Amongst the latest announcement of new titles coming to Toronto International Film Festival were three of our most-anticipated films this year, all hailing from Japan. We now have full trailers for each of them, starting with Sion Sono‘s wild-looking, futuristic manga adaptation of Tokyo Tribe.
Following that there’s The World of Kanako from Tetsuya Nakashima, who gave us the visually stunning Confessions a few years back and is returning with a crime drama. Lastly, there’s yet another film from Takashi Miike, the meta-tale Over Your Dead Body. While subtitles aren’t available yet, the visuals are enough to get us on board and all three can be seen below, along with new images and synopses.
Set in an alternate Tokyo of the near future, director Sion Sono continues his run of sensational films with the explosive street gang tale Tokyo Tribe. Tokyo Tribe is the first live-action adaptation of the best-selling manga series Tokyo Tribe 2, by Santa Inoue, which has sold two million copies and has been published in Asia and the west to great popularity.
When beautiful straight-A high school student Kanako goes missing, her mother asks ex-husband Akikazu — a drifting, irresponsible former cop — to find their daughter. He embarks on a desperate search in the hope of reuniting his family by any means necessary. But as his investigation progresses, Akikazu starts to discover the darkness that lies behind his daughter’s impeccable façade. Clue by clue, revelation by revelation, he starts his descent into the hellish underworld of Kanako’s secret life…
A star, Miyuki Goto (Ko Shibasaki) plays Oiwa, the protagonist in a new play based on the ghost story Yotsuya Kaidan. She pulls some strings to get her lover, Kosuke Hasegawa (Ebizo Ichikawa) cast in the play, even though he’s a relatively unknown actor. Other performers Rio Asahina (Miho Nakanishi) and Jun Suzuki (Hideaki Ito) lust after Miyuki. Off stage the cast’s possessive love and obsessions exist as reality. Trapped between the play and reality, the cast’s feelings for each other are amplified. When it becomes clear that love is not meant to be both on and off stage, love turns into a grudge and crosses the blurred line between reality and fantasy.
Toronto International Film Festival 2014 kicks off on September 4th.
Which of the above are you most looking forward to?