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Sony Group Corporation is in talks to acquire fellow Japanese conglomerate Kadokawa, according to media reports that emerged this week. The firm’s animation and games properties may underlie the possible M&a activity.

Kadokawa is a 79-year-old company that spans film, games, publishing and animation and is listed on the main Tokyo Stock Exchange. Its shares soared some 23% on Tuesday after the Reuters news agency published a report about the negotiations, quoting two anonymous sources.

Contacted by Variety, Sony declined to comment. Kadokawa has not so far responded.

Hostile takeover bids are extremely rare in Japan. And if talks are moving forward, the most likely outcomes would be either an agreed deal or collapsed talks. However, commentators in Japan have already started to ask whether Sony would attempt to buy the entire Kadokawa group, or to extract its anime and games businesses.

Sony’s senior management has not hidden...

Sony is reportedly in discussions to acquire Kadokawa Corporation, the Japanese media giant behind recent features by Takeshi Kitano and Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

Sources say that if ongoing talks are successful, a deal could be signed within weeks, according to Reuters.

Sony has held a 1.93% stake in Kadokawa since 2021, when the two firms formed a capital alliance alongside digital advertising firm CyberAgent. Sony also owns a stake in FromSoftware, the Kadokawa subsidiary outfit behind hit video games such as Elden Ring.

Kadokawa was founded in 1945 as a publisher and is known in the film business for Kadokawa Daiei Studio, which was...

Exclusive: The Walking Dead and Invincible maker Skybound Entertainment has hired former Warner Bros. and Disney exec Mitsuru Oda to lead its Japanese unit.

Oda has been unveiled as President of Skybound Japan, leading the U.S. company’s business in the country and across Asia. The exec’s career spans more than 30 years, including 15 at Warner Bros. Japan, where he most recently served as Senior Vice President.

As we revealed at the time, Skybound Japan opened its doors last November under Ash Nukui, producer of The Sniffer and Memoir of A Teenage Amnesiac. Skybound Japan’s slate already includes the likes of Japanese drama Heart Attack, starring Kanichiro and Toko Miura, which was co-produced with Fuji TV and recently acquired by UK-based distributor Cineflix for international distribution.

Oda’s relationships with local networks, studios and platforms such as Netflix and Amazon,...

The first details of Takeshi Kitano’s secretive project Broken Rage have been revealed ahead of its world premiere at the 81st Venice Film Festival.

It has emerged that the latest feature by the veteran Japanese actor and filmmaker is the project that Amazon MGM Studios announced it was producing in June. It means that Broken Rage is the first first Japanese film produced for streaming to be officially selected for Venice and will premiere at the festival on September 6. The feature will stream exclusively on Prime Video in 2025.

When first announced as part of the Venice line-up, no plot details or cast were revealed,...

In a city that’s home to an endless array of overlapping film festivals (not a complaint!), Japan Cuts continues to merit special attention every July. Produced in partnership with — and hosted by — New York’s Japan Society, Japan Cuts is not only North America’s largest and most high-profile festival dedicated to Japanese film, it’s also perhaps the most well-curated, as the titles programmed across the slate’s various sections collect into a vividly comprehensive snapshot of the country’s cinematic landscape.

Case in point: The 2024 lineup runs the gamut from lavish samurai epics like Takashi Kitano’s “Kubi” and kaiju masterpieces like Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi’s “Shin Godzilla” (presented here in its new black-and-white edition) to sensitive festival darlings like San Sebastían breakout “Great Absence” and the Berlinale-minted “The Box Man.” It highlights major auteurs like “Tetsuo the Iron Man” director Shinya Tsukamoto (whose “Shadow of Fire...

Takeshi Kitano, the filmmaker and star of such classics as Violent Cop, Sonatine and more, is currently making an untitled film for Amazon MGM.

One of the most famous stars in Japan, Takeshi Kitano, is making a movie for Amazon MGM Studios. At present, nothing else is known about what Kitano’s making; a statement from the production published by Variety simply says that Amazon “will produce globally acclaimed Japanese director Takeshi Kitano’s feature film.”

It also adds that Kitano will star, continuing a tradition that stretches back 35 years. The multi-talented actor, director, comedian, writer and occasional game designer has written, directed and starred in such classic films as Violent Cop (1989), Boiling Point (1990), Sonatine (1993) and Hana-bi (1997). More recently, Kitano made the Outrage trilogy (2010-2017) of gangster films, and the samurai drama Kubi, which made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023.

Kitano has also starred in other filmmakers’ movies,...

Over the years, Nippon Connection in Frankfurt, Germany has become a fixed event in the calendar of Asian movie enthusiasts and critics alike. The motto of this year's edition was “Crossing Borders” offering a multitude of long and short features as well as documentaries fulfilling category either thematically and/or aesthetically, ensuring visitors will see the many facets of Japanese cinema ranging from big productions such as Takeshi Kitano's “Kubi”, feel-good cinema like Ryoma Kosasa's “Push Pause” to coming-of-age drama such as Ren Sudo's “Abyss” or modern horror dramas such as Yuta Shimotsu's “Best Wishes to All”. In the documentary category we went into the depth within the world of J-horror with “The J-Horror Virus”, directed by Jaspar Sharp and Sarah Appleton, and looked at the state of Japanese society with works like “Johatsu” or “What Should We Have Done?”. Along with its program containing serving Japanese dishes,...

Within the vast landscape of Asian cinema, the works by Takeshi Kitano, as director and actor, have always been highly anticipated by many. However, when news spread he would retire from filmmaking after making one more feature, fans already thought this one might be the samurai epic he had been developing ever since “Sonatine”. Based on the infamous Honno-ji incident, the story portrays a time of political and social upheaval in Japan and is following the footsteps of directors such as Akira Kurosawa who made countless classics and established the historical samurai movie. “Kubi”, which translates to “neck”, also features a cast of many renowned actors, for example, Ryo Kase, Tadanobu Asano, Susumu Terajima and Kitano himself in one of the leading roles.

Kubi is screening at Nippon Connection

The story begins in 1582 after the uprising by lord Araki Murashige (Kenichi Endo) has been brutally beaten down by the forces...

From On Demand To Linear

Asian TV channels operator Celestial Tiger Entertainment and myTV Super, the Ott platform of Hong Kong’s Television Broadcasts Limited (Tvb) are to launch PopC, a movie channel dedicated to Chinese online films, with content supplied by mainland China streamer iQiyi. It launches in Hong Kong from May 1.

“The idea of PopC first came about when we saw the amount of great, high quality movies that were being produced for the online space in China. The domestic reception and online hit rates for these movies are just phenomenal, and we want to bring them to an international audience outside of China by curating them all in one great channel.” said Ofanny Choi, CEO of Cte.

Its lineup will take on revolving themes on a daily basis, from fantasy-adventure, to Chinese heroes, suspense, action and comedy.

Taipei-budapest

The Taipei Film Festival has reinstated its “City in...

Soon it's that time of year again! Just a few weeks left until the 24th Nippon Connection Film Festival once again envelops Frankfurt am Main (Germany) in bright pink. From May 28 to June 2, 2024, the world's largest festival of Japanese cinema will showcase around 100 short and feature films at eight venues. The country's culture will also be explored through the extensive culture program, reflecting Japan's musical, culinary, and artistic diversity.

The Nippon Connection Film Festival presents works by both established filmmakers and emerging directors. From Takeshi Kitano's action-packed samurai film Kubi to the captivating comedy Fly Me To The Saitama -From Biwa Lake With Love- by Hideki Takeuchi, and Yoshimi Itazu's imaginative animation The Concierge, the film program offers highlights of various genres. Most films will celebrate their German, European, or international premieres at the festival. The festival's focus on Crossing Borders, supported by the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, explores...

The 17th annual Asian Film Awards (Afa) announced the winners and special award recipients at a ceremony held at the West Kowloon Cultural District's Xiqu Centre in Hong Kong on March 10, 2024. Sixteen competitive prizes and six honorary prizes were given out.

A total of thirty-five films from 24 countries and regions were nominated for 16 prizes at the 17th Afa. From Japan, Ryusuke Hamaguchi 's Evil Does Not Exist received the Best Film Award and Best Original Music (Eiko Ishibashi), marking the second year in a row that Hamaguchi and Ishibashi have received Afa Awards; and Hirokazu Kore-eda won the Best Director Award with Monster, following last year's wins with his Korean film Broker. Koji Yakusho won the Best Actor Award for Perfect Days, his second such Afa Award following his win at the 13th Afa in 2019 for The Blood of Wolves. Perfect Days won the Best Director Award at the Japan...

Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” was Sunday evening named as the best picture at the Asian Film Awards.

The 17th edition of the prizes was held at the Xiqu Centre, part of the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong.

While “Evil Does Not Exist” and Korean blockbuster “12.12: The Day” had dominated the nominations with six each, including those in the best film category, the prizes on Sunday were much more evenly distributed. No title collected more than two prizes.

Outside, crowds failed to be muted by the March drizzle, though VIP guests were given escorts with purple umbrellas.

Filmmaker and industry attendance was also robust. Those spotted on the red carpet and pre-event cocktails included: Lee Yong Kwan (former chair of the Busan film festival), Tom Yoda, Udine festival heads Sabrina Baracetti and Thomas Bertacche, Anthony Chen, Stanley Kwan, Rina Damayanti, Hong Kong distributor Winnie Tsang,...

As we continue to explore the best in 2023, today we’re taking a look at the articles that you, our dear readers, enjoyed the most throughout the past twelve months. Spanning reviews, interviews, features, podcasts, news, and trailers, check out the highlights below and return for more year-end coverage as well as a glimpse into 2024.

Most-Read Reviews

1. Body Parts

2. The Exorcist: Believer

3. Barbie

4. Beau Is Afraid

5. Priscilla

6. Suzume

7. Hypnotic

8. No Hard Feelings

9. The Zone of Interest

10. The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Most-Read Interviews

1. Claire Simon on Capturing the Female Body and What Sets Her Apart From Frederick Wiseman

2. “I Don’t Think Directors Should Be Amenable”: Erik Messerschmidt on Shooting The Killer and David Fincher’s Simple Process

3. Richard Kelly on Creative Heartbreak, Political Cinema, and Future Projects

4. Christopher Blauvelt on May December, Formatting for Netflix and 35mm, and Life Lessons from Harris Savides

5. Brandon Cronenberg on Infinity Pool,...

Top Japanese director Kurosawa Kiyoshi is in post-production of “Le Chemin du Serpent,” a French-language adaptation of his own 1998 film “The Serpent’s Path.”

The story sees a mysterious woman team up with a man whose daughter was killed and who is now seeking revenge. Together they kidnap members of an organization and torture them to find out what really happened.

With Damien Bonnard and Shibasaki Ko in the leading roles, the picture is the anchor title of the Tiffcom sales slate of major Japanese studio Kadokawa.

Production is by Kadokawa and Jean-Luc Ormieres’ Cinefrance Studios. The Japanese company is handling world sales on the picture outside France and Belgium.

Kurosawa, who has been a regular visitor to Cannes with titles including “Pulse,” “Bright Future,” “Tokyo Sonata,” “Journey to the Shore” and “Before We Vanish”, is preparing to complete the new film in time for a summer 2024 release.

Kadokawa’s...

This year's edition of Cannes film festival offered a number of high quality titles from Asia, both in competiton(s) and side bar programmes. One of the most awaited films was Takeshi Kitano's “Kubi” screened in Premiere section, in director's presence. Back to the samurai genre, 20 years after the critically acclaimed “Zatoichi” and with a period piece based on his own historic novel published in 2019, Kitano struggled to bring his characters close to the audience, but stayed faithful to the title by making many heads roll. “Kubi” (which was also the title of his novel) means “neck”, a beloved target of the samurai sword. This is allegedly the last film by “Beat”, if we take his statement before the festival kicked off seriously.

A year after his drama “Broker” brought Palme D'Or for Best Actor to Song Kang-ho, and five after he was awarded Palme D'Or for “Shoplifters”, Hirokazu Koreeda...

Text written on June 6, 2023 by Jean-Marc Thérouanne

Asia in the juries :

Franco-Afghan writer and director Atiq Rahimi was the only Asian member of the prestigious jury at the 76th Cannes Film Festival

Fench-Cambodian director Davy Chou was the only Asia-related member of the Un Certain Regard jury

Davy Chou

Shlomi Elkabetz was the only member of the short film jury and the Cinef with a connection to geographical Asia.

Asia in the selections:

Asia, from the Near to the Far East, was present with 31 features and 13 shorts in all the official and parallel sections of the 76th Cannes Film Festival.

In compétition :

– China: Youth (Spring) by Wang Bing

– Japan: Monster by Kore-eda Hirokazu,

Kim Dong-ho, Hirokazu Koreeda

– Turkey: About Dry Grasses by Nuri Bilge Ceylan,

and The Pot-au-feu by French-Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung and Wim Wenders' Perfect Days, set in Japan.

Out of compétition :

– Korea: Cobweb by Kim Jee-won,...

Takeshi Kitano, arguably Japan’s most recognizable entertainer, has weighed in on the sexual abuse scandal that has shaken the country’s multibillion-dollar media landscape.

Since March, a long-delayed reckoning has been brewing in the country’s entertainment industry. For decades, rumors of rampant sexual abuse had swirled around Johnny Kitagawa, the founder of Johnny & Associates (locally known as just “Johnny’s”), Japan’s dominant talent agency for young male stars. But it wasn’t until the BBC aired an in-depth documentary examining the allegations — Predator: The Secret Scandal of J-pop — that Japanese media have begun to cautiously cover the scandal. In recent weeks, several other male idols have come forward with allegations that they were sexually assaulted by Kitagawa when they were boys, and the company’s current management has issued an unprecedented apology.

The Hollywood Reporter asked Kitano for his thoughts on the growing outcry during an...

For three decades, filmmaker Takeshi Kitano was fixated on a period of Japanese history, in which Lord Oda Nobunaga was inexplicably betrayed by one of his closest allies, Akechi Mitsuhide, in an ambush at Honno-ji Temple. The reasons behind Mitsuhide’s deception are unknown, but Kitano dedicated years to concocting his own theories, going so far as to pen a novel imagining the events that led to the incident.

Adapted from his own book, “Kubi” is an outrageously exhilarating update of the samurai epic, dialing up the blood and guts and sprinkling in the sick humor to match.

Continue reading ‘Kubi’ Review: Takeshi Kitano Stages A Blood-Soaked Samurai Epic [Cannes] at The Playlist.

In the early ’90s, Japan’s Takeshi “Beat” Kitano was on a roll, with a superb string of nuanced crime movies that stood in stark contrast to the good-vs.-evil bullet operas that were coming out of Hong Kong at the time. Kitano’s darkly funny cynicism (who else could have made Violent Cop?) made him stand out by miles, but it soon became his weakness, as became evident in the lean period after the success of Zatoichi in 2013. The experimental, semi-autobiographical trilogy that followed — Takeshis’, Glory to the Filmmaker and Achilles and the Tortoise — seemed to offer little more than self-sabotage, the work of a frustrated artist trying to take a blowtorch to his populist image without much thought for the future.

The collateral damage was his international reputation, which took a hit to the extent that his next trilogy, the Outrage series, generally was received as the half-hearted work of a bored auteur.

Two Japanese films by internationally renowned auteurs — “Monster” by Koreeda Hirokazu and “Kubi” by Kitano Takeshi — are in the Cannes lineup this year, and both carry with them big box office expectations in Japan.

“Monster,” which is screening in competition, will be released on June 2 by Gaga and Toho, the latter Japan’s largest distributor and theater chain operator. Koreeda’s two previous films — “The Truth” (2019), shot in France, and “Broker” (2022), filmed South Korea — were both box office disappointments in his home market. “Monster,” however, promises a return to the earnings form of his 2018 Palme d’Or winner “Shoplifters,” whose $34 million cumulative total was the fourth-highest among Japanese releases that year.

One reason: The screenplay is by Sakamoto Yuji, a veteran writer of hit TV dramas and films, including the 2021 smash romantic drama “We Made a Beautiful Bouquet.” The story of “Monster,” about a quarrel between elementary school children...

On paper, the 76th Cannes Film Festival looks like an embarrassment of riches, assembling no shortage of big guns in terms of major-name filmmakers.

Pretty much every list of hotly anticipated titles will be topped by Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, an epic Western crime drama based on David Grann’s nonfiction book about the murder of Indigenous Americans on tribal land in 1920s Oklahoma. Likewise, it seems redundant to include Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, given the legions of fans already jostling to watch Harrison Ford crack the whip one last time in James Mangold’s conclusion of the beloved action-adventure franchise.

New works from celebrated filmmakers are simply too numerous to cram into a rundown of just ten titles, so their absence here should not be misinterpreted as lack of interest.

That includes Ken Loach’s story of tensions caused by the arrival...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSThe Cannes Classics lineup was announced last week, and with it comes news of the premiere of Jean-Luc Godard’s posthumous, 20-minute-long short Phony Wars. Dubbed “a trailer of the film that will never exist,” the film has a short teaser courtesy of Saint Laurent Productions.Adèle Haenel (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) wrote a letter to the magazine Telerama about her decision to retire from acting. In an English-language excerpt, via the Guardian, she writes: “I decided to politicize my retirement from cinema to denounce the general complacency of the profession towards sexual aggressors and more generally the way in which this sphere collaborates with the mortal, ecocidal, racist order of the world such as it is.”Harmony Korine will receive the Pardo d’onore Manor,...

