Kyoko Koizumi Movies

A typical household secretly teeters on the verge of collapse in this stark drama from director Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Businessman Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) is the principal breadwinner of a seemingly happy family in Tokyo, with Ryuhei looking after his teenage sons, Takashi (Yu Koyanagi) and Kenji (Kai Inowaki), with his wife, Megumi (Kyoko Koizumi). But what Megumi and her children don't know is that Ryuhei is out of a job; his position was outsourced to a company in China, and he's too ashamed to tell his family the truth. Ryuhei leaves home every morning as if he's going to the office, but instead visits employment centers in hopes of landing a new job and eats lunch at a kitchen for the indigent. One day, while waiting for free porridge, Ryuhei meets an old friend who is in a similar predicament, Kurosu (Kanji Tsuda); Kurosu ends up bringing Ryuhei home for dinner so they can discuss their fictive day at work and maintain their subterfuge. Megumi, who is not as well-adjusted as she appears, one day spots her husband in a soup line while running errands, and discovers the truth about his employment status, though she doesn't dare confront him. And as Takashi and Kenji begin drifting away from their emotionally distant parents, Kenji starts to suspect things are not as they should be, and begins spending his lunch money on music lessons in hopes of starting a career as a pianist. Tokyo Sonata was an official entry at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A high-class prostitute and two misfit admirers are on the run in 19th Century Japan in this comedy from director Hideyuki Hirayama. Okino (Kyoko Koizumi) is a courtesan edging into her forties who wants to give up the business, but her "managers" demand more money than she can pay for her freedom. With the help of her friend Yaji (Kanzaburo Nakamura), a sweet but hare-brained pastry chef who has carried a torch for her since the death of his wife, Okino sends fake severed fingers to her best clients hoping they'll help her raise the money, but the scam fails to fool anyone. Okino tells the caretakers of her house that her father is ill and she needs to visit him, and she and Yaji hit the road towards freedom, but it isn't long before her pimps realizes what's happened and they give chase. En route, Okino and Yaji are joined by washed-up actor Kita (Akira Emoto), who is looking to cheer himself up after an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Kita and Yaji become rivals for Okino's affections while the trio is joined by a street kid (Takato Sasano) who has magical powers and can transform himself into anything from a raccoon to pair of dice in a crap game. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Director Gen Sekiguchi and screenwriter Taku Tada, phenomenally successful award winners in Japan's advertising industry, make their feature-film debut with the fast-paced omnibus film, Survive Style 5+, which incorporates five strange tales that occasionally intersect. The ubiquitous Tadanobu Asano introduces the film, playing a man who has apparently just murdered his lovely wife (Reika Hashimoto). He drives out to the woods, buries the body, and returns home to find her waiting for him, and not in a particularly good mood. In the second story, Yoko (Kyôko Koizumi), a driven copywriter who constantly spews ad ideas into her handy minicassette recorder, has just had quick, unfulfilling sex with Aoyama (Hiroshi Abe), a sleazy, conceited TV hypnotist who proceeds to insult her work and her personal hygiene. Yoko takes it well, but she's got plans for the jerk. In the third story, Kobayashi (Ittoku Kishibe), a good-natured salaryman, is hypnotized by Aoyama into believing he's a bird. His family has a whole new set of problems when Aoyama is incapacitated before he can break the trance. The fourth thread follows three dimwitted burglars (Yoshiyuki Morishita, Jai West, and Kanji Tsuda) as they grapple with both professional and sexual confusion. The final plotline concerns a hot-tempered English hitman (Vinnie Jones) and his goofy employer (Yoshiyoshi Arakawa), who also serves as his translator as the hitman asks nearly everyone he meets, "What is your function on this planet?" Sonny Chiba has a cameo as the hen-pecked president of a drug company. Survive Style 5+ was shown at Subway Cinema's New York Asian Film Festival in 2005. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Veteran filmmaker Shinji Somai spins this melodrama about an unlikely couple blithely courting their own destruction. Famed pop star Kyoko Koizumi -- also known by her nickname Kyon Kyon -- plays Yuriko, Tokyo pink-salon hostess who after years of sticky fumbling in darkened booths is reaching the end of her tether. One day, she wakes up under a cherry tree with her salaryman client from the night before. Though she is irritated that he does not remember a thing about the previous night, she is curiously attracted to the guy. An elite bureaucrat in the powerful and prestigious Ministry of Education, Renji Sawaki (Tadanobu Asano) has long since given up caring for the career mobility or for his long-suffering girlfriend (Kumiko Asou); instead, he seems to be willfully slumping headlong into oblivion. This lust for the abyss attracts Yuriko on levels that she can't fully understand, but she soon realizes that she wants a change and she wants him to come along. The change she has in mind is a trip to Hokkaido to see her daughter. Will love bloom, or will their respective death wishes take the day? This film was screened at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

With a story that many could readily understand, this film is about a divorced policeman whose salary does not expand far enough to support his ex-wife, to handle his bills at the local bar, and to manage all the hand-outs his semi-delinquent daughter demands of him. The man is close to bottoming out, as few respect him for his low-paying job -- not because of what he does but because of his pay scale. He buys a computer to fill the hours when he is alone, which gets him into more debt that he hopes to eliminate by gambling. That leads to a vicious circle, hard to break unless someone can come and help him out of this quagmire. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide