News

Based on the novel “Kirishima, Bukatsu Yamerutteyo” by Ryo Asai, “The Kirishima Thing” established Daihachi Yoshida as one of the most competent contemporary directors of the country. The movie won five awards from the Japan Academy, including Picture and Director of the Year for Yoshida, Best Editor for Mototaka Kusakabe, and Best Newcomers for Masahiro Higashide and Ai Hashimoto, both of whom ended up becoming superstars later on.

Buy This Title

by clicking on the image below

The original story is an omnibus telling the stories of numerous characters, although Yoshida’s movie focuses mostly on two of them, Ryoya Maeda and Hiroki Kikuchi. The titular student, however, Kirishima, the captain of the volleyball team, a good student and boyfriend to one of the most popular girls in the school, Risa, shines through his absence. One day, out of the blue, he stops coming to school, and the rumors circulating...

I’ve been late to some events in my life but today’s was the first where Tony Leung locked eyes while I opened the door. This, sadly, was not a one-on-one encounter or beginning of a Hong Kong co-production but the jury press conference for the 37th Tokyo International Film Festival at Toho Cinema Chanter, which the legendary production company manages, owns, and marks as their own with a Godzilla stationed outside the premises. Watching even one such event on YouTube––there’s, conservative estimate, 9,000 you can choose from across the span of the international fest circuit––you know how intimate these things get: almost everybody is a little jetlagged, hungover, under-caffeinated, and / or coasting on the energy of a hotel breakfast, the questions are not very good, and answers often their equal; not so much for lack of trying as it is means of reading the room, a...

In a year in which two of world cinema’s oldest industries, Japan and Italy, have signed a long-awaited co-production treaty, jury members at this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) were talking up the importance of both film history and the theatrical experience on the first full day of the festival.

After praising TIFF for its selection of established and emerging Asian filmmakers, Hong Kong actor and jury president Tony Leung Chiu-wai also pointed to the festival’s in-depth programmes of classic movies observing that they play an important role in “introducing Italian directors like [Federico] Fellini and Japanese filmmakers like [Akira] Kurosawa to younger audiences.

“They are not only introducing what is current, but also the vast history of cinema, which is a wonderful opportunity for audiences to learn about the past,” the star of In The Mood For Love and Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings said.

Hong Kong movie icon Tony Leung, now in the fourth decade of his celebrated career, still hasn’t lost the habit of getting out to the movie theater.

“Even to this day, I go and watch movies at the cinema four or five times a week,” the actor said Tuesday at the Tokyo International Film Festival, where he is serving as the president of the event’s competition jury. “I’ve been doing this since I was small.”

But the actor — beloved by cineastes for his work in Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love, Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, and Zhang Yimou’s Hero, among so many others — said judging movies during a film festival makes for a “totally different” viewing experience and that tends to leave him anxious.

Leung is joined on the Tokyo jury this year by fellow Hong Kong film titan Johnnie To, Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi,...

The 37th Tokyo International Film Festival got off to a memorably splashy start Monday night with the world premiere of filmmaker Shiraishi Kazuya’s frenetic and wildly bloody samurai action flick 11 Rebels.

In recent years, Japan’s preeminent cinema event has been attempting to revitalize and rebrand itself as a not-to-be-missed cultural occasion in the Asia-Pacific region. After years of organizational drift, the festival, under the leadership of current chairman Hiroyasu Ando, is on a mission to boost its reach and reputation into something more commensurate with the country’s powerful cinematic past and the ever-growing appeal of Japanese culture around the globe.

In that sense, 11 Rebels was perhaps the perfect pick for this year’s opening gala screening. A throw-back samurai slasher, the film is based on a decades-old screenplay by the late, great scriptwriter Kasahara Kazuo, best known for his cult classic yakuza film Battles Without Honor and Humanity...

Japan’s prime minster Shigeru Ishiba delivered a message of support to the local film industry during the opening of the 37th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) on Monday (October 28).

Speaking via video message, Ishiba said work was underway to further develop Japan’s screen industries.

“The Japanese content industry has an export scale comparable to that of the steel and semiconductor industries,” said the prime minister. “The source of its competitiveness lies in the individual creators such as film directors and those on the production floor, along with their companies. The government is working to lay the groundwork to...

As the biggest festival in one of the world’s biggest film markets, the Tokyo International Film Festival has always been held under the glare of painfully high expectations. But taking place towards the end of Asia’s crowded autumn festival season, then struggling through the brutal years of the pandemic, it hasn’t been easy for the event to create a global footprint.

Ando Hiroyasu, who came on board as chairman in 2019, was determined to change all that and started to restructure the festival during the pandemic. In 2021, Shozo Ichiyama, a veteran producer (Caught By the Tides) and former Tokyo Filmex director, joined TIFF as Programming Director and helped to reorganize and streamline the program. Under Ando’s management, the festival also moved from Roppongi to the Ginza-Hibiya district, which has more cinemas, leisure and cultural venues, and introduced a series of high-profile filmmaker talks, known as the TIFF Lounge Talk Sessions.

The 37th Tokyo International Film Festival, taking place from October 28 to November 6, has announced a lineup opening with Shiraishi Kazuya’s 11 Rebels and closing with Christophe Honoré’s Marcello Mio, in-between featuring new Asian directors, an animation sidebar, restored Japanese classics, and Akira Kurosawa’s favorite films (among them Breathless and Hou Hsiao-hsien’s A Time to Live and a Time to Die). Complementing these will be masterclasses from Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Sammo Hung, as well as a Béla Tarr-led symposium. I’ll be traveling there from October 28 to November 2, with coverage to follow.

The main competition’s jury is spearheaded by Tony Leung and features Johnnie To, Chiara Mastroianni, Ildikó Enyedi, and Ai Hashimoto, while the 15-film lineup comprises an eclectic mix: nine world premieres of predominantly Asian titles, five Asian premieres, one international debut, and only a handful of European features among them.

See the competition lineup below...

The Tokyo International Film Festival revealed its full 2024 lineup on Wednesday, including its main competition program and the Asian Future section for emerging regional filmmakers, as well as the all-new Women’s Empowerment section, which highlights nine films directed by women or involving female-focussed stories.

Tokyo’s 15-title main competition reveals a preference for securing world premieres over previously shown titles by established festival names. There are eight world premieres in the section — including Big World and My Friend An Delie by China’s Yang Lina and Dong Zijian, respectively; Papa from Hong Kong’s Philip Yung; The Englishman’s Papers from Portugal’s Sergio Graciano; and three Japanese features, among others (see full lineup below). Additional highlights include the international premiere of Midi Z’s The Unseen Sister and Huang Xi’s recent Toronto Film Festival entry Daughter’s Daughter, starring Sylvia Chang.

As previously announced, the competition titles will...

Tokyo International Film Festival has announced its full line-up including its main international and Asian Future competitions, as well as the nine films selected for its Women’s Empowerment Section.

The new female-focused section will screen Iranian drama My Favourite Cake, directed by Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, who are banned from travelling by the Iranian authorities and were unable to attend the film’s premiere in Berlin.

Other titles in the Women’s Empowerment Section include Turkish director Ceylan Ozgun Ozcelik’s In Ten Seconds; Hong Kong filmmaker Oliver Chan’s Montages Of A Motherhood; Memories Of A Burning Body, from Costa Rica’s Antonella Sudasassi Furniss; and the world premiere of Japanese director Naoki Tamura’s Doctor-x The Movie, among other titles.

Co-hosted with Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Women’s Empowerment Section is programmed by Andrijana Cvetkovikj and focuses on films directed by female filmmakers and/or with female-focused narratives.

The full competition jury for the 37th Tokyo International Film Festival has been revealed.

On Friday, festival organizers announced that Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To, Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi, Japanese actress Ai Hashimoto and French actress Chiara Mastroianni will be members of the 2024 main competition jury alongside previously announced jury president Tony Leung.

To, like Leung a legend of Hong Kong cinema, is famed the world over for his action and crime films. The veteran and prolific filmmaker’s credits include Breaking News, Exiled, Mad Detective, Drug War and the Election films (Election, Election 2 (a.k.a. Triad Election). To, a regular feature of the international film festival circuit, has had six films screen at the Cannes Film Festival, two in competition, as well as had four films selected to compete at the Venice Film Festival.

Enyedi is best known for writing and directing the Hungarian drama On Body and Soul,...

It's not the first time that internationally acclaimed maestro Hirokazu Koreeda put his effort on a serial drama. In 2019 he directed the first episode and coordinated the collective show “A Day-Off of Kasumi Arimura” and before that, in 2012, he directed the lovely (a personal favourite) “Going My Home”, starring Hiroshi Abe as a clumsy father struggling with his roles as son and as father too. However, his recent “The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House” has been propelled to global audience by the intervention of giant platform Netflix. The show is co-written, co-produced and co-directed by Koreeda, alongside a handful of Japanese filmmakers and is based on a famous manga of the same title that has sold more than 1.8 million copies in Japan.

Click the image below to follow our Tribute to Netflix

After seeing maiko (apprentice geishas) walking the street of Kyoto on a school trip, 16-year-old inseparable best...

The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House (Maiko-san Chino makanai-san) is a Japanese series created by Hirokazu Koreeda starring Mayu Matsuoka, Ai Hashimoto, Nana Mori and Keiko Matsuzaka. Based on the manga by Aiko Koyama.

The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House, is a tender Japanese story about art, friendship, youth, time… and, what can merge all these concepts in a single one? Food as an art form and an expression of ephemerality and at the same time, eternity, serves this series to achieve a portrayal of youth that is charming, consoling and above all, very, very tender.

About the Series The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House

A small delicacy for those that love the most traditional aspects of Japanese culture. The lives of these two kitchen apprentices will lead us, almost apologetically, to view a kind of Kyoto in which time goes by almost unnoticed, like those first...

At the close of its opening credits sequence, Netflix’s The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House splashes its title over a close-up shot of a meal. What meal specifically varies from episode to episode, depending on what the characters eat in any given one. Invariably, however, it’s some form of home-cooked comfort food: oyakodon or tomato curry or stewed eggplant, often still bubbling in the pot.

The dishes aren’t necessarily pretty, by the standards of your typical foodie show, nor do they look particularly fancy or original. But that’s precisely their appeal. They’re simple, straightforward, deceptively humble and irresistibly cozy — much like the series itself.

Adapted from the manga by Aiko Koyama, The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House centers on a rare adventure. At the start of the series, 16-year-old best friends Kiyo (an irrepressibly sunny Nana Mori) and Sumire (Natsuki Deguchi) strike out...

Cannes Palme d’Or-winning director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s first series for Netflix, The Makanai: Cooking For The Maiko House, is based on a best-selling manga about two young girls who move to Kyoto to start their training as ‘maiko’ or apprentice geisha.

One of them turns out to be a star maiko, but the other is not so talented in the geisha arts, which mostly comprise traditional song and dance, and ends up cooking for the household where the girls are being trained, an activity in which she excels. Neither the manga, created by Aiko Koyama, or the series are set in the Edo period, the golden era of geisha culture, but in contemporary Japan, where the profession still exists and is respected, but is also regarded as a dying art.

Scheduled to start streaming tomorrow (January 12), the series is produced by Kore-eda and Genki Kawamura, a leading producer behind hits such as Confessions,...

Click here to read the full article.

Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) will open with a full red carpet for the first time in three years as the event looks to bounce back from two relatively subdued editions held during the pandemic.

Fest chairman Hiroyasu Ando said at a line-up press conference that he expected around 100 overseas guests and participants to attend. A very limited number of visitors made the trip for the last two events.

Japan’s government has kept tighter restrictions on its borders for longer than most other countries and a daily limit of 50,000 inbound travellers currently remains in place. Further loosening is expected by the time the fest unspools, with a parliamentary discussion on border controls set for tomorrow.

