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Asian-produced teen and coming-of-age films will be the focus of a special section at this year’s Busan International Film Festival which is heading for its 29 edition in October.

With 10 titles, the section comprises a mix of notable recent productions, such as Malaysian body horror and self-discovery title “Tiger Stripes,” and a pair of world premieres.

In addition to “Tiger Stripes,” which won the Grand Prix Prize in Critics Week at Cannes in 2023, was selected as Malaysia’s Oscar contender only to be cut by local censors, the selection includes: “City of Wind,” winner of the Orizzonti Award for best actor at Venice last year; Okuyama Hiroshi’s “My Sunshine,” from this year’s Cannes Un Certain Regard section; Sora Neo’s “Happyend,” which will play at Venice next month’; Shuchi Talati’s “Girls Will Be Girls,” winner of the audience awards at Sundance in January; and “Fishbone,” which won...

Japanese director Nobuhiro Yamashita (“Linda Linda Linda”) was represented by no less than three features at Montreal’s Fantasia Fest this year, including anime “Ghost Cat Anzu” and high school seriocomedy “Swimming in a Sand Pool.” The shortest, most outwardly simple yet also possibly best of the lot might well be “Confession,” a manga adaptation in which two mountaineering refugees from a blizzard spend a long, discomfiting night in a cabin. The fact that one of them has just admitted to murder means that that particular type of crime could well recur before dawn arrives.

More or less a single-setting two-hander, this thriller proves a small master class in eking maximum value from a premise one might assume too limited to sustain more than a short’s length. It’s a sharply honed, pleasurably nasty cat-and-mouse thriller that could attract remake interest overseas.

A brief prologue informs us that Sayuri...

For all the live-action manga/anime adaptations of popular properties, it is nice to see filmmakers give lesser-known works the cinematic treatment. Yama Wayama's manga series “Let's Go Karaoke!” while not on the same level of popularity as other comedic illustrated works, has garnered a positive reception in Japan and internationally. Surely, the strange yet humorous concept of the head of a high school choir giving singing lessons to a pitiful yakuza lieutenant could be solidly translated to film, especially in the hands of a talented filmmaker like Nobuhiro Yamashita, best known for his critically acclaimed feature “Linda Linda Linda.” Sadly, “Let's Go Karaoke!” is a movie that accomplishes the unfortunate feat of being both a lackluster comedy and a poorly conceived drama.

Let's Go Karaoke! is screening at Nippon Connection

One day, yakuza member Kyoji Narita is strolling through the rainy streets when he is drawn to the...

Event Outline

The Osaka Asian Film Festival aims to facilitate human resources development and exchange, to invigorate the Osaka economy, and to increase the city's appeal, through providing opportunities to watch excellent Asian films, supporting filmmaking in Osaka and attracting filmmakers from Asian countries and regions to Osaka. Promoting Osaka worldwide as a gateway city for Asian films, and engaging with many people from the fields of culture, art, education, tourism and business, from Osaka and all of Asia, Oaff works as an open platform to contribute to the development of Osaka and cinema.

Marking its 19th edition this year, Oaff, under programming director Teruoka Sozo, will again select high-quality Asian films. The Competition section, which receives increased recognition every year, will again select films previously unreleased in Japan. The regular sections, Special Screenings and Indie Forum, and other special programs will also feature a wide variety of excellent Asian films.

A high school comedy about an Ozzy-obsessed outcast who ropes his only friend into forming a post-death metal duo called SkullFucker in order to win the Battle of the Bands (and prove his value to all of the popular kids in their Portland suburb), Peter Sollett’s “Metal Lords” is

Screenwriter D.B. Weiss may be a bonafide head-banger who’s spent most of his career trying to bring SkullFucker to the screen — the “Game of Thrones” co-creator first began shopping the script before he ever stepped foot in Westeros — but most of the story beats in this overfamiliar coming-of-age saga are as metal as the Imagine Dragons cover that SkullFucker’s rivals bust out during the climactic face-off. It isn’t until the third act that “Metal Lords” finally shreds with any of the rage against the machine frustration that’s fueled similar let’s start a band films like...

Exclusive: Omnibus film was inspired by a Japanese punk band.

Japanese studio Nikkatsu has picked up international rights to omnibus film The Blue Hearts, comprising six short films inspired by the music of the iconic Japanese punk band of the same name.

The six directors contributing shorts include Takashi Shimizu (The Grudge), Ken Iizuka, Shinichi Kudo, Ten Shimoyama, Noboru Iguchi and Lee Sang-il. Cast includes Masatoshi Nagase (Mystery Train) who stars in Kudo’s segment, Frozen Expectation.

Active from 1985 to 1995, The Blue Hearts have been compared to Western bands such as the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. Some of their songs were covered in Nobuhiro Yamashita’s 2005 indie hit Linda Linda Linda.

An incomplete version of The Blue Hearts omnibus film was screened at this year’s Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival.

Nikkastu’s Cannes slate also includes Roman Porno Reboot, a series of five features from leading Japanese directors inspired by the Roman Porno genre, and Kazuya Shiraishi...

Halloween is coming to Montreal this summer, as the star-studded (both in front of and behind the camera) anthology horror film, Tales of Halloween, is scheduled to make its world premiere at the festival. JeruZalem, Turbo Kid, Deathgasm, and many more movies are also slated to screen:

Press Release -- "Montreal, May 6, 2015 – The 19th annual Fantasia International Film Festival is gearing up to rush Montreal with three weeks of cinematic inspiration and fantastical visions from across the world from July 14 until August 4, 2015.

Our complete lineup of programming and special events will be revealed in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, here’s an early First Wave Announcement of selected highlights and info to whet your appetite for the exciting things to come!

Unveiling Our 2015 Poster Art: Fantasia Continues Its Celebration Of Regional Folklore With The Wendigo

In recent editions, Fantasia has showcased poster art informed by various regional legends and myths,...

The Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, now in its 19th year, is one of our favorite festivals around and a fan favorite for Sound on Sight readers for several years now. This year’s festival runs July 14 to August 4, and the first wave of films on the lineup has just been revealed.

Marvel’s highly anticipated Ant-Man, with Paul Rudd, will be the opening night film, along with the Japanese animated film Miss Hokusai. Miss Hokusai comes from Production I.G., known for its other classics including A Letter to Momo and Giovanni’s Island.

Fantasia ’15 will also be home to several World Premieres, including Tales of Halloween, a collection of 10 short horror stories, and Jeruzalem, a horror film from Israeli directors and Tiff honorees Yoav and Doron Paz (Phobidilia).

The Canadian indie Turbo Kid, which we first caught up with at Sundance this year, will also be having its...

What's this? A trailer for the new movie from Linda Linda Linda director Yamashita Nobuhiro? You bet. Yamashita's new film La La La At Rock Bottom opens in Japan on Valentine's Day, February 14th. We have the trailer to share with you, complete with English Subtitles so even we gaijin know what is going on. During a band's performance at a square in Osaka, a young man suddenly rushes the stage. The young man grabs the mic and begins to sing. The audience is stunned by the man's actions at first, but they become overwhelmed by the young man's voice.After the song, the band and the band's manager, Kasumi, ask about the young man's story. The young man tells them that he doesn't know, because of...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

I've got some good news for all you Attack on Titan fans out there! Last week director Shinji Higuchi announced that the live-action adaptation he's working on will be split into two feature films! He also revealed that with the help of manga creator Hajime Isayama, they will introduce some new characters and new, more dangerous villains. As a fan of the franchise, I'm completely okay with new characters being added to the story. I'm sure the movie will end up being just as badass as the anime.

23 year-old actor Haruma Miura was previously announced as the film’s star, and he is taking on role of Eren Jaeger. We now have a list of actors who will be Joining Miura in Attack on Titan, and they consist of Hiroki Hasegawa (Jellyfish Princess), Kiko Mizuhara (Norwegian Wood), Kanata Hongō (Prince of Tennis), Takahiro Miura (Space Battleship Yamato), Nanami Sakuraba (Twin...

(Now I feel tempted to not write a review for a year...) Director Yamashita Nobuhiro is probably best known for his 2007 film Linda Linda Linda, which managed to wring a lot of enjoyment out of a pretty mundane subject. In his newest film Tamako in Moratorium, he takes this a step further. Seemingly, in this film nothing much happens at all! The devil is in the details though... The Story: After finishing school, Tamako returns home to her divorced father, who lives in a small apartment above the sports shop he runs. Once there, she starts to do some serious slacking: she doesn't work, she doesn't socialize... all she does is read manga, play games, watch television and eat the meals her father prepares...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Of course there'll be another roundup on The Tree of Life. But first, let's give a little breathing room to some of the other films opening this Memorial Day Weekend.

"The extreme leftists of the 1960s and 70s who sought to change the world one bomb at a time might have been unhappy to know that their revolutionary legacy is doing nice business at that bourgeois temple, the art house," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "It's a legacy that in recent years and specifically since 9/11 has been romanticized and critiqued in movies like The Motorcycle Diaries (a prehistory involving the young Che Guevara); Che (about his campaigns in Cuba and Bolivia); The Baader Meinhof Complex (German leftists who embraced violence); Good Morning, Night (the kidnapping of the former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades); Carlos (the Venezuelan Marxist turned mercenary). United Red Army tells much the same story,...

Crispin Hellion Glover's Big Slide Show, On tour

He may feature in blockbusters such as Alice In Wonderland and Hot Tub Time Machine these days, but nobody could accuse Crispin Glover of selling out. Between his mainstream gigs, the singularly strange actor has been busy turning out curious "novels" – usually reinterpretations of antiquated illustrated texts – and curiouser movies. His directing debut, What Is It?, combining actors with Down's syndrome, naked women and lots of snails, drew comparisons with Buñuel and Jodorowsky; its similar successor, It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine, follows a serial killer with cerebral palsy. If that's not weird enough for you, Glover also performs from his works ("reads" is too sedate a word for it) to a slideshow and holds audience Q&As.

Edinburgh Filmhouse, Sun; The Star And Shadow, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tue & Wed; Phoenix Cinema, N2, Thu; to 17 Feb

Back To The Future:...

“252: Sign of Life” is a Japanese disaster movie blockbuster very much in the classical Hollywood mould, with CGI tidal waves and tornadoes causing mass destruction in Tokyo as cast members try to resolve personal issues while fighting for their lives. Its title referring to a distress code signal used by emergency teams to indicate survivors in need of assistance, the film was directed by Mizuta Nobuo, who previously scored a hit with the hilarious geisha comedy “Maiko Haaaan!!!”. As is usually the case with the genre, the film is very much an ensemble piece, starring Ito Hideaki (“Sukiyaki Western Django”) and Uchino Masaaki (“Fuurin Kazan”), with support from Yamada Takayuki (“Crows: Episode 0”), Kashii Yu (“Linda Linda Linda”) and Korean model turned actress Minji. Having originally enjoyed success with critics and viewers on its domestic release back in 2008, the film now arrives on region 2 DVD via Mvm. Inspired by a...

As the Toronto International Film Festival approaches, it seems like a good time to reflect on the film that got away. Everyone who has been to a film festival has at least one of these, and probably even a list of them. The film that was sold out. The film that just wouldn’t fit into your schedule. The film that you wanted to take a gamble on, but which none of your friends wanted to see.

If you’re unlucky, the name of ‘the one that got away’ continues to haunt you months later, but a year after the festival there’s still no sign of it in cinemas and, after fruitless Googling, you conclude that it was never even released on DVD. It is well and truly lost: maybe for the best, as the film might not have been as good as you thought it would be. But...

The premise of Air Doll is one than will instantly alienate a lot of people which is unfortunate as it is a premise that Koreeda uses not in the most obvious ‘wacky’ way that people might expect but to investigate emotional subjects. The film is based on a Manga by Yoshiie Goda entitled The Pneumatic Figure of a Girl and centers on an inflatable sex doll who comes to life and explores the world around her.

The sex doll in question, Nozumi, is played by Bae Du-Na, whose performances in The Host and Linda Linda Linda and now this have made it clear that she is a talented actress who will hopefully continue to get roles that afford her the opportunity to show her obvious skills as an actress.

Nozumi is owned by a restaurant waiter Hideo (Itao Itsuji) who mostly treats her as if she were real, buying her clothes,...

It’s been known for a while now that Nobuhiro Yamashita (Linda Linda Linda, A Gentle Breeze in the Village) was working on a new film, thanks to a mysterious listing added to IMDb a while back for an Untitled Nobuhiro Yamashita Project. The listing hasn’t given away much info aside from the fact that Yamashita was once again working with “Linda Linda Linda” screenwriter Kosuke Mukai, but further details finally came out earlier today in Japan.

The new film is called My Back Page and is set in the late 1960s around the time of the student protests at Tokyo University. It’s based on the experiences of film critic and translator Saburo Kawamoto, who worked as a newspaper reporter from 1969-1972. Satoshi Tsumabuki (29) will play a journalist and Kenichi Matsuyama (25) will play a left-wing university student. This marks the first time the two popular actors have co-starred in a film together.

Easter Monday is upon us and what better way to enjoy the bank holiday than with the dulcet tones of the Mouth Off podcast?

This week I’m joined by HeyUGuys writers Emily Breen and Craig Skinner, as well as our usual guest /Film’s Brendon Connelly, and we take a look at two films out this week, Louis Leterrier’s 3D/CGI behemoth Clash of the Titans and Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut Whip It.

We also pick out a few of the week’s news items and trailers to discuss and the (now) regular feature the Movie Resurrection Round Table (that is its name this week…) where we champion an overlooked film we love, four great choices this week and as always I’ve added the trailers to the foot of this post.

As always do leave your comments and suggestions below, we want to make this podcast...

Title says it all, really. We’ve been aware for a while now that quirky Korean actress Bae Doo-Na (The Host, Linda Linda Linda) would be teaming up with Japanese director Kore-Eda (Hana, Nobody Knows). What we didn’t know was that the film - adapted from a manga by Yoshiie Goda - would feature Bae as an inflatable sex doll who becomes conscious and strikes up a relationship with her owner, a video store clerk played by Ping Pong‘s Arata. Susumu Terajima, Jo Odagiri and Ryo Iwamatsu also star.

For a while—a little too long for my liking—it seemed like Bae Doo-Na was simply content going around shooting photos (her most “acclaimed” hobby, so to speak), and appearing on various magazines here and there. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think she’s made the best career choices after her work in the lovely リンダリンダリンダ (Linda Linda Linda) and Bong Joon-Ho’s 괴물 (The Host). Both her more recent TV drama appearances were a misfire, first in the pretty but hilariously uneven cable drama 썸데이 (Someday), and then in last year’s rom-com 완벽한 이웃을 만나는 법 (The Perfect Neighbors). Bae was certainly fine, in spite of the material. But she was also wasting her immense talent on work that never posed any challenge to her. But, this one? Might be a tad different.

His latest film 歩いても 歩いても (Still Walking) is currently screening at the Piff in Busan,...