June Woo: The opening narration:
“In America, I will have a daughter just like me. But over there, nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch. Over there, nobody will look down on her because I will make her speak only perfect American English. And over there, she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow.
The recent post on this blog about Ming-na Wen brought to mind her role as June Woo in the wonderful film adaption of the Amy Tan novel, The Joy Luck Club. The novel’s pedigree is impeccable. Published by G.P. Putnam & Sons in 1989, the book was on the New York Times best seller list for more than six months, it has been translated into more than 35 languages, and has sold in excess of 30 million copies world wide since its original publication more than 20 years ago.
After Amy Tan had a lengthy three day meeting with screenplay writer Ron Bass and movie director Wayne Wang, where they hashed out how the novel would be adapted into a movie, the three of them made a pact that they would not sell the book’s movie rights, or the screenplay, unless the studio gave them total creative control, meaning they would control the screenplay, the choice of location and actors, the filming, the editing, all the way up to and including the final cut. Read more…
Real Clothes was a Japanese TV Drama series that played last fall. Starting on October 13th, its last episode aired on December 22nd, a few days before Christmas, and just a little more than two months ago. The DVD will be released in the middle of next week on March 3rd. Simply described, the story has everything you ever wanted to know about high fashion, or to be more exact – it is about selling high fashion which is really the selling of dreams. If they had a tag-line, it might have been, To be your best, you have to look your best.
Karina has the lead role and is just one of many Japanese beauties lighting up the screen in this 11 episode series. She does a superb job as Kinue Amano, a girl who was doing quite well selling bedding in the fictional top of the market Echizenya Department Store in Tokyo. Then one day she finds she’s been transferred to the Women’s Clothing Department.
Karina as Kinue Amano, looking like a plain Jane in Episode 1. This scene is in Paris where the series begins.
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Dance Subaru is not an animated cartoon about dancing Japanese cars. It is a 2009 film about one girl’s climb into the world of ballet; a place where deception, lies, back-stabbing, and using people to get ahead are considered the norm.
Subaru Miyamoto is played by the beautiful and talented Meisa Kuroki. As is usually done in the movies – to achieve success one has to have previously suffered. Subaru and her twin brother Kazuma are introduced to ballet at an early age by their Mom who soon passes away because of a cancerous brain tumor. But not before ballet had taken hold in the children.
The kids loved ballet and shared a dream about becoming ballet dancers. They could be seen in the street practicing some classical dance movements from Swan Lake. However their conservative father discouraged them, But again, death intervenes. Kazuma dies at the age of 10 from a brain tumor, just like his Mother. Read more…
Just when I thought that Nonami Takizawa’s acting career was on hold….
or maybe I should amend that statement: Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…
But that was the tag-line for Jaws 2 released all the way back on June 16th, 1978, just in time for the summer beach season (kids off from school and all that). Apparently that scary great white shark dreamt up by Peter Benchley for his novel Jaws more than 35 years ago is still attracting movie makers.
Which brings us to Jaws in Japan, a 2009 film that apparently went straight to DVD. And that brings us back to Nonami Takizawa who gets the star billing in this movie. I can’t say if this film was a success or not but the film makers attempted a cross-over between gravure and gore.
What little I’ve been able to find out about this movie is that four girls journey to a southern Japanese island to re-live some memories from their college days. There’s some problems with the lodging at a local inn, and there’s some nefarious bad guys in the area. There’s also that monster swimming around in the sea waiting for some bikini-clad beauties to munch on. Read more…
Water Boys began as a Japanese movie back in 2001. It was the story of some geeky male students who joined a synchro team. That’s a short way of saying synchronized swimming. It proved so popular in Japan that it was packaged and delivered as a TV series which ran for two seasons in 2003 and 2004. Finally, a TV Summer Special was aired in 2005. It was broadcast over two nights each with each segment running about 90 minutes.
Admittedly, synchronized swimming is still in the Summer Olympics but aside from that you don’t hear much about it these days. It is sort of like ballet and swimming combined. Meaning that I could have a look at it with girls doing the swimming, but watching guys do this – I think not.
At least not for me. But I can see how Japanese girls might like watching a wholesome story that showed off a lot of guys in brief racing swimsuits.
So why I am doing an article about this? Well, I learned that buxom gravure idol Nonami Takizawa had a speaking role in this TV Special with appearances on both nights.
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Ai No Uta (aka Love Song) begins with a despondent woman telling us how she was an unwanted child. We are told that her mother did as much as she could to prove that theory again and again – including making her 7 year old daughter hide in a closet while she entertained male guests.
She is shunned by other children at school, is given stale bread to take to school for lunch, and her birthday or Christmas were ignored by her Mom. At one point, while still as a child, she had attempted to run away. She tried to live in a cardboard box nearby. When she was driven back home by severe rainstorms, and hunger, her mother greeted her with an indifferent, “Oh you’re back? Didn’t you run away?”
We learn just about all of this in voice-overs and flashbacks in the first 7 minutes or so of this TV series. This child, named Yoko Matsuda, and played as an adult by TV actress Miho Kanno, grew up to be a woman who lacked both friends and family. She was totally lacking in any kind of happiness at all. So we are not surprised when she, after giving up all hope, decides to take her life by jumping off a bridge in Tokyo. She climbs up on the railing and jumps off. All that remains are her shoes. Roll intro.
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Ordinary Miracle is a story about two people who meet by chance on a train platform. They’re total strangers and unrelated to each other in any way other than both are coming or going either from or to their work while passing through this one station.
The event that caused them to meet was anything but romantic. On their own, they each consider or think that a third person, a man standing by himself at the far end of the train platform, may be going to take his own life by leaping in front of an oncoming train.
Independently they watch him, and as the train approaches, this man edges toward the side of the platform of the oncoming train. They spring into action and barely pull this man back to safety from a sure death by punching him and wrestling him down to the platform’s surface.. Read more…
Hana Haruna – Koi Yuu Ryokou Abaren Bou Oppai
E-Net Frontier
Catalog # ENFD-5188 – Region 2 Disc – 16:9 Aspect
Running Time: 92 Minutes
The Skinny: The google machine translation of the title comes out: Transportation Tits Rowdy Koi. So I’ve really no idea. However it’s not really important to know the title in order to watch the video or even to order the video. Release date was 12/18 and I had this one in my hands in Florida on 12/19.
This is Hana’s 6th gravure DVD release this year. It is her first release from E-Net Frontier. She’s now been in DVDs released by I-One, Takeshobo, Saibunkan, and Air Control which means all of the major gravure producers have had her on screen. Read more…
Director: Jingle Ma
Cast: Louis Koo, Cherrie Ying, Tats Lau
Synopsis: He’s great looking. She’s gorgeous. They meet in Beijing, China, and it looks like love will blossom. Or will it? This isn’t boy meets girl, boy loses girl. Instead this is boy meets girl, then boy can’t remember girl.
Tagline:
Classification: Romantic Comedy
Release date: April 10, 2003
Running time: 97 minutes
Language: Cantonese or Mandarin with English and Chinese subtitles
Studio website:
Links: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379975
Categories: Comedy, Romance
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According to a news report published today on the Japan Today website, the future may be starting sooner than we think. By the future I mean that television and computers may become obsolete.
Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Okay, maybe that is more than a bit – maybe I am really stretching it.
Here’s the headline:
Five Hot Actresses To Star in BeeTV Cell Phone Drama Read more…
