The Tribeca Film Festival has announced nominees for this year’s installment, to be held April 18- 29 in New York. Interestingly, two of the works in the lineup were made in Japan by non-Japanese directors. In the short documentary competition is Scenes From A Visit To Japan (pictured), by NYC-based experimental filmmaker Joel Schlemowitz, who ...
British documentarian Lucy Walker [pictured] has been busy forging bonds with Japan. The director was planning a piece on the cherry blossom season in Japan when the March 11 earthquake and tsunami struck. After having doubts as to whether she should carry on with the project, Walker and co-director Kira Carstensen travelled to Miyagi to ...
Most Japanese filmmakers aim to have their works screened overseas, but that rarely happens even with big budgets and household-name stars. However, director Keiichi Kobayashi is seeing the dream come true with a low-budget, black-and-white debut starring first-time actors. About the Pink Sky tells the story of three high-school girls whose lives take an unexpected ...
Author Keigo Higashino is known for his prize-winning work in the mystery genre, with novels such as Himitsu (“Secret”), which was published in English under the title Naoko. To date a half dozen of his thrillers have been turned into Japanese films. In 2008 the writer branched out with his first romantic drama, Yoake no ...
Director Shuichi Okita currently has his hands full as he directs the comedy pairing of veteran actor Koji Yakusho (Babel; Memoirs of a Geisha; Shall We Dance?) with young star Shun Oguri (Surely Someday; Snakes and Earrings). The film, which has a working title of Kitsutsuki to Ame (“The Woodpecker and The Rain”), has Yakusho ...
Fantasy film fans have been drooling over the cast list for director Tim Burton’s upcoming adaptation of the classic British TV show Dark Shadows. The first actor attached to the project was Burton regular Johnny Depp, who has said it was a “childhood dream” to play the centuries-old vampire Barnabas Collins. The roster has expanded ...
The tenth annual Tribeca Film Festival will be held in lower Manhattan, April 20-May 1. Founded in 2002 by actor Robert De Niro, film producer Jane Rosenthal and her husband, real estate tycoon Craig Hatkoff, the festival was established to support New York following the 9/11 attacks and has generated an estimated $600 million in ...
News of Hollywood support for earthquake relief continues to pour in. Actress Sandra Bullock (pictured), who had previously donated to aid efforts following the 2004 Asian tsunami, the New Orleans flood, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake, pledged $1 million to the American Red Cross for disaster relief in Japan. “This contribution is vitally important as ...
The earthquake and tsunami of March 11 have affected nearly every industry in Japan. Although they hardly seem a concern as the scope of the destruction continues to be understood, the domestic and international movie industries are no exception. Hollywood news site The Wrap reported that the international market for American films was down 60% ...
If you were going to start a film fest, where would be your ideal location? Some tropical paradise, probably. That’s exactly what Yoshimoto Kogyo, a major management company specializing in comedians, thought when they founded the Okinawa International Movie Festival two years ago. Yoshimoto, naturally, wanted to focus on comedies, but they also wanted to ...
It feels like there’s been nothing but bad news lately for cinema fans in Tokyo, with Ebisu Garden Cinema and Shibuya’s Cine Saison both calling it quits. But new hope has arrived in the form of the Kinohaus complex in Shibuya (1-5 Maruyamacho, Shibuya-ku). The building was already home to two cinemas—Eurospace, which focuses on ...
Up-and-coming actors Junpei Mizobata and Ito Ono (pictured) are set to get even bigger with the release of High School Debut, based on the hit teen manga by Kazune Kawahara. Ono plays a star softball player who is coached on how to attract guys by the coolest boy in school, played by Mizobata. At the ...
The Independent Spirit Awards, which honors films made without major studio funding, was held on February 26 in Los Angeles. The “Acura Someone to Watch” award went to upcoming director Mike Ott for his film Littlerock, about Japanese siblings who get lost during a road trip through California, but make friends despite the language barrier.
The stars came out for the 34th annual Japan Academy Prize ceremony, Japan’s equivalent of the Oscars, held on February 18 at the Takanawa Grand Prince Hotel. The dark thrillers Kokuhaku (“Confessions”) and Akunin (“Villain”) were the big winners, with Kokuhaku director Tetsuya Nakashima taking home no fewer than three gold statues. “This means I ...
Actors Yosuke Eguchi and Yu Aoi are enjoying the sweet life with the success of their new film, Patisserie Coin de Rue, which just picked up the “East Meets West” award at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. Eguchi (Tokyo Love Story, Goemon) plays a famous pastry chef who is hiding a dark secret, until a ...
Aoi also has a role in another upcoming film, this one an international production. Japanese auteur director Shunji Iwai’s American-set psychological horror flick Vampire had its world premiere at the recent Sundance Film Festival. Iwai previously contributed a segment to the movie New York, I Love You, but this is his first full-length film in ...
Director Atsushi Ogata’s debut feature, Wakiyaku Monogatari (English title: Cast Me If You Can), attracted a good deal of attention at the 13th California Independent Film Festival this month. The film, which tells the story of a supporting actor who lands the lead in a Japanese remake of a Woody Allen comedy, was nominated for ...
Japanese screenwriter and director Masahiro Kobayashi screened his latest work, Haru’s Journey, at the recent 40th Rotterdam International Film Festival. The film stars frequent Akira Kurosawa collaborator Tatsuya Nakadai as a Hokkaido fisherman who embarks on a road trip. Yahoo! Movies reports that Kobayashi had an amusing story to share at the screening: when the ...
Popular actors Satoshi Tsumabuki (left) and Kenichi Matsuyama will appear together for the first time in the upcoming movie My Back Pages. Named after a song by Bob Dylan, the film tells the story of two idealistic journalists covering the social unrest in late-’60s Japan. Matsuyama, known as Matsuken to his fans, got his start ...
Sci-fi fans can look forward to more of the Ghost in The Shell franchise, which began as a manga in 1989 and was followed by two TV series and three films, including a highly lauded 1995 animated movie by Mamoru Oshii. The third film, Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. Solid State Society, was first released ...
Mana Ashida, who at the tender age of 6 has already built an impressive acting resume, is one of the human stars of All About My Dog 2, the sequel to the 2005 film that also spawned a TV series. The pint-sized actress and 38 four-legged extras from the movie took part in a promotional ...
In the ’90s, Pokemon and friends made international headlines when teachers banned students from bringing anime-related game cards to school. Now overseas educators are embracing anime and illustration from Japan. The 40th edition of the Rotterdam International Film Festival, being held this week in the Dutch city, includes a program aimed at introducing movies to ...
The Japanese film Into the White Night has been selected to screen in the “Panorama” program of the 61st Berlin Film Festival, to be held in the German capital February 10-20. Based on the bestselling novel by Keigo Higashino, the mystery thriller stars Eiichiro Funakoshi, Maki Horikita and Kengo Kora (pictured). The story, which tells ...
The internet has been abuzz with speculation about a possible third film in the Ghostbusters franchise. The sticking point? Star Bill Murray’s willingness to commit to the project. Ivan Reitman, who produced and directed the first two Ghostbusters films in 1984 and 1989, told US website ComingSoon.net: “There have been all kinds of chatter online ...
Celebrated American actor Robert De Niro has been named the president of the jury for the 64th Cannes Film Festival, which will be held May 11-22. The Untouchables star is no stranger to Cannes—he first visited in 1976, when the Martin Scorsese-directed Taxi Driver won the prestigious Palme d’Or award, and he returned to head ...
After a strike threatened to move the production out of New Zealand, Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit is back on track, and filming on the digital 3D fantasy epic is set to begin next month. The film, a prequel to Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, will be released in two parts. Martin Freeman, best known ...
Oliver Stone is finally getting closer to completing a new film about the Vietnam War. The 64-year-old director (right), who served as a soldier in the US Army during the war, went on to direct a trilogy of films about Vietnam: Platoon (1986), Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and Heaven & Earth (1993). ...
It looks like 2011 will be the year of the sequel. Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law return to the big screen for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes 2, and Zach Galifianakis will appear in The Hangover Part II. Director Brad Peyton is filming Journey to the Center of the Earth 2, although star Brendan Fraser ...
Director Tim Burton and his favorite actor, Johnny Depp (pictured), have confirmed rumors that had long been circulating online: they will collaborate on a big-screen remake of the British TV program Dark Shadows. The classic show first aired in 1966, weaving elements of gothic horror into a soap opera format. After a slow start, it ...
Yebisu Garden Cinema in Ebisu has announced that it will draw the curtains for the final time on January 28. The two-screen art house, which is part of the upscale Yebisu Garden complex, opened in 1994 with Robert Altman’s Short Cuts (1993). It went on to become the Japanese home away from home for films ...
Word is out that Bruce Willis will star in a new Die Hard film. The 55-year-old actor revealed in a recent MTV interview that shooting on the fifth movie in the action franchise, which launched his big-screen career in 1989, will begin next year. “They’re making a couple of changes to the script right now, ...
Mie-based entertainment consultants Winery Productions have provided behind-the-scenes services for Japanese TV and films for over a decade. Now, they’re getting in front of the camera by developing content for Japanese and overseas markets. To launch this new phase, the Winery team has been busy lining up a number of properties, including Gregory Hadley’s 2007 ...
The assassination of US President John F Kennedy in November 1963 has been the focus of many a conspiracy theory in books and films. Now, Leonardo DiCaprio is throwing his hat into the ring. According to E! Online, DiCaprio’s production company has landed the film rights to Legacy of Secrecy, a book that claims the ...
Arashi member Kazunari Ninomiya, perhaps best known to overseas audiences for his role in Clint Eastwood’s Letters From Iwo Jima, and Death Note actor Kenichi Matsuyama will star together in the forthcoming movie Gantz. Based on Hiroya Oku’s manga and anime of the same name, the film tells the story of friends who die in ...
The film adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood had its Japan premiere at the author’s alma mater of Waseda University late last month. Joining Vietnamese-French director Tran Anh Hung (The Scent of Green Papaya) on the red carpet were stars Kenichi Matsuyama (Death Note; right) and Rinko Kikuchi (Babel; far right), as well as other ...
With Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 opening around the world simultaneously, the series’ youthful stars fanned out on publicity tours. Japan played host to Rupert Grint (who portrays Ron Weasley), Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley) and Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood). During their visit, the trio made stage appearances and greeted supporters in Tokyo, ...
Saipan was one of the last battlegrounds in World War II, and a new film looks at a little known episode of the clash. Taiheiyo no Kiseki: Fox to Yobareta Otoko (“Miracle in the Pacific: A Man Called Fox”) tells the story of 47 Japanese soldiers who held out against US forces before finally surrendering ...
Japanese audiences had to wait a while longer than everyone else to see Twilight: Eclipse, but now that the film has finally arrived, fans are eagerly awaiting the final installment in the vampire-werewolf romance saga. Filming of Twilight 4: Breaking Dawn has already begun in Rio de Janeiro, where the locals apparently haven’t taken kindly ...
Things just keep getting better for “ugly but cute” dog Wasao. After shooting to fame on the back of blog articles and TV variety shows, the lovable mutt is getting a movie of his own, due for release next March. “He is very set in his ways,” director Yoshinari Nishikori (Railways) said of the canine ...
The first day of the 23rd Tokyo International Film Festival, which brought nearly 200 films to Toho Cinema Roppongi Hills and surrounding venues last month, was marred by a political spat. It was rumored the Chinese delegation insisted that their counterparts from Taiwan be introduced as from “Chinese Taipei,” prompting the Taiwanese, including Vivian Hsu ...
Popular actress Kyoko Fukada (Kamikaze Girls) will appear in the TV drama Phantom Night, based on the bestseller by popular novelist Keiko Higashino. The story is about the Machiavellian machinations of Mifuyu Shinkai, a woman who will stop at nothing and use any man she can to achieve her ambitions. “It was a tough role,” ...
Steven Spielberg, who is finishing his World War I drama War Horse, will return to science fiction with a film called Robopocalypse. According to The Hollywood Reporter, production on the post-apocalyptic thriller will begin in January 2012 for release the following year through Disney’s Touchstone studio. Apparently Robopocalypse was on the list of projects Spielberg ...
Samurai films are making something of a comeback in Japan—and the trend is sweeping abroad as well. Recently, the director and two stars of the Warner Bros-produced Saigo no Chushingura (titled The Last Ronin for its US release) attended a preview screening in LA. According to local media, director Shigemichi Sugita (Last Song), 67, and ...
Director Satoru Hirohara has won the 17th annual Dragons & Tigers Award for Young Cinema at the Vancouver International Film Festival. Hirohara’s Good Morning to the World! is about a high school boy who tries to discover the circumstances that led a man to become homeless. The 23-year-old director made the movie as his graduation ...
The year 2012 is going to be huge for blockbuster re-releases in 3D. James Cameron will bring back his epic Titanic to theaters in April 2012 to mark the 100th anniversary of the ship’s sinking in icy Atlantic waters. Titanic, which had its world premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival in 1997, was the ...
Aya Ueto, 25, and Hiroki Narimiya, 28, will be supplying the voices for the Japanese-language version of the upcoming vampire movie, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. In the movie, which opens in Japan on Nov 6, Ueto (above) voices Bella Swan, the female love interest of the good vampire Edward Cullen, voiced by Narimiya (Yankee-kun to ...
Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, David Lynch’s Eraserhead and George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead are the top three in the Online Film Critics Society’s selection of the 100 best, first feature films, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The top 10 also includes The Maltese Falcon by John Huston, Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Sidney ...
The number of Western movies subtitled in Japanese is rapidly declining amid a growing preference for dubbing and the increasing popularity of 3D movies, Kyodo News reports, citing figures from the Foreign Film Importer-Distributors Association of Japan. About 40 percent of the theaters that showed Avatar, for example, used the dubbed version of the hit ...
Cult director Takashi Miike, who has made more than 80 films, says there’s nothing like a cinematic bloodbath to help today’s younger generation learn about history. The world got its first look at Miike’s latest film, Thirteen Assassins, during the recent Venice Film Festival. Set in the 19th century, the movie is a remake of ...
Tetsuya Nakashima’s Confessions, starring popular actress Takako Matsu, has been nominated as Japan’s candidate for the best foreign-language film category at the 2011 Oscars. Based on a bestselling novel, the movie is about a junior high school teacher, played by Matsu, who plots revenge on two of her students after they kill her young daughter. ...
Takeshi Kitano, 63, has announced that he’s making a sequel to his latest film, Outrage. The follow-up to the violent yakuza movie, due to open in autumn 2011, will be the first time he has directed a sequel to one of his films. Known for starring in his own movies, Kitano gave a wild performance ...
It’s the Dude taking over from the Duke. Jeff Bridges will portray one-eyed US Marshall Rooster Cogburn—a role for which John Wayne won the Best Actor Oscar in 1968—in the Coen brothers’ remake of the Western True Grit. The film, which costars Matt Damon and Josh Brolin, is due out toward the end of the ...
The organizers of the 23rd Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) will honor the king of Asian action movies, Bruce Lee as part of this year’s program. Titled “The 70th Anniversary: Bruce Lee to the Future,” the special tribute will feature a screening of Lee’s most successful film, Enter the Dragon, and his last, Game of ...
A documentary detailing the effects of Japan’s 1960 security treaty with the United States is set for release on September 18. Director Linda Hoaglund, a Japan-born American who describes the bilateral ties under the treaty as “unnatural,” says she will be happy if Anpo offers viewers “a chance to think about what kind of future ...
Smap singer Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, 36, and actress Yukie Nakama (Gokusen, Trick), 30, will star in a TBS miniseries set in the 1960s called 99-year Love: Japanese-Americans. The drama tells the story of a Japanese family that immigrated to the United States 99 years before the story is set. Kusanagi will play a second-generation Japanese-American—and, with ...
One hundred Harry Potter fans—or “Potterians,” as they are referred to by the Japanese media—gathered for a special event at Shinjuku Piccadilly movie theater on August 11 to commemorate 100 days remaining until the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In a video message, actor Daniel Radcliffe, 21, who said that about half ...
Director Christopher Nolan’s Inception, which hit number one in in Japan, will be released in China in September, the country’s film importer said. According to the AP, China Film Group will give the Warner Bros production one of its coveted 20 annual slots for revenue-sharing imports. Warner Bros decided not to release Nolan’s last blockbuster, ...
Actress Miki Nakatani, 34, will once again play the role of an “unfortunate woman” in the upcoming movie Hankyu Densha, which deals with people whose lives intersect on the Hankyu Imazu railway in Hyogo. Nakatani’s character is a 30-something OL whose fiancé is stolen by a younger coworker. The actress played a similar role in ...
The upcoming movie version of Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood will use the Beatles song of the title as its closing theme. According to distributor Asmik Ace, the decision came after long negotiations with Apple Records and Sony Music. Released in 1987, Norwegian Wood has sold over 10 million copies in Japan and has been translated ...
Nicolas Cage came to Japan on a whirlwind 48-hour trip late last month to promote his new film, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, which opens on August 13. The 46-year-old actor was making his seventh visit here, this time accompanied by producer Jerry Bruckheimer, 64. “Japanese fans are very important to me,” he said at a special ...
Fourteen years after scoring a box office hit with Shall We Dance?, director Masayuki Suo is at it again with his new project, called Dancing Chaplin. The movie, based on a ballet inspired by the silent-film star, will be choreographed by 86-year-old dance legend Roland Petit. Suo says his aim is to capture the feel ...
Director M. Night Shyamalan made a rare visit to Japan this month, along with stars Dev Patel, Nicola Peltz and Jackson Rathbone, for the premiere of The Last Airbender. Shyamalan, who said he hates to fly, put on a brave face despite the fact that his film has been savaged by critics everywhere—including the decision ...
The wizard is coming! The first trailer for the upcoming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has begun showing in 1,000 theaters across Japan. The film, slated to open in November, is the first part of the final installment in the series, which began in 2001. Theaters in Japan have also begun selling a limited ...
The latest Hollywood film to get a Japanese makeover is the 1990 weepie Ghost, which starred Patrick Swayze as a murdered man who must warn his grieving wife (Demi Moore) that she’s in danger. Paramount Pictures Japan, Nippon TV and distributor Shochiku will remake the movie with Nanako Matsushima (The Ring) and South Korean heartthrob ...
Former yokozuna Asashoryu has began a new career in show business in Japan. His first job? PR spokesman for the US sci-fi flick Predators, which opens on July 10. A follow-up to 1987’s original Predator film, the 2010 version tells the story of a group of misfits battling the titular aliens on a distant planet. ...
Actress Keiko Kitagawa (Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift) takes on a serious role as a woman who loses her boyfriend in a car accident in the melodrama Matataki. Kitagawa, 23, and co-star Masaki Okada (Gravity Clown), 23, were joined at the recent Japan premiere by 120 fans who had been invited via Twitter. The actress—who ...
Iron Man 2 had its Japan premiere this month—minus an appearance by star Robert Downey Jr. It turns out the actor’s absence has something to do with a past drug felony conviction: when Downey came here in 2008 to promote the original Iron Man, he was interrogated at Narita Airport for hours before being allowed ...
Sexpot Aya Sugimoto will star in a 3D version of the superhero movie series Kamen Rider. “I hope I am shapely enough to look good,” said the buxom 41-year-old actress, who will play a character with the improbable name of Maria S. Cranberry. Retired MMA star Genki Sudo, 32, costars as a martial arts fighter-cum-transvestite. ...
Blindness star Yoshino Kimura, 34, will appear in an upcoming TV Asahi movie as a hot-blooded female detective who specializes in brutal crimes. Kimura, who currently plays a clumsy cop in the TV Asahi series Onna Keiji: Otomichi Takako, will portray a “detective who is lacking in womanly charms but is cool, clever and skilled ...
Actress Yukie Nakama says that starring in the 3-D film Gekijoban Trick: Reinosha Battle Royale has reconnected her with the feelings she had when first starting out as an actress. Based on the popular TV series and manga, Trick is about a magician (Nakama) and a physicist (Hiroshi Abe) who debunk fraudulent spiritualists. Nakama reprised ...
Running from June 10 at various locations in Tokyo, the Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2010 has unveiled a new competition for musical shorts. One entry of local interest is Mister Rococo, a film inspired by the song “Brave Vibration” from Japanese-American artist Anna Tsuchiya. The story revolves around a girl (Aimi Satsukawa) who ...
Kiichi Nakai (The Magic Hour) says he learned a lot on the set of his latest film, Railways. In the drama, Nakai plays a 49-year-old workaholic company employee who quits his job to return to his hometown in Shimane and look after his ailing mother. Once there, he decides to become a train conductor. At ...
Meanwhile, five of the film’s six stars provided some glamour during the recent premiere of Flowers at Tokyo International Forum. The movie tells the story of six women whose lives span a period of three generations, from the 1930s to the present day. Ryoko Hirosue, 29, Kyoka Suzuki, 41, Yukie Nakama, 30, Lena Tanaka, 29, ...
Actress Takako Matsu is well-known for her TV commercials for Yamasaki bakery, but her new film project is anything but white-bread. Based on the award-winning novel of the same name, Confessions deals with issues like murder, bullying and hikikomori. Matsu stars as a middle school teacher who plots revenge after her daughter is killed by ...
Kabuki actor Shido Nakamura, 37, has been voted the celebrity that fans would most like to see dressed up as Iron Man, according to the results of an online poll by Paramount Pictures Japan. The survey was conducted ahead of the June 11 release of Iron Man 2, starring Robert Downey Jr, Mickey Rourke, Gwyneth ...
The actresses who play the four lead roles in the popular American TV drama Sex and the City will visit Japan on May 30 to promote the release of the second film version of the series. It will mark the first occasion that Sarah Jessica Parker, 45, Kim Cattrall, 53, Kristin Davis, 45, and Cynthia ...
Takeshi Kitano’s latest movie, Outrage, has been selected for the competition portion at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival. Kitano, who enjoys huge popularity in Europe, was recently presented with France’s top honor for the arts. Outrage will be the second of his movies to be entered at Cannes, following Kikujiro no Natsu in 1999. ...
Jeff Bridges is still collecting awards for his Oscar-winning turn as a booze-soaked country singer in Crazy Heart. Bridges, co-star Maggie Gyllenhaal and the film itself were among the winners of the 14th annual Prism Awards, which recognize actors, movies and TV shows that accurately depict substance abuse and mental health issues. Winners are chosen ...
Actress Mika Mifune (Kekkon 2) was the special guest at a recent screening of the British coming-of-age film An Education. The story deals with a 16-year-old girl who starts a relationship with a much older man. Mifune, 27, who married her musician husband Joji Takahashi when she was 16 and he 40, was, predictably, asked ...
Moviegoers in Japan may find it hard to see Louie Psihoyos’ The Cove, which won this year’s Academy Award for best documentary. Tokyo distributor Unplugged has incurred the wrath of right-wingers after announcing its plan to release the documentary at 20-30 theaters in June. Earlier this month, a group of protesters blockaded Unplugged’s office, demanding ...
Actress Tae Kimura, 39, and actors Yousuke Kubozuka, 30, and Seiji Fukushi, 26, showed up at the Hermès Ginza store recently to promote their upcoming film Tokyo-jima, which tells the survival tale of a deserted island harboring 23 men and one woman. The movie is the first tie-up between Hermès and a Japanese film—the lead ...
It’s been an epic year for Sam Worthington. During the past 12 months, the 33-year-old Australian actor has starred in three separate blockbusters: Terminator Salvation, Avatar and, now, Clash of the Titans. “There’s no real difference for me between a $4 million Australian movie and a $100 million Hollywood movie,” he said during a visit ...
Godzilla will be stomping back into cinemas in 2012—this time possibly in 3D. Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros are set to co-produce the new film, which will “pay respects to the original 1954 picture rather than follow up on Sony’s 1998 Godzilla,” according to Daily Variety. Roland Emmerich‘s 1998 film was panned by critics and ...
Popular South Korean actress Han Hyo Joo says she wants to be big in Japan. During a recent visit to Tokyo to promote her hit TV drama Brilliant Legacy, Han told reporters in Japanese: “Because I like Japanese TV shows and movies, I partly learned Japanese just by listening, and I hope I can use ...
TV and stage celebrity Junichi Ishida, 55, had an unusual gift for American actress Anna Kendrick, 25, who was at Blue Note Tokyo recently to promote her film Up in the Air. Kendrick had let on that she’d been shopping for socks in Harajuku, and was delighted when Ishida—who is famous for rarely wearing socks—handed ...
Actor Kenji Sakaguchi, 34, will play the lead role in a loose Japanese version of the hit 1988 American blockbuster Die Hard, which will be aired on Fuji TV in May. Like the original film, the “remake” also features a stoic and daring detective who has to cope with a terrorist plot. Akiko Yada, 31, ...
Renowned director Yoji Yamada says that while many people may feel they have a bleak future because of economic problems, he wants to convey a message of hope through his movies. “It is important to always have hope,” said the 78-year-old director, who won the Berlinale Camera award at the Berlin International Film Festival last ...
British actor Jon Foo, 27, who was in Tokyo recently to promote his martial arts flick Tekken (“Iron Fist”), received a new challenge—from celebrity Mona Yamamoto, 34. The former newscaster said she wanted to be his opponent in Tekken 6, the latest installment of the popular fighting game series. Yamamoto told Foo that she was ...
Film director Takeshi Kitano received France’s highest honor for arts and culture this month for “bringing spontaneity and a message of freedom” to his big-screen productions. “Receiving this decoration is like a dream,” Kitano told the Associated Press on being named a Commander of the Order of the Arts and Letters. “I feel uneasy about ...
While most of the attention was on Hollywood last week for the Academy Awards, Japan had its own version a few days earlier, with Ken Watanabe the big winner at the Japan Academy Prize ceremony. Watanabe was named Best Actor for his performance as a JAL employee in Shizumanu Taiyo (“The Sun that Never Sets”), ...
Boxer Koki Kameda, 23, will make his acting debut with a cameo appearance in the film Box, which stars Hayato Ichihara as a lazy prizefighter preparing for a title bout. Kameda’s brief scene has him appearing at ringside to support the opponent of Ichihara’s character. Kameda, who was reprimanded in 2007 for urging his younger ...
According to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, Matt Damon is in discussions to play Robert F Kennedy in an upcoming biopic. Damon might seem like a shoo-in to portray the slain US presidential candidate, but the 39-year-old actor, who can currently be seen in Invictus, told Reuters he has yet to see a script. “I ...
An upcoming Tokyo screening of potential crossover hit My Darling Is a Foreigner will include a special giveaway for international couples. The film, which stars Mao Inoue (Hana Yori Dango) and Canadian newcomer Jonathan Sherr, is based on a bestselling manga series about the real-life travails of a mixed-race couple. On March 30, Toho Cinemas ...
If you’ve ever wanted to lend your voice to an animated film, here’s your chance. Walt Disney Studios Japan is holding auditions for the Japanese dubbing of Disney/Pixar movie Toy Story 3, to be released July 10. In Toy Story 2, protagonist Woody was voiced by actor Toshiaki Arasawa, 46, while Tokoro Joji, 55, took ...
A documentary-drama titled 3.20 Sarin Subway Attack 15 Years On—Just what happened that day in Kasumigaseki? will air on March 20, exactly 15 years on from the attacks. The drama will center on Shizue Takahashi, 62, the widow of a staff member at Kasumigaseki subway station who died after trying to remove a liquid sarin ...
Nikkatsu Corp is reviving its “Roman Porno” series of sexploitation films, which were the movie production company’s hallmark during the ’60s and ’70s. Helping to announce the relaunch recently were actresses Sakiko Takao, 29, Kazuko Shirakawa, 62, and Tomomi Miyauchi, 35 (pictured, left to right). Takao and Miyauchi star in the first movies in the ...
While the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony next month will be hosted by actors Steve Martin, 65, and Alec Baldwin, 51, here in Japan, radio and TV personality Chris Peppler, 52, and model-turned-tarento Marie, 22, will host a live broadcast of the event. The show will be descriptively titled “Celebrities – One After Another! Academy Awards ...
At the Academy Awards on March 7, all the attention will be on big-budget hits like Avatar, The Hurt Locker and Up. But don’t forget the Razzie Awards, given annually to the worst performers of the year, on March 6. People magazine reports that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen leads the field of dishonor with ...
Director Oren Peli, 39, confidently claims that he doesn’t believe in ghosts. Perhaps that’s why he seemed so unfazed by the idea of shooting a documentary-style horror film in his own bedroom. Paranormal Activity begins when an ordinary couple decides to capture on film the nightly haunting that has been occurring in their bedroom. “The ...
Saoirse Ronan takes the stage amid clouds of fog that are meant to recreate the magical feel of her new movie, The Lovely Bones. But the flashing of cameras is interrupted as the smoke begins to take over the room, and staff rush to clear the air. Ronan remains poised and professional during the commotion, ...
During a recent press conference to promote their film Koshonin (Negotiator), Ryoko Yonekura’s male co-stars got a bit carried away. Takanori Jinnai (No More Cry), 51, said if there is a sequel, he wants to do a love scene with the 34-year-old actress. Co-star Toshio Kakei (Dance Subaru), 47, echoed that sentiment: “I didn’t get ...
Director Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino and Miwa Nishikawa’s Dear Doctor have been chosen as the best films of 2009 by entertainment publisher Kinema Junposha Co. Gran Torino, a drama depicting the exchanges between a grumpy old war veteran and immigrants in his neighborhood, topped the list of 10 foreign films. Dear Doctor, which portrays the ...
Actress Rei Kikukawa, 31, will play a housewife who becomes a hostess in Fuji TV’s upcoming television movie Sankyo no sho. In the drama, Kikukawa gets a job at a hostess club in order to learn the truth behind her husband and younger sister’s mysterious deaths, which were made to look like a double suicide. ...
The race for the visual effects Oscar just got a little tighter. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on its website that the shortlist of 15 movies, released in mid-December, has been whittled down to seven. Avatar heads the (alphabetic) list, followed by District 9, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Star ...
James Cameron is smiling all the way to the bank. His first film in 12 years, Avatar, has shot past $1 billion worldwide in the first four weeks of its release, becoming only the fifth movie ever to hit that mark. Cameron, who attended the Japan premiere in December, said he thinks audiences will go ...
Here are a few things you may not know about Johnny Depp. He brought his 1956 Fender Telecaster guitar with him to Japan. He was voted Sexiest Man in the World for 2009 by People magazine. He doesn’t watch his own movies. Depp, 46, recently made his sixth visit to Tokyo to promote Public Enemies, ...
Strolling into the ballroom of the Grand Hyatt hotel in traditional kimono and an eye patch, actor Takashi Sorimachi looks like an Edo-era pirate. In reality, he is Jubei Yagyu, the legendary one-eyed swordsman in the new period drama, Yagyu Bugeicho. The show is the latest installment of TV Tokyo’s Shinshun Wide Jidaigeki, which is ...
Michael Moore’s first visit to Japan earlier this month got off to an ignominious start—the airline lost his luggage. When asked which carrier, the 55-year-old documentary filmmaker said, “It starts with J and ends with L.” No matter. Moore made sure that one of his first stops was at a clothing store popular with sumo ...
After tackling ancient history in Red Cliff, acclaimed Chinese director John Woo looks to World War II for his next film, Flying Tigers. “It’s about an American volunteer team working with the Chinese Air Force to fight with the Japanese in wartime,” Woo told AFP at a recent press event in Beverly Hills. “The whole ...
J-pop queen Ayumi Hamasaki, 31, had her wish come true when her new song “You Were…” was chosen as the theme for the Japanese-language version of Walt Disney’s Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure. Hamasaki was selected because she “is as popular as Tinker Bell with Japanese women, and has the power to make those ...
Hollywood loves destroying the world, and over the next few months, good old Earth is in for some major catastrophes on the big screen. The first, 2012, is a $200 million epic directed by Roland Emmerich (The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day) and starring John Cusack as a mathematician trying to save his family. Other ...
Pixar has been a force for innovation in the animation industry, and the studio’s latest film, Up (titled Uncle Carl’s Flying Home for Japan), is no exception. Yet beyond the outstanding animation and vivid imagery, it’s the storytelling that remains the driving factor, said the filmmakers during a recent appearance in Tokyo. Directors Pete Docter ...
Hinako Saeki, 32, Meisa Kuroki, 21, and Rinko Kikuchi, 28, have completed work on their upcoming sci-fi movie Assault Girls. Appearing at an advance screening, the actresses said they had fun starring in a movie that featured strong heroines instead of men, for a change. Kuroki plays a gun-toting hunter who, with her sexy sidekicks, ...
Scrooge has returned to the big screen in Japan, with Jim Carrey and director Robert Zemeckis breathing new life into Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. In a press release, Zemeckis says: “When you read Dickens, it’s an incredibly surreal story, and of course, the earlier adaptations were limited by what you could do with the tools ...
Actress Masami Nagasawa got a surprise at the recent premiere of her new film Go Find a Psychic when 200 fans turned up at Roppongi Hills dressed as… spoons. Directed by Katsuyuki Motohiro (Udon), Go Find a Psychic stars Nagasawa as an assistant TV director who encounters seven people with paranormal powers, including the ability ...
The latest movie in line for a Hollywood remake is True Grit, the 1969 western that earned John Wayne an Oscar for best actor. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Ethan and Joel Coen will be making the film and are in discussions with actors Matt Damon and Josh Brolin, though it’s hard to imagine either ...
Japanese audiences last month finally got their first (and probably only) look at controversial documentary The Cove, which deals with the slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture. Directed by American Louis Psihoyos, the film had a one-time screening at the Tokyo International Film Festival. So far, there are no plans for a domestic theatrical ...
Proving there is a bit of showbiz in every politician, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, 67, has signed on to be the voice of Ultraman King in Mega Monster Battle – Ultra Galaxy Legend: The Movie, after his son and first-term House of Representatives member Shinjiro Koizumi, 28, urged him to accept the part. The ...
Just what the world needs: another movie about fast cars and fast women. Not that stars Vin Diesel and Paul Walker are complaining. They’ve been jetting around the world for the past four months, promoting Fast & Furious (titled Wild Speed Max for Japan), the fourth film in the series about drift racing and other ...
You’ve heard the old joke about Hollywood churning out Barbies for the big screen. Well, now the real Barbie is going to be turned into a movie. Universal Studios said in a statement that it has acquired the film rights from toymaker Mattel to make a live-action feature about the iconic doll, who turned 50 ...
Movie audiences in Japan are often forced to wait months to see the big international blockbusters, but the locals finally got one ahead of the rest of the world when Astro Boy made its international premiere here on October 10. During a trip to Tokyo to promote the film’s release, director David Bowers (right) and ...
Erika Sawajiri, 23, has lost her part in an upcoming movie that was supposed to mark her comeback as an actress, with the role going to Meisa Kuroki, 21. Sawajiri was initially chosen to play the lead in Space Battleship Yamato, which starts filming later this month. The change in casting came after the actress’s ...
As its title suggests, RoboGeisha combines traditional and modern aspects of Japan. Just don’t expect either to be particularly true-to-life. The flick stars gravure idol Aya Kiguchi in the role of Yoshie, the younger sister and attendant of a geisha. One day, the sisters are invited to a dinner party by the son of the ...
Japan’s candidate for Best Foreign Language Film at next year’s Academy Awards is Dare Mo Mamotte Kurenai (“Nobody to Watch Over Me”), which fans hope will repeat the Oscar-winning success of this year’s entrant, Okuribito (Departures). Directed by Ryoichi Kimizuka (Bayside Shakedown), the drama revolves around a detective (Koichi Sato) who is assigned to protect ...
Oscar-winning Japanese film Okuribito (“Departures”) has just finished a record-setting run at the Shinjuku Piccadilly theater. The movie, which has been distributed in 65 countries overseas, began showing at the cinema last September 13. Actor Masahiro Motoki, 43, scriptwriter Kundo Koyama, 45, and director Yojiro Takita, 53, attended a farewell event in Shinjuku to celebrate ...
Actress Mao Inoue, 22, who gained fame as Makino Tsukushi in Hana yori Dango, and actor Jonathan Sherr (Tokyo Comedy Store), 35, will play husband and wife in the movie version of the popular comic-book series My Darling is a Foreigner. Written and illustrated by Saori Oguri, the lighthearted books tell the story of an ...
There’s already a lot of buzz surrounding the movie version of Ningen Shikkaku (No Longer Human), the classic novel by Osamu Dazai that’s set for release next spring. To mark the start of filming, the stars attended a big media event accompanied by Tsuguhiko Kadokawa, chairman and CEO of production company Kadokawa Pictures. The novel ...
Panasonic is teaming up with Twentieth Century Fox for the global promotion of director James Cameron’s long-awaited film Avatar. The action takes place on a distant moon, where “a reluctant hero embarks on a journey of redemption and discovery as he leads a heroic battle to save a civilization.” Panasonic provided its 3-D technology for ...
Actor Hiroyuki Sanada, best known to Western moviegoers for his roles in The Last Samurai and Rush Hour 3, will star in the neo-noir drama Fallen Moon. The plot concerns a New York City detective investigating the murder of his estranged daughter. Peter Medak (The Krays, Romeo Is Bleeding) is directing, while Geoff Tate, lead ...
British actor Hugh Grant is hinting again that he may quit acting because of stage fright. The easygoing star of films such as Notting Hill, About a Boy and Love Actually told Britain’s Entertainment Weekly magazine: “I like everything about filming except the acting. I’m wonderful in rehearsals, but I have never been very good ...
Award-winning Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu will be the jury president for the International Competition at the 22nd Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) next month. Winner of the Best Director prize at Cannes International Film Festival for Babel in 2006, Inarritu will be returning to TIFF for the first time since he was awarded the ...
The teen-oriented vampire film Twilight got the biggest bite at this month’s Teen Choice Awards in the US—11 wins in all, including choice movie drama, romance, liplock, rumble and soundtrack. Kristen Stewart won the actress category, while Kristen Stewart picked up two surfboard-shaped trophies (one for actor, another for male hottie). Co-stars Taylor Lautner and ...
Sony Pictures has given the green light to a Michael Jackson documentary that will be put together from hundreds of hours of footage shot in Los Angeles as the singer prepared for his series of 50 “This is It” concerts in London. In addition to behind-the-scenes and rehearsal footage, the doc includes interviews with Jackson’s ...
Post production has just finished on Assault Girls, an upcoming sci-fi movie starring the ever-busy Meisa Kuroki. Kuroki, 21, plays a gun-toting hunter who, along with sexy sidekicks Rinko Kikuchi (Babel), 28, and Hinako Saeki (Rasen), 32, fights off a horde of deadly sand beasts that have flourished in the aftermath of a nuclear war. ...
Australian actor Hugh Jackman will star as showman P.T. Barnum in an upcoming musical, Twentieth Century Fox has announced. The Greatest Showman on Earth takes a look at the life of the famous circus promoter—a role that seems a perfect fit for Jackman, who showed his prowess as a song-and-dance man while hosting this year’s ...
Most of the main stars of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince were too busy to come to Japan to promote the movie this time around, so it was left to Tom Felton to carry the banner. The 21-year-old Felton, who stands 1.85m tall, hardly seems like the same young Draco Malfoy who has been ...
There was a strange sight outside St Grace Church in Aoyama recently when actress Juri Ueno, 23, wore a white wedding dress along with 50 other “brides” to promote her upcoming film, Killer Virgin Road, in which she stars as a woman who accidentally kills her landlord the day before her wedding. Ueno (Swing Girls) ...
Renowned Japanese animated filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki has been awarded the 2009 Berkeley Japan Prize by the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California. Miyazaki’s latest animated film, Gake no Ue no Ponyo (Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea), is scheduled to open in the United States later this month. The Berkeley Japan ...
Actress Aya Ueto, 23, will provide the voice of Astro Boy in the Japanese-language version of the upcoming animated feature. Koji Yakusho (Babel), 53, is voicing Astro Boy’s creator Doctor Tenma. Beginning as a comic by Osamu Tezuka in 1952, Tetsuwan Atomu became a huge hit thanks to the ’60s television series. A movie version ...
Director Sam Raimi says The Dark Knight has raised the bar for every comic-book movie to come. However, he told AP that he figures it can only benefit the next movie in his Spider-Man franchise, the first installment of which had been the highest grossing superhero flick of all time until Batman blew it out ...
Robert Redford hits Blighty