The River Breathes

The Saitama Shakespeare Series concludes with “King John,” featuring Shun Oguri and Kotaro Yoshida. Originally starting in 1998 under Yukio Ninagawa, the series aimed to perform all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays. “King John,” initially the 36th play, was canceled due to COVID-19 but revived in December 2022, with performances in Tokyo, Aichi, and Osaka, ending on February 24 in Saitama. Shun Oguri starred as the young “bastard,” while Yoshida played the King of France in Tokyo and King John in Aichi, Osaka, and Saitama. The production maintained the “all-male” tradition, with male actors portraying all roles. This historical drama, depicting madness and war, marks the series’ 25-year conclusion.

A surprising and humanistic drama that questions the meaning of happiness through the strange fate of one man who caused an accident. One night, a taciturn and clumsy man working at a scrap iron factory in the suburbs of Tokyo, causes an irreparable accident with his colleague. The two try to hide the incident but the man’s fate takes a turn for the worse and his colleague and family are faced with threats to their survival. A psychologial thriller that reveals the ills of Japanese society along with the darknesses of the human heart based on a script full of surprises written by the director Dai Sakō. Tomomitsu Adachi, who plays the lead role, exudes an eerie charm, and is flanked by many of Japan's best supporting actors such as Yutaka Matsushige and Shohei Uno.

Sakota Yui is a senior high school student living in a seaside town. Her parents own a beauty salon and she dreams of going to the big city for college to learn art. One day, Yui sees her father heading to a funeral home. She follows him and finds out that her father is working a job where he listens to the bereaved family and sets the deceased's hair before the coffin is laid to rest, which is called "Ending Cut".

Saeki works with death-row convicts as a prison chaplain. He tries to instill the prisoners with a sense of morality and help them become a better person. He is a good communicator with the death-row convicts assigned to solitary cells. Saeki agonizes over whether his words really touches the prisoners and whether he is doing the right thing. Saeki also faces his past which he wants to forget. --asianwiki

This is the second theatrical play adaptation of the popular manga series “Lychee Light Club.”

In a studio at the foot of Mt. Fuji, Gaku Hamada is struggling to shoot a movie with a dog in the lead role. Enter a huge cast of veteran actors who get involved in misadventures while on set.