankaku
Eiga

Melodramatic but watchable

Dec 21, 2011 | No Comments | 944 views
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Cut
Eiga

A fascinating film provokes a dual reaction

Dec 14, 2011 | No Comments | 1,398 views
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Hard Romanticker
Eiga

Hard-boiled gangland thriller ends on a low

Dec 9, 2011 | No Comments | 627 views
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Hara Ga Kore Nande
Eiga

Comedy about pregnant woman's plight not exactly what it thinks it is

Nov 29, 2011 | No Comments | 736 views
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Yubiwa wo Hametai
Eiga

Balancing comedy and identity search

Nov 25, 2011 | No Comments | 536 views
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Kichijoji no Asahina-kun
Eiga

The kind of film we wish Japan would make more of

Nov 21, 2011 | No Comments | 609 views
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Sarariman NEO
Eiga

Tales of the Super Salaryman

Nov 10, 2011 | No Comments | 812 views
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Shuffle
Eiga

Five bank robbers stuck in a building. Sound like anything?

Nov 3, 2011 | No Comments | 649 views
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Yoake no Machi de
Eiga

Engrossing extra-marital tale, if not an orgy of liberalism

Oct 27, 2011 | No Comments | 1,200 views
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Onna no Kappa
Eiga

Does it cross the border of so-bad-it's-good?

Oct 21, 2011 | No Comments | 1,154 views
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Tengoku Kara no Yell
Eiga

Indie production house Asmik Ace's savior?

Oct 13, 2011 | No Comments | 868 views
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Hayabusa
Eiga

One of three films this year about JAXA's cosmic exploration

Oct 6, 2011 | No Comments | 653 views
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Gokudo meshi
Eiga

Five prison inmates take part in this piece of foody fiction

Sep 28, 2011 | No Comments | 863 views
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Kazoku X
Eiga

Koki Yoshida's jittery portrait of a family suffocated by ennui

Sep 14, 2011 | No Comments | 1,222 views
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Tekken: Blood Vengeance
Eiga

The biggest of the latest craze in videogame adaptations?

Sep 6, 2011 | No Comments | 1,187 views
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Hanezu no Tsuki
Eiga

Fêted director Naomi Kawase's painfully slow affair with nature

Sep 1, 2011 | No Comments | 1,014 views
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Kamisama no Carte
Eiga

Hospital drama with J-pop idol and popular cutie

Aug 26, 2011 | No Comments | 817 views
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Ano Hareta Aozora
Eiga

About a boy. And another boy

Aug 16, 2011 | No Comments | 1,462 views
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Ike! Danshi-Koko Engeki-bu
Eiga

Absurdist new derivation from the high-school genre

Aug 11, 2011 | No Comments | 815 views
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Naruto Shippuden 5: Blood Prison
Eiga

The, count-'em, eighth flick in the Naruto series

Aug 4, 2011 | No Comments | 2,208 views
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Azemichi Jumping
Eiga

Formulaic but feel good kids movie from Fumie Nishikawa

Jul 28, 2011 | No Comments | 1,079 views
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O Shikamura Shoudouki
Eiga

What's up in Jollywood

Jul 22, 2011 | No Comments | 848 views
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Den Dera
Eiga

The story Narayama Bushiko (The Ballad of Narayama) is much loved in Japan. It’s based on the old northern Japan custom of taking elderly people to a mountaintop and leaving them to die once they’ve served their usefulness to society. First a novel by Shichiro Fukuyama in 1956, Narayama Bushiko was made into an acclaimed ...

Jul 15, 2011 | No Comments | 782 views
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Azemichi no Dandy
Eiga

The appearance of a young, exciting filmmaker is something that film critics live for, especially if the auteur exhibits a unique vision and fresh energy that makes film art so enjoyable. Yuya Ishii is one such director. At the tender age of 28 he has made eight films, and already received significant accolades. Kawa no ...

Jul 12, 2011 | No Comments | 546 views
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Saya Zamurai
Eiga

These days I often fret for the future of Japanese film, feeling the originality that has enlivened it is slipping away. And then a filmmaker like Hitoshi Matsumoto appears on the scene. Matsumoto has long been in the Japanese consciousness as half the manzai comic duo Downtown, but in 2007 he started making films, offering ...

Jun 30, 2011 | No Comments | 974 views
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Tokyo Koen
Eiga

In general, Shinji Aoyama has been one of the leading lights of Japanese cinema over the past 15 years. He’s created deep think pieces like Eureka (2000) and the touching Sad Vacation and developed a reputation as a creative force in the industry. Nevertheless, the director has also gone badly wrong at times (2005’s Eli ...

Jun 23, 2011 | No Comments | 738 views
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Kiseki
Eiga

Contrary to what the fanboy set in the US might think, the leading filmmaker in Japan is Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose work is consistently celebrated at Cannes and has won awards around the world. His latest piece comes on the heels of the edgy Air Doll (2009), about a blow-up sex doll that comes to life, ...

Jun 16, 2011 | No Comments | 1,025 views
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My Back Page
Eiga

Director Nobuhiro Yamashita’s film based on the memoir by Saburo Kawamoto comes off as a combination of Koji Wakamatsu’s award-winning United Red Army (2008) and Yukinari Hanawa’s coming-of-age crime drama Hatsukoi (2006). All three period pieces are set in the late 60s and early 70s. Wakamatsu’s work focuses on the true story of student radicals, ...

Jun 9, 2011 | No Comments | 1,140 views
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Tezuka Osamu no Buddha – Akai sabaku yo! Utsukushiku
Eiga

Osamu Tezuka (1929-1989) revolutionized the genre of manga and was the “godfather” of anime, pushing it into the mainstream of Japanese pop culture during his seminal career. He had a number of serialized epic stories for manga and among them was Buddha, on which this film—the first in a trilogy—is based. Simply put, the story ...

Jun 2, 2011 | No Comments | 989 views
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Three Points
Eiga

55-year old indie/experimental director Masashi Yamamoto has been cranking out his own brand of off-beat, challenging and occasionally misguided cinema for 25 years now. The filmmaker often concentrates on Japan’s underground culture, edgy relationships, drugs, thugs, and, of course, gaijin—such as in Junk Food (1999), and the current offering Three Points. The first half intercuts ...

May 26, 2011 | No Comments | 1,578 views
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Okike no Tanoshii Ryokou: Shinkon Jigoku-ken
Eiga

Hot director Ryuichi Honda (GS Wonderland) comes forth with a wacky, surreal comedy in the vein of Kankuro Kudo, king of the genre. Based on a novel by celebrated author Shiro Maeda, this road movie-cum-dreamlike exploration opened the beloved northern Japan Yubari Fantastic Film festival in February. The story centers on Nobu (Yutaka Takenouchi) and ...

May 19, 2011 | No Comments | 840 views
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Hoshi o Ou Kodomo
Eiga

Anime nerds across the world are trembling with excitement at the prospect of a new, feature length work by director/screenwriter/producer/animator Makoto Shinkai. Many see him as the heir apparent to the throne of master Hayao Miyazaki, and in Shinkai’s recent work (5 Centimeters per Second, The Place Promised in Our Early Days), the similarities are ...

May 12, 2011 | No Comments | 2,048 views
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Tofu Kozo
Eiga

Some films have just the right balance of over-the-top silliness, colorful visuals, traditional Japanese folk culture and unique references. Tofu Kozo is one. Based on the Natsuhiko Kyogoku’s novel, the film is a fantastical adventure into the spirit (and human) world of Edo-period Japan with a cuter-than-cute protagonist. Tofu Kozo (Kyoko Fukuda) is a tiny ...

Apr 28, 2011 | No Comments | 1,403 views
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Mahoro Eki mae Tada Benri-ken
Eiga

In a break from the usual manga-based movies which rule Japan these days, this work is an adaptation of Shion Miura’s Naoki Prize-winning novel of the same name, which has sold more than 500,000 copies. As such it has a more literary and existential feel than your usual J-film, and this imagistic style works well ...

Apr 22, 2011 | No Comments | 887 views
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Pink Subaru
Eiga

In the past few years many Japanese filmmakers have traveled overseas and set their films in foreign countries, mostly with disappointing results. In this context, director Kazuya Ogawa’s Pink Subaru is more than refreshing—it’s a revelation. Set in the West Bank and Israel, and mostly in Arabic and Hebrew, Pink Subaru tells the story of ...

Apr 14, 2011 | No Comments | 1,216 views
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High School Debut
Eiga

Ready for another extravaganza of overacting, hyper-vivid colors, loopy jokes and teen melodrama? Well, then, it must be another feature-length, live-action film based on a popular manga. Serialized from 2003-2008, High School Debut was a huge hit as a girls’ comic, with about six million (!) volumes in print. The big-screen treatment treads over the ...

Apr 11, 2011 | No Comments | 1,587 views
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Sekai no Doko ni Demo Aru Basho
Eiga

Fifty-eight-year-old director Kazuki Omori is a long-established and well-thought-of Japanese filmmaker. In 1980, he was one of the first to adapt a Haruki Murakami novel (Kaze no Uta o Kike), and the same year he crafted the successful romantic comedy Disciples of Hippocrates. Both were for the highly respected indie production house Art Theater Guild. ...

Mar 3, 2011 | No Comments | 651 views
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Tsumetai Nettaigyo
Eiga

Now in his late 30s, director Sono Sion—like Koji Wakamatsu and Teruo Ishii before him—is the enfant terrible of Japanese cinema. He won the auspicious Pia Film Festival with Bicycle Sighs in 1989 before debuting the existential art-house flick The Room at Venice Film Fest in ’92. Then his output dwindled until the cult hit ...

Feb 3, 2011 | No Comments | 1,124 views
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Hanabana no Kashitsu
Eiga

French filmmaker Vincent Moon has built up quite a reputation as a director of music documentaries (Little Blue Nothing) and as a cameraman for concert films (All Tomorrow’s Parties). His experimental project The Take-Away Shows, shot for the web, features famous musical acts (R.E.M., Arcade Fire, Sigur Ros and many more) doing improvised performances in ...

Jan 6, 2011 | No Comments | 748 views
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Bakamono
Eiga

This is the second time in less than a month that this column has reviewed a flick focusing on alcoholism. Sadly, Bakamono has little of the sensitivity and subtle use of tone of Yoichi Higashi’s Yoi ga Sametara Uchi ni Kaerou. Instead, we get a sprawling melodrama that takes place over ten years and winds ...

Dec 23, 2010 | No Comments | 936 views
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Norway no Mori
Eiga

This is the long-awaited adaptation of the most famous book from Japan’s best-loved contemporary novelist, Haruki Murakami. Throw in the fact that The Beatles clan uncharacteristically approved the use of the title song and Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead) did the rest of the soundtrack, and you have quite some expectations. Thank the cinema gods, it’s ...

Dec 16, 2010 | 2 Comments | 2,442 views
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Yoi ga Sametara Uchi ni Kaero
Eiga

There have been many great films about alcoholism—The Lost Weekend, Days of Wine and Roses and Leaving Las Vegas are just a few of the classics that spring to mind. Now celebrated director Yoichi Higashi (Berlin film fest Silver Bear winner for Village of Dreams) tosses his hat into the crowded ring with this fine ...

Dec 2, 2010 | No Comments | 1,193 views
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Futatabi: Swing Me Again
Eiga

This film mixes two trusted Japanese genres—shakai mondai (“social issues”) and namida chodai (“tearjerker”)—for an over-the-top tableaux. The social issue is Hansen’s disease (a.k.a. leprosy), specifically how those afflicted by the illness in Japan were deprived of their civil rights and forcibly relocated to sanatoriums. The surviving ex-patients were only allowed back into society in ...

Nov 25, 2010 | No Comments | 1,036 views
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Our Brief Eternity
Eiga

This is the perfect example of a movie that’s way more frustrating than it would be if it were simply bad. Our Brief Eternity has a gripping premise that offers ample opportunity to explore interesting areas of the mind. Indeed, the first 40 minutes are genuinely compelling, but it then wavers and devolves into a ...

Nov 11, 2010 | No Comments | 707 views
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Redline
Eiga

Brought to you by the cutting-edge anime production company Madhouse (Tokyo Godfathers, Paprika), Redline has generated significant buzz thanks to its all-star cast (Takuya Kimura, Yu Aoi, Tadanobu Asano). It’s also become a favorite of anime fans abroad as representative of the next generation of Japanese animation. The blockbuster combines the talent of several filmmakers, ...

Nov 4, 2010 | No Comments | 1,740 views
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Nanase Futatabi
Eiga

Based on the 1975 novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui (who also wrote The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Paprika), this story is so popular that it has served as the basis for no fewer than four TV series. The new film version recruits the super sexy Sei Ashina (Silk, King Game) to play the title ...

Oct 28, 2010 | No Comments | 1,839 views
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Nude
Eiga

The second film about Japan’s AV industry to appear in less than a month (the other being Namae no nai Onnatachi), Nude is a surprisingly well executed work. Based on the eponymous autobiography by porn actress “Mihori,” the film may or may not be entirely factual, but it certainly captures the exhilaration and heartbreak of ...

Oct 14, 2010 | No Comments | 3,559 views
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ANPO: Art X War
Eiga

Remarkable, powerful and unpredictable, this debut work by Japanese film subtitler extraordinaire Linda Hoaglund is a triumph. Ostensibly a documentary that examines the 1960 Tokyo protests against the US-Japan security treaty (“ANPO” in colloquial Japanese), the film approaches its subject through stunning artwork that Hoaglund unearthed in her research. Thus, instead of a dry recitation ...

