Rinko Kikuchi
A first-hand account of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat following Jake Adelstein, an American journalist who embeds himself into the Tokyo Vice police squad to reveal corruption. Based on Jake Adelstein’s non-fiction book of the same name.
Their parents are dead. They should be sad, but they can't cry. So they form a kick-ass band. This is the story of four 13-year-olds in search of their emotions.
Kisaragi Toko is a detective in the Investigation 1 Section 11 of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Her senior, Detective Hideaki Takano, has decided to move to the Public Security Bureau. Hideaki Takano’s transfer will be carried out in 1 week. During this time, a murder takes place. A wealthy man is found dead in his home. His throat has been cut and a blue flower placed within the wound. Also, the victim's wife Mayumi is missing. A newspaper then receives an email from Kurasuta 16, professing themselves as the murderer. The email also implies the location of Mayumi. Since Detective Hideaki Takano is soon to transfer to the Public Security Bureau, Toko Kisaragi feels more pressure and responsibility to solve the crime.
Seemingly perfect from the outside, Shinkai Akira was exhausted from worrying too much about how to be perfect. Nemoto Kousei is amicable and popular with women, but he trusts no one and views everything with a cold heart. The two of them, who became unable to live instinctively like animals, meet by chance at a craft beer bar after work and gradually become close enough to fight and tell each other how they really feel. Due to their encounter, even while getting hurt, they begin to try to be themselves and start taking a step forward.
It has been ten years since The Battle of the Breach and the oceans are still, but restless. Vindicated by the victory at the Breach, the Jaeger program has evolved into the most powerful global defense force in human history. The PPDC now calls upon the best and brightest to rise up and become the next generation of heroes when the Kaiju threat returns.
Etsuko (Rinko Kikuchi) was given the post to take charge in the launch of a web media site which specifically deals with the theme “the streets and the town of Tokyo”. So her recent daily routine was to walk around town searching for materials that may be suitable for the plan. One day she runs into a sake barrel stacked in a shrine in Kagurazaka (Shinjuku District, Tokyo), and she finds herself immediately interested in sake and it’s history with the Kagurazaka area. She decides to do a research, and calls photographer and long time friend Ikeda (Yota Kawase), and starts her quest for the secret of the fascinating sake and the historical town. For Etsuko, who had been stressed out by her busy work, her idea of gathering interesting informations and meeting people for her job turned out becoming an exciting journey which eventually leads Etsuko to reconcile with her peaceful heart and mind, which had always been her nature.
In a distant future, humans make the switch to android life. They abolish 'flaws' such as complicated human needs and traits such as the ability to possess and express emotion. However, a system glitch causes 'desire' to resurface in some, including Kai (Rinko Kikuchi; Pacific Rim, Babel), an android shoe-maker. Kai begins to feel an obsession with her craft, like what human beings used to have. One day, an android customer orders Kai to create a special pair of heels. Shut in the atelier, Kai remakes the shoes over and over again until it's perfect. When the customer returns, Kai finds out that one shoe doesn't quite fit. But just as Kai promised to put more work into the pair of shoes, another customer comes to demand her own special pair too.
With the space program attempting to travel to Mars, 21st century scientists were tasked with warming up the planet so that humans could survive on its surface. They came up with an efficient and cost effective plan of sending cockroaches and mold to the surface so that the mold would absorb the sunlight and the insect corpses would serve as a food source for the mold. It is now the year 2577 and the first manned ship to Mars has landed on the planet and the six crew members are ready for their mission. But what they find are giant mutated humanoid cockroaches with incredible physical strength. The crew members are easily wiped out, but not before sending a transmission back to Earth. Now, humanity will send elite warriors to exterminate the mutated bugs and claim back Mars.
13 years ago, the Abe family moved to a town in the suburbs, surrounded by nature. The Abe family consists of their French father Toma (De Lencquesaing Nozomi), his Japanese wife Mikiko (Rinko Kikuchi) and their beautiful daughter Yuko (Kanon Tani). They appear like the perfect family. Mikiko managed to get her daughter Yuko to take part in a CM audition and she was picked by Murano (Joe Odagiri), director of the advertising agency. Yuko is now in show business. Several years later, Yuko (Nana Komatsu) transfers to a large entertainment company. As her mother wishes, Yuko is now popular and appears on the cover of magazines, variety shows and drama series. Yuko, though, feels an uncomfortable imbalance between her public image and her real self. During this time, she meets a dancer, Seiko (Mackenyu), who marches to the beat of his own drum, and falls in love with him. The nightmare begins.
Ellesmere Island, northern Canada, 1908. Josephine, a brave but naive woman, embarks on a dangerous journey through inhospitable regions in search of her husband, the explorer Robert Peary, who tries to find a route to the North Pole.
Frustrated with her mundane life, a Tokyo office worker becomes obsessed with a fictional movie that she mistakes for a documentary. Fixating on a scene where stolen cash is buried in North Dakota, she travels to America to find it.
A yacht lies at anchor in a bay off the Sicilian coast. Naomi, a young Japanese woman, has four days to leave her son with a lasting memory of her before she loses custody of him forever. In this hostile environment, Naomi faces the difficulty of approaching Ken under the controlling glare of the crew. When Naomi's hopes seem lost Ken starts to take an interest in her. Timeless days magnify the weight of their last goodbye.
Kai—an outcast—joins Oishi, the leader of 47 outcast samurai. Together they seek vengeance upon the treacherous overlord who killed their master and banished their kind. To restore honour to their homeland, the warriors embark upon a quest that challenges them with a series of trials that would destroy ordinary warriors.
When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity's resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes—a washed-up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi)—who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind's last hope against the mounting apocalypse.
In the translucent LA dusk we discover four women living very different lives. The camera follows each as they wind down their working days, their four stories weaving together as each prepares for their evening.
Settle into your chair and be transported to a place both familiar and alien; where a giant shop-girl can barely fit in her store, there's a weird green pod in every bedroom, and terrifying wood nymphs provide a heartbroken woman with the anatomically correct fruit everyone seems to covet. In the end we are left, like Alice, with the Red King's conundrum: are we dreaming them or are they dreaming us?
A samurai Sakunosuke gets an order from clan chamberlain to kill another samurai who is married with his own younger sister. As a loyal samurai he has to accept the mission even though he has inner conflicts.
Set one year after the drama series "Moteki." 31-year-old Yukiyo Fujimoto (Mirai Moriyama) doesn't have money, dreams or a girlfriend. He has left his job at a staffing firm and is attempting to start a new life by working as a writer for a news site. Suddenly, Yukiyo experiences "moteki" - a period when a man becomes suddenly popular with woman. Cute magazine editor Miyuki (Masami Nagasawa), pure and naive office worker Rumiko (Kumiko Aso), beautiful shop assistant Ai (Riisa Naka) and beautiful, but tough co-worker named Motoko (Yoko Maki) all become interested in Yukiyo. He tries to calm down, but is shaken by the interests of these women.
Moriyama plays a temp worker who has never had any luck with women. One day, he suddenly starts getting invitations from several beautiful women, and he finds himself confused about how to deal with this new experience of having a "moteki" (a period when one is very popular and attractive to others).
Set in the 1960s, high school student Toru Watanabe loses his only friend Kizuki after he commits suicide. Toru, now looking for a new life, enters a university in Tokyo. By chance, Toru meets Kizuki's ex-girlfriend Naoko in the university. They grow close because they both share the same loss. As Toru and Naoko grow even closer, Naoko's sense of loss also grows. After Naoko's 20th birthday, she leaves for a sanitarium in Kyoto. Watanabe, devastated by the situation, meets pure-hearted Midori during the spring semester. Midori looks like a small animal that just came into the world ...
Three women and one man - with an assortment of weaponry - wage war against giant mutant sandwhales in a barren digital landscape, all to achieve points within the virtual reality video game called Avalon.
Sideways A heartwarming tale of two old friends, on a journey to rediscover their friendship, life and themselves. Michio (Fumio Kohinata) a struggling, middleaged scriptwriter, who returns to the US to attend the wedding of his best friend. Daisuke (Katsuhisa Namase), who stayed in the California after college, had a brief stint of fame as Captain Ninja, a childrens action hero now manages a restaurant Together, they venture out on a weeklong road trip, ending up in the Napa Valley, where they serendipitously meet up with an old heart throb Mayuko (Kyoka Suzuki), whom Michio tutored during his exchange student days 20 years past, and her free spirited friend Mina (Rinko Kikuchi) raised in America. Michio under the impression that they were going wine tasting, soon discovers that Daisuke has ulterior motives for this last hurrah as a bachelor.
Four segments by four different Directors. Kiriko (Takanori Tsujimoto), The Children’s Samurai (Kenta Fukasaku), The Firing Range (Makoto Tahara), and Assault Girl 2 (Mamoru Oshii). Kiriko: the spirit of a murdered assassin takes revenge on the gang that killed her and her sister. Children's Samurai: an educational film narrates the like of a modern grade-school samurai dealing with bullies. Firing Range: the rifle of a Meiji Era soldier and the pistol of a modern police officer are transformed into powerful new weapons when they face off. Assault Girl 2: two guardian angels duel in a wheat field.
Youngsters called Kildren, who are destined to live eternally in their adolescence. The Kildren are conscious that every day could be the last, because they fight a war as entertainment, organized and operated by adults. But as they embrace the reality they are faced with, they live their day-to-day lives to the full.
The Brothers Bloom are the best con men in the world, swindling millionaires with complex scenarios of lust and intrigue. Now they've decided to take on one last job – showing a beautiful and eccentric heiress the time of her life with a romantic adventure that takes them around the world.
The seven short films making up GENIUS PARTY couldn’t be more diverse, linked only by a high standard of quality and inspiration. Atsuko Fukushima’s intro piece is a fantastic abstraction to soak up with the eyes. Masaaki Yuasa, of MIND GAME and CAT SOUP fame, brings his distinctive and deceptively simple graphic style and dream-state logic to the table with “Happy Machine,” his spin on a child’s earliest year. Shinji Kimura’s spookier “Deathtic 4,” meanwhile, seems to tap into the creepier corners of a child’s imagination and open up a toybox full of dark delights. Hideki Futamura’s “Limit Cycle” conjures up a vision of virtual reality, while Yuji Fukuyama’s "Doorbell" and "Baby Blue" by Shinichiro Watanabe use understated realism for very surreal purposes. And Shoji Kawamori, with “Shanghai Dragon,” takes the tropes and conventions of traditional anime out for very fun joyride.
The most ambitious portfolio in the 13-year history of Vanity Fair's Hollywood Issue, this year's homage to noir had its own dramatic imperatives.
In “Tokyo Serendipity,” Yui Aoki (Yui Aragaki) is a young art student, suddenly facing the real world on her own. Her older sister abruptly announces that she is getting married and moving out of their shared apartment. Yui must now move on and find a place of her own. Eventually, Yui does find such a place and, with the help of the “Hercules Moving Company,” moves into her new apartment. After she gets settled in, Yui goes door to door, introducing herself to her neighbors and giving them small gifts. There she meets Takashi (Ryuhei Matsuda), a quiet guy that lives directly above her apartment. There paths will cross again. Yui also goes back to her old apartment to retrieve an item she left behind. There she meets Junda Atsuko (Rinko Kikuchi), the new tenant of her old apartment. The lives of Yui, Junda, and Takashi are then brought together, as Yui learns firsthand about love and heartbreak.
Adapted from the manga of the same name, Liar Game centers around Nao Kanzaki, a student who was blackmailed into joining a "Liar Game" and ended up losing 100 million yen. In order to repay the debt, she enlists the help of Shinichi Akiyama, a genius swindler who was only recently released from jail for bankrupting one of Japan's largest scam companies in Japan.
A freelance writer (Iseya Yusuke) is given a bizarre assignment by the sexy editor of "Black Book Monthly" (Mizuno Miki): find a bug with the power to bring humans back from the dead, in order to report on the afterlife. With his trusty companion Endo (Matsuo Suzuki) in tow, he sets off on a quest for the elusive insect and along the way meets the mysterious Sayoko (Kikuchi), a former dominatrix and habitual wrist-cutter who delights in rubbing wasabi into her wounds.
Portrait of the Wind centers on Tamio Murase (Tadanobu Asano), a world-traveling photographer who came home to take over the family business after his father’s fatal heart attack. One day at the family photo studio, he finds a kindred spirit in Ayako (Erika) and the requisite sparks fly between them. The initial portions of the film deal with their budding romance, and it isn’t long before the two become a serious couple, and Ayako is pregnant with Tamio’s child.
An outrageous collection of surreal, short attention span non-sequiturs largely revolving around Guitar Brother, his randy older sibling, and the pair's portly Caucasian brother.
Hoping to catch a girl's attention, high school students Ken (Tsumabuki Satoshi) and Adama (Ando Masanobu) cook up an ambitious plan. They plan a festival that combines film, theater, and rock music, and develop their project into a school road block. This plan however catches the attention of television stations and newspapers, and soon even the cops became involved in this teenage adventure.
A man continually trying and failing to get his wife to stay dead; a self-absorbed ad agency creative director who comes up with one unworkably inane idea after another; a British hitman who only wants to know everyone's function in life; and an unfortunate office worker and father whose brain is left scrambled after a stage hypnotist is murdered in mid-performance.
A spell of time in the life of a family living in rural Tochigi prefecture, north of Tokyo. Though her husband is busy working at an office, Yoshiko is not an ordinary housewife, instead working on an animated film project at home. Uncle Ayano has recently arrived, looking to get his head together after living in Tokyo for several years. Meanwhile, Yoshiko's daughter Sachiko is mainly concerned with why she seems to be followed around everywhere by a giant version of herself.
Mike Yokohama is a private investigator who comes across a job where he must retrieve a girl from a get away.
Mamoru works as an illustrator in Tokyo. He and his girlfriend decide to visit his hometown of Onomichi. It is a bitter-sweet homecoming, for Mamoru has not been home in eight years. Upon his return, he experiences flashbacks of his ex-girlfriend, who died eight years ago. Feeling a sense of vulnerability, he visits the temple that he used to frequent in the past. There he sees a vision of Megumi, his ex-girlfriend...
The film tells the story of a Drive-In worker and a young tramp who has been left alone by her boyfriend somewhere in Hokkaido. Things seem to work out at the beginning but as time goes by the newly formed relationship between the tramp and the Drive-In worker starts to show the workers harmful will of possession, which finally leads to the somehow sad but also optimistically interpretable ending.
The film is a series of vignettes from Taiji Tonoyama's life and film clips, interspersed with a dialogue to camera by Nobuko Otowa, addressing the camera as if she is addressing Tonoyama himself, recollecting events in his life. The film focuses on Tonoyama's alcohol dependence and his various sexual relationships, as well as his film work with Shindo.
