easternKicks.com – how do you get yours?

From 10 February to 28 March 2012, the Japan Foundation will be touring major cities around the UK with a programme of contemporary Japanese films. This year the focus will be on auteurs such as Masayuki Suo (I Just Didn’t Do It) and Miwa Nishikawa (Dear Doctor).

Other films will include Takatsugu Naito’s The Dark Harbour, Katsumi Sakaguchi’s Sleep, Kenji Uchida’s A Stranger of Mine and Yoji Yamada’s About Her Brother. Venues will include ICA in London from 10 February, Queen’s Film Theatre in Belfast from 2 March and Watershed in Bristol from 14 March.

» You can find out more from Japan Foundation’s official touring programme site.

It’s a secret, but… well, Adam Torel, MD of Third Window Films, regularly holds a special meet up to present some of his favourite films, which often have not been seen in the UK whether on screen or DVD.

The next meet up, will feature just such a movie, though the title will be a secret till it starts. It takes place on the evening of 13 February at Roxy Bar & Screen, Borough High Street, London, where they also have a great selection of delicious pub food.

Find out more and sign up to the group here.

We’ve been here before, but was the latest manga to become a live-action franchise worth the wait?… (more…)

Moe, singing, schoolgirls – if moe’s not your thing, run away now…!
(more…)

Hayao Miyazaki and team sprinkle a little Studio Ghibli magic on Mary Norton’s much-loved children’s book The Borrowers… (more…)

Cute CGI animated bugs and ultra slushy romantic tale, just who could Jacob Cheung’s (Battle Of Wits) latest be aimed at other than pre-pubescent girls…? (more…)

Studio Ghibli’s marvellous Arrietty is released today on Blu-ray, DVD and a Deluxe Collector’s Double Play edition with 5 postcards by StudioCanal UK (formally Optimum Releasing) . A real return to form after the likeable but not quite classic Ponyo and disastrous Tales Of Earthsea, Ghibli head Hayao Miyazaki worked on the screenplay from Mary Norton’s much-loved children’s story, creating something really special with Hiromasa Yonebayashi taking the helm on directing.

All versions come with these extras: storyboards; trailers and japanese tv spots; interviews with Hayao Miyazaki and Hiromasa Yonebayashi; and Cecile Corbel “Arrietty’s Song” promotional video.

The slow and painful path to salvation for a hikkikomori…
(more…)

Critically acclaimed and on UK DVD at last, Lee Sang-il’s (Hula Girls) complex portrayal of grief and murder where nothing is black and white… (more…)

The ongoing We Love Amine festival makes its way to The Ritzy tomorrow, 26 November, including screenings of Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva; Mardock Scramble: 1st Compression & 2nd Combustion, about a 15 year-old girl who is given the choice of living as a cyborg to help investigate the men who tried to kill her; and Tekken Blood Vengeance 3D, focusing on the hunt for a missing student, Shin Kamiya, the sole survivor of a twisted experiment to unlock the secrets of eternal youth.

You can find out more about the films and book from the following links:

» Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva

» Mardock Scramble: 1st Compression & 2nd Combustion

» Tekken Blood Vengeance 3D

Premiere Japan begins tomorrow and runs to Sunday, moving venue to the Barbican for it’s seventh year.

the weekend of new Japanese cinema proves to be as good as ever, opening with Locarno International Film Festival winner Tokyo Park (Tokyo Koen), by director Aoyama Shinji on Friday 25 November. On Saturday 26th, Sketch Of Mujo (Mujo Sobyo) by Omiya Koichi is a sensitive documentary, the first to be made shortly after the massive earthquake which hit the north-east of Japan in March. Yazaki Hitoshi’s look at the fragility of relationships in Sweet Little Lies (Suiito Ritoru Raizu) is the film adaptation of a recent best-selling novel of the same name. Fresh from London Film Festival, My Back Page (Mai Bakku Peeji) by Yamashita Nobuhiro recreates the political turmoil of Tokyo in the late 1960s. Sunday 27th starts with Legend Of The Millennium Dragon (Onigamiden), a fantasy anime of the battle between humans and demons set in mediaeval Japan and finishing with the family drama, A Man With Style (Azemichi Do Dandi) by the young director Ishii Yuya.

This year, each screening is preceded by a short film chosen from submissions made by students, both Japanese and non-Japanese, and the University of the Arts London. (Interestingly not too unlike the competition the London Korean Film Festival ran this year, hmmmm?)

Premiere Japan 2011 is presented by the Embassy of Japan, in cooporation with the Barbican Centre and with kind support from the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and the University of the Arts London. Films selected by Tony Rayns, Alexander Jacoby and Rayna Denison.

You can book tickets on the Barbican site.

A world without Haruhi is not a world in which I want to live… (more…)

A frankly commercial endeavour, that manages nonetheless to hook you
in… (more…)

Dignified demonic butler, shotacon-bait main character, Gothic atmospheres, Victorian London. There should be enough for everyone, right?… (more…)

We take a look at the latest version of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. This time with barely-clad high school girls – hang on, say what?… (more…)

The likeable OVA series designed by Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira, Memories) and co-written by Katsuhiko Chiba (Blue Dragon, Slayers), Yuuichi Nomura (Xam’d: Lost Memories) and Dai Sato (Casshern, Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex) finally makes it onto UK DVD and Blu-ray, but are we on too familiar ground?… (more…)