Masatoshi Nagase Movies

When the homely 18-year-old Kyomi (Aimi Satsukawa) loses both of her parents to a car wreck, tragedy sets the stage for a seriocomic and occasionally poignant battle-of-wills between the young woman and two of her siblings. So begins Japanese director Daihachi Yoshida's slice-of-life seriocomedy Funukedomo, Kanashimi No Ai Wo Misero (AKA Funuke, Show Some Love You Losers!, 2007). Upon learning of her parents' death, Kyomi's older sister, the financially-strapped and emotionally-troubled actress Sumika (Eriko Sato), hearkens back to the family's bucolic home to collect on a healthy inheritance - but the girls' brother, the woodcutter Shinji (Masatoshi Nagase), informs her of standing legal delays. Thus, Sumika moves into the house (occupying her childhood room) and waits out an indeterminate period of time, unable to foot the cost of a return to Tokyo. Yoshida then flashes back to detail the family's colorful and occasionally violent past - involving Sumika's prostitution, death threats directed at her father, and exploitation of her conflict with her father by dramatizing and publishing the events in a bestselling manga. Back in the present-day, Sumika receives an offer to write a screenplay and once again turns to family strife as dramatic fodder for her fictions - rapidly coming to the conclusion that perhaps her eccentric family isn't so terrible after all. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Japanese cult director Seijun Suzuki's combination sequel to and remake of his 1967 gangster film classic Branded To Kill stars Makiko Esumi as Miyuki Minazuki, AKA "the Stray Cat," a beautiful female assassin. She is number three in the hierarchy of killers in her criminal organization at the beginning of the film, but soon a battle breaks out among the assassins, all of whom are trying to become the number one killer by murdering their competition. Miyuki finds herself fighting her fellow assassins one by one, encountering along the way such eccentrically-nicknamed opponents as The Teacher, who is confined to a wheelchair, Painless Surgeon, a bearded Westerner who literally feels no pain, and Dark Horse (Masatoshi Nagase), who wears a blond wig and has a perpetual case of the sniffles. Also making an appearance is Goro Hanada, the hero of Branded To Kill (played in the original by Jo Shishido, but here by Mikijiro Hira), who becomes a mentor to Miyuki, and is now known as number zero. The film's skeletal plot mostly allows director Suzuki to develop elaborate visual tableaus that stretch the possibilities of narrative cinema. ~ Tom Vick, Rovi

Shinji Aoyama's Mike Yokohama - A Forest With No Name is a loose adaptation of the work of Mickey Spillane. Private detective Mike Yokohama (Masatoshi Nagase) is hired by a rich businessman to find his daughter who has joined a commune. Mike goes undercover and joins the secret group, where everything is not what it seems. Mike begins to suspect that the leader of the group (Kyoka Suzuki) is up to no good when a former member of the commune is arrested for murder. This is the first in a series of films that will be made for Japanese television. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Following up on his exuberant Gojoe, which featured an ear-splitting soundtrack and a seizure-inducing editing style, veteran indie director Sogo Ishii spins this bizarre cyberpunk action flick about rock & roll and electricity. Ryuganji Morison (Tadanobu Asano) has two loves in his life -- electricity and lizards. As a child, he was struck by a bolt of lightning, rendering him a human battery of sorts. As a result, he can play the electric guitar with freakish intensity and speed. In his quieter moments, he tends his plethora of reptilian companions in a run-down apartment. Raiden Butsuzo (Masaotshi Nagase) was similarly struck down by a bolt of lightning, leaving half his face horribly scarred, which he covers with a metal mask of the Buddha. Raiden -- who works as an electrician by day and a nefarious crime avenger by night using a variety of exotic high-tech gear -- takes a dim view of Morison, whom he views as a potential rival. When Morison returns home to find his beloved lizards fried, he vows revenge. Soon, Tokyo's power grid blows as the two human sparkplugs power up for their final battle. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Maverick Japanese director Sogo Ishii takes an unexpectedly conventional approach in this screen adaptation of a well-known Japanese folk legend of the 12th century. In the long-standing battle of the Genji and Heiki clans, the Heiki have emerged triumphant, but they find they have a new adversary in Shanao (Tadanobu Asano), a demon who each night lays waste to the Heiki warriors near the Gojoe Bridge in Kyoto. Retired warrior Monk Benkei (Daisuke Ryu) learns of his wrath, and after capturing the sword of the Demon Slayer, journeys to Kyoto to do battle with Shanao. But Benkei learns that Shanao isn't a demon after all -- he is one of the last surviving Genji, who has taken on the garb of a demon in a final bid to defeat his sworn enemies and restore the honor of his family. A box-office success in Japan, Gojo Reisen Ki was first shown in North America as part of the 2000 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Tetsuya Nakajima directs this black comedy about Sunday, that day of rest. Constructed like Grand Hotel, the film interweaves the lives of an assorted collection of oddball Tokyoites living in the same apartment building. A bored young couple's (Masatoshi Nagase and Momoko Bito) attempts at playing catch are thwarted by interruption after interruption. Finally, when their ball goes astray and dents a new Porsche, the irate owner (Matsuo Bannai) chases after them looking for blood. At the same time, a half-Japanese, half-black teenager (Reika Matsumoto) only wants to read her book, away from her spacey mom (Kyoko Endo), who is obsessed with famed film geek Masaki Kyomoto. Unfortunately a bullying gang of girls torments her, ultimately locking her in the bathroom of the cram school she attends. Other eccentrics in the apartment include an old lady (noted dancer Mamako Yoneyama) who screams every day at noon to prove that she exists, a woman obsessed with her own reflection (Noriko Nagi), and a weirdo artist who tries to seduce her married neighbor by showing him her self-portraits. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

