Considering the impact the, essentially newly found #MeToo movement in Japan had the last few years, as a number of scandals came to the fore, local cinema was bound to start dealing with the concept. Urara Matsubayashi, who is also an actress who was a victim of sexual assault herself, seems like the ideal person to talk about what is happening in that regard, in her directorial debut, “Blue Imagine”.
Blue Imagine is screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam
The film begins in rather harsh fashion, with a director and a producer getting an actress who is vying to be in a movie drunk, and one of them doing something completely despicable to her as soon as they are left alone. The said actress, Noel, later finds herself going to Blue Imagine, a cafe/restaurant which also doubles as sanctuary for women who have fallen victims of assault, even offering...
Blue Imagine is screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam
The film begins in rather harsh fashion, with a director and a producer getting an actress who is vying to be in a movie drunk, and one of them doing something completely despicable to her as soon as they are left alone. The said actress, Noel, later finds herself going to Blue Imagine, a cafe/restaurant which also doubles as sanctuary for women who have fallen victims of assault, even offering...
- 2/6/2024
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
As Cambodia crawls out of its movie-making infancy and starts to produce content outside the country's borders, it's chosen to do so with the mindset of appealing to a more Western audience than what would initially be expected. Graced with spectacular visuals, a highly engaging technical skillset belying its brief existence, and a wholly unexpected mindset that's quite immersive into the experience, co-writer/directors Sokyou Chea and Inrasothythep Neth provide one of the more impressive and outwardly enjoyable introductions to Cambodian genre cinema with their newest effort “Tenement” screening at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
Tenement is screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam
Following her mother's death, Soriya (Thanet Thorn), a Japanese-Cambodian manga artist, decides to travel to Cambodia along with her boyfriend Daichi (Yoshihiko Hosoda), to find out more about the country her mother fled. Soriya reunites with her lost family Aunt Mao (Sveng Socheata) and moves into the...
Tenement is screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam
Following her mother's death, Soriya (Thanet Thorn), a Japanese-Cambodian manga artist, decides to travel to Cambodia along with her boyfriend Daichi (Yoshihiko Hosoda), to find out more about the country her mother fled. Soriya reunites with her lost family Aunt Mao (Sveng Socheata) and moves into the...
- 2/1/2024
- by Don Anelli
- AsianMoviePulse
The ne plus ultra of Japanese maverick Nobuhiko Obayashi’s work as a surrealist and staunch anti-war advocate, the cult “House” director’s dizzying and frequently dazzling final feature is told through the adventures of four young people who are magically transported into the movies themselves. Opening with a riotous bombardment of sound and image that risks confusing and losing some viewers even as it sends others into rapturous delight, “Labyrinth of Cinema” then makes sense of the chaos and emerges as
It’s something of a miracle that “Labyrinth of Cinema” exists. After being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2016, Obayashi completed “Hanagatami” (2017), the final chapter in his anti-war trilogy that included “Casting Blossoms to the Sky” (2012) and “Seven Weeks” (2014). Defying a prognosis that gave him just months to live, Obayashi then co-wrote, directed and co-edited this three-hour feature while undergoing treatment. He survived to see its world premiere...
It’s something of a miracle that “Labyrinth of Cinema” exists. After being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2016, Obayashi completed “Hanagatami” (2017), the final chapter in his anti-war trilogy that included “Casting Blossoms to the Sky” (2012) and “Seven Weeks” (2014). Defying a prognosis that gave him just months to live, Obayashi then co-wrote, directed and co-edited this three-hour feature while undergoing treatment. He survived to see its world premiere...
- 10/29/2021
- by Richard Kuipers
- Variety Film + TV
Labyrinth of Cinema Review: Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s Final Film is a Mammoth, Humbling Viewing Experience
There are so many critical and theoretical entry points for discussing a film so dense as Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s Labyrinth of Cinema that it’s hard to know where to begin. One could easily spend countless hours and thousands of words mulling over all the literary and cinematic references, tonal jumps, and stylistic eccentricities. But one thing’s certain above all else: this mammoth final effort by Ôbayashi, an artist who so often destroyed the conventional boundaries of cinematic space in works like 1977’s Hausu, is a completely humbling viewing experience.
Displaying an unmatched breakneck momentum, Labyrinth careens through key moments in Japanese history and parallel genre universes with the inevitable directionality of a boomerang passing through multiple worm holes only to circle back again. Stylistically, Ôbayashi uses rear-projection and green screen to turn the classic iconography and archetypes of Japanese cinema into a plastic digital space where characters exist...
Displaying an unmatched breakneck momentum, Labyrinth careens through key moments in Japanese history and parallel genre universes with the inevitable directionality of a boomerang passing through multiple worm holes only to circle back again. Stylistically, Ôbayashi uses rear-projection and green screen to turn the classic iconography and archetypes of Japanese cinema into a plastic digital space where characters exist...
- 10/20/2021
- by Glenn Heath Jr.
- The Film Stage
Labyrinth Of Cinema, the final film by maverick filmmaker Nobuhiko Obayashi ; a love letter to the power of cinema will be playing on the big screen as it was intended.
The film will be released in New York at The Metrograph on October 20th, with a Los Angeles and regional release to follow in key theaters.
Labyrinth Of Cinema
Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi (House)
Cast: Takuro Atsuki, Takahito Hosoyamada, Yoshihiko Hosoda, Rei Yoshida, Riko Narumi, Hirona Yamazaki, Takako Tokiwa
The final film by Nobuhiko Obayashi finds the late director returning to the subject of Japan’s history of warfare following the completion of his “War Trilogy,” which ended with Hanagatami. On the last night of its existence, a small movie theater in Onomichi—the seaside town of Obayashi’s youth where he shot nearly a dozen films—screens an all-night marathon of Japanese war films. When lightning strikes the theater, three...
The film will be released in New York at The Metrograph on October 20th, with a Los Angeles and regional release to follow in key theaters.
Labyrinth Of Cinema
Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi (House)
Cast: Takuro Atsuki, Takahito Hosoyamada, Yoshihiko Hosoda, Rei Yoshida, Riko Narumi, Hirona Yamazaki, Takako Tokiwa
The final film by Nobuhiko Obayashi finds the late director returning to the subject of Japan’s history of warfare following the completion of his “War Trilogy,” which ended with Hanagatami. On the last night of its existence, a small movie theater in Onomichi—the seaside town of Obayashi’s youth where he shot nearly a dozen films—screens an all-night marathon of Japanese war films. When lightning strikes the theater, three...
- 9/12/2021
- by Rhythm Zaveri
- AsianMoviePulse
Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s last work starts as a sentimental elegy to cinema-going’s golden age but takes us through the heart of Japanese darkness
Nobuhiko Ôbayashi is the Japanese film-maker who directed the cult 1977 horror Hausu, or House, and in his long and prolific career also specialised in TV ads starring American movie actors for the domestic market (satirised in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation). Just before his death last year, at the age of 82, he completed this film, his valediction to cinema, to Japan and to life: an epic blitz of pop-culture hyperactivity: baffling, surreal, tragicomic, then simply tragic. At first, it looks as if it is going to be a sentimental lump-in-the-throat elegy to cinema-going’s golden age. But then it takes us to the heart of Japanese darkness: the second world war and the atomic bomb.
In the present day, a movie theatre in Onomichi, near Hiroshima,...
Nobuhiko Ôbayashi is the Japanese film-maker who directed the cult 1977 horror Hausu, or House, and in his long and prolific career also specialised in TV ads starring American movie actors for the domestic market (satirised in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation). Just before his death last year, at the age of 82, he completed this film, his valediction to cinema, to Japan and to life: an epic blitz of pop-culture hyperactivity: baffling, surreal, tragicomic, then simply tragic. At first, it looks as if it is going to be a sentimental lump-in-the-throat elegy to cinema-going’s golden age. But then it takes us to the heart of Japanese darkness: the second world war and the atomic bomb.
In the present day, a movie theatre in Onomichi, near Hiroshima,...
- 4/26/2021
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Ultraman X The Complete Series and Movie will be available on Blu-ray and Digital April 21st from Mill Creek Entertainment
As Ultra Flares from the sun blanket the Earth, Spark Dolls that had been hidden underground and in the sea are turned into monsters. In order to deal with the sudden outbreak of invading aliens, humanity arms itself with machines of super science and forms the defensive team Xio. 15 years later… A member of Xio, Oozora Daichi, hears a mysterious voice while in combat against a monster. ‘Unite…’ Just as Daichi is on the verge of being obliterated by the creature, he finds himself bathed in a radiant light.
The 27th entry in the Ultra Series!It was the first tokusatsushow in the world to be simulcast while airing in Japan.All 22 episodes will make their Blu-ray debut, Plus 2 recap episodes as only seen in Japan!Also includes Ultraman X: The Movie,...
As Ultra Flares from the sun blanket the Earth, Spark Dolls that had been hidden underground and in the sea are turned into monsters. In order to deal with the sudden outbreak of invading aliens, humanity arms itself with machines of super science and forms the defensive team Xio. 15 years later… A member of Xio, Oozora Daichi, hears a mysterious voice while in combat against a monster. ‘Unite…’ Just as Daichi is on the verge of being obliterated by the creature, he finds himself bathed in a radiant light.
The 27th entry in the Ultra Series!It was the first tokusatsushow in the world to be simulcast while airing in Japan.All 22 episodes will make their Blu-ray debut, Plus 2 recap episodes as only seen in Japan!Also includes Ultraman X: The Movie,...
- 4/12/2020
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
“Everybody in this industry is crafty, filthy and bitter.“
Through most of our lives, especially during our teenage years, we often hear we should follow our dreams and our passions in life. It is true that the metaphorical doors of opportunity are still wide open for us in these years so many people feel a certain obligation to tell us to not be lazy, not waste our time and use the window of time we have left. Generally speaking, we all might feel the same way and we might even catch ourselves using the same words in front of a young person, but then perhaps the motivation for this action may stem from our own disappointments in life, or the complete opposite. Whatever the case may be, following one’s passion remains one of the strongest ideals in our lives.
However, actually following through with this statement requires steps which...
Through most of our lives, especially during our teenage years, we often hear we should follow our dreams and our passions in life. It is true that the metaphorical doors of opportunity are still wide open for us in these years so many people feel a certain obligation to tell us to not be lazy, not waste our time and use the window of time we have left. Generally speaking, we all might feel the same way and we might even catch ourselves using the same words in front of a young person, but then perhaps the motivation for this action may stem from our own disappointments in life, or the complete opposite. Whatever the case may be, following one’s passion remains one of the strongest ideals in our lives.
However, actually following through with this statement requires steps which...
- 8/19/2019
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
Last month it was announced that Badboys, a manga serialized in Young King from 1988-1996, was getting a live-action film adaptation directed by Takashi Kubota. Some of the main cast was revealed yesterday, including Takahiro Miura: second son of veteran actor Tomokazu Miura and retired 1970s mega-idol Momoe Yamaguchi.
Miura will play Nomura, the most feared member of Hiroshima’s number one biker gang “Kyou Rengou” (Maniac Alliance). The story involves Kyou Rengou facing off against Gokurakucho, a formerly weak gang which rose to number two in Hiroshima thanks primarily to their eighth generation leader, Tsukasa Kiriki (Shogo Suzuki). Shinnosuke Abe (Crows Zero II), Hidenori Tokuyama (Indigo no Yoru), and Yoshihiko Hosoda (Detroit Metal City) also star.
“Badboys” is slated for a January release in Japan.
Sources: Tokyograph, Cinema Today...
Miura will play Nomura, the most feared member of Hiroshima’s number one biker gang “Kyou Rengou” (Maniac Alliance). The story involves Kyou Rengou facing off against Gokurakucho, a formerly weak gang which rose to number two in Hiroshima thanks primarily to their eighth generation leader, Tsukasa Kiriki (Shogo Suzuki). Shinnosuke Abe (Crows Zero II), Hidenori Tokuyama (Indigo no Yoru), and Yoshihiko Hosoda (Detroit Metal City) also star.
“Badboys” is slated for a January release in Japan.
Sources: Tokyograph, Cinema Today...
- 6/4/2010
- Nippon Cinema
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