5 carefully selected recommended movies starring the “attractive” actor Ryo Yoshizawa! Hope is leading the Japanese film industry!

2. "River's Edge" (18) Director: Isao Yukisada 118 minutes

Yoshizawa has continued to appear in popular entertainment works, such as the "Gintama" series, in which he perfectly reproduced popular characters from hit manga and showed off his kendo skills, and the live-action version of "The Disastrous Life of Saiki K." (2017), in which he worked with the same director, Yuichi Fukuda, as a complicated character. Perhaps due to his handsome looks, more than half of the films he has appeared in are based on manga, but "River's Edge" stands out strongly despite being based on the same manga.

In this film, he plays a bullied gay high school student who falls in love with a corpse abandoned by a riverbank. While throwing himself into shocking scenes such as being beaten all over the face and having his trousers removed, he dominates the screen with an aesthetic and pessimistic presence that few other actors can match. The highlight of his performance is his expressiveness, which transforms inexpressible emotions into a real yearning for life, as symbolized by the line, "I don't always know if I'm alive or dead, but seeing this (a corpse) gives me courage." Yoshizawa's appearance, which convinces the viewer whether they like it or not, even feels divine.

Director Yukisada Isao's experimental spirit can be seen throughout the film, with interviews with the cast inserted and tricky approaches such as using a standard-sized field of view to "make it closer to a manga frame."

Incidentally, among the dramas he has appeared in during this period, he played a reclusive college student who ends up “inside” a high school girl in “I Am Inside Mari” (2017), and an emotionless revenge agent in “Giver” (2018), and he has been able to take on quirky characters with ease.

Read more: "River's Edge" is a great showcase for up-and-coming young actors in the Japanese film industry!

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