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Discotek Media announced a new slate of licenses at their Discotek Media Industry Extravaganza panel at Otakon 2024 today, including new releases of MxC: Most Extreme Elimination Challenge (the recut series of Takeshi's Castle which aired on Tnn/Spike TV), Gto: Great Teacher Onizuka , the live-action Ouran High School Host Club movie and more. Announcements made during the panel and stream are in alphabetical order. Android Kikaider : 43-episode Blu-ray release of the tokusatsu series in Japanese with English subtitles. Extras include a Daisuke Ban interview, vintage Hawaii stage event and retrospective video. Scheduled to release in 2024. Captain Harlock: Space Pirate : 42 episode Blu-ray release in upscaled 1080p of Leiji Matsumoto's classic series in Japanese with English subtitles. Scheduled to release in September 2024. Chie the Brat 2nd TV Series : First US release of the second Chie the Brat TV series, featuring all 39 episodes on Sd-bd in Japanese with English subtitles.

It seems that the commercial value of Asian films, both of the past (for the most part) and of the current ones, is having an impact also on physical media, with a number of established and newer companies releasing even more movies from the region in 2023. At the same time, the competition seems to up the quality of releases which keep getting better and better, to the joy of collectors, a number of which are definitely among the writers of Asian Movie Pulse.

Without further ado, we list here 30 Best Asian DVD and Blu-ray releases of 2023, in no particular order.

1. The Katsuhito Ishii Collection (Third Window Films)

Over the course of his career Japanese auteur Katsuhito Ishii has gained not only popularity among the festival crowd but a loyal group of fans, which all the more understandable when watching his works, that are now gathered in one comprehensive boxset thanks to Third Window.

This year's Nifff was quite intently focused on Asian cinema. It was not only the retrospective of Katsuhito Ishii, but also the Asian competition, with “Marry My Dead Body” receiving the Audience Award and the fact that Nuhash Humayun's “Foreigners Only” won both the Youth Award and the Audience Award for Best Short Film. Most of all, however, because “Tiger Stripes” was the winner of the Grant Award, the H.R. Giger “Narcisse” for Best Feature. Even UK-produced, “Raging Grace”, which won two awards, has Filipino Max Eigenmann as its protagonist.

Our coverage includes interviews with the person of honor (Ishii) along with the big winner Amanda Nell Eu and Anurag Kashyap, whose film “Kennedy” also screened.

You can check the full articles by clicking on the titles

Interview with Katsuhito Ishii Film Review: Tiger Stripes (2023) by Amanda Nell Eu

The metaphor for the body changes women experience when their...

On the occasion of his retrospective taking place in Neuchatel International Fantastic Film Festival, Katsuhito Ishii talks to Panos Kotzathanasis about The Taste of Tea, Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl and Norioka Workshop, his collaborations with Quentin Tarantino, Tadanobu Asano and Tatsuya Gashuin, his work in animation, the current state of the Japanese movie industry and his future projects.

You can find reviews of his films on the following links:

Hello! Jun'ichi

Norioka Workshop

Promise of August

Party 7

Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl

Funky Forest: The First Contact

The Taste of Tea...

For more than two decades, the Neuchatel International Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff) has been a draw for genre filmmakers from across the globe and a pull for Swiss youth. Heading into its 22nd edition, which runs June 30 – July 8, the lakeside event will once again showcase the kind outré and audacious fare that Neuchatel’s reliable and devoted young public has come to expect, while continuing to bridge outward, welcoming more unfamiliar faces into the fold.

“By instinct, influence, and mutual attraction, genre cinema will always appeal to the young,” says Nifff director Pierre-Yves Walder. “In fact, Nifff attracts one of the youngest publics of any Swiss festival, but I’d like to convert different audiences of perhaps different ages as well. And not just for commercial reasons; I find it so interesting and essential to mix things up.”

Showcasing 124 films, including eight world premieres and seven international launches, this year...

The event runs June 30-July 8.

Die Hard director John McTiernan and leading French actress and writer Josiane Balasko are among those taking part in this year’s Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff), which runs June 30-July 8.

The full programme for the 22nd edition of the Swiss event, again under the artistic direction of Pierre-Yves Walder, includes 124 films from 5 continents and 44 countries. There are eight world premieres, among them Irish director Ian Hunt-Duffy’s horror thriller Double Blind starring The Walking Dead’s Pollyanna McIntosh, alongside Millie Brady and Kate Ashfield, and Quarxx’s new horror Pandemonium, both screening in the festival’s Ultra Section.

Katsuhito Ishii has been present on the Japanese film scene for 25 years, but he has not really made it. He was closest to the success some 15-20 years ago when he made a winning streak with “The Taste of Tea” (2004) and “Funky Forest” (2005) in both of which he “mixed-and-matched” bits and pieces of genre and art house approach. Since then, he made a few films which met different levels of attention form the critics and the audience, and he practically went missing for almost a decade now. While we are waiting for the announced feature expansion of his 50th anniversary Gamera short (2015), if we still are waiting in fact, why would not we take a glance at his last feature, “Hello! Jun'ichi” (2014), which is a part of a Third Window box set dedicated to him.

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on Terracotta

First things first, this is a kiddy film, so it...

While performers do not like to hear it, pretending is at the core of acting. While there are a variety of different approaches to the craft, there is no way you can transform into a bank robber, a femme fatale or a World War II-soldier unless you actually are one, pointing at the limitations of acting, while also presenting the kind of freedom that comes with it as each role is also in some way your interpretation of the character. In his new short feature “Norioka Workshop”, renown director Katsuhito Ishii plays with this concept, a theme which has been at the core of some of his works, resulting in a movie which is quite entertaining and funny.

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In between his performances on the stage, on TV and movies, popular actor Norioka (Ryu Morioka) also gives acting workshops for those eager to learn the craft.

Not many directors start out with a voice wholly their own, but Katsuhito Ishii's “Promise of August” is a strikingly unique debut from one of Japan's more singular auteurs. It has its fair share of freshman missteps, and there's an unpolished quality to the plotting and performances, but it establishes itself from the opening frame as an off-kilter comedy with a genuine point of view; a confident beginning to a decades-long career.

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Released three years before Ishii's first feature, “Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl,” it clocks in at only fifty minutes. It this sense, it feels like a novella from a young writer, focused more on creating a mood and documenting the oddities of human behavior than telling a complete story. The threadbare narrative follows three young women as they search the countryside for a weed crop promised by a “marijuana...

After “Shark Skin Man and the Peach Hip Girl”, director Katsuhito Ishii had established himself as one of the many new, unique voices within the Japanese film industry. The adaptation of Minetaro Mochizuki's manga also managed to raise some eyebrows internationally and displayed the filmmaker's style as well as the themes he wanted to talk about, namely the contrast of make-believe and reality, which has become quite blurry over time, especially due to the rise of social media. In his next project “Party 7”, Ishii would venture deeper into this theme, while also expanding his use of the language of cinema, creating yet another unique and creative feature about the lies we tell ourselves and others, and how they become real in the end.

on Terracotta

Chased by the members of his gang, Miki (Masatoshi Nagase) seeks refuge in the hotel New Mexico, a place well-hidden from any tourists and visitors,...

One of the reasons contemporary Japanese cinema became so popular is the fact that filmmakers who came out in the end of 80s and 90s could let their imagination completely free in all aspects of their movies, from the script, to the characters, to the violence, to the production values. Thus, they came up with high-energy, punk-driven, originally presented films that are still cherished throughout the world. Based on the homonymous manga by Minetaro Mochizuki, “Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl” has Katsuhito Ishii's signature all over him, as he wrote, directed, edited, was responsible for the props, music and costume designs, and is definitely one of these films.

on Terracotta

The story begins outside of a hotel in the mountains, where beautiful Toshiko is trying to escape the sexual advances of her uncle Sonezaki, the owner of the establishment where she also works. Her escape however,...

Japanese director Katsuhito Ishii will attend the 22nd edition of the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff), which will take place from June 30th to July 8th, 2023. The Nifff will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of his cult debut film Shark Skin Man And Peach Hip Girl (1998), a restored version of which will be presented in world premiere at the festival. In addition to showing several of his feature films, this eclectic artist will talk in depth about his rich, genre-blending filmography at the Nifff Extended conferences. A unique opportunity to explore the kaleidoscopic works of an auteur whose visual style never fails to dazzle.

The World’S First Retrospective Of His Versatile Body Of Work

After graduating, Katsuhito Ishii switches, as early as 1992, to directing commercials for the Tohokushinsha Company. In 1998, his first feature film Shark Skin Man & Peach Hip Girl, adapted from a Minetaro Mochizuki manga, takes everyone...

Japan boasts one of the most robust and oldest film industries in the world, with historian Yomota Inuhiko dating its origins as far back as 1896. With visionary filmmakers like Akira Kurosawa and Hayao Miyazaki among the industry's most recognizable names, Japan has produced some truly extraordinary films. Beyond sweeping historical epics and fantasy fare sharing the country's extensive folklore, Japan has produced a growing number of dramas that have stood the test of time.

From slice-of-life portraits across Japanese history to biting commentaries on society, Japanese dramas widely feature precision in storytelling and deliberate pacing to meditate on its themes. For decades, cinema has become a place for Japanese artists to question and subvert cultural norms directly while exploring and pondering existential themes. With that all in mind, here are the 15 best Japanese drama movies, from avant-garde pieces to animated films that delve into more humanist subject matter, showcasing different...

While many genres work on certain formulas and conventions, which can make some of them predictable and tedious in the wrong hands, perhaps no other genre is quite as elusive as comedy. Often said to be one of the hardest crafts to master, finding the right kind of irony or punchline can be quite tricky, many times resulting in features not clicking with audiences, but being appreciated more and more by later audiences. As many cultures have their own unique brand of comedy, Japan’s concept of the genre is perhaps one of the most hermetic, as it often refers to ideas, topics or themes which are exclusive to the country’s (pop) culture. In the early 2000s, a number of unique comedic features were released, with “Funky Forest: The First Contact”, a collaborative effort of directors Katsuhito Ishii, Hajime Ishimine and Shunichiro Miki being among the most interesting entries,...

A city enjoying a spectacular growth spur and a metropolis dying out as we speak. A star looking for a way out from a deadly trap and a teenager determined to have a say in her own future. Japanese feel-good movies and terrifying horrors. As always, Five Flavours offers a full spectrum of moods, emotions, and themes. We announce the complete program of the Festival and kick off tickets sales!

Five Flavours Asian Film Festival is the annual review of the best cinema from East, Southeast, and South Asia organized in Poland. Since 2006, it presents the premieres of the newest, carefully selected films from the region, the classics from Asian archives, retrospectives of selected filmmakers, and reviews of national cinemas.

This year’s selection includes 39 meticulously chosen films, 30 of which will be available online, on the territory of Poland only. After the success of last year’s hybrid edition, Five...

Fantasia 2021 will run from August 5th to the 25th. A great number of films will be available to watch on-demand on the Festival’s virtual streaming platform (powered by Festival Scope and Shift72). Some virtual screenings will be scheduled at a specific date and time, check out the website to know when to tune in! Several films will be shown in person at Montreal’s Cinéma Impérial, Cinéma du Musée, or outdoors at Place de la Paix. Click here to see which ones! All panels, talks, masterclasses and special events will once again be completely free and accessible worldwide on Zoom or YouTube.

You can buy a Festival Passport Here. Please check the Official Website for more info.

Here are, in alphabetical order, all the Asian Films:

The 12 Day Tale Of The Monster That Died In 8 | Japan Dir: Shunji Iwai

North American Premiere

Shunji Iwai’s latest is a delightfully...

Amalia Ulman’s El Planeta, starring the director/screenwriter and her mother, Ale Ulman, is the perfect opening night selection for the 50th anniversary of New Directors/New Films, hosted by Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art. Shot by Carlos Rigo in beautiful black and white, co-edited smartly by Katie Mcquerrey and Anthony Valdez, El Planeta takes us back to the filmmaker’s former hometown, Gijon, Spain.

Cleverly used references to Martin Scorsese, Ernst Lubitsch, Milos Forman's Amadeus, David and Albert Maysles’ Grey Gardens, Katsuhito Ishii’s The Taste Of Tea, and Jean Renoir’s Rules Of The Game enter the picture.

Leo (Amalia Ulman) and her...

Amalia Ulman on the opening scene in El Planeta with Maria (Ale Ulman) in Gijon, Spain: “I really wanted to set the tone of the city. That’s the city where I grew up and one of the biggest challenges is the weather.

Amalia Ulman’s El Planeta, starring the director/screenwriter and her mother, Ale Ulman, is the perfect opening night selection for the 50th anniversary of New Directors/New Films, hosted by Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art. Shot by Carlos Rigo in beautiful black and white, co-edited smartly by Katie Mcquerrey and Anthony Valdez, El Planeta takes us back to the filmmaker’s former hometown, Gijon, Spain.

Amalia Ulman on New Directors/New Films: “I was very excited and happy to be opening this festival. Because of the great reputation it has for showing new works.”

Cleverly used references to Martin Scorsese, Ernst Lubitsch,...

Tomo Hyakutake is a master of the horrific. For more than two decades, he has been working as special makeup effects artist, moldmaker, model designer, model marker, mask creator, for movies, music videos and commercials, having dozens of credits to his names, while also retaining a gallery with his own work.

We speak with him about his art and his creative procedure, working in movies, his cooperation with the likes of Takashi Miike, Takashi Shimizu, Hideaki Anno and many more, the art and movie scene in Japan and many other topics.

How did your interest in art, and particularly the art of the horrific, begin?

When I was a student, Screaming Mad George and Kazu Hiro were my professors at the university. I also learned a lot from my respected seniors, Yasushi Nirasawa, Takayuki Takeya, and Steve Wang. After graduating from school, they introduced me to the industry. In terms of Art-horror,...

One of the most impressive traits of a number of Japanese filmmakers is the way they accept their inner quirkiness and channel it to occasionally impressive, but always intriguing and surrealistically funny narratives. This trait finds one its apogees in Katsuhito Ishii’s “Taste of Tea” from a director that has actually based its career in this particular tactic. The movie is also one of the most successful of the director, winning awards from festivals both in Japan and all over the world.

The Haruno family is a clan of “weirdos” living in a house in a small rural town outside of Tokyo. Nobuo, the father is a hypnotist who occasionally practices on his own family and hates his brother, a flashy manga artist who lives in the city. Ayano, the cool uncle, who is a sound recordist, also stays in the house taking a sabbatical and...

UK-based distributors Third Window Films and Arrow Video will release hard-copy Japanese cult classics come September. Among the titles include Macoto Tezka’s musical “The Legend of the Stardust Brothers” (1985), Seiji Tanaka’s low-budget, high concept feature “Melancholic” (2018), and Katsuhito Ishii’s Cannes opening film “The Taste of Tea” (2004). Read below for exact release dates.

Black Test Car / The Black Report: 24 August; blu-ray only

Japanese maverick director Yasuzo Masumura (Blind Beast) helms a bitingly satirical espionage thriller set in the heart of the Japanese auto industry in his 1962 landmark Black Test Car, which launched a series of similarly themed “Black” films.

Making its worldwide Blu-ray debut, Black Test Car is paired here with the English-language video premiere of its follow-up The Black Report, also directed by Masumura.

Melancholic: 7 September; blu-ray only

From Third Window Films: Despite having graduated from the prestigious Tokyo University, Kazuhiko is unemployed and living with his...

Summer Sale

1-21 July

It’s that time of the year for the Third Window Films/Arrow Video Summer Sale!

DVDs from £4 and blurays from £7! Worldwide Shipping!

From July 1-21st

Shop now at: https://bit.ly/2BVEd9l

Upcoming Releases

3 great Japanese films available to pre-order Hanagatami

Out July 6th

In 2016, Nobuhiko Obayashi, the director of the cult Japanese film House (Hausu) was diagnosed with lung cancer and given only a few months to live. Despite not much time left, for what was supposed to be his final film he adapted Kazuo Dan’s 1937 novella Hanagatami, his passion project 40 years in the making.

In 1941, as Japan prepares its attack on Pearl Harbor, 16 year-old Toshihiko (Shunsuke Kubozuka) leaves his parents in Amsterdam and moves to the seaside town of Karatsu where his aunt Keiko (Takako Tokiwa) cares for his ailing cousin Mina (Honoka Yahagi). Immersed in the exquisite nature and phenomenal culture of Karatsu,...

It was always obvious to me that Katsuhito Ishii’s style would fit greatly in anime and the fact that the director of “Redline” is Takeshi Koike, who was in charge of the excellent style of animation featured in Ishii’s films “Funky Forest” and “The Taste of Tea”, was another guarantee of excellence. Add to all that the fact that Madhouse was the production studio behind the anime and that the cast of voice actors included Tadanobu Asano, Yu Aoi and Takuya Kimura, and you could easily say that nothing could go wrong with this one. Well, apart from the fact that the production took seven years to finish, particularly due to the over 100,000 hand-drawn frames, nothing did, in one of the best anime movies of the 21st century.

“Redline” is screening at Anime Film Festival 2019

The film revolves around “Sweet” Jp, a frantic and reckless rockabilly car racer...

Vitagraph Films LLC

You only need a passing interest in world cinema to realise that no other country makes as many crazy movies as the Japanese. This is a culture which sells used underwear from vending machines and celebrates Christmas with a bucket of KFC, so it isn’t surprising they approach filmmaking a little differently.

Japan’s unique culture is a reflection of its unique history: after centuries of isolation from the outside world, the defeat at the end of the Second World War and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was quickly followed by a huge influx of Western culture. The impact this had on Japanese cinema was enormous, with many films exploring the collective trauma of the war while simultaneously borrowing heavily from American genre movies.

Japanese directors have continued to make films which explore the history and mythology of their country to this day, pushing the...

Hot on the heels of both a Japanese and American adaptation of films revolving around the legendary Godzilla, another iconic monster is getting the big screen treatment.

Gamera will be returning to movie theatres for the first time since 2006 in a new film titled Gamera. Katsuhito Ishii will be taking on directorial duties for the film, which interestingly will be the first Gamera feature to be completely CGI, as even the 2006 film Gamera the Brave used a degree of practical effects.

Translated from Japanese, the film’s synopsis is as follows.

“In a near-future Tokyo, giant monsters, known as ‘kaiju’, are thriving and terrorizing the populace. Manafu, a young boy, whose father is killed when the Gyaos strike the metropolis, is the only one who is saved by Gamera. What will Manafu’s destiny be…?”

Gamera has appeared in twelve films in total, beginning with Gamera in 1965. His main opponent so far have been Gyaos,...

Taiwan’s Hsiao-hsien Hou has often spoken of his admiration for Japanese master Yasujirō Ozu. In the 1993 documentary Talking with Ozu, attached to the Criterion edition of Tokyo Story and featuring such commentators as Claire Denis and Aki Kaurismäki, he compares the man’s work to that of a mathematician: one that observes and studies in a detached, clinical fashion. Often, returning to the same themes of generational conflict within the family unit, but doing so with a profound self-confidence that only lends such reiterations more weight. Hou goes on to state that, while he considers his own “observations and insight into the human condition” to be similarly objective, he really can’t compare. Yet, the similarities are very much evident. Indeed, few batted an eyelid when Ozu’s longtime employer Shochiku, upon commissioning a project for his centenary, chose not a Japanese but Taiwanese director to best capture the spirit of his films.

Tiff’s Midnight Madness program turned 25 this year, and for two and half decades, the hardworking programers have gathered some of the strangest, most terrifying, wild, intriguing and downright entertaining films from around the world. From dark comedies to Japanese gore-fests and indie horror gems, the Midnight Madness program hasn’t lost its edge as one the leading showcases of genre cinema. In its 25-year history, Midnight Madness has introduced adventurous late-night moviegoers to such cult faves as Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. But what separates Midnight Madness from, say, Montreal’s three and half week long genre festival Fantasia, is that Tiff selects only ten films to make the cut. In other words, these programmers don’t mess around. Last week I decided that I would post reviews of my personal favourite films that screened in past years. And just like the Tiff programmers,...

The racing movie has been a staple of Hollywood filmmaking for years. From classics such as Le Mans to the modern-day Fast & Furious franchise, there have always been racing movies and there have always been racing movie fans… The latest entry into the racing film genre is Death Race 3: Inferno, which continues the fight to the death Car-nage that the series is famous for. In honour of that films release of, we decided to take a look at the Top 10 Best Racing Films.

10) Initial D: Drift Racer

18-year-old Takumi (Jay Chou) delivers tofu for his hard-drinking dad, and works part time at his best friend’s garage. When he is unexpectedly asked to drive in an upcoming race, Takumi’s shock victory opens up a whole new world of possibilities, and his overnight fame is soon leading him to even more hellraising and dangerous races. But as Takumi pushes...

Here at Ioncinema.com, our interests with film extends into the world of the occasional television mini-series or made for TV project, a place were we see a lot of notable directors going for artistic freedoms they often cannot find elsewhere (we recently think back to: Todd Haynes’ Mildred Pierce, Ross Katz’s Taking Chance, Tom Hooper’s John Adams, Jay Roach’s Recount and if you want to include it but we don’t, Olivier Assayas’ Carlos). Looking forward into 2013, we’ve noticed a large amount of notable projects, from the long gestating mini-series debut of Stephen King’s Under the Dome, which seems to have snagged Swedish director Niels Arden Oplev (of the original The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo fame), and another notable foreign language talent, Pierre Scholler (whose 2011 film The Minister featured a praiseworthy Olivier Gourmet) who is heading to French television for Les Anonymes, with...

Shohei Manabe’s manga “Smuggler” makes it to the big screen courtesy of director Katsuhito Ishii, previously known for varied and off beat fare such as “A Taste of Tea”, the bizarre “Funky Forest: the First Contact” and the frankly crazed “Party 7”. With Ishii at the helm, the film is an unsurprisingly wild take on the Japanese yakuza genre, Satoshi Tsumabuki (“Waterboys”) starring as an unfortunate young man pulled into an oddball and extremely violent criminal underworld of crooks, corpse disposal and murderous assassins. The film starts off with Tsumabuki as Kinuta, a slacker who gave up on a not particularly promising acting career, forced to work as a smuggler in order to pay back his debt to a group of local heavies. Serving under veteran Joe (Nagase Masatoshi, “Sakuran”), his life gets complicated when the latest package on the back of their beat up truck turns out to...

The job of a trailer is to convince viewers that they want to see the actual movie. You’d be forgiven for thinking they’re supposed to tell the entire story in 90 seconds as oftentimes that seems to be the norm, but the best ones choose to hint and tease rather than spoil. The recent trailer for Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Impossible is an example of the former, and even though it’s undoubtedly powerful it lessens the eventual feature experience by giving away too much. By contrast, the trailer for Shunichiro Miki‘s The Warped Forest gets everything right. Watch it and you’ll still have no idea what the movie is about, but you’ll be aching to see it anyway. Check out the trailer below. How can you not want to see more after that? The film is a pseudo sequel or sorts kind of not really almost to 2005′s Funky Forest: The...

Smuggler aka Sumagurâ: Omae no mirai o hakobe

Written by Katsuhito Ishii, Masatoshi Yamaguchi and Kensuke Yamamoto, based on the manga Sumagurâ by Shôhei Manabe

Directed by Katsuhito Ishii

Japan 2011 Fantasia imdb

The writers and director of Smuggler clearly watched Ichi the Killer a lot – A Lot – as kids. It’s all there: the yakuza setting, the gang war, the eccentric characters, the torture, the weird unsettling pacing, the killer who feels like he infiltrated the film from some other cinematic universe.

The difference is that nothing works as well as Ichi. Every time the film quotes Ichi, we are reminded that this film isn’t quite as good as the original. The eccentricities come across as forced, the pacing feels like a car repeatedly back-firing rather than a dangerous roller-coaster, the killer just seems out of place rather than being transgressive, and the torture becomes irritating rather than unsettling.

What a weekend it was, a little more than 8 years ago. Probably my favorite film-related weekend ever, with Vital, Cha No Aji and Survive Style 5+ on the menu. All three films ended up in my personal top 100 and while Cha No Aji is ranked the lowest of the three, Katsuhito Ishii (My Darling Of The Mountains) his film remains one of the absolute highlights of the Japanese comedy. A true delight that elevates feel-good cinema to a whole new level and charms from start to finish.Cha No Aji was somewhat of a surprise. I was already familiar with Ishii's work, having watched Party 7 and Shark Skin Man & Peach Hip Girl prior to this one. On top of that, I was...

By MoreHorror.com

Starting next week, on May 4th through May, 20th, Porto Alegre will be the Latin American Capital of Genre Cinema as Fantaspoa International Fantastic Film Festival 2012 unleashes.

Fantaspoa – International Fantastic Film Festival of Porto Alegre, the biggest genre film festival of Latin America will be back for its 8th edition, with 17 days of pure cinephilia, exhibiting 150 films – including 87 features from 32 countries: 5 having their world première, 12 in national première and 43 in their Latin America première. The festival will also bring more than 35 guests, including the duo that will be getting a Career Achievement Award: David Schmoeller and Stuart Gordon. Schmoeller, in the occasion, will also have the première of his first feature in 14 years: “Little Monsters”.

The festival will open and close with two world premières: “Nervo Craniano Zero”, directed by Paulo Biscaia Filho will open the festival and “Cell Count”, directed by Todd E. Freeman will close it.

The 14th annual Boston Underground Film Festival is ready to kick ass and take names on March 29 to April 1 at the Brattle Theatre. And a few of those names will look familiar to Buff fanatics — and underground film fans the world over.

A trio of Buff favorites are returning to the fest with debut feature films after totally killing it with their amazing short films in the past. Jamie Heinrich‘s Happily Never After is a feature-length expansion of the short film that took home the Best of Fest Award in 2010, but with more solid and mature themes as the movie explores the problematic life of a degenerate photographer.

Another former award winner is Richard Bates Jr. who will be screening Excision, another feature-length extension of a short film, this one about a teenage girl who exercises her morbid obsession with surgery every chance she gets.

Steven Kostanski‘s feature...

The 14th annual Boston Underground Film Festival has announced a few of the films they’ve already selected to screen on March 29 to April 1, including several regular Buff favorite filmmakers ready to make their spectacular return.

Most exciting is the feature film Happily Never After by Jamie Heinrich who, back in 2010, took home the Buff Best of Fest Short Award. However, this new feature is more dramatic in nature, telling the story of a lecherous photographer (Jason Carrougher) who attempts to connect with the son (Ryan Wichert) he never knew he had.

Watch the movie trailer for Happily Never After:

Also returning to Buff is Canadian filmmaker Steven Kostanski with his debut feature Manborg, a tribute to ’90s direct-to-video movies about a dead soldier turned into a cyborg killing machine designed to stop a demon invasion.

Watch the movie trailer for Manborg:

Plus:

Making their Buff debuts are...

Anchor Bay Entertainment's Manga brand has now released the Madhouse, 2009 Japanese science fiction auto racing anime feature "Redline" on Blu-ray and DVD.

The directorial debut feature of Takeshi Koike features the voices of Takuya Kimura, Yū Aoi and Tadanobu Asano, based on an original story by Katsuhito Ishii.

"Redline" is set in the distant future, where a man known as 'Jp' takes on great risks for the chance of winning the 'underground' race :

"...'Sweet Jp', named for his personality, retro style and refusal to mount weapons on his racecar, nearly wins the "Yellowline" race against various sorts of racers, including aliens, most who use massive vehicles with jet engines loaded with guns and missiles. But just before the finish line Jp's car is sabotaged by an explosive device placed by his friend and mechanic 'Frisbee'.

"The 'Redline' race takes place on 'Roboworld', a militarized planet ruled by cyborgs.

Anchor Bay Entertainment’s Manga brand has released highly anticipated animated films this month and we're offering two combo packs for you to take home. The Films In celebration of its 20th Anniversary, Anchor Bay Entertainment’s Manga brand is releasing two highly anticipated animated films: Katsuhito Ishii’s Redline and award-winner First Squad: The Moment Of Truth Ranging in themes from World War II to futuristic surreal car races, Manga continues to release high-end artistic animated films. Both films tout accolades from critics and the festival circuit worldwide. Redline won the Audience Official Selection Award for Animation at Fantasia and the Outstanding Achievement in Feature Filmmaking – Animation Award at the Newport Beach Film Festival. It has received rave reviews even...

Well it’s the start of another week, so you know what that means – yet more DVD and Blu-ray releases hit the high street, ready and waiting to swallow up all your hard-earned cash! So here’s the rundown of what’s available to buy from today, November 14th 2011.

Pick Of The Week

Franklin & Bash: Season 1 (DVD)

When Peter Bash (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) and Jared Franklin (Breckin Meyer), two young attorneys with a no-holds-barred courtroom style, are hired by Stanton Infeld (Malcolm McDowell), life at his buttoned-down law firm will never be the same. Working with their equally oddball staff – researcher Pindar Singh (Kumail Nanjiani) and paralegal Carmen Phillips (Dana Davis) – Franklin and Bash shake things up at the firm with their audacious tactics and immediately find an enemy in its star lawyer, Infeld’s nephew Damien Karp (Reed Diamond). While the sexual tension between Jared and senior partner Hanna Linden...

Redline

Directed by Takeshi Koike

2010, Japan, 102 minutes

Lots of people are saying that anime hit Redline is like taking acid. Frankly, that doesn’t quite do the film justice. Let’s do better. If Speed Racer and Heavy Metal had a child, but the child was exposed to a lot of drugs in utero, was born during a Gwar concert, only ate magic mushrooms, suffered a nerdy, angst-ridden youth, then contracted malaria, and suffered a dream infected with delirium, that dream would be Redline. Watching Redline made me feel party to a war crime. I’m pretty sure that I left the theatre on some kind of government list. I loved every minute of it.

In a nutshell: taking place in a galaxy of bizarre creatures, cyborgs, and magic, racing is the most important thing. Racer Sweet Jp (Takuya Kimura), a long shot with mob connections, wins a spot in the galaxy’s biggest race,...

Director: Todd Rohal Writer: Todd Rohal Starring: Steve Little, Robert Longstreet, Wally Dalton, Miki Ann Maddox, Koko Lanham, Rico, Joe Ivy, Jay Wesley Cochran Father William Smoortser (Steve Little) begins The Catechism Cataclysm with a "110% real story" to a few seniors of his congregation; unfortunately the story has nothing to do with the Good Book, instead the moral of Father William's story: "If you are going to have a senior moment, make it a memorable one." Because of his misguidedly goofball antics, Father William is sent on an early vacation. Father William meets up with his childhood idol, his sister's ex-boyfriend, Robbie Shoemaker (Robert Longstreet) -- not to be confused with the "famous" Robbie Shoemaker from Defrockation. Like a surreal joke, the Catholic priest and the former metal-head go on a canoe trip which begins with Father William dropping his bible into a toilet full of diarrhea. If that is not a bad omen,...

This Winter Is Sure To Be Cool With Anchor Bay Entertainment’S Release Of Two Of The Coolest Animation Titles Ever!

Katsuhito Ishii’s Redline and Award-Winner First Squad

In celebration of its 20th Anniversary, Anchor Bay Entertainment’s Manga brand is set to release two of the most highly anticipated animated films. On January 17, 2012, Katsuhito Ishii’s Redline and award-winner First Squad: The Moment Of Truth will be released on Blu-ray™ and DVD. Redline will also be released in theatres prior to January 17th. Ranging in themes from World War II to futuristic surreal car races, Manga continues to release high-end… More...

First trailer for The Warped Forest by Shunichiro Miki, one of the three directors (next to Katsuhito Ishii and Hajime Ishimine) who invited us into the Funky Forest in 2005.

[See full post to watch this video]

Synopsis:

Settle into your chair and be transported to a place both familiar and alien; where a giant shopgirl 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?

[via Twitch]...

Rejoice my brothers and sisters of the cult of Funky Forest, a second contact has been made! While Katsuhito Ishii and Aniki are not in participating in this excursion into the wild blue yonder, we have the third member of the Funky Forest directorial triumvirate, Shunichiro Miki, to guide us through the dense foliage of surreal, fleshy and hilarious delights. Those concerned about this installment being a solo effort, should bear in mind that it was Miki who gave us this timeless image:  So rest assured, while Ishii and Aniki's involvement will most certainly be missed, The Warped Forest will no doubt conjure up even more memorable sexual surrealism then you can shake a Cronenbergian fetus puppet at. Don't believe me? Check out the trailer embedded below!And here's...

Katsuhito Ishii has enjoyed a very positive reputation as director of interesting and whimsical films like The Taste of Tea and Funky Forest. His latest Smuggler is a pulpy crime drama that at first glance promises to fuse Ishii's comedic magic into a solid yakuza storyline. This seems to be working with fine effect until Ishii takes a horrendous wrong turn three-quarters into the film and subjects the audience to a showing of torture pornography so brutal as to completely ruin the film and leave at least this reviewer questioning cinema's merits when it contributes garbage like this. Smuggler is the story of a loser drop out named Kinuta (Satoshi Tsumabuki) who is conned into a big debt by only his lazy stupidity and...

Saturday began mainly with events and special screenings, but the one new film I experienced was The Day. Starring Dominic Monaghan as a leader of a small group of post-apocalypse survivors, this bleak tale breaks a lot of tropes and features strong female characters. One is a total bitch, though, which is a shame, while the other, Mary, (the star of The Last Exorcism, Ashley Bell) gives us a quiet and haunting performance. The film revolves around Monaghan and his group stumbling upon a desolate house that provides a brief respite from the elements for the weary travelers. Everything has a desaturated look to give the all too familiar dreary feel, and while they made strides for naturalism and getting away from the cliches, they managed to retain the cheesy and sometimes hamfisted dialogue so often associated with the genre.

Within the house they find their supposed salvation, but cannibals...

The best part about Fantastic Fest is that it offers a unique opportunity for discovery. I mean where else am I going to see a movie about a blind, formerly alcoholic Mma enthusiast or a film exploring the seedy underbelly of the Belgian beef industry? But with over 100 feature and short films there’s a lot to consider. Many are films which I know little to nothing about and others already have a lot of buzz surrounding them. But who needs anyone to tell them to go out and see Melancholia? Heck The Loved Ones has been out for almost two years. That’s not to say those aren’t great flicks, they are, but the search for that hidden gem is what keeps me coming back every year. So after scouring the program here is a list of ten of my most anticipated films of Fantastic Fest 2011.

in alphabetical order.

Each year the Sitges Film Festival commercial spot is almost as eagerly awaited by the general public as its lineup, and Rafa Antón, creative director of the China agency and the man responsible for its campaigns over the last ten years, has presented this year’s commercial, entitled "Alter Ego". In addition, the preliminary lineup for the Festival has been revealed, but it's not complete by any means. More will be announced throughout the month.

Antón presented the commercial at the Velodrome, property of the brand, along with Festival director Angel Sala and one of Sitges 2011’s partners Moritz Beer.

As explained at the presentation of the Sitges 2011 posters, artificial intelligence is this year’s central theme, represented through the geminoids created by professor Ishiguro in Japan. For the commercials, Rafa Antón stated that he’d “continued with the same commemorative leitmotif of the tenth anniversary of Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg...

Katsuhito Ishii’s live-action film adaptation of Shohei Manabe’s Smuggler manga is set for its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Ishii has already made a name for himself in the last with Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl, The Taste of Tea, and Funky Forest, and early buzz says that his latest is not to be missed. American audiences know him best for his work on the animated section of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol. 1. Tiff describes it as, “a wacky and shocking comedy, featuring a failed actor forced to work smuggling dead bodies and contraband in a world full of underground bankers and crazed fashionista yakuza killers. Here is the trailer. Enjoy!

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September is the busiest month for the Sound On Sight team with Telluride, Tiff, Pop Montreal, The Atlantic Film Festival, New York Film Festival and yes Fantastic Fest. Starting September 22nd anyone interested in genre film will have their eyes on Fantastic Fest, one of the biggest and possibly coolest fests in the world. After months waiting, the organizers have finally announced the final wave of programming. Here is the press release.

Austin, TX–Wednesday, September 7th, 2011– Fantastic Fest is excited to announce its final wave of feature film programming including the world premiere of The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence on opening night courtesy of IFC Midnight and Comic-con Episode IV: A Fan’S Hope on closing night.

The Human Centipede became a cultural sensation after its premiere at Fantastic Fest in 2009 where it won Best Horror Film and Best Actor. The festival is excited to welcome back director...