Originally published as a novel in 2013, “Aimitagai” has been adapted into a feature-length movie from a series of gently interconnected short stories. Shogo Kusano weaves these threads together, inheriting a project that began with a story framework by Masahide Ichii and also involved the late Kiyoshi Sasabe in its early development. The titular term refers to an act of kindness for someone, born from genuine thought, that can come full circle and even save a stranger.
Aimitagai is screening at Toronto Japanese Film Festival
Azusa is a wedding planner who frequently gets some looks in her line of work for not being married like her coworkers. She is, however, dating Sumito, a young man she considers unreliable, but despite that, they are on the verge of becoming more serious. The person she most enjoys spending time with is her best friend from school, Kanami, who once saved her from bullying.
Aimitagai is screening at Toronto Japanese Film Festival
Azusa is a wedding planner who frequently gets some looks in her line of work for not being married like her coworkers. She is, however, dating Sumito, a young man she considers unreliable, but despite that, they are on the verge of becoming more serious. The person she most enjoys spending time with is her best friend from school, Kanami, who once saved her from bullying.
- 6/16/2025
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Japanese film ‘The Zen Diary', which depicts Buddhist vegetarian cuisine and the sustainable lifestyle in Nagano, will be screening in Toronto in May 2024! Director Yuji Nakae will be attending all the screenings below.
Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre: May 23 (https://jccc.on.ca/film/zen-diary-2024-encore )
Revue Cinema: May 24 & 25 (https://revuecinema.ca/films/the-zen-diary/)
Title: The Zen Diary （『土を喰らう十二ヵ月』）
Director/Script: Yuji Nakae
Casts: Kenji Sawada, Takako Matsu, Naomi Nishida, Toshinori Omi, Koihachi Takigawa, Fumi Dan, Shohei
Hino, Tomoko Naraoka
Based on the book by Tsutomu Mizukami
Cooking: Yoshiharu Doi / Music: Yoshihide Otomo
Synopsis:
Tsutomu lives alone in the mountains, writing essays and cooking food with vegetables he grows and mushrooms he picks in the hills. His routine is happily disturbed when Machiko, his editor/love interest, occasionally visits. She loves to eat, and he loves to cook for her. Tsutomu seems content with his daily life. On the other hand,...
Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre: May 23 (https://jccc.on.ca/film/zen-diary-2024-encore )
Revue Cinema: May 24 & 25 (https://revuecinema.ca/films/the-zen-diary/)
Title: The Zen Diary （『土を喰らう十二ヵ月』）
Director/Script: Yuji Nakae
Casts: Kenji Sawada, Takako Matsu, Naomi Nishida, Toshinori Omi, Koihachi Takigawa, Fumi Dan, Shohei
Hino, Tomoko Naraoka
Based on the book by Tsutomu Mizukami
Cooking: Yoshiharu Doi / Music: Yoshihide Otomo
Synopsis:
Tsutomu lives alone in the mountains, writing essays and cooking food with vegetables he grows and mushrooms he picks in the hills. His routine is happily disturbed when Machiko, his editor/love interest, occasionally visits. She loves to eat, and he loves to cook for her. Tsutomu seems content with his daily life. On the other hand,...
- 5/11/2024
- by Adam Symchuk
- AsianMoviePulse
The Village is a Japanese film starring Ryusei Yokohama, Haru Kuroki, and Arata Furuta and directed by Michihito Fujii. The movie takes us on a journey between fantasy and reality in a Japanese village that has become a dumpsite. This film blends ancient tradition with the harsh reality of modern times, making it very relevant.
About the Movie
The film constantly seeks the truth, which is commendable. It is a different kind of movie on Netflix, as it is full of realism and delves into a pressing issue of contemporary society: waste management and the social problems it brings. It is a good starting point, and after an excellent opening sequence about Kabuki theater, the film continues to maintain our interest by presenting a well-told story that finds its own rhythm. With a lot of personality and a strong message, the film develops and reaches a level of maturity.
This movie will have its audience,...
About the Movie
The film constantly seeks the truth, which is commendable. It is a different kind of movie on Netflix, as it is full of realism and delves into a pressing issue of contemporary society: waste management and the social problems it brings. It is a good starting point, and after an excellent opening sequence about Kabuki theater, the film continues to maintain our interest by presenting a well-told story that finds its own rhythm. With a lot of personality and a strong message, the film develops and reaches a level of maturity.
This movie will have its audience,...
- 6/16/2023
- by Martin Cid
- Martin Cid Magazine - Movies
Re/Member (Karada Sagashi) is a horror movie directed by Eiichirô Hasumi starring Kanna Hashimoto, Gordon Maeda and Maika Yamamoto among. It is based on the manga by Katsutoshi Murase and Welzard.
Re/Member is a Japanese scary movie… Japanese fashion with all the elements of recent “scary” movie successes and some extra ones extracted from the most classic Hollywood ones.
Ringu was a success because it was a novelty, Re/Member does not have much chances in standing out, precisely because of its “originality” or lack of it.
It does offer horror movie fans a little more of what they expect in this guilty sin.
Storyline
In order to break a curse, six students in a strange space/time will need to restore the balance in Sofia, a child that was murdered years ago and whom they wish to avenge.
Movie Review
A movie about ghosts and apparitions that is well made...
Re/Member is a Japanese scary movie… Japanese fashion with all the elements of recent “scary” movie successes and some extra ones extracted from the most classic Hollywood ones.
Ringu was a success because it was a novelty, Re/Member does not have much chances in standing out, precisely because of its “originality” or lack of it.
It does offer horror movie fans a little more of what they expect in this guilty sin.
Storyline
In order to break a curse, six students in a strange space/time will need to restore the balance in Sofia, a child that was murdered years ago and whom they wish to avenge.
Movie Review
A movie about ghosts and apparitions that is well made...
- 2/14/2023
- by Martin Cid
- Martin Cid Magazine - Movies
Takashi Miike‘s The Happiness of the Katakuris begins with a woman probing a freshly delivered bowl of soup only to fish out a miniature angel/gargoyle/teletubby? whose presence seems to instigate the onscreen conversion of the world into claymation before tearing out the poor woman’s uvula and tossing it into the air to float away like a heart-shaped balloon. This is a film that, even in an oeuvre that includes works as disparate as gross out shocker Visitor Q and the kid friendly The Great Yokai War, is pure unpredictable insanity that baffles as much as it entertains. Essentially a horror comedy musical, Miike’s genre mashing farce is loosely based on Kim Jee-woon’s The Quiet Family, in which a family owns a remotely located bed and breakfast whose customers always happen to die during their stay, yet takes that simple premise to its outermost extremes in the silliest of ways.
- 6/30/2015
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Stars: Kenji Sawada, Keiko Matsuzaka, Shinji Takeda, Naomi Nishida, Kiyoshirô Imawano, Tetsurô Tanba, Naoto Takenaka, Tamaki Miyazaki, Takashi Matsuzaki | Written by Ai Kennedy, Kikumi Yamagishi | Directed by Takashi Miike
Being a Takashi Miike fan takes you down some strange roads. Whether it is the extreme Ichi the Killer and Visitor Q, or the fun Crow Zero movies there is always something a little off about all of his movies. One of the strangest to come from him has to be The Happiness of the Katakuris, a musical about happiness, family and death which is out now from Arrow Video…
When the Katakuri family build a bed and breakfast in the country, they do so on the promise of a new road being built close to it to provide them with plenty of customers. When the road doesn’t appear though they start to wonder if they are cursed to fail.
