Akiko Ooku continues her portrayal of Japanese women in her newest feature “My Sweet Grappa Remedies”. Looking at her filmography, the director seems to be going for a franchise about the different stages of female adulthood. In 2017 she started with “Tremble All You Want” about a 20-year-old girl, which was followed by “Marriage Hunting Beauty” (2019) about the dating jungle of a 30 something woman. This movie focuses on a woman in her 40s.
“My Sweet Grappa Remedies” screened on Japannual Film Festival in Vienna.
Yasuko Matsuyuki (“Fullmetal Alchemist” 2017), prominently known for being the face of many TV ads in the 90s, plays single part-time employee Yoshiko. Although single, Yoshiko is happy with her life, documenting everything in her diary and going out with her co-worker Wakabayashi, who is embodied by Haru Kuroki (“The Antique” 2018). The love interest comes into play with Shimizu Hiroya (“Liverleaf” 2018) as junior colleague Okamoto, who is 24 years younger than Yoshiko.
“My Sweet Grappa Remedies” screened on Japannual Film Festival in Vienna.
Yasuko Matsuyuki (“Fullmetal Alchemist” 2017), prominently known for being the face of many TV ads in the 90s, plays single part-time employee Yoshiko. Although single, Yoshiko is happy with her life, documenting everything in her diary and going out with her co-worker Wakabayashi, who is embodied by Haru Kuroki (“The Antique” 2018). The love interest comes into play with Shimizu Hiroya (“Liverleaf” 2018) as junior colleague Okamoto, who is 24 years younger than Yoshiko.
- 10/16/2019
- by Alexander Knoth
- AsianMoviePulse
Director Kosai Sekine visited the third edition of the Japannual Film Festival to present his two movies “Love at Least” (2019) and “Tower of the Sun” (2018).
Kosai Sekine made his debut in 2005 with the short-film “Right Place”. In the following year, he won the Young Director Grand Prix Award in Cannes for “Daughter”. Since then, he has been working in the advertisement and music industry. He made commercials for Toyota, Google, Uniqlo, and many other companies. In 2010, Sekine directed the “Nike Music Shoe” campaign, which earned him the Silver Award at Cannes Lions.
With “Love at Least” as a fictional, and “Tower of the Sun” as a documentary movie, the Japanese director enters the territory of full-length theatrical motion pictures. Enough reasons to sit down with him and do a full-length interview.
You are already very successful in commercials as well as in the short film business. When did you decide to shoot a feature film?...
Kosai Sekine made his debut in 2005 with the short-film “Right Place”. In the following year, he won the Young Director Grand Prix Award in Cannes for “Daughter”. Since then, he has been working in the advertisement and music industry. He made commercials for Toyota, Google, Uniqlo, and many other companies. In 2010, Sekine directed the “Nike Music Shoe” campaign, which earned him the Silver Award at Cannes Lions.
With “Love at Least” as a fictional, and “Tower of the Sun” as a documentary movie, the Japanese director enters the territory of full-length theatrical motion pictures. Enough reasons to sit down with him and do a full-length interview.
You are already very successful in commercials as well as in the short film business. When did you decide to shoot a feature film?...
- 10/4/2019
- by Alexander Knoth
- AsianMoviePulse
And Your Bird Can SingNorth America’s premier program of contemporary Japanese cinema returns this week as the Japan Society’s thirteenth annual Japan Cuts series comes to New York City. This year’s program includes 26 feature films, almost entirely by young filmmakers and/or directors largely unfamiliar in the West. I caught about a third of the series this year: dramas about alienated urban youth And Your Bird Can Sing, Blue Hour, and Demolition Girl; Francophile comedy Jeux de plage; a pair of social problem films in the throwback comedy The Kamagasaki Caudron War and the tastefully bland The Journalist; an unclassifiable avant-garde musical relic of the 1980s, Legend of the Stardust Brothers; and a pair of films by this year’s Cut Above award winner Shinya Tsukamoto, Killing and Bullet Ballet. The urban youth film is always reliable festival territory, and some of the best films to come...
- 7/17/2019
- MUBI
“People Still Call It Love” Passion, Affection and Destruction in Japanese Cinema
UK – 2 February to 28 March 2019
Belfast – Bristol – Chester – Colchester – Derby – Dundee – Edinburgh – Exeter – Halifax – Inverness – Kendal – Leicester – Lewes – London – Manchester – Newcastle upon Tyne – Nottingham – Sheffield – Stirling
Love, in all its semblances and dimensions, is a state so universally experienced by humankind that it has provided a perpetual source of inspiration in the long history of global cinema. Japanese cinema is no different. Love and the associated feelings of passion, affection, and destruction, in equal measure have all been channelled into a pivotal driving force behind the rise of many Japanese filmmakers, crystallising in timeless works which form part of the nation’s artistic repertoire.
The Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2019 features thoughtfully selected works, all focusing on this theme in one way or another. As the conventional binaries defining what it means to love continually give way to new understandings of this sweeping emotion,...
UK – 2 February to 28 March 2019
Belfast – Bristol – Chester – Colchester – Derby – Dundee – Edinburgh – Exeter – Halifax – Inverness – Kendal – Leicester – Lewes – London – Manchester – Newcastle upon Tyne – Nottingham – Sheffield – Stirling
Love, in all its semblances and dimensions, is a state so universally experienced by humankind that it has provided a perpetual source of inspiration in the long history of global cinema. Japanese cinema is no different. Love and the associated feelings of passion, affection, and destruction, in equal measure have all been channelled into a pivotal driving force behind the rise of many Japanese filmmakers, crystallising in timeless works which form part of the nation’s artistic repertoire.
The Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2019 features thoughtfully selected works, all focusing on this theme in one way or another. As the conventional binaries defining what it means to love continually give way to new understandings of this sweeping emotion,...
- 12/21/2018
- by Adriana Rosati
- AsianMoviePulse
Mayu Matsuoka's delightfully kooky performance as a nerdy introvert in Akiko Ooku's Tremble All You Want was one of the great discovery's of the Tokyo International Film Festival last year. The turn cemented her status as one of Japan's top young talents on the rise, while also helping the film win the festival's audience award.
Since then, Matsuoka has become known to cinephiles the world over thanks to a nuanced supporting role in Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda's Cannes Palme d'Or winner, Shoplifters.
Japan's official selection for the best foreign-language film Oscar, the movie ...
Since then, Matsuoka has become known to cinephiles the world over thanks to a nuanced supporting role in Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda's Cannes Palme d'Or winner, Shoplifters.
Japan's official selection for the best foreign-language film Oscar, the movie ...
- 10/26/2018
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Mayu Matsuoka's delightfully kooky performance as a nerdy introvert in Akiko Ooku's Tremble All You Want was one of the great discovery's of the Tokyo International Film Festival last year. The turn cemented her status as one of Japan's top young talents on the rise, while also helping the film win the festival's audience award.
Since then, Matsuoka has become known to cinephiles the world over thanks to a nuanced supporting role in Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda's Cannes Palme d'Or winner, Shoplifters.
Japan's official selection for the best foreign-language film Oscar, the movie ...
Since then, Matsuoka has become known to cinephiles the world over thanks to a nuanced supporting role in Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda's Cannes Palme d'Or winner, Shoplifters.
Japan's official selection for the best foreign-language film Oscar, the movie ...
- 10/26/2018
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Romantic drama is directed by Akiko Oku, whose last film won the audience award at Tiff 2017.
Japan’s Free Stone Productions has sold romantic comedy Marriage Hunting Beauty to China’s Lemon Tree Media and CatchPlay for Taiwan.
Based on a popular web comic, the film is directed by Akiko Oku whose last film, Tremble All You Want, won the audience award at last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival (Tiff).
Mei Kurokawa heads the cast of the film, playing a web designer in her 30s, who tries online dating to find a husband, but finds herself torn between an...
Japan’s Free Stone Productions has sold romantic comedy Marriage Hunting Beauty to China’s Lemon Tree Media and CatchPlay for Taiwan.
Based on a popular web comic, the film is directed by Akiko Oku whose last film, Tremble All You Want, won the audience award at last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival (Tiff).
Mei Kurokawa heads the cast of the film, playing a web designer in her 30s, who tries online dating to find a husband, but finds herself torn between an...
- 10/23/2018
- by Liz Shackleton
- ScreenDaily
Ever heard of “Konkatsu”? No? Congratulations, because that means that you have not (yet) been part of the very popular trend of spouse hunting. An uncompromising way for women to find marriageable men. Akiko Ohku adds with “Marriage Hunting Beauty” another quirky romantic comedy to her oeuvre. After her success hit “Tremble All You Want” (2017), Ohku presents now the wild dating carnival of a desperate woman called Takako (Mei Kurokawa).
Marriage Hunting Beauty is screening at Japannual Festival
Online-Dating and single cafès configure the playground for the manga-based plot. Being only attracted by married men, Takako is frustrated of being a mistress. Together with the help of her best friend Keiko, played by Asami Usuda, she chooses two guys with different backgrounds. Sonoki (Tomoya Nakamura), a nerdy salaryman, whose character took inspiration from TV-Dramas like “Densha Otoko”, is dumbstruck by Takako’s presence and feels like he doesn’t deserve to be around her.
Marriage Hunting Beauty is screening at Japannual Festival
Online-Dating and single cafès configure the playground for the manga-based plot. Being only attracted by married men, Takako is frustrated of being a mistress. Together with the help of her best friend Keiko, played by Asami Usuda, she chooses two guys with different backgrounds. Sonoki (Tomoya Nakamura), a nerdy salaryman, whose character took inspiration from TV-Dramas like “Densha Otoko”, is dumbstruck by Takako’s presence and feels like he doesn’t deserve to be around her.
- 10/8/2018
- by Alexander Knoth
- AsianMoviePulse
The Night Is Short, Walk on GirlNew York City’s remarkable summer of Asian film programming continues this week, when, just as the New York Asian Film Festival comes to a close, the Japan Society begins its annual series highlighting the best of contemporary Japanese cinema. This twelfth edition of Japan Cuts features 28 films over ten days, most of which are premiering for the first time in the United States. It’s an eclectic mix of arthouse and genre films from world famous directors as well as young unknowns. I was able to sample a handful of this year’s program, for the most part steering away from the biggest names1 in favor of less heralded filmmakers. In all I saw six films: three romantic comedies; a road movie; a 1980s pink film (Masayuki Suo’s Abnormal Family); and Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Hanagatami, which is some kind of a historical drama.
- 7/19/2018
- MUBI
Akiko Ooku was born in 1968 in Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture. She graduated from Meiji University. In 1999, Ms Ooku made her directorial debut with “Igai to Shinanai”, followed by her internationally renowned works “Tokyo Serendipity” (2007) and “Tokyo Nameless Girl’s Story” (2012). “Tremble All You Want” is her third time working with actress Matsuoka Mayu (松岡茉優).
During the 19th Jeonju International Film Festival, we had the opportunity to interview filmmaker Akiko Ooku (大九明子) about her latest film “Tremble All You Want” (2017) and her future projects.
“Tremble All You Want” is based on the novel by Risa Wataya. How and when did you decide to start working on a film adaptation of the novel, and how close did you stay to the original?
Yuna Shiraishi, the producer I worked with on “Fantastic Girls (Deeree Girls)” three years ago, brought me this novel. I was truly happy that she wanted to work with me again.
During the 19th Jeonju International Film Festival, we had the opportunity to interview filmmaker Akiko Ooku (大九明子) about her latest film “Tremble All You Want” (2017) and her future projects.
“Tremble All You Want” is based on the novel by Risa Wataya. How and when did you decide to start working on a film adaptation of the novel, and how close did you stay to the original?
Yuna Shiraishi, the producer I worked with on “Fantastic Girls (Deeree Girls)” three years ago, brought me this novel. I was truly happy that she wanted to work with me again.
- 5/19/2018
- by Sofía Murell
- AsianMoviePulse
The program of the 18th Japanese Film Festival Nippon Connection in Frankfurt am Main is complete! From May 29 to June 3, 2018 the audience can discover more than 100 new short and feature films at the biggest festival for Japanese film worldwide – from blockbusters and anime to independent and documentary films. Almost all of the films will be presented as German, European- international, or world premieres. A diverse supporting program provides about 50 exciting cultural activities apart from the cinema. Numerous Japanese filmmakers, musicians, and artists will be our guests at the festival. As the guest of honor, renowned actress Shinobu Terajima will receive the Nippon Honor Award 2018. The events will take place at the festival centers at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm and Theater Willy Praml in der Naxoshalle as well as four additional locations in Frankfurt am Main.
Nippon Cinema
Once more, many stars of the Japanese film scene will be expected to present...
Nippon Cinema
Once more, many stars of the Japanese film scene will be expected to present...
- 5/16/2018
- by Adriana Rosati
- AsianMoviePulse
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.