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In a country such as Japan, with the largest percentage of older adults in the world, dealing with the particular age seems like a must, and local cinema has done so repeatedly, usually focusing on the problems these people face. Tetsu Maeda, however, opts for a different approach, which, although mentions the problem, it mostly focuses on the perks. The fact that the story is based on the life of Aiko Sato, an author who is still publishing although she is 100 years old, and who is played by 90-year-old actress Mitsuko Kusabue, definitely helps.

90 Years Old – So What? is screening at Nippon Connection

Aiko Sato is a 90 year-old award-winning writer, who retired from her writing job. Since her retirement, she has lived her life listlessly with her daughter and granddaughter. Middle-aged editor Tachibana seems unable to adapt to the era of political correctness, with his colleagues, and particularly a former...

Like a Dragon: Yakuza is an upcoming Prime Video series based on the popular video game franchise, and the cast is full of incredible talent. Although it isn't entirely clear exactly which characters might make a surprise cameo throughout the series, Prime Video's Like a Dragon: Yakuza trailer revealed plenty of big names will feature, and the story looks like it will be based on the franchise's first entry, as each game tends to change its roster of characters. As a result, audiences are bound to be treated to some exhilarating action when the crime show debuts.

Given how popular the source material is, Like a Dragon: Yakuza has plenty to get right from the games, but the talented cast looks like it will manage this. The trailer already suggested that the show will maintain the unorthodox, quirky tone that has become synonymous with the gaming franchise, and most of...

With the popularity of video games being turned into TV shows, like Fallout and The Last of Us, Prime Video is introducing another video game adaptation, but for the long-running franchise Like a Dragon: Yakuza.

And starting on Thursday, Oct. 24, the first three episodes are streamable with a subscription to Prime Video. Below, find out when to stream Like a Dragon: Yakuza online and the episode release schedule for season one.

At a Glance: How to Watch Like a Dragon: Yakuza Online

When: Oct. 24; series finale on Nov. 1 Stream online: Prime Video Watch 'Like a Dragon: Yakuza' on Prime Video How to Watch Like a Dragon: Yakuza Without Cable: Premiere Date and Time, Episode Release Schedule

The first three episodes of Like a Dragon: Yakuza six-episode season one drops Thursday, Oct. 24, at 8 a.m. Pt/11 a.m. Et on Prime Video. The following three episodes drop at the...

Prime Video have released a new look at their upcoming action crime series, Like a Dragon: Yakuza, with a punchy new trailer teasing the white-knuckle fist fights and shoot-outs to come. This Japanese action-drama will plunge audiences into the dark underworld of the yakuza, exploring the universal theme of family not only through bloodlines but also through ties between bosses and their underlings and mentors and students. Based on the Sega video game series, the series promises to add another popular title to the streamer alongside the likes of Fallout and Reacher.

You can check out the trailer for Like a Dragon: Yakuza below.

Set in the fictional town of Kamurocho, the epic saga of Like a Dragon: Yakuza unfolds across two intersecting timelines1995 and 2005. Alongside the new footage, you can also check out the official synopsis for the action series below.

In 1995, eager to escape their restrictive lives, Kiryu and his friends,...

Prime Video has revealed the trailer and key art for the upcoming Japanese Original series Like a Dragon: Yakuza, the action-packed TV adaptation of Sega’s iconic video game series.

The first three episodes of Like a Dragon: Yakuza will be available to stream exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories starting on Thursday, October 24, with the next three episodes available on Thursday, October 31.

In addition to previously announced series leads Ryoma Takeuchi (Kazuma Kiryu), Kento Kaku (Akira Nishikiyama), and Munetaka Aoki (Goro Majima), newly revealed actors portraying key characters include:

Yumi Kawai as Yumi Sawamura, a childhood friend who grew up alongside Kiryu and Nishiki.

Toshiaki Karasawa as Shintaro Kazama, the former lieutenant of the Dojima Family who now runs the orphanage where Kiryu and his friends were raised.

Koichi Sato as Masaru Sera, the chairman of the Tojo Clan.

Misato Morita as Aiko, Yumi’s long-lost sister.

The film version of the hugely successful cop show will feature the lead actors from TV series.

Red Arrow International have announced that the hit Japanese TV series The Last Cop will get a film adaptation.

They have agreed a deal with Japanese production company Nippon Television Network Corporation.

The film is in pre-production with the working title, Last Cop: The Movie and will be released in Japan in May 2017.

The lead actors from the television show, Toshiaki Karasawa (20th Century Boys) and Masataka Kubota (Death Note), will reprise their roles for movie adaptation.

The Last Cop sees Karasawa play around a detective who is put in a coma after pursuing a vicious criminal. He wakes up 30 years later and must work with a new young partner (Kubota) to bring his nemesis to justice.

The show received a huge 12.9% audience share when it premiered on Nippon TV in October and was a huge success on Hulu Japan...

The Last Cop, a German high-concept crime series, is getting a Japanese film adaptation. 

Japan's Nippon TV, which scored a hit with their local-language version of the show, announced on Wednesday they are in preproduction on a movie spinoff, tentatively titled: The Last Cop: The Movie.

Nippon TV and Red Arrow International, the German group that controls the rights to the popular scripted format, made the announcement at the Asia TV Forum & Market in Singapore. The film version is eyeing a May 2017 in Japan. 

Toshiaki Karasawa (20th Century Boys, Toshiie and Matsu) and Masataka Kubota (Mars, Death Note),...

Exclusive: Japan’s Nippon Television (Ntv) has added Japanese historical drama Persona Non Grata, which was filmed entirely in Poland, to its Cannes slate.

Directed by Cellin Gluck, the film tells the true story of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat working in Lithuania during the Second World War, who rescued more than 10,000 Jewish people by issuing them with transit visas through Japan to Curacao.

Gluck previously directed the Japanese version of Sideways. Persona Non Grata is produced by Tokyo-based Cine Bazar and had Poland’s Akson Studio on board as line producer. During the shoot, Polish cities doubled for Berlin, Moscow, Tokyo, New York, Bucharest and Lithuania.

Toshiaki Karasawa plays Sugihara and the cast also includes Koyuki (The Last Samurai), Agnieszka Grochowska (Walesa: Man Of Hope) and Borys Szyc (Snow White And Russian Red).

Ntv is holding an invitation-only work-in-progress screening of the film in Cannes. Japanese release is scheduled for December 2015.

The official website for Hideyuki Hirayama’s upcoming World War II film Oba: The Last Samurai has been updated with a full trailer.

Inspired by a novel authored by former U.S. soldier Don Jones, the film focuses on a Japanese captain named Sakae Oba, aka “Fox” (Yutaka Takenouchi) who leads on of the last remaining units in Saipan. Oba and his troops employed guerrilla tactics to hold out against overwhelming odds before finally surrendering in December 1945, 3 months after Japan had surrendered to Us forces.

Other cast members include Toshiaki Karasawa, Takayuki Yamada, Tomoko Nakajima, Mao Inoue, Yoshinori Okada, Sadao Abe, Hideyuki Hirayama, and Bengal. Sean McGowan, Treat Williams, and Daniel Baldwin play American soldiers.

Toho will be releasing “Oba: The Last Samurai” in Japan on February 11, 2011.

Thanks logboy and cinemaasia.

Here’s the first Japanese TV spot for Hideyuki Hirayama‘s upcoming World War II film Oba: The Last Samurai.

As reported by Tokyograph back in May, the film stars 39-year-old Yutaka Takenouchi as a Japanese captain known as “Fox” who fights relentlessly against American forces near the end of the war, even though defeat is all but assured.

The story was inspired by a novel authored by former U.S. soldier Don Jones which focused on Japanese captain Sakae Oba. Oba led one of the last remaining units in Saipan and employed guerrilla tactics to hold out against overwhelming odds before finally surrendering in December 1945, 3 months after Japan had surrendered to Us forces.

Other cast members include Toshiaki Karasawa, Takayuki Yamada, Tomoko Nakajima, Mao Inoue, Yoshinori Okada, Sadao Abe, Hideyuki Hirayama, and Bengal. Sean McGowan, Treat Williams, and Daniel Baldwin play American soldiers.

Toho will be releasing “Oba: The Last Samurai...

Here’s the first Japanese TV spot for Hideyuki Hirayama‘s upcoming World War II film Oba: The Last Samurai.

As reported by Tokyograph back in May, the film stars 39-year-old Yutaka Takenouchi as a Japanese captain known as “Fox” who fights relentlessly against American forces near the end of the war, even though defeat is all but assured.

The story was inspired by a novel authored by former U.S. soldier Don Jones which focused on Japanese captain Sakae Oba. Oba led one of the last remaining units in Saipan and employed guerrilla tactics to hold out against overwhelming odds before finally surrendering in December 1945, 3 months after Japan had surrendered to Us forces.

Other cast members include Toshiaki Karasawa, Takayuki Yamada, Tomoko Nakajima, Mao Inoue, Yoshinori Okada, Sadao Abe, Hideyuki Hirayama, and Bengal. Sean McGowan, Treat Williams, and Daniel Baldwin play American soldiers.

Toho will be releasing “Oba: The Last Samurai...

Koki Mitani, the comedy director behind box office hits like “The Uchoten Hotel” and “The Magic Hour” is hard at work on a new film called Suteki na Kanashibari: Once in a Blue Moon. According to Mitani, the film will of course be a comedy, but will also include elements of courtroom suspense, ghost fantasy, and drama. It’s a film he’s been planning for over 10 years, but only got the confidence to go ahead with it when he witnessed the positive reaction to “The Magic Hour”.

The cast includes Mitani regulars such as Eri Fukatsu, Kiichi Nakai, and Toshiyuki Nishida as well as actors he hasn’t previously worked with like Hiroshi Abe, Yuko Takeuchi, and Tadanobu Asano.

Fukatsu will play Emi, a third-rate attorney with zero prospects and Abe will play the boss of her law firm. Takeuchi will play both the wife of a murdered capitalist and her own twin sister.

The second chapter of the film adaptation of Naoki Urasawa's blockbuster sci fi thriller has just hit R1 DVD. Unfortunately, an attempt to juggle too many plots as well as a lead lacking any discernible charisma make The Last Hope something of a letdown. 

For those unfamiliar with 20th Century Boys (2008) the overarching story follows a group of childhood pals who band together decades later when a notebook of their fantasy scribblings start coming true thanks to the machinations of the mysterious, masked "Friend." Led by idealistic failed musician Kenji (Toshiaki Karasawa), the reunited classmates attempt to remember the full extent of their apocalyptic vision while seeking the true identity of Friend. 

The Last Hope takes up the story 15 years later, as Kenji's niece, Kanna (Airi Taira) attempts to keep her head low as the world comes fully under the sway of Friend-mania. World leaders and the everyman see...

Distributor Toho and its partners have decided to set up an advance screening of the last installment of the Japanese "20th Century Boys" sci-fi action trilogy for the critics, but not show the last 10 minutes. The idea is to prevent leaks about the true identity of a mysterious cult leader, called only "Friend" (Tomodachi), who seeks to realize the dire "prophecies" a gang of boys dreamed up back in 1969. The main author of the "prophecies," grown to become a convenience store manager (Toshiaki Karasawa), joins with his old pals in 1997 to stop the cult and unmask its leader. The story concludes in 2017. The ending of the trilogy was a top secret while the pic was in production, with scripts given out only on a need-to-know basis and only 10 people in total knowing how the pic truly concludes following various edits and revisions in post. I'm not sure how critics can...

“20th Century Boys” has been one of the most eagerly anticipated events in Japanese cinema for some time. The adaptation of the best selling 24 volume manga by Naoki Urasawa is to be made into a trilogy of films, with a massive total budget of 6 billion yen, setting a new record for the industry. Directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi (who boasts a eclectic CV, including the likes of “Sushi King Goes to New York”, “Forbidden Siren” and “2Ldk”), the first part ranked as one of the biggest box office hits in Japan in 2008, leaving fans desperately awaiting the next instalment. The film has now been released on region 2 DVD by 4Digital Asia in a two disc version with a whole host of extras including several documentaries and a book on the film’s production. The film stars Toshiaki Karasawa (also in “Casshern”) as Kenji Endo, who back in 1973 along with a group...

Yeah, so, we’ve been paying pretty close attention to the details about Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s 20th Century Boys. We see no reason to stop now.

Toho announced yesterday which actress landed the role of the heroine in the upcoming live action version of the manga 20th Century Boys. Kanna, the niece of the protagonist Kenji (Toshiaki Karasawa), will be played by 23-year-old actress Airi Taira.

Although Kanna’s part in the first movie is minor, she plays a critical role in bridging the first two films and in the rest of the trilogy… the character is introduced as an infant in the first film and later takes on a pivotal role as a teenager in the second and third installments in the trilogy… The first installment opens on August 30, and the second is lined up for January 31, 2009. Tg and Ryungani

You’ll want to head over to Ryuganji and...

When you say "Japanese film", your first word association is not likely to be comedy. But this movie pleasingly defies festival expectations. A madcap farce centering on the production of a radio drama, "Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald" is a frothy, "Soapdish" kind of lark. It's zany and fast-paced, with the frantic comic furor of some of Blake Edwards' high-octane mayhem.

While it's not likely to attract notice among mainstream audiences, this deliriously funny film was a hit with festival audiences at last year's Chicago International Film Festival. Cities with significant Asian-American populations could make this one an art house sleeper.

The comic craziness is set against the deadline atmosphere of a Tokyo radio station, where the production "team," including some voice-over artists, is putting on a live radio show. It's a swoony melodrama, much in the style of those golden oldies from American radio such as "Pepper Young" and "Stella Dallas". This scenario is especially drippy, the outcome of a dramatic contest sponsored by the station in which the single entrant, not surprisingly, was the grand-prize winner.

The script is stilted silly, but it's taken deadly seriously by its housewife-writer, a shy, deferential young woman, and it's regarded as high art by the assorted vocal players, each of whom only has one quibble with the script -- it doesn't pay proper justice to their particular character.

In short, the "team" is a wild and idiosyncratic group, from the obsequious producer to the prima donna female star. Included in the mix are a bitter security guard who was a former sound man and the writer's insecure, car-salesman husband. This mix of oddballs, not surprisingly, will ring true to anyone who has ever ventured near the entertainment industry.

Screenwriter-director Koki Mitani's eye for foibles is evident, and he wisely stokes the character clashes to their believable max. Undeniably, the narrative itself is generally predictable, but it's delivered with such speed and skill that the belly laughs overcome the unremarkable story line.

The players are a well-selected screwball group, including Kyoka Suzuki as the serious-minded writer and Toshiaki Karasawa as the cool-and-collected director. Keiko Toda is terrific as the lead actress, vainglorious and conniving.

Technical contributions are smartly realized, with special kudos to editor Hirohide Abe for the fast pacing.

WELCOME BACK, MR. MCDONALD

Lighthouse Entertainment/Group/Fortissima

Producers: Chiaka Matsushita, Hisao Masuda, Takashi Ishihara, Kanjiro Sakura

Screenwriter-director: Koki Mitani

Based on the play "Radio No Jikan" by Mitani and the Tokyo Sunshine Boys

Directors of photography: Kenji Takama, Junichi Tozawa

Editor: Hirohide Abe

Music: Takayuki Hattori

Sound mixer: Tetsuo Segawa

Art director: Tomio Ogawa

Color/stereo

Cast:

Kudo: Toshiaki Karasawa

Miyako Suzuki: Kyoka Suzuki

Ushijima: Masahiko Nishimura

Nokko Senbon: Keiko Toda

Ben Noda: Takehiko Ono

Suhuru Hosaka: Shiro Namiki

Furukawa: Yasukiyo Umeno

Hiromitsu: Jun Inoue

Running time -- 103 minutes

No MPAA rating...