The concept of quitting high demand jobs for something that pays less but is also less demanding timewise and in psychological terms is a concept that has been examined in Japanese cinema a number of times, with “Bunny Drop” being one of the first movies that come to mind. At the same time, the feeling of failure that accompanies such decisions, or any kind of ‘not-meeting-expectations' is another very interesting topic that we have seen dealt with in titles like “Melancholic”. Yuho Ishibashi deals with both in her latest work, which has recently won the Japan Cuts award at Osaka Asian Film Festival.
“When Morning Comes, I Feel Empty…” is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival
24-year-old Nozomi has quit her job in the ad agency she used to work with, and is now working part time at a convenience store close to her apartment. However, her sense of failure is so intense,...
“When Morning Comes, I Feel Empty…” is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival
24-year-old Nozomi has quit her job in the ad agency she used to work with, and is now working part time at a convenience store close to her apartment. However, her sense of failure is so intense,...
- 3/25/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Despite the fact that a number of them are interesting, Mamoru Oshii’s live action works never reached the level of his animated ones. And how could they, since the latter include some of the most iconic anime of all time, with the likes of “Ghost in the Shell”, “Angel’s Egg” and “Patlabor” among others. Now in his 70s, the Japanese filmmaker still insists on coming up with the occasional live-action, with “I Can’t Stop Biting You”, based on his own animated series, “Vlad Love”, being the latest one.
I Can’t Stop Biting You is screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam
In Kurusu Private High School, Maki, Niko, Kaoru, and Nami, four girls who are obsessed with blood donation, have started the Blood Donation Club, essentially distancing themselves from the whole of the school environment, with the exception of the school nurse, Ms Chihiro, who is their closest “associate”. One day,...
I Can’t Stop Biting You is screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam
In Kurusu Private High School, Maki, Niko, Kaoru, and Nami, four girls who are obsessed with blood donation, have started the Blood Donation Club, essentially distancing themselves from the whole of the school environment, with the exception of the school nurse, Ms Chihiro, who is their closest “associate”. One day,...
- 2/8/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Nominated for the Palme D’or in 2018, and based on the novel “Netemo Sametemo” by Tomoka Shibasaki, “Asako I&ii” is an intriguing drama whose narrative shares many similarities with the style of Haruki Murakami novels.
Asako, a 21-year-old woman living in Osaka, meets a strange young man named Baku, and the two fall immediately in-love, essentially becoming a couple from the beginning. Haruyo, Asako’s friend, is against the relationship because she thinks Baku will hurt Asako, and is quite vocal about it, but to no avail. After Asako spends the night in Baku’s house, however, the young man first goes missing for a long time, and after he reappears, he promises his newfound girlfriend, that he will always come back. After that, though, he disappears completely, leaving Asako shattered.
Two years later, Asako lives in Tokyo, working at a cafe, and hanging out with another female friend,...
Asako, a 21-year-old woman living in Osaka, meets a strange young man named Baku, and the two fall immediately in-love, essentially becoming a couple from the beginning. Haruyo, Asako’s friend, is against the relationship because she thinks Baku will hurt Asako, and is quite vocal about it, but to no avail. After Asako spends the night in Baku’s house, however, the young man first goes missing for a long time, and after he reappears, he promises his newfound girlfriend, that he will always come back. After that, though, he disappears completely, leaving Asako shattered.
Two years later, Asako lives in Tokyo, working at a cafe, and hanging out with another female friend,...
- 1/25/2021
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
In the latter half of the last decade, Erika Karata started to garner popularity as a Japanese actress. Beginning as a model in the music video Divine by Girls’ Generation, Karata has grown in her career, starring in numerous J-dramas and movies, including her well-known role as Asako Izumiya in last year’s film, Asako I & II. In 2019, Erika Karata’s […]...
- 1/30/2020
- by War Omega
- Monsters and Critics
Our year-end coverage continues with a look at the best performances of the year. Rather than divide categories into supporting or lead, we’ve written about our thirty favorite performances from 2019, period. Check out our countdown below and start watching the ones you’ve missed here.
30. Masahiro Higashide (Asako I & II)
Japanese director Ryūsuke Hamaguchi followed up his five-hour drama Happy Hour with Asako I & II, an endlessly imaginative and playful riff on Vertigo as well as an adaptation of Tomoka Shibasak’s 2010 novel. Setting our perspective with Erika Karata as Asako Izumiya–a woman who gets entangled with a man who looks the same in two different periods of her life–the actress is excellent in the lead role. However, it’s Masahiro Higashide as the men in question, playing both Ryohei Maruko and Baku Torii, that vibes perfectly with the mysterious, enigmatic vibe the director is exploring here.
30. Masahiro Higashide (Asako I & II)
Japanese director Ryūsuke Hamaguchi followed up his five-hour drama Happy Hour with Asako I & II, an endlessly imaginative and playful riff on Vertigo as well as an adaptation of Tomoka Shibasak’s 2010 novel. Setting our perspective with Erika Karata as Asako Izumiya–a woman who gets entangled with a man who looks the same in two different periods of her life–the actress is excellent in the lead role. However, it’s Masahiro Higashide as the men in question, playing both Ryohei Maruko and Baku Torii, that vibes perfectly with the mysterious, enigmatic vibe the director is exploring here.
- 12/18/2019
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
"You're wasting your time! Go away" Grasshopper Films has debuted the official Us trailer for a Japanese romantic drama titled Asako I & II, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year. This is actually just one 119 minute film, despite the title including what references to what looks like Part I & Part II. The title is actually a reference to the plot - where a woman from Osaka (named Asako) meets a man, falls in love with him, then he disappears. Two years later, she meets his perfect double. Erika Karata stars as Asako, along with Masahiro Higashide as both Baku & Ryôhei (of course), plus Sairi Itô, Kôji Nakamoto, Kôji Seto, Misako Tanaka, and Daichi Watanabe. This played to quite a bit of acclaim at Cannes, and stopped by a number of other prestigious festivals last fall. Everyone always talks about the cat. If you're in the mood for...
- 2/15/2019
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Grasshopper Film is celebrating Valentine’s Day by releasing the trailer for “Asako I & II,” Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s mysterious romantic drama that first premiered at Cannes last year. A follow-up to 2015’s “Happy Hour,” which has been likened to “Sex and the City” despite being a five-hour Japanese film, Hamaguchi’s latest clocks in at just two hours but contains much strangeness therein. Watch the trailer below.
Read More: ‘Asako I & II’ Review: An Inventive New Take on Relationship Problems — Cannes 2018
A brief synopsis — “One day Asako’s first love suddenly disappears. Two years later, she meets his perfect double” — only partially conveys the film’s central oddity, as well as its playfulness. “Asako I & II” oscillates between darker and lighter tones throughout, funny in one scene and tense in the next.
In his Cannes review of the film, IndieWire’s Eric Kohn wrote, that “Asako I & II” “sometimes feels listless,...
Read More: ‘Asako I & II’ Review: An Inventive New Take on Relationship Problems — Cannes 2018
A brief synopsis — “One day Asako’s first love suddenly disappears. Two years later, she meets his perfect double” — only partially conveys the film’s central oddity, as well as its playfulness. “Asako I & II” oscillates between darker and lighter tones throughout, funny in one scene and tense in the next.
In his Cannes review of the film, IndieWire’s Eric Kohn wrote, that “Asako I & II” “sometimes feels listless,...
- 2/14/2019
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
Interview: Daniel Kasman | Video: Kurt WalkerDistinctly anomalous in the competition of the Cannes Film Festival this year was Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Asako I & II: in the red carpet sheen of that gala world, its modest production and unshowy demeanor suggested a more appropriate venue in the city might be the Directors’ Fortnight, where the pretense towards grandiosity is less a requirement and subtlety is given the patience to be discovered. Hamaguchi’s film, the director’s follow-up to the much acclaimed but still little seen Happy Hour (2015), feels distinctly independent and off-kilter, made in a world alternative to the festival’s Japanese arthouse staple, Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose new film Shoplifters premiered the same day in the same section and went on to win the Palme d'Or. Kore-eda’s textures of warm colorwork and values of gentle humanism stalwart against sinister social contexts seemed more appropriate to what Cannes desires to...
- 5/24/2018
- MUBI
The Notebook is covering Cannes with an on-going correspondence between critics Lawrence Garcia and Daniel Kasman.Dear Danny,In Cate Blanchett’s remarks as Jury President during the opening ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival, she exhorted her fellow artists to leave their preconceptions behind and focus on the stories being told, a statement that inevitably favors narrative cinema, movies whose pleasures are largely rooted in plot developments, shadings of performance and character, clever turns of dialogue, et cetera. That's understandable, given the awards that the jury is tasked to hand out and especially given that Cannes—like most international festivals—is, in practice, dedicated to furthering such cinematic modes. In competition, Godard’s The Image Book remains the sole aberration—a thrilling rebuke to the shapelessness of the competition you mention.It would be too much to call Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Bi Gan’s sophomore feature,...
- 5/18/2018
- MUBI
I have unfortunately not seen any of Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s earlier work, and am therefore lacking a basis for comparison. Still, after the lavish praise that was heaped upon Hamaguchi’s last feature, Happy Hour, I was left disappointed by Asako I & II, whose portrait of a relationship spanning almost a decade struck me as slight and emotionally inert, all the more so given that it takes amour fou as its focus.
The film, co-written by Hamaguchi and Sachiko Tanaka, is an adaptation of Tomoka Shibasaki’s novel Netemo Sametemo. It starts very promisingly, depicting the first sparks of young love between Asako (Erika Karata) and Baku (Masahiro Higashide) in a tender opening chapter that is over much too soon. Dreamily handsome and with a perpetually stoned demeanor, Baku is an unconventional type whose impulsiveness has Asako instantly smitten. Upon their first encounter, after they catch each other’s eye in the streets of Osaka,...
The film, co-written by Hamaguchi and Sachiko Tanaka, is an adaptation of Tomoka Shibasaki’s novel Netemo Sametemo. It starts very promisingly, depicting the first sparks of young love between Asako (Erika Karata) and Baku (Masahiro Higashide) in a tender opening chapter that is over much too soon. Dreamily handsome and with a perpetually stoned demeanor, Baku is an unconventional type whose impulsiveness has Asako instantly smitten. Upon their first encounter, after they catch each other’s eye in the streets of Osaka,...
- 5/16/2018
- by Giovanni Marchini Camia
- The Film Stage
Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s earnest romance switches things up by having a woman obsessed with a man’s beauty and then falling for his double
Here is a quibblingly titled movie from Japan that turns out to be an odd doppelganger romance of Ya earnestness, directed and co-written by Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, adapted from the novel by Tomoka Shibasaki. It has a kind of counter-Vertigo theme, a tale of mirror-image obsession, but where this kind of thing is usually about the possessive male gaze and passively enigmatic female beauty, here things are reversed. Asako is about the female gaze, and male beauty.
Erika Karata plays Asako, a college student in Kyoto, demure, hardworking, self-effacing and possessed of a doll-like beauty. One day she attends a photographic exhibition and outside chances across Baku (Masahiro Higashide), a fellow student who is hardly less pretty than she is: cool, careless, like the solo breakout star of a boyband.
Here is a quibblingly titled movie from Japan that turns out to be an odd doppelganger romance of Ya earnestness, directed and co-written by Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, adapted from the novel by Tomoka Shibasaki. It has a kind of counter-Vertigo theme, a tale of mirror-image obsession, but where this kind of thing is usually about the possessive male gaze and passively enigmatic female beauty, here things are reversed. Asako is about the female gaze, and male beauty.
Erika Karata plays Asako, a college student in Kyoto, demure, hardworking, self-effacing and possessed of a doll-like beauty. One day she attends a photographic exhibition and outside chances across Baku (Masahiro Higashide), a fellow student who is hardly less pretty than she is: cool, careless, like the solo breakout star of a boyband.
- 5/15/2018
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
In enigmatic romance “Asako I & II,” the willful heroine can’t choose between two lovers who look exactly the same. Japanese independent director Ryusuke Hamaguchi uses this rather unlikely premise to explore the mysteries of the heart. Catapulted straight to the main competition in Cannes without prior participation at other sections, the helmer’s ninth work boasts a momentous leap in his career. Yet, compared to his previous five-hour epic relationship drama “Happy Hour,” this is less ambitious and lacks the raw honesty or spellbinding intensity of that film.
Adapting a novel of the same title by Tomoka Shibasaki, Hamaguchi extols his source for a compelling representation of love as a mystic experience. However, what gets transferred to the screen becomes more like banal indecision.
When Asako (Erika Karata) encounters her first love Baku Torii (Masahiro Higashide) in her hometown Osaka, it’s staged like a fantasy sequence in...
