I just had a fandom crossover spazz.
And it’s always good to post Kate Moennig photos.
Archives For actress
Unubore Deka aired its 2nd episode on Friday. ;P
The show tells the story of a detective whose ex-girlfriend is now married to his newest co-worker. Now, for reasons unknown, he always ends up obsessed-in-love with women who turn out to have committed crimes. In the end, he always ends up asking them to choose between marriage to him, or being arrested… without much success for him in his love life.
Well, that’s the best thing I can do without subs.
But no worries!
Unubore Deka is getting subbed by TOMAlicious Fansubs in hardsubs English, Suu no Command in hardsubs Spanish, Haniko’s Fansubs in Hungarian, and Asia Powa Fansubs in French~
In this week’s episode, Yu plays Konuma Setsuko, who appears to be your everyday masseuse. One day Unubore ends up in the massage parlor she works in, and falls in love just by her touch.
A lot of kinky stuff going on.
I’m not sure on how many episodes she’s supposed to show up — considering only ONE EPISODE seems like such a waste — so my money is on a 3 or 4-episode character arc… Hopefully longer. If you missed the photos of how Yu’s character looks like — well, don’t miss them here.
Ryomaden on NHK World Premium
Sunday, July 18th @ 8pm (JST) – or 6am (-5 GMT)
Repeat on Monday, July 19th @ 3am (JST)
Repeat on Saturday, July 24th @ 1.05pm (JST)
Check your local time here.
Woah, long time no see, eh?
Let’s see if I remember how to do this. First, because the Yu Aoi posts always get the most hits, I pimp the RSS subscriptions. There’s no better way to keep updated than by subscribing. So~ here you go, Google and Yahoo.
Also, don’t forget the poll on the side (if there’s one), and support the site by buying stuff – not necesarilly what I suggest… but you can click those Amazon, YesAsia and/or HMV HK banners, and buy whatever you want. Also, I’m not allowed to say this but… ad my clicks, if you know what I mean. ;P
Here we are, 2 years after the broadcast of Yu Aoi’s WOWOW drama Camouflage — also known as Yu Aoi x 4 Lies. If you are interested to know, Viikii allowed Saltine to post softsubs for it. Though the last episode (ep12) is the only one missing… it’s a HUGE improvement. So thank you Saltine.
Okay, moving on!
Chapter 3 — aka. ep7 through ep9 — is titled AKABANE San Shimai or The 3 Akabane Sisters, directed by director Nobuhiro Yamashita (Linda Linda Linda). The concept of this chapter is to tell the story of 3 sisters — Older and reliable Matsuko aka. Macchan aka. Matsu-nei (Shoko Ikezu), Takeko aka. Take-nei (Yoshimi Nozaki) , and free-spirited Umeko (Yu Aoi), who don’t always get along that well, but always makeup by the end, in the style of old comedy shows that last for several years. The first episode is actually the first ficticious episode of the show titled “Sayonara Okada Sensei” which has the sisters returning from the funeral of their old 6th grade teacher… Continue Reading…
Ooh la la!
Mademoiselle Laurent featuring Bokeh xD
in black and white. I love.
Thank you other-Amy for the link =D
*tada!*
Finally! You are probably saying that this is about time that I get to finish with this list of the 20 to Watch~ And accompanying Ryan Gosling who was #1 on the list of actors, there’s Emily Blunt on top of the list of actresses whom you should be keeping an eye out for~
Born in London, England on February 23rd 1983, this 27-year-old actress is best known for playing Emily Chalton opposite Meryl Streep and the 20 to Watch fellow Anne Hathaway on The Devil Wears Prada, for which she earned nominations for Best Supporting Actress at the BAFTAs and the Golden Globes.
Blunt’s first breakthrough as an actress was playing Tamsin on Pawel Pawlikowski’s My Summer of Love, opposite Natalie Press. The film received positive reviews, and earned nominations for Best British Film at the BAFTAs, as well as nods for Most Promising Newcomer for Blunt at the British Independent Film Awards, and British Newcomer of the Year by the London Film Critics.
A year later, Blunt played Natasha on Stephen Poliakoff’s BBC Made-for-TV movie Gideon’s Daughter starring Bill Nighy and Miranda Richardson, which earned Blunt her first Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. In 2006, she finally burst into pop culture knowledge as Hathaway’s Andy’s best-not-a-friend Emily, the desperate assistant to Streep’s Miranda Priestly. Despite only getting a supporting role in a film clearly led by La Streep, Blunt managed to garner enough attention not only from the public, and critics… but also casting agents.
Following Prada, Blunt participated in The Jane Austen Book Club (Maria Bello, Kathy Baker), Dan in Real Life starring Steve Carrel, Juliette Binoche, Dianne Wiest, and Amy Ryan, while closing 2007 with Charlie Wilson’s War directed by Mike Nichols, starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams. It is perhaps then that she makes the decision to work with Adams on the film Sunshine Cleaning, where they play sisters.
Blunt also participated on The Great Buck Howard, a comedy with John Malkovich, and Tom Hanks — playing the father of his real-life son Colin. It seemed like Blunt’s roles were destined to be supporting forever… until The YoungVictoria. The film received considerable positive response, while earning Blunt nominations for Best Actress around critic circles, as well as Best Actress nod at the British Independent Film Awards, and at the Golden Globes.
This year, she returned to screens on The Wolfman starring Benicio del Toro and Sir Anthony Hopkins. While the film didn’t earn much critical or commercial response, you can’t deny that the film adds a certain variety to her CV. xD
All in all, Blunt tops the list because of a combination of factors, such as period of time until she’s 35, past projects, future projects… and perhaps, Hollywood-ness? It is perhaps the way she’s passed on roles on Iron Man 2 (that ended up on Johansson’s CV), or the upcoming Captain America with words such as:
I think that ‘Captain America’ is going to be really fun and I gather that the story is really interesting… It just wasn’t what I wanted to do next, to be honest.
…
There’s definitely a high commitment level and I’m not someone who likes to plan too much ahead… That would also be an issue for me as well.
via ScreenRant.
While everyone wants to jump on the Marvel franchise train, it is admirable to be a working actor and pass on roles to keep your acting schedule open. So we get to have 8 upcoming years of uncertainty~~~
What’s next up for Blunt? Well, there should be a wider release (or at least a DVD one) for Wild Target starring Bill Nighy, Rupert Everett… and fellow who didn’t make it Harry Potter alumni Rupert Grint. Then there’s The Adjustment Bureau with Matt Damon, written and directed by George Nolfi (who wrote The Bourne Ultimatum). Then there’s Gulliver’s Travels with Jack Black, Amanda Peet and Billy Connolly, as well as the animated film Gnomeo and Juliet with fellow the 20 to Watch James McAvoy, and finally Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Lasse Hallström, with Ewan McGregor and Kristin Scott Thomas.
Yes, there’s a lot to watch from Blunt~
We are only one spot away from completing our lists of the 20 to Watch Between 25-30, so I thought it was time to show you some of the names that didn’t make it. Just like in my first list of people that didn’t make it, I seem to have an overload of actresses, and never enough guys.
In no particular order~~~
Continue Reading…
I thought I would never EVER say this, but this is too much Yu Aoi.
The TBS website for the upcoming drama Unubore Deka (Conceited Detective) just announced guest-stars, and Yu Aoi will be appearing on the 2nd episode. Also guest-starring, actress Kanako Higuchi (ep03), and Kyoko Koizumi.
Mika Nakashima stars on the show alongside Tomoya Nagase, who plays the deluded detective.
A 30-year-old single detective (Nagase Tomoya), who is under the illusion that he is popular with females is called ‘Unubore’ by friends. He is an ultra romantic and susceptible to conceitedness. He has such a strong desire to marry to the extent that he has bought an apartment for his newlywed life. He falls in love with female criminals at first sight each time. While the sheer desire to meet wraps around him, he will get proof that the female is the culprit. And so, he will thrust both the arrest warrant and marriage papers at her, proposing with the words, “If you marry me, I won’t arrest you.” If that still does not work, he will hold out an engagement ring and his handcuffs. In the end, the criminal will choose to be arrested and his heart will be broken. He will cry as he puts the handcuffs on her…
via DramaWiki.
To be honest, the premise sounds BLAH.
But Nagase is funny… at least he was on Tiger & Dragon, but that was a different monster. However, I will probably give it a go… after all, if I don’t like it, it’s only going to be two episodes. [added to the calendar]
Let’s play 6 Degrees… Mika Nakashima starred on Worst by Chance — and Yu Aoi made a short appearance there. Tomoya Nagase was on Tiger & Dragon with Yu. Kanako Higuchi played Aoi Miyazaki’s mother on Atsuhime… Miyazaki is besties with Yu. And Kyoko Koizumi starred on the stage piece Gakuya with Yu.
As the name suggests, this 2003 drama is about a high school teacher who is dying of an inoperable brain tumor, then one night he meets Hina, a 16-year-old girl who is pretending to be a 20-year-old beautician. They end up in his apartment for the night, even though nothing happens. The next day, she discovers he is her new high school teacher.
Of course, she keeps trying to get with him, and he tries to keep his distance… after all, he is dying. Then, with those crazy Japanese-language misunderstandings, Hina believes she’s about to die. Suddenly, the teacher finds solace in her… and that’s when it just gets creepy and frustrating.
I understand hot-for-teacher.
But I spent 98% of the time watching this [I just finished episode 8] saying how inappropriate.
First, the male lead was just so… ugh, infuriating. I guess it’s not really him, it’s the character that annoys me. I could get it, the way he is for the first 2 episodes. He’s dying, he’s afraid of being forgotten, whatever. However, by episode 7, it just gets tiresome. Man up already! But instead of manning up, and telling Mina that she’s not dying, so she doesn’t need to find physical pleasure to feel alive… because, well… she’s got time.
He goes and diddles the student.
Is that supposed to be romantic?
And then people go on and tell him he looks different, more relaxed. Of course! He’s diddling the student! whom he lied to by saying she’s got an inoperable brain tumor. And the doctor plays along? Lying to her?
Mina should totally sue their asses.
Gosh!
Okay, having said that. Reason why I watched this? Of course, Yu Aoi. I wasn’t gonna watch it because the title is so bland, and I don’t normally do jdramas. However, while looking for the latest Anan photoshoot, I ran into a post that talked about a “rape scene” [on ep08] in the series, so I went all “OMG, I need to check this out.” So I did.
Besides the dragging storyline of the dying teacher who diddles the student who thinks is dying, the series talks about suicide, depression, prostitution, and bullying. The big bad of the series is Yuki, played by Hiroki Narimiya — whom I had already eyed on Tiger & Dragon, and Nana LOL — but his crazy antics get tiring by episode 7 too. I mean, he’s just bad because he’s bad, unlike Koike on Love Exposure who is bad for being bad with a background.
Continue Reading…
Holler if you just said “What?”!
You might be asking me why I would put Natalie Portman as #3, who is virtually known by everyone, and is the role model of virtually 95% of late teens/early 20s young actresses around. We admitedly find Kristen Stewart’s fangirl-y-ness kind of cute and amusing [1][2]. However, if we decided to put Natalie Portman as our #1, then that would be a little bit boring, right?
Plus, this time we are choosing quality over quantity. ;P
So~~~ on our list of 20 Actors to Watch, here it is: Doona Bae on #2.
Born in Seoul, South Korea on October 11th 1979, this 30-year-old actress is best known as archer Park Nam-Joo in the monster film The Host (Gwoemul) by Bong Joon-ho, as well as playing activist Cha Yeong-mi in Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance by Park Chan-wook.
Born to famous stage Korean actress, Kim Hwa-young, it seemed that Bae was born with acting in her veins. However, she always felt that acting was only for people of extraordinary talent, so she kept away. One day in 1998, after graduating from university, Bae was scouted by a model agency, and one year later she was already debuting on the KBS TV drama School — which earned her the KBS Drama Award for Best New Actress, while making her big screen appearance with a brief role on The Ring Virus, the Korean remake of the Japanese horror RINGU.
In year 2000, she was cast as Hyeon-nam in Barking Dogs Never Bite, directed by Bong Joon-ho due to her willingness to appear without makeup, which many other South Korean actresses refused to do. This earned her another award as Best New Actress, at the Blue Dragon Awards. She followed it with two films that were received positively by critics, first in 2001 with Take Care of my Cat by Jeong Jae-eun, for which she earned Best Actress by the Korean Critics Association, the Korean Film Directors’ Society (Chunsa Film Art Award), and the whole South Korean entertainment industry with a PaekSang Arts Award. And in 2002 with Park Chan-wook’s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, for which she earned a Best Actress at the Director’s Cut Awards, chosen by Korean Film Directors, and would lead to a future collaboration.
After two weak films in 2003, Bae decided to take some time off from acting, in which she took up photography, and participated in the stage production of Sunday Seoul, co-written by Park Chan-wook.
In 2005, she went across the sea, and starred in the Japanese cult hit Linda Linda Linda, playing a South Korean exchange student in a Japanese girl rock band trying to play at the school’s festival — for which she recorded an EP titled We Are Paranmaum under the name Paranmaum — by Nobuhiro Yamashita, which also became a favorite of the film festival circuit. The year after it, she had a supporting role in Bong Joon-ho’s South Korean biggest box office success The Host.
Bae also appears on a few music videos, and has released Photo essays for London, Tokyo and Seoul. Finally, in 2009 she played an air sex-doll in the Japanese drama Air Doll by acclaimed director Hirokazu Koreeda. For the role, she earned Best Actress wins in festival circuits, as well as nominations at the Asian Film Awards, and the Japanese Academy Awards.
What’s next for Doona Bae? We have no idea. But if she’s making us wait another 3 years for a new movie on the big screen, and it’s as GOOD as Air Doll was when we waited those 3 years after The Host. Well, it’s all worth it.