Legendary Japanese actor-director Takeshi Kitano returns to the Croisette for the first time this year since 2010, when his film “Outrage” competed for the coveted Palme d’Or. And while “Kubi,” Kitano’s latest directorial effort, may premiere out of competition at the 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival this month, The Film Stage still think it’ll be a festival highlight.

Read More: Cannes Critics’ Week 2023 Lineup: New Films From Jason Yu, Amanda Nell Eu & More

Based on the director’s 2019 novel, “Kubi” tells the story of the real-life Honno-ji Incident and the assassination of Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga in Kyoto in 1582.

Continue reading ‘Kubi’ Teaser: Takeshi Kitano’s Epic War Film Premieres Out Of Competition At Cannes Later This Month at The Playlist.

One of our most-anticipated films in the Cannes Film Festival 2023 lineup is the latest work from Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano. “Kubi,” set to debut in the Cannes Premiere section and marking his first film since 2017’s “Outrage Coda,” has been on the filmmaker’s mind for the last thirty years, initially developing it around 1993’s “Sonatine.” The first trailer has now arrived ahead of the premiere and a subsequent Japanese release this fall.

Based on the director’s own novel, which was released in 2019, the period epic will follow the real-life Honno-ji Incident, in which famed warlord Oda Nobunaga was assassinated at a temple in Kyoto in 1582. Starring Asano Tadanobu, Nishijima Hidetoshi, and Kase Ryo, the film was originally reported to be the 76-year-old director’s final feature, but that sounds like it won’t be the case.

Kadokawa has revealed the first look teaser for a movie called Kubi, a historical epic from iconic Japanese actor Beat Takeshi. This will be premiering at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival later this month in the Cannes Premiere section. This film was conceived by director Takeshi Kitano around the same time as Sonatine, one of his early masterpieces, and has been in the works for 30 years. It depicts the "Honnoji Incident" along with the ambitions, betrayals, and fates of various characters, including warlords, ninja, comedians, and peasants. The ambitious new film has assembled a splendid and unique cast! Takeshi plays Hideyoshi Hashiba, who plots the "Honnoji Incident," and Hidetoshi Nishijima plays Mitsuhide Akechi. Ryo Kase gives a dubious performance as the mad genius Nobunaga Oda, while Tadanobu Asano and Nao Omori play the military strategist Kanpei Kuroda, who supports Hideyoshi, and his brother Hidenaga Hashiba with a great sense of humor.

“Drive My Car” star Hidetoshi Nishijima has signed with CAA for representation.

Nishijima starred in the acclaimed 2021 Japanese feature “Drive My Car,” which was nominated for four Academy Awards, and walked away with the Oscar for best international feature film.

He earned several awards for his performance in the Cannes-premiering critical darling, including best actor from the National Society of Film Critics and the Boston Film Critics Circle Awards, as well as the Japan Academy Film Prize for best actor.

Nishijima will next star alongside Rashida Jones in “Sunny,” Apple TV+’s half-hour dark comedy series from A24 and Lucy Tcherniak. He also stars in Kitano Takeshi’s “Kubi,” which will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next month.

Nishijima’s previous credits include “Shin Ultraman” (2022), Kitano Takeshi’s “Dolls” (2002), and “License to Live” for which he won the best actor award at the Japanese Professional Movie Awards.

Nishijima has also appeared in TV series,...

Leading Japanese film studio Kadokawa has picked up all rights to “Kubi,” the upcoming film by Kitano Takeshi which will have its premiere out of competition in Cannes. Kadokawa will handle both the international sales and the Japanese commercial release.

The film depicts the historical ‘Honno-ji Incident’ from 1582, when a key vassal of Oda Nobunaga rose in revolt and caused his master to commit hara-kiri in Kyoto. The reasons for the revolt and whether Akechi Mitsuhide was really the ringleader have been debated ever since.

The film will explore the ambitions, betrayals, and fates of various characters, including warlords, ninjas, traveling performers, and peasants, and brings out the essence of Kitano’s world, including intense violence and dark humor.

Speaking at a press event over the weekend, Kitano explained that “This film is based on my own understanding of what the period and people were like,” and it will definitely...