There have been a number of programmes around the world dedicated to remembering the tragic impact of The Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011 and the subsequent recovery but the most interesting and the greatest concentration of events I have seen so far has been the Japan Society, New York’s commemoration events. There is a wide range of talks and screenings and more given over to remembering the disaster and charting the return to some kind of normality that people in the region are attempting.
Many of the events run from March and last into April and June and all are centred around how art responds to crisis. To find out more and purchase tickets, click on the links provided.
Japan Society Gallery’s centerpiece exhibition is In the Wake: Japanese Photographers Respond to 3/11. It contains photographic responses to the disaster with 90 photographic works from 17 of Japan’s leading visionaries, including Nobuyoshi Araki, Naoya Hatakeyama, Keizō Kitajima, Lieko Shiga, and Tomoko Yoneda. This runs from March 11 to June 12. Also running at the same time is Yoko Ono’s Wish Tree which allows people to tie wishes for a better future to the branches of the tree.
On Friday, April 15th there is going to be a conversation between two artists. Munemasa Takahashi, an artist whose works have focussed on the recovery, restoration and digitisation of personal photographs lost in the 3/11 disaster. He will be joined by Hakan Topal who also specialises in art and design in relation to disasters. Following this is a gallery talk and reception. (tickets must be ordered)
On Monday, March 21st at 7:30 PM there will be a Japanese play performed by American actors. The play is called Girl X and it is another event where tickets must be bought. What you get is a drama written by Suguru Yamamoto, a young playwright from Japan who wrote this work after the disaster. It is set in present-day Tokyo and focusses on an anonymous urban family and it seems that each person has complex emotional problems which should provide ample drama for audiences to engage with. It has won a lot of praise in Asia and its playwright, Suguru Yamamoto, will be at the performance to take part in a talk.
For cinephiles there’s the screening of Nuclear Nation II on March 17th at 7 PM. It was at last year’s Berlin International Film Festival. The review by Maggie Lee over at the Variety website makes this sound like a very, very important work for anyone who wants to see the true face of the refugee crisis and the problems facing those trying to move on as it reveals that the inuhmane government response and lousy treatment by TEPCO has forced the subjects of the documentary to become refugees in their own country and there is no end in sight. Director Atsushi Funahashi will be in town to talk to audience members.
Nuclear Nation II
Nuclear Nation II FIlm Poster
フタバから 遠く 離れて第二部「Futaba kara toku hanarete dainibu」
Atsushi Funahashi was at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival with his documentary Nuclear Nation, about the consequences of the March 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima Daiichi which displaced around 1400 people from nearby Futaba. These people were evacuated to a school building in a Tokyo suburb and we saw how they survived. The sequel takes place some time after and we learn what happened to the people we saw in the first documentary. We see that the former mayor, a man who once advocated the use of nuclear energy and then became a passionate fighter for the victims of the catastrophe, has been replaced by someone younger and that the situation faced by the new mayor is just as intractable as ever. The single-minded cattle breeder who resisted government orders to kill his livestock which were in the disaster zone sees the consequences of radioactive contamination on the ravaged bodies of his animals. Also, those displaced by the disaster have just recently (as in late 2014) left the school building they were staying in but they’re unlikely ever to be able to return to their homes because the epicentre of the catastrophe has been declared a toxic waste disposal site.
That’s a strong line-up of events. I would also like to point out my list of films that cover the 3/11 disaster and Fukushima Daichi fallout. It’s called Great East Japan Earthquake Aftermath on Film and was started in 2013 as a way of commemorating the disaster and keeping track of some of the films that are released every weekend that cover the event and provide something of a record.
Acacia Walk is the next film to get screened at the Japanese embassy in London during the free screening on March 22nd and it’s a tough tale talking about the growing problem of providing nursing care for elderly parents. It does so through a tale of abuse created by isolation and pressure that filters down from mother to daughter and back again. Director Joji Matsuoka is famous for the Shinya Shokudo dorama and movie.
Synopsis:Miwako, an editor at a publishing company, hears from her aunt that her estranged mother is ill and has Alzheimer’s disease. She has cut herself off from her mother because of an abusive past due to her mother being a single-parent under pressure. Miwako reluctantly agrees to go back and live with her. This turns out not to be the best decision because Miwako becomes stressed and angry. Miwako cannot find anyone to confide in and soon she becomes what her mother used to be: abusive.
The film will be screened on Tuesday, March 22nd at 18:30. Admission to the films is free but you need to register for a ticket. For more information, head to the embassy’s site.
I have read a lot about Chihayafuru in my years reading anime and manga. It’s the sort of series that flies under the radar of many manga fans but people who read it love it a lot. It’s a series I feel I should have started if only because the card game that the main character plays looks like a lot of fun. I can slap cards out of people’s hands! Oh, and poster 2 looks so much better.
Synopsis: Chihaya Ayase (Suzu Hirose) is a high school student who plays the card game karuta. She picked it up in elementary school when she met Arata Wataya who transferred into her school from another in Fukui Prefecture. The two parted ways when Arata returned to Fukui but only Chihaya continued to play karuta, something which she wants to change which is why she starts a karuta club at her high school in order to find Arata again.
I’m currently enjoying the anime of Boku Dake ga Inai Machi. It’s the sort of thriller you get addicted to watching thanks to the involved story and cliff-hanger endings. I don’t know how the story will fit into a movie considering it’s based on a long-running manga,
Synopsis:Satoru Fujinuma (Tatsuya Fujiwara) is a struggling manga artist who keeps his distance from people. He works dead-end part-time delivering pizzas but he has a secret. Satoru Fujinuma has the ability to travel back in time. This ability is called “revival.” With “revival” Satoru can go back in time before terrible incidents occurred so he can prevent bad things from happening. After a series of events involving kidnapped and murdered children and the death of his mother who confronted the killer, Satoru travels back to his childhood when a serial murder case took place with the victims being children. When Satoru does travel back his adult mind inhabits his body at the age of an elementary school student.
Synopsis: A group of aliens searching for God find themselves stranded on Earth when their mothership breaks down. They begin to observe people in a town through cameras and microphones. The aliens do not have concepts of “I” and “you,” face the human concept of “I am not you.” Will the aliens finally meet God?
Tsumugu
Tsumugu mono Film Poster
つむぐもの「tsumugu mono」
Release Date: March 19th, 2016
Running Time: 109 mins.
Director: Kazutoshi Inudo
Writer: Yusuke Moriguchi (Screenplay)
Starring: Saburo Ishikura, Kim Kkot-bi, Riho Yoshioka, Yojin Hino, Chika Uchida, Yuki Morinaga, Shohei Uno,
This one played at the Osaka Asian Film Festival where it was amongst a number of intriguing-looking films. It has a solid story and cast.
Synopsis:Takeo (Saburo Ishikura) is a widower who lives in Fukui Prefecture. He works as a traditional paper maker who lives and works alone. He has a brain tumour which causes him to fall and be incapacitated. He needs help but he is unwilling to open his heart to anyone.
A Korean girl named Yona (Kim Kkobi) is in Japan on a working holiday and works with Takeo. Despite his abusive language and prejudice, she is determined to help Takeo.
They may be from different countries, different generations, and have different genders but their hearts and souls learn to communicate.
Synopsis: After his father suffers a heart attack, Koichi returns to his small home town to look after the family liquor store. His friends from school pay a visit and he discovers new and old emotions reawaken.
Synopsis: A family on the verge of collapse head to the Philippines after the father Soichi gets a work transfer. His wife Kazuko doesn’t trust him and his daughter Airi is bullied at school and it looks like Soichi might be n trouble in work. As all seems lost some of Japan’s lost soldiers from World War II appear and the family are confronted with the dead. Can this chance encounter heal the rifts in the family?
Easter Nightmare shi no Easter Bunny
Easter Nightmare shi no Easter Bunner Film Poster
イースターナイトメア 死のイースターバニー「I-suta- naitomea shi no i-suta- bani- 」
Synopsis: The Halloween Nightmare movie series gets an Easter spin-off and it’s written and directed by Wataru Hiranami, a guy more used to working on dramas. His story is about a high school girl named Kanako who is being stalked. She prays to God and she is given a murderous Easter Bunny…
Synopsis: A family moved from Tokyo to a remote mountain village in Niigata prefecture and built their own house and grow their own rice. This documentary captures their day-to-day lives.
Synopsis: Bae Ewha is a woman with Korean ancestry who lives and works as a dancer in Kyoto. Her parents did the same thing during the war and she has followed in their footsteps but instead of being forced to entertain troops Bae Ewha challenges stereotypes and prejudices held against Koreans.
Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress Introductory Chapter
Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress Introductory Chapter Film Poster
From the makers of the hit anime Attack on Titan comes an anime that closely resembles Attack on Titan. The story involves humans cowering in cities, under siege from zombie-like enemies with a mysterious origin. The director is Tetsuro Araki (Attack on Titan), the music is by Hiroyuki Sawano (Attack on Titan), some of the voice actors are in Attack on Titan, the animators work for Wit Studio who are most famous for Attack on Titan. You get the picture. There’s a lot of hype behind this show and it looks good from the PVs but can lightning strike twice? Anime fans in Japan get this special preview.
