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Recently, films like “Snowdrop” (2024) by Yoshida Kota and Hideo Jojo‘s “A Bad Summer” (2025) have shed a dramatic light on the Japanese welfare system. Now, Akihiro Toda‘s “Soyoko” advances that field by showing a 19-year-old child of divorce who lives with her paralyzed father. As she struggles to apply for social welfare and clings to her dreams of studying at an art school, a ruthless caseworker makes increasingly awful demands for funds, leading the vulnerable and isolated Soyoko into a terrible situation.

Soyoko is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival

After his success, “Ichiko” (2023), Toda delivers a merciless drama that takes a look into the abyss of the Japanese health and welfare system. Brutal scenes, some hard to endure, are presented very bluntly and loaded with symbolic meaning. Soyoko’s state of mind is presented very well by the minimal dialogue creating an eering and authentic atmosphere that seizes the viewer.

A new black-and-white Japanese film tackles the challenges of growing old through the story of a retired professor. “Teki Cometh” follows Gisuke Watanabe, portrayed by veteran actor Kyozo Nagatsuka, as his quiet daily routine gets disrupted by ominous messages warning about his approaching “enemy.”

The movie begins as a character study of Watanabe’s life after retiring from teaching French literature. But it soon delves into unsettling territory as the line blurs between his dreams and reality. In his dreams, Watanabe grapples with his past relationships and worries about the future. He finds himself haunted by the ghost of his late wife, played by Asuka Kurosawa, who resents what she sees as his betrayal.

Director Yoshida Daihachi, now age 60, drew from his own experiences with aging and increasingly vivid dreams for the film. He hopes viewers will interpret the dreamlike narrative in their own way. While some elements involve modern technology like social media,...

Considering that Japan is the most aging country in the world, it is by no surprise that films about the elderly have seen a significant increase lately. Daihachi Yoshida tries his hand also in the topic, by adapting Yasutaka Tsutsui‘s homonymous novel in a black-and-white movie that follows a non-linear approach.

Teki Cometh is screening at Tokyo International Film Festival

Gisuke Watanabe is 77 years old, a retired professor of French literature. His wife passed away before him, and he now lives in a traditional Japanese house that has been in his family since his grandfather’s time. He cooks for himself, enjoys a drink with his dinner, and although he has lost touch with many friends, he occasionally shares drinks with a few close ones. Sometimes, he invites former students over for dinner. He calculates how much longer his savings will last, in other words, how much longer he will live.

“Yoko No Tabi” directed by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri (“Manhole”) was crowned winner of Best Feature Film of the the 25th Shanghai International Film Festival, one of the leading festivals in East Asia, during the awards ceremony on Saturday.The film also bagged an award for Best Actress and one for Best Screenplay.

A human drama directed by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri (Mukoku) and headlined by Rinko Kikuchi. Other cast members include Pistol Takehara, Asuka Kurosawa, Jun Fubuki and Joe Odagiri. Kikuchi was recently nominated for best supporting actress in “Babel” at the 2007 Academy Awards.

Synopsis:

Given up her dream and life long ago, Yoko has been socially isolated for years and barely leaves her tiny apartment. When she receives the news of her estranged father's death, she is forced to leave the room and ride with her cousin to return home for the first time in 20 years. However, Yoko ends up left alone in the highway rest stop…...

Yoko is a 42-year-old single “freeter” (freelancing part-time worker) who has suffered setbacks and opposition from her father in pursuing her dreams. One day when she receives news of her estranged father's death, she decides to return to her hometown of Hirosaki in Aomori Prefecture for his funeral. Along the way, she encounters car troubles and being cash-strapped, embarks on a hitchhiking journey where she meets various people such as a desperate working single mum and a kind-hearted couple.

A human drama directed by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri (Mukoku) and headlined by Academy Award® nominee Rinko Kikuchi. Other cast members include Pistol Takehara, Asuka Kurosawa, Jun Fubuki and Joe Odagiri. This movie will premiere in Japan with a roadshow on July 28, 2023.

Mayu Nakamura directed 2021 Tokyo International Film Festival’s Nippon Cinema Now selection.

LA-based Est Studios has boarded worldwide sales rights excluding Japan to the Tokyo-set psychological thriller Intimate Stranger and is in talks with buyers at AFM.

Mayu Nakamura directed the 2021 Tokyo International Film Festival’s Nippon Cinema Now selection starring Asuka Kurosawa and rising talent Fuju Kamio.

Intimate Stranger takes place in a post-Covid Tokyo and follows a woman searching for her missing teenage son who is approached by a shady young man claiming to know his whereabouts. Over time the strangers entrap each other with deception. Tetsujiro Yamagami served as producer.

Mayu earned an Mfa from the Graduate Film Program at New York University. In 2006, her first fiction feature film, “The Summer of Stickleback” was premiered in the competition section at the Busan International Film Festival, and it was theatrically released in Japan. In 2012, Mayu directed the documentary feature film, “Lonely Swallows–Living as the Children of Migrant Workers” which follows Japanese-Brazilian kids struggling to survive in Japan and Brazil. The film won the Grand Prix in Documentary Features at the Brazilian Film Festival. In 2015, Mayu directed another documentary feature film, “Alone in Fukushima.” The film follows a man who stays in the nuclear zone with animals in Fukushima. The film was screened at the documentary section at Montreal World Film Festival, and it was theatrically released in Japan. Her writing credit includes “Tokyo Trial” which was nominated for the 45th Emmy Award in Best TV Movie/Mini-Series. Her latest work...

The concept of “bullying the bully” has been one that has been repeatedly explored in Japanese cinema with films like “Confessions” and “Liverleaf” being the first that come to mind. Mayu Nakamura, however, takes it to a whole new level, as this time, we have a story of ‘scamming the scammer’, which goes much further than one could have imagined.

“Intimate Stranger” is screening at Helsinki Cine Aasia

Yuji is a young phone-scam artist, who, under the instructions of Kenichi, is tricking old ladies out of their money, pretending to be their grandson, sick with Covid and in need of hospital fees, who are to be picked up by a friend. Of course, the friend is Yuji himself. During one of his “endeavors”, he stumbles upon Megumi, a middle-aged woman who is in search of her missing teenage son. Yuji claims that he has information about him, and gradually strips...

Exclusive: Cinedigm has acquired all North American rights to Suicide Forest Village, Takashi Shimizu’s supernatural horror inspired by a real forest in Japan known for its frequent suicides and disappearances.

Shimizu previously helmed the Ju-On (The Grudge) franchise, directing the 2004 originals and three sequels. His latest stars Jun Kunimura (Kill Bill: Vol. 1), Yumi Adachi (Tokyo Vampire Hotel) and Asuka Kurosawa (Silence) in a story following a group who come across a mysterious box with a deadly secret: the item holds a curse that quickly spreads to those around them. The source of the box is the ‘Jukai Village,’ a rumored location deep within the Jukai Forest.

Shimizu co-wrote the film with Daisuke Hosaka, who previously worked together on Howling Village and The Shock Labyrinth 3D. The film is produced by Muneyuki Kii, Harue Miyake, Chikako Nakabayashi and Daisuke Takahashi.

The deal was negotiated by Brandon Hill, Manager of Acquisitions,...

Shinya Tsukamoto's Vital and A Snake of June are playing on Mubi in the United States in the double bill The Human Extremes of Shinya Tsukamoto.Top: A Snake of June. Above: Vital. Shinya Tsukamoto has explored the full spectrum of human darkness over his four decades of filmmaking, including the raw nihilism of 1989’s Tetsuo: Iron Man, the desperate grief of 1998’s Bullet Ballet, and the paralyzing pacifism of 2018’s Killing, just to name a few select examples. And yet the director is usually only associated with the violence and surrealism of the earlier films, particularly edgelord employee pick Tetsuo. What’s often overlooked by fans is that these earlier films stem from the same fascinations foregrounded in his later, more restrained works like Killing (2018) and Fires on the Plain (2014): abject corporeality amid environments molding us as much as we exist in them, and ontological explorations of breaking through those constraints.

“You’re not in touch with your feelings.”

Considering the majority of his work deals with the link of the body, our consciousness and the (often urban) environment, making a film about sexuality was perhaps just the logical next step in the career of Shinya Tsukamoto. In fact, the director admits having thought about that idea ever since the production of “Tetsuo: The Iron Man”, especially since both works demonstrate narrative and formal parallels. Much like this film’s premise the story for the project, which would later be called “A Snake of June”, also consisted of a minimalist environment in which a character is stalked and finally confronted by a villainous person.

“A Snake of June” is streaming on Mubi

However, it took him longer than expected to make “ A Snake of June”. In the end, this time benefited the project to a certain degree, Tsukamoto admits, for his relationship towards the opposite sex,...

“You’re not in touch with your feelings.”

Considering the majority of his work deals with the link of the body, our consciousness and the (often urban) environment, making a film about sexuality was perhaps just the logical next step in the career of Shinya Tsukamoto. In fact, the director admits having thought about that idea ever since the production of “Tetsuo: The Iron Man”, especially since both works demonstrate narrative and formal parallels. Much like this film’s premise the story for the project, which would later be called “A Snake of June”, also consisted of a minimalist environment in which a character is stalked and finally confronted by a villainous person.

However, it took him longer than expected to make “ A Snake of June”. In the end, this time benefited the project to a certain degree, Tsukamoto admits, for his relationship towards the opposite sex, his visual approach...

Loosely based on the Saitama serial murders of dog lovers, a case of a married couple who owned a pet shop and murdered at least four people, “Cold Fish” gave Sono the opportunity to present his version of how a serial killer film ought to be like.

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Syamoto is a humble and guileless exotic fish shop owner who is taken advantage of by both his spoiled daughter, Mitsuko and his second wife, Taeko. His daughter is an underage delinquent who spends her time flirting and sometimes beating her stepmother. One night, a grocery shop attendant catches her stealing; however, a peculiarly friendly man, Murata, manages to convince the clerk not to call the police. Furthermore, he is also an exotic fish shop owner and offers to hire Mitsuko in his establishment, which is far larger than Syamoto’s. Moreover, when Murata, who has become a friend of Syamoto,...

The World of Kanako

Written by Akio Fukamachi, Tetsuya Nakashima, Miako Tadano & Nobuhiro Monma

Directed by Tetsuya Nakashima

Japan, 2014

Tetsuya Nakashima’s The World of Kanako is a blood-soaked detective story about an unstable father’s quest to track down his missing daughter. While falling within the broad boundaries of a detective story, The World of Kanako plays out as an ultra-violent, psychotropic dive into the brittle mind of a damaged protagonist. While the squeamish will definitely want to sit this one out, those up for a hyper-kinetic, genre-bending revenge flick are in for a treat.

Akikazu Fujishima (Kôji Yakusho) is a flat out mess: he’s lost his job, lost his family, and self-medicates his mental illness with alcohol and drugs. Akikazu floats through his life without meaning until his ex-wife (Asuka Kurosawa) calls to inform him that his teenage daughter Kanako (Nana Komatsu) is missing. Whether fueled by...

Cold Fish

Directed by Sion Sono

Starring Mitsuru Fukkoshi, Hikari Kajiwara, Denden, Megumi Kagurazaka, Asuka Kurosawa

Written by Sion Sono

2010, Japan

Fans of transgressive cinema were overjoyed to see Sion Sono’s latest atrocity appear on the London Film Festival schedule. The Japanese malcontent is almost as prolific as his countryman Miike Takashi, both of them delivering bold and challenging freshly wrought movies year in, year out. After satirizing emerging fads and consumerism in Suicide Club and taking a skewed look at teen romance, religion and the Japanese nuclear family in Love Exposure, he injects a further dysfunctional analysis throughout Cold Fish, a serial killer-themed tale on the surface that obscures a lurking lampoon on present notions of masculinity, progeny and the contemporary status of morality in Japanese society. Based on a true story which one sincerely prays has been amplified through Sono’s warped vision, Cold Fish is telegraphed...

