Yoshihiro Nakamura isn’t as high a profile Japanese director as folks like Takashi Miike or Kiyoshi Kurosawa, but he truly deserves to be. His early career focused on horror, but the last few years have seen him deliver powerfully affecting entertainment in the form of films that explore friendships and relationships through fresh, thrilling and often fascinating  stories. Fish Story, Golden Slumber and A Boy and His Samurai are fantastic movies, each charming and supremely entertaining in their own ways., and any one of those films would mark Nakamura as a director to watch. But all three on his resume means anything he directs deserves at least a cursory glance. Thanks to Third Window Films those of us who don’t speak Japanese finally have the opportunity to view one that preceded the three above but retains some of the same themes and much of the quality.

Quentin Tarantino has never shied away from the debt he owes to foreign cinema when it comes to his own films, and whether they’re called homages or ripoffs the bottom line remains that certain movies from overseas inspired some of his most well known features. Reservoir Dogs is a blatant lift of Ringo Lam’s City on Fire, Inglourious Basterds found inspiration from Enzo Castellari’s The Inglorious Bastards and Tarantino’s two-part, female led revenge thriller Kill Bill? You need look no further than Toshiya Fujita‘s 1973 classic, Lady Snowblood. Japan, 1874, and the cries of a newborn baby can be heard echoing in the cells of a women’s prison. Deemed a “child of the netherworld” upon her birth we next see Yuki Kashima (Meiko Kaji) twenty years later as an adult walking a secluded and snowy road. A group of men approach carting their gang boss leader in a rickshaw, and when they attempt to forcibly move Kashima she slices and dices her way through them like blood filled bags of butter, painting the snow red as she goes. As the gang leader falls beneath her blade he asks who sent her, and he dies knowing only that it was revenge.

The Wolverine has had a long and storied production history. It’s had changes of shooting locations, changes of directors, and probably a handful of other stumbling blocks that we’ve all forgotten put in front of its eventual release. But work on the film has finally been underway for a while now, and some real progress toward its July 2013 release must actually be being made, because the film’s official Twitter account has just unveiled its first official still. So, how does it look? It looks like what one would expect. It’s long been understood that this new Wolverine adventure will take the character to the land of the rising sun, and, sure enough, this poster features Hugh Jackman looking jacked, sporting Wolverine’s adamantium claws and scruffy facial hair, and standing in front of an out-of-focus shrine that looks vaguely Eastern religion-y. That pretty much nails the whole checklist for advertising a Wolverine in Japan movie. Check out the full version after the break.

The Nikkatsu Corporation is Japan’s oldest major film studio, but even though they closed up shop in 1993 their legacy lives on with the careers of the directors and actors they shepherded towards success. They’re like Roger Corman in that way having provided opportunities to talents that have gone on towards bigger and better success. They shared one other trait with the king of the B-movies… a recognition that T&A sells tickets. Starting in the early 70s, Nikkatsu began producing romantic pornography, aka Roman Pornos, and the profits soon followed. The films are a mix of sex, nudity, violence and nuttiness, and while they ranged from dramas to comedies the focus never veered very far from the obscene. Sadly, the sexy times only lasted until 1988, but now Impulse Pictures has taken on the enviable task of re-releasing these classics to DVD so new generations can enjoy the fornicating, fingering, showering (of all kinds) and pig porking fun.

UPDATED: ComingSoon throws a real wrench in (some of) our awesome speculation with news that Will Yun Lee has joined The Wolverine as Kenuichio Harada, otherwise known as the Silver Samurai. Read on, though, as we can still have a lot of fun with our initial thoughts. Casting appears to be underway for James Mangold’s upcoming entry into the X-Men franchise, the Japan-set solo story of the world’s scruffiest mutant, The Wolverine. Of course, we already know that Hugh Jackman is on board to once again star as the title character – that’s pretty much the only thing that’s been set in stone about this project since development began an eternity ago – but now ComingSoon has some scoops on the names that will be making up the gaijin’s supporting cast, and if you know anything about Wolverine’s Japanese past, these are some big roles. Ralph Lauren model Tao Okamoto is set to play Mariko Yashida, a young Japanese girl who Wolverine falls in love with and becomes engaged to, while relative newcomer Rila Fukushima is on board to play Yukio, a sort of ninja-trained thief who often works as the clawed Canadian’s ally. The next bit of news is a little bit confusing. Listed as being cast are two more characters, one named “Shingen” and one named “Yashida.” In the Wolverine comics, the young bride Mariko has a father who is named Shingen Yashida – the head of a once great clan who disgraced their name by turning them into

When it was first announced that Disney had purchased Marvel Comics, the holy grail endgame of such an acquisition that instantly popped into every film fan’s head was that now the group of acclaimed artists working over at Disney’s Pixar wing could get their hands on a Marvel property and make an animated superhero movie that would blow everyone’s minds. With Pixar’s already full slate of projects and the murky details of who owns the film rights to which Marvel characters in what context, the idea was something of a long-shot, but when you get a couple companies under the same corporate umbrella like this and give executives the chance to start throwing around words like “synergy,” eventually anything becomes possible. The news that broke today isn’t quite that holy grail of Pixar making a Marvel movie, but it’s a team-up that brings us one step closer to that reality. For the first time ever, Disney is going to be making an animated Marvel movie. But, instead of Pixar, the artists handling this one are coming from that other wing of animators who work under the Disney corporate banner, Walt Disney Animation Studios. This is the studio that’s most recently brought us Tangled and Winnie the Pooh, and have Wreck-It Ralph set up for a release this fall.

According to Deadline Tokyo, John Woo will director his first non-Red Cliff movie since 2003′s Paycheck. Fortunately, he’s chosen something that will definitely facilitate the use of slow motion doves. He’ll be tackling the world of the Yakuza for a remake of the 1963 Seijun Suzuki film Youth of the Beast, which will aptly be titled Day of the Beast. Production will be handled by Lion Rock and Nikkatsu – Japan’s oldest major movie studio which celebrates a full century in business this year. According to the release, the movie “follows a western outsider with a grim past as he becomes embroiled in a global turf war between a vicious new breed of Yakuza and old school Cold War Russian mobsters. It’s an action-packed saga of loyalty, revenge and redemption which erupts in the heart of Tokyo.” Yes, yes, and yes. The original was a 60s-trippy, frantic crime story with a lot of ins and outs (and whathaveyous), so it’ll be fertile ground for Woo to get as weird as he wants to be.

Fuji TV, Ridley and Tony Scott are asking that the people of Japan pick up a camera on March 11th to tell their own stories for a massive documentary project being called Japan in a Day. The project will join the growing number of crowd-sourced docs like Life in a Day (which was also produced by Ridley Scott) and the burgeoning world of Post-Tsunami filmmaking (which is in part getting started by Sion Sono). The goal, as with other films like it, is to get a ground-level viewpoint of the everyday in Japan to show the beauty of banality. Videos will be featured on their official Youtube page, and their team will assemble clips into a feature length film for a Fall release in Japan to be followed by an international release sometime later. And what about the people who can’t afford cameras? That’s right – rumors that all Japanese people have bionic, recording eyeballs are false – which is why Scott and Fuji are donating 200 cameras to areas hit hardest by the tsunami so that they can share their stories as well. The production has a trailer/call for films that celebrates the exciting world of walking, waiting, looking around, and otherwise going about your day. Check it out for yourself, and see those all-too-familiar things become poetry:

Director Peter Webber (Girl With the Pearl Earring) has a new project coming up called Emperor that looks at the tension and confusion in Japan immediately after their surrender in World War II. The film will star Lost’s Matthew Fox as a man named General Bonner Fellers (or “boner feeler” as he was doubtless known in his junior high), who served General Douglas MacArthur as his leading expert on all things Japanese. Basically he was the 40s military version of kids that are really into manga and video games. Being the leading expert on Japan was a pretty important role in this particular moment in history, however, as Fellers ended up being the guy who had to decide whether or not Emperor Hirohito should be tried and hanged as a war criminal. That’s some pretty grave stuff, but Fox won’t have to handle the dramatic load alone. THR is reporting that veteran actor Tommy Lee Jones has now signed on to the project to portray General MacArthur. Emperor producer Gary Foster says of the choice, “Tommy will bring strength, intelligence and gravitas to the portrayal of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, a legendary American hero.” Gravitas is a good word to use there. Jones is one of those actors that just lends a certain weight to every role he takes, no matter how ridiculous the movie around him might be. I’m sure his familiar presence will add quite a bit to this historical drama. Hell, at this point he’s practically a legendary

Sion Sono’s films have never really been aimed at a wide audience, but few directors are as capable as he is of making the ugliest things beautiful. Case in point is his latest film, Guilty of Romance. Izumi is the docile wife of a successful romance novelist who saves all of his energy and emotion for his books and readers. Her entire life is in service to him as her daily duties include making sure his shoes are ready for him at the door and his meals are ready for him at dinnertime. She’s also expected to compliment his naked body even though he’s never interested in sharing it with her in any meaningful way. Seriously, the scene where he shows her his penis, fishing for reassuring words, and then tells her she can touch it if she wants is just awkward and painful to watch. But when she steps out of her normal life to get a job and find her own worth she discovers a deviance she never expected… both outside her home and inside herself. She meets Mitsuko, a professor by day who moonlights as a prostitute, and the two of them descend into a very dark hole together. And that’s not a euphemism. Okay, maybe it is.