All poor Atsushi Hirata really wants is to leave the cold Japanese winter and take a week's vacation in warm Hawaii. Unfortunately, he ends up forced to honor tradition and travel to even more frigid Iceland to pay tribute to his late parents who died there seven years before. This internationally produced very funny road movie chronicles his many misadventures that begin when he disembarks from his plane in the midst of a blizzard and ends up boarding the wrong bus. The bus takes him to some popular hot springs and he must take a taxi back to Reykjavik. He doesn't make it back, because the driver needed to stop in his hometown and participate in a nativity pageant. This forces poor Hirata to bum a ride on a truck. During the journey, he meets a broad assortment of eccentric and bizarre characters ranging from a woman with a thing about photographing funerals, an aspiring Bonnie and Clyde, and a band of Icelandic cowboys. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Intrepid Japanese detective Maiku Hama is on the case in this adventure, the first of a three part comedy series. Like the Western detective character he is based on (Mike Hammer, get it?), Hama is suave, macho, and cold. Unlike his American counterpart, Hama is a total klutz. His attempts at machismo always fall flat. When he is on a case he spends more time getting beaten up than he does solving it. Hama works out of a projection booth in a Yokohama movie house. Before his clients can see him, the theater owners make them buy tickets. During his first on-screen case poor Hama must protect a Taiwanese waiter from an irate customer in a mah-jong parlor. He tries hard but ends up getting his finger cut off. He then must pry it from a dog's mouth so it can be reattached. Later the waiter hires him to locate his estranged brother. Hama takes the case and finds himself smack in the middle of a Japanese and Chinese mob war. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This award-winning drama chronicles the adventures of a teen-aged Chinese girl and a Japanese businessman who encounter one another in Hong Kong just prior to that business metropolis' return to mainland Chinese control. In the story, Tokio is a connoisseur of good Chinese cooking who is taking some vacation time in Hong Kong. His high standards are disappointed by the restaurants in Hong Kong, but when he runs into the fifteen-year-old girl Wai, she takes him home to sample her grandmother's masterful cooking. Wai, who is waiting to join the rest of her family in Canada, leaving her grandmother behind, enjoys her first sexual experience during this time, while Tokio falls for the sister of a former flame. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Written and directed by the ever-unpredictable Jim Jarmusch, Mystery Train is comprised of three short anecdotes involving foreign tourists in Tennessee. Each story is set in a fleabag Memphis hotel which has been redressed as a "tribute" to Elvis Presley. Story one involves two Japanese tourists whose devotion to '50s American rock music blinds them to everything around them. Story two finds eternal victim Luisa (Nicoletta Braschi) sharing a room with stone-broke Dee Dee (Elizabeth Bracco) and having her problems solved by a spectral vision of the King. And story three offers the further misadventures of Dee Dee, her no-good boyfriend, and her dysfunctional family. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi