Shunsuke Koga Movies
- 2007
The new kid in town finds his new friends might know something his father doesn't in this playful comedy from Japanese filmmaker Isao Yukisada. Ryunosuke Kusunoki (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a boy from Tokyo who moves with his family to a farming community in Hokkaido province, where he soon finds he doesn't fit in. Ryunosuke's difficulties with his new school mates isn't helped by the fact his father (Tomokazu Miura) is a government functionary who has come to persuade a handful of farmers to sell their land so that a new airport can be built. Ryunosuke's father isn't the first man to try to get the local farmers to sell their land, and the landowners don't regard him with any greater friendliness than they did his predecessors. Ryunosuke is frequently taunted by Kohei Tsuchida (Yuma Sasano), whose father is a scientist and the leader of the local opposition to the new airport, but while their parents are increasingly at odds, Ryunosuke and Kohei strike up a friendship through their shared love of pranks. As Ryunosuke slowly begins to enjoy his new environment and the joyously eccentric community around him, he finds he can no longer support his father's desire to tear up the countryside in the name of air transportation. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ryunosuke Kamiki, Suzuka Ohgo, (more)
- 2002
- Add Mike Yokohama - A Forest With No Name to QueueAdd Mike Yokohama - A Forest With No Name to top of Queue
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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Masatoshi Nagase, Kyoka Suzuki, (more)
- 2002
A young prizefighter is forced to come to terms with his new life after an accident leaves him a paraplegic in Japanese filmmaker Daisuke Tengan's 2002 film Aiki. Young boxer Taichi (Haruhiko Kato), after a successful night in the ring, is involved in a motorcycle accident which severely injures his back and spine. After a brief coma, Taichi discovers his legs have been rendered useless and he will have to spend the duration of his life in a wheelchair. With the news that his career is finished, Taichi descends into a deep depression and a bout of alcoholism that distances him from many of the important people in his life. By coincidence, Taichi views a aiki-jujitsu demonstration and takes an interest in beginning training in the ground-based martial art. As he learns from his new sensei (Ryo Ishibashi), Taichi begins to turn his life around -- which includes developing a romantic relationship with his new friend Samako (Ryo Ishibashi). Aiki was screened as part of the 2002 Venice Film Festival, as well as being selected for inclusion in a number of other festivals that year, including the Vancouver Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Haruhiko Kato, Rie Tomosaka, (more)
Katsuhito Ishii follows up on his loony, phantasmagoric work Samehada Otoko to Momojiri Onna with this dizzyingly bizarre gangster drama. Low-level yakuza Miki (Masatoshi Nagase) decides that he's had enough of the gangster life and swipes 200 million yen from his boss. He winds up hiding out in a remote dive called Hotel New Mexico, which is run by a middle-aged peeping tom (Yoshio Harada). The proprietor is so much the voyeur that he has fashioned a room in which he can see into every other room in the establishment. Donning yellow tights, a crescent moon-shaped mask, and a box of kleenex, he assumes his special voyeur identity -- Captain Banana -- as he watches his clientele. Sharing his peeping room is Okita (Tadanobu Asano), the geeky, whey-faced son of Captain Banana's dead partner. As the peeping duo look on, Miki gets a series of unwelcome visitors starting with his slinky ex-girlfriend, Kana (Akemi Kobayashi), who though married to a very rich man named Todohira (Yoshinori Okada), will not pay up the debt that she owes him. Soon Todohira too makes an unwelcome entrance, followed by thuggish gangster Sonoda (Keisuke Horibe) and his superior who demanded the return of Miki's ill-gotten goods. Finally, a sociopathic gangland hitman drops by sporting a ludicrously large perm, a gun, and a hair-trigger temper. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Masatoshi Nagase, Keisuke Horibe, (more)
- 1997
Japan's favorite hard-boiled but bungling detective Maiku Hama (Masatoshi Nagase) returns for the third time in this disturbing crime drama. As the lurid tale begins, Hama-san is enjoying a rare good period in his life. With plenty of new clients he finally makes a decent wage. His new girlfriend Yuriko is mute and but for her being a Christian convert, offers him a lot of fun. But when he learns that a crazed killer has been poisoning women around the city and planting Hama's fingerprints on their corpses, the intrepid gumshoe must leave his cozy office behind the movie theater projection booth to clear his name. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1995
- R
Ingmar Bergman meets Phillip Marlow in this brooding metaphysical work directed by veteran filmmaker Kaizo Hayashi. The film centers on Haida (Juro Kara), a private dick who has descended into a drug-induced haze for a number of years. Just after he gets out of rehab, his police friend (Haruko Wanibuchi) hands him a case: a Japanese college student who disappeared in Taiwan five years previous. While stumbling about along a riverbank in Taipei, Haida gets a bad case of cold turkey; his legs go limp, sending him headfirst into the water. He floats downstream until he runs into the semi-conscious body of a would-be suicide named Sakatani (Shigeo Harada). Later, Haida happens upon a young woman called Mariko (Tang Na) who knew the missing Japanese. Unfortunately, since Haida doesn't speak a word of Chinese, Haida communicates with her through writing in the Chinese characters common in both languages. Soon afterwards, he runs into Sakatani -- who turns out to be an ex-pat engaged in shady ventures -- and Sakatani's sultry assistant (Ni Shujun) who loathes Haida from the outset. As the film progresses, Mariko disappears and Sakatani proves to be one ugly character. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- 1994
- Add The Stairway to the Distant Past to QueueAdd The Stairway to the Distant Past to top of Queue
The unlucky private detective, Mike Hama, again treads the gray streets of Yokohama in this sequel to The Most Terrible Time in My Life. The adventure begins in Maiku Hama's office, located above a run-down cinema that is so desperate for cash, they charge admission to Hama's potential clients. For this case, the clumsy and nattily dressed detective begins investigating the true identity of the enigmatic crimelord of the waterfront, the White Man. He must also deal with the sudden reappearance of his estranged mother who abandoned him and his sister many years before. She works as a stripper and bills herself as Dynamite Sexy Lily. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1993
- Add The Most Terrible Time in My Life to QueueAdd The Most Terrible Time in My Life to top of Queue
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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Masatoshi Nagase, Shiro Sano, (more)
