News

John Wick 3 pays homage to Mark Dacasco's iconic role as Iron Chef's "the Chairman" by giving his character a similar position of leadership and skill. Dacasco's character in John Wick 3, named Zero, is not only a deadly assassin but also a talented street-food sushi chef, a nod to Dacasco's history on cooking-related shows. Besides Iron Chef and John Wick, Dacasco has notable accomplishments as a martial artist, starring in films like Crying Freeman and Brotherhood of the Wolf, and as Wo Fat in Hawaii Five-0.

John Wick 3 found an interesting and unique way to pay homage to Mark Dacasco's most iconic role of his career. The third movie in the popular franchise follows John Wick trying to navigate life without an international assassin's guild's protective services and with a $14 million bounty on his head. It is one of the most intriguing movies in the series and manages to...

On Monday it was announced that Sho Sakurai and Keiko Kitagawa will be starring in a movie version of Fuji TV’s Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de, a 10-episode TV drama which aired from October-December last year.

Based on a best-selling novel by Tokuya Higashigawa, the drama starred Kitagawa as an ultra rich heiress named Reiko Hosho who hid her status to work as a rookie police officer by day. Sakurai played her perfectionist butler Kageyama who offered helpful advice delivered with his own unique brand of brutal honesty.

The movie version will be largely the same, just on a larger scale. Shooting will take place mostly aboard the “SuperStar Virgo”, the largest luxury liner in Asia.

In the movie, Reiko boards her family’s luxury cruise ship, the “Princess Reiko”, along with Kageyama and embarks on a vacation to Singapore. While on-board, a murder occurs and the two...

Yesterday, the supporting cast of Yasuhiro Kawamura’s Akko’s Secret was revealed to Japanese media via press release.

The film is a live-action adaptation of Fujio Akatsuka’s classic “Himitsu no Akko-chan” manga series (1962-1965) about a 10-year-old girl who receives a magical mirror which lets her transform into whatever she wishes. In this live-action version, Haruka Ayase stars as Akko-chan after using the mirror to transform herself into a 22-year-old woman.

It was previously known that Masaki Okada would play Naoto Hayase, an elite employee of a cosmetics company Akko-chan begins working for.

The newly-announced additions include Teruyuki Kagawa as the spirit of the magical mirror, Shosuke Tanihara and Kazue Fukiishi as fellow company employees, Muga Tsukaji as a security guard who befriends Akko-chan, and Ren Osugi as the company’s former president.

Smaller supporting roles include Riko Yoshida as 10-year-old Akko-chan, Keiko Horiuchi as her mother, Shungiku Uchida...

I remember watching the 1961 black and white version of Zero Focus a long time ago thinking, 'this needs an update.' The Hitchcockian premise was very intriguing: a man disappears during his business trip leaving his young wife distressed and confused. She travels to the snow country up north to find the missing husband and digs up some ugly past while dead bodies turning up around her. But it was visually bland and lacked any kind of suspense. So it was a nice surprise to see the remake on this year's Japan Cuts line-up.

The film is an epic. It begins with stock footage of the destroyed post-war Japan, then seamlessly moves into the economic-boom era of the 50s with impeccable periodic detail. Director Isshin Inudo here crafted a sumptuous picture of the bygone era Japan seldom seen in contemporary films.

The year is 1957. A naïve, young wife Teiko (Ryoko Hirosue...

On Tuesday, May 5th, Cyrano (with music by Frank Wildhorn and book & lyrics by Leslie Bricusse) opened in Tokyo to what was reported to be a rapturous ovation. Cyrano stars Takeshi Kaga (star of Jekyll & Hyde and Les Miserables) and is produced by Toho Company, HoriPro, and Fuji Television, Cyrano plays at the famous Nissay Theatre. After a run in Tokyo, the show will play Osaka at the Umeda Art Theatre and then tour Japan.