December Film News Part 3

Just when you thought it was safe to get out of 2024 with no more news, well, it keeps coming, and on the back of it being shown as part of the Japan Foundation's Touring Film Programme, Third Window have up on their site that their low buget smash A Samurai in Time will be coming out in Sping 2025 (exact date to be announced next year). We'd also be remiss not to note that Third Window have also teased the release of a new Toshiaki Toyoda film, Transcending Dimensions, hitting the film festival circuit before coming out way... when... well watch this space, and the trailer below.

Meanwhile, Arrow have done all Yasuzo Masumura film lovers a favour by annoucing the release of his nightclub drama, Play it Cool, in its first home media release outside Japan. Ever. Get in your pre-orders for its March release.

Synopses shamelessly stolen from their respective distributors, as always:

A Samurai in Time:

With one strike of lightning, samurai Kosaka Shinzaemon accidentally teleports through time and finds himself in modern day Japan. However, his realisation doesn’t hit so quickly, because of all places, he happens to land on a period drama film set! After facing the director’s wrath for veering away from a script he has no idea about, Kosaka is saved by the kind assistant director Yuka. The samurai soon comes to terms with his troubling situation and learns to make a living as a kirareyaku, a swordsman whose job is to die spectacularly on film. Mesmerised by the world of showbiz, will Kosaka adapt to his new reality, or will the grudges of the Edo period war slice his life apart?

Play it Cool:

Yumi (Mari Atsumi) is a pretty fashion student who shares a cramped home with her mother Tomi (Akemi Negishi, The Saga of Anatahan) and good-for-nothing stepfather Ryoichi. Tomi works at a local hostess bar and hopes for a better fate for Yumi. When Ryoichi violently forces himself upon her blossoming daughter, Tomi is not afraid to take action to protect her, an act which lands her in jail. Left to fend for herself, Yumi is taken in by her mother's former place of employment, where she finds herself fighting off the unwanted attentions of the men who swarm around her. Then one day, a rescue by handsome former lawyer Nozawa (Yusuke Kawazu, Cruel Story of Youth) from a vicious gangster seems to offer an escape into an altogether glitzier world, albeit one that turns out fraught with similar dangers.

As a taster, here's the trailer for A Samurai in Time:

Transcending Dimensions Trailer: