Yusuke Iseya Movies
Multihyphenate Yusuke Iseya enjoyed a prolific modeling career in his native Japan before transitioning to narrative feature work, initially as a supporting actor in indigenous arthouse films that occasionally traveled abroad, including (most memorably) director Hirokazu Kore-eda's universally acclaimed spiritual fantasy After-Life (1998), as well as Akihiko Shiota's juvenile delinquency drama Harmful Insect (2001). That exposure led to a successful television career for Iseya on Japanese daytime dramas; in 1998, Iseya shifted gears altogether by traveling to the United States and enrolling in New York University film school, which he reportedly funded with modeling monies; a debut directorial effort soon followed, the 2002 Kakuto, as did additional on-camera roles in Japanese films including Honey and Clover (2006) and Sea Without Exit (2006), as well as a voice assignment in the animé feature Tekkonkinkreet (2007). In 2008, Iseya took his first steps toward projects originating outside of Japan with a prominent role as a visually impaired man in Fernando Meirelles' thriller Blindness, starring Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo, a Canadian-Brazilian-Japanese co-production. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
Like his previous drama Maborosi (1995), Hirokazu Kore-eda's After Life is a brilliant meditation on death and memory. The premise of After Life is simple: over the span of a week, twenty-two souls arrive at a way station (which looks like an old junior high school) between life and death, where they are asked to choose just one memory to take into the afterlife. The new arrivals include an elderly woman, a rebellious dropout, a teenage girl, and a 70-year-old war veteran. Once they have chosen a memory, it is recreated and filmed by the staff of the way station, using all the tricks and illusions of cinema: cotton balls are used to mimic clouds, a fan is used for a summer breeze. In preparation for this project, Kore-eda interviewed 500 people from all walks of life about their memories. The film freely cuts between footage of these interviews, actors improvising, and actors reading scripts. Just as Kore-eda fuses documentary elements with a fictional narrative, we see over the course of the film how memories are distorted, improved on, and revised; and it is these subjectively constructed memories that the new arrivals value most. This film is not a typical Hollywood feel-good film; but its unhurried pace and lack of melodrama, like its subject, may linger in the memory long afterwards. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- 2000
Isshin Inudo spins this romantic fantasy about an ailing octogenarian and young, socially inept caregiver. Living in a spooky old house, Ayumi Nippori has lived with a crippling heart disease that should have killed him years ago. One day, he wakes up thinking that he is in his twenties, though his heart remains just as rickety as ever (Ayumi is played by 24-year-old actor Yusuke Iseya). Enter Narisu (Chizuru Ikewaki), a teenaged caregiver sporting clunky shoes and a frumpy skirt who nevertheless reawakens long-forgotten passions. Though she initially remains aloof and professional, Narisu quickly recognizes Ayumi as a kindred spirit and maybe something more. Soon their relationship takes on a dimension that her agency would frown upon. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chizuru Ikewaki, Yusuke Iseya, (more)
- 2001
Following up on his acclaimed debut Moonlight Whispers (about a sadomasochistic relationship between two teens), Akihiko Shiota once again looks at troubled youth. Sachiko (played by Aoi Miyazaki of Eureka fame) is a 13-year-old junior high school student with a complicated family life. Her father left when she was an infant for a young mistress. Her mother (Ryo) -- a secretive and weirdly distanced woman -- works as a hostess and a kept woman for a mysterious gangster type. Sachiko finds some modicum of solace in the arms of her sixth grade teacher, Ogata (Seiichi Tanabe) who has a brief affair with her. As a result, he quits his job and starts working for a nuclear power plant far away. When her mother makes another halfhearted attempt at suicide, Sachiko's shattered emotional life becomes too much to bear and she drops out of school. Though she continues to correspond with Ogata, Sachiko is desperately lonely and alienated, leading to her consorting with other social dropouts. When her sole school friend Natsuko urges her to return to school, Sachiko finds that her long simmering rage against the world becomes difficult to control. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Aoi Miyazaki, Seiichi Tanabe, (more)
- 2001
Four people whose lives are connected by a common tragedy discuss the paths their lives have taken in this drama from Japan. Minoru (Susumu Terajima) is a businessman, Atsushi (Araka) is a disaffected post-modern teen, Kiyoka (Yui Natsukawa) is an educator, and Masaru (Yusuke Iseya) a quiet young woman. Normally, these four would have nothing in common and little to say to one another, but fate has brought them together through an unfortunate circumstance -- they all had relatives who were members of the Ark of Truth, a combination religious cult and terrorist group whose desire to lash out at society led them to dump poison in Tokyo's water processing plants, leading to the death of 128 people and serious illness in thousands of others. The Ark of Truth members directly responsible for the poisoning were then attacked and killed by the other members of the group. On the third anniversary of this disaster, the foursome is part of a handful of people who mourn their loved ones near a remote lake where the Ark of Truth was formed; afterward, they discover that the car they arrived in has been stolen, and along with Koichi (Tadanobu Asano), a former member of the cult, they must spend the night in a cabin where the group once met. Inspired in part by the infamous Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo, which was responsible for releasing nerve gas in a Tokyo subway, leading to the death of 12 people, Distance was directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, who previously made the international success After Life. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tadanobu Asano, Arata, (more)
A genetic discovery that could prove mankind's saving grace is instead used to create the very beings who threaten their existence in director Kazuaki Kirya's visionary sci-fi epic. The time is the late 21st Century; fifty years of war between Europa and the Eastern Federation have left the planet devastated and the human race completely dispirited. In the aftermath of the Eastern Federation "victory," a new federation known as Eurasia is born. But the planet has been ravaged beyond the point of repair by nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and a half-century of warfare has taken a devastating toll on all mankind. At first, it appears that salvation is imminent when a highly respected geneticist named Azuma announces the discovery of a so-called "neo cell" that can rejuvenate the human body without risk of rejection. Mankind's last hope threatens to become its ultimate downfall, however, when nature and science combine to create a menace that could very well extinguish the human race forever. Now, as the human race prepares to make its last stand against the ultimate enemy, a powerful warrior will emerge to fight for mankind and provide hope for future generations. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yusuke Iseya, Kumiko Aso, (more)
Adapted from the popular manga of the same name, director Masahiro Takada's coming of age drama follows five Hama Art College students as they prepare to venture out into the real world on a great voyage of self-discovery. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yu Aoi, Sho Sakurai, (more)
- 2006
An aimless twenty-year old drowning himself in booze after a recent break-up begins to come around while piecing together the life of the aunt he never knew he had in director Tetsuya Nakashima's adaptation of Muneki Yamada's original novel. Unable to deal with his latest break-up, Sho Kawajiri (Eita) has locked himself away in his Tokyo apartment to dull the pain in an emotion-numbing sea of alcohol and pornography. When his estranged father suddenly appears to present Sho with the ashes of the aunt that he had never known, the crestfallen son soon finds his sorrow replaced with a driving curiosity about his mysterious Aunt Matsuko (Miki Nakatani). Later, when Sho travels to his deceased aunt's ramshackle apartment, it begins to appear Matsuko is reaching out from the great beyond to take her nephew a guided tour of her tragic life. As a child, Matsuko's father lavished attention on the girl's chronically-ill sister as the healthier Matsuko sat love-starved on the sidelines. Though she would eventually grow to become a popular junior high school teacher in her hometown, Matsuko's career was cut unexpectedly short when she boldly took the blame for a theft that was actually committed by her prized pupil Ryu. In the years that followed, Matsuko's desperate search for love would lead her into a series of abusive relationships with me incapable of coping with her smothering affections. Later, after falling from grace as a sex worker and serving a stint in prison, Matsuko crosses paths with her favorite student Ryo and finally believes she has found true love. Unfortunately for Matsuko, Ryo has become a violent gangster, and the person she thought would finally bring the love she had always longed for soon abandons her. Now left alone in the world and bereft of the life-affirming love that once seemed so closely within reach, Matsuko wanders down a corrosive path of self-destruction that will eventually seal her own grim fate. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eita, Miki Nakatani, (more)
- 2006
An intense barrage of anime, computer generated graphics, and a record setting number of pop culture references per minute, the Japanese feature Arch Angels follows the adventures of three girls at the prim and proper St. Michael's Academy. The hum-drum life of Catholic school doesn't suit these bored young ladies, but lucky for them a freak Ramen incident imbues them all with super powers - and just in time for a series of kidnappings to rock their cute little boarding school to its ivy-covered foundations! ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Juri Ueno, Yusuke Iseya, (more)
- 2006
Director/screenwriter Yoji Yamada (The Twilight Samurai) teams with emerging filmmaking talent Kyoshi Sasabe (Half a Confession) for this screen adaptation of author Hideo Yokoyama's somber novel. Koji Namiki is a young pitcher who has shown great promise on the diamond by winning the National High School Basketball Championships. Shortly after entering college, however, Namiki's athletic career is called into question after he suffers a severe elbow injury. But despite a disheartening diagnosis, Namiki is determined to make a comeback. With a little help from his teammates it appears that he is getting back on track, too. Recently, he's even developed a new slow ball that he and his teammates have christened "the magic pitch." Fate can be a cruel mistress though, and when World War II breaks out Namiki the entire team join the navy and begin a training regiment specifically designed to prepare them for the ultimate darkness. Yet even at the bottom of the ocean, as Naimki prepares for the "kaiten" (an submarine attack method also known as "The Human Torpedo"), he never loses hope that he may one day be back on the surface and striking out opponents with his patented "magic pitch." ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Juri Ueno, Shinosuke Ichikawa, (more)
- 2007
An intimate journal serves as the nexus between two otherwise disconnected lives in Isao Yukisada's romantic drama Kurosudo Nooto. As the story opens, co-ed Kae (Erika Sawajiri) - who is undergoing training to become a teacher - moves into a new flat and happens upon a strange diary, stored in a compartment in the room. Upon reading it, she discovers that it belonged to Ibuki (Yukio Takeuchi), the previous tenant and also a nascent teacher, employed at a local primary school. As this occurs, Ibuki's story is told in flashback; we see that she consistently inspired all of her students (with the exception of one boy, who couldn't be helped), and meanwhile pined for a gentleman she knew in college, named Takashi. Because this story is visually filtered through Kae's imagination as she reads, she instinctively pictures Takashi as screen idol Tetsuji Tanaka (who, conveniently, plays the part). Meanwhile, events from Kae's life unfold; using a job in a fountain pen shop to pay for her education, she begins to romantically yearn for a quirky artist, Ryu (Yusuki Iseya), even as she spurns the inappropriate advances of her girlfriend's beau. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Erika Sawajiri, Yusuke Iseya, (more)
Director Masato Harada takes the helm for this eerie horror film concerning a song that inspires listeners to take their own lives. The year was 1933, and Hungarian composer Rezs Seress was stuck in a slump. In order to cope with his depression, Seress composed a melancholy little ditty entitled "Gloomy Sunday". According to legend, this sad but beautiful song has inspired many a forlorn soul to succumb to their inner malaise. Seventy years after the fact, it seems that "Gloomy Sunday" still has the power to corrode the soul. A woman named Kana has suffered a mysterious death, leaving her two friends Anzu and Riku to make sense of a seemingly random tragedy. Upon learning of the urban legend surrounding Seress's downbeat ditty, Anzu and Riku discover a disturbing pattern. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hiroshi Abe, Sayaka Akimoto, (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)
Fernando Meirelles' adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning author José Saramago's novel Blindness begins when an epidemic of blindness strikes the world. Mark Ruffalo stars as an eye doctor who awakens one morning to find that he suffers from the unexplained disorder. He, along with other victims, is sent to a government detention center so that they can be quarantined. His wife (Julianne Moore) pretends to be blind so that she can be with him inside the institution. Their time in the center grows more and more desperate as food and supplies dwindle, and one of the other citizens (Gael García Bernal) exercises dictatorial control over the others after he acquires a weapon. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, (more)