Synopsis from Anime News Network: On the island country Hinomoto, humans hide themselves in fortresses called “stations” against the threat of zombie-like beings with steel hearts known as “Kabane.” Only armored locomotives known as “Hayajiro” go between the stations.Ikoma, a boy who lives in the Aragane station and helps to build Hayajiro, creates his own weapon called Tsuranukizutsu in order to defeat the creatures. One day, as he waits for an opportunity to use his weapon, he meets a girl named Mumei, who is excused from the mandatory Kabane inspection. During the night, Ikuma meets Mumei again as he sees Hayajiro going out of control. The staff on the locomotive has turned into the creatures. The station, now under attack by Kabane, is the opportunity Ikoma has been looking for.
Eiga Precure All Stars: Minna de Utau Kiseki no Mahou!
Eiga Precure All Stars Minna de Utau Kiseki no Mahou! Film Poster
映画プリキュアオールスターズ みんなで歌う♪奇跡の魔法！「Eiga Purikyuae O-ru Suta-zu: Minna de Utau Kiseki no Mahō!」
Release Date: March 19th, 2016
Running Time: 70 mins.
Director:Yutaka Tsuchida
Writer: Isao Murayama (Screenplay), Izumi Todo (Original Creator)
Synopsis from Anime News Network: Mirai and Rico come to the human world to play, but are separated when the witch Sorciere and her servant Torauuma suddenly appear. Their aim is to acquire the tears of the 44 Precure girls, using them for her “Most Evil Magic.” Only the friendship of all 44 Precure girls will allow them to protect the world.
School of Nursing
School of Nursing Film Poster
スクール・オブ・ナーシング 「Sku-ru obu na-shingu」
Release Date: March 19th, 2016
Running Time: 116 mins.
Director: Satoshi Adachi
Writer: Hideki Kojima (Screenplay), Kaoru Yamazaki (Original Book),
Synopsis: The problems of modern Japanese society – an ageing population, shortages of healthcare workers – is tackled in this human drama where a group of aspiring nurses work hard to be the best and live up to the ideals they hold despite personal problems such as cheating husbands.
Synopsis: Five people suffering crises call upon angels for help. One is a schoolgirl bullied by classmates, the other is an actress who gets the news she has terminal cancer, another is a politician on the verge of losing his job, and father/son greengrocers find their dreams of a brighter future dashed when a nuclear accident taints their crop. An angel descends from heaven to help them.
Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:
Doraemon the Movie: Nobita and the Birth of Japan 2016 (2016/03/05)
The Good Dinosaur (2016/03/12)
Everest: The Summit of the Gods (2016/03/12)
What a Wonderful Family! (2016/03/12)
I’m Not Just Going to Do What Kurosaki-kun Says (2016/02/27)
The Martian (2016/02/05)
Nobunaga Concerto (2016/01/23)
The Big Short (2016/03/04)
PriPara Mi~nna no Akogare Let’s Go PriPari (2016/03/12)
Ultraman X The Movie: Here Comes! Our Ultraman (2016/03/12)
If you are in New York and of the opinion that black and white films are boring then I have a screening to recommend for you thanks to the Japan Society.
Stray Dog (1949) is the famous classic police procedural from Akira Kurosawa where a cop goes looking for his missing gun. It is set during a sweltering summer in a bombed-out post-war Tokyo which is suffering from a heatwave. The characters, all sweating and seething in the heat and at their circumstances, search high and low for the missing weapon or try their best to conceal what has happened to it leading to a detailed investigation which creates a highly atmospheric and eye-opening view of Japan. We see soldiers returning from war, criminality, black markets and get a glimpse of a wrecked city and you see the police trying to keep order. Tension runs high all the way to a messy and breathless climax.
The film stars Akira Kurosawa’s regular players, Takashi Shimura (veteran cop) and Toshiro Mifune (the rookie who loses the gun). It screens in honor of what would have been Mifune’s 96th birthday.
Synopsis: The story takes place in Tokyo during a brutal heatwave, A rookie detective named Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) is travelling on a crowded city bus when a pickpocket lifts his gun. He has to scour the bustling streets of downtown Tokyo for clues, aided by a seasoned section chief (Takashi Shimura). As Murakami gets closer to recovering the pistol, however, the distinction between himself and the criminal who stole it starts to become less and less clear. Stray Dog plunges deep into the anxiety and moral ambiguity of immediate postwar Japan with Kurosawa’s masterful visual flair.
Ran is Akira Kurosawa’s 1985 historical epic, a colourful and chaotic involving a cast of hundreds in the story of three sons battling for total control of their father’s domain.
Based partly on the Shakespearean tragedy King Lear and the legend of the feudal lord Mori Motonari, Ran has gone down as one of Kurosawa’s masterpieces winning many awards, a lot for categories like make-up, art direction, costume design and so on which makes the prospect of seeing a 4K restoration on the big screen too good to miss.
Ran
乱「Ran」
Release Date: March 19th, 2016
Running Time: 116 mins.
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Writer: Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Masato Ide (Screenplay),
Synopsis from indepdentcinemaoffice: ‘Ran’ stands for chaos, turmoil or fury in Japanese; all befitting Shakespeare’s vision of a nihilistic world turned upside down and revolting against its natural order; dramatising the pain and rage of ageing and its inevitable loss of control.
Borrowing narrative elements from the legend of Mōri Motonari (a 16th century Japanese warlord) as well as the Shakespearean tragedy, Ran stars Tatsuya Nakadai as the vain, arrogant Great Lord Hidetora Ichimonji, who at seventy decides to abdicate and divide his domain amongst his three sons, with catastrophic results.
Spectacularly beautiful, with gorgeous, colour-saturated frames, it is an undoubted masterpiece; the product of a breathtaking artistic vision that works as an historical epic and Shakespearean adaptation as well as a bloody, action-packed war film with a silent central battle scene that must be seen to be believed.
Why is it in UK cinemas? The release coincides with the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death, as well as 30 years since the film’s original UK theatrical release in 1986. The list of cinemas screening the film is very large and it seems to cover the entirety of the UK according to independentcinemaoffice.org.uk.
According to Akirakurosawa.info, the new print was scanned from the film’s original negatives and restored frame by frame under the supervision of the film’s original distributors and the colour grading has been approved by Masaharu Ueda, one of the three cinematographers who worked on the original film.
The restoration was screened at Cannes last year and has travelled the world. A UK Blu-ray release has been pencilled in for May 02nd and generous extras will be available:
AK
Akira Kurosawa: The Epic and The Intimate
Akira Kurosawa by Catherine Cadou
Art of the Samurai
Interview with the Director of Photography – Mr Ueda
Interview with Micheal Brooke
Interview with Ms Mieko Harada
Stage appearance at Tokyo International Film Festival 2015
I took the time to sign up to letterboxd (I’m Genkinahito), an online service where people can list the films they have watched. Since I have watched lots and lots of films I haven’t even dented my lists plus I want to post reviews as well. This will be a year-long project or maybe even decades at the rate I watch films… I’ve added to that list this week with A Dangerous Method, Vampire Hunter D, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust and Disciples of Hippocrates. I posted two articles this week, both about the legendary director Akira Kurosawa. The first was about a screening of the film Stray Dog in New York and then second was about the cinematic and Blu-ray release of the jidaigeki epic Ran in the UK.
Synopsis: Nanami (Haru Kuroki) works as a part-time junior high school teacher. She lives an apathetic life, her only solace coming from connecting with others on a new social network service named “Planet”. She makes a connection with a man named Tetsuya and the two quickly become engaged but Tetsuya’s mother confronts Nanami with allegations of lying and cheating forcing Nanami to flee to a hotel where she gets a job as a maid. Nanami’s online-friend Amuro, a man who hires actors to play people’s friends, offers Nanami a housekeeping job in an old mansion, whose sole resident’s infectious spirit helps Nanami to open her heart. However, Nanami soon realizes that Amuro, the mansion, and its occupant aren’t what they seem…
Sweetheart Chocolate
Sweetheart Chocolate Film Poster
スイートハートチョコレット 「Sui-to ha-to chokoretto」
Release Date: March 26th, 2016
Running Time: 105 mins.
Director: Tetsuo Shinohara
Writer: Michelle Mi (Screenplay),
Starring: Lin Chi-Ling, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, Yusuke Fukuchi, Kei Yamamoto,
Synopsis: An exchange student from Shanghai named Yue Lin (Lin Chi-Ling) meets a ski patrol officer (IkeuchI) in Yubari, Hokkaido. The two make a connection but love does not flow smoothly and a tragic story unfolds over twenty years.
Mubanso
Mubanso Film Poster
無伴奏「Mubansou」
Running Time: 132 mins.