The Film:

I honestly can say I have never seen a serial killer film like Cold Fish before, and can’t imagine I will again. This film can lay claim to being one of the most bizarre viewing experiences I’ve had this year. This was my first film of Sono’s, I had wanted to see his other films having heard mixed things, I just had not had the chance to yet. The film is loosely based on the ‘Saitama serial murders of dog lovers’ (a couple who murdered and dismembered four people in 1993). I had not heard of this case, and upon further research I can clearly see that Sono and Takahashi have taken the basic idea and done their own thing with it.

The film has a very odd start, we meet the Shamoto family, consisting of the head of the family Nobuyuki (Mitsuru Fukikoshi), his young...

The Melbourne International Film Festival is celebrating its 60th year, and I made it my duty to try and catch at least a few films. I like to see films that are weird and different, and as much as I wanted to see some more main stream films at the fest, I decided to pick some of the stranger ones. None come more strange and off beat than Sion Sono’s (who also wrote the screenplay with Yoshiki Takahashi) Cold Fish. I honestly can say I have never seen a serial killer film like this before, and can’t imagine I will again. This film can lay claim to being one of the most bizzare viewing experiences I’ve had this year. This was my first film of Sono’s , I had wanted to see his other films having heard mixed things, I just had not had the chance to yet.

Cold Fish will be released for a special New York City run starting on August 5, ahead of the DVD release on August 23. We have a contest running where we're giving away tickets for this special event in New York to our readers. These tickets will certainly go fast, so enter this contest today.

Winners Receive:

Cold Fish movie tickets in New York City

Here's How To Win!

Just "Like" (fan) the MovieWeb Facebook page (below) and then leave a comment below telling us why these prizes must be yours!

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Cold Fish has won acclaim at both the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals. In the film, mild-mannered Shamoto's teenage daughter gets caught shoplifting. A generous fellow fish-store owner and his wife appear to help resolve the situation by having her work at their fish store.

There is a scene in Shion Sono’s 2008 film Love Exposure in which a girl destroys a family home, smashing the walls, furniture and family photos to smithereens, all by hand. This she informs us through a voiceover was her job for some time and she loved it. Destroying the space inhabited by a “happy family” is a thrill to her, she gets high on it.

This scene encapsulates a theme that has run through a number of Shion Sono’s blistering and brutal films and it is one that he returns to with force in his latest, Cold Fish.

In the opening scene of Cold Fish, Taeko (Megumi Kagurazaka) throws food into a shopping basket in a supermarket with the pounding music and editing and composition of a dynamic action sequence. She then returns home to microwave everything she has purchased, preparing a family meal for her resentful and bratty step-daughter,...

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Shion Sono is probably best known to Western audiences for his uneven if admittedly enticing film Suicide Club, which boasted a grisly opening scene in which a train platform full of school girls simultaneously dive in front of an oncoming train. In the interim, Sono appears to have lost little of his edge, and even gained a little; Cold Fish is every bit the daring, brazenly over-the-top film you would expect from the man, yet it also retains a more meditative quality than his best-known work, even if it is far too long and more than a bit ponderous.

That demented sense of humour that pervades throughout most all of Sono’s films is here in great abundance, at once inviting his audience to revile what is occurring on-screen and get a perverse little kick out of it too. The plot, lifted liberally from a real...

"Gore fans won't be disappointed by bodies diced up into tiny little cubes “no larger than chicken nuggets”, human foie gras and one victim's neck becoming part of a tug-of-war game"

Japanese gore director, Sion Sono (Suicide Club) serves up plenty of blood and guts to satisfy fans in Cold Fish, the ominously “true” story of tropical fish owner, Mr Shamoto's downfall.

An exceedingly long opening title sequence introduces us to the frosty Shamoto family as step-mum Taeko aggressively prepares dinner to the strains of battle music. With clearly no control over their daughter, Mishuko abandons dinner mid-way, and the Shamotos are later contacted when she's caught shoplifting. Meeting the extremely animated Mr Msurata, the owner of Amazon Gold Tropical Fish Centre, changes their lives...

