Toshiaki Toyoda

Following in the footsteps of Takashi Miike is a frightfully unenviable position to find oneself in. Outdoing him in terms of audaciousness is a ludicrous goal to aim for, as few ever could. Even so, director Toyoda offers a rather strong piece of entertainment that bizarrely finds a middle ground between telling an overarching story of misguided teenagers, who view beating each other to a pulp as a viable technique to socialize, and delving into their more troubled personal lives, thus providing the picture with a speck of gravitas. What’s more, the film looks very handsome; further indication that the filmmakers took this premise quite seriously and wanted to give audiences the best picture possible. Crows Explode is a strange mix of ingredients but disproves the odds. It might not be the king of the heap, but prince is not a bad second place.

Monsters Club Directed by Toshiaki Toyoda Written by Toshiaki Toyoda Japan, 2011 How often is it said that one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter? Maybe that is but a cliché which has emerged out of tired movie scripts. Be that as it may, most people in the world do claim entirely opinions on …

After four long years out of the movie industry, Toshiaki Toyoda director of “Blue Spring” and “9 Souls” is finally coming out with a new movie called The Blood of Rebirth (Yomigaeri no Chi), a hallucinatory samurai film in the tradition of  Alejandro Jodorowsky.