Female of the Species: Sono’s Pseudo-Allegory Reifies the Male Gaze
Superficially, there’s not too much new on hand in Sion Sono’s Tag, credited as the third of a whopping six features due out in 2015, each to most likely be juggled around the film festival circuit before a little luck sees them reach theatrical release next year thanks to the auteur’s continually growing cult audience (it’s fair to say he’s browbeating the output of native prolific provocateur, Takashi Miike). This latest lands somewhere on the more bizarro end of Sono’s eclectic spectrum, though is nowhere near as gonzo, batshit crazy as Why Don’t You Play in Hell? (2013) or last year’s gangster musical Tokyo Tribe. However, neither is this on par with the director’s more sterling titles, like the magnum opus Love Exposure (2008), the first chapter of his daunting “Hate” trilogy. Instead,...
Superficially, there’s not too much new on hand in Sion Sono’s Tag, credited as the third of a whopping six features due out in 2015, each to most likely be juggled around the film festival circuit before a little luck sees them reach theatrical release next year thanks to the auteur’s continually growing cult audience (it’s fair to say he’s browbeating the output of native prolific provocateur, Takashi Miike). This latest lands somewhere on the more bizarro end of Sono’s eclectic spectrum, though is nowhere near as gonzo, batshit crazy as Why Don’t You Play in Hell? (2013) or last year’s gangster musical Tokyo Tribe. However, neither is this on par with the director’s more sterling titles, like the magnum opus Love Exposure (2008), the first chapter of his daunting “Hate” trilogy. Instead,...
- 8/10/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
One director not going to Cannes this year is Sion Sono, though with four films and one TV movie due for release in 2015, you would think something from the director would hit the Croisette. But one could understand how he might be too damn busy to walk down the red carpet, so we'll just have to take the movies as they come. And as per usual, Sono has a way of stoking excitement, and "Tag" fits right in the vein of his wilder, wackier films. Starring Reina Triendl, Mariko Shinoda, and Erina Mano, and based on the novel "Real Onigokko" by Yusuke Yamada, the story follows high school girls who become the target of a shape-shifting ghost. But if this trailer is anything to go by, this is far, far beyond your average flick about supernatural entities, with tons of bodies, lots of blood, and plenty of machine gun fire.
- 5/12/2015
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
A festival the likes of Fantasia is not to be tread lightly. For a variety of evident reasons it is a behemoth of an event, lasting far longer than the vast majority of other movie festivals and offering a slew of genre features and shorts ranging from lighter fair some may deem to be mainstream to supremely hard core, provocateur material. As with any event of similar ilk, not everything showcased earns the passing grade. Quite the contrary in fact; when 150 or more motion pictures are shown to the public, at least some are guaranteed to be utter tosh if not downright risible. Swimming through the ocean of bad, decent and good movies for a three-week period will invariably result in one stumbling upon some standout efforts. Below are five that won me over easily, sometimes in rather shocking ways.
5-Time Lapse
Written by Bradley and B.P. Cooper
Directed by Bradley King
U.
5-Time Lapse
Written by Bradley and B.P. Cooper
Directed by Bradley King
U.
- 8/12/2014
- by Edgar Chaput
- SoundOnSight
The Sitges Film Festival is typically a feast for horror fans, and this year's event looks to be no different as a big batch of new genre movies has been added to the lineup that's sure to make you drool.
From the Press Release:
The 47th Sitges Film Festival, to be held from 3 to 12 October, will be loaded with films that are all eagerly awaited by fantastic and, especially, horror genre film lovers. Festival Director Àngel Sala has announced the names of a good handful of new films that will be included in Sitges 2014.
These new Festival incorporations have been added to the lineup of an edition that will be opening with Jaume Balagueró’s [Rec] 4: Apocalypse, presenting its Grand Honorary Award to Roland Emmerich, and including presentations of the latest productions from important directors like Jean-Luc Godard, David Cronenberg, Kim-ki Duk, and Takashi Miike. See more details on those...
From the Press Release:
The 47th Sitges Film Festival, to be held from 3 to 12 October, will be loaded with films that are all eagerly awaited by fantastic and, especially, horror genre film lovers. Festival Director Àngel Sala has announced the names of a good handful of new films that will be included in Sitges 2014.
These new Festival incorporations have been added to the lineup of an edition that will be opening with Jaume Balagueró’s [Rec] 4: Apocalypse, presenting its Grand Honorary Award to Roland Emmerich, and including presentations of the latest productions from important directors like Jean-Luc Godard, David Cronenberg, Kim-ki Duk, and Takashi Miike. See more details on those...
- 8/4/2014
- by Debi Moore
- DreadCentral.com
Puzzle
Written by Eisuke Naito, Makoto Sasaki, and Yusuke Yamada
Directed by Eisuke Naito
Japan, 2014
Human beings are flawed individuals, all too often succumbing to vice. Most cannot help themselves for the power of greed, lust, jealousy and the like is too much for simple mortals to resist. Do these weaknesses make humans evil creatures? The reassuring answer is ‘no’, given that people also sport a conscience, faculties to differentiate right from wrong, and, in the event that a wrong has been committed, a compulsive desire to feel regret. This balance makes people what they are: far from perfect but capable of great good. What of those who pay no heed to compassion or understanding, people whose desire is to do harm unto others? What sort of beings are they if not monsters? More frightening is the possibility of a monster awakening from within someone who did not know they were capable of embracing evil,...
Written by Eisuke Naito, Makoto Sasaki, and Yusuke Yamada
Directed by Eisuke Naito
Japan, 2014
Human beings are flawed individuals, all too often succumbing to vice. Most cannot help themselves for the power of greed, lust, jealousy and the like is too much for simple mortals to resist. Do these weaknesses make humans evil creatures? The reassuring answer is ‘no’, given that people also sport a conscience, faculties to differentiate right from wrong, and, in the event that a wrong has been committed, a compulsive desire to feel regret. This balance makes people what they are: far from perfect but capable of great good. What of those who pay no heed to compassion or understanding, people whose desire is to do harm unto others? What sort of beings are they if not monsters? More frightening is the possibility of a monster awakening from within someone who did not know they were capable of embracing evil,...
- 8/1/2014
- by Edgar Chaput
- SoundOnSight
No English subtitles on this one but there's enough here to warrant a mention, if only because the trailer is right up our street. Based on the novel "Pazuru" by Yusuke Yamada, Puzzle is directed by Eisuke Yamada. Freaky masks are all the rage it would seem and there's definitely a hint of Suicide Club about this one. We'll keep you posted on further news as it comes in, but for now, sit back and enjoy the deliciously deranged trailer. Puzzle is released back home on March 8, 2014. Synopsis: High school student Azusa (Kaho) jumps off from the rooftop of a school building, but she survives. One month later, the school is taken over by group of people wearing bizarre masks. A pregnant teacher is imprisoned, while the head director of the school and male students disappear. Azusa then finds pieces of a puzzle in an envelope given to her by classmate Shigeo.
- 2/1/2014
- 24framespersecond.net
Movies with Bingo Themes
How much do you love bingo? Do you love it so much that you have played every bingo game and listened to every bingo song? Bingo has been around for many years. It was a favorite community game in the United States and United Kingdom and has been played in bingo halls since the 1950s.
Today, online bingo is booming all over the world. Bingo games are now offered on social media sites such as Facebook where it has a huge following, while enthusiasts at the CheekyBingo fan page use its interactive community to play and chat with friends at the same time. This proves that bingo is now a tool to improve social relations. It has become a part of our social history, which is the reason why it is often seen being featured in some films.
Los Bingueros
Los Bingueros is a bingo comedy...
How much do you love bingo? Do you love it so much that you have played every bingo game and listened to every bingo song? Bingo has been around for many years. It was a favorite community game in the United States and United Kingdom and has been played in bingo halls since the 1950s.
Today, online bingo is booming all over the world. Bingo games are now offered on social media sites such as Facebook where it has a huge following, while enthusiasts at the CheekyBingo fan page use its interactive community to play and chat with friends at the same time. This proves that bingo is now a tool to improve social relations. It has become a part of our social history, which is the reason why it is often seen being featured in some films.
Los Bingueros
Los Bingueros is a bingo comedy...
- 8/31/2013
- by admin
- Atomic Popcorn
Directed by: Yohei Fukuda
Written by: Mari Asato and Yoichi Minamikawa
Featuring: Hirofumi Araki, Ayaka Kikuchi, Haruka Nakagawa, Masashi Mikami
A group of 20-something adults including Hideaki (played by Hirofumi Araki) are kidnapped and placed inside a locked school room. Hands bound and in various states of coherency, they each quickly discover that they were all students at the same grade school years ago. It turns out that the four individuals also participated in, or were a witness to, the bullying of a female classmate named Mariko. Two hooded guards, armed with taser-like clubs, enter the room and force the group to watch a holographic video featuring their former grade school teacher. Under great duress, he explains to them that they have been gathered to participate in a version of a vicious grade school pastime called X Game.
The rules are simple: 13 different punishments are written on separate pieces of...
Written by: Mari Asato and Yoichi Minamikawa
Featuring: Hirofumi Araki, Ayaka Kikuchi, Haruka Nakagawa, Masashi Mikami
A group of 20-something adults including Hideaki (played by Hirofumi Araki) are kidnapped and placed inside a locked school room. Hands bound and in various states of coherency, they each quickly discover that they were all students at the same grade school years ago. It turns out that the four individuals also participated in, or were a witness to, the bullying of a female classmate named Mariko. Two hooded guards, armed with taser-like clubs, enter the room and force the group to watch a holographic video featuring their former grade school teacher. Under great duress, he explains to them that they have been gathered to participate in a version of a vicious grade school pastime called X Game.
The rules are simple: 13 different punishments are written on separate pieces of...
- 1/10/2013
- by Bradley Harding
- Planet Fury
The official website for Akira Nagae’s Kotsutsubo has been updated with a YouTube embed of its new trailer.
The film is based on a short story by Yusuke Yamada (The Chasing World, X Game) and stars members of four different idol groups: Natsumi Matsubara of AKB48, Rurika Yokoyama of Idoling!!!, Rina Miyazaki of Super☆GiRLS, and Ai Shinozaki of AeLL.
Matsubara plays an inconspicuous female high school student Eri who goes completely unnoticed by her classmates. In contrast, her childhood friend Mitsuko (Yokoyama) is the class leader and is constantly hit on by their creepy teacher, Ichida (Mamoru Tsubouchi). In order to protect her friend, Eri obtains a funerary urn rumored to hold ashes that cause certain death for anyone who gets them in their mouth.
As you can see from the trailer, things get a smidge out of hand. Although one wonders why they couldn’t just use poison—not spooky enough?...
The film is based on a short story by Yusuke Yamada (The Chasing World, X Game) and stars members of four different idol groups: Natsumi Matsubara of AKB48, Rurika Yokoyama of Idoling!!!, Rina Miyazaki of Super☆GiRLS, and Ai Shinozaki of AeLL.
Matsubara plays an inconspicuous female high school student Eri who goes completely unnoticed by her classmates. In contrast, her childhood friend Mitsuko (Yokoyama) is the class leader and is constantly hit on by their creepy teacher, Ichida (Mamoru Tsubouchi). In order to protect her friend, Eri obtains a funerary urn rumored to hold ashes that cause certain death for anyone who gets them in their mouth.
As you can see from the trailer, things get a smidge out of hand. Although one wonders why they couldn’t just use poison—not spooky enough?...
- 4/30/2012
- Nippon Cinema
Yusuke Yamada’s short story Kotsutsubo is getting a movie adaptation, and it will feature members of four different idol groups—Natsumi Matsubara of AKB48, Rurika Yokoyama of Idoling!!!, Rina Miyazaki of Super☆GiRLS, and Ai Shinozaki of AeLL.
Yamada is probably best known for writing the popular thriller “Real Onigokko”, which inspired a low-budget 2008 movie that was a surprise hit with the after school crowd. More recent adaptations of his work, Avatar and X Game, also featured up-and-coming idols like Ai Hashimoto, Ayaka Kikuchi, Haruka Nakagawa, and Aika Oota.
The new movie’s story involves a cursed funeral urn filled with ashes that can bring about people’s deaths. A socially inept female high school student named Eri (Matsubara) attempts to save her childhood friend, a popular girl named Mitsuko (Yokoyama), from a stalker teacher who’s using the urn to spread the curse.
J-horror veteran Akira Nagae (2channel no Noroi Gekijoban) will direct.
Yamada is probably best known for writing the popular thriller “Real Onigokko”, which inspired a low-budget 2008 movie that was a surprise hit with the after school crowd. More recent adaptations of his work, Avatar and X Game, also featured up-and-coming idols like Ai Hashimoto, Ayaka Kikuchi, Haruka Nakagawa, and Aika Oota.
The new movie’s story involves a cursed funeral urn filled with ashes that can bring about people’s deaths. A socially inept female high school student named Eri (Matsubara) attempts to save her childhood friend, a popular girl named Mitsuko (Yokoyama), from a stalker teacher who’s using the urn to spread the curse.
J-horror veteran Akira Nagae (2channel no Noroi Gekijoban) will direct.
- 4/9/2012
- Nippon Cinema
The Japanese pop culture blog Gigazine has posted individual trailers for the trilogy of "Real Onigokko" movies being released in Japan this May.
All three movies are directed by Mari Asato (Ju-on: Black Ghost, Keitai Kanojo) and their events take place at the same time in different locations.
The Real Onigokko franchise is based on a novel by Yusuke Yamada about a parallel world where everyone with the last name "Sato" is hunted by masked men for some mysterious reason. "Onigokko" is the Japanese equivalent of the children's game "tag". The person designated "oni" (demon) tries to catch any of the other players. Appropriately, these movies generally stick to the basic theme of people being chased. Fighting back is rarely an option due to the single-minded determination of the "oni", so survivors end up running for their lives in a series of nonstop action scenes. In a similar vein to Battle Royale,...
All three movies are directed by Mari Asato (Ju-on: Black Ghost, Keitai Kanojo) and their events take place at the same time in different locations.
The Real Onigokko franchise is based on a novel by Yusuke Yamada about a parallel world where everyone with the last name "Sato" is hunted by masked men for some mysterious reason. "Onigokko" is the Japanese equivalent of the children's game "tag". The person designated "oni" (demon) tries to catch any of the other players. Appropriately, these movies generally stick to the basic theme of people being chased. Fighting back is rarely an option due to the single-minded determination of the "oni", so survivors end up running for their lives in a series of nonstop action scenes. In a similar vein to Battle Royale,...
- 4/7/2012
- Nippon Cinema
A new trilogy of Real Onigokko movies is set for release in Japan this May. A combined trailer for all three movies was released earlier today.
In 2008, Yusuke Yamada’s popular Real Onigokko novel was adapted as a relatively low budget movie starring Takuya Ishida, Shunsuke Daito, and Mitsuki Tanimura (international English title: The Chasing World). In the story, a teenager named Tsubasa Sato is pulled into a parallel world where anyone with the surname Sato is hunted relentlessly by creepy masked men under orders from a mysterious king. Anyone who dies in the parallel world also dies in Tsubasa’s original world, so he spends the majority of the story protecting the alternate version of his sister.
The movie did surprisingly well with teens and tweens due to repeat after-school viewings, and a sequel followed in 2010.
In the new movies, people with type B blood are victims of the game.
In 2008, Yusuke Yamada’s popular Real Onigokko novel was adapted as a relatively low budget movie starring Takuya Ishida, Shunsuke Daito, and Mitsuki Tanimura (international English title: The Chasing World). In the story, a teenager named Tsubasa Sato is pulled into a parallel world where anyone with the surname Sato is hunted relentlessly by creepy masked men under orders from a mysterious king. Anyone who dies in the parallel world also dies in Tsubasa’s original world, so he spends the majority of the story protecting the alternate version of his sister.
The movie did surprisingly well with teens and tweens due to repeat after-school viewings, and a sequel followed in 2010.
In the new movies, people with type B blood are victims of the game.
- 3/21/2012
- Nippon Cinema
The official website for Masafumi Yamada’s upcoming movie X Game 2 has been updated with a YouTube embed of its new trailer.
The movie is a sequel to 2010’s X Game, a live-action adaptation of a popular novel by Yusuke Yamada.
In the first movie, an adult used a sadistic “punishment game” as revenge for his own experience being bullied at a young age.
The sequel stars Aika Ohta of the pop idol group AKB48 as Misuzu Saeki, a student who gets trapped in a classroom along with nail stylist Yuko Hagiwara (Natsumi Hirajima) and three others. Soon, a monitor appears and a “lesson” begins which forces them to begin solving exam problems at the risk of severe physical punishment.
Meanwhile, as rumors begin to spread of an organization enacting vengeance for victims of bullying, a reporter for a weekly magazine (Ryoichi Yuki) begins an investigation.
X Game 2 will be...
The movie is a sequel to 2010’s X Game, a live-action adaptation of a popular novel by Yusuke Yamada.
In the first movie, an adult used a sadistic “punishment game” as revenge for his own experience being bullied at a young age.
The sequel stars Aika Ohta of the pop idol group AKB48 as Misuzu Saeki, a student who gets trapped in a classroom along with nail stylist Yuko Hagiwara (Natsumi Hirajima) and three others. Soon, a monitor appears and a “lesson” begins which forces them to begin solving exam problems at the risk of severe physical punishment.
Meanwhile, as rumors begin to spread of an organization enacting vengeance for victims of bullying, a reporter for a weekly magazine (Ryoichi Yuki) begins an investigation.
X Game 2 will be...
- 3/3/2012
- Nippon Cinema
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