Being a Takashi Miike fan takes you down some strange roads. Whether it is the extreme Ichi the Killer and Visitor Q, or the fun Crow Zero movies there is always something a little off about all of his movies. One of the strangest to come from him has to be The Happiness of the Katakuris, a musical about happiness, family and death which is out now from Arrow Video…
When the Katakuri family build a bed and breakfast in the country, they do so on the promise of a new road being built close to it to provide them with plenty of customers. When the road doesn’t appear though they start to wonder if they are cursed to fail.
- 6/22/2015
- by Paul Metcalf
- Nerdly
Stars: Atsuko Maeda, Hiroki Narimiya, Masanobu Katsumura, Naomi Nishida, Kanau Tanaka | Written by Jun’ya Katô, Ryûta Miyake | Directed by Hideo Nakata
Hideo Nakata is well known in the horror world for his work, directing Ring, Ring 2 and Dark Water, among others, so it wasn’t unwelcome to see a new release from Nakata that sounded like it was along the lines of the films that made him so famous in the first place.
The Complex comes at a time when films like Ring and Dark Water are less frequent after a period, a few years ago, where the popularity of these originators caused many other ghost stories along similar lines to materialise until the marketplace felt a little saturated by them. I found myself, after taking a step or two back from the genre for a couple of years, feeling excited about this film.
The Complex tells the tale...
Hideo Nakata is well known in the horror world for his work, directing Ring, Ring 2 and Dark Water, among others, so it wasn’t unwelcome to see a new release from Nakata that sounded like it was along the lines of the films that made him so famous in the first place.
The Complex comes at a time when films like Ring and Dark Water are less frequent after a period, a few years ago, where the popularity of these originators caused many other ghost stories along similar lines to materialise until the marketplace felt a little saturated by them. I found myself, after taking a step or two back from the genre for a couple of years, feeling excited about this film.
The Complex tells the tale...
- 2/3/2014
- by Chris Cummings
- Nerdly
In the few short years since making her film debut with an impressively precocious performance in Akihiko Shiota's Canary, 19-year-old Mitsuki Tanimura has established herself as one of the most interesting actresses in her age bracket. While it would be easy for a young idol signed to a major talent agency to just coast by on her looks with modeling gigs and appearances in schmaltzy TV dramas (as most girls of her stature do quite happily), Tanimura keeps jumping clean off the radar, signing on to act in some seriously oddball projects with little potential for press coverage, let alone financial success. And it's not as if her career has stalled -- far from it. In addition to several small films by unestablished directors, she's also slated to appear in Toshio Lee's Box!, Takashi Miike's remake of Thirteen Assassins, and Junji Sakamoto's Yukizuri no Machi, among others.
- 3/25/2010
- Nippon Cinema
Film review: 'Godzilla 2000'
Trying to get rid of Godzilla is like trying to throw away an old boomerang. Missiles, bombs and exploding mines merely annoy the huge beast.
Toho Studios, the big fellow's home since 1954, killed him off in 1995's "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah", only to revive him due to popular demand. Roland Emmerich's inflated, Westernized 1998 version, which created a behemoth reptile with visual effects and digital technology, not only failed to finish off the Big G but also renewed interest in him in his native Japan.
So one of the movies' most enduring -- and endearing -- stars is back with all of his bad attitudes in "Godzilla 2000", his 23rd feature. Released domestically by Sony's TriStar Pictures with a dubbed English soundtrack, the movie reinstates all of the series' old tricks: the cheesy special effects, the wildly inappropriate English dialogue and, most importantly, the monster played by a man wearing an elaborate latex suit.
Because Godzilla is the cinematic equivalent of comfort food and, presumably, American appetites were awakened by Emmerich's film, this new incarnation should attract not only fans of the beast and high camp but also the curious who want to see the grumpy monster on his home turf -- trashing Tokyo for the umpteenth time.
Godzilla gets a makeover every few years. The new Godzilla has shrunk to about 170 feet -- closer to the 1954 model -- and has much scarier teeth, a crouch-like gait, a pinkish tone in his redesigned dorsal fins and fiery, don't-mess-with-me eyes. Tsutomu Kitagawa is the stuntman-gymnast inside the Godzilla suit, and special effects director Kenji Suzuki created the new look.
