All Things: Asian Film, Vol. III

R100 Gets U.S. Release Date

Cinedigm and Drafthouse Films will bring to Blu-ray Hitoshi Matsumoto's black comedy R100 (2013), starring Mao Daichi, Lindsay Kay Hayward, and Hairi Katagiri. The release will be available for purchase on March 10, 2015.

Official synopsis: In this audaciously kinky, meta-comedic thriller, a lonely father with a secret taste for S&M (Nao Ohmori, best known for his titular turn in Takashi Miike's Ichi the Killer) hires a boutique dominatrix agency that specializes in guerilla acts of public degradation.

Although the rough treatment and humiliation Takafumi Katayama receives from these leather-clad women––in caf?s and on the street––drives him to ecstatic pleasure, he soon finds himself over his head during a surprise house call by one of the mistresses. After a freak and fatal accident, Takafumi is forced into action with a slew of vengeful dominatrices chasing him down. With the help of his son, he'll have to devise a plan to take on the relentless femmes fatales, who each possess a unique S&M talent by which to exact painful revenge.

R100—the title a riff on the Japanese movie rating system, whose equivalent to NC-17 is R18—is directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto (Big Man Japan, Symbol), one of Japan's most preeminent and beloved comedic talents.



Trailer is borderline NSFW.

I desperately need this movie in my life.
 
Why Don't You Play in Hell? Blu-ray

Cinedigm and Drafthouse Films have announced the Blu-ray release of Japanese director Sion Sono's Why Don't You Play in Hell?. The film stars Jun Kunimura, Fumi Nikaid?, Shin'ichi Tsutsumi, Hiroki Hasegawa and Gen Hoshino, and arrives on Blu-ray on January 27, 2015.
Why Don't You Play in Hell? is presented in 1080p with DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround. Extras and bonus content includes:

Press conference with director Sion Sono
11?17-inch fold-out poster by comic artist James Callahan
24-page booklet
Theatrical trailers
Digital download

Knew this already, but thought it'd be worth mentioning again.
 
Epic War Movie ‘Japan’s Longest Day’ To Be Reworked

The film, which details the events leading up to Japan’s unconditional surrender on August 15, 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, stars Koji Yakusho as army minister Anami, a role originally played by Toshiro Mifune.

The director is Masato Harada, whose 2011 “Chronicle of My Mother,” which starred Yakusho as a best-selling writer with mother issues, won a slew of domestic and international prizes, including the jury prize at the Montreal World Film Festival.

Okamoto’s movie was based on a 1965 best-selling novel by Kazutoshi Hando about diehard militarists plotting a coup to stop the Emperor’s surrender announcement on August 15. Anami is caught between his loyalty to the Emperor, who wants to stop the killing, and his reluctance to admit defeat, even at the cost of more Japanese lives.
 
Kaiju Shakedown: Taking Tiger Mountain Review

Like his characters, Tsui’s Taking Tiger Mountain is all playacting: the story of a director pretending to make a nationalist blockbuster which is based on the white-washed official history sold to the young people of China, but is actually a Trojan Horse critiquing their understanding of history. And in an ironic twist worthy of an opera, the very same young people who are being criticized are the ones who have bought the tickets that made this film a hit.

This is getting a lot of good reviews.
 
“No Tears For The Dead” on Blu-ray & DVD February 17, 2015!

Director Lee Jeong-Beom (The Man From Nowhere) brings us a tale of an assassin’s fatal mistake in No Tears For The Dead. Lead actor Jang Dong-gun apparently underwent training for four months at a film action school in Seoul and additional combat training in the U.S. The release is set for February 17th, 2015 on Blu-ray & DVD from CJ Entertainment.

Synopsis:
After immigrating to America and being abandoned by his own mother, Gon is raised to become a hit man. One day during a job, Gon accidentally kills a young girl and is plagued by guilt over killing an innocent child. His boss gives the despondent hit man a new job – to kill the young girl’s mother. Gon’s new target, Mo-gyeong, works as a risk manager at an investment firm. The grief-stricken mother buries herself in her work without knowing that she is in the heart of a dangerous conspiracy. Then, she meets a man who wants to tell her the truth behind the death of her child.

Heard the action stuff in this movie is pretty great.
 
Trailer for Sion Sono’s Love & Peace!



What’s the plot anyway? A man (Hiroki Hasegawa, seen in Why Don’t You Play in Hell! — will be one of the lead of the live-action Attack on Titan too!) who once dreamed of becoming a punk rocker, is working as a low salaryman at a musical instrument parts company. He’s secretly in love with his colleague. One day, he finds a little turtle on the rooftop, naming it Pikadon…

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Watch: First Teaser Trailer For Sion Sono's 'Shinjuku Swan'

Starring Go Ayano, Erika Sawajiri, Takayuki Yamada and Yusuke Iseya, and based on the manga series by Ken Wakui, the story follows an unemployed man who winds up recruiting women for the sex industry in Tokyo's red light district. And as you'll see in the trailer below, rival scouts and more get tossed in the mix and things get violent and strange and...well, this is a Sion Sono movie, so what do you expect?

No word yet on a stateside distributor or release date. The film opens in Japan on May 30th.



Watched 'Why Don't You Play In Hell?' this weekend. It was awesome.
 
Watch: New Trailers For Takashi Miike's 'Yakuza Apocalypse' & 'Lion Standing Against The Wind'

"Yakuza Apocalypse: The Great War of the Underworld," which is probably the one most fans are waiting for. It's another gangland pic from Miike, but with a twist. The story focuses on Akira, who enters the crime world, attracted by its lifestyle. But he becomes disappointed when he discovers it's not like in the movies, and oh yeah, the most powerful yakuza of them all just happens to be a vampire.



"Lion Standing Against The Wind," which is based off of a book, which in turn was based off of a song. Anyway, it tells the story of a doctor who goes to work in Kenya and, judging from the trailer, has a life-changing, heart-warming, golden-sunshiney experience.

 
The Mo Brothers Bring Killers into Your Home Video Collection
http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/90939/mo-brothers-bring-killers-home-video-collection/



Synopsis:
A series of horrific murders just went viral, posted anonymously by the handsome and seductive Nomura (Kazuki Kitamura), a predator with a taste for torture. Thousands of miles away, disgraced journalist Bayu (Oka Antarra) can’t stop watching – and in a reckless moment discovers he, too, can kill. One man in Tokyo. One in Jakarta. A serial killer and a vigilante. As the posts multiply and the body count rises, a bizarre and psychotic rivalry begins – and the face-to-face showdown that’s coming will paint the city in blood.

Hearing good things...
 
Wong Kar-Wai Will Direct ‘Blossoms’

Depicting chores and trifles of urban life, such as grocery shopping and hosting a dinner party, Blossoms provides a vivid image of the daily life of ordinary Shanghai people. Focusing on a hundred characters, and several main ones, the whole story is carried out over two time-lines: from the 1960s to the mid-1970s, the end of the Cultural Revolution; and from the 1980s to the start of the 21st century. As the two time periods alternate, the book unveils the two faces of the city: the Shanghai of old and the modernized metropolis it is today.
 


XLrator Media Joins the Tokyo Tribe
http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/92883/xlrator-media-joins-the-tokyo-tribe/

Remember that bat-****-crazy sounding flick Tokyo Tribe we told you about a while back? Well, strap in, kids, because we have some good news for you! It now has domestic distro!

From the Press Release:
XLrator Media (Jimi: All Is by My Side, The Machine) has acquired North American distribution rights to the street-gang/martial arts action/hip-hop musical epic TOYKO TRIBE, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). XLrator Media will release the film in fall 2015 on its “TURBO” action label.

TOKYO TRIBE was written and directed by Sion Sono, whose previous film Why Don’t You Play in Hell? won TIFF’s People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award. TOKYO TRIBE stars Ryohei Suzuki and Young Dais and is based on the manga by Santa Inoue. It was produced by Yoshinori Chiba, Kinya Oguchi, and Nobuhiro Iizuka.

“Audiences have never seen anything like TOKYO TRIBE and will be blown away by its originality, energy, and mind-blowing action and musical sequences that pay homage to everything from Quentin Tarantino to Scarface to West Side Story,” said XLrator Media CEO Barry Gordon.

In a futuristic, alternate Tokyo made up of ghetto slums and nightclub playgrounds, territorial street gangs rule the city. The opposing factions – each with their own distinctive style — control different neighborhoods, and crossing territorial lines leads to riots and rumbles. When a megalomaniacal gang leader tries to invade the other gangs’ turf, the city explodes into an all-out war.

The deal was negotiated by XLrator Media’s Barry Gordon with XYZ Films’ Nate Bolotin for Nikkatsu Corporation.
 
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