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A lesser-known (at least on this side of the globe) martial arts epic has surged to success on streaming worldwide. The action sequel, 2024’s Kingdom 4: Return of the Great General, has now powered its way into the top 10 on Netflix, with audiences all over the globe tuning in to discover what happens next in this saga of warring factions in ancient China. Here’s a spoiler, what happens is epic in a way that few movies are.

Directed by Shinsuke Sato and led by Alice in Borderland star Kento Yamazaki, the rest of the cast includes Ryo Yoshizawa, Kanna Hashimoto, Nana Seino, Shinnosuke Mitsushima, Amane Okayama, Takahiro Miura, Takayuki Hamatsu, Riku Hagiwara, Koji Kikkawa, Masami Nagasawa, Shun Oguri, Takao Osawa, Koichi Sato, and Hiroshi Tamaki, Kingdom 4: Return of the Great General is the latest installment in the Kingdom franchise, which is based on the manga by Yasuhisa Hara.

Takashi Miike is a prolific Japanese filmmaker with over 100 films and television production credits. Now in his 60s, he is still making movies just as vibrant and outlandish as ever, often filled with grotesque violence. In 2017, he made the feature-length adaptation of Hiroaki Samura’s popular manga series, “Blade of the Immortal” (Original title: Mugen no jûninc). Miike’s samurai action film follows the immortal samurai Manji, who decides to help orphaned Rin Asano seek revenge against those who brutally killed her parents. Takuya Kimura stars in the central role of Manji whereas Hana Sugisaki plays vengeful Rin Asano. The film is available to stream on Netflix in select countries.

Spoilers Ahead

Blade of the Immortal (2017) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

Takashi Miike’s “Blade of the Immortal” follows immortal fighter Manji helping Rin Asano seek vengeance for the sudden, unfortunate death of her parents. It’s a Samurai action thriller...

Anime romances are typically reserved for sparkly, love-filled dramas or comedies that focus on the main couple. However, plenty of other anime have romances that are just as compelling as any pairing from a romance anime. The best ships from non-romance anime are sometimes even more touching because of all the other things the couple goes through while they work through their feelings for each other.

Ships from non-romance anime can have a lot to contend with, but the couple remains strong at the end of the day. Even if the couples dont get together until the end, their feelings for one another are palpable. Fans cheer them on from the beginning - reveling in the blossoming romances before them. These ships are some of the best because they shine without the rosy backdrops of shojo or romance anime to elevate their emotions.

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Supersex is here to tell the story behind one of the biggest male pornstars this world has ever seen. The Netflix series follows the life story of popular pornstar Rocco Siffredi, from his childhood in Ortona, Italy to becoming a sexual sensation. Alessandro Borghi stars in the leading role of Siffredi, and he puts everything into his performance to portray a complex and damaged character. If you loved the character-based drama, themes of deep-seated psychological issues, and sex in Supersex then you should check out these similar shows next.

The Naked Director (Netflix) Credit – Netflix

It’s Supersex but Japanese and much more comedic and raunchy. Yes, we are talking about The Naked Director. Based on a novel titled Zenra Kantoku Muranishi Toru Den by Nobuhiro Motohashi, the semi-biographical Netflix series follows the life of Toru Muranishi, a very important figure in the Japanese porn industry. The series delves into...

When Nobuhiko Obayashi sadly passed away in April 2020, most social media was filled with many posts showing pictures of the director and perhaps the feature most people remember, his 1977 film “Hausu”. While there is no denying about the quality of said film, given the vast career of Obayashi which spans over five decades, these pictures also indicate that so many viewers still need to discover for themselves the multitude of themes and the experimental visual style of the majority of his body of work, in which his debut feature makes up only a small portion. One way to start this journey into Obayashi’s work may be the upcoming release of his penultimate work, “Hanagatami” by Third Window, a touching and very poetic film about growing up during war times.

“Hanagatami” is screening at the Hong Kong Arts Centre, as part of the Obayashi Nobuhiko Film Show Case

In 1941, Toshihiko (Shunsuke Kubozuka), a sixteen-year-old teenager,...

Netflix had a surprise hit on their hands in 2019 with the release of the Japanese series “The Naked Director”. The story of Toru Muranishi, arguably Japan’s biggest porn director and producer, had all the traits required from a hit biopic and the strong writing and acting, not to forget the sizzling hot sex scenes, proved to be a success with Netflix’s subscribers, and a follow-up season was swiftly ordered. With that, it was also announced that the second season would also be the final, effectively being the end of the story of Toru Muranishi and his muse Kaoru Kuroki, along with everybody else at Sapphire Films, Muranishi’s company. Fast forward two years later, and the second season has finally started streaming in all its entirety.

It’s 1990 and Toru Muranishi is still his carefree self, still not giving a damn about society or authorities and still making...

A rare chance to see a small screen work from Palme d’Or-winning (and not only) director Hirokazu Koreeda is available this year at the BFI London Film Festival, with a teaser episode of the drama series “A Day-Off of Kasumi Arimura” (Arimura Kasumi No Satsuky). The 8-episode drama was released in Japan at the beginning of 2020 on Wowwow Channel and it features Kasumi Arimura, a busy and popular actress both in the script and in real life, although the narration is completely fictional. Director Koreeda has directed episode 1 and 3 of the series, while other episodes have different directors.

“A Day-Off of Kasumi Arimura” is screening at the BFI London Film Festival

It’s the onset of winter and seasonal cold is spreading; one of Kasumi’s fellow members of the cast is sick and the next day shooting is cancelled at the last minute. Kasumi has an unexpected day off then,...

Summer Sale

1-21 July

It’s that time of the year for the Third Window Films/Arrow Video Summer Sale!

DVDs from £4 and blurays from £7! Worldwide Shipping!

From July 1-21st

Shop now at: https://bit.ly/2BVEd9l

Upcoming Releases

3 great Japanese films available to pre-order Hanagatami

Out July 6th

In 2016, Nobuhiko Obayashi, the director of the cult Japanese film House (Hausu) was diagnosed with lung cancer and given only a few months to live. Despite not much time left, for what was supposed to be his final film he adapted Kazuo Dan’s 1937 novella Hanagatami, his passion project 40 years in the making.

In 1941, as Japan prepares its attack on Pearl Harbor, 16 year-old Toshihiko (Shunsuke Kubozuka) leaves his parents in Amsterdam and moves to the seaside town of Karatsu where his aunt Keiko (Takako Tokiwa) cares for his ailing cousin Mina (Honoka Yahagi). Immersed in the exquisite nature and phenomenal culture of Karatsu,...

Three upcoming Japanese films from Third Window Films are now available for preorder.

Hanagatami

Out July 6th

In 2016, Nobuhiko Obayashi, the director of the cult Japanese film House (Hausu) was diagnosed with lung cancer and given only a few months to live. Despite not much time left, for what was supposed to be his final film he adapted Kazuo Dan’s 1937 novella Hanagatami, his passion project 40 years in the making.

In 1941, as Japan prepares its attack on Pearl Harbor, 16 year-old Toshihiko (Shunsuke Kubozuka) leaves his parents in Amsterdam and moves to the seaside town of Karatsu where his aunt Keiko (Takako Tokiwa) cares for his ailing cousin Mina (Honoka Yahagi). Immersed in the exquisite nature and phenomenal culture of Karatsu, Toshihiko befriends the beautiful, Apollo-like Ukai (Shinnosuke Mitsushima), the contemplative Kira (Keishi Nagatsuka), the ingenuous Akine (Hirona Yamazaki) and the brooding Chitose (Mugi Kadowaki) as they all contend with the war’s inescapable gravitational pull.

Sion Sono produced his feature film “The Forest of Love” for Netflix, in 2019. Now, the streaming platform is releasing the miniseries that was part of the initial project with the director. In seven episodes of between 32 and 51 minutes, the material now receives an extension that adds greater uniformity and harmony to the whole concept. It could be argued that it is a bit irritating why a compressed form appeared, when the series is obviously the original – probably marketing reasons play an important role here.

Sono was inspired by a real criminal case. The viewer is informed about this at the beginning of each episode. This goes through your mind over and over again during the course of the series and gives an additional level to what you see. Each episode is based on a similar structure, which divides the plot into three time spans. 1993 is usually at the beginning. Three friends,...

When Nobuhiko Obayashi sadly passed away in April 2020, most social media was filled with many posts showing pictures of the director and perhaps the feature most people remember, his 1977 film “Hausu”. While there is no denying about the quality of said film, given the vast career of Obayashi which spans over five decades, these pictures also indicate that so many viewers still need to discover for themselves the multitude of themes and the experimental visual style of the majority of his body of work, in which his debut feature makes up only a small portion. One way to start this journey into Obayashi’s work may be the upcoming release of his penultimate work, “Hanagatami” by Third Window, a touching and very poetic film about growing up during war times.

In 1941, Toshihiko (Shunsuke Kubozuka), a sixteen-year-old teenager, returns from Europe to his Japanese home to attend school.

One of the most extravagant Japanese directors is back: Sion Sono, and this time with a product produced by Netflix. His new movie is titled “The Forest of Love,” and it has no loss. Those who are assiduous Sion Sono’s fans will appreciate here many of his hallmarks and style, because “Forest of Love” is a kind of “Greatest Hits” by Sion Sono, as if “Noriko’s Dinner Table”, “Cold Fish” and “Why Don’t You Play in Hell ” were put together on a cocktail shaker and this was the result. The film is undoubtedly a crazy and frantic journey of violence that will lead all the characters to the most absolute dementia, and it is totally worth it.

On the one hand we have Mitsuko (Eri Kamataki) and Taeko (Kyoko Hinami), two friends who have known each other since high school. They both lived a traumatic experience while...

"Someday, I'll be the most powerful Shogun there ever was!" Funimation Films has debuted an official Us trailer for a Japanese live-action manga adaptation titled Kingdom, based on the series by Yasuhisa Hara. This is an epic Japanese action film that is actually set in ancient China - hopefully that's not too confusing. Orphaned by war, a young slave boy and his friend dream of changing their fate and becoming the world's greatest generals of the Qin Kingdom. Starring Kento Yamazaki, Ryo Yoshizawa, Masami Nagasawa, Kanna Hashimoto, Kanata Hongō, Shinnosuke Mitsushima, and Takao Osawa. This is directed by veteran Japanese filmmaker Shinsuke Sato, who made the live-action Bleach movie last year, as well as The Princess Blade, Gantz, and Inuyashiki. The movie is actually getting a theatrical Us release next month, for those interested in seeing it on the big screen. It looks seriously epic and awesome from this trailer.

Nobuhiko Obayashi's Hanagatami (2017) is showing January 24 – February 22, 2019 exclusively on Mubi as part of the series Direct from Rotterdam.It may be easy to dismiss Nobuhiko Obayashi as a cult horror film director due to the notoriety of his celebrated debut feature, Hausu (1977), but what does not get discussed often enough is Obayashi as a thinker who has always pushed the boundaries of the cinematic medium. He was a central figure in the 1960s Japanese 8mm and 16mm experimental film scene, his pop-star vehicle “idol” films in the 1980s were national sensations, and he continues to make convention-defying movies with his abundant use of green screens in digital cinema. His diverse and prolific filmography spans across genres including horror, crime, comedy, documentary, family dramas, coming-of-age dramas and even animation. Watch Exchange Student (1982) and you'll see that Makoto Shinkai's Your Name (2016) was made decades earlier. Many may know that Obayashi was...

Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan is readying “Kingdom!,” an epic period drama based on Yasuhisa Hara’s best-selling manga of the same name.

Set in China during the Warring States Period, the film tells the story of an orphaned peasant boy who encounters another boy destined to become the Qin emperor. Serving as the key general, the peasant fights on behalf of the king to unite China.

The director is Shinsuke Sato, whose credits include the effects-heavy actioners “Gantz” (2011), “I Am a Hero” (2016) and “Inuyashiki” (2018).

Kento Yamazaki is starring at Shin and Ryo Yoshizawa as Ei Sei. Co-stars include Masami Nagasawa, Kanna Hashimoto, Kanata Hongo, Shinnosuke Mitsushima, Masahiro Takashima, Jun Kaname and Takao Osawa.

Production on the film began in April, with shoots in both China and Japan. The Japan release is set for April 19, 2019, with Toho distributing.

Sanford Panitch, president of Sony Columbia Pictures, who in charge of Sony’s international local production strategy,...

Japanese cult director Sion Sono is to direct a series for Netflix, due for worldwide distribution next year. Titled Ai-naki Mori de Sakebe, which translates as "Shout in the Loveless Forest," it is inspired by a real multiple murder incident, according to the director.

The series will star Kippei Shiina (Outrage), who was in Sono's Shinjuku Swan II manga adaptation, as the murderer, Shinnosuke Mitsushima (The Third Murder) and Denden, who has appeared in six of Sono's films.

"When I received the script, I couldn't hide my surprise. It really is too funny, too gruesome and ...

The Third Murder Trailers

Hirokazu Koreeda‘s The Third Murder / Sandome no satsujin (2017) movie trailers stars Masaharu Fukuyama, Kôji Yakusho, Shinnosuke Mitsushima, Shinnosuke Mitsushima, and Mikako Ichikawa. The Third Murder‘s plot synopsis: “Misumi has a criminal record dating back many years and is now under the spotlight again. It looks like an open and shut case, [...]

Continue reading: The Third Murder Movie Trailers: A Prosecutor Searches for the Truth in a Horrific Courtroom Drama

The post The Third Murder Movie Trailers: A Prosecutor Searches for the Truth in a Horrific Courtroom Drama appeared first on FilmBook.

If there is a theme that often reappears in Nobuhiko Obayashi’s oeuvre, it is the impact of war. While this theme was already present in his very first full-length feature “House” (1977), which has to read as a symbolic expression of the destruction of the A-bomb, it seems to have become a more urgent matter for him in the last couple of years. “Kono Sora no Hana”, a narrative he directed in 2012, concerned the bombing of Nagaoka, and “No No Nanananoka”, which he made two years later, handled Japan’s wartime responsibility.

With “Hanagatami”, a project Obayashi abandoned 40 years ago to make “House” instead and his third anti-war movie in a row, he once again underlines his personal motivation to carry out the dream and philosophy of the late Akira Kurosawa: to achieve world peace with the power of the cinematographical narrative. This time, by adapting Kazuo Dan’s...

“Tokyo Vampire Hotel” is a two and a half hour feature cut of a nine-part miniseries, with the same title, that originally aired on the Amazon Japan streaming service. You would expect a property like this to be developed the other way around from film to mini-series which has been done many times before by Netflix. I haven’t seen the miniseries but this feature length cut is an interesting film, but it does have some odd issues.

“Tokyo Vampire Hotel” is a gory Japanese vampire film that mostly takes place in the titular hotel. Two warring vampire clans, the Draculas and the Corvins, have been at each other’s throats for thousands of years and now that a special human with ancient vampire blood in her veins has been found, the final showdown is about to happen in this strange hotel filled with maniacal vampires and their human captives.

This is the review of The Third Murder, directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, and starring Masaharu Fukuyama, Kôji Yakusho, Shinnosuke Mitsushima, Mikako Ichikawa and Izumi Matsuoka. Written by Joshua Glenn for Pure Movies. Opening with a sudden and brutal act of violence, The Third Murder introduces its murderer with the same matter-of-factness with which he is viewed by the legal system. Walking along a river bed with a man we soon discover is his boss, Misumi suddenly snaps and clobbers his companion over the head. He continues to strike him once he’s down, before dousing him in gasoline and setting him alight. The fire illuminates Misumi’s face as he looks on with an implacable expression and wipes the blood from his cheek. From the off, the case is cut-and-dried. Misumi is guilty, there can be no doubt about that. He murdered a man. We saw it with our own eyes.

On February 13th, an immortal samurai's vengeance can be yours to own. Takashi Miike's centennial film Blade of the Immortal is coming to Blu-ray and DVD courtesy of Magnolia Home Entertainment, and it comes with five special features. Continue reading for specs and a look at the red band trailer in case you missed it.

Blu-ray.com reports that Blade of the Immortal, Takashi Miike's 100th film, will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on February 13th from Magnolia Home Entertainment. The Blu-ray release will include the following special features:

Manji vs. 300 - Featurette Takuya Kimura Interview Cast Interviews Poster Gallery Original Trailers

Synopsis: "Cursed with immortality, a highly skilled samurai in feudal Japan promises to help a young woman avenge the death of her parents. Their mission leads them into a bloody battle with a ruthless warrior and his band of master swordsmen."

Directed by Takashi Miike and...

Over the better part of three decades, filmmaker Takashi Miike has dazzled viewers with bold cinematic visions like 13 Assassins, Audition, and Ichi the Killer. Now, for his 100th film, Miike shows us the high body count that comes from a warrior who can't die in Blade of the Immortal, and we've been provided with an exclusive look at the alternative poster for the film.

You can check out the stylish slashes on the exclusive alternative poster below, and keep an eye out for Blade of the Immortal in theaters this November from Magnet Releasing.

Synopsis: "Manji, a highly skilled samurai, becomes cursed with immortality after a legendary battle. Haunted by the brutal murder of his sister, Manji knows that only fighting evil will regain his soul. He promises to help a young girl named Rin avenge her parents, who were killed by a group of master swordsmen led by ruthless warrior Anotsu.

From RedBand.Ca, Sneak Peek the restricted 'red band' trailer supporting director Takashi Miike's live-action "Blade Of The Immortal" Japanese 'jidaigeki' action feature, starring Takuya Kimura, Hana Sugisaki, Sōta Fukushi, Hayato Ichihara,Erika Toda,Kazuki Kitamura, Chiaki Kuriyama, Shinnosuke Mitsushima, Ichikawa Ebizō XI, Min Tanaka and Tsutomu Yamazaki, adapting the 'manga' comics series by Hiroaki Samura:

"....'Manji' is a samurai who apparently cannot be killed by any injury.

"He crosses paths with 'Rin Asano', whose parents were killed by a group of master swordsmen...

"...and promises to avenge their deaths..."

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "Blade Of The Immortal"....