Another Decade with Takashi Miike is a series of essays on the 2010 films of the Japanese maverick, following Notebook's earlier survey of Miike's first decade of the 21st century.After Lesson of the Evil in 2012 Takashi Miike was a different filmmaker, maybe a different man. He’d chased the ultimate in orgiastic pain and pleasure, the righteously profane with gusto unparalleled, and then suddenly he had said all he had to. When you not only murder children but do it simply because and have fun doing it, it’s because you hope never to have to again. Violence has recurred since—he wouldn’t be Miike without it—but his attitude changed. Ideas and symbols appear that are alien to his cinema and yet suddenly fit right into the new scheme. A man with a wooden sword throwing himself into combat against men with steel blades, a fight he knows...
- 8/31/2020
- MUBI
The Japanese actor Takao Osawa was so moved by Masashi Sada’s popular song “The Lion Standing in The Wind”, that he approached the songwriter with a suggestion of adapting it into a novel. Not only that Sada made Osawa’s wish come true, but he also wrote the movie script based on the novel inspired by the song, thus, one would believe – completing the circle. “The Lion Standing Still” – all forms of it – is based on a true story about Koichiro Shimada (Takao Osawa), a Japanese doctor who in 1987, motivated by a long-time medical missionary in Africa Albert Schweizer, left the university hospital in Nagoya to join the research team of The Institute of Tropical medicine in Kenya, the country where he found his tragic end. It is indeed a story of big importance that deserves to be told, and yet it is difficult to comprehend what made Takashi Miike...
- 8/20/2019
- by Marina D. Richter
- AsianMoviePulse
Exclusive: Japan’s Nippon TV (Ntv) is launching sales on new titles by hot Japanese directors Takashi Miike and Shunji Iwai at the European Film Market (Efm).
Based on Masashi Sada’s novel and song, Miike’s The Lion Standing In The Wind follows a Japanese doctor who travels to Africa and treats a boy soldier. Miike shot the film in Japan and Kenya last year.
Takao Osawa, who starred in Miike’s Shield Of Straw, plays the doctor and the cast also includes Satomi Ishihara and Yoko Maki. Japanese release is scheduled for March 14, 2015.
Shunji Iwai’s animated feature The Case Of Hana And Alice is a follow-up to his live action high school romance Hana And Alice (2004).
The story revolves around how the titular characters first met, while investigating the rumoured murder of a classmate.
Yu Aoi and Anne Suzuki, who played the leads in the live action version, voice the animation...
Based on Masashi Sada’s novel and song, Miike’s The Lion Standing In The Wind follows a Japanese doctor who travels to Africa and treats a boy soldier. Miike shot the film in Japan and Kenya last year.
Takao Osawa, who starred in Miike’s Shield Of Straw, plays the doctor and the cast also includes Satomi Ishihara and Yoko Maki. Japanese release is scheduled for March 14, 2015.
Shunji Iwai’s animated feature The Case Of Hana And Alice is a follow-up to his live action high school romance Hana And Alice (2004).
The story revolves around how the titular characters first met, while investigating the rumoured murder of a classmate.
Yu Aoi and Anne Suzuki, who played the leads in the live action version, voice the animation...
- 2/5/2015
- by lizshackleton@gmail.com (Liz Shackleton)
- ScreenDaily
Masaki Okada and Nana Eikura are set to star in a new film by Takahisa Zeze called Antoki no Inochi.
Based on a novel by singer and writer Masashi Sada, the plot revolves around a young man named Kyohei Nagashima (Okada) who has felt emotionally detached due to a traumatic incident in his high school days. However, when he takes a job sorting through the personal belongings of the deceased, he’s forced to face the concept of life and death. He eventually develops a relationship with a co-worker named Yuki Kubota (Eikura), which allows him to open up a little more, but he soon discovers she has a dark past of her own.
This marks the fourth of Sada’s works to get a film adaptation, after “Shoro Nagashi”, “Gege”, and “Bizan”, and it’s being produced by the people behind the tearjerkers April Bride and Life: Tears in...
Based on a novel by singer and writer Masashi Sada, the plot revolves around a young man named Kyohei Nagashima (Okada) who has felt emotionally detached due to a traumatic incident in his high school days. However, when he takes a job sorting through the personal belongings of the deceased, he’s forced to face the concept of life and death. He eventually develops a relationship with a co-worker named Yuki Kubota (Eikura), which allows him to open up a little more, but he soon discovers she has a dark past of her own.
This marks the fourth of Sada’s works to get a film adaptation, after “Shoro Nagashi”, “Gege”, and “Bizan”, and it’s being produced by the people behind the tearjerkers April Bride and Life: Tears in...
- 2/22/2011
- Nippon Cinema
2007 Shanghai International Film FestivalSHANGHAI -- "Tokyo Tower: Mom, Me & Sometimes Dad" directed by Joji Matsuoka, the Japanese mother/son weepie that packed theaters and boosted tissue sales, finds a less tearful counterpart in "Bizan", directed by Isshin Inudou, a mother/daughter drama, also released domestically in May to coincide with Mother's Day. While the former panders both to maternal fantasies of the prodigal-son-made-good and male audiences with a mother complex, the latter handles subtle female emotions with elegant poise and heart-breaking tenderness.
While "Tokyo Tower" may attract more worldwide attention through plaudits in Japan and male lead Odagiri Joe's international fame, "Bizan" appeals more narrowly to a more mature, particularly female audience, especially in Asian countries with high emphasis on family values. Captured by fluid, top-notch camerawork, the spectacle of Awa odori, Japan's biggest traditional festival where thousands clad in traditional costumes and props take to the streets in a heart-pounding dance, may attract a specific audience interested in Japanese folk culture.
Sakiko (Nanako Matsushima), who works for a travel corporation in Tokyo, is recalled to her hometown Tokushima, when her mother, Tatsuko (Nobuko Miyamoto), is suddenly hospitalized. Old tensions resurface, then she receives a double shock. Not only does she learn that Tatsuko has only a few months to live, she discovers that her father, whom she has never met and thought to be long dead, is alive.
As she embarks on a trip to find him, his old love letters become her guide in retracing footsteps of her parents' romantic rendezvous. At the annual Awa odori summer dance festival, Sakiko fulfills her mother's last wish.
In tone and spirit, "Bizan" recalls another classic Asian mother/daughter drama, "Song of the Exile" (1990) by Ann Hui. Both are about women who become cultural or social exiles by uprooting themselves to settle in the hometown of their lost loves. Both deal with the rift between two generations, and their reconciliation through unlocking family secrets and understanding, literally, where the mother comes from.
However, while Hui does not go beyond genre conventions of making the protagonists speak daggers to each other, Inudou (who co-wrote the script with Yukiko Yamamuro from a novel by Masashi Sada) exercises restraint where emotional outpour is expected. Tatsuko diffuses tension and evades unwanted questions with beautifully enunciated lines from her beloved bunraku (puppet) plays. When Sakiko meets her father, they avert their eyes and exchange niceties with agonizing formality.
Like other strong, elderly characters that people Inudo Isshin films, such as "Across a Gold Prairie", "Shinibana" and "La Maison de Himiko", Tatsuko is played with commanding power by Miyamoto. Impeccably coiffed and ramrod straight in her kimono, she conveys a full register of emotions even with a face caked in an inch of white powder. Recently returning to the big screen after several years' absence, Matsushima ("Ring", "Murder of the Inugami Clan") also turns in a natural and nuanced performance.
BIZAN
Toho/Bizan Seisaku Iinkai
Credits:
Director: Isshin Inudo
Writers: Isshin Inudo, Yukiko Yamamuro
Based on the novel by: Masashi Sada
Producer: Endo Manabu
Director of photography: Takahiro Tsutai
Production designer: Yukiharu Seshimo
Music: Michiru Oshima
Editor: Soichi Ueno
Cast:
Sakiko: Nanako Matsushima
Tatsuko: Nobuko Miyamoto
Daisuke: Takao Osawa
Running time -- 120 minutes
No MPAA rating...
While "Tokyo Tower" may attract more worldwide attention through plaudits in Japan and male lead Odagiri Joe's international fame, "Bizan" appeals more narrowly to a more mature, particularly female audience, especially in Asian countries with high emphasis on family values. Captured by fluid, top-notch camerawork, the spectacle of Awa odori, Japan's biggest traditional festival where thousands clad in traditional costumes and props take to the streets in a heart-pounding dance, may attract a specific audience interested in Japanese folk culture.
Sakiko (Nanako Matsushima), who works for a travel corporation in Tokyo, is recalled to her hometown Tokushima, when her mother, Tatsuko (Nobuko Miyamoto), is suddenly hospitalized. Old tensions resurface, then she receives a double shock. Not only does she learn that Tatsuko has only a few months to live, she discovers that her father, whom she has never met and thought to be long dead, is alive.
As she embarks on a trip to find him, his old love letters become her guide in retracing footsteps of her parents' romantic rendezvous. At the annual Awa odori summer dance festival, Sakiko fulfills her mother's last wish.
In tone and spirit, "Bizan" recalls another classic Asian mother/daughter drama, "Song of the Exile" (1990) by Ann Hui. Both are about women who become cultural or social exiles by uprooting themselves to settle in the hometown of their lost loves. Both deal with the rift between two generations, and their reconciliation through unlocking family secrets and understanding, literally, where the mother comes from.
However, while Hui does not go beyond genre conventions of making the protagonists speak daggers to each other, Inudou (who co-wrote the script with Yukiko Yamamuro from a novel by Masashi Sada) exercises restraint where emotional outpour is expected. Tatsuko diffuses tension and evades unwanted questions with beautifully enunciated lines from her beloved bunraku (puppet) plays. When Sakiko meets her father, they avert their eyes and exchange niceties with agonizing formality.
Like other strong, elderly characters that people Inudo Isshin films, such as "Across a Gold Prairie", "Shinibana" and "La Maison de Himiko", Tatsuko is played with commanding power by Miyamoto. Impeccably coiffed and ramrod straight in her kimono, she conveys a full register of emotions even with a face caked in an inch of white powder. Recently returning to the big screen after several years' absence, Matsushima ("Ring", "Murder of the Inugami Clan") also turns in a natural and nuanced performance.
BIZAN
Toho/Bizan Seisaku Iinkai
Credits:
Director: Isshin Inudo
Writers: Isshin Inudo, Yukiko Yamamuro
Based on the novel by: Masashi Sada
Producer: Endo Manabu
Director of photography: Takahiro Tsutai
Production designer: Yukiharu Seshimo
Music: Michiru Oshima
Editor: Soichi Ueno
Cast:
Sakiko: Nanako Matsushima
Tatsuko: Nobuko Miyamoto
Daisuke: Takao Osawa
Running time -- 120 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 6/18/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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