Taking in Mishuko as an employee who shares a dorm room with an army of other young troubled female workers, Msurata soon suggests Shamoto becomes...

“Unflinching and unconscionable, Cold Fish is a black comedy with an obsidian pitch, a queer balancing act of outrageous humor and fathomless gore.” Cold Fish Directed by Sion Sono Starring Mitsuru Fukkoshi, Hikari Kajiwara, Denden, Megumi Kagurazaka, Asuka Kurosawa Written by Sion Sono 2010, Japan Fans of transgressive cinema were overjoyed to see Sion Sono’s latest atrocity appear on the [...]...

Rating: 4.5/5

Writers: Shion Sono, Yoshiki Takahashi

Director: Shion Sono

Cast: Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Denden, Shinya Tsukamoto, Asuka Kurosawa

Working (loosely) from the details of a real life serial killer case, Shion Sono (no newcomer to violence and insanity in film) has crafted a character study that will at once please and divide longtime fans and Sono “newbies” alike. It is a difficult film to watch at times and even harder to fully process afterwards. For those intimately familiar with Sono’s previous work, the film will open up much more quickly. Those making their first trip into a world crafted by Sono (and first time writing collaborator Yoshiki Takahashi) will be less prepared for what they will witness and feel but by giving in to the themes the film wears very proudly on its sleeve will find the impeccably well-executed film rewarding in unexpected ways.

Read more on Fantastic Fest 2010 Review: Cold Fish…...

#10. Cold Fish Director: Sion SonoCast: Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Denden, Asuka Kurosawa, Megumi Kagurazaka, Tetsu Watanabe Distributor: Rights Available. Buzz: From the maker behind 2001's Suicide Club and the four-hour opus 2009's Love Exposure comes this messed up piece that is based on a true story. Showing in Venice and Tiff, the public screenings for this will be considered film events at the festival itself with many Sono fans packing the seats.  The Gist: Equal parts black humour and bloody dementia in this true crime portrait of a Japanese tropical fish dealer responsible for over forty murders. Tiff Schedule:Sunday September 12 10:00:00 Pm AMC 6 Friday September 17 8:30:00 Pm AMC 3 Sunday September 19 12:00:00 Pm Scotiabank Theatre 2  ...

[Updated with a better quality version of the image and a brief synopsis]

We knew Love Exposure director Sion Sono would be doing his next feature as part of Nikkatsu's Sushu Typhoon line but beyond that details were sketchy in the extreme.  And while they still are, really, we now at least have a title.  Cold Fish is Sono's upcoming feature for Nikkatsu, a true-life serial killer story. 

Here are some plot details courtesy of Screen's Jason Gray:

Cold Fish tells the story of a tropical fish seller named Shamoto (Mitsuru Fukikoshi) who becomes an accomplice to a string of grisly homicides committed by a fellow seller (Denden) and his wife after they hold Shamoto's daughter hostage. Promoted as an unflinching portrait of violence and madness, the story is partially based on a true case.

Fukikoshi and Denden both appeared in Sono's more orthodox 2009 drama Be Sure To Share. The cast also includes Asuka Kurosawa and Megumi Kagurazaka as the daughter.

BeRightBack here, visiting from the Wordsmoker collective at Nathaniel's kind invitation to gab about one of my most fervently-held obsessions: Japanese cinema. "Mezamashii" (目覚ましい) is a Japanese word for "eye-opening," and I'm going to be using this feature to look at some revelatory and memorable moments that have opened my eyes to the distinct pleasures to be found in Japanese films.

I was reminded of today’s pleasure when Robert mentioned that the third film in director Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo series will be showing at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo movies are gritty and abrasive stories of men who begin sprouting metal from their bodies as if undergoing a form of post-apocalyptic puberty. But there's another side to the director, one that gets a bit obscured by Tetsuo's bristling, metal-engorged shadow. In his more beguiling, less confrontationally "avant-garde" films like Gemini and A Snake of June,...