For The Sake of The Country, For The Sake Of The Path

A Deadly Obsession: Gelatin Silver Love

The 2008 dark movie Gelatin Silver Love tells the tale of a man (played by Nagase Masatoshi) hired to “keep tabs” on a mysterious woman by means of videotaping her at her living quarters and photographing her activities. He is given no reason for this assignment, and is told that who the woman is is "none of his business” and that his only job is the recording of her doings.

Working in a covert operation like this can take its toll on a guy’s sanity as his job requires him to eat, sleep and live in his stakeout apartment for almost 24/7! Synchronizing his life according to his target makes him feel closer to the woman, and over time, he finds himself attracted to this beautiful, mysterious lady who always seems to be around when someone turns up murdered.

Soon enough, attraction turns into obsession, and the thing that entrances him the most is… watching her eat! He finds himself watching the videotapes of her slowly and sensually consuming her perfectly poached eggs over and over again, even going so far as to take photos of the video to blow up into enlargements that eventually cover his wall.

I can understand the allure of capturing a beautiful woman eating (hence my Tabemashoo Blogsite), but yikes, is this what I’m gonna turn into? LOL

Funny thing about that mysterious woman: when we first see her, it is from afar (rather, his viewpoint across the way in an opposite apartment), but once we see through his camera lenses, we see her up close, and she is indeed devastatingly gorgeous. When they get to the scene where Nagase comes upon her (where yet another murder has taken place), she’s there coolly licking an ice cream cone, and I was like all “WHOA, who the heck is this lady? She’s fine!” It wasn’t until the scene where she sits down and confronts her stalker where she appears without a wig or effect that I realized it was none other than beautiful Rie Miyazawa! Damn, she’s still got it goin’ on!

Well, despite Rie’s gentle but firm warning to Nagase to stay away from her, he’s too far gone into her to stop, and even when he witnesses her murder someone with his own eyes he can’t help but make himself known in her presence! That’s how it is for guys in love! In Love? I meant OBSESSED!

Who's That Girl: Mizuno Erina

And on the subject of Gelatin Silver Love, who's this "Erina Mizuno" girl stripping down to her underwear in the film, and why haven't we seen more of her? LOL

OK, Reading up on things, looks like this gal's attached to the whole EXILE camp as part of the group FLOWER, at least that's where she keeps turing up in the online files, where she appears a lot more professional than the aforementioned movie. Not that there was anything WRONG with it or anything...

Kuroki Meisa eating Furikake and Rice

Idols On Parade

I came across this picture of interest when I was scanning an old CoCo book, and I think it tells an interesting picture of just where CoCo fell In the “hierarchy” of idols, in around early 1994, or at least generally speaking…

There were about four or five regular artists that appeared in every episode of the music show IDOLS ON PARADE, and you can see by the placement who the seniors are among the bunch…

At the Bottom we have young Tsuyoshi and Koichi Domoto AKA Kinki Kids ..

Moving up we have TOKIO...

Then that girl whom I can never remember. I’d never seen her before (or since)

Then my girls CoCo…

 And at the very top, the host of the show, SMAP leader Nakai Masahiro himself!

CoCo and a Costumed Nakai

The show would feature both live performances of these artists and guest artists as well as a fair number of funny skits. For some reason there was also this hilarious running gag of how Nakai would be in love with whoever the female guest was, and then he'd look at the CoCo girls and blow them off like they were the bland girls! AHAHAHA

A Milestone Of Sorts

K-Pop Artists "4Minute"

   I've been making J-pop Music Collections regularly every four months or so since I first got into Asian Pop way back in 1995 but even when my friends who had initially turned me onto J-pop  became Hallyu fans, I never bought or even paid too much attention to  K-pop, so I think it's quite significant (in a way) that I've finally liked a K-pop song enough that I had to "break the mold" and include it in my latest J-Pop Mix!

  Sure, over time I've had Korean ARTISTS appear many times on mixes in the past, acts like BoA, Tohoshinki and even latter groups like KARA and GIRLS GENERATION have all had their latest singles appear at one time or another, but they were all Japanese-language sung songs, either written for the Japan marker or re-recordings of their Korean originals. No, it wasn't until I heard the song "I My Me Mine" by Korean group 4Minute that I finally made the leap!

I first  heard I My Me Mine on a wonderful site that showcased both K-Pop, C-Pop AND J-Pop and after immediately falling in love with the song, scrambled to see if they (like so many other K-Pop artists) had made a Japanese Version of it. I don't know if it was simply because I'd gotten so used to the Korean version, but by the time I actually acquired the Japanese version, I just didn't like how the song sounded when it wasn't sung in its native Korean language!!!

At first I tried to resist it, trying to force my ears to get used to the Japanese version, but no matter how much I played it, only the K-pop version sounded good to me! Even though I thought it would disrupt the "flow" of the mix, I decided to leave the Korean version in- and guess what? Not only did it fit in perfectly, it went on to become my favorite track on the mix!!!

Now I'm thinking I might have to check out all those older K-pop artists that my friends have been trying to turn me onto, like S.E.S. and the like! There's a whole 'nother Ball Game out there! LOL

A Hidden Blade Repeat Viewing

A few days ago I was talking to Car about Samurai Movies in general after she'd gotten her Father both "Twilight Samurai" and "13 Assassins" for his birthday, to great success! I was talking about some well-done and realistically paced sword fight that I'd seen in some samurai movie, but couldn't remember which one it was. All I remembered was that it ended up with the protagonist with his arm hacked almost clean off, a gory end, to be sure!

Figuring in the time-frame that I must have seen it in, I guessed that it was probably the 2004 movie "The Hidden Blade" that had the duel I was thinking about, and later that day, wanting to make sure, I popped the movie in to check it out. Well, in turns out that the Hidden Blade WASN'T the movie I was thinking of, but it was great that I got to re-watch it, because MY GOSH, I FORGOT how frickin' GOOD it was!

Starring Masatoshi Nagase as a semi-retired Samurai named Katagiri and adorable and cute Matsu Takako as his live-in maid servant Kie, this movie was more about his adjustment to a world without samurai as well as coming to terms with his feelings for the sweet Kie than your regular "slice-n-dice" samurai action flick.

Though there aresome great sword fighting scenes, my favorite scenes are when it's just Katagiri taking care of Kie when she is ill, or Kie taking care of him like a doting wife. Such a touching film, it's sometimes hard to remember it's a SAMURAI movie!

PS: Turns out the movie I was looking for from before was none other than the Kimura Takuya/Dan Rei movie Bushi To Ichibun: Love and Honor that featured that intense fight scene, another great movie that I'll have to re-watch as well!

Sawajiri Erika in "Closed Note"

Sawajiri Erika in Closed Note

I finally got around to watching the 2007 Erika Sawajiri movie Closed Note, a film that I’d actually tried to watch three times before, but the beginning of it seemed so typical of a by-the-numbers romance that I always lost interest and saved it for another time! Upon seeing it again in my folder, it occurred to me that I still didn’t have any real idea what the movie was even ABOUT, so I put the movie in, this time determined to watch at LEAST the first hour of it- and what a pleasant movie it turned out to be!

Takeuchi Yuko as Ibuki-Sensei

Sawajiri Erika as Kae

Closed Note is the sweet and gently-paced story of a young musical student named Kae (played by Sawajiri) who’s feeling unsure about her own life and loves, who finds the strength and courage she needs to move ahead in the pages of a diary left by her flat’s former tenant, a woman named Ibuki (played by Takeuchi Yuko) keeping a journal as she begins teaching a class of 4th graders for the first time. The film intercuts between Ibuki’s life and Kae’s days as she goes through the chapters of the book, each day growing stronger in her heart as she tries to live life like her.

Nagasaku Hiromi and Sawajiri Erika

Sawajiri Erika with Iseya Yusuke

Along the way we are introduced to all the quirky characters in Kae’s life as a budding concert mandolinist, including the curvy Saeko as Kae’s friend, the always sassy Nagasaku Hiromi as Kae’s co-worker at a calligraphy shoppe, Iseya Yusuke as Ishitobi, the mysterious artist/romantic interest who comes into Kae’s life when he drops in inquiring about pens, and even Itaya Yuka as (what else) the foil for Kae’s affections towards Ishitobi! This movie certainly got out the all-star ensemble cast!

Itaya Yuka as Hoshi

A melancholy movie with beautiful, atmospheric backdrops and a slow paced rhythm to it that really soothes the viewer’s soul, I almost had a heart attack when the disc froze towards the end because of a glitch on the DVD, and right in the middle of the film’s swelling climactic speech, too! GADS!!! Thankfully the film resumed normal playing once I “nudged” the cursor a bit…Surprises like this I can do without! LOL

Beautiful, Melancholy Imagery:

Sato Eriko eating Spaghetti

Enter Stage Left: It's Yuki Amami!

There is this blog I follow run by a writer named Mark Evanier who is very active in the Comics/Animation/Entertainment field (and has in fact been a part of just about every San Diego Comic Con since its inception) and I regularly visit his site POV ONLINE to hear of his tales of writing for Television, writing comics and working with the greats in the industry.

Among other things, Mr. Evanier is also a great Broadway buff, and recently he got on the topic of the song "The Lambeth Walk" from the musical Me and My Girl, and has been posting up clips from various performances through the years of this famous song. So I was catching up reading his blog, where I find he's talking about a prolific musical singer from JAPAN, and it turned out to be none other than...YUKI AMAMI!

You don't know how jarred I was to see a j-drama reference there- this is a site filled with articles of Laurel and Hardy, Groucho Marx, Classic Cinema, and Legendary Comic Artists, of stories of the Golden days of  Hollywood and kid stories of collecting Dell Comics. The LAST thing I would have expected to see was something from the JAPAN side of my interests, it was a crossing of two worlds!

Seems before Yuki Amami was taking over the world as in BOSS, she was wowing the audiences with her stellar theatrics ONSTAGE! He posted up a couple of her performances, and looking through the links, I was taken aback to see a very young and cute Yuki Amami being interviewed, looking so lithe and feminine! This was circa 1996, so she was young indeed, but what's funny is that she seemed to have made her mark playing the MALE roles onstage, a talent I'm sure she incorporated into her Eriko Osawa BOSS character! LOL!

PS: Watching those clips Mark Evanier posted up, I have to say- WOW! I didn't know Yuki Amami had such a set of pipes! That gal can belt out a TUNE!

Another J-Related Movie Sighting

My friend Car had been talking on and off for awhile now regarding the Josh Hartnett movie BUNRAKU which she wanted to see because it also starred J-artist GACKT as part of the ensemble cast. I personally am still reeling from the drab-fest that was "I Come With the Rain", the psuedo arty-farty movie Hartnett did with Kimura Takuya, so I didn't feel any immediate urge to check out this one, though I think Hartnett is a good actor. Dakara....

Imagine my surprise when walking into Wal-mart tonight and saw Bunraku right on the New Release DVD shelf, complete with regular AND Blu-ray options! This was the same Wal-mart that stocked the Kuroki Meisa action flick "Assault Girls", so maybe there's one really hip J-fan working as a buyer there, or can I really believe that ALL the Wal-marts are stocking these? Sugoi!

Itaya Yuka Heats It Up in "Yokubou"

Itaya Yuka and Murakami Jun in Yokubou

I acquired the 2006 movie YOKUBOU (Desire) awhile ago, but though I’ve been a big fan of pretty actress Yuka Itaya for quite some time now, the movie sat unwatched in my DVD Folder for years, and it wasn’t until just the other day that I came across it again and decided to put it on!

Already by the first half hour of the movie, I had to wonder; Just WHAT THE HECK was the reason I put this one off for so long? This was a MUST SEE movie for any Yuka Itaya fan! Besides being one of the most sexually-charged movies I’d seen in a while, Yuka even went one step further and did a completely wild and uninhibited “Yuriko Yoshitaka Snake and Earrings” for this role- GOD, when I was hit with Yuka au natural, laid out as God Intended, I just about had a freakin’ HEART ATTACK!

This movie was a surprise after Itaya’s morose and meandering “Tokyo Sora” flick- I gotta say, I did a HELLUVA lot of Screencaps for THIS movie, though not too many that I could post on this blog unless I wanted to change it into an “R” rated Journal! LOL, you’ll just have to use your imaginations…or see the movie yourself!

PS: Besides the lovely Ms. Itaya, Yokubou also featured an old favorite actress of mine, sultry Saki Takaoka, a woman who’s lost none of her luscious looks over the years (and in fact looks as young as ever!) which reminds me that some day I’ll have to gush on about Saki and that amazing Kishin Shinoyama Shashinshuu that became the greatest gift one could give to a Saki Takaoka fan! Next Time…

Murakami Jun with Takaoka Saki

Itaya Yuka and Takaoka Saki