Godzilla disappears for too long during the middle of the movie as director Takao Okawara and his writers prepare the way for another monster to battle Godzilla. This foe is named Orga, according to media notes, though he is never called that in the film.
Orga starts out as a mysterious rock found in a coastal seabed and turns out to be a 60 million-year-old UFO. When scientists bring it to the surface, the thing gets fueled by the sun, zips around the sky and finally squats on a skyscraper, where it soaks up data from Tokyo's computer systems.
Searching for a way to adapt to Earth's hostile environment, the alien spots a rampaging Godzilla making life miserable for humans and apparently decides to transform itself into a Godzilla-like monster. Well, Tokyo isn't big enough for two Godzillas, so the two duke it out in a grand finale that, of course, levels the poor city once more.
The humans watching all this include Takehiro Murata as the head of the Godzilla Prediction Network, who seeks to protect the monster as a suitable subject for scientific inquiry; 12-year-old Mayu Suzuki as his beguiling daughter; Naomi Nishida as a photojournalist who tags along in hopes of getting good Godzilla shots; Hiroshi Abe as the intelligence agency chief obsessed with destroying the beast; and Shiro Sano as his befuddled
assistant.
What turns "Godzilla 2000" into a riotous comedy are the deliberately awkward English dialogue and archaic expressions like "Great Caesar's ghost!" A few favorite lines: "Ah, the damn teriyaki is cold here," "Quit your bitchin'" and "Oh, bite me".
While the film takes advantage of current technology to employ nearly 500 CG shots, the effects are deliberately not state of the art. The filmmakers, quite rightly, believe that a technically perfect movie would betray the spirit of Godzilla.
The Japanese have enormous affection for this goofy series and its ugly, angry hero. Some claim that Godzilla, supposedly awakened or mutated by nuclear testing, is a manifestation of that country's understandable terror of the nuclear age. But dragons and monsters roam the mythology of all cultures, and cinema is replete with such beasts, ranging from Dr. Frankenstein's monster to King Kong and the shark in "Jaws".
Monsters embody our fears. Our ambivalence toward them reflects our fascination with that which terrorizes us. Thus, the corniness of Godzilla, with its hokey effects and man in a monster suit, allows us to take childlike pleasure in a "villain" in much the same way Margaret Hamilton won our hearts as the wicked witch in "The Wizard of Oz".
GODZILLA 2000
TriStar Pictures
A Toho Company Ltd. presentation
of a Toho Pictures production
Producer: Shogo Tomiyama
Director: Takao Okawara
Screenwriters: Hiroshi Kashiwabara,
Wataru Minura
Director of special effects: Kenji Suzuki
Director of photography: Katsuhiro Kato
Production designer: Takeshi Shimizu
Music: Takayuki Hattori
Costume designer: Masato Arai
Editor: Yoshiyuki Okuhara
Color/stereo
Cast:
GPN Director Shinoda: Takehiro Murata
CCI Scientist Miyasaka: Shiro Sano
CCI Chief Katagiri: Hiroshi Abe
Yuki: Naomi Nishida
Io: Mayu Suzuki
Godzilla: Tsutomu Kitagawa
Running time - 97 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
Toho Studios, the big fellow's home since 1954, killed him off in 1995's "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah", only to revive him due to popular demand. Roland Emmerich's inflated, Westernized 1998 version, which created a behemoth reptile with visual effects and digital technology, not only failed to finish off the Big G but also renewed interest in him in his native Japan.
So one of the movies' most enduring -- and endearing -- stars is back with all of his bad attitudes in "Godzilla 2000", his 23rd feature. Released domestically by Sony's TriStar Pictures with a dubbed English soundtrack, the movie reinstates all of the series' old tricks: the cheesy special effects, the wildly inappropriate English dialogue and, most importantly, the monster played by a man wearing an elaborate latex suit.
