Hiroshi Mizushima
The peaceful planet of Jillucia has been nearly wiped out by the Gavanas, whose leader takes orders from his mother rather than the Emperor. King Kaiba sends out eight Liabe holy seeds, each to be received by a chosen one to defend the Gavanas. Each recipient, ranging from hardened General Garuda to Gavana Prince Hans to young Terrans Meia, Kido, and Aaron all have different reactions to being chosen.
Following the journey of a caterpillar along the Japanese islands from Nagasaki to Hokkaido, this allegorical and oblique first feature film by Kuroki depicts in exquisite images a series of encounters and life's turning points.
Muraki, a hardboiled Yakuza gangster, has just been released from prison after serving a sentence for murder. Revisiting his old gambling haunts, he meets Saeko, a striking young upper-class woman who is out seeking thrills, and whose presence adds spice to the staid masculine underworld rituals. Muraki becomes her mentor while simultaneously coping with the shifts of power that have affected the gangs while he was interred. When he notices a rogue, drug-addicted young punk hanging around the gambling dens, he realizes that Saeko's insatiable lust for intense pleasures may be leading her to self-destruction.
Assassination begins with the events of 1853 when "four black ships" anchored at Edo Bay, sparking civil unrest and the major political manoeuvring that saw the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate. At a time when assassination had become a disturbing political tool, Shinoda's film follows Hachiro Kiyokawa, an ambitious, masterless samurai whose allegiances drift dangerously between the Shogunate and the Emperor.
Mod-sixties visuals and black humor mark this wild New Wave masterpiece about a vengeful contractor who hires a series of young killers to target a woman muckraker. Trouble brews when an amateur marksman shows up his eclectic competition.
