Love and Goodbye and Hawaii (2017)

Director: Shingo Matsumura

Notable Cast: Aya Ayano, Kentaro Tamura, Momoka Ayukawa, Aoi Kato, Risa Kameda

Finding yourself in the process of breaking up with a loved one is hard to do, especially when feelings may still be lingering about from one or potentially both of the people involved. Rinko finds herself in this situation with her boyfriend of several years, Isamu. The two are comfortable around each other and enjoy the presence of one another still. There are no awkward moments or tension in the air and Rinko is allowed to stay until she can afford to move into an apartment of her own. The only thing of this whole situation that is unusual is that none of her friends are in the loop on this breakup. Love and Goodbye and Hawaii delivers are warm romantic comedy with just the right amount of subtle drama that delivers the best picture of this nature so far this year and in fact one of the finest films of 2017 period.

Bamy (2016)

Director: Jun Tanaka

Notable Cast: Hironobu Yukinaga, Hiromi Nakazato, Misaki Tsuge, Toshi Yanagi, Yuki Katsuragi

Ghost stories in Japanese cinema have sort of faded away for the most part, aside from trying to squeeze out every drop of profit that companies can from franchises like Ju-On or Ringu, but J-horror (as dubbed by Western culture) in general is a dying genreas a whole, or is it? No, all jokes aside, Jun Tanaka takes the romanticized stories of ghosts that the likes of Kiyoshi Kurosawa has done before during the boom of the genre, and resurrected it and made it all his own by way of indie film making, with the chilling and overall creepy, Bamy.

At the Terrace (2016)

Director: Kenji Yamauchi

Cast: Kei Ishibashi, Kami Hiraiwa, Ryuta Furuya, Kenji Iwatani, Hiroaki Morooka, Takashi Okabe, Atsushi Hashimoto

JAPAN CUTS 2017:

Folding out like a stage play, Kenji Yamauchi's At the Terrace takes place all on one location, the terrace, attached to a large mansion, where the owners are hosting a party. A woman walks out from behind the curtains on to this terrace, slowly followed by a young man from another side of the house. He seems infatuated by her, trying to garner her attention, without being too obvious. After letting out a pathetic sigh, another woman, the owner's wife, walks upon the terrace and starts to call out the man for his desires. This is just the scratched surface of the confrontational banter to come between our seven characters who come and go from this particular place.

9 Souls (2003)

Director: Toshiaki Toyoda

Notable Cast: Ryuhei Matsuda, Koji Chihara, Yoshio Harada, Asami Imajuku, Jun Inoue, Itsuji Itao, Misaki Ito, Jun Kunimura, Kotomi Kyono, Akaji Maro, Onimaru

I admit, until Third Window Films had announced their Toshiaki Toyoda boxset, I knew nothing of the man except that he had directed the very low-budget, ultra-violent Pornostar, which apparently had nothing to do with porn. I wasn't sure what to expect or if I would even like his works, but film by film, I think he gets stronger and more confident in his craft.

9 Souls initially was off-putting and I didn't care for it, so much so that I actually didn't get through it all on my first watch. A couple of weeks passed and I returned to this depressing yet goofy world and, I must say, this time around I was completely won over. The plot is fairly thin, but sets up a most interesting road movie. A young man is sent to prison, accompanied by nine other cellmates. One cell mate is offed after speaking nonsense about 'holes'. Quickly the nine remaining inmates find this hole, and breakout of their prison.