Yoji Yamada's Younger Brother

So, there's a new movie coming out at the end of this month from Yoji Yamada (山田 洋次), the Japanese director best known for Tora-san - he helmed 46 of the 48 Tora-san movies that popped up between 1969 and 1995, the year before lead actor Kiyoshi Atsumi's death.

In 1993 Yamada also directed A Class to Remember (学校, Gakko), the winner of best film and best director at the Japan Academy Prize the following year.

Personally I was pretty swayed by this director's 2002 outing The Twilight Samurai (たそがれ清兵衛, Tasogare Seibei), and not only for Hiroyuki Sanada's performance and Isao Tomita's soundtrack - it also won 12 Japanese Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay.


The new movie, Otôto (Younger Brother), stars Yu Aoi (the voice of Shiro in the cool anime Tekkonkinkreet), Ryo Case (Letters from Iwo Jima), and comedian Tsurube Shôfukutei - whom I previously met (alongside about a dozen MP extras he likely doesn't remember) on the set of I Want to Be a Shellfish.

Find out more at the official website. In the meantime, here's the preview for the movie.

REVIEW: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979)

The Lupin III franchise, created by legendary manga artist Monkey Punch, had been around for 12 years in comic book form, and a TV series since 1971, when occasional episode director Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away) helmed this feature-lengther.

The character of Lupin III just so happens to be the great nephew of Arsène Lupin, the daring gentleman thief and detective – a kind of Gallic Sherlock Holmes – created in 1905 by Maurice LeBlanc. He featured in a rash of French flicks in the silent era.

His descendant is an equally enigmatic thief who speaks fluent Japanese (or differing degrees of American English depending on the dub), with an insatiable appetite for food along with an overt weakness for women - including the femme fatale of the series, Fujiko Mine. Meanwhile he’s aided and abetted by his trusty cohorts Jigen and Goemon, in pursuit of some hilarious heists.

Rupan Sansei: Kariosutoro no Shiro (The Castle Of Cagliostro, 1979) is the highlight of a sensational series, and it’s due as much to the assured touch of Miyazaki as it is the enigmatic cast of characters involved in the story. This time Lupin bites off more than he can chew when he tries to rescue a damsel in distress and comes up against the sinister Count of Cagliostro and an international counterfeiting syndicate.


Any fans of subsequent Miyazaki romps like Castle In The Sky, Crimson Pig, My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away will find germinating elements from all of those movies at play here.

Incidentally, the late, great Yasuo Yamada, who voiced Lupin, had a habit of also dubbing Clint Eastwood’s dulcet tones in the Japanese versions of everything from Rawhide to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly - and he even turned up to play Omawari-san in Panda! Go, Panda! (see last entry).