Because Godzilla is the cinematic equivalent of comfort food and, presumably, American appetites were awakened by Emmerich's film, this new incarnation should attract not only fans of the beast and high camp but also the curious who want to see the grumpy monster on his home turf -- trashing Tokyo for the umpteenth time.
Godzilla gets a makeover every few years. The new Godzilla has shrunk to about 170 feet -- closer to the 1954 model -- and has much scarier teeth, a crouch-like gait, a pinkish tone in his redesigned dorsal fins and fiery, don't-mess-with-me eyes. Tsutomu Kitagawa is the stuntman-gymnast inside the Godzilla suit, and special effects director Kenji Suzuki created the new look.
Godzilla disappears for too long during the middle of the movie as director Takao Okawara and his writers prepare the way for another monster to battle Godzilla. This foe is named Orga, according to media notes, though he is never called that in the film.
Orga starts out as a mysterious rock found in a coastal seabed and turns out to be a 60 million-year-old UFO. When scientists bring it to the surface, the thing gets fueled by the sun, zips around the sky and finally squats on a skyscraper, where it soaks up data from Tokyo's computer systems.
Searching for a way to adapt to Earth's hostile environment, the alien spots a rampaging Godzilla making life miserable for humans and apparently decides to transform itself into a Godzilla-like monster. Well, Tokyo isn't big enough for two Godzillas, so the two duke it out in a grand finale that, of course, levels the poor city once more.
The humans watching all this include Takehiro Murata as the head of the Godzilla Prediction Network, who seeks to protect the monster as a suitable subject for scientific inquiry; 12-year-old Mayu Suzuki as his beguiling daughter; Naomi Nishida as a photojournalist who tags along in hopes of getting good Godzilla shots; Hiroshi Abe as the intelligence agency chief obsessed with destroying the beast; and Shiro Sano as his befuddled
assistant.
What turns "Godzilla 2000" into a riotous comedy are the deliberately awkward English dialogue and archaic expressions like "Great Caesar's ghost!" A few favorite lines: "Ah, the damn teriyaki is cold here," "Quit your bitchin'" and "Oh, bite me".
While the film takes advantage of current technology to employ nearly 500 CG shots, the effects are deliberately not state of the art. The filmmakers, quite rightly, believe that a technically perfect movie would betray the spirit of Godzilla.
The Japanese have enormous affection for this goofy series and its ugly, angry hero. Some claim that Godzilla, supposedly awakened or mutated by nuclear testing, is a manifestation of that country's understandable terror of the nuclear age. But dragons and monsters roam the mythology of all cultures, and cinema is replete with such beasts, ranging from Dr. Frankenstein's monster to King Kong and the shark in "Jaws".
Monsters embody our fears. Our ambivalence toward them reflects our fascination with that which terrorizes us. Thus, the corniness of Godzilla, with its hokey effects and man in a monster suit, allows us to take childlike pleasure in a "villain" in much the same way Margaret Hamilton won our hearts as the wicked witch in "The Wizard of Oz".
GODZILLA 2000
TriStar Pictures
A Toho Company Ltd. presentation
of a Toho Pictures production
Producer: Shogo Tomiyama
Director: Takao Okawara
Screenwriters: Hiroshi Kashiwabara,
Wataru Minura
Director of special effects: Kenji Suzuki
Director of photography: Katsuhiro Kato
Production designer: Takeshi Shimizu
Music: Takayuki Hattori
Costume designer: Masato Arai
Editor: Yoshiyuki Okuhara
Color/stereo
Cast:
GPN Director Shinoda: Takehiro Murata
CCI Scientist Miyasaka: Shiro Sano
CCI Chief Katagiri: Hiroshi Abe
Yuki: Naomi Nishida
Io: Mayu Suzuki
Godzilla: Tsutomu Kitagawa
Running time - 97 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
- 8/18/2000
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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