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Ichikawa Kon’s 1956 film The Burmese Harp burnished the filmmaker’s international reputation as a Renoiresque humanist, but, in retrospect, the scabrous fury of 1959’s Fires on the Plain, his other antiwar tract, feels closer to the heart of the notoriously hard-to-pin-down Japanese director. Closer to the anguished sardonicism of Enjo or Odd Obsession than to the earlier film’s tenderness, it plays against the image of Ichikawa as a soothing optimist, opening with the protagonist, Private Tamura (Funakoshi Eiji), suddenly smacked across the face, though the slap could be directed toward the audience.

On the Philippine island of Leyte, as Japanese forces rapidly dwindle toward the end of World War II,...

Novelist Shohei Ooka would captivate readers with his anti-war novel “Fires on the Plain,” published in 1951. Inspired by his personal experiences from being drafted as a soldier, Ooka's chilling story depicts the gruesome violence and insanity that occurred during the Imperial Japanese Army's last stand in the Philippines on the island of Leyte during World War II. The award-winning book was praised for its gripping storytelling and raw examination of the horrors of war. With the success of the title, there were talks for a film adaptation for quite a while. Eventually, the nightmarish narrative would be superbly adapted for cinemas with Kon Ichikawa's “Fires on the Plain.”

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Daiei Film greenlighted the project, and the studio's president, Masaichi Nagata, would produce it. Kon Ichikawa would direct, and his wife, Natto Wada, would write the screenplay. There was initial...

Shot back to back with the first film, “Oretachi Wa Tesnhi Ja Nai 2” continues with the adventures of the four members of Angels Gift Delivery, this time focusing on Chu, who was somewhat neglected in the first part.

Chu helps Mio, a lady who has locked herself outside of her car, in a series of events that end up with the group helping her to clear her father’s house, who was recently murdered, although the culprit is not yet caught. A series of unlikely coincidences end up with the group investigating the mental hospital the man used to work at, and a shady killer dressed in black in their heels.

The combination of nudity, action and comedy is still here, but is not implemented in the same entertaining fashion as in the first part, with the sequel’s only really interesting aspect being the presence of the noir-style killer,...

In the mid-90s, a new filmmaker from Japan would be announced to the world after his experimental films with unique style, although it would not be years after that the director would give his best with his personal masterpiece “Eureka” in 2000 , perhaps his best known film to date in all his filmography. “Wild Life” belongs to the beginning of the director Shinji Aoyama, where he shows us a bizarre story of ex-boxers, yakuzas and Pachinko workers.

Wild Life is screening at doc films

“Wild Life” is about a lonely and apparently quiet person called Hiroki (Kosuke Toyohara). Hiroki is a worker who makes a living working in a pachinko parlor, although years ago he was devoted to professional boxing. His boss, Tsumura (Mickey Curtis), is the owner of that pachinko room, and everything at first looks normal, until the two of them are involved in a yakuza conflict of...

“Kamikaze Taxi” isn’t the film you think it is. It starts out with documentary style footage and then it slides into feature narrative and stays there. This format shift is perhaps a clue as to what kind of movie you are really sitting down to, which isn’t a yakuza film, a road movie or a documentary. It’s a unique mashup of style and story that takes you on an odd yet unique journey for two hours and twenty minutes into the life of two Japanese men on the run.

Kamikaze Taxi is screening at the 17th New York Asian Film Festival

The story that “Kamikaze Taxi” tells is about a Japanese man recently returned to Japan, having lived most of his life in Peru. Working as a taxi driver, Kantake (Kôji Yakusho), is a man out of touch with his Japanese heritage. He meets a young punk,...

Director Yudai Yamaguchi (The ABC's of Death) is ready to release his splatterfest, Deadball, to audiences. The release date is April 9th and the release will be unrated. Fans will understand that this means: violence, gore and general mayhem. And, the film's story echoes this argument. The Deadball story follows Yakyu (Tak Sakaguchi). Yakyu is a juvenile delinquent, who has murdered 50 people in under a week. Incarcerated, Yakyu is coerced to a join a brutal baseball league. Teams play to the death and everyone has to risk facing a brutal gauntlet. Now, the film's official home video release artwork is available is here. Fans of exploitation movies can preview other film details below. Release Date: April 9th, 2013 (DVD, Blu-Ray, VOD). Director: Yudai Yamaguchi. Writers: Keita Tokaji and Yudai Yamaguchi. Cast: Kai Atô, Mickey Curtis, Erina and Junichi Gamou. The film's United Kingdom trailer is here: *bonus materials for the release include: -Spinoff.

Although it may sound like a film following the exploits of a robotic gangster, “Robo-g” is in fact a Japanese outing charting the wackiness that ensues when an old man is hired to masquerade as a robot. The film is the latest from director Yaguchi Shinobu, the man behind a string of hugely successful feel good comedies including “Water Boys” and “Swing Girls”, with former rocker Igarashi Shinjiro (better known as Mickey Curtis) as the elderly protagonist. An upbeat, family friendly crowd-pleaser, the film proved another hit for Yaguchi at the domestic box office, as well as playing to praise at a variety of international genre festivals. The film opens with three engineers called Hiroki (Hamada Gaku, “Fish Story”), Koji (Chan Kawai), and Shinya (Junya Kawashima, “Go Find a Psychic!”) failing to produce a working autonomous robot for their company. With an important expo just around the corner, they hatch...

Awesome news for fans of these so-called Sushi Typhoon films. Well Go USA has released a press note saying they’ve acquired the distribution rights to release Mutant Girls Squad, Helldriver (review here), Karate-Robo Zaorgar, and more to DVD this Fall.

It looks like fans of crazy, bloody, Japanese films will be plenty excited.

Well Go USA has acquired DVD, Digital, VOD and Television rights for the North American market to Mutant Girls Squad, Helldriver, Yakuza Weapon, Deadball and Karate-Robo Zaborgar from Nikkatsu Corporation’s leading genre film label, The Sushi Typhoon. Launched in 2010, The Sushi Typhoon was created by Producer Yoshinori Chiba and aims to bring the best talent from Japanese cult cinema to worldwide audiences. Well Go plans to make its initial rollout on VOD, DVD and Blu-ray starting in fall 2011.

“We are very excited to have secured rights to these ‘neo action gore’ titles, a genre which...

Well Go USA are quickly becoming one of my favorite distribution companies, with releases such as Man From Nowehere and Ip Man 2 kicking all kinds of ass. Now they have picked up the rights to five Sushi Typhoon flicks. Helldriver, Deadball, Mutant Girl Squad, Yakuza Weapon and Karate-Robo Zaborgar will be coming to VOD, DVD and Blu-ray starting in the Fall this year.

Well Go USA Acquires North American Distribution Rights

To Five Films From The Sushi Typhoon Label

Mutant Girls Squad, Helldriver, Yakuza Weapon,

Deadball and Karate-Robo Zaborgar

Plano, Texas. (July 18, 2011) — Well Go USA has acquired DVD, Digital, VOD and Television rights for the North American market to Mutant Girls Squad, Helldriver, Yakuza Weapon,

Deadball and Karate-Robo Zaborgar from Nikkatsu Corporation’s leading genre film label, The Sushi Typhoon. Launched in 2010, The Sushi Typhoon was created by Producer Yoshinori Chiba and aims to bring the best talent from Japanese cult cinema to worldwide audiences.

Citing the growth potential and rabid fanbase, Well Go USA has nabbed the rights to five titles from Nikkatsu Corporation's Sushi Typhoon label. Well Go USA is now the proud owner of Mutant Girls Squad, Helldriver, Yakuza Weapon, Deadball and Karate-Robo Zaborgar. A thorough and descriptive list to say the least.

Varying from hilarious comedy to splatterific violence, the one common thread of all these films is going over-the-top for the sake of entertainment. And isn't that what we really want? Explode that head! Let's see some arterial spray! Bring it on! Stay tuned as Well Go will begin rolling out these titles beginning in the fall of 2011. You've been warned.

From the Press Release

Well Go USA has acquired DVD, Digital, VOD and Television rights for the North American market to Mutant Girls Squad, Helldriver, Yakuza Weapon, Deadball and Karate-Robo Zaborgar from Nikkatsu Corporation’s leading genre film label,...