TIFF will also revive the Kurosawa Akira Award, given to filmmakers for contributions to global cinema, after a hiatus of 14 years. Previous recipients include Steven Spielberg, Yamada Yoji and Chen Kaige.

Shoplifters director Hirokazu Kore-eda is to adapt popular comic Maiko in Kyoto: From the Maiko House into an eight-part Netflix TV series, his first for the streamer. The prolific Kore-eda teased a TV and film project for Netflix late last year and these are the first details to emerge.

Airing later this year, The Makanai: Cooking For The Maiko House from Story Inc and Bun-Buku Inc is set in the geisha district of Kyoto, as protagonist Kiyo becomes a Makanai (person who cooks meals) at a house where Maiko (apprentice geishas) live together. The story depicts the everyday life of Kiyo maiko Sumire, her childhood friend who came with her from Aomori to Kyoto, amid a vibrant world of geisha and maiko courtesans.

Kore-eda, who won the Palme d’Or in 2018 for Shoplifters, his story about a family that relies on shoplifting to cope with poverty, is also in the...

Since her debut in Tetsuya Nakashima’s acclaimed feature Confessions (2010) as a schoolgirl, Ai Hashimoto, 25, has built an impressive filmography, to say nothing of her television work, modeling and singing career (she’s signed to Sony Music).

The native of Kumamoto on Japan’s southern island of Kyushu has shown her versatility in appearing in everything from the horror of Sadako (2019) to the musical of Wonderful World End (2015), through to the year-long historical drama Reach Beyond the Blue Sky, currently running on public broadcaster Nhk.

While there have been ambassadors in years gone by at the Tokyo fest from the model-singer-actress ...

Since her debut in Tetsuya Nakashima’s acclaimed feature Confessions (2010) as a schoolgirl, Ai Hashimoto, 25, has built an impressive filmography, to say nothing of her television work, modeling and singing career (she’s signed to Sony Music).

The native of Kumamoto on Japan’s southern island of Kyushu has shown her versatility in appearing in everything from the horror of Sadako (2019) to the musical of Wonderful World End (2015), through to the year-long historical drama Reach Beyond the Blue Sky, currently running on public broadcaster Nhk.

While there have been ambassadors in years gone by at the Tokyo fest from the model-singer-actress ...

Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa and producer Ichiyama Shozo were the other speakers.

At the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) today (November 7), Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke failed to show up for a scheduled hybrid on-and-offline Asia Lounge talk with Japanese filmmaker Kiyosho Kurosawa, moderated by producer and Tokyo Filmex head Ichiyama Shozo.

The two Japanese cineastes carried on in Jia’s absence, with Shozo, who has served as producer on the Chinese director’s films including Ash Is Purest White, Mountains May Depart and A Touch Of Sin, answering Kurosawa’s and later the online audience’s questions about the Chinese filmmaker’s methods and plans.

Korean director Kim Bora (House of Hummingbird) and Japanese actress Ai Hashimoto discussed mortality, filmmaking, and the importance of human connection in a world in the grip of a pandemic, at the first Asia Lounge session at Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) on Nov. 1.

The talk was hosted by director Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters), who proposed and organized the initiative to bring Asian film folk together to discuss their craft. Due to pandemic-related travel restrictions, Kim joined the event via online link from Korea, while Hashimoto and Kore-eda appeared on stage in front of a small audience.

Kim spoke of ...

Korean director Kim Bora (House of Hummingbird) and Japanese actress Ai Hashimoto discussed mortality, filmmaking, and the importance of human connection in a world in the grip of a pandemic, at the first Asia Lounge session at Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) on Nov. 1.

The talk was hosted by director Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters), who proposed and organized the initiative to bring Asian film folk together to discuss their craft. Due to pandemic-related travel restrictions, Kim joined the event via online link from Korea, while Hashimoto and Kore-eda appeared on stage in front of a small audience.

