Hisao Masuda Movies

A murder investigation takes a number of unexpected and unsettling turns in this suspense thriller from Japan. Nango (Tsutomu Yamazaki) is a prison guard moonlighting as a detective as he investigates the case of Toru Kihara (Kankuro Kudo), a petty thief who ten years before was convicted of a multiple murder he claims he can't remember. Toru's lawyer Sugiura (Tsurubei Shofukutei) hires Nango at the request of a nameless client who wants to see Toru cleared, and Nango brings in Junichi Mikami (Takashi Sorimachi) to assist him; Nango met Junichi when the latter was serving time for manslaughter, and Nango wants to give the young ex-con a chance to start over. However, as they dig deeper into the case, Nango discovers several disturbing parallels between the crime for which Toru was convicted and Junichi's own record; he becomes especially alarmed when he learns Junichi was near the scene of Toru's alleged murder. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Noted television screenwriter and founder of the acclaimed theatrical group Tokyo Sunshine Boys, Koki Mitani makes his directorial debut with this wickedly funny look at a live radio broadcast gone horribly wrong. As a part of a PR stunt, a Tokyo radio station holds an amateur screenwriting contest and the winner (and only contestant) is a meek and guileless housewife named Miyako (Kyoka Suzuki) who spun a sincere little melodrama about a marriage falling apart. At first, everything seems like a dream -- the show's high-strung producer Ushijima (Masahiko Nishimura) is calling Miyako by the honorific sensei and the cast and crew seem to radiate a cool, yet heartfelt, professionalism. Then calamity strikes. Prima donna actress Nokko (Keiko Toda) -- who is ticked off at the current state of her career -- decides moments before air time that her character Ritsuko should be named Mary Jane. Instead of being a modest housewife, Mary Jane is casually turned into a high-powered lawyer. Soon the other characters want to play glamorous foreigners too. The setting is switched from sleeping resort town Atami to Manhattan and then later Chicago. The romantic male goes from being a truck driver to a pilot and then an astronaut. As further plot changes continue to pile up -- ranging from gangster hits to dam breaks to moon landings -- Ushijima and director Kudo (Toshiaki Karasawa) try desperately to keep ahead of things while poor Miyako -- her dreams of being a screenwriter thoughtlessly trashed -- quietly seethes. This film was screened at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi