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Mike Yokohama – A Forest with No Name (2002)

Director: Shinji Aoyama

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From Time Out Film Guide

A misbegotten start for the project to revive Nagase's 'Mike Hama' character (introduced in a '90s trilogy by Kaizo Hayashi, here credited only with the story idea) in six made-for-video features, each by a different director. Mike is hired by an anxious father (Harada) to retrieve his daughter from a cult run by a woman doctor (Suzuki); Mike infiltrates by posing as a new recruit and discovers that adherents are turned into murderous and/or suicidal time-bombs by a secret buried deep in the forest adjacent to the cult's rural HQ. Aoyama directs this feeble variation on Invasion of the Body Snatchers with his usual half-assed pretensions, delivering neither a viable thriller nor a credible allegory of Japan's youth-identity problems. The only surprise is that the film's translators have renamed the hero 'Mike Yokohama' - presumably fearing legal action from the Mickey Spillane estate.

Author: TR 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

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Cast & crew

Director: Shinji Aoyama

Producer: Hiroyuki Fujikado, Yoshinori Horiguchi, Yasuhisa Masuda, Takenori Sento, Shunsuke Koga, Akira Okano, Ayumi Hayashi

Cast: Masatoshi Nagase, Kyoka Suzuki, Nene Otsuka, Yoshio Harada, Masashi Yamamoto full cast

Genre(s): Thrillers

Duration: 71 mins


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