The premise of Ben-To is a simple one: being a student is hard, money is tight, and if you want cheap food, you’re going to have to fight for it. The tone seems far less Battle Royale and more Lucky Star, but that’s because a situation where poor students turn to fisticuffs in order to get at discounted food demands to be a broad comedy. Thanks to Twitch, we can share the teaser for the forthcoming Anime series, so check it out for yourself:

Yoshino (Hikari Mitsushima) is lying to her friends, her parents, and herself, and if she’s not careful it just might get her kil– wait, scratch that. Too late. Her friends and family believe she’s dating and in love with the flashy and wealthy Masuo (Masaki Okada), but that’s not the truth. He barely tolerates her pushy and trashy ways but puts up with her strictly for the sex. The other man in her life is Yuichi (Satoshi Tsumabuki), a guy she met online who pays her for sex even as he begins to develop feelings for her. She cancels her plans with Yuichi one night after convincing Masuo to hang out instead, and as the couple drives away a frustrated and angry Yuichi speeds after them. The next day Yoshino is found dead at the bottom of a ravine. What follows is part murder mystery, part love story, and part exploration into the hearts and minds of those left behind. Two men become suspects. A father and a grandmother begin to crumble beneath the weight of crushing guilt. And an impossible romance grows for a couple with little chance of seeing it blossom. Identifying the villain and victim amidst the emotional chaos is never as simple as it seems.

It didn’t take long after the character of Wolverine got added to the X-Men back in 1975’s “Giant Size X-Men #1” for him to take the pop culture world by storm and become one of the most beloved and prolific characters in comic book history. By the time 1982 rolled around, the character was so big that he was ready for his first solo title, and so a Chris Claremont-penned Frank Miller-penciled four issue mini-series was released seeing the character travel to Japan, get engaged to a woman named Mariko, and battle some modern day samurai. That first Wolverine in Japan storyline showed the most human side of the character we had seen yet, and over time it has become pretty seminal. That’s why the upcoming sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, adapted to the screen by The Usual Suspects writer Christopher McQuarrie and simply titled The Wolverine, will be drawing on it heavily for inspiration. But we’ve known all of that for a while. What is the new news on the development of this project? The Wolverine used to be a highly anticipated upcoming film back when Darren Aronofsky was attached to direct, but once he dropped off the hype machine died down quite a bit. The last we heard about it, 3:10 to Yuma director James Mangold was most likely to be stepping into Aronofsky’s shoes, and shooting would most likely begin in fall. That news was met with a collective “meh” from the online world, so we haven’t

Sawako (Hikari Mitsushima) isn’t quite leading the life she always wanted in Tokyo. She’s been there for five years and like clockwork is on both her fifth job and fifth boyfriend… neither of which she’s all that thrilled about. The job sees her walked over by her male bosses and abused by little kids, and her private life finds her playing second fiddle to her boyfriend’s daughter, Kayoko (Kira Aihara). Her co-workers tell her to leave Kenichi (Masashi Endo), but she thinks she doesn’t really deserve any better. “We’re both lower-middles,” she says. How can she possibly hope for more? Clearly, Sayako is no bundle of sunshine. She gets a call from home letting her know that her father is gravely ill and she’s needed to help with the family business, a freshwater clam packing company. Her impulse is to say no as she left home for a reason, but she reluctantly lets Kenichi talk her into returning home with both him and his rude daughter in tow. Once there she goes to work trying to keep the factory afloat in her father’s absence, but it won’t be easy. If her door-mat attitude wasn’t bad enough she’s also forced to confront townspeople she offended, deal with her boyfriend’s wandering eye, and accept the guilt of her last words to her father those many years ago.

Welcome to the fifth and final installment of Guest Author month at Criterion Files: a month devoted to important classic and contemporary bloggers. This week, David Ehrlich, whose bimonthly column Criterion Corner was a favorite at Cinematical, takes on Paul Schrader’s incredible biopic Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. Tune in next week as Adam Charles returns Criterion Files to its usual rotation, and in the meantime you can take a look at the previous entries from guest contributors here. Infamous Japanese iconoclast Yukio Mishima once said “I still have no way to survive but to keep writing one line, one more line, one more line…,” a sentiment which suggests that his eventual suicide came only once his creative resources had run dry. Yet, as Paul Schrader’s sublime film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters so fluidly illustrates, Mishima ended his life with a self-administered sword thrust to the chest not because he was out of words, but rather because the page had never been a sufficient canvas for his artistic expression, or one to which he had ever intended to confine himself.

Watch enough foreign language movies and you’re bound to develop some (usually incorrect) perception of that particular country’s citizens. Korean people are more likely to kick you than they are to smile. French folks will cheat on each other at the drop of a pastry. There are no schools for acting in Thailand. You get the idea. Japanese films are no different and in fact offer up more than one assumption about the culture. And no, they don’t all have to do with lactation or the enticing aroma of girls’ underwear. Some are about the overwhelming fear that Japanese society appears to have towards its own children. The youth of the nation are alternately dangerous to others (Battle Royale) or to themselves (Suicide Club), but the one constant is the complete lack of connection or understanding the adults have for their teenage counterparts. It’s an intriguing idea and one writer/director Tetsuya Nakashima (Kamikaze Girls) has decided to embrace with his latest movie, Confessions. His film is far more subtle than those mentioned above, but no less dangerous or dark, and he melds it seamlessly with another popular theme in Asian cinema…

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this stuff late at night, what do you expect?

Great movies come from all around the world, and so do great DVDs and Blu-rays. Import This! is an irregular feature here at FSR that highlights discs and/or movies unavailable in the US that are worth seeking out for fans of fantastic cinema. We’ll cover movies both foreign and domestic, new and old, and while some discs will require region-free players others will play on any DVD or Blu-ray machine. The one thing they’ll all have in common is their status as damn fine films and/or solid entertainment currently unavailable in the US but well worth importing into your collection. It’s 2012 and Roland Emmerich and the Mayans are screaming “told ya so!’ at the top of their lungs to anyone who’ll listen. Why? Because a large comet is heading towards Earth, and it’s mere hours away from impact. A lone electric wheelchair moves silently through empty city streets until its driver spots the only other sign of life… an open record store. Inside are two men talking music as the world is about to end. In particular they’re discussing a long-forgotten punk band called Gekirin and their song “Fish Story.” A song that just may save the world… Read on after the jump for more reasons that make this disc and movie worth importing…

The seventh annual Another Hole In the Head Film Festival is currently running in San Francisco from July 8th through the 29th. It’s a genre fest featuring domestic and international horror, sci-fi, and exploitation films, and it just may be the first and last chance to see some of these on the big-screen. There are thirty-two films at the fest this year, and we’re trying to see and cover as many as possible. (And by we I mean me…) Grotesque – directed by Koji Shiraishi, Japan; upcoming screenings 7/16 5pm, 7/18 7pm, 7/22 5pm Synopsis: A physician in serious risk of breaking his Hippocratic oath kidnaps a young couple and proceeds to torture them physically, sexually, and emotionally. No, really. That’s pretty much it. Check out our review after the jump…

The seventh annual Another Hole In the Head Film Festival is currently running in San Francisco from July 8th through the 29th. It’s a genre fest featuring domestic and international horror, sci-fi, and exploitation films, and it just may be the first and last chance to see some of these on the big-screen. There are thirty-two films at the fest this year, and we’re trying to see and cover as many as possible. (And by we I mean me…) Death Kappa – directed by Tomo Haraguchi, Japan; upcoming screenings 7/17 7pm, 7/29 7pm Synopsis: Who’s up for a giant monster movie? And by giant monster of course I mean old school style with a man in a suit trashing his way slowly through a miniature set… but let’s rewind. A young woman returns to her home town just in time to witness a car full of drunken punks run down her grandmother. As if that’s not bad enough the fools also knock the town’s Kappa shrine into the water. (What’s a Kappa? It’s a cucumber-loving goblin with a turtle shell, a beak, and a bald plate on his head. Oh, and they love sumo wrestling.) Unsurprisingly, this brings the Kappa to life, and after a brief detour into violence to dismember the punks the Kappa settles in for some singling and dancing with our heroine. Until a mad scientist’s granddaughter shows up with her plan to create an army of half fish/half human super soldiers and inadvertently detonates an atomic