Oct 7, 2010 | No Comments | 1,318 views
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Night Tokyo Day
Eiga

Director Isabel Coixet (My Life Without Me, The Secret Life of Words, Elegy) has made a number of very good films but, like so many foreign directors who come to Japan, she got seduced by neon, Tokyo cityscapes and lithe women. Shot in the fall and winter of 2008, Night Tokyo Day got loudly booed ...

Sep 30, 2010 | No Comments | 1,491 views
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Namae no nai Onnatachi
Eiga

With Japan’s AV industry cranking out approximately 20,000 new titles a year, the topic of women getting roped into the porn racket is ripe for investigation. Namae no nai Onnatachi, based on the bestselling memoir of the same name by Atsuhiko Nakamura, depicts how one young woman got involved in the industry. It’s a film ...

Sep 23, 2010 | No Comments | 1,710 views
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King Game
Eiga

This laughable piece of tripe uses the age-old technique of taking characters from their normal lives and placing them in an artificially staged situation (think Cube or last year’s Japanese flick Kaiji). In this case, ten people are kidnapped, taken to a Tokyo hotel (or so they think), and forced to play the game of ...

Sep 16, 2010 | No Comments | 977 views
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Tokyo Jima
Eiga

In the early ’50s, legendary Hollywood director Josef von Sternberg became obsessed with the story of Kazuko Higa, a young Japanese woman whose life on a remote Pacific island was turned upside down after the arrival of 30 Japanese soldiers. Although World War II soon ends, these soldiers refused to surrender, and they soon began ...

Sep 9, 2010 | No Comments | 1,729 views
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Hana to Hebi 3
Eiga

The Hana to Hebi film series holds a special place in Japanese cinematic history. The first movie, a roman porno work released in 1974, was adapted from Oniroku Dan’s series of novels, and it starred the genre-leading actress Naomi Tani. Though the film was a huge hit, friction between Dan and the Nikkatsu film studio ...

Sep 2, 2010 | No Comments | 3,727 views
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Neck
Eiga

This bizarre piece of comedy-horror is pretty far off the wall, and only marginally funny. It starts with a vignette of Sugina (Sumina Teramoto) as a bratty child who delights in frightening her friends. Years later, she’s a graduate student (portrayed by Saki Aibu) at a respected university, where her highly prized work consists of ...

Aug 26, 2010 | No Comments | 1,142 views
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Caterpillar
Eiga

Koji Wakamatsu’s films from the 1960s were plotless orgies of sex and violence (and sexual violence). They shocked, mystified and scandalized the entire country, never more so than when Affairs within Walls (1965) became one of the first Japanese films to be accepted at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival. In fact, Wakamatsu’s entire oeuvre reflects ...

Aug 19, 2010 | No Comments | 1,835 views
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Mitsubachi Hachi
Eiga

Based on the’70s TV series of the same name, Mitsubachi Hachi is fresh off a successful screening at Italy’s renowned Giffoni children’s film festival. For this idyllically beautiful effort, Tatsunoko Productions has put together a first-class team that includes Okuribito scriptwriter Kundo Koyama and Macross 7 director Tetsuro Amino. Though nature is depicted in a ...

Aug 12, 2010 | No Comments | 1,447 views
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Chonmage Purin
Eiga

The Japanese film industry has a weakness for “time slip” films, so it’s not surprising that even a quirky and inventive director like Yoshihiro Nakamura (Golden Slumber, Fish Story) would throw himself into the genre—albeit in a typically idiosyncratic way. Based on a novel by Gen Araki, Chonmage Purin offers a new take on the ...

Aug 5, 2010 | No Comments | 2,172 views
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Awaremi Mumashika
Eiga

Awaremi Mumashika calls to mind recent comedies by Satoshi Miki (Instant Numa) and Kankuro Kudo (No More Cry), in which oddball characters come together in wacky, convoluted situations that play out in a humorous, often anarchic manner. So it is in this farce by director Kentaro Matsuda, which was made last year but is just ...

Jul 29, 2010 | No Comments | 922 views
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TORSO
Eiga

This column has long championed Hirokazu Kore-eda as the best Japanese filmmaker working today, so Torso—the directorial debut by longtime Kore-eda cinematographer Yutaka Yamazaki—aroused much anticipation. Somewhat akin to the American movie Lars and the Real Girl (about a man in love with a life-sized doll) or, on the home front, Nagisa Oshima’s Max Mon ...

Jul 22, 2010 | No Comments | 1,033 views
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Karigurashi no Arrietty
Eiga

Whenever Studio Ghibli releases a film these days, it’s a national event—even if the film is not directed by Hayao Miyazaki and is essentially a remake. Karigurashi no Arrietty, helmed by veteran Ghibli animator Hiromasa Yonebayashi, is a reworking of the 1997 British live-action flick The Borrowers, but nonetheless comes across as a fine, entertaining ...

Jul 15, 2010 | No Comments | 2,035 views
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Torocco
Eiga

Of all Japan’s wartime colonies, Taiwan feels the least bitterness towards its former occupier (which is not to say there’s none at all). It’s fitting, then, that this film, based on a short story by literary giant Ryunosuke Akutagawa, should be transposed to Taiwan from its original setting on Izu. After losing her Taiwanese husband, ...

Jul 8, 2010 | No Comments | 1,052 views
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Acacia
Eiga

Jinsei Tsuji is as close as Japan gets to a renaissance man. A longtime rock vocalist, he’s also an award-winning novelist, a screenwriter, and yes, a film director. His latest effort, which premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival last year, is a sweet story about a retired pro wrestler named Daimajin (Atonio Inoki) who ...

Jul 1, 2010 | No Comments | 1,256 views
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Matataki
Eiga

A curious feature of Japanese cinema is that themes get repeated in mini-cycles—recently, for instance, we’ve had a cluster of films dealing with amnesia (though I can’t remember enough movies to be sure!). The latest is Matataki, in which Izumi (Keiko Kitagawa) has lost her memory in a motorcycle accident that killed her cute, artistic ...

Jun 24, 2010 | No Comments | 1,685 views
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Kenta to Jun to Kayo-chan no Kuni
Eiga

Occasional actor Tatsushi Omori (son of dance legend Akaji Maro) burst onto the directing scene with his brutal but compelling 2005 masterpiece Gerumaniumu no Yoru (“The Whispering of the Gods”). It was, without a doubt, the most sensational directorial debut in a decade but this follow-up is disappointing. Kenta (Shota Masuda) and Jun (Kengo Kora) ...

Jun 17, 2010 | No Comments | 1,499 views
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Outrage
Eiga

When Japan’s leading comedian Beat Takeshi decided to become a film director in the late ’80s (under his real name, Takeshi Kitano), he specialized in gritty, deadpan, hyper-violent yakuza flicks. Those early films—Violent Cop, Boiling Point and Sonatine—won rave reviews at home and abroad. Kitano’s oeuvre then bounced around from melodrama to slapstick comedy and, ...

Jun 10, 2010 | No Comments | 1,500 views
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Kokou no Mesu
Eiga

Based on the successful novel of the same name, Kokou no Mesu explores medical corruption and the politics of patient care. It’s set in 1989, a time when liver transplants from brain-dead donors were legal around the world—but not in Japan. After losing his mother following a botched diagnosis, surgeon Toma (Shinichi Tsutsumi) becomes entirely ...

Jun 3, 2010 | No Comments | 1,558 views
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Permanent Nobara
Eiga

Japanese films set in the idyllic countryside are a distinct genre—one whose blend of melodrama and nostalgia usually leaves all but the most ardent followers cold. Permanent Nobara is no exception. Talented director Daihachi Yoshida, fresh off his award-winning con-man comedy Kuhio Taisa (2009), here offers up a simpering dud. Set in Yoshida’s home prefecture ...

May 27, 2010 | No Comments | 1,290 views
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Rendezvous
Eiga

If you ever wanted to see the cinematic equivalent of a J-pop song, here’s your chance. Rendezvous floats along with a heavy dose of cloying cuteness, clever but predictable hooks, and a faint whiff of energy. Meguru (Misaki Uno from the J-pop group AAA) is an aspiring actress whose career is going nowhere. On the ...

May 20, 2010 | No Comments | 1,024 views
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Kawa no Soko Kara Konnichiwa
Eiga

The PIA Film Festival has a wonderful tradition of supporting young Japanese filmmakers, and this flick is the 19th in a long line of fine movies made with PFF scholarship money. Sawako (Hikaru Mitsushima) is a bumbling Tokyo 20-something with no dreams, no aspirations and no talents. She gleefully accepts her ineptitude but is forced ...

May 13, 2010 | No Comments | 1,339 views
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Bushido 16
Eiga

This high school drama, based on a manga of the same name by Tetsuya Honda, is a re-imaging of the old samurai chambara film genre for the Hello Kitty crowd. Sixteen-year-old kendo champion Kaori (the quite cute Riko Narumi) has been trained by her sensei father since childhood, but when classmate and neophyte kendo student ...

May 6, 2010 | No Comments | 1,777 views
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Teidakan- kan
Eiga

Though many fine films have been set in Okinawa (Shohei Imamura’s 1968 effort Kamigami Fukaki Yokubo and Go Takamine’s Untamagiru from 1989 spring to mind), the recent trend has been towards poorly made movies that trade on the islands’ natural beauty—like last year’s wretched Minami no Shima no Furimun. Teidakankan doesn’t plummet to those depths, ...

Apr 29, 2010 | No Comments | 1,207 views
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Nigai Mitsu
Eiga

Sometime actor Yukinori Kameda takes a stab at directing an old fashioned mystery—and does a pretty decent job of it. In the grand tradition of Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen (both of whom are referenced in the opening scenes), Nigai Mitsu is an ensemble drama in which all the principals are gathered in a room ...

Apr 22, 2010 | No Comments | 1,229 views
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Solanin
Eiga

Like recent films Kakera and Miyoko Asagaya Kibun, Solanin is based on a popular manga that deals with youngsters facing the challenges of life. Unlike those somewhat gritty and realistic flicks, though, this one indulges in corny melodrama, even if it does manage to build some dramatic velocity. Twenty-something OL Meiko (the über-cute Aoi Miyazaki) ...

Apr 15, 2010 | No Comments | 2,141 views
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Darling wa Gaikokujin
Eiga

Most films reviewed in this column have little direct relevance to the lives of expats in Japan. Not this one. Based on a well-known manga series by Saori Oguri (see Books, page 19), Darling wa Gaikokujin addresses a bevy of cross-cultural issues in its account of a binational romance. Director Kazuaki Ue also gives the ...

Apr 8, 2010 | No Comments | 2,119 views
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Kakera
Eiga

It’s not often that a new filmmaker comes along with a pedigree like Momoko Ando’s. Her father is the legendary actor/director Eiji Okuda, her mother the essayist Kazu Ando, and her sister the rising-star actress Sakura Ando. Momoko studied film production at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, and her debut work is ...

Mar 30, 2010 | No Comments | 1,505 views
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Dareka ga Watashi ni Kisu wo Shita
Eiga

American director Hans Canosa has made a name for himself as a filmmaker who takes chances. His brilliant Conversations with Other Women (2005) was shot entirely in split screen, and in Dareka ga Watashi ni Kisu wo Shita, he takes the celebrated novel Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac (by screenwriting collaborator Gabrielle Zevin) and transposes ...

Mar 25, 2010 | No Comments | 2,747 views
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Doraemon Nobita no Ningyo Daikaisen
Eiga

The Doraemon industry is still going strong—the animated TV show about a robotic cat from future has been on the air for 40 years, and a new feature film is released every year during spring break. Doraemon Nobita no Ningyo Daikaisen, the 30th in the series, takes place mainly under the sea: when his schoolboy ...

Mar 18, 2010 | No Comments | 3,830 views
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Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo
Eiga

Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo is one of those stories that refuses to fade from Japanese popular culture. The original novel, by Yasutaka Tsutsui, was serialized in 1965-66 to huge popular acclaim. Since then, there have been two hit TV series, two live-action feature films (plus a made-for-TV one) and a highly regarded anime version. You’d ...

Mar 10, 2010 | No Comments | 4,233 views
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Kotoba no nai Fuyu
Eiga

It’s fitting for a film with the title Kotoba no nai Fuyu (literally, “Wordless Winter”) to be a quiet, lilting work that offers bursts of emotional intensity. Fusako (Saki Takaoka) works at a stable and lives with her father (Toshiyuki Kitami), a pharmacist, in a rural Hokkaido town. A natural beauty, she fears her youth ...

Mar 3, 2010 | No Comments | 1,709 views
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Parade
Eiga

Well-known director Isao Yukisada (Go; Crying out Love, In the Center of the World) returns with a flick based on a book by award-winning novelist Shuichi Yoshida. Four twentysomethings live together in a 2LDK in Setagaya-ku and pursue their various interests: Kotomi (Shihori Kanjiya) is a failing actress who’s in love with a busy soap ...

Feb 24, 2010 | No Comments | 1,451 views
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Yellow Kid
Eiga

There are films which seem to have potential but are just a little misguided, and then there are others which are truly frustrating. This work falls into the latter category. Director Tetsuya Mariko made this as a graduation project at the Tokyo University of the Arts, taking Richard F. Outcault’s eponymous 19th century comic as ...

Feb 18, 2010 | No Comments | 1,112 views
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Subete wa Umi ni Naru
Eiga

It’s always exciting to see the emergence of a talented new filmmaker, and that’s just the case with Akane Yamada and her debut effort Subete wa Umi ni Naru. Yamada wrote the screenplay for the inventive supernatural thriller Tea Fight (2008), but this work has significantly more emotional depth. Cute and intelligent bookstore clerk Natsuki ...

Feb 11, 2010 | No Comments | 1,971 views
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Golden Slumber
Eiga

Director Yoshihiro Nakamura’s Fish Story was my number one pick for 2009, and the talented auteur is back at it with this compelling film. Golden Slumber is successful on many levels—as a thriller, as stinging political commentary and as human drama, among others. Aoyagi (Masato Sakai) is an easygoing, somewhat naive deliveryman who had a ...

Feb 4, 2010 | No Comments | 1,624 views
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Yuki & Nina
Eiga

Co-directed by acclaimed Japanese auteur Nobuhiro Suwa and French actor/director Hippolyte Girardot, this finely crafted film is one of the few recent international collaborations to bring out the best in everyone involved. Yuki (Noë Sampy) is a 9-year-old-girl living in Paris with her Japanese mother (Tsuyu) and French father (Girardot). Her idyllic world with best ...

Jan 28, 2010 | No Comments | 1,330 views
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Sayonara Itsuka
Eiga

This film, an international collaboration with director Korean John H. Lee, serves as the comeback vehicle for talented actress Miho Nakayama. Unfortunately, the script is so weak and the tear-jerking so ham-fisted that the project is a total failure. Set in 1975, Sayonara Itsuka follows Yutaka (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a Japanese businessman who is engaged to ...

Jan 21, 2010 | No Comments | 2,205 views
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Himitsu Kessha Taka no Tsume The Movie 3
Eiga

This wacky animated flick is high on novelty value. Like South Park, it’s a crudely put-together cartoon that started out as an underground hit, then moved to TV and film. Creator Frogman (a.k.a. Ryo Ono), who also does almost all of the voices, uses Flash animation for that distinctive webpage adornment/super-cheesy look. The visuals are ...

Jan 12, 2010 | No Comments | 1,678 views
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Live Tape
Eiga

The idea of making a film comprised of a single continuous shot has been tried numerous times, perhaps most impressively in Aleksandr Sokurov’s highly praised Russian Ark (2003). But director Tetsuaki Matsue and musician Kenta Maeda apparently didn’t get the memo. This concert film/documentary shows Maeda walking from Kichijoji Hachiman Shrine to Inokashira Park on ...

Jan 7, 2010 | No Comments | 3,441 views
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Top 10 Japanese Films of the Decade
Eiga

1. Dare mo Shiranai (2004) Hirokazu Koreeda has never been more in control of his craft than with this thoroughly compelling drama of children who must fend for themselves after being deserted by their mother. The denouement is simultaneously understated and overwhelming. Fourteen-year-old Yuya Yagira deservedly walked away from Cannes with the Best Actor award ...

Dec 24, 2009 | 7 Comments | 16,438 views
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Yomigaeri no Chi
Eiga

Toshiaki Toyoda is one of the most interesting and talented directors to emerge from Japan in the last ten years. His fresh and vibrant Pornostar (1998) announced the arrival of a new talent, and many critics (this reviewer excepted) praised his violent dystopia Aoi Haru (2002). Toyoda’s career was put on hold following a drug ...

Dec 15, 2009 | No Comments | 2,050 views
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Zero Nendai Zenkei
Eiga

This omnibus work attempts to capture the zeitgeist of the oughts by presenting three self-contained films from a trio of directors. Kumiko Hoshizaki’s “Akane Sasu Heya” is the story of Maki, a 20-something temp who is sick of her boring job and life in general. The rather bizarre solution she comes up with is to ...

Dec 10, 2009 | No Comments | 1,149 views
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Gin Iro no Ame
Eiga

For his fourth film, director Takayuki Suzui (Angel in the Box) adapts a short story by popular writer Jiro Asada (Poppoya). Despite problems with the setup, Gin Iro no Ame offers an interesting plot. Kazuya (Kento Kaku) is a track and field star at his high school in Shimane and an all-around good kid. Yet ...

Dec 3, 2009 | No Comments | 1,984 views
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Nakinagara Ikite
Eiga

The direct translation of Nakinagara Ikite is “living while crying,” and at times it seems this film’s raison d’etre is to make everyone in it, and the audience, break down in tears. That said, the documentary—which was shot over a 15-year-period and originally aired as a series on Fuji TV—is a compelling project. It tells ...

Nov 26, 2009 | No Comments | 1,697 views
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Magare! Supun
Eiga

Director Katsuyuki Motohiro is best known for the phenomenally successful action series Odaru Daisosasen (“Bayside Shakedown”), but he also does pretty well with comedy. Although Summer Time Machine Blues (2005) was a dud, Motohiro has crafted a winner with Magare! Supun, which premiered at last month’s Tokyo International Film Fest. Yone (Masami Nagasawa) is the ...

Nov 19, 2009 | No Comments | 2,700 views
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Watashi Dasu Wa
Eiga

During the past 25 years, writer-director Yoshimitsu Morita has been one of the stalwarts of Japanese cinema. In 1983, he burst out of his “pink” (soft-core porn) past and into the mainstream with the deliciously ironic and satirical The Family Game. Since then, he’s made everything from melodramas and comedies to horror flicks. Morita’s 2006 ...

Nov 12, 2009 | No Comments | 1,860 views
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Shizumanu Taiyo
Eiga

Sometimes you run across a movie that makes you scratch your head and wonder how the director failed to realize he or she was making something nearly unwatchable. That’s the case with Setsuro Wakamatsu’s three-hour and twenty-minute drama Shizumanu Taiyo. The movie is based on the real-life case of a JAL employee who (eventually) gets ...

Nov 5, 2009 | No Comments | 2,797 views
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Sideways
Eiga

The original US version of Sideways (2004) was a charming film with a tour-de-force performance by the inimitable Paul Giamatti. This begs the question: why redo it? Although that query hangs in the air with all remakes, this fish-out-of-water tale is actually a pretty good film. Scriptwriting teacher and aspiring TV writer Michio (Fumiyo Kohinata) ...

Oct 28, 2009 | One Comment | 2,548 views
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Pandora no Hako
Eiga

Osamu Dazai was one of the postwar Japanese authors who set the stage for the country to emerge as a major force in contemporary fiction. This year, the centenary of his birth, sees three of his novels hitting the big screen. Shayo, Dazai’s take on the decline of the aristocracy, was released earlier in the ...

Oct 21, 2009 | No Comments | 1,584 views
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Kaiji
Eiga

Despite the fact that this film is full of laughable overacting and weighted down with an overwrought scenario (the main character spends a full 30 minutes on a beam between two skyscrapers), there is a fascinating (perhaps unintentional) critique of materialist society here. Kaiji Ito (Tetsuya Fujiwara) is a lonely freeta working at a local ...

Oct 14, 2009 | No Comments | 3,510 views
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Robo Geisha
Eiga

This new work by hyper-tacky director Noboru Iguchi is more of the same lewd comedy-splatter that we’ve come to expect. (In terms of taste, all you need to know about Iguchi is that he once made a film about a high school girl who develops giant male genitalia that she’s unable to hide!) Robo Geisha ...

Oct 7, 2009 | No Comments | 3,234 views
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Kuki Ningyo
Eiga

Vying for the title of Best Living Japanese Filmmaker are Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Hirokazu Kore-eda. Both of their most recent works, Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata and Kore-eda’s Aruitemo, Aruitemo (“Still Walking”), were near-masterpieces. Now Kore-eda unveils Kuki Ningyo, a project he started working on before Aruitemo, Aruitemo, but which he shelved to shoot that more personal ...

Sep 30, 2009 | No Comments | 2,505 views
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Killer Virgin Road
Eiga

Talented writer/directors like Satoshi Miki (Tenten) and Kankuro Kudo (The Shonen Merikensack) have ushered in an era of Japanese comedy where surreal visuals, a frenetic pace and all manner of pop references prevail. But unless one is as creative and gifted as those two filmmakers, the genre becomes an absurd hodgepodge that’s seldom funny. This ...

Sep 25, 2009 | No Comments | 2,329 views
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Pool
Eiga

Much like Naomi Kawase’s 2008 film Nanayomachi, Pool is a slow, contemplative effort that pays more attention to mood than plot or character development. This kind of movie can be engaging if done well, but Pool falls shy of the mark. Sayo (Kana) arrives in Thailand to visit the luxurious guesthouse near Chiang Mai run ...

Sep 18, 2009 | No Comments | 2,212 views
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Hakujitsumu
Eiga

This rather standard psychological thriller is of interest chiefly because of its pedigree—the original story is by the esteemed novelist Junichiro Tanizaki. The first film version appeared in 1964, when Tetsuji Takechi, then a well-known theater director, decided to try his hand at making pinku (soft-core porn) flicks. Thus, Takechi’s second career was born. In ...

Sep 11, 2009 | No Comments | 2,207 views
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Minami no Shima no Furimun
Eiga

Just in time for, um, fall (oops) comes this summer tale set in Okinawa, whose title translates something like “Idiot of the Southern Islands.” The debut directorial effort of popular comedian Gori is a tale of a pig farmer who falls in love with a foreign-born pole-dancer. As with many films set in Okinawa (though ...

Sep 3, 2009 | No Comments | 2,159 views
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Niju Seiki Shonen: Saishu-sho ~ Bokura no Hata
Eiga

This film is the final part of a trilogy that is based on a hugely popular manga of the same name. At ¥6 billion, the production has been one of the costliest in Japan’s history, and the first installment of the film series in 2008 was a huge success, raking in at least ¥3.85 billion. ...

Aug 21, 2009 | No Comments | 2,561 views
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