Release Date: March 26th, 2016
Director: Hitoshi Yazaki
Writer: Chiai Takeda, Masa Asanishi (Screenplay), Mariko Koike (Original Novel)
Synopsis: It is 1969 and there is change in the air what with Japanese students involved in campus riots, anti-war rallies, and the growth of subcultures in music, cinema, literature, and theatre. A high school girl named Kyoko (Riko Narumi) is influenced by these things and forms an “Anti-Uniform Committee” and joins a rally at a university which gets violent. She is wounded and this leads Kyoko to realise that she is not committed to politics, she is only copying others. This changes when she shelters from the chaos of a protest gone bad at a club called “A Cappella” and meets and falls in love with a college student, named Wataru (Sosuke Ikematsu). She undergoes a sexual awakening and loses her virginity but the politics of the age puts their love in great danger…
Assassination Classroom: The Graduation
Assassination Classroom The Graduation Film Poster
Synopsis:The moon has been destroyed! Or at least 70% of it. It’s the work of an alien octopus named Koro with bizarre powers and super strength and he promises that the Earth is next. However, before we get to that, he has some demands and that is he becomes the homeroom teacher at a junior high school and is given the chance to teach a class of misfits! The situation seems pretty bizarre and it gets weirder for the kids because his students must destroy him to save the Earth. However, Koro proves to be a great teacher and very popular…
Synopsis: Two schools are set to merge the following year. One is an all-boys high school and an all-girls high school. The drama clubs from the schools work together at a training camp in the mountains but strange things begin to happen and it looks like students are being hunted be a legendary creature that lives in the mountains. The students learn that the creature is Dorome, an old mountain legend.
Synopsis: Two schools are set to merge the following year. One is an all-boys high school and an all-girls high school. The drama clubs from the schools work together at a training camp in the mountains but strange things begin to happen and it looks like students are being hunted be a legendary creature that lives in the mountains. The students learn that the creature is Dorome, an old mountain legend.
Synopsis: Takeshi Hongo was subjected to the experiments of the secret organization Shocker and became the first Kamen Rider, a cyborg dedicated to protecting humanity and justice from the threat of Shocker. After a long battle overseas, Hongo hears a certain girl is in danger and immediately returns to Japan where he meets Takeru Tenkuji, Kamen Rider Ghost, who had been investigating the girl’s whereabouts.
Synopsis: Japanese-American filmmaker Atsushi Ogata takes the lead in a cross-cultural comedy story where he dons a cowboy hat and wears a yukata. Atsushi is the Yukata Cowboy and he travels across North America, Europe and Asia getting into misadventures as he tries to fit in with the locals he encounters.
10 films will be screened from April 08th to the 23rd and audiences will get to experience films from the golden age of the “popular song film” to some more recent entries. That means titles from the ‘50s and ‘60s where Japanese cinema had Hollywood style musicals all the way through to the weird genre-mashup that is The Happiness of the Katakuris, one of Takashi Miike’s most popular films.
It looks like it’s going to show how Japanese cinema utilised Hollywood musical styles and American musical genres, marrying them up with elements found in the bedrock of Japanese culture to create unique films– Buddhist chanting, pop-idols battling to save a geisha from businessmen, samurai and courtesans singing jazz songs. Romances, commercialism, parodies, party-times and politics are all on screen and there are interesting social themes at play in these musicals with the relationship between Japan and the US, globalisation, the economic boom and wish fulfilment as well as an interesting contrast between the glitz and glamour and the down and dirty realities of the characters in some of the films.
The mission of the film season is to help audiences to uncover the little-known world of Japanese musical films and, by extension, Japan at the time. The mission of the films when they were first released was to help audiences understand the massive changes in Japan. To help there are parties and talks. It sounds so exciting!
The trailer for the season should give you a taste of what’s on offer but here’s a bit more from me which I got from the season’s website and IMDB. The trailers and clips won’t be a patch on what audiences will see since they will be watching the musical on the big screen and the films are all on 35mm:
Synopsis: Described as “the closest Japanese cinema ever came to the full-blown Broadway style musical, with singing and dancing on the streets of Tokyo”, the film is a comic version of the “industrial competition” genre: and it involves two tourism companies competing for foreign clients in the run up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Expect businessmen to burst into song at random.
Synopsis: Hibari Misora, Chiemi Eri, and Izumi Yukimura were three of the most popular young singers in 1950s Japan and here they take the lead in a film about three unlikely high school friends who try to rescue apprentice geisha Izumi from the clutches of a predatory businessman. It was one of the most popular films made in 1955, combining American melodies with Japanese lyrics. According to the Japan Society site it helped establish the “three girl” film format as well as the “made-in-Japan teenage pops” that eventually became the J-Pop music we know today.
Oh, Bomb! (ああ爆弾, Dir: Kihachi Okamoto, 95 mins.) is a musical comedy all about an old-school yakuza replaced by his former underling and meeting all sorts of bizarre characters including a henchman who loves dynamite. Twilight Saloon(黄昏酒場, Dir: Tomu Uchida, 93 mins.) is from the director Tomu Uchida who was in China during World War II. His experiences inform the film where the main protag, an alcoholic painter who quit painting when he realized his wartime work was propaganda, finds himself in the movie industry where he winds up working in a cheap saloon and he encounters all sorts of people but views them with the eyes of an outsider thanks to his experiences as a war returnee. The Stormy Man(嵐を呼ぶ男, Dir: Umetsugu Inoue, 101 mins.) stars Yujiro Ishihara, the biggest male film and singing star in post-war Japan. He plays a rough drummer given his big break by female talent manager Mie Kitahara and gets caught up in love triangles.
Synopsis: Jazz singers Dick Mine and Tomiko Hattori star alongside actors Haruyo Ichikawa, Chiezo Kataoka and Takashi Shimura (one of Kurosawa’s favourite leading men) in a film about a love quadrangle between a masterless samurai and three eligible suitors was marketed with the tagline “a rare operetta in which jazz bursts into the period film.”
Irresponsible era of Japan Film Poster
Irresponsible Era of Japan(ニッポン無責任時代 , Dir: Kengo Furusawa, 86 mins.) stars singing comedian Hitoshi Ueki as a salaryman who goofs off at work and yet somehow always comes out ahead. He gets to go on irresponsible misadventures while singing well-known Japanese folk-inflected songs while dancing something like the twist.
A Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Songs (aka Sing a Song of Sex)(日本春歌考, Dir: Nagisa Oshima, 103 mins.) is a political film from Nagisa Oshima where a group of students from the countryside are free to roam Tokyo and Oshima uses the musical genre to explore familiar themes for him, namely gender, wealth, and ethnicity as well as social pressures.
Memories of Matsuko(嫌われ松子の一生, Dir: Tetsuya Nakashia, 130 mins.) should be familiar to J-film fans since it’s contemporary and comes from world famous director Tetsuya Nakashima It stars Miki Nakatani as the titular Matsuko, a woman found beaten to death in her apartment. It seems like a life wasted and tragically lost since she is estranged from her family and seems to have accomplished nothing but when her nephew explores her personal effects he finds an extraordinary life of emotional highs and lows. The dark story is given musical interludes.
Synopsis: The Happiness of the Katakuris is based on the Korean film The Quiet Family and centres on a family fleeing the city and misfortune to the country to open a B&B. Unfortunately the only guests who visit wind up committing suicide so in order to save their situation they begin to bury the bodies… The film turns into a comedy-horror-musical to, as the website says, “explore the state of the Japanese family after the collapse of the economic boom that underpinned the popular song film.”
And that’s about it. Japan Sings! Looks to be an excellent Japanese cinema is a vast unexplored continent that is only slowly coming to light thanks to brave cinephiles and committed film festivals going to and arranging events like this.
The Japanese Film Festival Ireland takes place throughout April and visits many cities across the Emerald Isle: Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford, Sligo and Dundalk. Each venue will play a different selection of films from a list packed full of excellent and diverse stories.
This is the eighth year that the festival has run but the first I have covered. With 22 films across 45 screenings in seven locations there’s a lot to see but one thing is for certain: whoever programmed this festival knows what they are doing with indie titles like Three Stories of Love and Sanchu Uprising side-by-side with anime hits like The Boy and the Beast, and mainstream comedies like The Apology King. I’ve previewed many of these for trailer posts and added them to reports on film festivals and while I have not seen many of these I have heard and read critics praising them at various points like end of year top ten lists. I’ve highlighted what I think are the more interesting titles at the top (plus Hana and Alice at the end) and I’ll admit there’s a drama bias. Talk to the version of me from five years ago and it would be Sion Sono all the way. Tastes change but this is also a great chance to catch some great dramatic acting from some of the best actors in Japan and a chance to see and support indie films!
The festival starts on April 03rd and lasts until April 21st. To find out more of what’s on offer including venues, times and dates, trailers (and how to purchase tickets, head on over to the festival website.
100 Yen Love stars Sakura Ando in a career-best performance as a woman who goes from zero to boxing hero with all of the genre tropes expected but done brilliantly and in a rather gritty way. It’s a film with a lot of heart thanks to Sakura Ando’s performance.
Synopsis: Ichiko (Sakura Ando) is a borderline hikikomori who lives at her parents’ home but that situation changes when her younger sister divorces and moves back with her child. Ichiko and her sister’s relationship is pretty rocky and so following a fight Ichiko decides to move out and find a place of her own. She takes up a job in a 100 Yen shop but is still pretty miserable with her new life and stuck with unpleasant people for co-workers but while working at her store she keeps encountering a middle-aged boxer (Hirofumi Arai) who practices at a local boxing gym. She is attracted to him and the two start a relationship but after a series of horrible experiences she becomes more interested in boxing, a sport which will fuel the continuing change in her life.
Three Stories of Love was topping the end of year lists for many critics who specialise in Japanese films. Strong writing grounds a drama that gives audiences the everyday lives of three people experiencing romance and frustration.
Synopsis: Three protagonists, a bereaved bridge-repairman, an unhappy housewife with creative ambitions and an elite gay lawyer live lives full of love and loss. Their lives are largely separate, but briefly intersect.
Hiroshi Ishikawa is the writer and director of popular films like Tokyo Sora and Su-ki-da and I have read good things about Petal Dance – it has gotten a good review at the Japan Times and I thought it was a great drama with strong performances from a top group of actors, some of the most recognisable leading ladies in Japan right now.
Four women who have suffered sorrow in life are on a road trip lasting one night and two days and full of memories and hope of a new start. Jinko (Miyazaki) and Motoko (Ando) have been friends since they attended the same university and it is they who start this road road trip when they hear that a former classmate named Miki (Fukiishi) ran into the sea. The rumour ends with Miki getting out safely but is that all there is to it? Haraki (Kutsuna) met Jinko at the library she works at and joins the trip as a driver.
Love and Peace is supposedly based on a script that Sono wrote many years ago, around the time of Suicide Club. Taking the lead is Hiroki Hasegawa, the mad cinephile in the yakuza movie comedy Why Don’t You Play in Hell? and Kumiko Aso, the waif running around in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s horror film Pulse. The film distributor Third Window Films will release it on DVD later this year but I have heard that it’s worth catching in a cinema for the visuals and audio.
Ryoichi (Hiroki Hasegawa) once dreamed of becoming a punk rocker but he became a timid salaryman at a musical instrument parts company. Life is calm but he has feelings for an office lady (Kumiko Aso) he can’t express and he feels he wants more from his circumstances which is when fate strikes!
One day, he randomly buys a turtle and names it Pikadon. A series of events occur and Ryoichi’s dreams of being a rock star might be about to come true! However, it might also lead to the end of the world…
Chigasaki Story
Chigasaki Story Film Poster
3泊4日、5時の鐘「3-paku 4-nichi, 5-ji no kane」
Running Time: 89 mins.
Director: Takuya Misawa
Writer: Takuya Misawa (Screenplay),
Starring: Kiki Sugino, Haya Nakazaki, Ena Koshino, Natsuko Hori, Juri Fukushima, Shuntaro Yanagi
Chigasaki Story was at this year’s Rotterdam International Film Festival but was on the festival circuit back in 2014 where it garnered reviews as being a drama but one done in the style of Ozu and from a director who is new to the game and it’s produced by Kiki Sugino who is becoming an. The Hollywood Reporter review makes this one sound like another film to watch:
Synopsis:
Tomoharu (Nakazaki) works at a traditional Japanese inn called Chigasakikan Hotel. This is where the film master Yasujiro Ozu retired to write his screenplays.He works with Karin (Koshino) and Maki (Sugino). Risa (Hori), the daughter of the inn’s owner, is set to have a wedding in 3 days and various people show up each with repressed feeling for each other that soon come out just before the wedding…
This played at Japan Cuts last year and its inclusion here is a surprise because it is an indie title.
Synopsis fromJapan Society New York:1726, Sanchu, Okayama Prefecture: farmers negotiate with the feudal domain in order to seek exemption from rising taxes before infighting leads to suppression by the samurai class, and the farmers band together for battle. It’s a moment of injustice, setting the stage for bravery and sacrifice. However those daring characters remain largely offscreen in Juichiro Yamasaki’s brilliant film. Instead, the cowardly protagonist Jihei (Naohisa Nakagaki) weighs the risks of rebellion and its aftermath, a tale resonating with our contemporary moment. In this rare independent jidaigeki, Kenta Tawara’s beautiful digital B&W photography channels and refigures luminaries of classical Japanese cinema, boasting rapturous animated sequences by Tomomichi Nakamura and an experimental score by Ayako Sasaki.
Tag (リアル鬼ごっこ, 85 mins. Dir: Sion Sono)
Tag Film Poster
There were four feature films made by Sion Sono released last year and the biggest buzz was centred on this. It is based on a novel by Yusuke Yamada but it’s a case of only the premise being used and that premise is the death game… Female highs school students, including Mitsuko, Keiko and Izumi, become involved in a fatal game of “tag” and are the targets of ghosts with various appearances including a groom with a pig’s face and female teacher with a machine gun.
Tamako in Moratorium (もらとりあむ タマ子, 78 mins. Dir: Nobuhiro Yamashita) comes from director Nobuhiro Yamashita and writer Kosuke Mukai. They have collaborated on a lot of excellent films like Linda Linda Linda, No One’s Ark and My Back Page and this was a collaboration between the two from 2013. The film’s genesis started with short film segments on the TV channel MUSIC ON! TV. The story involves Tamako (ex-AKB48 Team Leader Atsuko Maeda), a university graduate who lives with her father. She spends her days lazing around but is soon forced to get her act together.
I Am A Monk(ボクは坊さん。, 118 mins. Dir: Yukinori Makabe) Susumu is shocked by the death of his grandfather, a priest at a local temple. This event makes him reassess life so he quits his job at a bookstore and becomes a monk at a temple. He must learn a way of life he had hoped to forget but the challenge has its brighter aspects in this drama with comedy inflections.
Artist of Fasting Film Poster
Artist of Fasting (断食芸人, 104 mins. Dir: Masao Adachi) is a film by left-wing firebrand Masao Adachi. It’s a true indie and a surprise turn-up for this festival. Adachi adapts a story by Franz Kafka where anameless man sits down in a busy shopping street and says nothing and people are sucked into his mysterious display, or should that be non-display. People interpret his silence in different ways and as the film continues a crowd representing different elements of Japanese society begins to gather around him and play out their own political and social grievances and ambitions. The film played at this year’s Rotterdam and Osaka film festivals.
The Emperor in August Film Poster
The Emperor in August (日本のいちばん長い日, 136 mins. Dir: Masato Harada) is a World War II drama that tells the story of how a few officers and politicians debate whether Japan should accept the Potsdam Declaration. General Korechika Anami and Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki are negotiating what will happen and whether the Emperor Hirohito of Japan should announce the nation’s defeat but a cadre of young commissioned officers, who are against Japan surrendering, intend to occupy the palace and a radio broadcasting station and stop the announcement.
The Apology King (謝罪の王様, 128 mins. Dir: Nobuo Mizuta) is a surreal comedy from 2013 starring Sadawo Abe as Ryoro Kurojima runs a Tokyo apology centre where he teaches others to apologise. He can teach students how to apologise for minor misdemeanours all the way through to more serious issues but when he gets caught up in an international crisis he may need to come up with something special…
Assassination Classroom(暗殺教室, 98 mins. Dir: Eiichiro Hasumi) is based on a manga by Yusei Matsui and it has been turned into an anime. The film has been a hit and a sequel was released last weekend. What of the one at the festival? The story starts with the destruction of the moon has been destroyed! It’s the work of an alien octopus named Koro with bizarre powers and super strength and he promises that the Earth is next. However, before we get to that, he has some demands and that is he becomes the homeroom teacher at a junior high school and is given the chance to teach a class of misfits! The situation seems pretty bizarre and it gets weirder for the kids because his students must destroy him to save the Earth. However, Koro proves to be a great teacher and very popular…
Joy of Man’s Desiring (人の 望みの 喜びよ, 85 mins. Dir: Masakazu Sugita)
Joy of Man’s Desiring Film Poster
was at last year’s Berlin International Film Festival, where it was awarded a Special Mention — i.e., second prize — by the children’s jury in the Generation Kplus competition. It was on many top ten lists coming from various critics and it looks strong – review from the Japan Times). The story revolves around two siblings, a young boy named Sotha and his older sister Haruna, who lost their parents after a major earthquake. Despite finding a safe home with their aunt and uncle the two children find it hard to fit in with their new lives not least because Sotha doesn’t know that their parents are dead and Haruna wants to tell him.
Little Forest: Summer & Autumn (リトル フォレスト 夏編 秋篇, 111 mins. Dir: Junichi Mori) stars the luminous and talented Ai Hashimoto as a woman named Ichiko she leaves big city life behind to head back to the mountains where her hometown of Komori is located and she takes to living off the land. The food she makes changes with the seasons and helps her come to terms with troubles in life and get in touch with her true self. There’s a sequel to this but I guess a mere taster is good enough.
Initiation Love (イニシエーション ラブ, 110 mins. Director: Yukihiko Tsutsumi)
Initiation Love Film Poster
is a film I am dying to see. It’s directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi who is a great director and it has a killer plot twist, apparently.
It is some time in the late 1980’s in Shizuoka and the character we are following is a college student named Suzuki or Takkun to his friends (Matsuda) who is attempting to find a job. He goes on a blind date and meets Mayu (Maeda), a dental hygienist, and the two hit it off and begin dating. Takkun is forced to move after he gets a job in Tokyo and heads off to the capital leaving Mayu behind. Madness…. Their long distance relationship may collapse as another woman named Miyako (Kimura) enters the picture… Oh no, romance broken… but then something is said and the film becomes a mystery in the final five minutes as a twist is revealed!!!
Joukyou Monogatari (上京ものがたり, 109 mins. Dir:Toshiyuki Morioka) is a drama about a girl named Natsumi who moves to Tokyo to study at a fine arts university where she meets the kind-hearted Ryosuke (the great up young actor Sosuke Ikematsu) and falls in love with him. Unfortunately he doesn’t have a job and spends his days lying around while Natsumi has to work at a bar. Soon the two grow apart from each other and decide to break up just as her manga is published.
There is one classic on offer and it appeared at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival. It’s Ozu so it’s a must-see by default:
Ozu is one of the titans from the golden age of Japanese cinema and his tales of Japanese families experiencing changes such as people leaving home, parents ageing, and new technology are full of details and atmosphere to create beautifully made stories we can all relate to. This is the world premiere of a digitally restored version.
Here’s a scene from an older version of the film:
Synopsis:Noriko (Setsuko Hara) is 28-years-old and lives in her parents’ house, along with her brother, his wife and their two children. Some people around her think she should get married and her boss goes one further and introduces her to an old friend of his who might be a “good match”… The mere idea of Noriko facing the prospect of a possible marriage starts a wave of friction amongst her relatives…
In terms of anime, there’s a really strong line-up of contemporary titles most of which are in the supernatural/fantasy genre. There is strong praise for The Boy and the Beast (バケモノの子, 119 mins. Dir: Mamoru Hosoda), Mamoru Hosoda’s latest film. If you are a fan of Hosoda’s previous works like The Wolf Children, Summer Wars, and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time I think it would be safe to say that this one is worth watching what with the excellent animation, voice actors, and more.
A lonely boy named Kyuta is on the run from his family in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward following the death of his mother. He finds that there is another world, the bakemono realm, Jutenkai. Typically, the human world and Jutenkai do not meet and humans aren’t welcome in the world of the monsters but the boy gets lost in the bakemono world and becomes the disciple of a lonely bakemono named Kumatetsu who takes the boy under his wing and renames him Kyuuta.
When Marnie was There (思い出のマーニー, 103 mins. Dir: Hiromasa Yonebayashi) is the latest film from Studio Ghibli and it is directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, the chap who helmed Arrietty. The film is an adaptation of a book written by British novelist Joan G. Robinson which was published in 1967. The setting has been updated and it has moved from Britain to modern Japan.
The story centres on a twelve-year-old girl named Marnie who has journeyed to a small coastal town in Hokkaido from her native Sapporo to better cope with her asthma. She is staying with relatives and leads a solitary existence because she finds it hard to deal with other children due to a dark incident in her past. One day, she sees a western-style house that the villagers refer to as Marsh House and spies a mysterious blonde girl named Anna in the windows. She heads over to hee and the two become friends but Anna has a dark secret…
Empire of Corpses (屍者の帝国, 120 mins. Dir: Ryoutarou Makihara) is the first of three films from Project Itoh, a concerted effort to adapt novels by late author Project Itoh who died in 2009. The three novels are being turned into films by different directors and studios. The Empire of Corpses comes to us courtesy of WIT Studio (Attack on Titan, Hoozuki no Reitetsu) and is directed by Ryuotarou Makihara (Hal).
The film takes place in 19th Century London at a time when “corpse reanimation technology” has been developed, rendering the dead useful for basic physical labour. Brilliant medical student John Watson is invited to join the UK government’s secret society, the Walsingham Institution where he gets involved in a clandestine mission to search for the legendary writings of Dr. Victor Frankenstein, reputed to detail the technology behind a more sophisticated reanimated corpse – the original – that could speak and even had free will. His mission will send him across the world fighting agents and the undead of other empires.
The Case of Hana and Alice Film Poster
The highlight of the anime section has to be The Case of Hana & Alice (花とアリス殺人事件, 100 mins. Dir: Shunji Iwai). This is the prequel movie to Shunji Iwai’s wonderful 2004 coming-of-age film Hana & Alice, the film which was the break-out title for two totally talented actors Yu Aoi and Anne Suzuki who respectively starred as Alice and Hana, two school girls in an intense friendship who both experience love for the first time. The Case of Hana & Alice tells the story of how the girls first met and it is apparently through the world’s smallest murder case. I really like the look of the animation and the character designs as I made clear in my preview for the film.
Synopsis:Newly arrived in small-town suburbia with her divorced mother, middle-school age transfer student Tetsuko Arisugawa (Arisu or ‘Alice’ for short) finds herself the victim of bullying by her classmates and seeks solace through dance. She soon learns of an urban myth about a mysteriously vanished former student called Yuda (Japanese for ‘Judas’) who was allegedly murdered by four of his classmates. Hana, a reclusive girl who lives in a house bedecked with flowers next door, seems to hold the key to the mystery, and together the pair soon embark on a wild and unpredictable series of suburban escapades.
Oh joy of joys, I have seen that there will be three Japanese films in my local arthouse – Ran, Our Little Sister and Cesium and the Tokyo Girl. A God-tier jidai-geki epic from Akira Kurosawa, a God-tier drama from Kore-eda and an indie I have followed since last year! I AM SO EXCITED!!! I have watched a clutch of great near-God-tier films this week – Vibrator (2003) and Sway (2006). I posted two articles this week, both covering film festivals. The first was about a season of Japanese musicals from the ‘50s to the 2000s which is being held at the Japan Society New York. The post was a preview of Japanese Film Festival Ireland which has an awesome programme.
Gakuryu Ishii, that crazy indie director with punk sensibilities is back with what looks like an intriguing film and a more approachable mainstream one than he might normally make. I’ve reviewed two of his works, the brilliant Angel Dust and Isn’t Anyone Alive? but avoided his latest films because they didn’t appeal to me. This one does. It looks like fun and it’s full of great actors I really like: Fumi Nikaido (Himizu, Why Don’t You Play in Hell?, Watashi no Otoko), Ren Osugi (Hana-bi, Charisma, Exte, Eyes of the Spider), Yoko Maki (Like Father, Like Son), and Kengo Kora (A Tale of Yonosuke, The Drudgery Train, Norwegian Wood). The story is weird and the atmosphere shown in the trailer is delightfully dandyish with the great costumes and heightened acting. I want to see this film.
Synopsis: It is the Meiji era and that means writers like Ryunosuke Akutagawa (Kengo Kora) are busy making works of literature that will stand the test of time. Spare a thought for an old male writer (Ren Osugi) who would put pen to paper but is instead enthrailled with Akago (Fumi Nikaido), a red goldfish who is able to transform into a beautiful young woman. She possesses a pure and sensuous side and she uses it on the old man who she calls “Ojisama.” She has him wrapped around her little finger (flipper as well, I’m guessing) until, one day, the ghost of Yuriko Tamura (Yoko Maki) appears. She is a woman the writer knew in the past…
Lowlife Love
Lowlife Love Film Poster
下衆の愛「Gesu no Ai」
Running Time: 110 mins.
Release Date: April 02nd, 2016
Director: Eiji Uchida
Writer: Eiji Uchida (Screenplay),
Starring: Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Denden. Masahiko Arai, Masato Arai, Kanji Furutachi, Yumi Goto, Aki Hiraoka, Nanami Kawakami,
Lowlife Love was brought to life through a Kickstarter campaign (which I helped by backing). The cast are the type who regularly appear in the releases of Third Window Films so if you like The Woodsman and the Rain and so on, you will dig this. Lowlife Love was at last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival and it was at this year’s Rotterdam International Film Festival which was the place of its international premiere. The film is directed by Eiji Uchida (Greatful Dead) and stars Denden (Cold Fish).
Synopsis from IMDB: Tetsuo (Kiyohiko Shibukawa) is a lowlife. A film director with a small indie hit many years back, yet he has never gotten any further as he refuses to go against his ‘artistic integrity’. He’s a real loser. Despite being in his late 30s, he still lives with his mother and sister, borrowing money off them and scrounging from all he comes in contact with. This includes his best friend Mamoru (Yoshihiko Hosoda), who makes porn films with him for dodgy characters in order to make money, as well as the film actors’ school they’ve setup to exploit their students as well as for him to sleep with wannabe actresses. He’s a real jerk. Then one day two new students come to his school: Minami (Maya Okano), a naive and fresh girl from the countryside who wants to be an actress and Ken (Shugo Oshinari), a scriptwriter who has been living overseas. Tetsuo sees something in Minami and feels she has what it takes to be a real star and Ken has a brilliant script which could be the fantastic new project…
This film is the first leading role for Tomomi Itano, a former member of AKB48. The trailer and promo events are on YouTube and they look like all sorts of bad. They don’t inspire fear, they inspire laughter. Watch the trailer and you decide if it’s funny or not.
Synopsis: Ayano Mishima (Tomomi Itano) is an assistant director for a TV station. She takes on the case of the mysterious death of a young man who claimed that somebody was watching him. Ayano herself becomes haunted by something or someone stalking her. All she sees is a mysterious eye…
Synopsis:Akio (Yozaburo Ito) and his wife were participants in the Inaho Festival in Kudamatsu, Japan. That was when she was alive. Akio leads the lonely life of a widower without her and works as a railroad car welder but he becomes attracted to Sakiko (Nana Okada) who works at his company’s restaurant. Sakiko was also involved in the Inaho Festival. Can love blossom between Akio and Sakiko?
Synopsis: Katsu (Mitsuko Baisho) is a bitter 73-years-old woman. She feels she missed out on life thanks to having to raise a daughter as a single mother. Katsu gets a second chance at youth when she goes to a photo studio and takes a picture. Through some magic she leaves the photo studio only she is now 20-years-old. She changes her name to Setsuko Otori (Mikako Tabe) and adopts a more youthful style and goes for her dream of being a singer!
