[J&Kmovie] Hatsuyuki no Koi – Virgin Snow

Starring:
Lee Joon-ki as Min
Miyazaki Aoi as Nanae

Min is a Korean high school student who has moved to Japan with his father, who is a pottery teacher. Riding his bike around Kyoto, he accidently crashes and is cleaning his wound at a shrine where is meets Nanae, who works there. Min doesn’t understand a word of Japanese, and Nanae doesn’t know any Korean. At first, the two communicate through hand gestures and broken English. After enrolling at the high school is father will be teaching at, he chases after Nanae who coincidentally is also a student there. He pursues her pretty aggressively and slowly the two overcome the language barriers, but unfortunately that’s not the only thing that is destined to keep them apart.

[Jmovie] Summer Time Machine Blues

Starring
Eita as Komoto Takuma
Ueno Juri as Shibata Haruka
Yoza Yoshiaki as Niimi Masaru
Kawaoka Daijiro as Koizumi Shunsuke
Nagano Munenori as Soga Atsushi
Maki Yoko as Ito Yui
Sasaki Kuranosuke as Jose
Muri Tsuyoshi as Ishimatsu Daigo
Honda Riki as Tamura Akira

Summer Time Machine Blues is one of the most fun movies I’ve ever watched that only gets better the more times you watch it. It’s the story of five guys in the sci-fi club (though they’re not really sci-fi fans) and two girls in the photography club that share a clubroom. It’s a hot summer day and in an accident, the remote to their air conditioner breaks. The next day a time machine suddenly appears in their clubroom. At first, the gang is unsure of what they should do with it, but then they have an idea. How about going back to yesterday to prevent the air conditioner remote from breaking?

[Jmovie] Tegami

Starring:
Yamada Takayuki as Takeshima Naoki
Sawajiri Erika as Shirai Yumiko
Tamayama Tetsuji as Takeshima Takashi
Fukiishi Kazue as Nakajo Asami
Onoue Hiroyuki as Terao Yusuke
Fukikoshi Mitsuru as Ogata Tadao

Every month, Naoki receives a letter from his brother, Takashi. Though they used to be very close, Takashi is now in prison for life. While Takashi was never a star pupil, Naoki is, and Takashi is determined to send his little brother to college. He works very hard, but unfortunately he hurts his back and was fired from his job. Unable to find work, he robs a house out of desperation, and when he is running he bumps into the elderly woman who lives there; the two struggle, and she dies. Because of this, he is send to prison and Naoki is branded “a murderer’s brother.” The story focuses mostly on Naoki and discrimination against him because of his brother, though he has done nothing wrong. Other characters include Yumiko, a girl who has always watched from the side and becomes his good friend; Yusuke, his friend since junior high; and Asami, who becomes his girlfriend.

[Jmovie] Gimmy Heaven (Synesthesia)

Starring:
Eguchi Yosuke as Hayama Shinsuke
Ando Masanobu as Nohara Takashi
Miyazaki Aoi as Michiki Mari
Kojima Hijiri as Detective Shibata
Torihada Minoru as Konno Soichiro
Matsuda Ryuhei as Picasso

This film centers around people who suffer from a disorder known as Synesthesia. People who have it will, when sensing one thing, will also sense something else. It’s kind of hard to explain theoretically but easier to understand in examples. Someone with Synesthesia might see a letter or number connected with a color. Or maybe they would associate sounds with colors. It’s a very interesting concept to use in conjunction with a murder mystery, which is what Gimmy Heaven (aka Synesthesia) essentially is.

[Jmovie] Koizora

Koizora

Starring:
Aragaki Yui as Tahara Mika
Miura Haruma as Sakurai Hiro
Koide Keisuke as Fukuhara Yu
Karina as Minako
Usuda Asami as Saki
Haru as Aya
Nakamura Aoi as Nozomu

Koizora is a very interesting mix of a pure first love story mixed with an over the top soap opera. Aragaki Yui plays an innocent girl-next-door type of girl, Mika, who meets through…interesting circumstances, Hiro (played by Miura Haruma). He’s a bit of a delinquent, as evident with his bleached blonde hair and biker older sister, but the two fall head first into love. They face many trials as a couple including (but not limited to) rape, pregnancy and jealous exes.

[Jmovie] Taiyou no Uta

Taiyou no Uta
Starring
YUI as Amane Kaoru
Tsukamoto Takashi as Fujishiro Kouji
Toyama Airi as Misaki
Asagi Kuniko as Amane Yuki
Kishitani Goro as Amane Ken

Taiyou no Uta stars YUI as a 16-year-old teenager with a skin condition called Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP), which makes the body weak to UV rays, so going out in the sun is very harmful. So instead of sleeping at night and going out in the day time, she sleeps during the day and goes out at night. Every night, she goes out to the train station and plays her guitar and sings. She’s always careful to come back well before sunrise. From her window, she has a good view of the bus stop and every morning, she sees a guy (played by Tsukamoto Takashi) waiting there with his surfboard for his friends to come. By chance, one night while she’s playing, he walks past the train station. What follows is a sweet story of innocent love.

[Jmovie] Gaichu

Gaichu (Harmful Insect)

Starring:
Miyazaki Aoi as Kita Sachiko
Seiichi Tanabe as Ogata
Sawake Tetsu as Takao
Amamiya Ryo as Tokugawa
Ishikawa as Kyuzo
Aoi Yuu as Natsuko
Ryo as Kita Toshiko

Miyazaki Aoi stars as Sachiko, a trouble middle school student in Gaichu or Harmful Insect. The film starts with the scene of her mother attempting to commit suicide, setting the melancholy tone. And although Sachiko always wears her school uniform, she has stopped going for a long time. Suffering from loneliness, she searches for some kind of peace anywhere and for awhile finds solace with others who don’t confine themselves to society’s rules. Eventually, her only friend at school convinces her to come back to school. But things just don’t get better for her.

[Jmovie] Shinku

Shinku

Starring:
Uchiyama Rina as Kako
Mizukawa Asami as Miho
Kohinata Fumiyo as Kako’s father
Ogata Naoto as Miho’s father
Uchida Asahi as Akira
Tsukamoto Takashi as Takumi
Horikita Maki as young Kako

I recently watched a movie called Shinku. It’s about two girls. One is a college student whose family was murdered (Kako); the other is the daughter of the man who murdered the other girl’s family (Miho). Eight years after the murder, he is finally sentenced to death. Kako is now a pretty college student with a boyfriend and plenty of friends. Miho is a tattooed bar owner married to an unfaithful and unkind man. Kako wants to meet Miho and she starts visiting the bar that Miho owns. The two form a kind of friendship, but Kako seems to have something else in mind, a revenge of some sorts.

Mini movie reviews

Waters

Starring: Oguri Shun, Hirayama Hirouki, Morimoto Ryoji, Kirishima Yusuke, Matsuo Toshinobu, Suga Takamasa, Katsurayama Shingo, Narumi Riko

Seven guys who need money start working at a host club. When they all get there, they discover that the manager of the club has run off with all their desposits. But the owner is kind and says that they can stay and work as hosts if they also run the entire venue themselves. With nothing left to lose, they decide to accept his offer. Also in the story are five women who are now successful entrepreneurs. Oguri Shun’s character knows the CEO and they had one of those friendly acquaintances/almost-lovers-but-not relationship.

[Jmovie] Kisaragi

Starring:
Oguri Shun as Iemoto
Santamaria Yusuke as OdaYuuji
Koide Keisuke as Snake
Tsukaji Muga as Yasuo
Kagawa Teruyuki as IchigoMusume
Sakai Kanako as Kisaragi Miki

One year after the suicide of a C-list idol, Kisaragi Miki, five of her fans meet to commemorate her death and celebrate her memory. Although none of them have met in person, they know each all by their aliases on Kisaragi Miki’s fan boards. The party starts off light-hearted enough, but when one of the members brings up his suspicions that Miki didn’t commit suicide, a heated discussions starts. He claims that she was murdered and that the murderer is actually in the room and starts accusing one attendee.