Rinko Kikuchi
- 2008
- PG13
- AddThe Brothers Bloomto Queue
When the younger of two notorious sibling con artists announces a plan to go legit, his brother implores him to carry out one last swindle in the eagerly anticipated sophomore feature from Brick writer/director Rian Johnson. Tired of a life on the run, a confidence man who has dedicated his life to the art of the grift decides to call it quits. Despite his plans to leave his criminal past behind, however, the reluctant scammer finds that his brother has masterminded one last scheme to claim the wealth of an eccentric millionaire (Rachel Weisz). With the opportunity to make enough money so that he would be able to live comfortably even if his legitimate endeavors fail, the heretofore unrepentant con man finds it increasingly difficult to refuse his sibling's potentially profitable endeavor. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody, (more)
The tragic aftermath of human carelessness travels around the world in this multi-narrative drama from filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu. Richard (Brad Pitt) and Susan (Cate Blanchett) are a couple from the United States who have traveled to Morocco in Northern Africa on a vacation after the death of one of their children has sent Susan into a deep depression. Richard and Susan's other two children have been left in the care of Amelia (Adriana Barraza), their housekeeper. Amelia is originally from Mexico, and her oldest son is getting married in Tijuana. Unable to find someone who can watch the kids, or to obtain permission to take the day off, Amelia takes the children with her as she travels across the border for the celebration. Around the same time, in Morocco a poor farmer buys a hunting rifle, and he gives it to his sons to scare off the predatory animals that have been thinning out their goat herd. The boys decide to test the weapon's range by shooting at a bus far away; the shot hits Susan in the shoulder, and soon she's bleeding severely, while police are convinced the attack is the work of terrorists. In Japan, Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi) is a teenage deaf-mute whose mother recently committed suicide. This despairing, confused girl experiences such rage and frustration that she causes her volleyball team to lose a match, and later yanks her underwear off and begins exposing herself to boys in a crowded restaurant. Chieko's father then struggles to reach past the emotional distance which separates him and his daughter. Babel earned Alejandro González Iñárritu the prize for Best Director at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, (more)
- 2006
Taste of Tea director Katsuhito Ishii collaborates with filmmakers Shinichiro Miki and Hajime Ishimine) for this outrageous collection of surreal, short attention span non-sequiturs largely revolving around Guitar Brother (Tadanobu Asano), his randy older sibling, and the pair's portly Caucasian brother. Dance numbers, pillow fights, animation, comedy, and science fiction all combine to create a unique and disorienting viewing experience featuring such highlights as an absurdist tribute to David Cronenberg, an ass-television, and a girl who fires lasers from her forehead in order to battle a floating space blob which emits spinning, spherical projectiles. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Susumu Terajima, Tadanobu Asano, (more)
- 2004
Filmmaker Katsuhito Ishii takes a break from the post-Tarantino excess of such highly-stylized outings as Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl for this low-key look at an eccentric family residing in a quiet countryside town just north of Tokyo. The Haruno family is a five-piece clan living the simple life in Japan. The summer sun shining gently down, this quiet quintet is transformed into a six-piece when urban-dwelling uncle Ayano (Tadanobu Asano), a successful music producer, arrives to visit his family and confront his feelings for the ex-girlfriend who married another man after Ayano moved to the city. As the lazy days pass by, each member of the family is followed in a series of episodic vignettes. Eccentric grandfather Akira (Tatsuya Gashuin) seems to reside in a wondrous universe of his own making, while imaginative mother Yoshiko (Satomi Tezuka) is attempting to re-establish herself as an anime artist and hypno-therapist father Nobou (Tomokazu Miura) practices his trade on willing family members. Meanwhile, on the youthful side of the clan, son Hajime (Takahiro Sato) attempts to get his hormones in check following the arrival of a pretty new classmate, while haunted daughter Sachiko (Maya Banno) stealthily attempts to avoid her massive doppelganger - a mysterious figure who seems to be tracing the girl's every move. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mayo Banno, Takahiro Sato, (more)
- 2004
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
- 2001
Following up on his acclaimed debut feature, Kichiku Dai Enkai -- an intense portrait of a band of 1970s radicals who descend into morass of fratricidal blood lust -- Kazuyoshi Kumakiri shifts gears completely by offering this understated romantic drama. Ichio (Takeshi Kitano regular Susumu Terajima) runs a rundown eatery on a Hokkaido highway. One day, a couple gets into a spat resulting in the guy -- an overly tanned self-satisfied clod -- hopping in his red sports car and driving off without her. The woman, Taeko (Rinko Kikuchi), returns to order a meal. When she tries to dash without paying, Ichio nabs her but lets her off with a warning. Ichio soon finds himself similarly stranded when his horseracing-mad father -- and owner of the restaurant -- swipes Ichio's car for a crazed gambling road trip with his buddies. Later that night while camping out, Taeko inadvertently burns down one of the restaurant's sheds. This time around, Ichio puts Taeko to work. Soon, in spite of themselves, a relationship is born. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Susumu Terajima
- 2000
Celebrated Japanese filmmaker Kaneto Shindo, at 88, was the world's second-oldest working director when he made this biopic of character actor Taiji Tonoyama (Portugal's Manoel de Oliveira, age 91, held the distinction of being the oldest). Tonoyama, who acted in 250 films throughout his career -- many of which were directed by Shindo -- began working as an actor in the 1950s. His first lead role was in Shindo's The Island (1960), a dialogue-free film shot while Tonoyama was suffering from cirrhosis of the liver. Despite his prolific output, the actor was more widely recognized for his off-screen activities, which included womanizing and excessive drinking. Shindo's biopic opens with Tonoyama (played by Naoto Takenaka) flirting with the 17-year-old Kimie, with whom he would maintain a relationship for the rest of his life, despite his quasi-legal marriage to wife Asako. Over the course of the film, much attention is paid to the competition between the two women, and it becomes clear that their relationship was as compelling as their respective ties to Tonoyama. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Naoto Takenaka, Hideko Yoshida, (more)
- 1999
Veteran filmmaker Kaneto Shindo, who was 86 at the time of making this film, tackles the graying of Japan's population. The film opens with Yasukichi (Rentaro Mikuni), a retired chemist who lives with his middle-aged daughter, Tokuko (Shinobu Otake), drunkenly decrying the younger generation's poor treatment of the elderly in his favorite drink hole. When the bar's matron (Naoko Otani) admonishes him for being too loud, he continues to drink and rant until he wets himself and passes out on the floor. He wakes up in a hospital, cared for by the doctor (Akira Emoto) who found him out cold in front of the bar. Yasukichi's loutish behavior suddenly changes. His daughter, however, does not buy it for a second. His drunken tirades have pushed away Tokuko's siblings and driven her to the brink of mental illness. She tells the old man that if it were up to her, she would leave him at the hospital. The clinic is not, as the doctor points out, a nursing home, and Tokuko grudgingly lets him return. Yet Yasukichi knows that an old folks home is in his future. About the same time, he becomes obsessed with the legend of Obasuteyama village near Nagano, where the elderly are supposedly left to die in the mountains. Yasukichi soon starts to see the nursing home and Obasuteyama's notorious traditions as being roughly the same. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
