Twitch

This is from http://www.zoo-movie.jp/intro.html; I've just done the blurbs for each of the shorts, so these correspond to where the RED WRITING begins-- where the titles of the shorts are listed, in other words. The half page of stuff above that is an introduction to the director and origins of the piece and stuff... maybe I'll do it when I don't have actual Japanese homework staring me down ;-) . Oh, and I've put [ ] around my own asides, especially in places in which I am not positive on the name (huzzah kanji!). I know that the blurb for SO-far sounds a bit ridiculous... there is one line in there that, without someone telling me the subject, becomes near unfathomable. That and I don't know several of the things to which they allude (TVCM, for example). But it's a start! -Ben Brown

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Kazari and Yoko: In Kazari and Yoko, new actress Kobayashi Kyoko [?] skillfuly splits her roles between the two different characters. Though she is a fresh face, her latent abilities are clear. Idiosynchratic actress Matsuda Miyuki boosts the tension with her with spirited acting, casting in sharp relief the darkness which lurks between parent and child. The voltage of the eddies of darkness that enclose this trio of parent [mother?!] and children is at high tide. ...what waits at the conclusion of this impact?

Seven Rooms: The story of Seven Rooms unfolds in an airtight room. An acute feeling of pending suffocation emanates from the movie screen. Seeing her debut in the Ju-on series, actress Ichikawa [?] Yui plays Rimiko, and Sugasaki [?] Kenta delivers a brilliant performance as a child. The higlight here is how the siblings might escape from this desperate predicament. Seven Rooms depicts, in unique color tones, the condition of those driven into an extreme situation. A tale of suffocating suspense.

The Poem of Collected Sunlight [might be something other than "collected sunlight," but I couldn't find it anywhere... :-/ ] : The Poem of Collected Sunlight is this film's only CG-animated piece. The "lucky adventurer," of the CG animation world, Kamikaze Pictures' [?] director/manga artist Misaki[?] Junpei has teamed up to create a strong tag team with the highly-regarded artist Furuya[?] Usagimaru[??]. The smooth character movement of motion capture and the characteristic soft touch of Misaki come together to express a conscientious view of the world. Anyone would shudder at the unimaginable developments in the film's finale.

SO-far: The genius child actor Kanagi[?] Ryuunosuke, on the heels of his continuing popularity as lead actor in various pieces, was chosen for SO-far. He plays a young boy, trembling slightly in between Suzuki Kyouju in the role of "Mama," and Sugimoto[?] Tetsuta[?] as "Papa." Before taking this piece, hard to adapt for the silver screen, TVCM producer graduate director Komiya [can't decipher first name] worked it out elegantly in concept and camerawork. The solution to Otsuichi's last secret must not be told to anyone...
[Note: Otsuichi is, apparently, the "famous" writer of the original work on which this film is based.]

Zoo: The title work, Zoo. Having been in a few films before, and now accepted as a friend by all serious actors, Murakami Atsushi[?] plays the protagonist in Zoo. The screen absolutely overflows with a sense of art, courtesy of the director who shot blue, winning Ichikawa [first name indecipherable] the Best Actress award at the Moscow International Film Festival, Ando[?] Hiroshi. [Yes, that sentence is just as convoluted in Japanese]. Witness the birth of the Japanese David Lynch!