Asian Cinema

Today it was revealed that actor Kengo Kora will appear in Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s My Man, an upcoming film adaptation of Kazuki Sakuraba’s Naoki Prize-winning novel Watashi no Otoko. Kora first met Kumakiri at the age of 18 when they both attended the the Rotterdam International Film Festival, but the two have never worked together before now. He was reportedly a fan of Kumakiri’s work from the start, and particularly liked his recent films Sketches of Kaitan City and Blazing Famiglia. The new...

A new “Lie” teaser has been released for Nobuo Mizuta’s upcoming comedy Shazai no Ohsama (lit. king of apologies). The film reunites the so-called “golden trio” that worked together on 2007’s Maiko Haaaan!!! - director Mizuta, screenwriter Kankuro Kudo, and star Sadao Abe. Inspired by the seemingly absurd number of public apologies that have been delivered by Japanese public figures in recent years, the film revolves around an apology instructor named Mamoru Kuroshima (Abe) who teaches a...

Director: Michael Taverna. Review: Adam Wing. Arriving approximately fifteen years too late, Apartment 1303 is a terrifying shocker based on the highly acclaimed (that’s what it says here) J-horror film of the same name. I say terrifying but what I really mean is terrifyingly bad. I say shocker but what I really mean is shocking. Starring Mischa Barton (The OC, The Sixth Sense), Rebecca De Mornay (The Hand that Rocks the Cradle) and Julianne Michelle (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps), Apartment 1303 is released through Koch Media this June, available to buy on DVD, Blu-ray and VOD. I was starting to think the curse of the J-horror remake had passed, but this 2012 offering is further proof that you can’t keep a dead girl down. Hollywood will continue to raid the vaults of Asian cinema over the next few years, with remakes of Oldboy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance looking most likely to offend, but I was really hoping it had learnt its lesson from the likes of One Missed Call, Shutter and The Eye. Clearly there is still a thirst for tired remakes in Hollywood. Having grown up under the grip of her fame-hungry mother, Janet Slate takes the opportunity to go it alone, moving into a high-rise apartment in downtown Detroit. Played by Julianne Michelle, Janet is one of the dumbest movie heroines you are ever likely to see. She makes the girl from Scary Movie look like Laurie Strode. Janet is the kind of girl who chooses to investigate the sudden appearance of a shadowy figure in her apartment, rather than get the hell out of Dodge.

There’s one thing - one of our fave directors - Sion Sono’s not afraid of doing and that’s courting controversy with his films, and his latest work of (no doubt) bloody genius Yakuza action thriller ‘Why don’t you play in Hell’ isn’t going to break that track record anytime soon. The official site for the movie is now live and we’re waiting with impatient anticipation of the full trailer arriving there soon. Because we want to see this now dammit! ‘Why don’t you play in Hell’ opens in Japan this September. Play in Hell official site

Fast and Furious 6The Fast and Furious circus jets over to London for another mindlessly fun hot-rod ride.According to producers, Fast and Furious 6 is the first of the franchise entries to not feature underground road racing as a major plot point. They felt they'd reached a "ceiling" in audience appeal, thinking that tuned Suburus and scantily clad race girls dancing to hip-hop weren't enough.But there's still plenty of thrills as gravel-voiced Vin Diesel and his gang drive their musclecars on the wrong side of the road in England.Franchise regular Paul Walker also returns, as do Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges and Sung Kang. And, surprise, Michelle Rodriguez is back. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson reprises his role from Fast Five. Joining the cast this time around is Welsh actor Luke Evans as the chief villain, plus MMA fighter Gina Carano from Haywire. And stick around for a post-credits scene to see the star of another car-chase franchise.Director Justin Lin, who's steered The Fast and the Furious series since the third entry Tokyo Drift, is back in the drivers's seat one more time. He's moving aside to concentrate on other projects as Saw director James Wan takes over on the already-in-production Fast and Furious 7.Following their big caper in Rio de Janeiro, Dominic Toretto (Diesel) and his crew of street-racing high-stakes thieves have retired but remain wanted fugitives. Diplomatic Security Service agent Hobbs (Johnson) gives them a chance for a clean slate when he asks for Dom's help in bringing down a British ex-special forces soldier (Evans) who is leading a team of mercenaries in daring highway heists across Europe. Among the team of criminals is Dom's supposedly dead girlfriend Letty.Critical reception is mostly positive, so far. Rated 15+.Also openingEpic – A teenage girl is shrunken down and discovers an incredible secret realm right in her own backyard. While trying to figure out a way to contact her nutty professor father and return to her normal size, she is caught up in a battle between the Leaf Men and their mortal enemies the Boggans. This animated feature is from Blue Sky Studios and is directed by Chris Wedge, the helmer of Ice Age and Robots. It is based on William Joyce's children's book The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs. The voice cast is headed by Amanda Seyfried, along with Colin Farrell, Josh Hutcherson, Christoph Waltz, Aziz Ansari, Chris O'Dowd, Pitbull, Jason Sudeikis, Steven Tyler and Beyoncé Knowles. Critical reception, so far, is generally positive. In 3D. Rated G.Crush – A shy lonely high-school girl (Crystal Reed) turns into a psycho when she experiences her first feelings of love, making life a living hell for a hunky sports star (Lucas Till from X-Men: First Class). Sarah Bolger also stars. This went direct-to-DVD in the States and critical reception somewhat mixed. Rated 15+.Also showingEuropean Union Film Festival – Wrapping up this weekend, tonight's feature is the Spanish drama Don't Be Afraid. Tomorrow, there are three movies: the Danish World War II drama This Life, the Polish black comedy Wonderful Summer and Julien Temple's documentary London – The Modern Babylon. Saturday's offerings are Stars Above from Finland, Goethe! from (where else?) Germany and Portugal's The Death of Carlos Gardel. And the fest closes on Sunday with Sweden's Beyond, starring Noomi Rapace, Cool Kids Don't Cry from the Netherlands and the Luxembourgish crime thriller Blind Spot. It's all at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld. As always, tickets are free but you have to queue up to get them 30 minutes before showtime. This is a very popular festival, especially with the culture-starved expats, so be prepared for long lines. Check the festival website for the schedule.Baara (Work) – The Alliance Française screens free movies with English subtitles at 7.30pm every Wednesday. Next week's offering is this 1978 African workplace comedy-drama by Souleymane Cissé. It's set in a factory in Bamak

The third film in the series has redneck teen Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) being sent to Tokyo to live with his father. Once there he gets mixed up with another high school punk who just happens to be the nephew of a powerful gangster (Sonny Chiba). The first film in this series was good and the follow-up wasn’t too bad when you considered everything that it was. This third film, however, is a complete disaster from the word go and it’s rather shocking that this here didn’t put an end to the entire series. Even more predictably Sean’s forbidden romance puts him in the middle of rival Yakuza drift racing gangs. Moving the story to Japan is reasonable because it will change many aspects of the previous films, but sadly isn’t enough to make the movie good. Too bad the only things that I really enjoyed about this experimentation project are the soundtrack and the racing scenes, since the cheesy dialogs and the campy characters ruined many minutes of this movie. The most important part of The Fast and the Furious is inarguably the racing sequences and their overall effectiveness. I will admit that the sequences themselves are well-filmed and eye catching, highlighting the cars, as they should. However, except in a few fleeting moments, they are not as enthralling as they should be and this is one of the most disappointing aspects of The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift. The final confrontation, for me, is pretty good to watch, but only arouses the senses once in a while. The fact that you see confident Asian characters portrayed by talented Asian American actors, while smoothly giving the audience the feel of what it is like for an outsider to visit Japan. I would also like to add that it was actually Lin himself who volunteered to take on this project when he realized that it was the only major Hollywood theatrical film to predominantly feature an Asian American cast in 2006. Lin read the script, realized it was riddled with stereotypes. Lin just could not bare to see the fact that a film with this much exposure around the world was going to misrepresent Asians and Asian Americans, so he bit the bullet and took one for the team, and decided to take this on as his next Hollywood directorial assignment. Although Lin could not get his way in casting Sung Kang as the lead for “Tokyo Drift,” because the studio specifically wanted a white actor for the lead role, Kang was still given a prominent role as the non-stereotypical Asian American mentor for the male lead. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-EheX9m-dE Also, the big “final race” occurs, and the hero’s dad has the body of a classic 60s Mustang in his garage (a somewhat unlikely situation in Japan — not just the car, but the idea that he has a entire garage for this purpose in one of the world’s most expensive and crowded cities). So Sean and his friends take the engine out of one of the Japanese cars he has wrecked earlier in the film, and in a few hours they manage to install this into the 60s muscle car. I admit I am not a mechanic or specialist, but it does not seem logical that you could retrofit a Japanese front wheel drive engine into a vintage 60s American rear wheel drive car….if it could be done AT ALL, it seems to me that it would take a long time and involve a lot of custom parts. That’s not even considering that they drive on the opposite side of the road in Japan, or that a 60s era car would be much heavier than a current model Japanese car. There are too many other absurdities to list, along with the inclusion of the Yakuza (Japanese mafia). I wish I could say that “Toyko Drift” was campy, or that you could have a good time just laughing at the many absurdities, but actually its fatal flaw is that it is extremely dull.

Since the beginning of time, women have always been competitive creatures. Female drama begins at early stages in life, and only get worse with age. It seems they will do just about anything to get what they want, and bullying happens to be the solution. Men, fashion statements, money and a proper title are the main targets when it comes down to it. In the strange world of woman, its all about competition and being the best of the best. Many women may deny this until they’re among trusted friends sipping on their tea, but what happens when keeping quiet is no longer an option. Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s 2LDK is the story of Nozomi (Eiko Koike) and Rana (Maho Nonami) who are competing for the same movie role. While waiting to see who gets to be a Yakuza wife, they’re fixed in the same apartment over night. Nozomi is a quiet yet determined girl from a little town, who’s striving to make something big of herself, while also proving she’s not as timid as she looks. Rana is a high maintenance-pageant girl with a dark secret, hoping to win the role to fix her reputation and damaged self esteem. While one believes she has what it takes, and the other feels that she deserves her big break, you’ll begin to wreck your own brains wondering who’s gonna get the part. Other then the obvious food labeling and marking territories, it starts with simple eye rolling, mind gossip and sarcastic comments. But when one is overcoming their own personal battles, keeping sane becomes a difficult task when your competition is in the next room. It doesn’t take long before the girls really start to push each others buttons, but when they realize they’re both fighting for the same boy’s affection, all hell breaks loose. Simple poking, prodding and hair pulling is now the stuff of child’s play. Only one can get the role. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUXUkb34Dms Along with Ryuhei Kitamura’s “Aragami”, 2LDK became apart of the Duel Project and was filmed within an astounding eight days. There’s even a supposed American remake in post-production staring the cute Alexa Vega; but as we all know, nothing tops an original. Winner of the Jury Award’s best director, 2LDK is a mesmerizing tale that can make the simplest everyday girl question who’s friend and frienemy material. No doubt, it’s the perfect flick for a girls night in, you’ll surely laugh and rekindle old memories. Just hope when you’re hugging it out, your bestie doesn’t chop off your ponytail.

(This review originally appeared online at Bumscorner.com in 2007)"Who farted?"And with that, my friends, you get the perfect indicator of the level of humor that's in store for you when you recklessly insert DELTA FARCE (2007) into your DVD player. If you adjust your expectations accordingly, you may enjoy yourself. Otherwise--"well, we warned you." Maybe this film should open with a prologue from Edward Van Sloan, like DRACULA.This is the first time I've ever seen Larry the Cable Guy, and judging from this, he wasn't really worth David Cross getting all that worked up about. He's just a comic playing the character of a politically-incorrect moron based on a particular regional stereotype, same as Andrew "Dice" Clay. The film opens with Larry as an inept waiter in a greasy-spoon restaurant ("Don't mind the hair--I've been usin' a new conditioner") being informed by his skanky girlfriend that she's pregnant. The joyful Larry cranks up the P.A. system and announces the good news to everyone, then proposes. His girlfriend takes the mike to inform him that the baby isn't his. It's a mildly funny scene, but not "guffaw" funny, which pretty much describes the rest of the film.Bill Engvall plays Bill, the henpecked married guy who would love to get a divorce but can't because his wife has incriminating pictures of him, and whose vision of paradise is a murder-suicide pact. I like Engvall's hangdog style and low-key delivery, and "Bill" is my favorite character. Rounding out the trio is 97-pound weakling Everett, played by THE CORE's D.J. Qualls. He's a bit of a pervert who lives in a storage facility and likes to expose himself while brandishing a samurai sword. These are our heroes, god help us.As members of the Army Reserve, these three morons are "weekend warriors", so to speak, but the base that they report to is so lax that their monthly duty is spent getting drunk and eating junk food--until super-scary pitbull D.I. Sgt. Kilgore (our old pal Keith David of THE THING and ARMAGEDDON) shows up to chew their sorry butts out and announce that they're being shipped off to Iraq. At that point, the unsuspecting Everett blows in with a sack full of beer and whips out a long, tubular meat product with the greeting, "Hey, Sarge! Snap into a Slim Jim!" Okay, I laughed. But it wasn't technically a guffaw.During their flight to Iraq, the plane runs into trouble and the pilot is forced to dump their cargo, including a jeep that Larry, Bill, and Everett have crawled into for some shut-eye. Sgt. Kilgore gets tangled up in some rope and is also ejected. Thus, our heroes parachute into danger and find themselves in the middle of the Iraqi desert, ready to engage the enemy. They find Sgt. Kilgore, declare him dead, and bury him. Trouble is, he isn't dead. And on top of that, they aren't in Iraq--they're in Mexico.Eventually, the three warriors happen upon a small village that is being pillaged and terrorized by bandits. When they decide to use their superior military training and resources to help the villagers, DELTA FARCE surprisingly becomes a deft modern-day retelling of Akira Kurasawa's classic THE SEVEN SAMURAI as filtered through John Sturges' THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. Just kidding. It's more like a variation of THE THREE AMIGOS as filtered through the Three Stooges, sprinkled with leftover material from Jeff Foxworthy's act and shot on the Monogram backlot. Robert Rodriguez stock player Danny Trejo seems to be having a great time playing the bandit leader, Carlos Santana (people keep asking him, "Carlos Santana, the guitar player?" and he angrily retorts, "No! I'm the real Carlos Santana!") The grateful villagers fall in love with Larry, Bill, and Everett (well, maybe not Everett) and I enjoyed seeing them basking in the adoration. For sheer novelty value, I also enjoyed seeing Keith David in a red, see-through nightie, which actually happens in this movie. Really, I never thought I'd ever see that particular thing. Other memorable moments:

Logo for the Japan Film Festival of San Francisco. Image courtesy of NEW PEOPLE. 14 Live-Action and Anime Films at NEW PEOPLE Cinema from July 27-August 4 Source: MediaLab press release Official Site: jffsf.org Special Thanks to Erik Jansen The 2013 J-POP Summit Festival, the popular yearly San Francisco summertime Japanese Pop Culture celebration, has announced the launch of the Japan Film Festival of San Francisco, the first fully-dedicated annual Japanese film event for Northern California and the S.F. Bay Area. SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO is among nine live-action films screening at the festival. Photo courtesy of NEW PEOPLE. © 2010 SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO Production Committee The week-long Japan Film Festival of San Francisco will take place at the NEW PEOPLE Cinema beginning Saturday, July 27th through Sunday August 4th. The festival will also be a prominent feature of the 2013 J-POP Summit Festival, taking place across Japantown on Saturday and Sunday, July 27th and 28th. A complete schedule and advance ticket information is available on jffsf.org. Nine live-action films representing a vivid cross-section of the best in recent Japanese cinema will have their exclusive U.S. and/or San Francisco premiere at NEW PEOPLE. Live-action films include director Miwa Nishikawa’s DREAMS FOR SALE, Sakuran director Mika Ninagawa's HELTER SKELTER, Sion Sono's award-winning masterpiece, HIMIZU, architect/author Kyohei Sakaguchi’s documentary, HOW TO BUILD A MOBILE HOUSE, director Takashi Miike’s LESSON OF THE EVIL, director Shinsuke Sato’s LIBRARY WARS, actor Kazunari Ninomiya’s PLATINUM DATA, the samurai adventure of RUROUNI KENSHIN, and SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO, based on one of Japan’s greatest anime properties (known in the U.S. as STAR BLAZERS) and a must-see for any sci-fi aficionado. Films will be presented with their original Japanese dialogue with English subtitles. Continued...

Well didn’t say we could spot a winner when we see one, and its no surprise to us that The Hollywood Reporter has just dropped the news that Paul Hough’s narsty little indie horror The Human Race has just picked up a swathe of sales at Cannes; for release in the U.S., Germany, Australia and Japan. No doubt there will be more to come. Synopsis: 80 people are ripped out of their daily lives and all re-appear in an undisclosed location. These people are from all walks of life: young and old, athletic and disabled, white-collared and homeless. The rules to a race boom in their heads, in their own voice and language, laying out what will become a horrific race of terror: “If you are lapped twice, you die. If you step off the path, you die. Race...or die." Human Race trailer