Kim spoke of ...

Japanese director Ryuichi Hiroki’s career spans over many decades as well as genres, from pink film to serious drama. Ever since his feature debut “Seigyaku!” his films have been regularly featured in many international festivals such as Nippon Connection.

We sat down with the director to discuss his film “It’s Boring Here Pick Me Up”, its portrayal of youth and village life as well as his opinion to themes like being young or the meaning of family.

“It’s Boring Here Pick Me Up” is screening at Nippon Connection

As you know, this year’s Nippon Connection features the topic of outsiders and outlaws in Japanese society. Do you consider yourself an outlaw or, more specifically, an outlaw filmmaker?

What do you think?

Well, I would not say outlaw. But you most certainly show characters who are outsiders or who feel as outsiders at least.

That might be true,...

In the very first episode of the first season of BBC’s acclaimed police procedural ‘Luther’, the psychotic evil genius Alice Morgan, who is also the series’s most interesting character, refers to a black hole when she appears to share a little information about herself to her nemesis/object of obsession, the titular main character. “It consumes matter, sucks it in, and crushes it beyond existence. When I first heard that, I thought that’s evil in its most pure.” She explains with a sly grin and fascinated look, “Something that drags you in, crushes you, makes you nothing.”

I opted to quote Alice Morgan because that’s what the principal characters in the most cynical film ever made by the talented Tetsuya Nakashima are to each other: black holes. They drag each other into their own darkness, crush one another, and make all involved into nothing.

Buy This...

Exclusive: Japanese drama recently premiered at Osaka Asian Film Festival.

Japan’s Stardust Pictures (Sdp) Inc. has sold Parks, directed by Natsuki Seta(A Liar And A Broken Girl, A Letter From Elsewhere), to mainland China (Time-in-Portrait Entertainment), Hong Kong (Sundream Motion Pictures), Taiwan (Sky Digi Entertainment), South Korea (Entermode), Thailand (Starlings) and worldwide in-flight (Encore Inflight Entertainment).

Set in and around Tokyo’s Inokashira Park, the drama stars Ai Hashimoto (Little Forest), Mei Nagano (Peach Girl) and Shota Sometani (Himizu) in a story about a girl who sets out to find a woman mentioned in a love letter written by her late father. Clues lead her to two other millennial friends and a damaged tape of a love song which they try to recreate.

Entermode CEO Bruce D. Lee says Parks is “a good and heartwarming movie, like a Japanese version of La La Land”, while Encore CEO Jovita Toh says, “Parks is a beautiful...

Pale Moon’s Daihachi Yoshida [pictured] directed the sci-fi tragicomedy, currently in post-production.

Gaga Corporation will represent sales on Beautiful Star (working title), an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Japanese literary giant Yukio Mishima, at the Asian Film Market in Busan later this month.

Directed by Pale Moon helmer Daihachi Yoshida, the sci-fi tragicomedy focuses on a family who suddenly come to believe that they are extraterrestrials.

The family members are played by Lily Franky (Like Father, Like Son), Kazuya Kamenashi (It’s Me, It’s Me), Ai Hashimoto (Little Forest) and Tomoko Nakajima (Tokyo Family).

Gaga also produced the project, which was filmed in the Tokyo area earlier this year. It will bow in Japan next May.

Probably better known to modern generations for his death by seppuku, or ritual disembowelment, while trying to overthrow the Japanese government in 1970, Mishima was a prolific novelist and playwright who typically wrote serious dramas.

First published...

Yoshihiro Nakamura's The Inerasable screening on Fantasia International Film FestivalSTORY73%DIRECTION70%ACTING67%VISUALS69%POSITIVESIntricate storyGreat atmosphereAccomplished editingNEGATIVESLagging in the end2016-07-2670%Overall ScoreReader Rating: (0 Votes)0%

Yoshihiro Nakamura has managed to adapt a novel to the point that we are not talking about adaptation any more, but rather for visualization.