Tamayura: Sotsugyou Shashin Dai-4-bu –Ashita
Tamayura Sotsugyou Shashin Dai-4-bu -Ashita Film Poster
Synopsis:This is the fourth of four Tamayura films planned for release this year and they all revolve around the daily lives of high school girls Fuu, Kaoru, Norie, and Maon and recently graduated Kanae who are all in the photography club. Their lively daily lives are clam yet the four third-year students are slowly thinking about their own future dreams and paths as they face graduation in about a year.
Shukatsu
Shukatsu Film Poster
シュウカツ「Shuukatsu」
Running Time: 73 mins.
Release Date: April 02nd, 2016
Director: Seiji Chiba
Writer: Seiji Chiba (Screenplay)
Starring: Shu Watanabe, Tomoki Hirose, Koji Isayama, Yuichiro Hirose, Mika Hijii, Dori Sakurada,
Seiji Chiba is back and thankfully he is making something other than a ninja movie. His filmography is packed full of titles like low-budget exploitation fare like Alien vs Ninja, the sort of thing shot in a forest or cave on digital cameras, so this is a nice departure. Alas, no trailer so we don’t know if he filmed this in locations other than a forest and cave and if ninjas appear.
No Trailer
Synopsis: Shuukatsu is a process that takes place during a university students’ final year in Japan where students look for a job before graduating. It is a physically and mentally tough challenge where students wear similar looking suits and attend job fairs, employment seminars, and job interviews with the objective of securing a job offer. It is a gauntlet thrown at students by tough interviewers. Hard enough. Imagine being amidst an army of people all competing against you. Scary, right? This film tells a five stories based on a variety of interview candidates who must draw upon their survival instincts to succeed.
Synopsis from the Vimeo trailer: Pink film director Kazuhiro Sano stars as Hiroshi Sasaki,a man who had throat cancer and is forced to undergo surgery. He loses his voice but lives a peaceful life with his wife, Harumi. Then his peace is shaken when his daughter Kumiko asks him “Who’s my real dad?” It turns out that he is not related to her by blood. He is assailed by doubts, jealousy, hatred, and soon delusions overwhelm him. One day, he heads to a temple and meets a man called Yamaoka. The two talk and Yamaoka persuades Hiroshi to go on a trip together with Harumi and Chie, Yamaoka’s partner. On their way to a hot-spring, Chie seduces Hiroshi, which makes Harumi irritated. After they arrive at the hot-spring, Chie threatens Harumi, saying “Today is the day you receive punishment.”
Synopsis: Students of Korean descent in Japan are interviewed as they talk about their cultural heritage, language and then go and visit North Korea, their “homeland”. The film looks at relations between Koreans and Japanese and also the continuing fallout from the divide between the North and South of the Korean peninsula.
Synopsis from Anime News Network: This anime is a collection of short slice of life stories, such as a young man beginning his journey to become a chef, two girls who wanted to become friends in high school but couldn’t, and a ghost back among the living during the Obon summer festival.
Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:
Assassination Classroom: The Graduation (25/03/16)
Doraemon the Movie: Nobita and the Birth of Japan 2016 (2016/03/05)
Batman vs Superman Dawn of Justice (25/03/16)
The Masked Rider #1 (25/03/16)
The Town Where Only I Am Missing(2016/03/19)
The Good Dinosaur (2016/03/12)
Chihayafuru (2016/03/19)
Eiga Precure All Stars: Minna de Utau Kiseki no Mahou! (2016/03/19)
Sway is an innocuous title but it harbours many powerful meanings. It refers to memories, one of the most profound elements that make a person unique. It refers to the ever changing personalities of people. It also refers to the sibling relationship at the centre of the film. These elements are something which writer and director Miwa Nishikawa crafts a film about in a story where the return of a younger brother to his hometown results in his older brother going on trial for murder. What is ostensibly a mystery/crime thriller becomes a dissection of modern male pride and the strain that society puts on people as revealed in a riveting character drama.
Takeru Hayakawa (Joe Odagiri) is our central protagonist. His memory, his relations with people, and his fluctuating sense of self and perceptions of others are the swaying element at the centre of this story. When we first meet him we see he is a fashion photographer based in Tokyo. He returns to his small hometown to attend his mother’s funeral. His appearance is showy. If he wanted to make a startling impression upon the people of his hometown, he couldn’t have done a more thorough job. He heads to the small and dull family gas station in an old Ford Falcon¹ and makes his father’s employees work for him. He arrives at the family home late, dressed in an expensive loud red leather outfit jacket and trousers, red streaks in his hair. He stands out amid the urban sprawl, a red streak in a grey and green world. He enters the funeral proceedings while they are underway. At the wake, he talks about his work with impressed relatives who have not seen him in years. He isn’t shy about showing his new look.
While the small town folk Takeru left behind are dazzled his father Isamu (Masato Ibu) is less than impressed and sees another story in the bluster –this is a son who has abandoned the family for the bright lights of Tokyo, this is a son who has rejected a safe job at the gas station for a shaky job in fashion, this is a son who has used the occasion of his mother’s to disrespect him. Soon the two are arguing and a fight threatens to break out but older brother Minoru (Teruyuki Kagawa) is the one who gets them to stop.
Minoru is the brother who stayed behind in the small town to run the gas station with his father. Minoru is the one who organised the funeral and runs the family home since their mother’s death. Minoru is the peacemaker, the one who his father harasses and henpecks. Minoru is now set to inherit a future defined by everything Takeru rejects, the family, the small town and small ambitions and the small people including Chieko (Yoko Maki), Takeru’s ex-girlfriend, who is now working at their family gas station.
Isamu employed Chieko in an effort to get Minoru a wife. Minoru is timid and not as sexy or charismatic as Takeru but popular around town because he is good-natured and hard working. Whatever the situation, no matter how brow-beaten he is by his father or gas-station customers, Minoru keeps a smile on his face and does his best to make everyone happy. He’d be a decent catch for anyone but Chieko has serious history with Takeru.
Both Minoru and Chieko seem to get along well but Takeru feels a little envy over his brother’s relationship with his ex and decides to test how strong that relationship is after he offers Chieko a ride in his car to her apartment. This late night drive results in the two rekindling their old passion. For Takeru, it was a momentary lapse in brotherly loyalty spurred by wavering feelings for people from his past but Chieko has other ideas. She too is sick of small town life and wanted to follow Takeru to Tokyo but backed out. She has regrets, something she keeps hidden from everyone. She lets it all out the next day when, spurred on by a request from Minoru, all three go together to Hasumi Gorge, somewhere the brothers visited as children. It is a beautiful area in the mountainous with a river cutting through the middle and an old suspension bridge hanging high above.
Takeru, in an effort to distance himself from Chieko, crosses the bridge. She soon follows with Minoru, seemingly afraid of the height and secureness of the bridge, following closely behind her. He offers a helping hand to Chieko as she stumbles on the bridge but she angry rejects Minoru’s approach and she lets her true feelings be known. Minoru is stunned by the hatred and reacts angrily, pushing Chieko down onto the bridge. Takeru is busy taking photographs of flowers but turns around to see Chieko fall to her death, Minoru still on the bridge.
Minoru is soon on trial for murder and Takeru scrambles to make sense of everything. The process for Takeru is a painful reliving of memories both old and recent and facing things he has constantly avoided.
In Japan, there is the idea that siblings of the same sex will harbour intense feelings of love and hate and that is on display here as we see behind the masks of everyday people. Miwa Nishikawa digs deep into her characters and utilises this notion to concoct a story where the selective memory of Takeru and feelings felt towards his family hold the key to saving his brother.
Although there is a trial at the heart of the movie Miwa Nishikawa deprives us of an objective view of the key scene. We never really know what happens. Instead what we see of the death of Chieko from Takeru’s point of view and we see it multiple times, coloured differently as his memories sway, blown about by his own personal feelings – fraternal loyalty makes it an accident, shock over lies makes it murder.
For Takeru, the past and family duty (as symbolised by the dour gas station and bellicose father) is a miserable thing he has fled so he can take up life as a glamorous fashion photographer and his act of returning was a way of proving to others how successful he is. Eagle-eyed viewers although the audience might be able to see through the image he projects since he’s low on gas when he first arrives and doesn’t spend cash too easily. He too is aware of the act. Finally getting back to his hometown initiates a series of moments and meetings that awaken feelings of guilt, not least trying to understand his father and seeing the frustrated ambitions of Minoru and Chieko who stayed behind to fulfil familial duties. Confronting this past is not easy, especially when Minoru and Chieko reveal the damage they feel having to live in a small choking town which has limited their future, something which Takeru fled. This constant reassessment of positions by Takeru is quite affecting because it is easy to relate to the emotions revealed by the characters and it is also powerful, changing the course of the film.
The acting is pitch-perfect. The actors pivot between emotions ably as the script strips back the façades of the characters, their 建前 tatemae, and reveals the true desires driving people, their 本音 honne. People circle each other, suppressing their resentment and anger, occasionally bouncing into each other when they can no longer hold back, and then they look at the results. It is pretty potent stuff and you can feel the tension between characters as their interactions and dialogue frequently edge on but self-consciously hold back from the conflicts in their hearts so as not to upset the delicate social balance established in their small town. When that balance is upset the consequences can feel devastating and the truths people deliver to each other are stunning. It is a tense build-up leavened only by an at-times cheeky performance by the great Keizo Kanie whose antics as a lawyer uncle can be flamboyant as well as stern but even behind his wise and amusing act is a man with his own grievances.
What makes this work is that the great acting is paired up with great writing. Miwa Nishikawa loves her characters. She draws out their inner darkness, their fragility and fear as well as their good-points. She lets us see behind the masks that men put up in Chieko’s rejection of Minoru and his subsequent trial. She gives us a glimpse into the fear a young woman has in facing the idea that her life will revolve around creating family and never experiencing anything exciting. She shows us that Takeru’s attempts to dodge society’s expectations and become an individual apart from everyone else has its flaws and that both sides must compromise for something healthier to emerge.
It all builds to a powerful open ending where a flood of memories force Takeru to grow up and fully face his past. When the old movies are played and you see Odagiri’s reaction and the final sequence, I defy you not to get emotional. This film will frustrate those hoping to see a police procedural but stay in the mind of those willing to accept that not everything can be concrete or explained away easily.
4.5/5
¹ This website identifies the car as a Ford Falcon Wagon 1964
More can be found out about Honne and Tatemae on this Wikipedia page
Joe Odagiri appeared in Sakebiand Mushishi, both of which were made in the same year in Japan.
A new film festival for London was announced this week so I will report about it next week. I have been busy with work and also a little ill. That hasn’t stopped me from watching films, however. I watched some anime movies so I can review them and I went to the cinema to see Zootropolis (2016). I also watched Petal Dance (2013) so I can review that, too. Only one post and that was a review of the film, Sway (2006)
Synopsis:Eikichi Tamura (Ryuhei Matsuda) left his hometown of Hiroshima and headed for the bright lights of Tokyo in the hopes of being a rock musician. While he made it as the lead singer of a death metal band, fame didn’t happen. Eikichi returns home several years later and tells his mother Haruko (Masako Motai) and father Osamu (Akira Emoto), that his girlfriend Yuka (Atsuko Maeda) is pregnant. His parents are simultaneously upset over the lack of preparation and excited to have a grandchild but things get difficult when Osamu collapses and is taken to hospital…
This one was at the Osaka Asian Film Festival which I wrote about back in March. It stars Kazuhiro Sano who was in a film released last weekend.
Synopsis from the Osaka Asian Film Festival site:Nagano (Kazuhiro Sano) has had a sickness of the heart for 40 years and has been hospitalized at the mental hospital in Fukushima. However, during the evacuation when the Great East Japan Earthquake hit on March 11, 2011, knowing that he’s already completely healed, he makes his way back out to into the world. Having been hospitalized from when he was in his teens until his fifties, his story is like that of Urashima Taro, the Japanese fisherman who went beneath the sea as a young man and returned to an unfamiliar world. However, his heart from long ago is for the first time full of feelings to meet the woman he loved. Before long, Nagano learns that the woman has taken refuge in Tokyo and lives with her son and his wife, and sets out on a bike headed for Tokyo.
Minami Minegishi, the AKB48 member who cut her hair off as atonement for dating a guy, gets her debut leading role in what looks like a generic thriller.
Synopsis: Katsuki Takahashi (Minami Minegishi) is one of six young women who are attending a high school reunion at their old school but it turns into a trap when one person is shot and dies. They receive a text message from a dead former classmate named Natsumi Shirakawa who died seven years ago. The text message asks “who is the criminal?” In order to escape their deadly situation, they must figure out the identity of the perpetrator and so they look back at what happened seven years ago.
Synopsis: Tadaomi Ando (Yuki Yamada) was once a yakuza boss but because of the bad actions of his subordinate, he quit the yakuza and went into the illegal loan shark business but times are tough and his victims are giving him a hard time.
Synopsis: This documentary brings us the award-winning poet Michio Kimura. He is a rice farmer, a pacifist, a patriot, a family man, and a poet with sixteen books published. He lives in Yamagata on his farm and has reached the age of 80 and this film shows his way of life, how the death of his father in World War 2 and the farming informs his poetry and his vision of modern Japan, something which worries him. Find out more about the film at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan website where there is an interview.
Tsuta kantoku: Koko yakyu wo kaeta otoko no shinjitsu
Tsuta kantoku Koko yakyu wo kaeta otoko no shinjitsu Film Poster
蔦監督 高校野球を変えた男の真実 「Tsuta kantoku: Koko yakyu wo kaeta otoko no shinjitsu」
Release Date: April 09th, 2016
Running Time: 126 mins.
Director: Tetsuichiro Tsuta
Writer: N/A
Starring: Fumiya Tsuta, Kimiko Tsuta, Hitoshi Hatayama, Katsuhito Mizuno,
Synopsis: Fumiya Tsuta was a popular and highly skilled baseball player. His grandson has made a film about him and draws upon interviews of Fumiya’s wife, friends, and students as well as professional baseball players to paint a picture of a much-loved man.
Synopsis: Seven individuals are trapped in an abandoned school for seven days. There are surveillance cameras and weapons scattered about. The people in this school must find a way to survive.
Kazuki Ohmori is probably most famous for his Godzilla movies but he started out making dramas and his filmography is packed full of them. Disciples of Hippocrates is one he made with Art Theatre Guild, a production company that ran from the 1960s to the 1980s and released many Japanese New Wave films from the likes of Nagisa Oshima, Koji Wakamatsu, Kaneto Shindo, Yoshimitsu Morita, and Shohei Imamura.
Disciples of Hippocrates is, as the name suggests, a medical drama of sorts. Kazuki Ohmori had studied medicine and uses his experiences to show the medical training of a diverse group of undergrads in the Japanese healthcare system at the end of the 1970s. This is a time of student radicalism as pacifists’ took to the streets to protest a defence treaty between Japan and the US and even some of the medical students in this film are caught up in protests.
Set in Kyoto at the fictional Rakuhoku Medical University Hospital, we see the daily lives of a group of six doctors, each of whom are learning different disciplines to earn enough credits to graduate from medical school. The medical system has since changed, but at the time, students could specialise in a number of fields and learn all sorts of things in order to gain credits. When you consider the enormity of the world of medicine, taking the ensemble cast approach to showcase it to an audience is a brilliant idea.
Due to the flexible nature of the system, people can spend years studying and so you get a really diverse array of people at the heart of the story, all with different motivations. There are eighteen year-olds and people who are well into adulthood. The sons of doctors, who are merely following family tradition, work next to political firebrands who want to change the system. There are people who are studious and in it for the academia and there are those making a calculated move into what appears to be a lucrative job or following an ideal that may or may not carry them through the realities and rigour of medicine. There are others who are going to drop out since they are more into watching and making films and those who have to balance family life, raising kids and studying at the same time. It’s a real microcosm for Japanese student life which allows for different views of medicine and society to be expressed. Everything is done naturalistically, so we spend time with these men and woman at the hospitals and in the bars and dormitories. The more informal areas allow for moments of fun as these characters clash.
The action takes place over the course of an academic year and this allows the Kazuki Ohmori to pepper various vignettes in different areas to give a broad overview of the different fields in the medical profession. We get insights into paediatrics, psychology, ER training, spinal taps and the introduction of new technology at the time like CT scans. All sorts of medical techniques and jargon are delivered but in an easy to understand way.
Although comedy is a big part of the proceedings, especially in the interactions between students, there are some parts shot with the seriousness of documentary realism. The scenes of comedy are cleanly contrasted with more tense moments when a camera will swing around an operating theatre to capture the faces of concerned characters as they observe medical procedures and study what is going on intensely. These emergency room moments serve to show the importance of the profession (literally life or death) and the dedication of the professionals operating, a feeling reinforced by stern lectures given by senior doctors that cushion those sequences. One of those doctors is played by Osamu Tezuka, the legendary mangaka, who appears at a particular light-hearted moment when one student has a mishap with a baby who needs to relieve himself.
If there are candidates for lead actors they are Ran Ito as Midori Kimura and Masato Furuoya as Aisaku Ogino. Midori is the beautiful girl next door type, studious and mostly serious. She is led more by academic determination. Ran Ito was a popular singer back when the film was made as a member of the idol group Candies so getting her to appear in this film must have been a scoop since it is her first dramatic role and not her last as she continues working to this day. Aisaku is a sort of everyman, slightly immature and selfish in his immaturity, but ultimately good-natured and with a girlfriend named Junko who works at the university as a librarian and falls pregnant. His lackadaisical attitude to work and selfish attitude when it comes to Junko forms the basis of an ongoing plot thread which may infuriate viewers but serves as a clear example of how the characters grow from personal experiences like being in the position of a patient. Masato Furuoya was slightly more experienced as an actor (he won awards for his role in this film) but his life was tragically cut short due to suicide.
