http://www.sabisabi.jp/
The official website for the upcoming omnibus comedy film Sabi Otoko Sabi Onna has been updated with a low-res trailer. “Sabi” is a Japanese word for the refrain of a song, so the title refers to a theme of stories about unique men and women thrown into unconventional situations without any of the usual build up.
“Fine, Totally Fine” director Yosuke Fujita’s segment is called Hagemashi Girls and stars Nanami Sakuraba as Chiharu, a college student who lives to support others. She forms a group called “Hagemashi Girls” with classmates Mamiko (Kumiko Shiratori) and Sanae (Emiko Kawamura), and together they spend all of their time singing and dancing to encourage people. However, when they’re tapped to cheer on a slumping baseball player, their well-meaning hobby begins to backfire in unexpected ways.
From “Happy Darts” director Tomoko Matsunashi comes Boy? meets girl. Aoi Nakamura (BECK) stars as a shy high school student named Konosuke Muratsubaki who falls in love with the head of his school’s photography club, Kaori Shiroyama (Misako Renbutsu). In order to get closer to her, he reinvents himself as a girl named Miyu and through an unexpected turn of events becomes her favorite photography model.
In Mipo O’s Claim Night!, Tomochika stars as a 35-year-old single woman named Mayuko who comes home to a dark apartment and discovers her power has been shut off. After a heated exchange over the phone with an electric company representative, she’s visited by a man named Hideki Kasai (Tenkyu Fukuda), who offers an apology on behalf of the company. However, Mayuko informs him that because of the power going out, she now has spoiled food in her refrigerator and she had planned on eating buta-shabu. Determined to satisfy this claim, Kasai goes to the store and later comes back with all of the needed replacement ingredients. She invites him to stay for dinner, but as the night gets later, a possible romantic encounter quickly transitions into a full-on wrestling match.
Last up is “Survive Style 5+” director Gen Sekiguchi’s entry, Sebiro Yashiki starring Kyoko Koizumi as a 43-year-old housewife named Mayumi. One afternoon after grocery shopping, she meets a man in a business suit named Hirata (Yoshiyuki Morishita) who’s been killing time at the park every day because he doesn’t want to admit to his wife that he’s been downsized. Mayumi takes pity on Hirata, and fearing he might get heat stroke if he sits in the park all day, she offers to take him home with her. She sees no problem with it, considering she has no children and her husband doesn’t get home until late at night. However, every day she meets more out-of-work business men and continues taking them all in like stray cats.
“Sabi Otoko Sabi Onna” will be released at first at Human Trust Cinema Shibuya in early 2011 with more dates to follow.