Ken Utsui Movies

A Christmas Eve power outage provides a collection of troubled Tokyo denizens the opportunity to come clean on the misdeeds of their past in director Takashi Minamoto's snowbound winter drama. Fourteen year-old Shota (Kanata Hongo) longs to get a better look at the winter sky, but upon peering through the lens the youngster is shocked to see a distraught woman (Yu Kashii) leap from the roof of a nearby hospital. When Shota realizes that the suicide attempt failed and the woman landed safely on a rooftop below, he travels to the hospital in hopes of making contact with the woman. Elsewhere in the hospital, a dying father (Tomoyo Harada) longing to see his true love one last time reveals to his son Saeki (Tomorowo Taguchi) that the boy is the product of a marital indiscretion and that his supposedly dead mother is alive and well and living in Tokyo. Already reeling as his wife (Tomoyo Harada) prepares to divorce him and his lover (Haruka Igawa) refuses to acknowledge that fact that he is no longer interested in her, Saeki prepares to meet his mistress in the very same hotel where Chinese bellboy Dong Dong (Tsuyoshi Abe) is preparing to catch a flight to Shanghai to be with his girlfriend for Christmas. In another part of town, lovelorn bar owner Shinichi (Etsushi Toyogawa) laments the loss of his ex-lover as adoring candle shop manager Nozomi (Tomoko Tabata) admires him from afar, and pregnant Reiko (Shinobu Terajima) nervously awaits the arrival over her one-time lover Ginji (Koji Kikkawa), who has just been released after serving a six-year prison sentence. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Motivated by their very real grievances, a group of bombers announce that they have placed speed-triggered bombs aboard a bullet train from Tokyo to Hakata, the "Hikari 109." If the train slows below a certain speed, it will be destroyed along with its many passengers. Proving their assertion by blowing up an unmanned freight train, the terrorists demand five million dollars, which seems a small sum, considering that the bullet trains put one of the men out of work and destroyed the business of another. The police want to stop the bombs, and the train company wants to save the passengers, and they soon find themselves in conflict under the frantic pace set by these dramatic circumstances. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A young boy becomes a soldier in this Japanese WW II-set drama. The story begins as the young man enters the Etajima Naval Academy. At first, the notion of fighting disinterests him, but then some of his classmates are sent to China to fight the Sino-Japanese War. He suddenly applies himself and he graduates at the head of his class. Unfortunately, his mother died while he was in school and so after graduation he visits her grave. Later he receives pilot training and is assigned the mission of aerially escorting the most famous military figure in Japan, Admiral Yamamoto. The youth loses his life in the endeavor. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A hero from the deepest reaches of space arrives on planet Earth to save mankind from atomic destruction in this feature film comprised of episodes of the popular Japanese sci-fi series Super Giant. As the citizens of the distant planet Emerald watch over Earth, they are shocked to discover that the rouge nation of Mirapolia has distributed atomic weapons all over the planet. Though the Mirapolians have vowed to destroy Earth if they cannot rule over it, the arrival of space savior Starman provides the frightened citizens of the endangered planet a ray of hope in what may be their darkest hour. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide