Rinko Kikuchi Movies
Actress Rinko Kikuchi has been bewitching the camera with her enigmatic presence since she was a teenager, working as a model and appearing in commercials in her native Japan. Despite the demands of her education and blossoming career, Kikuchi developed tremendous skills in the arts of traditional Japanese dance and archery, as well as horseback riding and motorcycling. The well-roundedness of her life seemed to imbue her with a realness and believability, and she landed her first film role in 1999's Ikitai. Directed by veteran filmmaker Kaneto Shindo, the film followed two Japanese families along different timelines, exploring the way Japan's changing traditional values have effected family life.Kikuchi was just 18, but Shindo was so pleased with her performance that he had her return for the next year's Sanmon Yakusha, a biopic about character actor Taiji Tonoyama. The exposure was dynamite for Kikuchi, who next found a starring role in 2001's romantic drama Sora no Ana, playing a street-smart waif who unexpectedly falls in star-crossed love with a fast-food worker. Set against the backdrop of the Japanese countryside, the poignant film was a hit, garnering her a slew of supporting roles in films like 2004's Cha no Aji and 2005's Taga Tameni.
In 2004, Kikuchi found herself faced with a serious challenge as a performer. Her agent told her about the role of Chieko, a deaf, mute, and emotionally disturbed character in Alejandro González Iñárritu's upcoming film Babel. As the star of one of the film's three interconnected storylines, Kikuchi would be tackling teenage Chieko's emotional turmoil over her mother's recent suicide, her emerging sexuality, and her place in the film's overall message -- all without the use of her voice. Kikuchi was determined to win the role, and so she enrolled in a sign-language school. A year-long audition process followed, and though the film's casting agents had planned to cast an actual deaf actress, she was given the part. The young actress was placed on the Hollywood radar as soon as the film hit theaters, and she was praised for delivering compellingly raw emotions through a subtle performance, and for submerging herself completely into the role. She was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, but despite the free pass this bought her into American film, Kikuchi remained interested in both American and Japanese film, considering projects from both nations. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide
- 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
- 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)
- 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
- 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
- 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)
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)
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)
This sci-fi tinged, full-length anime feature opens on a peaceful future, where Earth has left the violent conflicts of war in the past. Human nature still craves the clash of battle, however, so private companies now stage "war as entertainment," creating fictional wars for ordinary people to read about in the paper. These companies call exclusively on the services of young people known as Kildren. One such Kildren - a young man named Yuichi - has been newly assigned to a base in the fictional war, but with no memory of his past and a mysterious woman named Suito watching his every move, Yuichi is about to find that this made-up war isn't as harmless as it seems. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rinko Kikuchi, Ryo Kase, (more)
- 2009
A hired killer makes the mistake of falling for her quarry in this stylish thriller from Spanish writer and director Isabel Coixet. Ryu (Rinko Kikuchi) is a beautiful woman who works in a fish market in Tokyo, but she also leads a secret life as a professional assassin who performs hits for high-paying clients. Ryu is approached by Ishida, an assistant to powerful businessman Mr. Nagara (Takeo Nakahara). Nagara's daughter Midori took her own life after a bad breakup with David (Sergi Lopez), a wine dealer from Spain, and Nagara believes David is responsible; Ishida, who loved Midori from afar, wants David to pay with his life. Ryu approaches David at his shop prepared to kill him, but she's immediately taken with his good looks and charm, and the two spend the night together. Ryu doesn't think she can murder David and tries to call off her assignment, but this turns out to be more difficult than she imagined. Map Of The Sounds Of Tokyo was an official selection at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rinko Kikuchi, Sergi López, (more)
