Kenji Onishi

Two police detectives Numata and Tosaka infiltrate a group of underground black market human organ dealers. Things go haywire during a raid on the group's surgical headquarters. Numata barely escapes, while a wounded Tosaka gets left behind. Through a series of surreal and gory events, the identities of the organ dealers are revealed as Numata plans his revenge.

Nakagawa shot “Coming Future” on the nights of December 24 and 25, 2010 in Shibuya, making it his location for an idealized Bohemia in the heart of Tokyo. Interesting interviews/discussions with Kenji Murakami, Nobuhiro Yamashita, Kenji Onishi, Tetsuaki Matsue and more... By far the most interesting sequence is with Kenji Onishi (“A Burning Star”). Wielding a super-8 camera, Onishi documents his own interview, taking random shots of street-life and buildings. He leavens his monologue with statements bordering between cliché and outré. “A movie that aims to make a message is boring.”

The Underground Water (1996) comes as an ode to water in its forms and to that connected sounds, ice, drinking, mirroring, bathing, washing, pearling on a window, raindrops, reflecting architecture and grey trees. Dry leaves, wooden floors and a young man smoking a cigarette. Windows and doors are preparing the framing. The wind is coming up. Will it rain today? A young woman is pressing her face to a TV screen, all in blue but it is not water refreshing her. In her eyes, you see some hidden memories and dirty tennis balls lying on the street sucking up the drops of the rain.

This is a film about a medium approaching extinction, an 8mm documentary film about a vanishing 8mm cinema. Blending two genres, the science film and the personal film, and benefiting from the participation of multiple generations of cineastes, it is a reflection upon the original cinematic experience.

A man fingering the girl before killing her. Camera cuts to blue sky and cat. A man choking his girl. Onishi at his usual with framing, extreme close-ups, expectations and black inserts.

A man fingering the girl before killing her. Camera cuts to blue sky and cat. A man choking his girl. Onishi at his usual with framing, extreme close-ups, expectations and black inserts.

An improvised film sketch with professional actors.

No description available.

8mm film by Yukiyasu Shimada. Performed by Shimada and Ichigo-chan. Shooting assistance by Kenji Onishi.

Zetcho is a feature shot on film, including the typical colouring of washed-out white and blue. Again Onishi brings together the couple’s problems, nature and brutalism, set against a colour-changing skyline or in small apartments. The structure of architecture and the one of nature. A cat hiding behind a car. While it all turns out to be a drama of killing and brutalism against women.

Out of Frame (1996) plays with your expectations and the way how we are used to “read” pictures and their framing. A woman is rubbing herself against a white wall, making the typical noises of having sex from the back, and Onishi takes his time to open the framing and then showing them in explicit positions. You don’t see the penetration but watch the rhythm of two bodies, listening to it, too. The framing by windows will allow you some rest. The man is putting on his clothes and closing the door while the woman is looking out oft he window. Onishi’s typical black inserts again, and we watch the same couple on the toilet, where he is putting her hands into hand-cuffs. After that he is showering her carefully, and she remains in hand-cuffs while they are having sex again under the shower. He is using his revolver then to free her from these metal things. And the toilet is a calm place when she comes back after strangling a young man on the street.

No description available.

8mm film by Yukiyasu Shimada.

It is all flickering neon-light with Aquarium City (1996), a feature film of 76 minutes, using black inserts and the structure of the tatami again. Blue and grey are the most prominent colours, and a sky turning white while a young woman is using drugs and waving her hair. The needle in her arm, and we are watching from a distance while cars and motorcycles are passing the street. The possible contrasts in beauty seem to be Onishi’s theme, so after the dark street we watch another woman masturbating while sitting on a chair. But later placing the needle in the vagina of another woman. The sun is shining outside and cars continue driving. But the power is gone. And the way out is never anything else but a black hole.

Early work by Kenji Onishi.

Experimental short by Kenji Onishi.

An attempt to let one's identity emerge by piercing fragments of 8mm film shot over some 20 years. The filmmaker's muttering and breathing reverberate over a series of visual images that invoke the primitive pleasure of an image coming into focus. This is a tribute to the culture of 8mm film, which is nearing its end, and a personal film directed with an approach that sets it apart from other films.

‎The film heritage of Yukiyasu Shimada.

Experimental short by Kenji Onishi.

No description available.