Yoshio Harada Movies

Director Hirokazu Kore-eda writes and directs this family drama that unfolds over the course of a single summer day as the Yokoyama family gathers for a rare reunion held to commemorate the death of the one who was taken before his time. It was 15 years ago that eldest Yokoyama son, Junpei, drowned in a tragic accident, and the only changes around the family home since that fateful day are so subtle that they're not likely to be noticed by anyone outside of the immediate family. Retired family patriarch Kyohei (Yoshio Harada) used to run a successful medical clinic out of the home, though the lights in his medical examining room haven't even been turned on in years. The tiles in the kitchen where energetic Toshiko (Kirin Kiki) cooks family meals are slowly coming loose, and as youngest son Ryota (Hiroshi Abe) arrives home, he does his best to hide the fact that he's currently unemployed. His older sister, Chinami (You), has also arrived with her family, and does her best to entertain everyone despite the undeniable cloud of melancholy hanging over the home. As the festive gathering commences and Toshiko lays out a lavish meal, it gradually becomes obvious that resentment and sorrow bonds this family as powerfully as love. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A fierce woman warrior joins a wandering demon hunter on his quest to recover the missing body parts and regain his natural form in director Akihiko Shiota's adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's popular manga of the same name. Years ago, malevolent ruler Daigo Kagemitsu promised to deliver his unborn son to the forty-eight devils of the underworld in exchange for the power to conquer his country. When his son was born with forty-eight body parts missing, Daigo knew he had gotten his wish and cast the infant child into the river. Rescued from certain death and given the name Hyakkimaru (Satoshi Tsumabuki) by a poor herb doctor, the boy was outfitted with a glass eye, fitted with artificial limbs, and raised amidst the confusion of war. Now, every time Hyakkimaru slays a demon, he regains another one of his missing body parts. One day, as Hyakkimaru does battle with a particularly fierce spider demon, a scrappy female thief named Dororo (Kou Shibasaki) takes notice and comes to his aid. Fascinated by the strange sword affixed to Hyakkimaru's artificial arm and awestruck by the fact that he somehow managed to grow a new leg after defeating the giant spider, Dororo agrees to follow Hyakkimaru on his journey after learning of his story from an ageing minstrel. But while Dororo is a fearless ally indeed, she has a troublesome habit of getting into mischief at the most awkward times. Later, as Hyakkimaru prepares to face off against his powerful father - he leaves his new friend behind in order to face his fate alone. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Visionary Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man) returns to the helm with this bleak tale of a supernaturally gifted serial killer with the power to enter his victim's dreams, and the mysterious "Nightmare Detective" who provides the only hope of loosening the maniac's murderous grip on dreamland. Detective Keiko Kirishima (Hitomi) was an academic criminologist whose interest in detective work soon found her gravitating into homicide fieldwork. Upon being assigned to investigate a recent rash of suicides in which the victims seem to have slashed themselves to death while sleeping, Keiko observes a strange connecting factor -- each victim's phone displays "0" as the last number dialed before their grisly demise. Encouraged by her superiors to view the case from a paranormal perspective, Keiko soon learns of a man named Kyoichi Kagenuma (Ryuhei Matsuda), who is said to be able to enter the dreams of others while analyzing the thoughts of his slumbering subjects. Despite his initial reluctance to get involved in the case, Kyoichi soon finds his resolve put to the ultimate test when the desperate Keiko dials "0" in a suicidal, last-ditch effort to capture the elusive killer. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Audition writer Ryu Murakami returns to shock and surprise movie lovers with this darkly satirical comedy about an absurd street war between two gangs of violent, karaoke-loving outsiders. The Gakis are a gang of young slackers whose primary passion in life is staging elaborate karaoke recreations of the nostalgic, Showa-era songs (classic hits from the 1940s to the 1980s) they grew up on. The Midoris are a group of thirty-something female divorcees who share a similar passion for classic karaoke hits, yet despite their similar interests these two crews are about to become locked on a cataclysmic collision course. When a Gaki is rejected while trying to pick up a Midori, the humiliation proves too hard to handle and he instinctively kills the woman. The Midoris quickly retaliate, and the war is on. At first both gangs rely on knives and guns to exact their vicious revenge, but before long a simple bullet just won't suffice. As the violence escalates and both gangs up the ante by securing increasingly advanced and destructive weaponry, two generations forgotten by society clash in an explosive frenzy of apocalyptic fury. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Orphaned as a little girl, Azumi (Aya Ueto) is raised in the forest with a group of ten children by their master (Yoshio Harada), who trains them to be peerless assassins. Azumi and Nachi (Shun Oguri) are the strongest of the fighters. When the group comes of age, the master gives them one final test. He tells them to team up with the person to whom they feel closest. Then he tells them to kill that person, explaining that an assassin never gets to choose whom to kill. The teens reluctantly fight to the death. Then the survivors are brought out of the woods to begin their work, assassinating the corrupt warlords who are preventing peace in the land. The assassins, particularly Azumi, perform their missions with flair, but complications arise. One of the teens (Takatoshi Kaneko) is poisoned by a ninja's blade, one (Kenji Kohashi) falls in love with a circus performer (Aya Okamoto), and Azumi begins to question her desire to live the violent life of an assassin. Meanwhile, one warlord (Naoto Takenaka) cleverly escapes their blades, and together with his bodyguard Kenbei (Kazuki Kitamura) and a "monkey-faced" ninja, Saru (Minoru Matsumoto), they find Bijomaru (Jô Odagiri from Bright Future), a violent madman, release him from prison, and unleash him upon the young team of assassins. Azumi, based on the manga by Yu Koyama, is the first of cult director Ryuhei Kitamura's (Versus) films to be made within the Japanese studio system. It was shown at the 2004 New York Asian Film Festival, presented by Subway Cinema. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Junji Sakamoto directs this taut spy thriller about the real-life abduction of Kim Dae Jung -- who would later be elected president of South Korea -- from a Tokyo hotel in 1973. Major Tomita (Koichi Sato) is a Japanese intelligence officer specializing in Korean matters. While tailing a North Korean spook, he learns that his attractive Korean teacher, Lee Jeong Mi (Yang Eun-yong), has been kidnapped by the South Korean Intelligence agency. Tomita negotiates for the freedom of Lee, who he learns was previously tortured by the same agency for protesting against strongman Park Jung Hee. Meanwhile, the Korean embassy gets the orders to kill Kim Dae Jung, known also by the codename "KT," who is living in exile in Japan. Tomita finds himself caught up in the scheme, privately realizing that the plot is wrong while participating nonetheless. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Another Heaven, a Japanese supernatural crime drama directed by Joji Iida (director of Rasen, the first Ringu sequel), begins with cops on the scene of a bizarre homicide. A young man has been killed, his neck snapped, and there is a stew cooking on the stove. When a young detective, Manabu (Yosuke Eguchi), arrives on the scene, he quickly discovers that the corpse's brain is missing, and before long, the horrified policemen realize where the brain is. Before long, more brainless victims turn up, with their brains cooking nearby, and it becomes clear to Manabu and his grizzled older colleague (Yoshio Harada) that they have a culinary-inclined serial killer on their hands. Meanwhile, Manabu is seduced by a friendly ex-con, Asako (Kunihiko Ida), but he's interested in the more refined Dr. Sasamoto (Mikako Ichikawa), who works in the police lab. The killer, a beautiful coed, goes on one last spree, and just when the police are about to track her down, she somehow switches bodies with a hapless young man. He taunts Manabu, leaving his mangled victims with dedications scrawled in blood. As Manabu struggles to unravel the mystery, he begins to suspect that one of the women he's involved with may be possessed by the killer. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Veteran actor Yoshio Harada stars as world-weary gangster Noriyasu Kunihiro in this shaded character study by way of a two-fisted yakuza drama. The film opens with Kunihiro getting out of stir and praying at the grave of his former boss. He is fed up with the mobster life and aware that another stint in jail will end with a trip to the hangman; thus, he wants to go straight. He asks his former underling (Sho Aikawa) for a job and lands one as a driver for a sauve yakuza don (Eiji Okuda). Well aware of Kunihiro's blood-soaked past as a hit man, the godfather is only making sure he hasn't lost his touch. Kunihiro gets an opportunity to prove his innate skills when he is asked to lean on a couple of debtors who are unwilling to pay. The result is violence but effective. Pleased with Kunihiro's work, the don rewards him with the company of an attractive hostess-bar piano player named Asako (Reiko Kataoka) and surprisingly they hit it off. Later, Kunihiro is dropped from the gang because of his previous violent encounter with the debtors -- bad for business, they explain. For a while, Kunihiro is a happy man with his beautiful girlfriend and his legitimate job as a printer. That is, until the gangster world beckons him again. This film was directed by former pinku eiga director Rokuro Mochizuki. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

In this international action thriller, Paul Racine (Christopher Lambert) is an American salesman with a computer firm who is in Japan on business. While spending an evening in a bar, he meets Kirina (Joan Chen), a beautiful but mysterious woman. Paul buys Kirina a drink, one thing leads to another, and he ends up spending the night with her. However, when Paul returns to her room to retrieve a set of keys he left behind, he discovers that Kirina is being murdered by Kinjo (John Lone), the master of a cult of bloodthirsty ninjas. Kinjo informs Karina that no one has ever seen his face and lived, so when Paul witnesses Kirina's execution and the face Kinjo hides behind his mask, he's a marked man. With the help of Takeda (Yoshio Harada), an experienced ninja fighter, Paul learns how to defend himself against his new adversaries as he plots a final showdown with the deadly Kinjo. The Hunted represented something of a reunion for John Lone and Joan Chen, who previously starred together in The Last Emperor. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This unfortunately titled work is a critically acclaimed look at sexual abuse, based on the real-life experiences of comic book artist Shungiku Uchida, as told in her controversial best-seller. When the young Shizuko (Mami Nakamura) learns that she is pregnant after an encounter with a classmate, her thuggish stepfather (Michio Akiyama) rapes her as punishment. Soon such abuse becomes routine, as her mother (Kaori Momoi), a vampish club singer, roils in spite: her silence allows the atrocities to continue. Shizuko begins to retreat into her own internal world, fuelling her surreal, hallucinatory cartoons. Shizuko's stepfather is portrayed as a stereotypical chauvinist autocrat who demands that the women around him service his every whim, but who also has a freakish devotion to polishing the refrigerator into a shiny white sheen. This film was directed by first-time director and long-time independent producer Genjiro Arato. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

The final film in his acclaimed Taisho trilogy, maverick filmmaker Seijun Suzuki directs his bizarre, hallucinatory tale about the tortured inner world of famed 1920s painter Yumeji Takehisa. The film opens with Takehisa (played by former rock star Kenji Sawada) at a garden party, entranced by a woman in a gloriously red kimono. He's utterly struck by her beauty and mystery, and also by the fact that she is standing on a tree branch and appears to have no face. At nights, he is plagued with dreams of dueling a faceless man in a frock. When his adversary is about to make his final lethal blow, Takehisa quickly wakes. Later, he ventures to scenic Kanazawa where he plans to meet his lover, Hikono (Masumi Miyazaki). Instead, he meets a recent widow named Tomoyo, whose husband, Wakiya (Yoshio Harada), was slain by a murderously jealous man named Onimatsu. Feeling his act of rage was justifiable considering he discovered Wakiya in bed with his wife, Onimatsu is more than a little distraught when his would-be murder victim comes back to life sporting a blonde wig. Wanting to finish the job, Onimatsu chases Wakiya, while Takehisa seduces Tomoyo. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Kazuo Kuroki's Ronin-Gai transpires during the final years of the time when samurais figured prominently in Japanese society. The title town is filled with prostitutes and samurai who have been disgraced. The hedonistic warriors are presented with the possibility of redemption when the women of the town are threatened. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide