QUIZTOPIA: ‘The Naked Director’ Star Leads New Dystopian Quiz Show Drama From ‘Alice In Borderland,’ ‘Yu Yu Hakusho’ Team
Actor Takayuki Yamada (Crows Zero, “The Naked Director”) stars in the new dystopian thriller series coming soon to Netflix!
takayuki yamada
Fantasia XXIV Review: MILOCRORZE – A LOVE STORY, A Romantic, Fantastical Odyssey Of Oddities That Still Holds Up
The last film writer and director Yoshimasa Ishibashi ever directed made its return to Fantasia Festival this year for the first time in nine years. Starring Takayuki Yamada, Maiko, Anna Ishibashi, and Seijun Suzuki in one of his final screen performances, we get Milocrorze – A Love Story, a movie that brims with nebulous eccentricity in its anthological, episodic and puckish tale of love, heartbreak, vengeance and emancipation. Aside from the use of color, costumes and set design, the most discernible quality about the film are some of the names of our initial characters and age perception. A young child actor takes on the role of Ovreneli Vreneligare who lives with a cat named Verandola Gorgonzola, and falls in love with a beautiful woman named Milocrorze (Maiko) after meeting in a park. The two seemingly fall in love and start their life together until trouble in paradise looms, and Ovreneli […]
NYAFF Review: Nobuhiro Yamashita’s HARD-CORE Spotlights The Mechanics Of Being Alive
Nobuhiro Yamashita takes on artful drama with a sci-fi twist in Hard-Core, based on Takashi Imashiro’s 1993 manga, and marking Yamashita’s own debut foray into sci-fi. It’s pretty much a slow-burn process to work through but the characters in their iteration here are made interesting enough that you’re compelled for the most part to stick with it to the end. We meet our lead character in Ukon (Takayuki Yamada), a scruffy, down-and-out barfly whose wayward path eventually lands him employment with an aging nationalist named Kaneshiro (Takuzo Kibukukuri), who wants to re-educate today’s youth. He finds friendship in Ushiyama (Yoshiyoshi Arakawa), a kindhearted mute, and the two are then-led to a cave in the Gunma Prefecture where they’re commissioned to dig for Shogun’s buried gold. The two share a room together near an abandoned factory whereupon during one evening, Ushiyama discovers what he thinks at first is a corpse. He […]
Movie Review: SHINJUKU SWAN: KABUKICHO SCOUT SURVIVAL (2015)
Original work: Wakui Ken Director: Sono Sion Lead cast: Ayano Go, Iseya Yusuke, Yamada Takayuki, Sawajiri Erika The story takes place in Kabukicho, the renowned red-light district in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Our hero Tatsuhiko, having hit rock bottom, aimlessly wanders the vibrant streets and soon finds himself in an uneven fight against some thugs. He is rescued by Mako, one of the local leaders, who then offers him a job of a host club scout, sensing that the newcomer’s natural charm will become advantageous for the business. Eager to repay his savior and to aid the girls in finding employment, Tatsuhiko immediately accepts. However, before long, he learns that they are in fact recruiting prostitutes, not hostesses. Although disturbed and conflicted, our guileless hero chooses to continue with the job, pledging that every girl scouted by him will be happy in the end. Shinjuku Swan presents to us the odious world […]
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