Shinobu Otake Movies
- 2007
A troubled woman must confront the madness in others in this offbeat Japanese comedy-drama. Asuka Sakura (Yuki Uchida) is a writer who has enjoyed some success as a magazine reporter, but the stress and long hours of her work has caused her to become dependent on drugs and she's physically and emotionally worn to a frazzle. One day, Asuka awakes to discover she's in a psychiatric hospital after spending two days in a coma; her boyfriend, a television presenter named Tetsuo (Kudo Kankuro), is convinced her accidental overdose was really a suicide attempt, and he's had her committed for observation, even though he's clearly more disturbed than she is. As Asuka struggles to detox and regain her stability, she has to deal with the often-difficult personalities of her fellow patients, ranging from a former porn star with a gift for smuggling forbidden goods into the hospital to a gifted pianist with an eating disorder and a profound fear of open spaces. Kuwaieto rumo ni yokoso (aka Welcome To The Quiet Room was written and directed by Matsuo Suzuki, whose screenplay was based on his own novel. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yuki Uchida, Kankuro Kudo, (more)
- 2007
The new kid in town finds his new friends might know something his father doesn't in this playful comedy from Japanese filmmaker Isao Yukisada. Ryunosuke Kusunoki (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a boy from Tokyo who moves with his family to a farming community in Hokkaido province, where he soon finds he doesn't fit in. Ryunosuke's difficulties with his new school mates isn't helped by the fact his father (Tomokazu Miura) is a government functionary who has come to persuade a handful of farmers to sell their land so that a new airport can be built. Ryunosuke's father isn't the first man to try to get the local farmers to sell their land, and the landowners don't regard him with any greater friendliness than they did his predecessors. Ryunosuke is frequently taunted by Kohei Tsuchida (Yuma Sasano), whose father is a scientist and the leader of the local opposition to the new airport, but while their parents are increasingly at odds, Ryunosuke and Kohei strike up a friendship through their shared love of pranks. As Ryunosuke slowly begins to enjoy his new environment and the joyously eccentric community around him, he finds he can no longer support his father's desire to tear up the countryside in the name of air transportation. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ryunosuke Kamiki, Suzuka Ohgo, (more)
- 2003
Yoshimitsu Morita's comedy drama Ashura No Gotoku (Like Ashura) tells the story of what happens to four sisters when they discover a secret their father has been keeping. The film opens with third sister Takiko (Eri Fukatsu) revealing to the others that dad has been having an affair that has produced an illegitimate child. While all the women react in their own way, each has also been keeping secrets. Takiko becomes involved with the private eye she hired to snoop on her father. Tsunako (Shinobu Otake), the oldest, is a widow who has been carrying on with a married man. Second oldest Makiko (Hitomi Kuroki) is too dense to see that her husband has been cheating on her. The situation grows more complicated when a mysterious letter that may have been written by one of the sisters is printed in the newspaper. Like Ashura was screened at the 2003 Montreal World Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shinobu Otake, Hitomi Kuroki, (more)
- 2002
Isao Yukisada spins this gritty coming-of-age tale about Sugihara (Yosuke Kubozuka), a Japanese-born, third-generation Korean who struggles to find a place in a society that will not accept him. The film begins with Sugihara studying at a Korean junior high school that is dedicated to memory of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. His father (Tsutomu Yamazaki) is a grizzled ex-boxer who recently changed his citizenship from North to South Korea so he and his wife -- Sugihara's mom (Shinobu Otake) -- could visit Hawaii. Though his father regularly gets drunk and thrashes him, he also taught Sugihara the finer point of the sweet science. At one point in the film, Sugihara takes out an entire basketball team that was bent on taking him out. Upon graduation, Sugihara enters a normal Japanese high school where he meets and soon falls for Sakurai (Kou Shibasaski) -- a loose-sock copper-haired damsel who is attracted to Sugihara's restless spirit. As the film progresses, Sugihara desperately struggles to throw off the stigma of his ethnicity and live a quiet, successful life. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yosuke Kubozuka, Kou Shibasaki, (more)
- 2001
Hideaki Anno, who previously made his name creating cutting-edge animated films, moves further into the real world in this, his second live-action feature. A filmmaker (Shunji Iwai) recording the world around him with his video camera and an eccentric young woman (Ayako Fujitani) with a remarkable collection of umbrellas are trying to work their way out of a collective emotional funk. The girl has a habit of saying "Tomorrow is my birthday" every morning, and has developed an odd premonition -- she's convinced that as soon as one of her dreams becomes a reality, she will cease to exist. Shunji Iwai, who plays the filmmaker in Shiki-jitsu, came by the role naturally -- he's directed several features and is considered one of Japan's finest independent filmmakers. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shunji Iwai, Ayako Fujitani, (more)
- 1999
Japanese '60s icon Ken Takakura stars in this beautifully photographed film about an aging railroad conductor. Sato Otomatsu (Takakura) devoted his life to making the trains run promptly in the formerly prosperous mining town of Horomai. When his colleague informs him that the unprofitable line is being closed, he reminiscences on how his workaholic ways robbed him of his personal life. Because of work, he missed the deaths of his wife and only daughter. When an enigmatic high school girl with a passion for railroads pays him a visit, his life changes in unanticipated ways. Takakura received a Best Actor award at the 1999 Montreal Film Festival for this film. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ken Takakura, Nenji Kobayashi, (more)
- 1996
Following up on his 1995 violent crime-thriller Gonin, Tadashi Ishii adds sex into two-fisted mix of action and bloodlust: instead of a quintet of disenfranchised guys, this go-around features five very angry women. Small factory owner Masamichi Toyama (Ken Ogata) is deeply in debt to the local yakuza. One night, while returning from buying his wife a birthday present, he comes home to find the mobsters demanding payment. They rape his wife and beat him as a warning. The incident drives his wife over the edge: she frantically starts looking for the lost birthday present and then that night hangs herself. Like in the first movie, Toyama sets out to strike bloody revenge against the yakuza office. Meanwhile, the film catches up with four women in similarly desperate straits: Ran (Kimiko Yo), an out of work former owner of a fitness club; Sayuri (Shinobu Otake), an aging hooker with few prospects; Shiho, a housewife who just discovered her husband in mid-philander; and Saki, a low-rung corporate drone who is still traumatized by memories of a childhood rape. The four find themselves in the midst of a daylight robbery of a high-end jewelry store. While the ski-masked thieves busy themselves with grabbing as much loot as possible, the office worker zaps one with a tazer while the housewife bashes another on the head. Chaos breaks out and soon the four, along with a store saleswoman (Mai Kitajima), are fleeing place with jewels in hand. Having laid waste to the Mob lair and still brandishing a bloodied weapon, Toyama staggers to the store, looking to buy his dead wife the diamond ring she longed for, only to get swept up in the melee. Soon Toyama and the five women are fending off vengeful yakuza and enraged jewel thieves. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- 1983
Based on an originally banned book by the surgeon Takashi Nagai, who died of radiation sickness in 1951 after witnessing the bomb blast in Nagasaki, this film is told from the perspective of his son, memories recalled while he is on a plane coming home from a conference. He remembers how his father was himself fighting leukemia and the effects of radiation as he treated radiation victims and how his mother also died, leaving both her children in the care of their grandmother. Nagai's son becomes a journalist, and when filing reports from battlefields around the globe, expresses his relief that no atomic weapons were ever used again. Some western wags will criticize this film as dwelling too much on the suffering of the Japanese people, but the magnitude of the suffering involved is more than most people can comprehend. A more enlightened criticism might be the omission here of Japan's own treatment of the radiation victims, many of whom have been ostracized from the rest of society due to ignorance and prejudice, and since their exposure to radiation usually causes birth defects or other health problems in their children, the stigma and illnesses continue into the next few generations. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Go Kato, Yukiyo Toake, (more)
- 1979
The story of a young woman in the early 1900s who is abused and living in poverty while being overworked in a silk mill in Japan. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide
