Quote:
As vanguards of an invasion of the planet three aliens take possession of host bodies and assume human form. With superior technology, skills, strength and endurance the invading species is learning quickly and is sure to overwhelm the people of this planet. Unexpectedly, however, there is one force that could neuter the offensive.Read More »
Toshiaki Toyoda takes on the true story of Shogi (Japanese chess) player Shoji “Shottan” Segawa. Despite consistent dedication, Shottan (Ryuhei Matsuda) fails to go professional by the time he’s 26, permanently forfeiting his chance according to the game’s strict rules. When he makes a name for himself as an amateur years later, however, he makes an unprecedented bid to go professional at 35 and forever changes the game. Informed by Toyoda’s personal Shogi experience (he trained to go professional as an adolescent), this star-studded biopic of late-blooming self-realization is an inspirational study of perseverance against all odds.Read More »
Synopsis
A girl finds an old handgun in her attic and the symbolic object conjures a mystical scene of samurai gathering within the moss-grown location of Kasosan Shrine in Tochigi Prefecture.Read More »
Quote:
In their graduation year, the disaffected students turn their concrete box of a school into a backdrop against which to create their own version of society. The newly elected boss Kujo (played with cool panache by rising star Ryuhei Matsuda) disdains all the rules, including those that have led to his election. Into this power vacuum, his scandalized friend and lieutenant Aoki (Hirofumi Arai) enters with vicious intent. As graduation looms, the pupils study violence and death.Read More »
In the Susukino red light district of Sapporo, a private detective (Yo Oizumi) drinks alcohol with his driver Takada (Ryuhei Matsuda) in his favourite bar. There he receives a phone call from a woman who identifies herself as Kyoko Kondo. The woman asks the detective to complete a simple task. The detective, having an excellent sense for danger, thinks the work is easy and accepts the case. The next day he begins the investigation.Read More »
Quote:
In a big city, a wave of suicides catches fire. The modus operandi is always the same: the victims wildly stab themselves to death, cut their own throats and butcher themselves beyond recognition, without any apparent reason. The only thing the dead have in common is the phone number they call just before they perish at their own hand. Keiko, a crack policewoman, takes it upon herself to solve the case. Soon enough she reaches the conclusion that someone is entering the victims’ dreams and persuading them to take their own lives. She appeals to Kyoichi, a man known as a nightmare detective who can enter the dreams of others, to help. When Wakimaya, one of Keiko’s colleagues, falls victim to the killer, Keiko takes the risk and dials the number, though she knows that she may well be the next suicide on the list.Read More »
Quote:
Nine convicts escape from prison; most are convicted murders. They commandeer a van from a strip club. Their plan is to find a stash of counterfeit money that a deranged cell mate told them about, divide it, then part ways. They make it to the site where the money is supposed to be hidden, and then one by one, each seeks out the place he wants to be, a version of home, somewhere to connect. Will it end well for any of them?Read More »
Synopsis:
Gohatto stars Beat Takeshi, Asano Tadanobu and a fifteen-year-old Matsuda Ryuhei as the beautiful son of a well-to-do merchant who joins the Shinsen Gumi militia in Kyoto for the “right to kill,” and ends up doing so both by his sword and his good looks. Gohatto explores themes of jealousy, madness and destruction within the context of bushido homoeroticism; not only does this violent love story play out within the bounds of same-sex relationships, but within a single militia.Read More »
Quote:
Religious con-men have probably been around as long as religion itself, though we have no way of knowing what scams fake shamans were running in the caves. For every Jesus, who had a low opinion of the rich and left little more than a strangely stained burial shroud (if that) on his demise, there have been dozens of priests, ministers and gurus raking it in, living it up and believing in nothing but the endless gullibility of the human race.Read More »