A Fistful Of Dollars Welcome to this week's Stay-At-Home Seven suggestions of films to catch on television and streaming services. As always, you can read last week's column here. Plus check out our Streaming Spotlight on cinematic battles that defy expectations.
Like Father, Like Son, Film4, 1.30am, Tuesday, November 17
Keita (Keita Ninomiya) is a bright six-year-old whose workaholic dad Ryota (Masaharu Fukuyama) likes control and order. He's not a bad man but he likes things to stay in place. So when the hospital where Keita was born calls to say they need to set up a meeting, he tells his wife Midori (Machiko Ono - who more or less bends to his every whim - "I hope it's nothing messy." Sadly for him, it's something very messy indeed - the news that his son is not really his son at all but rather a child belonging to provincial shopkeepers Yukari and Yudai.
Like Father, Like Son, Film4, 1.30am, Tuesday, November 17
Keita (Keita Ninomiya) is a bright six-year-old whose workaholic dad Ryota (Masaharu Fukuyama) likes control and order. He's not a bad man but he likes things to stay in place. So when the hospital where Keita was born calls to say they need to set up a meeting, he tells his wife Midori (Machiko Ono - who more or less bends to his every whim - "I hope it's nothing messy." Sadly for him, it's something very messy indeed - the news that his son is not really his son at all but rather a child belonging to provincial shopkeepers Yukari and Yudai.
- 11/16/2020
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
When you hear what We Are Little Zombies is about, the concept that it could have more than a little bit of influence from the world of video-games may come as a shock. After all, the story of a quartet of kids bonding over the mutual loss of their parents is hardly something that suggests 8-bit fun. However, it’s a credit to writer/director Makoto Nagahisa that it somehow just makes sense. Now, this may not be for everyone, but if the unusual marriage of content and style, filtered through a singular tone, works for you, this is going to really float your boat. The film is a mix of drama and dramedy elements, telling the story of four children going through something both terrible and also fairly stirring. Hikari (Keita Ninomiya), Ikuko (Sena Nakajima), Ishi (Satoshi Mizuno), and Takemura (Mondo Okumura) first meet, they’ve each just become orphans.
- 7/10/2020
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
Like a miniature version of Camus' Meursault, Hikari (Keita Ninomiya) fails to cry at his parents' funeral. "Reality is stupid," he says impatiently. They never paid him much attention anyway so he's no stranger to making his way through life alone. It's his good fortune that he will no longer have to do so, because that day, at the crematorium, he meets three other children who have recently been orphaned and they decide to run away together to have adventures.
Bold Takemura (Mondo Okumura) comes from a troubled background where he had plenty of ugliness to deal with before his parents' suicide, but also a punk older brother from whom he learned guitar. Ikuko (Sena Nakajima), possessed of a stare that could wither whole forests and with zero tolerance for the creepy adult attention it attracts, is a piano protege who relishes her newfound freedom. Ishi (Satoshi Mizuno) is a wide-eyed,...
Bold Takemura (Mondo Okumura) comes from a troubled background where he had plenty of ugliness to deal with before his parents' suicide, but also a punk older brother from whom he learned guitar. Ikuko (Sena Nakajima), possessed of a stare that could wither whole forests and with zero tolerance for the creepy adult attention it attracts, is a piano protege who relishes her newfound freedom. Ishi (Satoshi Mizuno) is a wide-eyed,...
- 7/4/2020
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
"We're zombies. We're dead. We're dying. But we're alive. I don't know which... So we might as well do what we want." Oscilloscope Labs has debuted an official Us trailer for a funky fun Japanese experimental indie drama titled We Are Little Zombies, a very dark comedy rock musical one-of-a-kind film. This first premiered at the Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals last year, and will be getting a Us release later in the year. The film is about four kids whose parents have all died, and they come together to form a rock band. "Tragedy, comedy, music, social criticism, and teenage angst are all subsumed in this eccentric cinematic tsunami." Starring Keita Ninomiya, Satoshi Mizuno, Mondo Okumura, and Sena Nakajima as the four main kids. This kind of became an under-the-radar hit on the festival circuit last year, and it's getting a proper release sometime this year - keep an eye out for it soon.
- 4/23/2020
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Stars: Satoshi Mizuno, Sena Nakajima, Keita Ninomiya, Mondo Okumura | Written and Directed by Makoto Nagahisa
Directed and with a screenplay penned by Makoto Nagahisa, in his feature-film debut as both writer and man-in-the-chair, We Are Little Zombies is a Japanese drama film about four teenage orphans who form a rock band.
There is a lot, and I mean A Lot, going on with the film, and while I didn’t mind that (and in fact enjoyed how crazy it became at times) I think the sheer rapid and packed style of it could irk some viewers. There are slow moments, moments that take their time and build up the story in a less musical way, and these help calm things down, giving us foundations for our leads. It is the ingenious and bloody brilliant way that the film deals with the stages of grief. We’ve seen films deal with the topic before,...
Directed and with a screenplay penned by Makoto Nagahisa, in his feature-film debut as both writer and man-in-the-chair, We Are Little Zombies is a Japanese drama film about four teenage orphans who form a rock band.
There is a lot, and I mean A Lot, going on with the film, and while I didn’t mind that (and in fact enjoyed how crazy it became at times) I think the sheer rapid and packed style of it could irk some viewers. There are slow moments, moments that take their time and build up the story in a less musical way, and these help calm things down, giving us foundations for our leads. It is the ingenious and bloody brilliant way that the film deals with the stages of grief. We’ve seen films deal with the topic before,...
- 7/17/2019
- by Chris Cummings
- Nerdly
No pulsating, psychedelic, pop-punk phantasmagoria ought to be as moving and smart as “We Are Little Zombies.” But Makoto Nagahisa’s explosively ingenious and energetic debut (imagine it as the spiritual offspring of Richard Lester and a Harajuku Girl) holds the high score for visual and narrative invention, as well as boasting a [insert gigantic-beating-heart Gif] and braaaains, too. The gonzo adventures of four poker-faced Japanese 13-year-olds who bond over their mutual lack of emotion following sudden orphanhood, it reimagines the old “stages of grief” thing as a progression through 13 erratic levels of a video game, complete with mini-games and side quests. And if its manic, 8-bit aesthetic seems hyperactively inappropriate for such a somber scenario — like it does grief wrong — that too, can be interpreted as a generous insight into the mourning process: Who among us, upon being bereaved, has ever believed they’re doing grief right?
Certainly, little Hikari (Keita Ninomiya) does not.
Certainly, little Hikari (Keita Ninomiya) does not.
- 6/21/2019
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
We Are Little Zombies
Japan’s Makoto Nagahisa makes his directorial debut with We Are Little Zombies, produced by Shinichi Takahashi, Tahei Tamanishi, Haruki Yokoyama, and Haruhiko Hasegawa. The project is also the feature debut of Dp Hiroaki Takeda, who worked on Nagahisa’s award winning 2017 short “And So We Put Goldfish in the Pool” and a cast of newcomers includes Keita Ninomiya, Satoshi Mizuno, Mondo Okumura, and Sena Nakajima who are joined by Rinko Kikucho and Yuki Kudo. Nagahisa was the Short Film Grand Prize Jury Winner at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.
Gist: Written by Makoto Nagahisa, We Are Little Zombies turns on four 13-year-olds whose parents die and they form a band (which sounds similar to something like Lukas Moodysson’s 2013 title We Are the Best).…...
Japan’s Makoto Nagahisa makes his directorial debut with We Are Little Zombies, produced by Shinichi Takahashi, Tahei Tamanishi, Haruki Yokoyama, and Haruhiko Hasegawa. The project is also the feature debut of Dp Hiroaki Takeda, who worked on Nagahisa’s award winning 2017 short “And So We Put Goldfish in the Pool” and a cast of newcomers includes Keita Ninomiya, Satoshi Mizuno, Mondo Okumura, and Sena Nakajima who are joined by Rinko Kikucho and Yuki Kudo. Nagahisa was the Short Film Grand Prize Jury Winner at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.
Gist: Written by Makoto Nagahisa, We Are Little Zombies turns on four 13-year-olds whose parents die and they form a band (which sounds similar to something like Lukas Moodysson’s 2013 title We Are the Best).…...
- 1/2/2019
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
It’s hard to believe it’s almost time for a new year of the Sundance Film Festival, but we’re now less than two months away, and this writer is extremely excited to head to Park City once again, especially after digging into Sundance’s initial lineup announcement today. Not only does their Midnight slate look insanely great, but there are a ton of films running in Sundance’s other programming tracks that I am beyond excited to see in January.
Some of the highlights from today’s lineup announcement include Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile which chronicles the life of Ted Bundy (played by Zac Efron) through the experiences of his girlfriend; Paradise Hills, which stars Emma Roberts, Milla Jovovich, and Awkwafina; Relive from producer Jason Blum; Dan Gilroy’s Buzzsaw; and the Alien-themed documentary Memory. I’ve gone ahead and broken down all the titles...
Some of the highlights from today’s lineup announcement include Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile which chronicles the life of Ted Bundy (played by Zac Efron) through the experiences of his girlfriend; Paradise Hills, which stars Emma Roberts, Milla Jovovich, and Awkwafina; Relive from producer Jason Blum; Dan Gilroy’s Buzzsaw; and the Alien-themed documentary Memory. I’ve gone ahead and broken down all the titles...
- 11/29/2018
- by Heather Wixson
- DailyDead
Masaharu Fukuyama plays one of the dads in the wonderful Japanese flick Like Father, Like Son, and every time he appeared on the screen, I found myself catching my breath, he’s that gorgeous.
He seems to be mostly a TV actor in Japan, so I despair of ever seeing him on my movie screens again. This delicious nerdery appears to be from a show called Galileo, in which he plays “a genius physicist and university professor who solves unusual mysteries.” Sounds awesome.
He’s also a musician. Because of course he is:
So lovely.
And here’s a bonus extra photo, because it’s too adorable not to share. On the red carpet at Cannes last year with Like Father, Like Son, Fukuyama with Keita Ninomiya, who plays his son in the film:
(If you have a suggestion for someone we should female-gaze at, feel free to email me...
He seems to be mostly a TV actor in Japan, so I despair of ever seeing him on my movie screens again. This delicious nerdery appears to be from a show called Galileo, in which he plays “a genius physicist and university professor who solves unusual mysteries.” Sounds awesome.
He’s also a musician. Because of course he is:
So lovely.
And here’s a bonus extra photo, because it’s too adorable not to share. On the red carpet at Cannes last year with Like Father, Like Son, Fukuyama with Keita Ninomiya, who plays his son in the film:
(If you have a suggestion for someone we should female-gaze at, feel free to email me...
- 5/7/2014
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
Hirokazu Kore-eda: "The more elements you add to the characters the more rich they become."
On a mild October morning during the New York Film Festival, I took a stroll through Central Park with Hirokazu Kore-eda to talk about his favorite season, clothes clues, casting children, Eric Rohmer and Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks. When I commented that we should have brought a kite, he said he wasn't very good at it. His latest film Like Father, Like Son (Soshite chichi ni naru) starring Masaharu Fukuyama, Machiko Ono, Yôko Maki, and Lily Franky, tells the unsettling story of babies swapped in the hospital, and the way two families deal with the discovery six years later. Continuing with the matters of his thought-provoking film, I asked the director the same question the six-year-old protagonist Keita (Keita Ninomiya) has to answer in his kindergarten placement interview.
Anne-Katrin Titze: What's your favorite season?...
On a mild October morning during the New York Film Festival, I took a stroll through Central Park with Hirokazu Kore-eda to talk about his favorite season, clothes clues, casting children, Eric Rohmer and Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks. When I commented that we should have brought a kite, he said he wasn't very good at it. His latest film Like Father, Like Son (Soshite chichi ni naru) starring Masaharu Fukuyama, Machiko Ono, Yôko Maki, and Lily Franky, tells the unsettling story of babies swapped in the hospital, and the way two families deal with the discovery six years later. Continuing with the matters of his thought-provoking film, I asked the director the same question the six-year-old protagonist Keita (Keita Ninomiya) has to answer in his kindergarten placement interview.
Anne-Katrin Titze: What's your favorite season?...
- 10/4/2013
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.