Hidetoshi Nishijima Movies

Director Hajime Kadoi examines the humanity of the folks whose job it is to serve and honor the law with this compassion drama concerning a middle-aged prison guard who is called on to assist a condemned prisoner in his final moments. Adapted from the novel by Akira Yoshimura, Vacation tells the story of Hirai (Kaoru Kobayashi). A solitary figure at work, where he tends to model death row inmate Kaneda (Hidetoshi Nishijima), Hirai is engaged to marry single mother Mika (Nene Ohtsuka). Unfortunately for the soon-to-be-married couple, Hirai's job as a prison guard doesn't permit him the luxury of planning a proper honeymoon. An unanticipated opportunity for a week off of work soon arrives, however, when the minister of justice signs Kaneda's execution warrant. There's no doubt that Hirai could use a break, if not just for his honeymoon than to try and mend bridges with his future stepson, but that reprieve comes at a particularly high price. Kaneda is preparing to meet his executioner, and it's Hirai's job to ensure that the condemned man is treated with dignity and humanity in his final moments. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A nebbishy author finds his career is taking an unexpected detour into sex in this comedy from Japan. Ben Makiguri (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is a middle-aged writer whose most recent project has been turned down by his publisher, forcing him to move into a dingy apartment in a run-down building. One evening, Ben heads out to a bathhouse to relax and clear his mind, but en route he meets a friendly woman and is pleasantly surprised to find she wants to sleep with him. Ben's good fortune turns sour when he discovers someone broke into his flat while he was gone, and while he can't find anything missing, holes have been drilled into his walls that allow him to peek into the apartments of two of his neighbors. When a pair of tabloid reporters stop by to do a story on Ben's unusual situation, they put him in contact with the editor of a pornographic magazine who is willing to pay for fresh erotic fiction. Writing about sex hardly comes naturally to Ben, but after a mysterious peddler selling strange potions stops by the building, Ben's neighbors are suddenly providing all the raw material he needs. Makiguri no ana (aka Peeping Tom) was adapted by filmmaker Yoshihiro Fukagawa from the novel Hole by Akiko Yamamoto. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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, Rovi

Master filmmaker Takeshi Kitano returns behind the camera for the first time since his indifferently received English-language effort Brother (2000) with this operatic tale of lost love. Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif -- specifically, the kind practiced in Bunraku doll theater performances -- opening each section of his film with a story provided by the puppets and their masters, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and Sawako (Miho Kanno), a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter. He initially agrees, causing the unstable Sawako to be committed to a psychiatric hospital. When he leaves his new bride at the altar to save Sawako, however, he realizes that she's so incapable of caring for herself that she needs to be tied to him with a red rope. Inextricably bound, the two wander through Japan, encountering others along the way who have similarly overlooked love for other, more fleeting pleasures: fame, power, money. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi

In a departure from his acclaimed horror films Cure (1997) and Charisma (1998), Kiyoshi Kurosawa's License to Live is a gentle family melodrama that doubles as a meditation on personal identity. The film focuses on Yutaka (Hidetoshi Nishijima), the victim of an ugly car accident who suddenly wakes up from a 10-year coma. He soon discovers that his world has been turned upside-down in the intervening years. His formerly close-knit family has parted ways and his family home has been turned into a low-rent fish farm and industrial dumping ground by Fujimoto (Koji Yakusho), a gruff huckster friend of his father. Though Yutaka moves back into his family home, he is left feeling confused and unsettled, helped only by Fujimoto, who reluctantly serves as pseudo-father. Yutaka tries to pick up where he left off, but his attempts at meeting old friends and family members leave him feeling only more isolated. In a last-ditch attempt to reclaim his past, he reopens the pony ranch run by his financially incompetent father when he was a child. For a time, his mother Sachiko (Lily) and his sister Chizuru (Kumiko Asou) return to the homestead, and a semblance of the old family begins to cohere -- until a surprising, emotional twist forces Yutaka to realize that he must move on. As in his other films, Kurosawa couches metaphysical themes of identity and mortality in an engaging genre vehicle. Yet this work displays a strikingly minimalist style and a deft use of mood and pacing that point toward a greater maturity. This film was screened at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival as part of the Director's Spotlight. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi