Takenori Sento Movies

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, All Movie Guide

A boy is torn between his desire to please his father and his need to rebel against him in this drama from Japan. Sadatomo (Yamato Okitsu) is the son of Kobayashi (Mikio Shimizu), a strict and dictatorial middle school teacher who believes all people fall into one of three categories: normal people, delinquents, and scum. For all his iron discipline in the classroom, Kobayashi is a remote and unloving presence at home, and Sadatomo and his two best friends have become bored with school, often cutting class and sometimes shoplifting as an amusement. When the boys are caught lifting merchandise from a neighborhood store, Kobayashi is outraged, and informs Sadamoto and his friends that they now fall into the category of scum. As a punishment, Kobayashi assigns each of the three boys a 30-page essay in which they are to examine their crime and why it was wrong; Sadatomo, deeply moved by his father's disappointment in him, writes a sincere and articulate paper about theft, the remorse he feels, and why he deserves to be punished for his actions. Kobayashi is pleased with his son's work, and enters the essay in a writing competition for students, where it earns an award. But Kobayashi is not satisfied with the work of Sadatomo's friends, and subjects them to a rigorous program of physical punishment; Sadatomo, meanwhile, is becoming increasingly angry with his father's pride in his prize-winning essay, as his happiness comes only at the expense of the boy's shame and sorrow. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Former screenwriter for Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Kunitoshi Manda makes his directorial debut with this understated drama about a woman who is defiantly happy where she is in life. A skilled employee at the local city hall, Mitsuko (Yuko Moriguchi) refuses to take the civil service exam that would advance her career -- much to the chagrin of her boss and co-workers. Her work on a report catches the attention of a well-groomed owner of a wildly successful software company named Eiji (Toru Nakamura). After a year of being divorced, he dreams finding Ms. Right. When Mitsuko refuses his offers of employment, he asks her out on a date. Following a spontaneous night of lovemaking in her modest apartment, Eiji takes her to an exclusive boutique where he buys her a fabulously expensive cocktail dress with matching shoes. He then escorts her to an equally ritzy French restaurant, much to Mitsuko's growing apprehension. When Eiji ducks out of dinner on emergency business, she makes a beeline to the nearest homespun noodle shop. When they meet again, she gives Eiji back the dress and tells him that the high-roller lifestyle he circulates in just is not for her. A couple days later, Mitsuko runs into Hiroshi (Shunsuke Matsuoka), a 28-year-old slacker who spends his time working in a warehouse and strumming on his guitar. Mitsuko finds his lack of pretensions comforting. Yet when Eiji and Hiroshi finally meet, both are baffled while Mitsuko would choose a scruffy loser over life with the beautiful people. Fits of jealousy and insecurity ensue. This film was screened at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

One of the leading voices in the new Japanese cinema, Shinji Aoyama directs this saga about memory, grief, and redemption. Shot in stark black and white, the film opens with the sudden and inexplicably bloody hijacking of a bus in rural Kyushu. The crazed gunman (Riju Go) shoots two passengers in the back as they try to flee. Stepping out of the bus for some fresh air, the hijacker drags bus driver Makoto (played by the ubiquitous Koji Yakusho) along for cover. When the driver faints and falls to the ground, police snipers shoot the terrorist. In his last dying effort, the hijacker stumbles back on board the bus, where he murders an old lady and tries to kill a pair of shocked schoolchildren, Naoki (Masaru Miyazaki) and Kozue (Aoi Miyazaki). Two years later, the experience has wreaked havoc on the lives of the three sole survivors. Distanced and easily distracted, Makoto's weird behavior -- particularly his habit of wandering off unannounced for days at a time -- finally takes its toll on his marriage. Meanwhile, Naoki and Kozue are left mute from the event, though they can communicate. The silent siblings' mother soon walks out of her marriage, and their father kills himself in a car wreck, leaving them alone in a large house with a substantial insurance check. Having found work at a construction company, Makoto's strange behavior starts to raise a few eyebrows, especially when he utterly ignores the advances of a comely office worker. Soon the village is rocked by news of murdered women washing up on a nearby river bank; Makoto's brother suspects him and asks him to leave their family house. He shows up on the doorstep of Naoki and Kozue's house, which has devolved into utter disrepair, and the trio forms a family of sorts. Their relative peace and order is upset by Akihiko (Yohichiroh Saitoh), the bumptious cousin from Tokyo on vacation from college who is insensitive to the trauma that the trio has endured and increasingly suspicious of the kids' ersatz guardian. His disapproval of Makoto grows when that same comely office work turns up dead, and Makoto is the prime suspect. Looking to break out of their routine, and cleared of murder charges, Makoto purchases an old bus and converts it into a camper. Taking his three housemates on an odyssey that begins at the site of the hijacking, they slowly start to reconcile the grief and pain that so destroyed their lives. Unfortunately, the killing seems to follow them along their way. A poignant, emotional journey clocking in at just under four hours, Eureka won the prestigious FIPRESCI Award at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival and was screened at the 2000 Toronto and New York Film Festivals. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

In this supernatural thriller from Japan, Hinako (Yui Natsukawa) is a young woman with a successful career as a fashion designer who pays a visit to the village on the island of Shikoku where she grew up. Hinako learns that her best friend from childhood, Sayori (Chiaki Kuriyama), the daughter of the village's spiritual leader, died in a mysterious drowning accident. She also discovers that another childhood friend, Fumiya (Michitaka Tsutsui), is still living on the island, and as they renew their friendship Hinako finds herself sexually attracted to Fumiya. They're both startled when Sayori's spirit begins appearing to them, and they begin researching Shikoku folklore; they discover that the island is believed to be the gateway to another world, and Sayori's mother is trying to open the path so her daughter can return to this realm. Shikoku marked a change of pace for director Shunichi Nagasaki, who previously made the romantic drama Some Kinda Love. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Buta No Mukui (The Pig's Retribution), a film about spiritual salvation in a wild and crazy world, follows a young man's journey to his birthplace on the island of Majajima in Okinawa where he plans to bury the bones of his father, who died at sea twelve years earlier. Shokichi (Ozawa Yukiyoshi), the son of conductor Seiji Ozawa, is a university student who likes to hang out at a local bar on the main island of Okinawa chatting with three disillusioned barmaids: Miyo (Ameku Michiko), Yoko (Ueda Mayumi), and Wakako (Hayasaka Yoshie). When a pig from an overturned truck enters the bar and approaches Wakako, the women are terrified, as the pig is considered the harbinger of bad luck in Japan. They think that the pig has stolen Wakako's soul. Shokichi invites the girls to join him on his journey to his birthplace without telling them his real motive. The girls comply, thinking they will be cleansed of their wrongdoings by a god presiding on the island. But they all end up sick from eating bad pig meat and drinking too much liquor. Only Shokichi manages to remain on his feet and, despite all distractions, accomplish his filial duty to his father, while discovering along the way new possibilities of reconnecting to the sacred. Sai Yohichi uses the setting of the bucolic Okinawa, where the inhabitants enjoy modern comforts but respect the existence of ancient gods, as a metaphor for people who carry on their daily lives while keeping their attachments to old beliefs. Sometimes it takes a pig to put their spiritual lives in order! Buta No Mukui received the award of the Federation of International Cine Clubs (FICC) at the 1999 Locarno International Film Festival for the humor and simplicity of its dialogue and the economy of its cinematic language. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide

In preparing for this film, director Nobuhiro Suwa wrote an detailed script and then threw it away at the last moment. Instead, in a manner reminscient of Mike Leigh and John Cassavetes, he worked intensively with the actors to develop their characters and allowed the script to develop from there. Though the film appears to be a standard work of fiction depicting the slow collapse of a relationship between an out-of-work actor (Nishijima Hidetoshi) and his girlfriend (Yu Eri), the dialogue seems fresh and real, filled with sentences that trail off and the Japanese equivalent of "ums" and "ahs." At one point, the director breaks in and barks questions to the actors off-camera, throwing the film into that fuzzy zone between fiction and documentary. This impression is underscored by the handheld camerawork of Masaki Tamura, the cinematographer for legendary documentarist Shinsuke Ogawa. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

High-school student Taro (Hideo Sakai) has had the bad luck to break a leg just before his summer vacation can begin. He lives in a part of northeastern Japan that is very rural. Most of the time, he recuperates at home in his room. The window to his room is immediately adjacent to the window of Yoko (Yukako Shimuzo), a girl who is about his same age. Because he is around so often, she finds plenty of occasions to talk to him through their open windows, and they form a friendly relationship. Yoko manages to tease Taro out of the depression he has fallen into, and the two youngsters experience their first puppy-love with each other. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide