Koyuki Movies

Three highly unlikely characters forge a friendship in this offbeat Japanese comedy from first-time director Junichi Mori. Teru (Yosuke Kubozuka) is a big but kindhearted soul whose intellect has been running at half-speed ever since a childhood accident left him with a small amount of brain damage. Teru earns his keep by keeping an eye on his grandmother's Laundromat. One day, a lovely woman named Mizue (Koyuki) comes in to do her wash, and when she leaves a garment behind, Teru runs out to return it to her. They strike up a friendship, and Teru becomes increasingly infatuated with Mizue until she abruptly moves away without warning. One day, lonely Teru sets out to find Mizue, and ends up hitching a ride with Sally (Takashi Naito), a rough-hewn type who makes his living training pigeons for wedding receptions. Sally finds a kindred spirit in Teru, and together they find Mizue. Mizue welcomes the two men into her home, and the three become inseparable, until Sally one day announces that he's getting married, leaving Mizue and Teru to decide just what sort of life they can have together. Laundry received its North American premier at the 2001 Montreal Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Edward Zwick returned to the director's chair for the first time since 1998's The Siege with this sweeping period drama set in 19th-century Japan. After centuries of relying on hired samurai for national defense, the Japanese monarchy has decided to do away with the warriors in favor of a more contemporary military. Tom Cruise stars as Nathan Algren, a veteran of the U.S. Civil War who is hired by the Emperor Meiji to train an army capable of wiping out the samurai. But when Algren is captured by the samurai and taught about their history and way of life, he finds himself conflicted over who he should be fighting alongside. Billy Connelly, Tony Goldwyn, and Ken Watanabe co-star. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi

As one of the most cutting-edge Japanese filmmakers, Kiyoshi Kurosawa once again wraps a lowbrow, much-maligned genre -- in this case horror flicks (which were the rage in Japan at the time of this release) -- around some decidedly highbrow philosophical concepts. At the film's outset, Michi (Kumiko Aso) and her cohorts at a rooftop nursery cannot get ahold of their co-worker, Taguchi (Kenji Mizuhashi), who has an important floppy disk. When she ventures over to his apartment, she finds him pale, listless, and unusually quiet -- that is until he suddenly hangs himself. While the suicide is disconcerting, what really freaks Michi out is that Taguchi's body seems to dissolve into the wall, leaving a sickly black stain. Meanwhile, college slacker Ryosuke Kawashima (Haruhiko Kato) logs onto the Internet for the first time even though he is not particularly fond of computers. Instead of stumbling into a porn site or a chat room, he finds himself in a most peculiar site -- he just sees ghostly images of other people going about their everyday life. Then the computer prompts him, asking, "Would you like to meet ghosts?" Even though he eventually pulls the plug, the machine still on occasion springs to life. He eventually consults a comely computer maven named Harue (Koyuki), who is also utterly baffled. As more and more Internet users seal themselves into their rooms with red duct tape and melt into black splotches, Kawashima and Michi independently come to discover that the Internet has become portal for an increasingly crowded afterlife. As Tokyo becomes increasingly depopulated, Kawashima and Michi cross paths. This film -- which also features cameos by Kurosawa regulars Koji Yakusho, Jun Fubuki, and Sho Aikawa -- was screened at the 2001 Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi