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Aki Isoyama, the producer of Japanese titles Extremely Inappropriate! and Ikebukuro West Gate Park, has secured an exclusive five-year deal with Netflix.

Isoyama, who made her debut as a producer with Campus Note in 1996, is known for a string of hit series written by screenwriter Kankuro Kudo including Ikebukuro West Gate Park, Kisarazu Cat’s Eye, Let’s Get Divorced and most recently time-travelling comedy Extremely Inappropriate!, which led Netflix’s most-watched list in Japan for three weeks.

Features she has produced include 2010’s The Lady Shogun And Her Men and 2012’s The Castle Of Crossed Destinies.

Isoyama won Japan’s Minister of Education,...

Netflix is getting deeper into business with hit-making Japanese producer Aki Isoyama. The streamer revealed Thursday that it has signed an exclusive agreement to produce and distribute new series and films from Isoyama over the next five years. The deal continues Netflix’s increasingly bullish investments in the Japanese content space.

Isoyama has been behind some of Netflix’s most successful Japanese drama titles of late. She executive produced the time-traveling comedy Extremely Inappropriate!, which topped Netflix’s most-watched list in Japan for three weeks this spring. The story of a single father who is mysteriously transported from 1986 to the present day, the series became something of a social phenomenon in Japan, tapping into the country’s mixed feelings over its growing embrace of international progressive ideals. The lighthearted show takes its title from the misplaced lead character’s frequently retrograde behavior — crude remarks, spanking kids, cigarette smoking everywhere — which...

When a Ping Pong anime series was first announced in early 2014, I had to ask: Why? Taiyo Matsumoto’s manga had already been adapted to film back in 2002. Directed by first-timer Fumihiko Sori with a script by rising star Kankuro Kudo, the film launched the career of actor Shido Nakamura. It even came with songs by Supercar and Boom Boom Satellites. I couldn’t imagine anything better than that. When I learned Masaaki Yuasa was directing the series, I became even more curious – and confused. Yuasa was one of my all-time favorite anime directors (and still is.) His 2007 science fiction series Kaiba changed my vision of what TV anime could be. He would have been a great fit to adapt Yuasa’s epic No. 5 . Instead he was hired to go back over old ground. I didn’t understand why at the time. Now I recognize that of all Matsumoto’s comics,...

Stars: Go Ayano, Koen Kondo, Masahiro Higashide, Jun Kunimura, Etsushi Toyokawa, Masatoshi Nagase | Written by Kankurô Kudô | Directed by Gakuryû Ishii

”It was a somewhat gloomy day”. Thus begins Punk Samurai, director Gakuryû, formerly Sogo, Ishii and writer Kankurô Kudô’s adaptation of Kou Machida’s supposedly unfilmable novel.

Junoshin Kake wanders into the domain of the Kurokaze clan and promptly kills a beggar who approaches him. He tells Shume Nagaoka a low-level official in the clan, that the man was a member of a dangerous religious cult that only he can save them from. That’s enough to create the opening he needs to find a permanent position in Lord Kuroae’s employ.

Kake plans to exploit the rivalry between two of the clan’s top retainers Shuzen Oura and Tatewaki Naito to rise through the ranks. The only problem is, the cult, The Bellyshaker Party no longer exists and Naito knows it.

Production has wrapped on Miike Takashi’s latest film, “Mogura no Uta Final” (translation: Mole Song Final), the third and final part of his “Mole Song” action-comedy trilogy about a bumbling cop who goes undercover — and becomes a full-fledged yakuza.

The new film will open on November 19, 2021 with Toho distributing. Like the two previous films, “The Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji” in 2013 and “The Mole Song: Hong Kong Capriccio” in 2016, it is scripted by Kudo Kankuro, a scriptwriter-director who is almost as in-demand in his own sphere as the notoriously prolific Miike is in his.

The stories are based on a comic by Takahashi Noboru that has been running since 2005. As of May this year, it had sold 9.3 million copies in paperback editions.

In the film, which wrapped in mid-June, the cop-gangster hero, Reiji (Ikuta Toma), goes on a mission to stop a drug shipment with a $5.4 billion street value,...

I’ve returned from Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, but the festival keeps on running until the end of the day tomorrow, September 26. And, like any self-respecting festival, there have been awards announced for various films and the people involved in their creation. The only award I can say I had even a slight hand in was the Audience Award–ballots were handed out after each public screening over the first four days of the festival. Sadly, though, I can’t even say that my votes mattered, as the Audience Award winner was a film I sadly didn’t get a chance to see. It’s Jodorowsky’s Dune, a documentary about a film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s iconic sci-fi novel directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky. Of course, as we all know, that version never came to fruition, as the actual film was directed by David Lynch. But the story...

Frank Pavich’s Jodorowsky’s Dune won the Fantastic Fest audience award and claimed best picture prize in the Documentary Features section.Scroll down for full list of winners

Ari Folman’s The Congress was named best picture and that film’s Robin Wright won the best actress prize in the Fantastic Features strand.

Derek Lee and Clif Prowse’s Afflicted dominated the Horror Features section, winning best picture, screenplay and directors.

In the Next Wave Spotlight competition, Matt Johnson’s The Dirties was named best picture, while Sion Sono’s Why Don’t You Play In Hell? prevailed in the Gutbuster Comedy Features’ best picture contest.

In Fantastic Fest’s inaugural genre co-production market, Fantastic Market | Mercado Fantastic, Cuban filmmaker Alejandro BruguésThe Wrong Place won Gold Prize.

The Wrong Placebeat 15 other submissions at the market, which ran from September 19-21, and will receive a production support package comprising products and services provided by Panavision, Chemistry, Assimilate...