The film is based on Fuyumi Ono’s horror novel Zang-e, and begins with the story of Ai, a mystery novel writer currently working for a horror magazine, who draws inspiration from the reader’s submissions of supernatural phenomena. One day, she receives a letter from Kubo, a university student who claims to hear odd sounds in her apartment. As Ai remembers of another similar letter stating the same, the two of them start investigating the occurrence, beginning with the apartment’s previous owners. As they delve deeper into the story, they go further back in the past, uncovering...

Exclusive: Japan’s Shochiku has sold Berlinale Culinary Cinema title Little Forest to Korea and Taiwan.

Directed by Junichi Mori (Laundry), Little Forest has been sold to JinJin Pictures for Korea and Flash Forward Entertainment for Taiwan.

Ai Hashimoto (Confessions) and Takahiro Miura (Chronicle Of My Mother) star in the film.

Little Forest is a four-part film officially divided in two portions for theatrical release - “Summer & Autumn” and “Winter & Spring”.

A young woman moves back to her hometown from the city where she had a hard time adjusting, and survives cooking for herself the food she farms and gathers on the fields and mountains, throughout the changing seasons.

Last month, the Berlinale’s Culinary Cinema section screened Little Forest: Summer/Winter – choosing two seasons showing the biggest contrast.

Shochiku has Little Forest: Winter & Spring screening for the first time at Filmart.

While the world continues to experience Attack on Titan-mania, Toho is banking on the live-action adaptation of another wildly popular manga: Hitoshi Iwaaki’s Parasyte. It looks like just the sort of mix of cute, ugly, weird, and violent we expect from Japan.

Alien “parasytes” come to Earth and start taking over humans by entering people’s bodies and latching onto their brains. They can deform human bodies in ways that would make John Carpenter’s The Thing smile.

Teenager Shinichi gets infected by an alien called “Migi”, but since it is only able to control his right arm, the two come to an understanding and work together to stop the evil parasytes that only want to consume and control us.

Did you get all that? If not, here’s an even longer, more detailed synopsis of the plot.

Synopsis:

One night by the seaside, tiny creatures, or "Parasytes,...

The 27th Tokyo International Film Festival (Tiff) has announced its opening film will be the world premiere of Disney animation Big Hero 6.

The closing film will be the world premiere of Parasyte, the live-action adaptation of the Japanese manga, directed by Takashi Yamazaki (The Eternal Zero).

Big Hero 6 directors Don Hall and Chris Williams said: “It is truly an honor to be selected as the opening film. The setting of our film, San Fransokyo, is a fictional, futuristic mash-up of two of our favorite cities in the world – San Francisco and Tokyo, and the research we did in Tokyo informed every detail of the film. We look forward to bringing out film to this city that so deeply inspired us.”

The animation features a 14-year-old robotics prodigy and a robot called Baymax that join forces with a team of crimefighters to save the city. Voice actors include Scott Adsit, Ryan Potter and [link...

Oh, Sadako 3D. How unfulfilled I was left after watching you. I waited many months for a proper U.S. release and Well Go USA fulfilled my want. Unfortunately, my excitement was drowned out by an offensive mish mash of A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, and The Exorcist: The Version You've never Seen.

A high school teacher named Akane (Satomi Ishihara) hears rumors of a cursed video clip circulating online. The clip is said to show a man, Kashiwada (Yûsuke Yamamoto), commiting suicide. Supposedly, anyone who watches the video is driven to commit suicide themselves. Akane refuses to believe the rumors until one of her students mysteriously dies after viewing it.

Akane soon discovers that Kashiwada intends to use the clip to cause chaos and death, which will help the spirit of Sadako (Ai Hashimoto) find a host body for her to possess.

Showgate has released the full trailer for The Kirishima Thing, the latest by director Daihachi Yoshida (Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers!)

Based on a novel by Ryo Asai, the movie tackles the subject of high school hierarchies and the way kids quietly accept their role within that tightly-controlled social structure without question.

