• Home
  • Tag Archives:  Asami Sugiura
Live movie Noboru Iguchi

Noboru Iguchi returns with Live (ライヴ)


Noboru Iguchi is constantly pumping out new and weird films, and his latest Live (ライヴ or Raivu)looks to be another fun festival of lots of people dying in violent ways while goofy things happen. Naoto Tamura (Yuki Yamada) discovers his mother has been kidnapped, and he’s being forced to participate in a race called Live. He soon finds others who are also competing, all with a kidnapped loved one. They rulebook gives clues, but the biggest clue that something is wrong is all the people trying to kill them. As contestants fall, Naoto must figure out a way to save his mom, and possibly his friend and that hot girl who are also in the race.

Live is based on the book Live by Yusuke Yamada. It’s due in Japanese theaters on May 10th, and will presumably show up in American festivals soon enough. Yes, Asami Sugiura will be in it. I didn’t notice any of the other Iguchi regulars, but I’m betting they’ll pop up as well. Live also stars Ito Ono and Yuki Morinaga

Official Site
Facebook
via Asianwiki

Live movie Noboru Iguchi

Dead Sushi

Dead Sushi

Dead Sushi

aka デッド寿司 aka Deddo Sushi
Dead Sushi
2012
Written by Noboru Iguchi, Makiko Iguchi, and Jun Tsugita
Directed by Noboru Iguchi

Dead Sushi

Summing up Dead Sushi in one picture!


Dead Sushi combines two of my favorite things from low budget Japanese cinema – Rina Takeda and Noboru Iguchi! While I wish these two combined to make something amazing, Dead Sushi turns out to just be above average. While certainly a lot better than either of the prior Iguchi and Takeda films I have seen (Zombie Ass and Kunoichi), Dead Sushi suffers from trying to be too many things. Sure, it’s got zombies, killer sushi, and face kicking, but there is also a big lecture on the proper way to make, eat, and appreciate sushi. Dead Sushi takes as much from Jiro Dreams of Sushi as it does from Machine Girl or High-Kick Girl! Unfortunately, they drag the movie down to a more average range.
Dead Sushi

Finally a movie that isn’t afraid to spit the truth!


The two main attractions to Dead Sushi are the gore effects and the choreography. First – the gore effects are okay, but not so different from what we’ve seen before. The humor comes from the instigators of this gore, living sushi pieces that talk gibberish and fly through the air, skeletonizing people. After the gimmick wears off, Dead Sushi gives us zombies to allow for some actual fighting against something other than CGI and puppets. While zombies are overused and boring (despite these zombies spitting up rice!), the occasional fights against CGI sushi have their fun, and remind me of Birdemic.
Dead Sushi

Why you should never eat cheap take-out rice!


The choreography is less disappointing, and is what you should seek out Dead Sushi for. Rina Takeda’s Keiko is a sushi apprentice to her father, the sushi chef skills giving her karate skills because that’s just how it works. There is some kicking and punching of sushi pieces out of the air, and later some battles against ineffectual zombies. Dead Sushi then shakes things up with Kentaro Shimazu running around with a giant fish head and a gianter axe to battle Rina Takeda, while the one good piece of sushi – Eggy – does battle with a giant CGI sushi battleship. The fights keep you entertained, whoever the stunt guy for Kentaro Shimazu is matches well with Rina Takeda’s moves, giving us nice fighting to entertain the people. Bread and circuses. Or Sushi and Zombies.
Dead Sushi

Shaming the shameless


Keiko (Rina Takeda) – Daughter of a great sushi master, who is angry that she was a girl and thus inferior at making sushi. She runs away in anger, taking a job as a hostess at a hotel. The years of practice at making sushi has honed her skills at fighting, and also given her admirable sushi skills that are recognized by Mr. Sawada. Keiko is also known to lecture on proper sushi etiquette, showing she was paying attention to all her father’s teachings.
Yamada (Kentaro Shimazu) – What seems to be just a homeless guy is actually the former head of new medicine development at Komatsu Pharmaceutical, the company that comes to dine at the hotel for their famous sushi. His project on bringing dead sea life back to life was cancelled, but not without the side effects of turning him into a zombie lord, and he unleashes the infection at the hotel. Evolves into a fishhead form.
Nosaka (Takamasa Suga) – A good guy who isn’t that good, secretly knows what’s going on as the whole outbreak is part of his own sick experiments for Komatsu Pharmaceutical. But the worm will turn…
Yumi Hanamaki (Asami Sugiura) – Hostess at the hotel who worked hard to gain her position, and also married the new owner. Is cheating on her husband Mr. Hanamaki (Takashi Nishina) with arrogant sushi chef Tsuchida.
Mr. Sawada (???) – Nice guy at work, was an arrogant sushi chef at the inn until he accidentally stabbed his wife and became knifephobic.
Eggy (himself) – an egg sushi that is spurned by all the seafood-based sushi, Eggy turns good and uses his acid egg juice squirting ability to aid Keiko and Mr. Sawada.
Dead Sushi

Better than the movie Battleship!

Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead

Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead

aka ゾンビアス Zonbiasu

2011
Written by Noboru Iguchi, Ao Murata, and Jun Tsugita
Story by Tadayoshi Kubo
Directed by Noboru Iguchi

Zombie Ass Toilet of the Dead
The horrible secret of Bush’s Baked Beans…

While normally a fan of the Japanese ultra-gore films and Noboru Iguchin in general, Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead ends up sucking ass! What is should be a bunch of fun and ridiculous scenes instead gets bogged down by far too much melodrama, and the replacement of poo for the blood splatter scenes. Which isn’t done in a creative way, and instead rely on the fact that there is lots of poo around for the laughs. Poo may be funny in concept, but in practice it gets boring really fast. While other films like Helldriver and Mutant Girls Squad mix their films with a greater theme, Zombie Ass fails to successfully do that, either. There is a vague theme of bullying that rarely comes in to play, and doesn’t parallel with the zombie tapeworm invasion tale going on. The obvious subtext of body image is barely addressed and would have resulted in a much better film. The ending battle with a flying girl versus a monster is nothing we haven’t seen before, either. It took four people to write something so bland!

Zombie Ass Toilet of the Dead
Funnily enough, this method of transportation has begun to catch on in crowded Tokyo

Zombie Ass‘s few pluses include the design of the tapeworm parasites, they have a brain on them that make them look like the creatures from Fiend Without a Face. I do not know how intentional this homage is, but I hope it was very. I will also score a point for the final monster looking like a sock puppet Jar Jar Binks, because that effect is bad enough it became funny. But besides that, I do not need a heroine who is sad all the time because she didn’t bother to save her bullied sister, nor every other character either being horrible or dating someone horrible. Most of the cast are the type of people who die first or second in a movie, and it was annoying seeing them continue to live beyond their expiration date. I was rooting for the poo to drown them!

Zombie Ass Toilet of the Dead
Meesa mutant butt zombie, okeyday!

Even the appearance by regulars Asami Sugiura, Demo Tanaka, Yuya Ishikawa, and gratuitous nudity don’t save Zombie Ass from going down the drain. You’re gonna want to flush this load as soon as it’s dropped off at the pool. This film doesn’t have much to go on, and this is no smear campaign. Zombie Ass could be more Charmin, and that’s the bottom line. Despite the brown-nosing, Zombie Ass is only a #2. You might want to log off now, these puns sure are on a roll!

Megumi (Arisa Nakamura) – Our heroine. Her younger sister Ai died due to bullying, and Megumi was unable to act to stop it. So now she studies karate all day to be strong to make up for failing to save her sister. She’s also very introspective.
Aya (Mayu Sugano) – Megumi’s good girl friend, and the only non-annoying character in the film. So you know she’s going to die. She’s dating scuzzy guy Take, whose main hobby is cheating on her with other girls.
Maki (Asana Mamoru) – Megumi’s controlling and vain friend, whose idea it is to go find some tapeworms so she can look thinner. Has no problem with getting it on with Aya’s boyfriend. Is entitled and spoiled, the perfect host for the Queen Parasite. Asana Mamoru is a Gravure model also known as Asana Kouno.
Sachi (???) – Young sick daughter of the mad scientist who is raising the tapeworms and feeding them to her to help keep her leukemia in remission. Is deranged and has a fondness for knives and for killing people. Can communicate with the Nekurogedoro due to the large amount of their chemicals in her body.
Sachi’s Dad (Kentaro Shimazu) – Sachi’s mad father who set up this crazed scheme to help her live longer. Cares about nothing but having his daughter live longer, no matter how many lives it costs.
Queen Nekurogedoro (A puppet) – The boss of the mutant parasite tapeworms dubbed nekurogedoro, the Queen resides inside of Maki until such time that she pops free to battle Megumi. Can fly, and teams up with Sachi. This puppet is my favorite part of the film. Yep.
Zombie Ass Toilet of the Dead
Okay, Star Wars Prequel Abomination, I got the cure!

Helldriver

Helldriver

aka ヘルドライバー aka Nihon bundan: Heru doraiba

2010
Written by Yoshihiro Nishimura & Daichi Nagisa
Directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura


Ah, Helldriver. How damn awesome are you? Pretty damn awesome! If you love the Japanese gore flicks where blood flows like an Old Faithful orgasm-quake covering everyone and everything as they scream, if you love films where zombies build things out of parts of other zombies like the world’s grossest Lego set, if you like chicks with chainsaw swords and cowboys in blade-covered trucks, if you like stories of loss and redemption and revenge, then Helldriver is a movie for you. Helldriver goes…FULL THROTTLE!! Ha! Okay, sorry, that will be the only car pun.

Another in the line of Sushi Typhoon crazed gore flicks, Helldriver features many of the repeat players along with some new leads. Yoshihiro Nishimura is the makeup effects wizard who also helmed Tokyo Gore Police, Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl, and a chapter in Mutant Girls Squad, along with a massive amount of makeup work in cult flicks. He keeps the tradition alive with Helldriver, and attempts to break new ground. Each of these features attempts to one-up the last one, going further and further over the top. But it’s important to be more than just gross. It must be entertaining. I’ve seen a few that haven’t been so hot. Helldriver is long, has a complicated back story, parts are redundant, and at least one part looks thrown in at the last minute just to add Asami to the cast list. But overall it is pretty cool and zips along.

Helldriver clocks in at almost 2 hours in length. Partially because they need to explain the setup, which is an alien zombie infestation that caused half of Japan to be walled off and the survivors forced to crowd into the remaining half, and the various cultural problems that it would result in (arguments over the rights of the infected, overcrowding and stranger families being forced to live together, lack of proper food, and an illicit drug trade based on the horns of the zombies, which can get you high but also randomly explode.) There is a brief bit of narration setting a lot of this up, then later Kika observes the same things herself after she’s revived.

Zombies play a major role in Helldriver, but Helldriver put some thought into their creation and mythos. This isn’t your standard Romero zombie where a brain shot kills them (thank goodness!), they are more of Return of the Living Dead zombies, but with one weak spot – a horn that grows out of their head. People were infected by breathing in an ash, which then dissipated after 6 million were infected. No one bitten becomes a zombie. Zombies are ripped apart and sewn together, creating new and horrible chimeras of destruction.

