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Stars: Aki Asakura, Kazunari Tosa, Riko Fujitani, Gota Ishida, Masashi Suwa, Yoshifumi Sakai | Written by Makoto Ueda | Directed by Junat Yamaguchi

A couple of years ago One Cut of the Dead blew everyone away with it’s originality, cleverness and charm, creating a whole new kind of zombie movie. Even though Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes does not feature the same filmmakers, it is still rightly being hailed as a worthy successor to the genre film.

It’s easy to see why after only a few minutes of the movie as we jump straight into the time travel story. It may sound a little more complicated than it actually is as a café owner discovers his PC monitor shows what will happen two minutes into the future, while a screen downstairs in the café shows the past of two minutes ago. His friends decide to place the two screens opposite...

Stars: Aki Asakura, Kazunari Tosa, Riko Fujitani, Gota Ishida, Masashi Suwa, Yoshifumi Sakai | Written by Makoto Ueda | Directed by Junat Yamaguchi

A couple of years ago at Frightfest, One Cut of the Dead blew everyone away with it’s originality, cleverness and charm, creating a whole new kind of zombie movie. Even though Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes does not feature the same filmmakers, it is still rightly being hailed as a worthy successor to the genre film.

It’s easy to see why after only a few minutes of the movie as we jump straight into the time travel story. It may sound a little more complicated than it actually is as a café owner discovers his PC monitor shows what will happen two minutes into the future, while a screen downstairs in the café shows the past of two minutes ago. His friends decide to place the two...

The logistics behind Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes are mind-boggling to fathom; time-travel stories are often confusing enough when they aren’t filmed as a one-shot. The Europe Kikaku theatrical troupe embracing that extra challenge is, accordingly, wild. Group director Makoto Ueda admits he wouldn’t have written the script that way if he didn’t already trust his actors and know they could handle the experiment. Not that having them at his disposal necessarily made his and director Junta Yamaguchi’s jobs any easier. To be able to craft this particular adventure through time and space into a seamless seventy-minute progression, they would still need to break everything into two-minute increments to ensure it all happened as it already had.

Why? Because that’s the conceit. Kato (Kazunari Tosa) doesn’t know how it’s possible, but the Apple computer in his second-floor apartment has somehow connected with the...

The underground fighting movie, a byproduct of films like “Kickboxer” and “Bloodsport” but popularized by “Fight Club,” is given another adaptation in this slick, engrossing new effort from director Shutaro Oku adapted from the original anime ‘Blood-c.’ Just now getting to the foreign festival part of it’s run, the film is part of the lineup at Japan Film Fest Hamburg.

“Blood-Club Dolls 1” is screening at Japan Filmfest Hamburg:

Following the news of a heinous tragedy, Mana (Aki Asakura) searches the streets for her missing brother Aiba (Ryo Kitaen), the person accused of committing the incident. Unaware of his true status or location, Aiba finds himself in the employ of an underground fighting ring using inmates like him to entertain wealthy clients, eventually moving up the ranks of the fighters quite quickly. Eventually frustrated at the lack of information from the investigation, she turns to Detective Mito (Tomoto Hachiman) to help him,...

Director: Isao Takahata; Screenwriter: Isao Takahata, Riko Sakaguchi; Starring: Aki Asakura, Kengo Kora, Takeo Chii, Nobuko Miyamoto; Running time: 137 mins; Certificate: U

Isao Takahata makes his directorial comeback with The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, his first film for Studio Ghibli since 1999's My Neighbours the Yamadas. The man behind the brilliant, emotionally-devastating Grave of the Fireflies may be in his late 70s, but on this evidence he's still able to conjure up a memorable yarn.

Based on an old Japanese folktale, it centres on a kindly wood cutter who stumbles across a tiny girl living in a bamboo shoot. Taken in by the man and his wife, she's named Princess but earns the moniker Little Bamboo from other children in the village due to her ability to magically grow at speed.

When her adopted father finds gold the family uproot to a mansion in the city and a life...

The Tale Of Princess Kaguya Gkids Reviewed for Shockya by Harvey Karten. Data-based on Rotten Tomatoes. Grade:    B+ Director:  Isao Takahata Screenwriter:  Isao Takahata Cast:  Dubbed version: Chloë Grace Moretz, James Caan, Mary Steenburgen, Darren Criss, Lucy Liu, Beau Bridges, James Marsden, Oliver Platt, Dean Cain. Subtitled version: Aki Asakura, Kengo Kora, Takeo Chii, Nobuko Miyamoto, Atsuko Takahata, Tomoko Tabata, Tatekawa, Takaya Kamikawa, Hikaru Ijuin, Ryudo Uzaki, Nakamura Shichinosuke II, Isao Hashizume, Yukiji Asaoka, Tatsuya Nakadai Screened at:  Review 2, NYC, 10/14/15 Opens:  October 17, 2014 If your high school World History course was like mine, you spent a little time on Greece and Rome, another few weeks on medieval  [ Read More ]

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The lineups for the Mavericks, Discovery, and Tiff Kids parts of the Toronto Film Festival were announced, wrapping up a series of lineup announcements for the Toronto International Film Festival.

With the added films, the festival’s entire slate is now a whopping 393 movies. Two hundred eighty-five of those movies are feature films, of which 143 are world premieres.

The Mavericks portion of the festival includes onstage discussions following the screening of each film. Do I Sound Gay? will be followed by a talk between director David Thorpe and sex-advice guru Dan Savage. Also premiering in that space is The 50 Year Argument,...

Bill Murray is coming to Toronto folks. Actually, the film he stars in (Theodore Melfi’s St. Vincent) is having its official World Premiere launch at the jaw-dropping 285 feature film 2014 Tiff line-up. In the final batch of items we finally get the confirmation that 2014′s Palme d’Or Winner Winter Sleep (which gets added along with a trio of others to the Masters Programme) will show, and Tomm Moore’s highly anticipated Song of the Sea (among the four item line-up for Tiff Kids) also lands. Worth mentioning are the sprinkling of add-ons to the various other sections (Marjane Satrapi’s Sundance preemed The Voices, Matt Shakman’s Cut Bank and the world preem of Danis Tanovic’s Tigers) with a Studio Ghibli docu item being fitted into the Tiff Docs, but it is the Discovery Programme that finally takes shape.

The “up-and-comers” include Berlin Film Fest (and future Nyff...

Gkids, a distributor of award-winning animation for both adult and family audiences, has announced the English voice cast for The Tale of Princess Kaguya, the highly anticipated new feature from Studio Ghibli. It is the first film in fourteen years from legendary Studio Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata. In addition to Chloe Moretz as The Princess Kaguya, the film features the voices of James Caan, Mary Steenburgen, Darren Criss, Lucy Liu, Beau Bridges, James Marsden, Oliver Platt and Dean Cain. (Full cast list below.) Gkids has North American distribution rights for the film and is planning a theatrical release starting October 17, with national expansion to follow. The film will qualify for the Academy Awards and other awards season contests.

The Tale of Princess Kaguya made its international premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where Variety hailed it as "a visionary tour-de-force." Eight years in the making, the film is the untold story of The Princess Kaguya,...