TV steers Japanese cinema

TOKYO (TR) – A scan of Japan’s recent year-end box office charts reveals a familiar recurring theme: Storylines for top films are typically based on a hit television series or drawn from a popular manga comic.

With ad revenue falling, the major nets are partnering with Toho and other major distributors in an effort to fill that gap with features based on material with which local audiences are already widely familiar.

“Japan is under a unique circumstance in which terrestrial TV programming is of high quality and remains the most powerful media outlet,” says Naoki Suganuma, deputy manager within the film business division of Nippon Television Network (NTV). “And not only kids but also adults read manga in their daily lives. So it’s a natural thing for these kinds of titles to become the basis of movies.”

The result is a consolidation of power in the biz — and Hollywood, with the exception of an occasional “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “Avatar,” is increasingly losing clout. Read more

Curtain falling on cinema in Kabukicho

TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo’s Kabukicho entertainment area, once one of Japan’s most vibrant cinema districts, is experiencing a rapid shuttering of its theaters as their aging buildings lose audiences to modern theaters nearby.

The first domino fell in 2008, when Toho acquired the landmark Koma Stadium, a 2,000-seat performing arts theater that opened in 1956. Toho shut the Koma property, which also had two screens in its basement, and its neighboring building, home to the exhibitor’s 1,044-seat Shinjuku Plaza Gekijo, in preparation for redeveloping the entire site.

Last November, four screens operated by Toa Kogyo also closed, and three more, run by Humax Cinema, which had featured everything from “Ben-Hur” to softcore “pink” porn since opening in 1947, had shut six months earlier. Read more

Sawajiri dumped overboard from ‘Yamato’

TOKYO (TR) – Actress Erika Sawajiri, a local tabloid fav for a series of headline-making scandals, has been replaced as the female lead of the SF fantasy “Space Battleship Yamato,” according to Japan press reports. Her replacement is Meisa Kuroki, who starred in Takashi Miike’s two “Crows” high school gang pics.

Based on Reiji Matsumoto’s classic 1970s SF toon, the live-action “Yamato” is being produced by broadcaster TBS and its partners. Shooting is skedded to start in mid-October, with release by Toho penciled in for December 2010.

The director is Takashi Yamazaki, a CG whiz whose credits include the pics “Always” and “Ballad,” a time-traveling fantasy that has done strong-if-not-stellar box office since its September 5 bow. The male lead is Takuya Kimura, megastar member of the pop group SMAP. Read more

Guide to Japan’s ghouls

TOKYO – Toho film veterans Godzilla and Mothra are well known to followers of Japanese pop culture. Less famous — but equally fearsome — are the yokai, a group of Japanese mythic monsters and humanoids.

Certainly they were less widely known until last year’s publication of “Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide,” a tongue-in-cheek field guide to some of these imaginary beasts, which roamed Japan’s forests, canyons and villages centuries ago — at least via fables and lore — and have found their way into aspects of modern society.

“Each character has a basis in a Japanese folktale,” says American co-author Matt Alt, 35, who, along with his Japanese wife, Hiroko Yoda, 37, assembled the list of 42 yokai, including the Kappa, a green, reptile-like amphibian with a sizeable beak found in rivers, and Onibaba, an elderly hag who preys on pregnant women in order to collect the livers of their unborn children, In all, the illustrated 191-page book reads like a who’s who of nightmarish characters. Read more

Long-running Tokyo cabaret to shut

TOKYO – The cabaret Kabukicho Club Heights will close its doors this Friday, leveling another blow upon Japan’s most vibrant red-light district of Kabukicho.

The 600-seat hall, which opened in 1973 and is positioned at the symbolic center of the Kabukicho quarter in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward, will drop its curtain for the final time after Friday night (Feb. 27).

A message posted on the venue’s Web page thanked customers for their 36 years of patronage.

From the eighth floor of the Toho Kaikan building, next to the Koma Theater, hostesses entertain guests at tables that fan out and around a stage and dance floor, which provides a mix of music, contests, and dance performances. Its focal point is the large, draping white chandelier suspended from the center of the ceiling. Read more

Creative funding for Japanese films

TOKYO – It has been a head-scratching past 12 months for Japanese film investors.

September saw the opening of “Shinobi” (Heart Under Blade), an experiment in film funding that allowed the general public to purchase shares in this expensive, for Japan, $13.6 million ninja picture by studio Shochiku.

Share sales for the project began last December, fresh on the heels of Kadokawa Herald Pictures’ establishment of the “Japan Film Fund” – a pool of money collected from a variety of investors to fund Kadokawa’s bigger-budgeted films.

Japan’s film companies are today racking up larger production costs – well in excess of the typical $2 million to $3 million – in an effort to keep up with imports. As a result, raising cash is getting more creative and deviating from the standard multi-partner funding model that usually includes only film-related companies. Read more

Kabukicho conundrum

TOKYO – The framed certificate from the Tokyo public safety commissioner sitting inside the office of Yoshihisa Shimoda acknowledges his successful completion of training in thwarting the activities of boryokudan, or criminal organizations. Such an accreditation should be very practical given his task at hand.

For years, it was well known that the bread and butter of a typical yakuza gangster working the darkened streets of Kabukicho has been the sale of ordinary items like hand towels and ice cubes at heavily marked-up prices to the area’s seedy kyabakura (cabaret clubs) and bars in exchange for any necessary “protection” of business operations.

Shimoda is the office manager of Discovery Kabukicho, an organization whose goals are to rehabilitate the image of Japan’s most vast red-light district, located just east of Shinjuku Station. “At the end of the day, we want Kabukicho to be clean,” says the manager, who along with two other staff members began operations in April. “We want security, safety, and a pleasant environment.” Read more

Koma Toho shutting its doors

TOKYO (TR) – Having dutifully served Tokyo filmgoers for half a century, Koma Toho is bidding farewell on New Year’s Eve. As a tribute, special screenings of films spanning the theater’s history will take place between December 20 and 31.

“We let the people choose,” explains Shiroaki Omata, a manager within the theater section of Toho Cinemas, a division within film giant Toho. “Fans of every age group and gender and our staff all participated in the selection of films.”

Koma Toho is in the basement of the Koma Theater building in the Kabukicho district of Shinjuku Ward. The 2,000-seat Koma Theater opened in 1956, when it became a home to kabuki and enka performances. Over the summer, Toho made the company Koma Stadium, which owns the theater, a wholly owned subsidiary. Toho intends to redevelop the Koma site together with the rundown building it owns next door. Read more

Land prices trumping cultural worth

TOKYO – Over the last century, earthquakes and bombing raids have left Tokyo with, what many would describe as, a cityscape of few long-lasting structures of architectural merit. But nowadays the elimination of such properties is increasingly becoming self-inflicted.

In October, fans of kabuki and historic architecture were saddened by entertainment company Shochiku’s announcement that it plans to demolish the landmark Kabuki-za Theater. Reconstructed twice, the theater, in Chuo ward, has been Japan’s premier home for kabuki since it was founded in 1889.

The current five-decade-old building, which achieved tangible cultural property status in 2002, will close in 2010 and be rebuilt inside a large office-theater complex by 2013. “At present, the Kabuki-za is an aging structure that is susceptible to earthquakes,” explained an email statement from Shochiku concerning the timing of the decision. “As well, taking into consideration that its facilities are not barrier-free, we decided that it would be in the best interest of our customers for us to rebuild the theater.” Read more

Shochiku adds animation

TOKYO – Readying more robots for battle.

Japanese film giants Toei and Toho probably cast nervous looks over their backs in September, when film-distribution and kabuki-theater conglomerate Shochiku established an animation division to increase its share of Japan’s $18 billion annual animation market.

“We now have the ability to expand our animation business,” says division general manager Ichiro Seki.

Shochiku, which has animation experience with the “Gundam” robots and “Ultraman,” will now have the increased flexibility needed to commission a larger selection of features and provide unique marketing options. Read more

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