Ryo Kase Movies

A prim and proper woman in search of serenity at a seaside inn finds her relaxing getaway interrupted in the most unlikely of manners in director Naoko Ogigami's minimalist entry into the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Massive suitcase dragging awkwardly by her side, bespectacled vacationer Taeko checks into a small inn by the ocean and begins looking forward to a bit of alone time. Later, as she sits down for dinner, Taeko is taken aback when the inn's proprietor Yuji sits down to join her in the meal. Though Taeko accepts Yuji's company as gracefully as possible under the circumstances, the befuddled guest decides to seek out another place to stay after an older woman named Sakura enters her room uninvited in order to wake her up. Unfortunately for Taeko, finding another room in this paradise isn't easy, and she soon finds herself right back where she started. Eventually, Taeko grows to understand what it means to possess "the talent to be here" as Yuji so colorfully states, and begins to take great pleasure in watching her hosts prepare elaborate meals before walking out onto the sands for a relaxing session of "twilighting." ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Directors Michel Gondry, Bong Joon-ho, and Leos Carax each direct a segment of this triptych feature about life in 21st century Tokyo. The saga begins with Gondry's segment, entitled "Interior Design," about a young couple who moves in with an old friend while attempting to establish themselves in Tokyo. Hiroko (Ayako Fujitani) and Akira (Ryo Kase) have just arrived in the city. They're eager to launch their careers, but first they'll have to find a place to stay. Though Hiroko's old friend Akemi (Ayumi Ito) opens her doors to the ambitious young couple, her boyfriend isn't exactly thrilled by the new living arrangement. As Akira takes his first steps toward becoming a filmmaker, the neon jungle beckons to Hiroko. Before long, Hiroko begins to experience a startling metamorphosis that instills her with a newfound sense of peace and purpose.

The second chapter, Leos Carax's "Merde," follows the debased exploits of an unsightly subterranean creature (Denis Lavant) who emerges from the Tokyo sewers to taunt and torment the unsuspecting denizens of the city. Stealing cash, pilfering cigarettes, frightening old ladies, and even going so far as to salaciously lick schoolgirls, the gibberish-spewing troublemaker dubbed Merde sparks a media frenzy that sends all of Tokyo into a panic. The situation spirals as Merde discovers an arsenal of hand grenades in his underground lair, and begins throwing them in the streets at will, creating an environment of total urban terror. Later, Merde is apprehended and pompous French magistrate Maître Voland (Jean-François Balmer) arrives to defend the deviant in a Japanese court. The only person capable of speaking his client's unintelligible language, Voland stands at the center of a media circus that soon engulfs all of Japan. When Merde is convicted by the court and sentenced to death, justice takes a turn for the surreal.

The trilogy winds to a close with Bong Joon-ho's "Shaking Tokyo," in which a reclusive pizza addict who hasn't left his apartment in over a decade falls for a pretty delivery girl at the very same moment an earthquake hits Japan. A so-called hikikomori who never dares venture outside, the lonely shut-in (Teruyuki Kagawa) subsists almost solely on pizza delivery. When a beautiful delivery girl shows up at his door and promptly faints when the ground begins to shake, it's love at first sight. Later, the agoraphobic man discovers that the object of his affections has become a hikikomori herself, and boldly ventures out of his apartment in order to declare his love. The moment he sets eyes on her, the ground starts to rumble once again. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

In this warmly nostalgic drama from Japan, Yoshie (Kanako Higuchi) and Yuji (Tomorowo Taguchi) are a middle-aged couple disenchanted with their marriage who one day receive a message inviting them to the final screening at the Cinema Orion, a neighborhood movie house in Kyoto that is soon to close. We learn that Yoshie and Yuji first met at the theater when they were youngsters, and we flash back to the Fifties, when nerdy but well-meaning Tomekichi (Ryo Kase) was given a job at the Orion by tough-talking manager Matsuzo (Ryudo Uzaki). Matsuzo's pretty wife Toyo (Rie Miyazawa) also works at the theater, and before long she strike up a friendship with Tomekichi that over the years grows into something deeper as Matsuzo leaves the business and Tomekichi takes control of the Orion. Orion-za kara no shotaijo (aka The Invitation from Cinema Orion) also stars Hitomi Nakahara and Yoshio Harada. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Four very different women search for love and meaning in their lives in the hustle and bustle of downtown Tokyo in this comedy-drama. Satoko (Chizuru Ikewaki) is a bright woman who has somehow ended up working as the front desk clerk at an upscale bordello. While she's bubby and optimistic, Satoko doesn't meet many eligible men at work and she longs for a husband. One of the prostitutes working at the bordello is Akiyo (Yuko Nakamura); while she's still pretty, she's not as young as she once was and has grown jaded, and in her spare time she cultivates her friendship with Kikuchi (Masanobu Ando), who she's secretly loved for years. Toko (Toko Iwase) is an artist living on the other side of Tokyo; she's obsessed with her work and suffers from an eating disorder aggravated by her growing isolation. And Chihiro (Noriko Nakagoshi), who shares a flat with Toko, is an office girl who wants nothing more than to settle down with her boyfriend Nagai (Ryo Kase) and become the ideal housewife, though it becomes increasingly obvious that he's never going to marry her. Strawberry Shortcakes was adapted from a popular manga by Kiriko Nananan; Toko Iwase, who plays the artist Toko in the film, is also a noted manga artist, publishing under the name Kiriko Nananan. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

After bringing the story of the American soldiers who fought in the battle of Iwo Jima to the screen in his film Flags of Our Fathers, Clint Eastwood offers an equally thoughtful portrait of the Japanese forces who held the island for 36 days in this military drama. In 1945, World War II was in its last stages, and U.S. forces were planning to take on the Japanese on a small island known as Iwo Jima. While the island was mostly rock and volcanoes, it was of key strategic value and Japan's leaders saw the island as the final opportunity to prevent an Allied invasion. Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) was put in charge of the forces on Iwo Jima; Kuribayashi had spent time in the United States and was not eager to take on the American army, but he also understood his opponents in a way his superiors did not, and devised an unusual strategy of digging tunnels and deep foxholes that allowed his troops a tactical advantage over the invading soldiers. While Kuribayashi's strategy alienated some older officers, it impressed Baron Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara), the son of a wealthy family who had also studied America firsthand as an athlete at the 1932 Olympics. As Kuribayashi and his men dig in for a battle they are not certain they can win -- and most have been told they will not survive -- their story is told both by watching their actions and through the letters they write home to their loved ones, letters that in many cases would not be delivered until long after they were dead. Among the soldiers manning Japan's last line of defense are Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), a baker sent to Iwo Jima only days before his wife was to give birth; Shimizu (Ryo Kase), who was sent to Iwo Jima after washing out in the military police; and Lieutenant Ito (Shidou Nakamura), who has embraced the notion of "Death Before Surrender" with particular ferocity. Filmed in Japanese with a primarily Japanese cast, Letters From Iwo Jima was shot in tandem with Flags of Our Fathers, and the two films were released within two months of one another. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Adapted from the popular manga of the same name, director Masahiro Takada's coming of age drama follows five Hama Art College students as they prepare to venture out into the real world on a great voyage of self-discovery. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A violent and outrageous revenge comedy with a thoughtful undercurrent, director Lee Sang-il's Scrap Heaven opens with three characters united by fate on the same city bus: toilet cleaner Tetsu (Jô Odagiri); police department administrative assistant Kasuya (Ryo Kase), who wants to work his way up into homicide; and pharmaceutical company employee Saki (Chiaki Kuriyama). The three strangers have ostensibly no connection to one another, save a shared presence on the bus one fateful night -- the night that a political secretary goes completely psychotic and decides to take the three passengers, at random, as hostages. He strong-arms the three into violent and sadistic mind games, including lethal versions of Rock, Paper, Scissors and Russian roulette. The perpetrator inflicts Kasuya with deep-seated psychological scars and shoots Tetsu, pushing the man to the brink of death. The gunman then turns the weapon on himself. Months later, Kasuya meets up with Tetsu once again, and saves him from a potentially lethal act of violence. The two men subsequently join forces and devise a wild plan to set up a revenge-for-hire business, designed to "right wrongs" for victimized persons. In the mean time, Saki is pouring all of her time and energy into the construction of a liquid bomb -- a project that threatens to invite further destruction. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Tales of a missing girl returned to her family years after being kidnapped flood the news. Yuichiro (Ryo Kase), a college student, returns home one day to find his little brother, Yuya (Daisuke Kizaki), sleeping on his doorstep. Yuya has come to tell Yuichiro that Marie will be coming home soon. Marie is Yuichiro's little sister who disappeared when they were both young children. The entire family was devastated. Mother (Megumi Asaoka) essentially went mad, calling in psychics and Feng Shui experts, and turning to religion in a desperate effort to find Marie, while Yuichiro's uncle, who lived with the family, committed suicide, and his father died shortly thereafter. Yuichiro returns home, where he learns that his mother has forced his little brother Yuya, who feels a mystical bond with the missing girl, to take the place of Marie, even wearing her clothes. Yuichiro decides to hire a psychic investigator, Soma (composer Ryudo Uzaki), who sees a strange connection between Marie's disappearance and the big power antenna near the family's home. Meanwhile, ostensibly doing "research" for a paper, Yuichiro goes to visit Naomi (Akemi Kobayashi), a dominatrix. He soon becomes obsessed with her and her abuse, lovingly meted out; it helps him uncover the emotional trauma of his own involvement with Marie's disappearance. Antenna is based on a popular novel by Randy Taguchi. The film was directed by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri and had its U.S. premiere at Subway Cinema's 2004 New York Asian Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide