Daisuke Tengan Movies

Based on actual events that served as the inspiration for the 1963 film of the same name, Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins follows a group of noble samurai as they seek to slay a tyrannical, politically connected lord before he seizes control of the entire country. Japan, 1844: as the era of the samurai winds to a close, a sadistic young lord uses his powerful political ties to commit heinous atrocities against the common people. Recognizing the dangers to both his country and its citizens should the lord manage to gain any more power, a concerned government official secretly recruits 13 of the most skilled swordsmen he can find to defeat the evil lord once and for all. But reaching their target won't be easy, because the elusive lord is constantly flanked by legions of fearless bodyguards. Realizing that the bodyguards would decimate his modest task force in a traditional battle, the assassins' leader (Koji Yakusho) lays an ingenious trap that will give his men the upper hand, and waits patiently for their prey to take the bait. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Controversial Japanese director Takashi Miike creates this unnerving horror film about a widowed TV producer auditioning prospective wives. In his search, one candidate particularly stands out, a lovely ex-ballerina dressed in white. The widower cannot believe his good fortune, until he starts looking more closely at his potential bride-to-be: her autobiographical details don't quite check out, she has a number of ugly scars on her legs, and he learns that people in her life have a habit of disappearing. When he discovers a man trussed up in her living room with his tongue and feet lopped off, he concludes that she is perhaps not the woman of his dreams. Audition was screened at the 1999 Vancouver Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

An American journalist in search of the love he once left behind travels to a mysterious Japanese island where the past is best left forgotten in the one installment of Showtime's Masters of Horror series that was too controversial for American television. It was long ago that Christopher (Billy Drago) met the mysterious prostitute who captured his heart, but their grim fate was forever sealed when he left the island with only a promise to return one day in the future. Unlike many of the insincere souls who promise to spirit the prostitutes away from the dark and infernal island, Christopher actually made good on his word. However, life is cheap on this bewitched island where the local brothel is the sole refuge for weary souls, and though he ultimately proved to be a rare exception to the rule, Christopher has taken far too long to fulfill his promise. Now, as he shares his woeful tale with a horribly scarred whore (Youki Kudoh) whose knowledge of his long lost love's true fate may prove more of a curse than a blessing, Christopher is about to discover that there are times when death can be the kindest release of all. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

In the aftermath of the tragedies on September 11, 2001, the French film company Studio Canal called upon a group of filmmakers, representing various regions of the world, to address the scope of the situation in however broad or intimate a context as they saw fit. The one guideline they were given was that no one film could exceed 11 minutes, nine seconds, and one frame. The resulting omnibus film, 11'09"01, showed at festivals around the world the following year and garnered a theatrical release in 2003. Each filmmaker's entry takes a different approach: French director Claude Lelouch tells the tale of a World Trade Center tour guide who is on the verge of a breakup with his deaf girlfriend when the terrorist attacks hit; similarly, Hollywood actor-director Sean Penn chronicles the lonely existence of an old man living not far from the Twin Towers. Egyptian director Youssef Chahine and British social realist filmmaker Ken Loach created the most controversy with their entries, which, respectively, address the points-of-view of a suicide bomber and of a Chilean who recalls the brutal coup funded by the United States in his country on September 11, 1973. Alejandro González Iñárritu's piece is the most abstract, taking images from television on the day of the attacks and cutting them with selected bursts of sound. Samira Makhmalbaf, Danis Tanovic, and Idrissa Ouedraogo all tell small-scale stories of the effects of the attacks on tiny villages in Iran, Serbia, and Burkina Faso, respectively. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi

Director Daisuke Tengan, son of acclaimed Japanese writer and filmmaker Shohei Imamura (The Eel, Vengeance is Mine), weaves this fanciful tale of a small seaside village with the highest birthrate in all of Japan. Set in the early 1990s, the ambitious rural epic follows a collection of small town eccentrics from Kaname as they eagerly await the arrival of the Prime Minister. In recent years, fewer married couples have been having children and women are waiting until they are much older to marry. Since the town of Kaname has such an impressive birthrate, the Prime Minster is planning to personally bestow its citizens a special award for excellence in procreation. The post-bubble economy in Japan is booming, everyone seems to have a cell phone and it isn't unusual to find vending machines that are fully stocked with schoolgirls' underwear. Newspaper reporter Kazuya Mizuno (Tomorrow Taguchi) has been exiled to Kaname following a high profile sex scandal. Kaname is the kind of town where little of note ever really happened, and as Mizuno gradually gets to know the locals he forms a growing fixation on widowed bar owner Teruko. Teruko is still in her thirties, and the spell she casts over Mizuno is absolutely undeniable. Before long, the entranced journalist is bearing witness to a virtual sexual revolution. As reality begins to distort and the bizarre story comes to an orgiastic climax, the power of the orgasm becomes plain for all to see. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

In 1998, Japanese auteur Shohei Imamura announced his retirement with his wild and wooly war drama Kanzo Sensei. His announcement clearly proved to be premature, as exhibited by this bizarre romantic drama about the power of really good sex, based on a book by Henmi Yo. Koji Yakusho -- who starred in Imamura's Unagi along with virtually every Japanese indie film of note in the late '90s -- is Yosuke, a once successful marketing exec for an architecture film who is now out of work and separated from his wife. One of his few friends is Taro (Kazuo Kitamura), an aging bum living under a blue tarp with his collection of rare books. During one of his drunken rants, Taro tells Yosuke of a golden Buddha he stole from a temple in Kyoto and stashed in a ramshackle house adjacent to a red bridge on the rugged Noto peninsula. After Taro dies, Yosuke ventures to the hinterland to see if he can find the priceless statue, and he finds the house, which is inhabited by a senile confectionery maker (Imamura regular Mitsuko Baisho) and by her vivacious granddaughter Saeko (Misa Shimizu). Yosuke's first indication that Saeko is quite unlike the other girls is when he spies her stealing cheese from a local market. She later tells him that her body is a spring of water that wells up within her. The only means of relief is by doing something naughty -- like shoplifting -- or by engaging in a vigorous round of sex. Soon the two are enthusiastically exchanging fluids, so much so that water blasts from Saeko's nether regions like a fire hose. As the water flows to the nearby creek, fish cluster around to cavort in its special properties. Yosuke decides to stick around, landing a job as a fisherman, not only to service Saeko's special needs, but also to look for the Buddha. This film was screened at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival and at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi