Yuki Tanada Movies
- 2008
A young woman has to choose between money, love and freedom in this comedy-drama from Japan. Suzuko (Yu Aoi) is twenty-one years old and has served a short sentence in jail after her co-workers caught her conducting some extra-legal business. Deciding a change of locale is in order, Suzuko moves out of her parents' home and begins holding down a series of odd jobs, determined to travel to greener pastures as soon as she saves up one million yen (roughly $9,500). After delivering newspapers and working as a cleaning lady, Suzuko ends up at a resort hotel, where she hires on with the staff. Suzuko strikes up a romance with a young man living nearby, but with her bank account nearing seven figures, she decides she must stay true to her original plan and hits the road, making her way to the mountains where she happens upon a peach farm. Suzuko is welcomed by the farmers and is offered a job as a "Peach Girl," helping to promote their crops in stores. Suzuko's bankroll begins to grow again until her new employers learn that she's done time in jail. Hyakuman Yen To Nigamushi Onna (aka The Million Yen Girl) received its world premiere at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yu Aoi, Mirai Moriyama, (more)
- 2007
Mika Ninagawa's lavishly produced, broadly-scaled period epic Sakuran unfurls in 18th century Edo, the embryonic fishing village that in later years blossomed into the Japanese metropolis of Tokyo. Anna Tsuchiya stars as Kiyoha, a social-climbing courtesan who inhabits and works in a bordello of the exclusive Yoshiwara district. Exceptionally particular regarding her customers/bedmates, Kiyoha seeks liberation from the lifestyle and career that have ensconced her - but refuses to accept such emancipation at the hands of a rich man's purchase. Deliberately, yet with great assurance and conviction, Kiyoha approaches the prospect of freedom and attempts to surmount the social and cultural obstacles that stand in her way. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anna Tsuchiya, Kippei Narimiya, (more)
