Synopsis:
Uzuki (Takako Matsu) leaves her hometown to study at Tokyo university. The shy, young girl is very busy with moving into her new home and is still quite insecure in her new environment. But it doesn’t take very long and she finds some new friends and even joins a fishing-club. However, most of her time she spends with her books. After all, she manages to approach her new neighbour, also a very incommunicative person, and bit-by-bit the young student finds out how to handle her new life.
Besides, there seems to be a reason why she spends most of her spare time at a specific library. What or who is she looking for? Apparently she is interested in the salesperson, but she’s too shy to approach him. But why of all universities did she decide in favor for Tokyo university? Does the answer lie in her past, and more importantly will she eventually have the courage to approach the library’s salesman?
— Manfred Selzer (AsianMovieWeb)

April.Story.1998.576p.BluRay.x264-PTP.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 6 min
Size: 	1.54 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1024x418 
Aspect ratio:  	2.450
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	2 851 kb/s
BPP: 	0.278
Audio
#1:  	Japanese 5.1ch AC-3 @ 448 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/C2609407DDB23A9/April.Story.1998.576p.BluRay.x264-PTP.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English (muxed)

The post Shunji Iwai – Shigatsu monogatari AKA April Story (1998) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
The story follows 3 members of a mental asylum, Tsumiji, Coco and Satoru, as they escape from the asylum, and into the real world. On the way, they find a vicar, who changes their out-view on life, by giving them a bible. Tsumiji takes interest and starts believing in god, while Coco believes the world began when she was born. While they look around town, they must walk ontop of the fences and walls to avoid the floor. They read in the bible that the world will end on the 10th July, so they roam around town attempting to find the perfect place for a picnic with the best vantage point to view the final event.

1.62GB | 1h 12m | 950×593 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/67615A7B208460B/Picnic_(1996)_–_Shunji_Iwai.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English, Japanese (muxed)

The post Shunji Iwai – Pikunikku AKA Picnic (1996) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

The struggles of a group of immigrant outcasts living in an alternative-future, xenophobic Japanese metropolis.

After a young girl’s mother dies, she is cared for by Glico, a brassy hooker, who gives the girl the name “Ageha” (Butterfly). Ageha goes to work for a collection of oddballs who run a junkyard and salvage business.

2.41GB | 2 h 27 min | 756×454 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/FFC689673A4E087/Swallowtail_Butterfly.part1.rar https://nitro.download/view/6922B30BD5262C5/Swallowtail_Butterfly.part2.rar https://nitro.download/view/03E35C68440131C/Swallowtail_Butterfly.part3.rar

Language:Japanese
Subtitles:English, Japanese (sub/idx)

The post Shunji Iwai – Suwarôteiru AKA Swallowtail Butterfly [+Extras] (1996) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
Upon entering high school, two best friends named Hana and Alice notice a boy a year older them while waiting for the train, and they both develop a pretty strong crush on him. One day while secretly following him home, Hana witnesses the boy walk right into a wall and pass out. When he wakes up, she lies and convinces him that he must have amnesia, because he doesn’t remember the fact that she was his girlfriend. After this, hilarity ensues as the two girls attempt to run with the lie. Of course, complications soon arise.

3.49GB | 2h 15mn | 1020×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/17078669A43CDB3/Hana.to.Arisu.AKA.Hana.and.Alice.2004.576p.BDRip.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language:Japanese
Subtitles:English,Japanese (muxed)

The post Shunji Iwai – Hana to Arisu AKA Hana and Alice (2004) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
Hiroko Watanabe’s fiancé Itsuki died two years earlier in a mountain climbing accident. While looking through his high school yearbook, Hiroko in a fit of grief decides to write a letter to him using his old school address. Surprisingly she receives a reply, not from the dead Itsuki, but from a woman with the same name whom had known Hiroko’s fiancé in school. A relationship develops between the two women as they continue to exchange letters and share memories of the dead Itsuki.

2.38GB | 1 h 56 min | 1024×426 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/19EA43494BAA449/Love.Letter.1995.BluRay.576p.x264.DD5.1-PTer.mkv

Language:Japanese
Subtitles:English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean (muxed)

The post Shunji Iwai – Rabu reta AKA Love Letter AKA When I Close My Eyes [+commentary] (1995) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Shunji Iwai’s Lily Chou-Chou offers eternal peace. She’s ethereal, the rebirth of death (indeed, she was born the moment Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon), and all-powerful, a voice for a pop-cyber culture that feeds on her Björkness. In All About Lily Chou-Chou, fans of the fictional singer use her “amniotic” music to detach themselves from the violence that consumes Japanese culture. Yuichi (Hayato Ichihara) is obsessed with Lily: He gets busted for shoplifting one of her CDs and engages in endless conversations on the website Liliphilia with fellow Lily-heads, “connecting” with the so-called ether that is Lily, just like he melds into colorful rice fields whenever he listens to Lily sing. While Yuichi is quiet and reserved, his online handle (“philia”) suggests a boy erupting with adult emotions, and though his friendship with “blue cat” is elusive it still feels within reach. Such is the dreaminess and possibility the film taps into. A Lily concert, though, manages to shake Yuichi’s already troubled existence. A year earlier, when Yuichi had yet to discover Lily, a trip to Okinawa almost ended in tragedy; the island is restful, a place where man was made of woman’s rib (hence the power of the island’s women). The Okinawa scenes suggest the hope and purity of freedom, because there’s no real concept of revenge and humiliation on the island. Then, a disruption: Soon after Yuichi is rescued from a near-drowning, a car strikes a local man. It’s 2000 and Yuichi is forced into a life of petty crime in order to raise money for an aggressive bully, Hoshino (Shugo Oshinari), and by film’s end, he morphs from huntee to hunter. Iwai gracefully conveys even rape and murder, and the too-precious All About Lily Chou-Chou retreats into an ether far more suffocating than Lily’s music, and though he is tiresomely and needlessly distracted by cutaways to instant message exchanges between online Lily fans, his near-operatic attention to the constructs of sound and image becomes a disarming compliment to the deadly fears his characters must negotiate.

https://nitro.download/view/C9530BCC5060BFA/Shunji_Iwai_-_(2001)_All_About_Lily_Chou-Chou.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Shunji Iwai – Riri Shushu no subete AKA All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Summary from yesasia – “It has been three years since pop auteur Iwai Shunji’s last film Hana and Alice, and his latest offering may seem a bit surprising. In a marked departure from his previous youth-centric works, his new film is a documentary about legendary director Ichikawa Kon, whom Iwai cites as one of his greatest influences. In a momentous career spanning over fifty years, 91-year-old Ichikawa Kon has long established himself as one of the great masters of Japanese cinema. A lifetime his junior, 44-year-old Iwai Shunji has, through acclaimed films like Swallowtail Butterfly and All About Lily Chou-Chou, emerged with a distinct voice and language of his own amongst the current generation of filmmakers.This documentary, appropriately titled The Kon Ichikawa Story, marks the rare marriage of two of Japan’s most interesting and celebrated filmmakers in one feature film. In 2006 while Ichikawa was shooting Murder of the Inugami Clan, a remake of his epic classic The Inugami Family, Iwai was shooting The Kon Ichikawa Story. Simply speaking, the documentary tells the life story of the master director from birth to present, but this being an Iwai Shunji film, the presentation differs from a conventional documentary. Using text, photographs, clips, and interviews from the movie set, Iwai weaves a revealing and arresting profile of a man who has lived through a century of changes, and helped shape the face of modern Japanese cinema.”

By RUSSELL EDWARDS
Docu “Filmful Life” reps a sweetly considered, intimate and professional portrait of tireless nonagenarian Japanese helming vet Kon Ichikawa. Directed by Shunji Iwai (“All About Lily Chou-Chou”), this appraisal was conceived to celebrate Ichikawa’s 2006 remake of his own 1977 film “The Murder of the Inugami Clan”; slight partiality toward these two films from production outfit Kadokawa Herald is evident, but does not spoil overall effect. Docu will work best at fests screening Ichikawa’s latest effort, but would also charm as a stand-alone presentation. In ancillary, it would make a perfect bonus disc for an Ichikawa box set.

More slide show and hand-calligraphy essay than movie, docu relies heavily on intertitles and digitally manipulated photographs. This may test the patience of general auds, but those with a passion for Japanese cinema will appreciate the pic’s unhurried, meditative tone, which has the gentle ease of a storybook read by a wise parent to a curious child.

Pic chronicles in detail the helmer’s early life and distaff influences, both personal and professional. Luck, and possibly an incorrect medical diagnosis, kept him out of WWII, but nothing could keep him out of the film industry. Beginning as an animator, Ichikawa was inspired by Walt Disney and commented that once he saw “Fantasia” (1940), he knew it would be impossible for Japan to win the war.

With its emphasis on the personal, pic dwells on the romance between Ichikawa and Natto Wada, the astute Toho studio interpreter-cum-scriptwriter who became his collaborator and wife.

Possibly due to commercial constraints, docu gives short shrift to Western favorites like “The Burmese Harp” (1956) and “An Actor’s Revenge” (1963). Instead, internationally lesser-known pics — such as Ichikawa’s first color film “Bridge of Japan” (1956), “Conflagration” (1958), the wittily sinister “Ten Dark Women” (1961) and several other relative obscurities — are given prominence by a generous supply of clips.

Kadokawa coin and docu’s raison d’etre are most apparent in an extended consideration of both the original and remake of “The Murder of the Inugami Clan” in docu’s latter section. While this commercial spin may feel unbalanced to some cineastes, Iwai restores the gentle tone established at the outset, adding his personal reminisces and reflections about the prolific, still-active helmer in the final reels.

Clips (some obviously from trailers) are an education for both expert and novice. Digital manipulation of well-chosen personal photographs creates the illusion of movement and prevents the film, particular in its early section, from being too static.

Soundtrack, dominated by the clicking sound of film running through a projector’s sprockets, is accompanied by Iwai’s own music, which is as beguiling as the subject matter and smoothly underlines pic’s sublime style.

Original Japanese title simply means “Kon Ichikawa Story.”

Camera (color/B&W), Shinichi Tsunoda; music, Iwai. Reviewed on DVD, Sydney, May 31, 2007. (In Cannes Film Festival — market.) Running time: 83 MIN.

The.Kon.Ichikawa.Story.2006.DVDRip.x264-PTP.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 22 min
Size: 	1.11 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	710x472 ~> 839x472
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	1 473 kb/s
BPP: 	0.183
Audio
#1:  	Japanese 2.0ch AC-3 @ 448 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/3A05F69457AB4F0/The.Kon.Ichikawa.Story.2006.DVDRip.x264-PTP.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Shunji Iwai – Ichikawa Kon monogatari AKA The Kon Ichikawa Story (2006) first appeared on Cinema of the World.