When a popular student named Kirishima suddenly decides to quit the very activities that placed him at the top tier of popularity, his classmates can’t seem to come to grips with it. Rumors begin to fly about why he made his decision, leading to misunderstandings, confusion, and misguided anger among his peers.

Meanwhile, the nerdier kids who have spent the entirety of their high school careers remaining relatively invisible also feel the effects of this shake-up as a boy named Ryoya Maeda (Ryunosuke Kamiki) begins documenting events for his film project.

Also featured prominently in the...

Cinema Today is reporting that some screenings of the hugely successful horror film Sadako 3D will soon be adding a whole new dimension to the movie-going experience which Kadokawa is calling “4D”.

Last September, several theaters in Japan screened Robert Rodriguez’s “Spy Kids: All the Time in the World in 4D” with a few additional “4Dx” features such as specific smells wafting through the theater or vibrations at certain points during the movie. However, Sadako 4D will apparently take things to a whole new level.

In keeping with the suspense/horror theme, moviegoers will have their legs grabbed, large clouds of white smoke will be pumped into the theater, and seats will even be fitted with velcro to bind people’s arms. Also, the theater will suddenly be invaded by a horde of real-life Sadakos who will come out of a large well.

“Sadako 3D” stars Satomi Ishihara, Koji Seto,...

The official website for Yuichiro Hirakawa’s upcoming film Tsunagu has been updated with a new 32-second teaser trailer.

The film is based on a best-selling novel by Mizuki Tsujimura, winner of the 32nd Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for New Writers.

In his first starring role in a feature film, Tori Matsuzaka plays Ayumi, a high school student who begins working as an apprentice spirit medium under the tutelage of his grandmother, Aiko (Kirin Kiki), in hopes of taking over for her someday. Through this work, he interacts with various people who have lost loved ones and experiences growth through the process.

Due to the nature of the story, the film features a full line-up of stars in small, but impactful supporting roles. Included are names like Tatsuya Nakadai, Ryuta Sato, Ai Hashimoto, Ito Ono, Kenichi Endo, and Mirei Kiritani, to name a few.

“Tsunagu” will be released by Toho in...

The official website for Takeshi Furusawa’s upcoming live-action adaptation of Yukito Ayatsuji’s horror novel Another has been updated with a new full trailer.

Kento Yamazaki plays a 15-year-old boy named Koichi Sakakibara who moves to the suburban mountain town of Yomiyama to live with his grandparents in the spring of 1998. One day, he suffers a seizure caused by a chronic lung condition and collapses. While in the hospital recovering, he sees a beautiful girl wearing an eye patch (Ai Hashimoto) who makes a strange comment about about the morgue on the second floor and suddenly vanishes.

He meets up with her again when he attends middle school. Her name is Mei Misaki and Koichi can’t help but notice how oddly the other students and teachers seem to act around her. He makes several attempts to get to know her better, but fails repeatedly. However, when their classmates...

I should, in theory, be asleep right, songs from the latest Dead Milkmen album dancing through my head. I’m pretty tired, yet here I am, buzzed from the revelation that “Confessions” star Ai Hashimoto will portray the iconic Sadako in director Tsutomu Hanabusa’s “Sadako 3D”. Filmmakers have been tight-lipped about who would tackle the villain in the upcoming chiller. In fact, they’ve waited until just two days before the film’s Japanese release to make her identify known. Craziness. So, before you go to bed, be sure to gawk at the image you see below. That way I can justify my bloodshot eyes and surly demeanor in the morning. “Sadako 3D” opens in Japan on May 12th, 2012. South Korean audiences will get a chance to see what all the fuss is about on June 14, 2012. Remember: Look at the picture...

Say what you will about how tightly controlled Japanese movie publicity is, but they sure know how to keep a secret. Just one day from the theatrical release of Tsutomu Hanabusa’s Sadako 3D in Japan, the young actress playing the latest incarnation of Sadako has finally been revealed: Ai Hashimoto.

There was actually a preview screening held back in April, but the 12 minutes of end footage that would have revealed her identity was left out.

The casting puts her in good company. Although the first Sadako was played by kabuki actress Rie Inoo for her ability to move creepily, subsequent Sadakos were played by famous actresses such as Yukie Nakama and Tae Kimura.

Anyone who follows mainstream Japanese films should be pretty familiar with Hashimoto at this point. She’s appeared in a slew of movies since her debut in 2009. Most notably, her performance in Tetsuya Nakashima’s critically-adored...

Yusuke Yamada’s short story Kotsutsubo is getting a movie adaptation, and it will feature members of four different idol groups—Natsumi Matsubara of AKB48, Rurika Yokoyama of Idoling!!!, Rina Miyazaki of Super☆GiRLS, and Ai Shinozaki of AeLL.

Yamada is probably best known for writing the popular thriller “Real Onigokko”, which inspired a low-budget 2008 movie that was a surprise hit with the after school crowd. More recent adaptations of his work, Avatar and X Game, also featured up-and-coming idols like Ai Hashimoto, Ayaka Kikuchi, Haruka Nakagawa, and Aika Oota.

The new movie’s story involves a cursed funeral urn filled with ashes that can bring about people’s deaths. A socially inept female high school student named Eri (Matsubara) attempts to save her childhood friend, a popular girl named Mitsuko (Yokoyama), from a stalker teacher who’s using the urn to spread the curse.

J-horror veteran Akira Nagae (2channel no Noroi Gekijoban) will direct.

Tori Matsuzaka, winner of the Best New Actor prize from the 85th Kinema Junpo Awards, is set to get his first starring film role in an adaptation of Mizuki Tsujimura’s best-selling novel, Tsunagi.

Last year, the novel helped Tsujimura take home the 32nd Yoshikawa Eiji Award for New Writers. The story is a mixture of fantasy and human drama, depicting a young man’s personal growth through his work helping people connect with lost loved ones as a spirit medium.

Matsuzaka plays Ayumi, a high school student who’s working as an apprentice medium under the tutelage of his grandmother, Aiko (Kirin Kiki), in hopes of taking over for her someday.

Yuichiro Hirakawa worked on the screenplay and will direct. His previous directorial work includes TBS dramas such as Rookies, Jin and Mr. Brain. He was reportedly deeply moved by the original novel.

According to Hirakawa, the Tohoku earthquake...

The official website for Daihachi Yoshida’s Kirishima, Bukatsu Yamerutteyo has been updated with a 30-second teaser trailer.

Based on a 2010 youth novel by Ryo Asai, the movie stars Ryunosuke Kamiki as Ryoya Maeda, a student at a rural high school who lives a quiet existence at the very bottom tier of his class’s social structure. He’s also an aspiring director who wants to enter a film contest, but he hasn’t been able to find a partner among his classmates. The story is mostly shown from his perspective.

One day, volleyball club captain Kirishima suddenly quits the team. This unexpected decision causes shock waves with his classmates, eventually causing their well-established hierarchy to completely break down.

Ai Hashimoto (Confessions) plays a badminton club member named Kasumi. Suzuka Ohgo plays a brass band member named Aya who’s just as inconspicuous as Maeda. Other cast members include Masahiro Higashide,...

A teaser site has been launched for Takeshi Furusawa‘s upcoming live-action adaptation of Yukito Ayatsuji’s horror novel Another. With the site comes a cryptic teaser trailer and a cast list which adds Ai Kato and Yoshihiko Hakamada to the previously announced leads, Ai Hashimoto and Kento Yamazaki.

Yamazaki plays a 15-year-old boy named Koichi Sakakibara who’s forced to move to a suburban town in the mountains called Yomiyama to live with his grandparents in the spring of 1998. One day he suffers a seizure brought on by a chronic lung condition and collapses, but luckily he’s taken to the hospital in time to save his life. While in recovery at the hospital, he sees a beautiful girl wearing an eye patch (Hashimoto) and becomes fixated on her before she makes an odd remark about the morgue on the second floor and leaves suddenly.

He meets up with...