Akira Terao Movies

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

In 1994, nerve gas was released in the Japanese city of Matsumoto, which led to the death to the death of seven people and severe illness in several hundred others. In time, the attack was proved to be the work of a fanatical religious cult known as Aum Shinrikyo (who were responsible for several other terrorist attacks), but in the initial rush to determine who was the culprit, a man named Toshio Kanbe was accused by the press of the crime, and the widespread scrutiny turned his life into a shambles, even though it was later proved that he was innocent of wrongdoing. Nippon No Kuroi Natsu -- Enzai is a drama that looks at Kanbe's story, as it is researched by a pair of high school students. Makoto Sasano (Kiichi Nakai) is the producer of a popular television magazine show, News Express, who assigns three of his best reporters to cover the gas attack in Matsumoto; one of the young reporters files a story claiming that the gas in question could be easily manufactured with common ingredients, and it's discovered that Toshio Kanbe (Akira Terao), the man who first reported the gas, has most of the ingredients in his home. Kanbe vigorously proclaims his innocence, but continued reports by News Express reporter Koji (Yukiya Kitamura) call his honesty into question, even though Sasano and his staff discover that their earlier story was false and that it would be all but impossible for the gas to be produced by anyone but an expert. Nippon No Kuroi Natsu -- Enzai was screened at the 2001 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Veteran director Yoshimitsu Morita spins this romantic melodrama that was originally written by Junichi Watanabe and serialized in the Nihon Keizai Shinbum, Japan's answer to the Wall Street Journal. Kuki (Koji Yakusho) is a former magazine editor wunderkind whose star has dimmed as he slides into middle age. After corporate downsizing, he finds himself in an easily forgotten corner of a corporate conglomerate and, at home, in an increasingly chilly marriage. Rinko (Hitomi Kuroki) is an elegant calligraphy instructor who looks quite fetching in a kimono, and is similarly stuck in a nuptial dead-end. Both find solace in each other's arms, but their respective spouses are getting wise to their affair. Rinko's cheese-loving husband sics a private investigator on her, while Kuki's wife uses more intimate methods of divinating the truth. Given the forces that are pulling them apart, they resolve to take concrete measures that will insure they will be together forever. The film's ending features something rarely seen this side of a Monzaemon Chikamatsu play. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Ran is Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's reinterpretation of William Shakespeare's King Lear. The Lear counterpart is an elderly 16th-century warlord (Tatsuya Nakadai), who announces that he's about to divide his kingdom equally among his three sons. In his dotage, he falls prey to the false flattery of his treacherous sons (Akira Terao and Jinpachi Nezu), while banishing his youngest son (Daisuke Ryu), the only member of the family who loves him enough to tell him the unvarnished truth. Thanks to his foolish pride, his domain collapses under its own weight as the sons battle each other over total control. Kurosawa's first film in five years, Ran had been in the planning stages for twice that long; Kurosawa had storyboarded the project with a series of vivid color paintings that have since been published in book form in England. The battle scenes are staged with such brutal vigor that it's hard to imagine that the director was 75 years old at the time. This 160-minute historical epic won several international awards, but it was not a hit in Japan, and it would be five more years before Kurosawa would be able to finance another picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide