Shiro Sasaki Movies

Inspired by the deadly sarin gas attacks on a Tokyo subway back in 1995, director Akihiko Shiota's introspective psychological drama follows the journey of a young boy attempting to reconnect with his estranged mother and sister after a horrific terrorist attack. The Nirvana cult has committed an unspeakable act, and now that the group has been disbanded, its child members are being taken in by welfare services. Twelve-year-old Koichi (Hoshi Ishida) is just such a child. His father was a member of the Nirvana cult, and now Koichi has no one to turn to. Enraged and confused at being made a faceless ward of the state, Koichi flees from welfare services in an attempt to track down his sister, who has recently moved to Tokyo with their grandfather. Along the way, Koichi crosses paths with pretty runaway Yuki (Mitsuki Tanimura), who survives on the streets by selling her body. Though the two children are initially able to connect over the fact that they have both lost one parent and suffered terrible mistreatment at the hands of the other, Yuki's position in life gives her a kind of tentative erotic power, while Koichi's mind remains irreparably damaged due to the months of physical and mental intimidation he was forced to endure while living with the Nirvana cult. Together, these two forgotten children struggle to find their way in a society in which the weak are exploited and the vulnerable left to fend for themselves. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A violent and outrageous revenge comedy with a thoughtful undercurrent, director Lee Sang-il's Scrap Heaven opens with three characters united by fate on the same city bus: toilet cleaner Tetsu (Jô Odagiri); police department administrative assistant Kasuya (Ryo Kase), who wants to work his way up into homicide; and pharmaceutical company employee Saki (Chiaki Kuriyama). The three strangers have ostensibly no connection to one another, save a shared presence on the bus one fateful night -- the night that a political secretary goes completely psychotic and decides to take the three passengers, at random, as hostages. He strong-arms the three into violent and sadistic mind games, including lethal versions of Rock, Paper, Scissors and Russian roulette. The perpetrator inflicts Kasuya with deep-seated psychological scars and shoots Tetsu, pushing the man to the brink of death. The gunman then turns the weapon on himself. Months later, Kasuya meets up with Tetsu once again, and saves him from a potentially lethal act of violence. The two men subsequently join forces and devise a wild plan to set up a revenge-for-hire business, designed to "right wrongs" for victimized persons. In the mean time, Saki is pouring all of her time and energy into the construction of a liquid bomb -- a project that threatens to invite further destruction. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Mugen and Jin may both be warriors but that is where their similarities end. Mugen is an unshaved, unwashed, sarcastic opportunist who looks like a slam-dancer when he fights. Jin is a solemn, traditional samurai who fights with quick, quiet grace. These two fighters would like nothing more than to fight to the death but after a surprise rescue from execution by a flighty waitress named Fuu, the two agree to stave off killing each other long enough to return the favor by helping her find her mysterious "samurai who smells of sunflowers." Samurai Champloo marks Shinichiro Watanabe's first full-series directorial follow up to his 1998 hit series Cowboy Bebop. The show features the same trademark use of slick, dry humor and stylistic musical themes except this time, the music is hip-hop rather than jazz. The rap theme pulls this anime out of the traditional samurai genre, exploring a wild new take on old ideas. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide

Tales of a missing girl returned to her family years after being kidnapped flood the news. Yuichiro (Ryo Kase), a college student, returns home one day to find his little brother, Yuya (Daisuke Kizaki), sleeping on his doorstep. Yuya has come to tell Yuichiro that Marie will be coming home soon. Marie is Yuichiro's little sister who disappeared when they were both young children. The entire family was devastated. Mother (Megumi Asaoka) essentially went mad, calling in psychics and Feng Shui experts, and turning to religion in a desperate effort to find Marie, while Yuichiro's uncle, who lived with the family, committed suicide, and his father died shortly thereafter. Yuichiro returns home, where he learns that his mother has forced his little brother Yuya, who feels a mystical bond with the missing girl, to take the place of Marie, even wearing her clothes. Yuichiro decides to hire a psychic investigator, Soma (composer Ryudo Uzaki), who sees a strange connection between Marie's disappearance and the big power antenna near the family's home. Meanwhile, ostensibly doing "research" for a paper, Yuichiro goes to visit Naomi (Akemi Kobayashi), a dominatrix. He soon becomes obsessed with her and her abuse, lovingly meted out; it helps him uncover the emotional trauma of his own involvement with Marie's disappearance. Antenna is based on a popular novel by Randy Taguchi. The film was directed by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri and had its U.S. premiere at Subway Cinema's 2004 New York Asian Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

In this tender made-for-TV drama, four children are effectively orphaned when they are deserted by their mother. With nowhere else to go but some institution, the kids manage to locate their estranged grandmother. A bitter, and seemingly cold-hearted loner, the woman reluctantly takes the waifs into her farmhouse. They then do their very best to ingratiate themselves and make her love them. Unfortunately, this grandmother has a very tough outer shell and it will take plenty of hard work on the part of the kids. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Among the few topics that can move the Japanese population to anger or tears, director Toshiharu Ikeda has chosen a nuclear power plant and its supporters as the targets for this violent, softcore film. Guaranteed a sympathetic audience from the beginning, Ikeda has the pro-nuclear bosses and underlings kill off the husband of Migiwa Saeki (Mari Shirato) and throw his body into the sea. Migiwa is a feisty and sexually liberated woman who once she learns the truth, transmogrifies into a killing machine. As in many other films of this genre, the storyline is not much more than a hiatus between violent and sexually explicit scenes. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A group of old men take over an empty house and proclaim it to be a new "country" they have founded, called Yama. ("Yamato" is one of the oldest names for Japan, "yama" itself means "mountain.") The men basically refuse to be thrown out of this domicile by some gangsters, and they are successful for several months. Their resistance started on December 8th, the date Pearl Harbor was bombed (not the 7th because one crosses the International Date Line and gains a day while heading west from the U.S.) and lasts until August 15th, the date when Japan officially surrendered at the end of World War II. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Like in the 1940 film Turnabout by director Hal Roach, based on the book by Thorne Smith, a man and woman magically switch gender in Tenkosei ("Transfer Student"). Kazuo (Toshinori Omi) and Kazumi (Satomi Kobayashi) are high school students whose "souls" accidentally switch bodies, causing all number of misunderstandings that play out for most of the film. Kazuo in a female body, forgets to put the upper half of his swimsuit on while Kazumi in her male form, punches out a bully. Before things get too confusing, the two hope that they will be able to switch back again. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In 1978 an Osaka bank was held under siege for 40 hours by a thief, until he was killed by the police -- the entire event televised live. Using that drama as a springboard for this film, director Toshiaki Takahashi and writer Takuya Nishioka worked backwards from the death of the thief to how he reached his ill-fated end. Ryudo Uzaki plays Akio Takeda, the eventual petty criminal who was warped early on by an inadequate father. Already slipping into crime as a potential career when still a teenager, Takeda determines that he will do something "really big" before the age of 30. As a first step, he changes his appearance: he gets a tattoo (identifying him as a possible yakusha,) gets an Afro, and starts work as a waiter/bartender in a "hostess" club in Osaka. Soon Takeda is managing the club and having an affair with its most popular woman -- but this is not the goal he had in mind a decade earlier. And so he plans the Osaka bank robbery -- making more than one fatal mistake before his last act, convinced that a tattoo, a haircut, and an attitude are all he needs to succeed. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The underbelly of Japanese society just sagged a little lower in this action-thriller that rockets from one violent gang fight to another, splashing blood and guts and body parts across the screen like an electric mixer gone mad. The plot can no more be pieced back together as any of the victims in the battles between rival gangs -- almost too numerous to count. The night clubs in the Kita district of Osaka are under contention -- and are ultimately controlled by the Ryujin-kai, working out of Kobe, a famous port city, and not controlled by the Hokushin Domei, which run the district but are subordinate to the Ryujin-kai. That is simple, considering that the Hokushin Domei also have a Somezaki branch whose head is Jo Kosho, and their enemies are the Piisu-kai, including some previously Hopu-kai gang members, and the Piisu-kai are ready to take on the Hokushin Domei, which by this time, has changed its name to Umeda-kai, also known as Gaki Teikoku. One can hardly wait for the sequel -- unless it is already buried in there, somewhere. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide