All articles by Mark Schilling
-
News
Like father like son, new director for Toho
Toho has announced that GoroMiyazaki, the 38-year-old son of anime auteur HayaoMiyazaki, will direct a new feature based on the third and fourth novels in Ursula K. Le Guin'sEarthsea saga. He will work with the animators of Studio Ghibli,his father's creative home since 1985. Toho will release the film in ...
-
News
Memoirs star signs on for Penal Colony Of Love
Koji Yakusho, lately seen inMemoirs Of A Geisha, is set to starin an adaptation of hit serial novel AiNo Ryukeichi (Penal Colony Of Love)for Japanese major Toho. The novel - which is writtenby Junichi Watanabe and is currently running in Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) - has become notorious ...
-
News
Girl power boosts Japanese comic-book shoots
It often seems as though everyproducer of commercial films in Japan is playing follow the leader, chasing afterhot novels, comic-books and TV shows - while seldom developing originalmaterial themselves.It's all for one reason. Mostof these films are financed and produced by media consortiums - and it's easierand usually more profitable ...
-
News
Yuya Yagira to make romantic drama
Fuji TV has revealed plans to cast Yuya Yagira -- the 15-year-oldwinner of the 2004 Cannes Best Actor prize for his work in HirokazuKore-eda's NobodyKnows -in Sugar and Spice Fumizekka (Sugarand Spice - Great Flavour), a romantic dramabased on a bestselling novel by Amy Yamada. Yagira's previous film for Fuji ...
-
News
Kadokawa to make One Missed Call 3
Kadokawa HeraldPictures will make a third instalment in its hit One Missed Call horror series, company sources have revealed.Called Chakushin Ari Final (One MissedCall Final), the new film will be directed by Manabu Aso and will starMeisa Kuroki and Maki Horikita, two seventeen-year-old ingenues whohaveenjoyed a meteoric rise to the ...
-
News
Fuji TV, animation house join forces for digital studio
TheFuji Television Network and Production IG animation houseplantojointlyunderwrite and launcha new post-productionstudio, Fuji TV has announced. Called FILM LLP (Fuji IG Laboratory for Movies),the new studio will open in January of 2006. Fuji TV will supply 86% andProduction IG the remaining 14% of the $2.4m (Y200m)initialinvestment.Equippedwith the latest Apple Computer ...
-
News
Bashing scores top prize at Tokyo's FILMeX
MasahiroKobayashi's drama Bashing has taken the Grand Prize at the Tokyo FILMeXfilm festival, together with a Y1 million ($8,400) cash award . Premiered in thisyear's Cannes competition, the film tells the story of a young woman who, afterbeing taken hostage in a Middle Eastern country, returns to Japan only to ...
-
News
Howl's Moving Castle scores DVD chart triple
Three DVD editions of HayaoMiyazaki's hit animation Howl's MovingCastle grabbed the top three spots in the latest Oricon chart released onNov 22.Occupying the number oneslot was the stand-alone DVD, which sold 708,000 units in its first week onrelease, followed by the special edition, a four-disc set that includes a "makingof" ...
-
News
Animation master Otomo begins work on live-action sci-fi
Animationauteur Katsuhiro Otomo, whose films, including Akira and Steamboy, have been widelyscreened internationally, has started production of a live-action feature. Basedon the Kodansha comic Mushishi (Mushi Master)by Yuki Urushibara, the eponymous SF fantasy is set around the turn of the 20thcentury in Japan. The"master" of the title has the ability ...
-
Reviews
What the Snow Brings (Yuki Ni Negau Koto)
Dir: Kichitaro Negishi. Jap. 2005. 112mins.What The Snow Brings pulled offa Superfecta at the Tokyo International Film Festival,winning the top prize - the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix - on top of the best directorprize for Kichitaro Negishi,the best actor prize for star Koichi Sato and the audience award.As its haul ...
-
Reviews
The Whispering Of The Gods (Germania No Yoru)
Dir: Tatsushi Omori. Jap. 2005. 107mins.An unblinking plunge into depravity, blasphemy andviolence, set in the idyllic confines of a Catholic monastery, Tatsushi Omori's debut feature The Whispering Of The Gods falls squarelyinto the love-it-or-loathe-it category.Screened in competition atthe Tokyo International Film Festival, it evoked fervent praise from some -Japanese film ...
-
Reviews
Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles (Qian Li Zou Dan Ji)
Dir: Zhang Yimou. HK-Chi-Jap. 2005. 108mins.The opening film at the Tokyo International Film Festival,Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles isa departure for director Zhang Yimou from the big-budgetperiod spectacles he has been making of late and a return to the themes and ruralsettings some of his most-acclaimed earlier work.But instead ...
-
News
Negishi takes top honours at Tokyo festival
Kichitaro Negishi's drama What the Snow Brings became the first Japanese film to win the Tokyo International Film Festival's top prize, the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix, since the fest's first edition in 1985. Jury chairman Zhang Yimou said the judges had reached the decision quickly and unanimously - "a first ...
-
News
Shochiku to finance Kore-eda period drama
Japanese director HirokazuKore-eda (After Life, Nobody Knows) is set to make his firstperiod drama, Hana Yori Mo Naho, withShochiku providing financing and distribution.Based on an original storyby Kore-eda, the film is scheduled for a spring 2006 release. Shochiku willalso be handling worldwide sales. The film will featureJunichi Okada (Tokyo Tower) ...
-
News
Kadokawa to enter Chinese cinema market
Kadokawa Holdings (HD), thecore company of Japan's Kadokawa media group, has announced plans to join with HongKong-based Sun Wah Group to build and manage 20 multiplex cinemas in mainlandChina. Kadokawa will be the firstJapanese company to enter the Chinese multiplex market with a Chinese partner. The two partners will soonlaunch ...
-
News
Yoji Yamada to complete samurai trilogy
Shochiku has announced that Yoji Yamada will complete the trilogy of samurai dramas he beganwith The Twilight Samurai - nominated for best foreign-language film atthe Oscars in 2004 - and The Hidden Blade.Tentatively titled BushiNo Ichibun (A Warrior's Duty), the final instalment in the trilogyis based on a story by ...
-
Reviews
Shinobi
Dir: Ten Shimoyama. Jap.2005.101mins.Already sold to 14foreign territories and with strong remake potential, Ten Shimoyama's Shinobiresembles recent Japanese period epics like Red Shadow, SamuraiResurrection and Azumi in its computer game-like structure andtargets their teen audiences accordingly.But in telling his story oftwo warring ninja clans, Shimoyama also aspires to the epic, ...
-
News
Tokyo Project Gathering unveils full line-up
The Tokyo Project Gathering,a new section of the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), has announcedthe full list of twenty projects to be presented at the TIFF's main venue fromOct 26 to 28.Six of the titles are"presentation projects", meaning that the producer will make thirty-minutepresentations to prospective partners, followed by meetings. ...
-
News
Japan submits Blood And Bones as Oscar entry
Yoichi Sai's Blood AndBones has been selected by the Japan Motion Pictures Association (Eiren) asJapan's nominee for the best foreign-language film AcademyAward.The drama stars TakeshiKitano as a violent but charismatic Korean man who becomes a family patriarchand community power in postwar Osaka, while spreading misery, resentment and fear. Sai, of ...
-
News
Japanese industry ramps up production
Asthe Japanese industry continues to ramp up production, releasing 310 films in2004, compared with only 251 a decade earlier, producers are making more filmsinspired by, based on or remade from earlier hits, domestic or foreign. A sign of flagging creativity' Perhaps, but the Japanesemovie industry has long ridden winning formulas ...