Eri Yu Movies
- 1999
Noted Korean director Park Chul-soo, who previously made a mark for himself in 301,302, a savage look at food and sex, helms this black comedy about Japan's sizable and often beleaguered Korean-Japanese community. Motomi Hayashi (Eri Yu), a producer who is thoroughly dedicated to her career, returns to her abode to discover that her porn star sister (Ichio Matsuda) is going to make a film about her family's first reunion in 20 years. Motomi is less than thrilled with the prospect, seeing as all is not well at the Hayashi household. Motomi's father recently got canned from his longtime job at a Pachinko parlor, while her mother secretly plans to mortgage the house to finance her affair with a younger lover. Motomi grows more uneasy when she learns that the porn director in charge of the undertaking is known for mixing fact with fantasy. Adapted from a book by Miri Yu, a second-generation Korean-Japanese author, Kazoku Cinema was shot entirely in Japan and entirely in Japanese, a first for a Korean-funded film. It was screened at the 1999 Chicago Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yang Seok-il, Hiroko Isayama, (more)
- 1998
TV documentary and drama director Yoichero Takahashi made his theatrical feature-film directorial debut with this Japanese drama about a romantic triangle of high-school students. Swimmer Kenji (Kenji Mizuhashi) has a crush on classmate Reiko (Ayumi Ito), who prefers swimmer Arai (Yoshiki Sekino). She gets Kenji to function as a go-between, but Arai, discerning Kenji's true feelings for Reiko, drops out to bring Kenji and Reiko together. In addition, Arai tries to give Kenji sex education, fixing him up with barmaid Rie (Eri Yu). The confusing situation takes a nosedive when Kenji, arriving for a date with Reiko, finds her with Arai. This film was the winner of the $165,000 "New Directors Prize" at the 1998 San Sebastian Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kenji Mizuhashi, Ayumi Ito, (more)
- 1997
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
- Starring:
- Hidetoshi Nishijima, Eri Yu, (more)
- 1995
- R
A lover, an ultimatum, a phone call, and a gun: these elements are found in each segment of Hal Hartley's Flirt, an experimental comedy-drama that essentially repeats the same story three times. But while the basic narrative remains the same -- a congenital flirt must decide whether or not to commit to a current lover, who otherwise will marry someone else -- the details differ greatly, from the location of the film to the gender of the participants. The initial segment, set in New York, tells the tale with a male flirt in turmoil over his relationship with a woman. The film then moves to Berlin, where the same drama is played out amongst a gay male couple, with an added touch of self-reflexive humor. The third and final episode takes place in Tokyo, with a female flirt and a more abstract cinematic approach, including several sequences in traditional Japanese pantomime. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Sage, Parker Posey, (more)