There is more than just the zombie element to Helldriver. There is a strong theme of family throughout the film. Many of the proponents of zombie rights have relatives who are infected. They even go so far as to bring body parts to their infected children to feed on. Kika has an adversarial relationship with her psychotic mother, Rikka, and her equally crazed brother Yasushi. Rikka literally becomes the zombie queen, and snatches away Kika’s heart just before she dies. Kika doesn’t die, both women are cocooned in space goo, Rikka becoming the queen while Kika being preserved until she’s revived by Japanese government and turned into an instrument of revenge. A generator is built into the hole in her chest, and it powers a chainsaw sword. She’s then abandoned until the powers that be can use her for their own ends to kill the queen. Her heart still lives in the chest of Rikka, cpnnecting the two together. Kika’s last memories are of her father being eaten and burned alive by her mother and uncle. Further flashbacks seem to imply that he was wheelchair bound as a result of their abuse, that everything the family ever had was taken by Rikka and Yasushi for their own. Rikka is so bad it is a wonder she ever even had a child, or a husband who is kind. But the family must have their reunion, Kika wants her heart back, wants to confront her mom for everything she’s done, and can’t ignore her because her mom can torture her through hurting her heart. Side characters deal with their own family issues, from missing relatives to ones that were killed by the zombies. These themes help build Helldriver into something bigger than it sounds like it would be, based on the title and premise.

And then it gets even more nuts when you figure out all the North/South Korea analogies!

Kika Miyata (Yumiko Hara) – Just your average girl from a troubled home whose psychotic mother eats her dad and tries to murder her just before being turned into a space zombie queen. Kika is then turned into a weapon of revenge against the zombie hordes, as she fights for the right to have her own life and be free of her mother. Easeir said than done, as her mom literally holds her heart in her chest. Yumiko Hara is awesome and can hit the right notes both in the action sequences and the family drama scenes. Nishimura uses how good she looks in action to great effect, there is plenty of visual eye candy.
Rikka Miyata (Eihi Shiina) – Crazed murderess cannibal turned zombie queen when a meteor crashes through her chest. Shiina plays Rikka as a mad goddess, dancing and spinning as the world burns around her, destruction and chaos is her playground. She does what she wants when she wants, and becoming a zombie only enhances her ego and lust for power. Eihi Shiina is a familiar face to cult cinema fans from Audition. Believe it or not, she has been in films where she’s not be a complete psychopath.
Yasushi Miyata (???) – Rikka’s brother and fellow crazy. Yasushi has a Nazi symbology thing going on, wearing Nazi patches and flags, and he even has a swastika burnt into his head by Kika (a la Charles Manson.) Is non-stop energy, a perpetual motion of manic crazy.
Kaito (Kazuki Namioka) – As Kika and her crew travel the zombie-infested wilderness, they are almost killed..until a cowboy shows up and saves them! Yes, a cowboy. Kaito here has been living in the infected zone after he found his wife dead. He even has an Ennio Morriconeish theme and drives around in a Helltruck, with giant blades on the front hood.
Taku (Yurei Yanagi) – Son of an orphanage runner who has resorted to harvesting drugs for money. Is saved by Kika when she first revives, and then he saves her. Is dealing with the legacy of his father, who was killed by one of the children he tried to save when it turned out to be a zombie.
No-name (???) – An orphan who barely talks and won’t give his name. All we know his he has a missing sister named Maya. And he fights with a giant blade.

Zombie Ass Trailer

Noboru Iguchi’s Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead premiered at Fantastic Fest (review here), but here is a trailer for the rest of us!

The plot again:
We are going to flush you! The most crap-tastic zombie movie ever to emerge from the sewers of low-budget filmmaking is finally upon us, and it’s from the perverted mind of cinematic madman and legendary ass-fetishist Noboru Iguchi, creator of THE MACHINE GIRL, ROBO-GEISHA and KARATE-ROBO ZABORGAR! Given free reign by a generous, independent producer to plumb the depths of his toilet-obsessed imagination, Iguchi has created a splatter comedy guaranteed to warm the bowels of those with the stomach for it. Wracked with guilt over the suicide of her sister Ai, who was tormented by high school bullies, pretty young karate student Megu accompanies a group of older friends on a camping trip into the woods: smart girl Aya, her druggie boyfriend Také, big-boobed model Maki, and nerdy Naoi. Things start to go badly when Maki finds a parasitical worm inside a fish they catch – and wolfs it down alive, in the hope that it’ll help keep her skinny! Soon after, and not so unexpectedly in situations like this, zombies show up and begin to complicate things further. After they’re attached by a crowd of poop-covered undead who emerge from an outhouse toilet, the group seeks refuge at the home of strange Dr. Tanaka and his daughter Sachi. But unbeknownst to them, Tanaka has been conducting experiments on the parasites—and the zombies!—and has another fate in mind for the five strangers from the city. What’s the connection between the parasites and the zombies? And can Megu’s karate alone help them escape, or will she have to rely on the liberating power of farts to save the day? Featuring special effects by FF 2009-2010 guest Yoshihiro Nishimura, and some truly jaw-dropping contributions from Iguchi’s genius subconscious (parasite anus-zombies?!?), ZOMBIE ASS is a heaping plate of bad taste that may go down rough but is guaranteed to come out smooth and regular.

Watch a trailer of something called “Zombie Ass” at work at your own discretion!

via Twitch

Zombie Ass
Zombie Ass

Erotibot (Review)

Erotibot

aka Karei naru erogami-ke no ichizoku: Shinsô reijô wa denki shitsuji no yume o miru ka aka The Great Ero-gami Family – Do Sheltered Young Ladies Dream of Electric Butlers? aka 華麗なるエロ神家の一族

2011
Directed by Naoyuki Tomomatsu

Erotibot is the story of a girl and her robots, and also a cautionary tale of why you should never share an inheritance.

Erotibot is one of the scores of direct to video junk Japan films each year. It probably wouldn’t even leave the land of the rising sun were it not for the presence of Asami Sugiura and Maria Ozawa in the cast. As Asami Suguira gained fame in the West after appearing in many of the Noboru Iguchi ultragore films, and Maria Ozawa is one of the most downloaded AV stars, overseas sales are assured.

Despite the “star” power, Erotibot isn’t really a star vehicle for either of them. It also doesn’t fit well into the genre Asami Sugiura is known for. And while Maria Ozawa is well known for being a most prolific star of pornography ranging for normal to beyond frakked up, her more serious acting turns are not that well known. Besides appearing in the most recent batch of Kekko Kamen flicks, she’s also popped up in a horror movie or three. But that’s about it. Erotibot is not exactly a feather for her cap, if you know what I mean. It’s interesting (sort of), but it isn’t good.

Sukekiyo (???) – Sukekiyo is your average goofy robot butler who daydreams about his mistress loving him. Is fiercely loyal to Tamayo. The only waterproof robot. Android 0.3.
Suketomo (???) – Suketomo is the perfect robot butler who does everything right and shows up Sukekiyo at every chance he can get, including banging Tamayo. But he gets reprogrammed and goes evil. Just like your Macbook Pro will next week! Android 0.1.
Suketake (???) – A silent robot with beastlike strength and a crazy head. The least developed of the three robots. Android 0.2.
Tamayo (Mahiro Aine) – Tamayo is the illegitimate daughter of a rich businessman who keeps her isolated from the rest of society and is given robot servants. This has made her curious about sex, which the internet cannot answer. She must have the parental controls still active or something…. Mahiro Aine enjoys playing piano, eating strawberry shortcake, and having sex on film for money.
Tsukiyo (Maria Ozawa) – The legitimate granddaughter of the rich businessman who is upset that she won’t be getting any money. So it’s time for murder. MURDER!!!! Also murder. A crazed psychopath who likes handsome guys. Maria Ozawa exploded onto the AV world several years ago and became one of the most obsessed over stars.
Azami (Asami Sugiura) – The imaginatively-named sidekick to Tsukiyo who accompanies her on her quest to claim the inheritance. Asami is the former AV star who has appeared in many spaltter films and gained a cult following in the US. She’s been on TarsTarkas.NET in The Machine Girl, RoboGeisha, Mutant Girls Squad, Gothic & Lolita Psycho, and Horny House of Horror