Ishii Katsuhito and his mates wanna learn you real good
Posted on Thursday, 13 March 2008 at 10:14 am
Ever dreamed of becoming a hipster indie movie star? Then here’s your chance, courtesy of Ishii Katsuhito and his Nice Rainbow cohorts. Their “Nice Workshop” sets out to train ten hopeful actors in the style of screen acting favoured by film, TV and commercial directors of the NR ilk. Successful applicants will have to pay 200,000 yen for the privilege of attending twelve sessions taught by the likes of Ishii, Miki Shunichiro, Aniki and Yuuuka Ooosumi (ooh, with all those vowels she must be just as quirky!), as well as unnamed members of “The Taste of Tea” director’s regular repertoire of actors.
The real reason for bringing this up is that workshop graduates will be cast primarily in a series of short films initially for the web to be directed by Ishii et al. Nothing concrete to pass on about those yet though, so stay tuned.
As mentioned in my “Kabei - Our Mother” review, Ishii’s next feature is “Yama no Anata - Tokuichi no Koi”, a remake of Shimizu Hiroshi’s “Anma to Onna” (The Masseurs and a Woman) that’s slated to open on May 24th. Jason Gray via Logboy now has word that “Anma to Onna” and several other Shimizu films are about to become available in that rarest of guises: Japanese DVD box sets with English subtitles. The first one is out on April 25th, and the second, subtitled “Children”, arrives on June 27th and includes “Children in the Wind”, “Nobuko”, “Mikaeri no To” and “Four Seasons of Children”. Shochiku also have a partial list of his films in English here.
comment by Michael Kerpan
posted on Thursday, March 13 2008 at 10:14 am
I did some searching on Mikaeri no to — and all I could find out is that it is about a nursery school and features Chishu Ryu (among many others). ;~}
comment by don
posted on Thursday, March 13 2008 at 10:14 am
Michael,
You’re right, there doesn’t seem to be much info about the film, presumably because of its rarity (it was screened as part of a Shimizu Hiroshi retro at Shibuya’s Cinema Vera last year though), but here’s what I was able to find out.
A church school in the countryside catering to over 200 children with special needs becomes involved in the construction of a waterway from the nearby mountains, whereby the students learn “the joy of group labour”. Apart from Chishu Ryu, the cast features many of Shochiku’s child stars and includes Yokoyama Jun (also known as ‘Bakudan Kozo’), Nara Shinyo, Morikawa Masami, Furuya Teruo, Miyake Kuniko, Yoshikawa Mitsuko, Sakamoto Takeshi, Ogata Takashi, Himori Shinichi, Shinobu Setsuko, Oyama Kenji, Konoe Toshiaki, Nishimura Seiji, Okamura Fumiko, Izumo Yaeko, Nomura Yuiko, Naka Hidenosuke and Wakamizu Kinuko.
comment by Michael Kerpan
posted on Thursday, March 13 2008 at 10:14 am
It sounds like a model for the realist films of Tadasahi Imai — like Yamabiko gakko. Has anything hinted at when box two will come out?
comment by Michael Kerpan
posted on Thursday, March 13 2008 at 10:14 am
Two boxes of Shimizu films are very welcome — and yet barely begin to do justice to his surviving output. All the films in box one are acknowledged master works, but box two has some real rarities. Neither “Mikaeri no to”, nor “Nobuko” are even listed in IMDB, but I have seen the latter (on an old unsubbed video). It doesn’t deal with younger children — but with a residential girls’ high school. Mieko Takamine plays a newly-minted teacher (with a provincial accent) and Mitsuko Miura plays a popular (but troubled) student who quickly develops a sort of love-hate relationship with her.
Still missing are major works like “Eclipse”, “Seven Seas”, and “Forget Love for Now”. If lots of people buy boxes one and two, maybe shochiku will be encouraged to release a third set (or more).