Yukihiko Tsutsumi

Hiroshi Abe is a weird fella and fits perfectly in the role of long-sworded samurai hero. His accomplices are oddballs too, but they're nothing compared to the various creatures they face in their battle to stop an alien invasion. There's more to the story, but even the voice over doesn't seem too bothered with all the details.

The comedy is pretty mad, performances are over-the-top but funny and the cinematography is surprisingly snappy. The CG is quite limited of course, but the camerawork is interesting and the colorful visuals and designs are lovely. Not for everyone, this film, but if you love Japanese weirdness, make sure you give this film a go.

The setting is some nondescript future. A woman starts seeing an egg every time she closes her eyes. It's a little unsettling, but when she goes to a doctor nothing strange is found. But then the egg cracks open and a weird monster starts approaching her, and the woman slowly starts to go mad. But how do you escape a monster on the inside of your eyes?

There's some weird lore here that doesn't make too much sense, luckily the film is weird and intriguing enough to transcend its plot. The camera work is nifty, the effects rather cheap but effective and the mystery is upheld until the very end. EGG is short, quirky and unique, it's a shame Tsutsumi abandoned this type of film.

The district is like a mini-community within the city. Five kids from different backgrounds hang out to kill time, their dream is to go to Harajuku, where all the cool kids gather. The first two trips they undertook failed horribly, so for their third trip they decided to prepare in advance.

Tsutsumi's style feels young, light and frivolous. The actors do a decent job, the balance between drama and comedy is on point and even though 2 hours is quite long it never really drags or becomes uninteresting. Like most of Tsutsumi's work, it isn't quite distinctive enough to be called a true masterpiece, but it sure is very solid and enjoyable filler.

Helming the film is director Yukihiko Tsutsumi, who enjoyed moderate international success when he entered a directing contest with Ryuhei Kitamura and produced 2LDK as a result. Tsutsumi is a rather hard to coin director, continuously on the lookout for new challenges. He isn't really bound to a genre or medium, the only constant is that he's always busy. Keizoku/eiga is one of his earlier projects and it bears all the markings of a young director.

The film follows the adventures of a police squad trying to unravel unsolved mysteries. Perfect material for a TV series of course, with a new case ready every episode. If that sounds a little stale, not to worry, Tsutsumi turned Keizoku/eiga into a surreal and sometimes even absurd mystery. A clash of styles, blending comedy, police thriller and arthouse all into one restless package. The result may not be very subtle or sensible, it sure as hell is amusing.

The color palette is a little dire, with lots of murky greens and blues, but there's quite a lot of visual experimentation to keep things appealing. The plot is convoluted and quite effective, but ultimately the film itself seems to lose interest in the mystery to solve. The big reveal is made almost 30 minutes before the actual ending, with the crazy post-finale eclipsing the entire mystery that was set up before. I'm sure not everyone will appreciate that, but if you're still expecting this to be a basic police flick 90 minutes in, you've probably been dozing off more than a few times.

Tsutsumi never fully manages to bring all the different elements together elegantly, with the comedy and arthouse bits clashing violently from time to time. Like I said before, Keizoku/eiga isn't the most accomplished film, but it's never boring and has plenty of surprises packed to keep you engaged throughout its entire running time. Warmly recommended if you like weirdness and can bare some unevenness in the process, if you want a more solid experience it's better to look elsewhere.

Wara is going through a hard time. When she's up on the roof of a hospital, another kid stops her from harming herself. He ties a bandage around the fence where Wara stood, a symbol that moves her. She decides to form the Bandage Club and reaches out to other youngsters who are also struggling.

The performances are good, the film is subtle, and the drama isn't too overbearing, even though it handles some tougher topics. The film is still one of many though and doesn't do quite enough to stand out from the crowd, but if you're looking for a hidden gem, chances are slim you've already seen this one. A fine discovery.

Two men find themselves in a Chinese restaurant. One is a contract killer, the other a shady businessman who makes his money from backhanded deals. The contract killer agrees to have a final supper before he kills the man, the businessman will have to use every chance he gets to try and escape his imminent death.

The premise is extremely basic, but Tsutsumi has a lot of fun with the characters and the mystery behind the hit. The performances are solid, the styling is efficient and the film never gets boring, even when not much is effectively happening. It proved to be a perfect exercise for 2LDK, which serves a better build-up and a more satisfying ending. Chinese Dinner is a very entertaining flick in its own right though.

A young girl murders her father in cold blood and admits to her crime. Her trial becomes a media sensation, which attracts a psychologist who wants to write a book about the case. She visits the young girl in prison and slowly but surely, the true nature of the crime reveals itself.

The cinematography is polished, performances are decent and the pacing is on point. First Love is a decent flick, but also a film that never surprises, never colors outside the lines. Tsutsumi has made quite a few of these films in his career, and they're perfectly fine filler, but I wish he'd challenge himself a bit more.

Kazuto has a wife and two beautiful kids. His life looks perfect, until his son doesn't return after a night out and one of his classmates is found dead not much later. Kazuto's son is either involved as culprit or victim, two polar opposite outcomes that will change the lives of Kazuto's family in very different ways.

Performances are solid, with Shin'ichi Tsutsumi in a stand-out role as Kazuto. The cinematography is polished, the soundtrack is adequate and the emotional cues are timed perfectly. It's just that it all feels a bit overdone. It's certainly not the first film to handle these themes and I think a more subtle approach would've worked better here. Not bad though.

Ranmaru is a detective who solves cases with his tongue. By licking things, he can deconstruct the materials and what happened to them, discovering clues that will ultimately lead him to solve any puzzle. When he arrives in a small mountain village that's suffering from strange phenomena, Ranmara is asked by the villagers to help them solve the mystery.

Performances are well over the top (some fine, not all) and Yukihiko's direction remains close to the film's anime roots (even enlarging people's head from time to time), but the comedy's a bit hit-and-miss. While the premise is fun enough, the film does start to drag during the second half as there's way too much dialog explaining all the clues. Quite fun, but I've seen this type of material handled better.

A group of eight rejects come together and form a team of masked rangers, trying to stand up for themselves. They'll quickly learn that there's more to it than just just putting on a colored suit though, as their first attempts to fight crime don't end too well. But of course, as time passes, they learn to back each other and fend off the enemies that threaten them.

Don't come into this film hoping to see a real sentai flick, Tsutsumi plays it for laughs, turning it into a full-blown comedy. The performances are decent, the gags are quite funny and the pacing is solid. It's not an outstanding flick, it's a bit too cheap for that, but it's good fun, especially for people familiar with the sentai shows it parodies.

SPEC holders are people with special abilities, humans fear them and different nations are banding together to get rid of the SPECs altogether. The operation is called Simple Plan, but the SPECs won't go down without a fight, and the bond between the different nations is starting to show some cracks.

The quality is a bit better compared to the SPEC TV movies, but its TV roots are still too obvious. The plot and lore are pretty fun though and the film gets pretty zany and outrageous during the second half. If you can stomach live-action anime adaptations and you're able to navigate a franchise without access to all the parts, this is pretty entertaining.

The cheap TV look is a big part of the problem. The film simply looks cheap, the special effects are pretty bad and the direction is mostly functional. Luckily the cast is on point, with solid performances by Yukie Nakama and Hiroshi Abe and the comedy is pretty noteworthy too, but it's not enough to elevate it above mediocrity.

When Trick gets pleasantly weird, its potential becomes clearly visible. Sadly these moments are quite rare and stand out compared to to the rest of the film. While it never gets truly bad or boring, I'm always a bit disappointed after seeing one of these films. I can never escape the feeling that this should've been much better.

The Black Man is wreaking havoc among SPEC holders. It's a mysterious figure who is able to teleport, other SPEC holders appear to be powerless against him. The specialized crime unit is on his tail, but the criminal is elusive and time is running out. Things turn in their favor when they realize the Black Man is only a front, hiding a much stronger opponent.

The film's TV origin doesn't work in its favor, though it does allow Tsutsumi to go mad with weirder details (like the Vuvuzela trio). The lore and plot are interesting enough, but the lack of polish simply highlights all the unrealized potential. Not a bad film, just a tad too cheap to be truly enjoyable.