Yoshinori Okada Movies
- 1996
Ryosuke Hashiguchi follows up on his critically acclaimed debut Hatachi No Binetsu -- a film about gay hustlers -- with this emotionally honest film about growing up. Shuji Ito (Yoshinori Okada) is a gay high school senior in love with his best friend, the naïve and straight-laced Hiroyuki Yoshida (Kouta Kusano). Yet Ito is too afraid of messing up his friendship with Yoshida and destroying his persona as a "normal" high school student to tell him. Meanwhile, Yoshida as fallen for the new transfer student Kasane Aihara (Ayumi Hamazaki), who harbors her own dark secret -- a brutal rape has left her unable to respond to anything sexual. Her classmates' usual schoolgirl politics bore her and she bluntly tells them so. At the same time, shy Ayako Shimizu (Kumi Takada) has fallen for Yoshida while Aihara finds herself strangely drawn to Ito. She senses his secret, which, however much he tries to maintain his facade, sets him apart. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
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)
A pair of feisty young street urchins attempts to protect an unnamed metropolis from a diabolical villain whose plans to raze the urban landscape on the behalf of malevolent real-estate developers threatens to destroy the very soul of the city. Street-smart youngsters Black and White do their best to defend their territory from rival gangs as local yakuza leader Suzuki, fearing that the town has lost its zeal, plots a triumphant return to form. A lifelong criminal with a serious zodiac fixation, Suzuki (aqua The Rat) doesn't want to corrupt the city as much as he simply wants reinvigorate it with the kind of vibrancy that drew him to love it in the first place. Mr. Snake, on the other hand, wants nothing more than to profit as the buildings of the city crumble to make room for the massive amusement park planned by his wealthy clients. The only problem now is that Mr. Snake can't carry out his destructive deed while Black and White are still wandering the streets - of course that's nothing that can't be solved by a pair of sharp-shooting intergalactic assassins whose bullets always meet their mark. A metaphysical tale of survival in a city that seems to be poised on the brink of disaster, Tekkonkinkreet marks the feature directorial debut of longtime visual effects artist Michael Arias (The Abyss, Princess Mononoke). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Min Tanaka, Yoshinori Okada, (more)
- 2008
Love threatens to turn two geeky guys against one another in this independent comedy from Japan. Teruo (YosiYosi Arakawa) is a self-conscious nerd who works at a bookstore when he isn't indulging his favorite pastime of scaring people. Teruo enjoys playing pranks on strangers and filming their reactions, and his latest project involves turning his home into a spook house. Teruo's best friend Hisanobu (Yoshinori Okada) works in a hospital by day and helps his pal with his outlandish stunts at night. However, when Hisanobu meets Akari (Yoshino Kimura), a clumsy but beautiful artist, he falls head over heels for her, and Teruo isn't so sure he wants to share his friend's time and attention with a woman. Zen zen daijobu (aka Fine, Totally Fine) was an official selection at the 2008 Hong Kong Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yoshiyoshi Arakawa, Yoshino Kimura, (more)
