News

Miho Nakayama, best known for her role in the internationally acclaimed Japanese film Love Letter, has died at the age of 54. The actress and J-pop singer was found dead in a bathtub at her home in Tokyo on December 6. Nakayama had called off a show in Osaka citing health reasons before her untimely passing.

Miho Nakayama in a still from Love Letter | Credits: Fuji TV/Asmik Ace

While investigations are ongoing about the cause of death, different media reports suggest that it might have been an accidental drowning or caused by an illness. Meanwhile, in her last Instagram post, the actress shared that she had been depressed for a few days.

Miho Nakayama’s Last Instagram Post Suggested That She Was Depressed Miho Nakayama in a still from Love 2000 | Credits: Fuji TV

Miho Nakayama was one of the popular actresses in the Japanese industry in the ’80s and ’90s...

Miho Nakayama, a respected Japanese music and film personality, died at 54. Her agency, Big Apple, confirmed her death on Friday. Nakayama was discovered deceased at her Tokyo residence, leaving a considerable legacy in the entertainment world.

Her abrupt passing has shocked fans and colleagues. The cause of her death has not yet been determined as investigations continue. Her website had earlier that day postponed a Christmas show in Osaka owing to her health struggles.

Nakayama was born in Tokyo on March 1, 1970, and her career began in 1985. That year, she made her television debut on TBS, released her first single, “C,” and appeared in a film adaptation of the manga “Be-Bop High School.”

In the late 1980s, Nakayama became famous in the city pop genre. She is famous for successful singles like “Waku Waku Sasete” and albums like “After School,” “Catch the Nite,” and “Mind Game.” Despite releasing fewer music albums in the early 2000s,...

After making her name with J-pop hits, the performer went on to win acclaim for film roles including Love Letter

Musician and actor Miho Nakayama, best known for her dual role in the successful 1995 feature Love Letter and for her music career in the 1980s and 90s, has died aged 54.

According to a report in the Japan Times, Nakayama was found dead at her home in Tokyo on Friday. The cause of death has not been confirmed, but the Japan Times reported her body was found in the bathtub, and her death was confirmed by medical personnel.

Japanese singer and actress Miho Nakayama was found dead at her home in Tokyo on Friday.

Born in Saku, Japan, Nakayama was known for her lead roles in Love Letter (1995) and Tokyo Weather (1997), among others. She was 54.

Nakayama was scheduled to perform at a Christmas concert in Osaka on Friday, but she had canceled her appearance, citing health reasons.

Nakayama’s team confirmed the news of her passing on her website, which stated: “We are deeply sorry to have to suddenly announce this to all the people involved who have always looked after her and to all the fans who have supported her, but this incident was so sudden that we, too, are shocked and saddened. We are currently investigating the cause of death and other details.”

Nakayama made her acting debut in Maido Osawagase Shimasu in 1985 and released her first single, “C.”

She later starred in the feature film...

Miho Nakayama, a Japanese singer and actor best known for the 1995 romance film “Love Letter,” was found dead at her home in Tokyo on Friday. She was 54.

Nakayama’s team confirmed the news in a post on her website, writing: “We are deeply sorry to have to suddenly announce this to all the people involved who have always looked after her and to all the fans who have supported her, but this incident was so sudden that we, too, are shocked and saddened. We are currently investigating the cause of death and other details.”

According to the BBC, an acquaintance of Nakayama found her dead in a bathtub after she did not show up for work. The acquaintance called the paramedics, who pronounced her dead at the scene. She had been scheduled to perform at a Christmas concert in Osaka on Friday, but had canceled her appearance citing health reasons.

Japan Society is pleased to announce Love Letters: Four Films by Shunji Iwai, a weekend series celebrating the defining early works of filmmaker Shunji Iwai. One of the most original talents to emerge from Japan in the ’90s, Iwai tapped into the dreams and lives of Japan’s youth with his lyrical meditations on the hardships of young adulthood, capturing pivotal and unforgettable moments of life. Balancing popular entertainment with arthouse predilection, Iwai’s exhilarating takes on the youth film provided a much-needed voice for the younger generation, offering delicate portraits of adolescence, ripe with poetic yearnings of grief, friendship, and young love. Iwai’s sumptuous visual style, coupled with his affecting and underground appeal, opened a world of new possibilities in the ’90s cinescape—marking him as one of the most accomplished and unique filmmakers of his generation.

A primer on the director’s essential works, Love...

Having a great cast in his hands, Shunji Iwai decided to take a trip down his own cinematic past this time, resulting in a rather nostalgic film that works on a number of levels, but also seems to fail to pack a punch. The script is based on his own novel, while in 2018 he directed a homonymous, Chinese film starring Zhou Xun.

Yuri is a middle-aged mother who has just returned to the area she grew up, along with her daughter, Fuka, to attend the funeral of her older sister, Misaki, who has just died, leaving her own daughter, Ayumi, with her grandmother, since her husband is out of the picture. When an invitation for a class reunion comes to the house, Yuri decides to attend, to inform her sister’s classmates of her death, but finds herself being confused with Misaki, to the point that an old boyfriend of hers,...

108 is a symbolic number. In Buddhism, it stands for the 108 pearls (Malas) on the prayer beads, the names of the gods, and also the 108 earthly desires that hold off humans from enlightment. When screenwriter Goro Kaiba discovers an online blog about his wife’s affair, he also stumbles across this number. 108 is the amount of virtual “thumbs up” that she got for her cheating. As the couple decides to take off a final time from each other before they divorce, Goro is out for blowing all his money on 108 hookers to make sure that there is no fortune left for his future ex-wife.

108: Revenge and Adventure of Goro Kaiba is screening at Camera Japan

The outline of the most recent Suzuki Matsuo (“Welcome to the Quiet Room” 2007) film is bizarre, funny, and just awesome. The prolific theatre director, actor, screenwriter and novelist – in short: multitalented – founded the theatre troupe...

One of the most popular and influential Japanese directors of his generation, the multi-talented Shunji Iwai is commonly recognized for his distinctive and innovative visual style. Although describing himself as an “eizo sakka” (visual artist), characters and plot themes are often excellently developed in his films, all of which he has personally scripted. Iwai has also edited several of his films, and has even scored the music for more recent efforts. Often using women protagonists, Iwai has garnered fine performances from Japanese Pop singers in key roles, most notably Miho Nakayama in Love Letter (1995) and Chara in Picnic (1996), Swallowtail Butterfly (1996) and Cocco, in A Bride For Rip Van Winkle. A trend-setter, he has created a style that resonates with Japanese pop culture, striking a chord with contemporary Japanese youth, especially young women.

We speak with him about his career, his latest film, “A Bride for Rip Van Winkle”, Japanese society and other topics.

“Love Letter” marks the theatrical debut of Shunji Iwai’s filmmaking career, the director of such critically acclaimed pictures as “Picnic” (1996), “Swallowtail Butterfly” (1996), and “All About Lily Chou-Chou” (2001). It became an immediate hit in the Japanese box-office. Additionally, it was one of the first Japanese productions to be shown in South Korean cinemas since the end of World War II. Among its many prizes, the film won three Japanese Academy Awards in 1996.

Hiroko Watanabe (Miho Nakayama) is a woman living in the city of Kobe. Two years earlier, her fiancé Itsuki Fujii (Takashi Kashiwabara) died in a mountain climbing accident. Still in depression and grief, Hiroko writes a letter to her dead fiancé and sends it to the address she found in his old high-school yearbook. However, it was the wrong Itsuki Fujii she found. The mail reaches Otaru, a northern town far away from Kobe, and...

Japanese Actor/Director Suzuki Matsuo has completed production on his most recent comedy “108: Revenge and Adventure of Goro Kaiba”. The absurd comedy sees Suzuki Matsuo, playing the titular character, along with Miho Nakayama as his spouse, Ayako.

“108: Revenge and Adventure of Goro Kaiba” is set for release on October 25th, 2019. A trailer for the production has been made available and can be viewed below.

Synopsis

Screenwriter Goro Kaiba (Suzuki Matsuo) is horrified to learn via Facebook that his wife Ayako (Miho Nakayama) is having an affair. Furthermore, her post about the affair has received 108 likes. Absolutely furious, Goro Kaiba contemplates divorcing his wife, but he estimates he will have to pay her half of his assets, about 10,000,000 million yen, in a divorce. To get revenge, Goro Kaiba decides to use that money on a epic one month womanizing streak. His goal is 108, the number of likes his wife received on social media.

It's been a full 12 years since director Jeong Jae-eun helmed a narrative feature and the Japan-set Butterfly Sleep is a welcome return, if not a patch on her 2001 debut Take Care of My Cat, still her best work. Her latest may not break any new ground, but this thoughtful melodrama glides with poise through a simple story of an impossible love and Jeong weans a graceful performance out of Love Letter star Miho Nakayama in the lead. In fact, Jeong has two projects in Busan this year, along with her documentary Ecology in Concrete. Royko is a popular novelist who takes on a new job as a university lecturer in Tokyo. One night at dinner with students and colleagues, she meets Chan-hae, a...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Generally speaking, I don’t do romantic comedies or romantic dramas. They just don’t settle very well with me. I keep expecting a gunfight or a martial arts sequence to break out, and I’m often very disappointed when that doesn’t happen. Even though I’ve learned to keep my expectations under control, my love for visceral action and elaborately staged fight scenes simply cannot be contained. And while I seriously doubt there’s anything of the sort in writer/director Eriko Kitagawa’s “I Have to Buy New Shoes”, I’m still strangely drawn to the film for reasons I simply cannot explain. Am I going soft? Yikes. Here’s a short but effective synopsis from AsianWiki: Freelance writer Aoi Teshigahara (Miho Nakayama) lives in Paris, France. Sen Yagami (Osamu Mukai) is a photographer who came to Paris, France due to his younger sister Suzume’s (Mirei Kiritani) insistance.

Back in January, a very brief news item was posted on the Iwai Shunji Film Festival website announcing the fact that Iwai would be producing a film by writer/director Eriko Kitagawa called Atarashii Kutsu wo Kawanakucha and it would be filmed entirely in Paris. Earlier today, further details came out of Paris, where filming is currently underway.

The movie stars Miho Nakayama—a Paris native since 2003—and Osamu Mukai. Nakayama plays a freelance writer named Aoi who breaks the heel of her shoe and has a chance encounter with a young photographer named Sen (Mukai), who was brought to Paris by his younger sister. The meeting sparks an immediate attraction between them even with their 12-year age gap, and their subsequent romance is depicted over a span of three days.

Iwai and Kitagawa previously partnered on the high school romance-themed film Halfway in 2009. Kitagawa was primarily a TV drama screenwriter up to that point.

Yutaka (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is transferred to the Bangkok branch of Eastern Airlines. In three months, he will marry Mitsuko (Yuriko Ishida), a relative of the airline’s founder, and though he doesn’t love her, he knows he could be CEO one day if they wed. In Thailand, Yutaka meets a girl, Toko (Miho Nakayama), at a bar and is instantly drawn to her. His relationship with her only intensifies as the wedding date approaches but eventually decides to break up with her to proceed with his wedding. Twenty-five years later, they bump into each other and realize their love for each other remains, but reality pulls them apart once again.

Shunji Iwai's debut feature, formerly titled "Love Letter", is the kind of improbably plotted, hyper-romantic story that seems all the vogue in Hollywood these days.

It's no wonder that an English-language remake starring Meg Ryan is being talked about for this Japanese saga about the enduring power of love and memory.

Set in a snow-covered northern Japanese city, the film begins with Hiroko (Miho Nakayama) attending a memorial service of her fiance Itsuki, killed two years earlier in a climbing accident.

Hiroko still hasn't gotten past her grief, as evidenced by her impulsive decision to write to her deceased lover at his old address; a reply, of course, is out of the question.

But she receives a letter back. It seems that another Itsuki, a woman, still lives in his hometown. What's more, this Itsuki is an old childhood friend of the original who attended the same school.

The two women begin a correspondence, and flashbacks detail the story of the childhood experiences of the two Itsukis, who formed a strong bond because of their shared name. Eventually, Hiroko, accompanied by her friend Shigeru (Etsushi Toyokawa), journey to Itsuki's hometown. There, she discovers that her correspondent looks exactly like her (and is indeed portrayed by the same actress).

"When I Close My Eyes" is clearly attempting a sort of poetic rumination on the nature of love, memory and grief, but the less-than-assured directorial style doesn't fully compensate for the silliness of the story line and the lack of momentum in the storytelling.

Missing a strong visual style and featuring a treacly, New Age-style musical score, the sentimental film only fitfully comes to life. Only in isolated segments, such as a flashback involving a harrowing journey to a hospital in a blinding snowstorm, does it exhibit real power.

WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES

Fine Line Features

Director-screenplay-editor: Shunji Iwai

Producers: Koichi Murakami,

Hajime Shigemura, Juichi Horiguchi,

Jiro Komaki, Tomooki Ikeda,

Masahiko Nagasawa

Co-producer: Takaaki Kabuto

Executive producers: Chiaki Matsushita,

Shuji Abe

Director of photography: Noboru Shinoda

Music: Remedios

Color/stereo

Cast:

Hiroko Watanabe/Itsuki Fujii: Miho Nakayama

Shigeru Akiba: Etsushi Toyokawa

Itsuki's Mother: Bunjaku Han

Itsuki's Grandfather: Katsuyuki Shinohara

Itsuki Fujii (as a young girl): Miki Sakai

Male Itsuki Fujii: Takashi Kashiwabara

Running time -- 116 minutes

MPAA rating: PG...