Mitsuhiro Oikawa Movies
- 2007
Toru Hayahi's period melodrama Oh-Oku, The Women of the Inner Palace concerns the political maneuverings of many people surrounding a five-year-old boy who becomes Shogun upon the passing of his father. The boy's mother (Haruka Igawa) becomes one of the more powerful people in the country, but the wife of the boy's father (Reiko Takahiima) learns of the mother's secret affairs and plots to expose them for all to see. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yukie Nakama, Hidetoshi Nishijima, (more)
- 2006
After being stricken with Alzheimer's disease in the prime of his life, a successful young businessman slips slowly away from his loving family in director Yukihiko Tstusumi's poignant family drama. Saeki (Ken Watanabe) is about to launch what promises to be the most successful advertising campaign in his burgeoning career. In addition to his astonishingly fast ascent up the corporate ladder, Saeki's beautiful young daughter is about to be married, and he will soon become a youthful grandfather. Though his long hours on the job always prevented Saeki from truly connecting with his family, Saeki's wife Emiko (Kenji Sakaguchi) remains staunchly committed to both their family and their relationship as husband and wife. With time fast running out for Saeki and the past gradually converging with the present in his rapidly-deteriorating mind, the unconditional love offered by his supportive family offers an intimate look into a disease that, despite it's prominence in virtually every culture, still goes largely misunderstood. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ken Watanabe, Kanako Higuchi, (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)
- 2004
Former anime director Hideaki Anno adapts Go Nagai's manga and anime character of Cutie Honey to live-action cinema in this high-energy Japanese adventure comedy. Honey Kisaargi (Eriko Sato), an android created by her scientist father, is attempting to balance her dull office job and her secret life as the constantly costume-changing, pink-clad superhero warrior of love, Cutie Honey. When the dreaded Panther Claw gang returns to create evil and steal our hero's Love System necklace, it can only be Cutie Honey to the rescue! As Honey races to save the world, she teams up with a hard-as-nails detective (Mikako Ichikawa) and a super-cool reporter (Jun Murakami) and faces off against an evil tree demon known as Sister Jill (Eisuke Sakai). Cutie Honey incorporates anime-style hand-drawn effects into the film's many special effects sequences and features a pop music score by Mikio Endo and Kumi Koda. ~ Jason Gibner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eriko Sato, Mikako Ichikawa, (more)
- 2000
The fantastically prolific Takashi Miike directs this dizzyingly stylish thriller -- one of four in the year 2000 alone -- about love, cocaine, and exile. In the film's near-wordless opening, half-Japanese Brazil Mario (Teah) wipes out a room full of his fellow criminals in a bar in Sao Paolo and then strips naked in the dust storm outside. Mario is next seen one year later rescuing his Chinese girlfriend, Kei (Michelle Reis), from being deported. The event, which involved the hijacking of a helicopter, a gun fight amid the Joshua trees of the vast Japanese desert (!), and a harrowing 80-foot leap into Tokyo's Shinjuku district, instantly becomes the stuff of legend among Japan's large and beleaguered foreign population. Desperately wanting to get out of the country, Mario and Kei get entangled with a coke deal that goes sour between Mr. Ko (Mitsuhiro Oikawa), an effete though deadly Chinese mobster with unwholesome designs on Kei, and Fushimi (Koji Kikkawa), a psychotic yakuza who brutally kidnaps a blind orphan for his own terrible ends. Kung-fu cockfights, murderous Ping-Pong matches, and religious miracles ensue. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Teah, Michelle Reis, (more)
