Shinji Sômai

Yuu is a young pop talent who wants to make it big in the entertainment business. When she is forced to suck up to a wealthy mogul, she gets involved in a traffic accident and dies on the spot. In heaven, she negotiates another chance and is sent back to Earth, where she finds herself with the man who needs to cover up her death.

It's a fun setup (not entirely unlike Kon's Perfect Blue, there's even some imagery that matches) which allows Somai to work in some dreamy, fantastical scenes. These are the moments when the film shines and it becomes a little more than a simple, amusing narrative. A very pleasant surprise.

A rugged mountain man travels from Hokkaido to Tokyo to reconnect with the woman he loves, once there things go differently than he expected. He discovers she has fallen for a shady club owner. Meanwhile, the man encounters a pop singer who wants to make it big into the opera scene.

Interesting characters, solid performances, and superb cinematography make Luminous Woman quite the treat. It's a tad too slow and long to be a true personal favorite, but some of the scenes are absolutely stunning and will be burnt on my retinas forever. This film puts me halfway through Somai's oeuvre, I'll be making sure to get through the other half too.

Hiroshi's life is turned upside down when his father suddenly arrives on his doorstep. His mother told Hiroshi that his father had died when he was five. To add to the emotional turmoil, Hiroshi's company is about to go bankrupt. He tries to cope with this new situation as best as he can but finds himself way in over his head.

The performances are decent but a little rough, the drama is a tad predictable and while the presentation is nice, it never really stands out. The film is on the shorter side though, which helps. Ultimately, this felt like a safer entry in Somai's oeuvre, but it's definitely not a bad film. Just a bit of oldskool Japanese drama filler.

When a Yakuza boss dies, he carries over his gang to his nephew. What he doesn't know at that time is that his nephew isn't alive anymore. In that case the responsibility is carried over to the next of kind, but that turns out to be Izumi Hoshi, a young school girl who has never seen a Yakuza member up close.

Sailor Suit and Machine Gun has its share of genre elements (yes, at one point Izumi empties a machine gun in a room full of gangsters), but most of the film is a lot slower, reminding me a bit of Kitano's crime oeuvre, with people just hanging around. The cinematography is pretty nice too, the only thing that bothered me was the mediocre performance of Hiroko Yakushimaru as Izumi. An interesting film though, well recommended.

Three kids are fed up with the class bully. They make a pact and want to get back at the kid. But out of the blue, he is kidnapped. The police are stumped and aren't too eager to invest too much effort into the kidnapping, so they decide to save their bully, so they can hand him a proper punishment themselves.

Some kids taking on the Yakuza isn't the most believable of plotlines, then again, this film doesn't take itself all that seriously. The performances are decent, the mood is light and pleasant, and even though it's quite a long film, it never bored me. It doesn't really stand out too much, then again, it's hard to stand out next to Obayashi. Cute.

The setting is a small rural school building. A typhoon is coming and everybody is asked to return home, but several kids get stuck at school and with the storm raging outside, they have no other choice to spend the night there. There's little else to do than loiter and get up to some good old-fashioned mischief.

Performances are pretty decent and I do appreciate the concept, but the film's a bit rowdy and the characters feel somewhat generic, which makes it exceedingly tough to spend two hours with them. There are some moments that stand out, but not enough to keep me engaged all the way through.