Adapting a novel of the same title by Tomoka Shibasaki, Hamaguchi extols his source for a compelling representation of love as a mystic experience. However, what gets transferred to the screen becomes more like banal indecision.
When Asako (Erika Karata) encounters her first love Baku Torii (Masahiro Higashide) in her hometown Osaka, it’s staged like a fantasy sequence in...
- 5/15/2018
- by Maggie Lee
- Variety Film + TV
On a day that saw the return of Lars von Trier to the festival that had declared him persona non grata seven years ago, the first screenings of Spike Lee’s incendiary “BlacKkKlansman” and the press unveiling of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s instant Palme d’Or contender “Shoplifters,” it was easy for Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s “Asako I & II” to get lost.
But maybe that’s appropriate, because the gentle, leisurely story that the Japanese director tells deals with a lost love, a lost cat and other things that can disappear if we don’t hold on.
As a director, Hamaguchi has never been in a hurry; his 2015 festival favorite “Happy Hour” in fact stretched on for a full five hours. At just over two hours, “Asako” is less than half that — but it’s a small story, based on Tomoka Shibasaki’s 2010 novel, and the film lingers over ever detail.
But maybe that’s appropriate, because the gentle, leisurely story that the Japanese director tells deals with a lost love, a lost cat and other things that can disappear if we don’t hold on.
As a director, Hamaguchi has never been in a hurry; his 2015 festival favorite “Happy Hour” in fact stretched on for a full five hours. At just over two hours, “Asako” is less than half that — but it’s a small story, based on Tomoka Shibasaki’s 2010 novel, and the film lingers over ever detail.
- 5/14/2018
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
“Asako I & II” begins with love at first sight: College student Asako (Erika Karata) locks eyes with the dashing Baku (Masashiro Higashide) at a photography exhibit, and within minutes of exiting the gallery, they’ve fallen into each other’s arms. Moments later, they’re a happy couple, seemingly incapable of conflict, as if universe willed them together. Even when they crash a motorcycle and land safely side by side in the middle of the road, they can’t stop giggling like children. Nothing can breach their bond.
If this sounds ludicrous, you’re not alone. “Nobody meets like that!” says Asako’s close pal Haryuo (Sairi Ito), and her suspicions come to bear moments later, when Baku suddenly abandons Asako with no explanation. Years later in Tokyo, Asako thinks she spots Baku working at a sake business near the café where she’s a barista. But it’s...
If this sounds ludicrous, you’re not alone. “Nobody meets like that!” says Asako’s close pal Haryuo (Sairi Ito), and her suspicions come to bear moments later, when Baku suddenly abandons Asako with no explanation. Years later in Tokyo, Asako thinks she spots Baku working at a sake business near the café where she’s a barista. But it’s...
- 5/14/2018
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
It’s the first fiction feature for Gera after her well-received 2013 documentary What’s Love Got To Do With It?.
Paris-based mk2 films has boarded world sales on Indian director Rohena Gera’s star-crossed romance Sir, exploring love across the classes in Mumbai, ahead of the European Film Market this week.
The picture, which was first announced at Goa’s Film Bazaar in 2016, revolves around the impossible relationship between a middle-class man and his maid. It is currently in post-production.
“Sir is a love story that attempts to break through the class barriers in India, but it’s definitely not a straightforward Cinderella story, the ending is quite the opposite to what we might suspect as is the discovery that even the most privileged individuals are victims of the class divide,” said mk2 films managing director Juliette Schrameck.
Schrameck notes that it joins a number of other new titles either by female directors or looking at the status...
Paris-based mk2 films has boarded world sales on Indian director Rohena Gera’s star-crossed romance Sir, exploring love across the classes in Mumbai, ahead of the European Film Market this week.
The picture, which was first announced at Goa’s Film Bazaar in 2016, revolves around the impossible relationship between a middle-class man and his maid. It is currently in post-production.
“Sir is a love story that attempts to break through the class barriers in India, but it’s definitely not a straightforward Cinderella story, the ending is quite the opposite to what we might suspect as is the discovery that even the most privileged individuals are victims of the class divide,” said mk2 films managing director Juliette Schrameck.
Schrameck notes that it joins a number of other new titles either by female directors or looking at the status...
- 2/12/2018
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.