Lily Movies
- 2007
A haven for clandestine lovers turns out to be more than most passers-by would imagine in this independent drama. The Parku Ando is a "love hotel" in Tokyo's Shinjuku district where couples can rent a room for a night or by the hour for romantic assignations. However, few of its regular customers seem to come there for sexual encounters; the hotel has become a hangout for rootless teenagers, senior citizens looking for a place to relax, and kids who play under the watchful eye of manager Tsuyako (Lily). Tsuyako and her friend Tsuki handle the day to day business at the hotel, and while they can be tough when they need to be, they're also capable of kindness to strangers, such as giving a free room to Mika (Hikari Kajiwara), a girl just edging into her teens who has slipped away from home to track down the father who divorced her mother to join another family. But Tsuyako and Tsuki do have a troublesome customer to deal with -- Marika (Chiharu Sachi Jinno), an under-aged streetwalker who brings different clients to the Parku Ando every day, and has developed some serious suspicions about Tsuyako's motives and business plan. Named for a slang abbreviation of "insane asylum," Asyl (aka Parku Ando Love Hoteru) was the debut feature from writer and director Izuru Kumasaka. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lily, Hikari Kaziwara, (more)
- 2006
Yuki Urushibara's long-running manga series comes to the screen in this live-action adaptation directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, creator of the groundbreaking manga and anime classic Akira. Mushi are an unusual life form that is neither animal nor vegetable, but is possessed of the elusive essential life force of the universe, and has special talents that approach those of supernatural beings. Very few human beings are able to see the mushi, but Ginko can. Ginko makes his living as a "Mushi-shi," a master who travels from town to town, meeting people who have had troubling experiences with the mushi and helping them sort out their problems while trying to maintain a respectful relationship with the creatures. Starring Joe Odagiri, Nao Omori and Makiko Esumi, Mushi-shi received its world premiere at the 2006 Venice Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jô Odagiri, Nao Omori, (more)
Japanese body horror auteur Shinya Tsukamoto, still best known in the U.S. for Tetsuo, teams with hipster icon Tadanobu Asano for the psychological drama Vital. Asano plays Hiroshi Takagi, who wakes from a coma, his memory seriously impaired, and decides, to the relief of his parents (Kazuyoshi Kushida and Lily), to go back to medical school. His memory returns slowly. Eventually, Hiroshi remembers that he had a girlfriend, Ryôko (Nami Tsukamoto) who was with him when he wrecked his car. She was killed in the crash. As he and his classmates begin to work on human cadavers, Hiroshi catches the attention of another top student, a driven and manipulative young woman named Ikumi (Kiki). The two become involved in a twisted relationship of sorts, but Hiroshi is more and more focused on his work. He comes to believe that the corpse he's working on in the lab is Ryôko's. Distraught, he goes to visit the dead girl's parents (Jun Kunimura and Hana Kino), who offer little comfort. Meanwhile, the other students are disturbed by Hiroshi's growing obsession with his "subject." Vital was shown by the Film Society of Lincoln Center as part of the 2005 Film Comment Selects. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tadanobu Asano, Nami Tsukamoto, (more)
Reese Witherspoon stars in this romantic comedy, the feature film debut of award-winning Australian director Robert Luketic. As a ravishing Miss Hawaiian Tropic, sorority president, and calendar girl, Elle Woods (Witherspoon) is a big hit on the campus of her sun-drenched Los Angeles college. She's also got the perfect boyfriend in Warner Huntington III (Matthew Davis), a wealthy East Coast blue blood. Fearing that his snooty friends and family will never accept the bubble-headed Elle, however, Warner dumps her before heading off to graduate law school at Harvard University. Determined to win back her man, Elle enrolls in the same imposing institution, quickly becoming an object of scorn and ridicule, especially to Warner's old prep school flame (Selma Blair). Despite her penchant for malls, makeup, and tanning, Elle is no dummy and is soon showing elite Ivy League snobs a thing or two about class, self-confidence, and courtroom victory. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Reese Witherspoon, Luke Wilson, (more)
- 1998
In a departure from his acclaimed horror films Cure (1997) and Charisma (1998), Kiyoshi Kurosawa's License to Live is a gentle family melodrama that doubles as a meditation on personal identity. The film focuses on Yutaka (Hidetoshi Nishijima), the victim of an ugly car accident who suddenly wakes up from a 10-year coma. He soon discovers that his world has been turned upside-down in the intervening years. His formerly close-knit family has parted ways and his family home has been turned into a low-rent fish farm and industrial dumping ground by Fujimoto (Koji Yakusho), a gruff huckster friend of his father. Though Yutaka moves back into his family home, he is left feeling confused and unsettled, helped only by Fujimoto, who reluctantly serves as pseudo-father. Yutaka tries to pick up where he left off, but his attempts at meeting old friends and family members leave him feeling only more isolated. In a last-ditch attempt to reclaim his past, he reopens the pony ranch run by his financially incompetent father when he was a child. For a time, his mother Sachiko (Lily) and his sister Chizuru (Kumiko Asou) return to the homestead, and a semblance of the old family begins to cohere -- until a surprising, emotional twist forces Yutaka to realize that he must move on. As in his other films, Kurosawa couches metaphysical themes of identity and mortality in an engaging genre vehicle. Yet this work displays a strikingly minimalist style and a deft use of mood and pacing that point toward a greater maturity. This film was screened at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival as part of the Director's Spotlight. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hidetoshi Nishijima, Koji Yakusho, (more)
