Japan

Synopsis:
A woman begins working at the same company as a security guard that she believes might be a former sumo wrestling serial killer.Read More »

Synopsis:
Set in the civil wars of the 1570s, the film follows three samurai, Hayate, Jurata, and Yakeiji after the fall of their castle. Jurata escapes by pretending to be Hayate and escorting Hayate’s love Kano to safety, while the other two survive the fighting despite their wounds. Yakeiji becomes the leader of a bandit group while Hayate is saved by Oryo, the daughter of the leader of a different set of bandits. Jurata falls in love with Kano, but she leaves him to search for Hayate, just missing him several times, and Oryo also falls in love with Hayate and tries to track him down after she believes he killed her father. Numerous changes of sides, adventures, and confrontations follow for all.Read More »

Synopsis:
Based on a science-fiction novel by Sakyo Komatsu. Tokyo is suddenly covered by a dome shaped electromagnetic cloud for an unknown reason and is totally blocked and isolated from other parts of the world. The temperature inside the cloud is slowly increasing. The Soviet Pacific fleet is getting closer. The U.S. is forcing Japan to form a new government. Scientists and research workers outside Tokyo have to race against time to find out how to get through the cloud in order to rescue the 12,000,000+ lives in Tokyo and the fate of the country.Read More »

Quote:
In the early 1990s a spate of hospital films were released in Japan, including Takita Yojiro’s two Let’s Go to the Hospital comedies, Itami Juzo’s drama The Last Dance and Ichikawa Jun’s Dying at a Hospital, shot in a semi-documentary style almost as straightforward as its title. Perhaps these films reflected the greying of Japanese society or, as Ichikawa suggested in an interview, a world afflicted by famine, AIDS and environmental destruction. Working from a book by Yamasaki Fumio, a practicing doctor, Ichikawa follows the progress of five cancer patients from the time they are admitted to the hospital to the end. For much of the film, we are literally standing at the foot of their beds, watching their lives unfold from the middle distance.Read More »

wikipedia says:
“Sayonara Jupiter (さよならジュピター Sayonara Jiupitā?, English release: Bye Bye Jupiter) is a 1984 Japanese science fiction film directed by Koji Hashimoto and produced by Toho. The script was adapted by pioneering science-fiction author Sakyo Komatsu from his novel Sayonara Jupiter (1982). The special effects were directed by Koichi Kawakita. Cast with an unusual mix of actors speaking English, French and Japanese, the film was conceived by the struggling Toho film empire as a rival to the forthcoming box office blockbuster hit 2010. The two films bear comparison of plot elements. This was actor Akihiko Hirata’s final film role. He was set to star in The Return of Godzilla (1984), but died of throat cancer before he was cast. In one scene, Captain Hoger Kinn watches Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, which featured a much younger Akihiko Hirata.Read More »

A car strikes an unseen object; blood spreads from an invisible source which becomes visible as the bleeding man dies. He carries with him a suicide note dedicated to his only friend, who is also an invisible man. An eager young reporter tracks down Takemitsu Nanjo, a war veteran who makes his living visibly, painting his face like a clown’s and carrying advertising signs. His favorite neighbor is a little blind girl whose mother is running afoul of local gangsters. The gangsters have been terrorizing the city as “the invisible gang,” wrapping themselves up in scarves and trenchcoats so as to be visible to their victims, even though they are supposed to be invisible underneath. Once they discover Nanjo, who is defending his only friends, they beat him and leave him for dead.Read More »

Quote:
With his name firmly ensconced in film history as the creator of the Godzilla and Rodan films, director Inoshiro Honda continues to shape and mold a dramatic sci-fi story in Battle in Outer Space. As in the record-setting Star Wars sagas of the future, special effects also get star billing here. The nations of the earth are banding together to fight off invaders from outer space. At the core of their defense is an attack in which two space ships from the earth land on the moon — the aliens have set up their base of operations there. But this pre-emptive strike is not enough because back on terra firma, heat-ray guns are called into action as the invasion of flying saucers swings into a full-scale operation.Read More »

When a narcotics deal goes sour and a suspect disappears, leaving only his clothes, Tokyo police question his wife and stake out the nightclub where she works. His disappearance stumps the police – until a young scientist appears who claims that H-Bomb tests in the Pacific, evidenced by a “ghost ship” that has turned up in the harbor, have created radioactive creatures – “H-Men” – who ooze like slime and dissolve anyone they touch.Read More »

A dying town in the lush, water-fed mountains of Japan’s southeastern Nara Prefecture inspires Mexican multihyphenate Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio to ruminate on natural wonders and the melancholy inevitability facing an aging population in “Inori.” Produced by Naomi Kawase as part of her Nara Film Fest’s Narative project, the docu adheres closely to the Kawase model of nature lensed in a minor key, and fans of Gonzalez-Rubio’s “Alamar” will find gentle pleasures in this agreeable yet slight work.Read More »