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Daniel Kurland Jan 21, 2019

Amazon Prime Video has a fine collection of anime from Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood to Pop Team Epic and more.

Isn’t it just the worst when you’re out with friends at your favorite restaurant and everyone’s discussing RahXephon and you’re unable to jump in? How about when you’re waiting for the bus to arrive and people are discussing the latest Happy Sugar Life plot twist? Or when your cashier at the supermarket tries to make small talk and naturally namedrops the eternal equalizer, Re: Creators, and you just have to quietly look at your shoes?

Okay, so anime’s presence might not be quite at that level, but the popularity of the once-niche area of the animation industry only continues to blossom and become more mainstream. Not only are there now ample anime series that are available on popular streaming services, but...

The official Japanese box office numbers for 2018 are not yet in –the Motion Picture Producers’ Association of Japan (Eiren) will announce them in late January – but preliminary figures don’t look great for the home team.

“Code Blue: The Movie,” a medical thriller based on a Fuji TV series, was the year’s highest-earning film at $83 million, according to the Private Life entertainment data and ranking site, but only three of the box office top ten were Japanese. The other two, “Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer,” at $82 million, and “Doraemon the Movie: Nobita’s Treasure Island,” at $48 million, were entries in long-running anime series.

A total of 29 Japanese films made JPY1 billion ($9.0 million) or more. This compares with 38 that passed the same milestone in 2017.

Faced with the prospect of more decline at home, as Japan’s aging population continues to trend down, the Japanese film industry is increasingly looking abroad...

Barcelona— A take on physical joy and hellish pain, Gaspar Noé‘s “Climax” took best film at the 51st Sitges’ Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia.

Among other main awards, Panos Cosmatos (“Mandy“), Quentin Dupieux (“Keep An Eye Out”) and “Atsushi Doi” snagged director, script and FX respectively.

Produced by Germany’s Wild Bunch and Rectangle Productions,”Climax” took Cannes’ 2018 Directors’ Fortnight top unofficial prize, the Cicae Art Cinema Award. selling to a24 for the U.S., it sparked maybe the biggest consensus thumbs-up in the director’s career for its early going, chronicling a dance troupe performance. After that, as is typical with Noe, the feature sparked mixed radically mixed reactions.

Italian-Canadian filmmaker Panos Cosmatos scooped best director for his sophomore effort “Mandy,” starring Nicolas Cage and Andrea Riseborough, a stylized romance between two misfits involving Messianic members of a biker gang.

Sold by Xyz Films, “Mandy” is produced by Belgium’s UMedia and U.

Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan is readying “Kingdom!,” an epic period drama based on Yasuhisa Hara’s best-selling manga of the same name.

Set in China during the Warring States Period, the film tells the story of an orphaned peasant boy who encounters another boy destined to become the Qin emperor. Serving as the key general, the peasant fights on behalf of the king to unite China.

The director is Shinsuke Sato, whose credits include the effects-heavy actioners “Gantz” (2011), “I Am a Hero” (2016) and “Inuyashiki” (2018).

Kento Yamazaki is starring at Shin and Ryo Yoshizawa as Ei Sei. Co-stars include Masami Nagasawa, Kanna Hashimoto, Kanata Hongo, Shinnosuke Mitsushima, Masahiro Takashima, Jun Kaname and Takao Osawa.

Production on the film began in April, with shoots in both China and Japan. The Japan release is set for April 19, 2019, with Toho distributing.

Sanford Panitch, president of Sony Columbia Pictures, who in charge of Sony’s international local production strategy,...

In the plethora of anime/manga adaptations that have flooded Japanese cinema (to say the least) during the latest years, “Bleach” was definitely one of the most eagerly expected. At the same time though, Tite Kubo’s work is one of the most difficult titles to be adapted as a live-action movie, not only for the grandiose battles and the extreme general setting, but also due to the plethora of characters and the number of episodes that form a rather complicate story. On the other hand, the presence of Shinsuke Sato on the helm, whose adaptations of “Gantz”, “I Am a Hero” and “Inuyashiki” were quite good, was definitely a good sign. Let us see what prevailed in the end, though.

Expectantly, the story is a bit altered, in order to fit the medium, although the basic premises remain. Ichigo Kurosaki is a teenager from Karakura Town, whose mother’s...

Mid-way through October make your way to the Mayhem Film Festival in Nottingham for some of the best genre cinema the year has had to offer. Today the festival announced five more additions to this year's fest.      Found footage film The Devil's Doorway, fever dream horror Mandy, survival thriller What Keeps You Alive, horror anthology Nightmare Cinema and Japanese zombie horror One Cut of the Dead are now part of the program. They join the previously announced Field Guide to Evil, Anna and the Apocalypse and Japanese sci-fi flick Inuyashiki.     I've seen three of the new additions. Mandy is an easy sell. I know every talks about Nicolas Cage in this, but Linus Roache is equally, if not more amazing in...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

In the crowded world of movie adaptations of Japanese manga, Director Sato Shinsuke has carved a high place for himself, helming critically-lauded live-action versions of Gantz, I Am A Hero, 2016’s Death Note, and Inuyashiki. Sato-san set himself quite a challenge by taking on the immense world of Kubo Tite’s fan-favourite, Bleach, the story of a not-quite-average 15-year-old boy who sees dead people. At Japan Cuts' Us premiere of Bleach, Director Sato spoke with Lmd about supernatural samurais, CGI, and giving the fans what they want. The Lady Miz Diva: Director Sato, I’ve asked other filmmakers who’ve adapted manga about adapting Bleach, and every one of them said it would be “too hard.” What made you take up the challenge? Sato Shinsuke: Regarding Bleach,...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Sato Shinsuke knows his way around a manga adaptation. After half a dozen successful such endeavors, it's really little surprise that his latest film, Inuyashiki, is another adaptation of a written work that was also recently adapted in anime form for Amazon. Sato had a big festival hit a couple of years ago with his version of Hanazawa Kengo's zombie book, I Am a Hero, and before that with films like The Princess Blade, Gantz, and Library Wars, all of which are amazing films, which leads me to my next bold assertion: Inuyashiki is Sato Shinsuke's best film yet. Now, full disclosure, there are still a small handful that haven't made it out of Japan and that I haven't yet seen, but of the big...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

58 year old Ichiro Inuyashiki is a down trodden loser working in sales for a company who doesn’t want him, to pay for a mortgage for his wife and kids who couldn’t care less about him. Ichiro’s life seems like it can’t get any worse, until a letter sends him to the doctor’s office, where he is told he has a terminal illness. He attempts to confide in his family, but is completely disregarded due to their disdain towards him. Upon arriving home one night, he finds a dog that was left on his door step who he so wishes to befriend, but in keeping up with his wife’s wishes tries to abandon in a park. In his attempt to discard the dog, a bright light in the sky renders him unconscious and upon awakening the next day, he begins to experience new found abilities and a new found body.

The Japanese films in this year’s edition of the New York Asian Film Festival are typically eclectic and mostly accomplished, ranging from fresh takes on period films, dark and often disturbing depictions of high school life, to bold takes on genre films. In this fest dispatch, I consider a few notable selections. ----- "Art is an explosion." This is the faux-profound and mockingly pretentious mantra repeated in voiceover by Akira Suei (Tasuku Emoto), the subject of Nyaff opener Dynamite Graffiti,(top), Masanori Tominaga's lengthy biopic of Suei, the notorious porn-mag publisher whose publications - with such innocuous titles as Weekend Super, New Self, and Photo Age - were ubiquitous...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

With the 22nd annual Fantasia International Film Festival kicks off in Montreal this July, the first wave of programming has now been announced, and as per usual, there are many events for genre fans to look forward to, including the world premiere of the horror anthology Nightmare Cinema, screenings of Unfriended: Dark Web and David Robert Mitchell's Under the Silver Lake, and a Lifetime Achievement Award presentation to filmmaker Joe Dante:

Press Release: Montreal, May 2, 2018 - The Fantasia International Film Festival will be celebrating its 22nd Anniversary in Montreal this summer, taking place from July 12-August 1, with its Frontières International Co-Production Market and Industry Rendez-Vous Weekend being held July 19-22.

The festival’s full lineup of over 130 feature films will be announced in early July. In the meantime, Fantasia is excited to reveal a carefully selected first wave of titles, along with several special happenings.

International Premiere Of...

In “Inuyashiki,” an alien encounter mutates two unsuspecting charaters — one, a decrepit salaryman, the other, a neighborhood teenager — into indestructible cyborgs, but contrary to genre conventions, it’s the kid who turns evil, leaving the wussy old codger to save the day. Adapted from a manga by Hiroya Oku, this Japanese genre effort is ably directed by Shinsuke Sato, who foregrounds interpersonal relationships and human emotion over action and effects. The fact that English translations of the 10-volume series exist digitally, while an anime miniseries can be viewed on Amazon Prime Video, should boost the film’s overseas potential. Meanwhile, in a country with the world’s highest elderly population, the action movie’s anti-ageist thrust — demonstrating how undervalued senior citizens kick ass — proves unexpectedly heart-warming.

From “Parasyste” to “Gantz” (also written by Oku), Japanese science fiction is rife with stories of humans merging with androids or aliens. Of this tradition,...