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Joining Screambox today is the must-see thriller #Manhole, an intense and shocking new addition to our library that has a twist ending you’ll never see coming.

Shunsuke Kawamura’s life is going great by every measure from work to his engagement. On the day before his wedding, his colleagues hold a surprise party for him. On the way home, he falls into a deep manhole! When he wakes up, it is late at night and he must struggle to find his way out of the abyss deep below ground.

Director Kazuyoshi Kumakiri will shock audiences with this always-surprising thriller that will keep viewers on the edge of their seats.

Joe Lipsett reviewed the film out of Fantasia last year, calling #Manhole “an exciting new twist on the confined single location thriller.

Check out the trailer today, and then subscribe to watch #Manhole and Terrifier 3 on Screambox.

The post ‘#Manhole’ – Intense,...

Cineverse and Bloody Disgusting have announced the upcoming winter releases for our streaming service, Screambox. This includes dates for recent acquisitions Breathing In, 2024 Macabro: Mexico City International Horror Film Festival’s Best Film winner, and the cringe-inducing exorcism horror Deus Irae, an official selection of the 2024 Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival.

Breathing In (premieres December 3) – Set in 1901, South Africa, a wounded general seeks refuge in the small home of a woman and her young daughter. Before long, he’ll learn the real reason why they’ve invited him and how they’ve survived on their own for so long. Jaco Bouwer directs this beautifully shot and tense horror thriller that stars Michele Burgers, Sven Ruygrok, and Jamie-Lee Money. Deus Irae (premieres December 10) – Follows Father Javier, who lives a fractured existence, claiming miracles, while he also hunts the possessed with Bibles, fire, and shotguns. This shockingly nasty horror was directed by...

Japanese distributor and producer Gaga Corporation is boosting its investment in lucrative anime features and eyeing a move into video games, following its majority stake acquisition by entertainment firm Genda.

Gaga president and CEO Tom Yoda is at the Cannes market with an “aggressive” growth strategy and a diverse slate that includes an upcoming martial arts drama from acclaimed filmmaker Takashi Miike and two Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction anime films, based on the popular manga by Inio Asano.

Yoda notes that the Japanese box office has been dominated by anime titles in recent years and such success would help...

I've written about situational thrillers under Olympic-sized pool covers, atop mile-high radio tower platforms, and even locked in a rogue sailboat's bathroom — yet "#Manhole" still earns originality points. Director Kazuyoshi Kumakiri and writer Kazuyoshi Kumakiri pop the metal cover off an abandoned concrete basin like a bottle for catching fireflies. The single-location motivations behind "#Manhole" recall Mariano Cohn's SUV chamber piece "4x4," more obscure in presentation and nefariously themed. Where something like Rodrigo Cortés' "Buried" relies on the grounded claustrophobic trauma of being sealed alive in a coffin, "#Manhole" embraces absurdity and twisty storytelling beyond being stuck in one place. Cutthroat realism is traded for social media skewering amidst many other wicked veers into derangement, with a spike-tipped ending for the ages.

Yûto Nakajima stars as thriving Japanese businessman Shunsuke Kawamura. His coworkers throw him a congratulatory post-work party to celebrate his not-far-off wedding. Shunsuke walks home that night with a light-headed buzz,...

It takes a great deal of careful plotting to make a good confined single location thriller. Films such as Buried (2010), The Pool (2018), and 4×4 (2019) rely on a variety of complications to maintain tension without becoming repetitive or overstaying their welcome. It’s a delicate balance, but when it’s done well, the results can be electrifying.

Writer Michitaka Okada adopts a unique conceit for their latest, #Manhole, which readily employs social media to drive the narrative of a successful realtor, Shunsuke Kawamura (Yûto Nakajima), who falls down an open manhole the night before his wedding.

Director Kazuyoshi Kumakiri cues audiences that phones will play a vital part by opening with an elaborate split-screen video of Shunsuke’s work colleagues taping congratulations at his wedding party. Immediately following the party, a drunken Shunsuke bids his friend Kase (Kento Nagayama) goodbye, stumbles down the street and almost immediately falls down a hole in the ground.

Further winners included Spanish documentary ‘Muyeres’.

Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s Japanese drama Yoko scored a hat-trick of prizes at the Shanghai International Film Festival’s (Siff) Golden Goblet Awards including best film.

The film’s Japanese lead Rinko Kikuchi was named best actress for her performance of Yoko, a 42-year-old single woman who embarks on long journey to her hometown after the death of her estranged father. The film also won the best screenplay prize.

Scroll down for full list of winners

Kikuchi previously received an Oscar nomination for 2006’s Babel and worked with director Kumakiri on Hole In The Sky...

Further winners included Spanish documentary ‘Muyeres’.

Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s Japanese drama Yoko scored a hat-trick of prizes at the Shanghai International Film Festival’s (Siff) Golden Goblet Awards including best film.

The film’s Japanese lead Rinko Kikuchi was named best actress for her performance of Yoko, a 42-year-old single woman who embarks on long journey to her hometown after the death of her estranged father. The film also won the best screenplay prize.

Scroll down for full list of winners

Kikuchi previously received an Oscar nomination for 2006’s Babel and worked with director Kumakiri on Hole In The Sky...

Japanese drama feature “Yoko” won the Golden Goblet best picture award at the Shanghai International Film Festival.

The jury Grand Prix was awarded to Spain’s “Muyeres” with China’s Liu Jin winning the best director prize. The trio also collected additional prizes making them the only multiple winners in a ceremony that sprinkled its awards widely.

“Yoko,” directed by Kumakiri Kazuyoshi, who earlier this year saw melodramatic “#Manhole” play in Berlin, takes the structure of a road-movie and is a journey of self-discovery of a woman who had been socially isolated in her apartment for many years. Portrayed by global star Rinko Kikuchi, the woman is forced to confront the real world, and herself, when she takes a 658 kilometre cross-country journey to her father’s funeral. Without a cell phone or the money for public transport, she finds herself having to hitch hike. Kikuchi also earned the best actress award.

Nyaff unveils first wave of features from China, Hong Kong, Japan and beyond.

The New York Asian Film Festival (Nyaff) has unveiled the first wave of features for its 22nd edition and announced that Japanese actor Ryohei Suzuki will receive the Screen International Rising Star award.

Nyaff will run from July 14-30 at the city’s Film at Lincoln Center, with a programme of more than 60 titles, and Suzuki will be presented with the award recognising emerging talent from East Asia on July 15.

Suzuki has been acting on screen for more than 15 years, with a string of roles in Japanese...

On the surface, Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s #Manhole seems like yet another take on the formula that puts a helpless individual in a confined space, where they must use their wits to survive an impossible situation. However, while #Manhole does draw from this subgenre that includes gems such as Buried, Gerald’s Game, and Panic Room, Kumakiri’s thriller also taps into a glorious madness to add a series of unexpected twists to a seemingly simple concept.

It was either Nietzsche or Tex Avery — but one of our great philosophers — who asserted that there are two types of people in this world: those who walk through life blithely unbothered by manholes, and those who are destined to fall into them. Now, for curious members of the former class, comes an intimate examination of what it’s like to be one of the latter: “#Manhole,” Japanese director Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s slick, increasingly deranged survival thriller about a man who will finally learn to know his true nature from a hole in the ground.

Popular, successful and possessed of highly covetable good looks, Shunsuke Kawamura has the world at his feet. It’s the eve of his wedding to the pregnant daughter of his company’s CEO, and his co-workers have organized a surprise party to toast his good fortune. Walking home drunk from the festivities, Shunsuke suddenly stumbles.

The stuck-in-one-place subgenre of horror is packed with clever concepts and places to be stuck in (from a coffin to a sailboat). #Manhole is the latest entry in this subgenre and it truly is one of these films where, no matter what it is anyone thinks is going on before watching, no one will ever guess what the actual twist is until it arrives. The film is the latest feature from Japanese genre director Kazuyoshi Kumakiri and it opened in Japan just a few weeks before premiering at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival. The title is officially #Manhole with the hash symbol, which makes sense once the film gets going and the social media subplot kicks in. This quick festival review will be spoiler free, as I'd rather everyone go watch this film without knowing anything more before heading in. It is not a spoiler to say that there are twists,...

Yuto Nakajima admits that is a great feeling to be roaming free on the streets of a city that doesn’t recognize his face. In Japan he wouldn’t last a meter without being surrounded by screaming fans. As the member of Hey! Say! Jump band, and as a famous TV personality, he has long forgotten what a quiet life is. It is therefore a great discovery to see him in a challenging role which is the one and only in Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s cynical thriller gone horror, about a seemingly nice young man in distress who gradually shows his real face, although the face isn’t his at all.

We met with the Japanese director and his star in the Berlinale Palast, to discuss the wonderfully unpredictable movie “#Manhole”, the difficulties of shooting in a narrow space and the challenge of turning a one man show into a pulse-racing show.

Twenty-five years after the international premiere of his graduation work “Banquet of The Beasts” in the Panorama section, and twenty-two after “Hole in the Sky”, Kazuyoshi Kumakiri is back in Berlin with the thriller “#Manhole” which celebrates its international premiere in the Berlinale Special program. In this one-man suspense drama, a relatively simple story of an unfortunate incident evolves into a film rich with unexpected twists.

#Manhole is screening at Berlinale

On the evening before his wedding day, Shunsuke (Yuto Nakajima) walks into into his own stag party he was unaware of. The mood is excellent: as congratulations pour in, so do drinks. A bit wobbly after a drink too many in a pub in Shibuya district, Shunsuke falls inside a manhole, and wakes up injured and unable to climb back to the street. To make things worse, his cellphone Gps stops working and a heavy rain starts falling making his situation more insufferable.

What happens in the manhole stays in the manhole.

That would be one way to describe this initially intiguing and increasingly outrageous Japanese horror flick, which features pop star Yuto Nakajima as a young man who, on the eve of his wedding, falls into the film’s titular trap and can’t get out.

Directed by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri (Sketches of Kaitan City) from a script by Michitaka Okada (Masquerade Hotel), the movie definitely makes the most out of its setting, concocting dozens of obstacles to keep the suspense high as its hero gets sliced, bludgeoned, heralded on social media and poisoned by toxic sewage as he attempts to escape. But about midway through, #Manhole more or less jumps the shark — or is it the manhole? — by throwing in so many twists that it veers toward gory parody.

Premiering in Berlin’s Panorama section, the film should find an audience at home thanks to Nakajima,...

The Berlinale Special section of the Berlin Film Festival is a showcase for movies that are intelligent, but less arty than those in the main competition or festival sidebars. And in showcasing mainstream non-English-language films the section is also a springboard for performers who may be big news at home, but who are little-known outside their core markets.

Japan’s Nakajima Yuto fits that description perfectly. He has a dual career as a singer with boy band Hey! Say! Jump! and more than a decade as an actor. His acting credits including the Mike Ross role in the Japanese remake of hit U.S. series “Suits.” In his position as a music idol appealing to a volatile, younger demographic, means that selecting acting roles is — normally — something requiring careful consideration.

Yet, Nakajima told Variety, he leaped at the chance to star in “#Manhole,” where the male lead has to both...

Leading executives from the Japanese firm outline their strategy for the year ahead.

Gaga Corporation has secured Japan rights to Max and Sam Eggers’ upcoming psychological horror The Front Room from A24.

It marks the feature directorial debut of the Eggers Brothers, whose sibling Robert Eggers has worked with A24 on The Witch and The Lighthouse. Max, who co-wrote The Lighthouse, and Sam, who co-wrote Olympia, adapted the screenplay from Susan Hill’s short story of the same name and the feature is in post-production.

The pre-buy builds on previous deals between Gaga and A24 that have included Everything Everywhere All At Once,...

Festival to also honour French cinematographer Caroline Champetier with honorary Berlinale Camera.

The Berlinale has added the world premiere of documentary Love To Love You, Donna Summer and a tribute to a century of Disney animation to its upcoming 73rd edition.

The additions complete the lineup for the Berlinale Special sidebar at the festival, set to run February 16-26.

Love To Love You, Donna Summer is co-directed by Roger Ross Williams, Oscar nominated in 2016 for Life, Animated, and US actress Brooklyn Sudano, who is the daughter of Summer and makes her directorial debut with the film.

The documentary will explore...