News

It's been an exciting year so far with all the new and returning Netflix shows, but things are about to get even better with the release of this upcoming Japanese series on the streaming platform. It's being described as a mix of these two hit shows, Squid Game and Shōgun. I don't know about you, but that sounds like something I definitely don't want to miss!

It's a period drama titled Last Samurai Standing, and it's based on the highly regarded Japanese manga series Ikusagami by Shogo Imamura. Michihito Fujii, Kento Yamaguchi, and Toru Yamamoto directed the episodes. In addition, Fujii, Yamaguchi, and Risa Yashiro wrote the scripts. While the exact episode count for the first season remains unknown, it's likely to fall between eight and 10 episodes, which is the typical range for a Netflix series.

An official release date has not been announced yet. However, Netflix has already set a November 2025 release.

Junichi Okada, who enters this dangerous game with one goal: to save his ailing wife and child.”

Who is in the cast for Last Samurai Standing?

For a long time, Junichi Okada was the only confirmed cast member. Some Netflix subscribers would be familiar with Junichi Okada if they streamed the Japanese crime-thriller Hard Days. Others may recognize him for his voice work on animated titles Tales from Earthsea and From Up on Poppy Hill. Outside of Netflix, the actor has starred in several historical dramas.

Junichi Okada shared his excitement with Netflix about the project;

“When Netflix executive producer Mr. Takahashi reached out to me, I was still acting in historical dramas. Back then, I was already thinking of ways to make this genre a hit, not just in Japan, but all over the world. I saw their potential for action, drama, social commentary, and entertainment, but I knew they could be taken further.

Film Movement has acquired North American rights toKazuya Shiraishi’s period samurai drama and Udine Far East Film Festival winner Bushido.

The film also played in official selection at New York Asian Film Festival and will open theatrically in 2025 followed by digital roll-out.

Based on a classic story from the rakugo style of Japanese verbal entertainment, Bushido stars Tsuyoshi Kusanagi as Kakunoshin Yanagida, a down-on-his-luck samurai and master player of the board game Go who seeks revenge on the man who destroyed his life. Kaya Kiyohara, Jun Kunimura, and Takumi Saitoh also star.

Shiraishi’s roster of contemporary action credits...

Romantic drama 18x2 Beyond Youthful Days by acclaimed Japanese director Michihito Fujii has been sold to a raft of Asian distributors by sales firm Happinet Phantom Studios.

The upcoming feature has been acquired for South Korea (Media Castle), Hong Kong (Golden Scene) and Southeast Asia territories (Purple Plan) as well as for in-flight (Emphasis Video).

The romance is set for release in Taiwan on March 14 through Activator Marketing Company and in Japan on May 3 through Happinet, which will also be speaking to buyers about the feature at the European Film Market (EFM) in Berlin this month.

The cast is led by Hsu Kuang-han,...

A remake of the Taiwanese hit “My Missing Valentine”, “One Second Ahead, One Second Behind” remains faithful to the original script, with one crucial difference, of flipping the genders of the protagonists.

One Second Ahead, One Second Behind is screening at San Diego Asian Film Festival

Hajime has always been one second faster than everyone else. His eyes are never open in any of his school portraits, and he wakes up before his alarm goes off. Driving is also an issue, which is what has made him change his job in the post office, from delivering mail to manning the counter. He lives with his sister, a ganguro indulger, and frequently calls the radio station to talk about his personal life, in instances his mother and sister also listen and put in their own opinion about his self-loathing, particularly having to do with his inability to keep a girlfriend. Things,...

The actor is known for Taiwan box office hit ‘Marry My Dead Body’.

Hsu Kuang-han, the star of Taiwan box office hit Marry My Dead Body, will next be seen in romantic drama 18x2 by acclaimed Japanese director Michihito Fujii.

The actor, also known as Greg Han, will play opposite Japanese actress Kaya Kiyohara in the romance, which is in post-production. A first look at the two actors in the film can be seen above.

It is produced by Taiwan’s Jumpboys Films and Japan’s Babel Label, founded by director Fujii.

Happinet Phantom Studios will release the film in...

The actor is known for Taiwanese box office hit ‘Marry My Dead Body’.

Hsu Kuang-han, the star of Taiwanese box office hit Marry My Dead Body, will next be seen in romantic drama 18x2 by acclaimed Japanese director Michihito Fujii.

The actor, also known as Greg Han, will play opposite Japanese actress Kaya Kiyohara in the romance, which is in post-production.

It is produced by Taiwan’s Jumpboys Films and Japan’s Babel Label, founded by director Fujii.

Happinet Phantom Studios will release the film in Japan in May 2024 and is launching sales at the Asian Contents & Film Market (Acfm), which opens in Busan today.

’Day Off’ marks the first film of veteran actress Lu Hsiao-fen in 20 years.

Taiwan-based sales agent MandarinVision is launching Xiao Xiao, starring More Than Blue’s Ivy Chen, and Day Off, the first film of veteran actress Lu Hsiao-fen in 20 years, at Busan’s Acfm.

Produced by Yeh Jufeng of Oscar-shortlisted A Sun, Xiao Xiao marks the feature directorial debut Chin Chia-hua and is a family drama about a young girl whose world starts to fall apart when she discovers that her mother is having an affair with a teacher in her school.

The cast is led by Chen from...

translation by Lukasz Mankowski

Takahisa Zeze is a Japanese film director and screenwriter first known for his soft-core pornographic pink films of the 1990s. Along with fellow directors, Kazuhiro Sano, Toshiki Sato, and Hisayasu Sato, he is known as one of the “Four Heavenly Kings of Pink”. Eventually, he moves away from the particular industry, directing movies such as “Heaven Story” which took the Fipresci and Netpac award in Berlin, and “The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine”.

On the occasion of “In the Wake” screening at Toronto Japanese Film Festival, we speak with him about adapting Shichiri Nakayama’s novel, the Fukushima disaster and its connection with social welfare, the main characters and the casting, his past and present in cinema, and his latest project

“In the Wake” screened at Toronto Japanese Film Festival

Why did you decide to adapt Shichiri Nakayama’s novel “Mamorarenakatta Monotachi e”?

It all starts with...

After he had started his career in the animation and character design at Studio Ghibli, working on such features as “Arietty” and “From Up on Poppy Hill”, Yojiro Arai eventually became a member of Studio Colorido, where he would not only work in the previously mentioned departments, but also take over directing duties. He also contributed to the animation and character design for “Sonny Boy & Dewdrop Girl”, a short feature by the studio’s co-founder Hiroyasu Ishida, who liked the cooperation with his colleague and decided to take over Arai’s job for his directing debut, the short feature “Typhoon Noruda”. Much like his colleague’s works, the inspiration for the story surrounding the friendship of two male high-school students and their encounter with a supernatural force, came from a drawing which helped him, Ishida and the remaining crew, to find the right language and design approach for the feature.

As we mentioned many times before, Takahisa Zeze has moved as far away from his pinku film past as possible during the last years, with his latest works essentially being mainstream, at least in Japanese movie industry terms. As such, a film about the aftermath of the 2011, which have been releasing aplenty after a “healing” decade has passed, was bound to come from the veteran filmmaker, who, once more, does not disappoint.

“In the Wake” is screening at Toronto Japanese Film Festival

The story is based on Shichiri Narayama’s novel “Mamorarenakatta Monotachi e”, begins in 2011, nine years after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and focuses on two brutal murders of men working for Social Welfare, who were found tied up and starved to death. Prefectural investigator Tomashino, who has lost his family in the tsunami and carries the burden in the most evident way possible, works with young detective Hasuda to investigate the murders,...

Japan scored a one-two finish at Italy’s Far East Film Festival, with Uchida Eiji’s transgender drama Midnight Swan winning the coveted Golden Mulberry and Maeda Koji’s comedy You’re Not Normal, Either! taking the Silver Mulberry.

Midnight Swan, also written by Eiji, stars Tsuyoshi Kusanagi as Nagisa, a transgender woman living in Tokyo who unexpectedly takes in her niece Ichika (Misaki Hattori), the two then go on to form a mother-daughter bond.

Koji’s comedy stars Ryo Narita as an unlucky-in-love math teacher who engages his student (Kaya Kiyohara) to teach him how to be normal.

The third prize, the Crystal ...

Michihito Fujii has directed a film – sometimes two, and sometimes even three – a year almost every year since he first came on to the scene in 2012 with his debut “Where Is The Better Future Of A Fake Town”. His 2020 semi-fantasy coming of age film “The Brightest Roof In The Universe” (based on the novel “Uchu De Ichiban Akarui Yane” by Tomoso Nonaka) is attempting to make its own wave at this year’s Toronto Japanese Film Festival. Clearly as prolific a director as they come, you’d think that the quantity of Fujii’s output might hinder their quality. However, if this sweet tale about an endearingly awkward teen navigating love and past trauma with the help of a mysterious scooter-riding granny is any indication, then Fujii, and us, have nothing to worry about.

“The Brightest Roof In The Universe” is screening at Toronto Japanese Film Festival

The story follows Tsubame,...

Yasuomi Ono (Ryo Narita) is a math teacher at a private institute. He doesn’t have a girlfriend and he is engrossed in math. Yasuomi Ono doesn’t complain about his life, but he feels unease about being single for the rest of his life. His dates with women do not go smoothly. Yasuomi Ono doesn’t now what to do to fix that. His student Kasumi Akimoto (Kaya Kiyohara) tells Yasuomi Ono that he is not normal. Yasuomi Ono asks her to teach him to become normal.

Revenge might be said to be a dish best served cold, but Michihito Fujii’s new film “Day and Night” questions if it needs to be served at all. The film, produced and co-written by Japanese superstar Takayuki Yamada, will be screening at Fantasia International Film Festival 2019.

“Day and Night” is screening at Fantasia International Film Festival

Koji Akashi returns home from Tokyo following the suicide of his father, a whistleblower for a large automobile company. As his father’s extreme step has left the family debt-ridden and hounded by debtors as well as workers of the automobile company, Akashi decides to stay back to help his mother and young sister and to find the truth about the mystery that surrounds his father’s death. In his search for truth, he meets Kenichi Kitamura, a suave man who alleges that he has a debt of gratitude towards Akashi’s father...