This film has the feeling of a coming-of-age drama as the people in the story learn more and mature and then graduate from medical school, finally finding a place in the world as they become fully-fledged doctors. While many characters in this drama are quirky, there are always serious moments to remind us that medicine is an important profession. The film doesn’t shy away from the psychological aspect of becoming a doctor. The aforementioned plot concerning Aisaku and Junko is an example as the youthful and naïve young man comes under intense stress due to bad decisions and looming tests. At these times of emotional stress, the director chooses to cut up the actual film stock or make the editing wilder as the soundtrack gets fuzzier. It is an effective way of showing how disorientating and disabling emotional traumas can be. The one misstep the film makes is in the fate of its leading female protagonist, Midori whose fate seems particularly absurd given how strong her character is. Apart from that, the film is an excellent and informative watch. Some may find it meanders but it is never without incident or interesting scenes, characters and sequences.
A new film festival called Reel Japan will take place at the end of April at The Yard Theatre, London. It is a two day event that takes place from Saturday30th April 2016 to Sunday1st May 2016 and its programme consists of eight films, all released in the UK by Third Window Films.
The festival is the latest event from the organisers of the Brick Lane Japan Film Festival which took place in January this year, an event that sold out quickly. Reel Japan’s artistic vision is to bring the best and most exciting Japanese cinema to the UK. This means that audiences get titles from Shinya Tsukamoto, SionSono, Takashi Miike and the others. The theme for this collection of films is “Twisted Love” and viewers will get the chance to explore the darker side of love and life through an exciting line-up of titles:
Shinya Tsukamoto’s tale of a sexually repressed office lady unleashing her inner desires and being comfortable with them thanks to the intervention of a stalker (played by the director himself) is an absorbing psycho-drama with a fabulous lead performance from Asuka Kurosawa. Here’s my review.
Be My Baby is an indie feature shot on a miniscule budget with a script that offers a scathing black comedy about Japanese gyaru and youth culture parasites. The cast of characters, all of whom hop into and out of bed with each other and play power politics in relationships offer audiences an insight into life at the bottom of the ladder in Japan and it holds your attention because of the great actors committed to giving great performances. Here’s my review.
I don’t see enough love for Greatful Dead. It’s story of a neglected child growing up
into a socially maladjusted figure who delights in the loneliness of others, particularly old men, starts dark and gets darker as you slowly uncover her characters psychological trajectory of abuse and cruelty and close your eyes waiting for the violent impact of her journey’s end. Love stories don’t get any more twisted than this although you won’t find out until its killer ending. This was a genuinely dark and subversive ride, enjoyable and tragic, the characters always sympathetic even when committing monstrous acts. Here’s my review.
Here’s a love story with a bleak setting. Our main characters Yuichi and Keiko survive violence, child abuse, and despair but they hang on to each other and their love. Although it is based on a manga the film was made during the fallout of the 3/11 disaster and so it references the real world problems that occurred in Japan at the time. Those changes fit in perfectly because the big message of the film is that you must always hope. Things can change and do get better and love is always out there so long as you keep trying to live and find those possibilities. The film is powered by awesome performances, especially the two from Shota Sometani and Fumi Nikaido. Here’s my review.
Lala Pipo (A Lot of People) is full of… a lot of lonely, horny and lost people all desperately searching for love, sex and relationships in the love hotels of contemporary Japan. The thing with these people in the cast is that they are made up pimps, pornographers, AV stars gangsters and losers all hooked on porn. There is sexual salvation on offer for all but this cast of characters have to scramble up slippery slopes, past sweaty encounters, and through sticky situations that will leave them panting with exhaustion.
This stars Miki Nakatani (Ring 2, Loft) as the titular Matsuko, a woman found beaten to death. It seems like a life wasted and tragically lost since she is estranged from her family and seems to have accomplished nothing but when her nephew, a bored college student, explores her personal effects he finds an extraordinary life of emotional highs and lows as Matsuko spent her entire life searching for her prince charming who would return her limitless love. This is a dark story of human drama given offbeat comedy and musical interludes to create a fairy-tale tragedy.
Isn’t Anyone Alive? is full of little love stories even amidst the onslaught of ironic and absurdist mass death seen in the film. A selection of great actors brings to life the story of the last days of the world, or at least a small Japanese university campus, beset by some disaster. The ultimate take-away from the film is that all human actions are meaningless when you take metaphysical constructions out of the picture. This is why a concept like love is important since it gives the world meaning. Here’s my review.
End the festival with a bang with this dose of violence and black humour from Takashi Miike. Lesson of Evil is all about student teacher and parent relations gone awry when popular English teacher Seiji Hasumi reveals how he runs his school – extreme violence. Adapted from Yusuke Kishi’s horror novel, Aku no Kyouten, this a commentary on tough high school life seen through the lens of a horror film. It features plenty of black humour, Cronenbergian fantasy and absurd violence.
There is a limit of 100 seats available for each screening and tickets are available now. It is possible to buy weekend tickets at £25 and day tickets for £15 but these are only available in limited numbers. Tickets for individual screenings are available at £5 each. All unsold tickets for screenings will be available on the day and the availability of these will be reported on The Yard’s Twitter feed.
The venue can be found at this address:
The Yard Theatre, Unit 2A, Queen’s Yard, White Post Lane, Hackney Wick
London. E9 5EN
Synopsis:29-year-old Sachi Kouda (Haruka Ayase), 22-year-old Yoshino Kouda (Masami Nagasawa), and 19-year-old Chika Kouda (Kaho) live in a house once owned by their grandmother in Kamakura. Their parents are divorced, their father having left them fifteen years ago. When they learn of their father’s death they decide to attend his funeral where they meet their 14-year-old half-sister Suzu Asano (Suzu Hirose) who has nobody to care for her. Sachi invites Suzu to join the in Kamakura and the three women gain a younger sister.
Our Little Sister/Umimachi Diary is an award-winning film that was at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Vancouver and the BFI London Film Festival which is a statement on how much of a household name Hirokazu Kore-eda is when it comes to cinephiles. His critical success has been well-earned when you consider that he is the auteur behind Kiseki, Nobody Knows, After Life, Still Walking, and Like Father, Like Son, films which prove very popular with international audiences and critics. I have seen at least six of his films so far and think that he is one of the best directors in Japan working and I am looking forward to seeing this when it is at my local art-house cinema later this month.
Our Little Sister will be released on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK from June 13th.
The line-up for the Cannes film festival was announced and there are a couple of Japanese films. There will be a whole week full of preview and trailer posts next week! I reviewed Disciples of Hippocrates (1980) and posted about Reel Japan, a Japanese film festival taking place in London. I also posted about the theatrical release of Our Little Sister (2015) which I am going to see at my local art house later this month. I watched a bunch of films, all for review and all a surprise.
What’s released in Japan this weekend?
Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare
Detective Conan The Darkest Nightmare Film Poster
名探偵コナン 純黒の悪夢（ナイトメア） 「Meitantei Conan: Junkoku no akumu (Naitomea)」
Synopsis from Anime News Network: On a dark night, the Japanese police is raided by a spy and different countries’ intelligence agencies’ secret files are going to be taken, but public safety officers led by Tooru Amuro arrive just in time. The spy steals a car and escapes but is thwarted by FBI agent Shuichi Akai’s rifle bullet and falls of the roadway. The next day, Conan and his friends go to an aquarium in Tokyo and find an attractive woman alone and injured. Her left and right eyes are different colors and she suffers from amnesia. Conan and his friends promise to help her regain her memory, so they stay with her. Throughout all this, Vermouth is watching behind the scenes. Afterwards, she pulls out a silencer and speaks into an attached intercom, “It’s as planned, Gin.”
Crayon Shin-chan Movie 24: Bakusui! Yumemi World Dai Totsugeki
Crayon Shin-chan Movie 24 Bakusui! Yumemi World Dai Totsugeki Film Poster
映画クレヨンしんちゃん 爆睡！ユメミーワールド大突撃 「Eiga Crayon Shin-chan Bakusui! Yumemi World Dai Totsugeki」
Synopsis from Anime News Network: Shin-chan’s town is trapped in a nightmare world. The movie will also feature the new character, Saki, a mysterious transfer student who is somehow connected to the dreams.
This Boy is a Professional Wizard.
This Boy is a Professional Wizard. Film Poster
この男子、魔法がお仕事です。 「Kono Danshi, Mahou ga Oshigoto Desu.」
Running Time: 29 mins.
Release Date: April 16th, 2016
Director: Soubi Yamamoto
Writer: N/A
Starring: Taku Yashiro (Toyohi Utsumi), Yuuki Ono (Chiharu Kashima),
Synopsis from Anime News Network: Chiharu is a wizard in charge of the magic department’s crisis counter-measure division. His days are hectic, but he meets a candid young man named Toyohi at his favorite bar, and the two hit it off. On their way home, Toyohi suddenly confesses to Chiharu. Chiharu is at first bewildered at his unexpected confession, but he starts to fall into Toyohi’s pace, and the two begin to spend more time together. However, after a mistake at work, Chiharu decides to devote himself to his work and pushes Toyohi away.
Kansai Johnnys’ Jr. no Mezase♪ Dream Stage!
関西ジャニーズJr.の目指せ♪ドリームステージ！ 「Kansai Johnnys’ Jr. no Mezase♪ Dori-mu Sute-ji!」
Synopsis:The boys who make up Kansai Johnny’s Jr. star as a group of local idols working for the Public Relations Division doing menial roles. They seem to be faltering in their determination. Can they improve their situations?
Synopsis:The director has made films about a variety of subjects but for this one she turns the camera on herself and her pregnancy which occurred after the 3/11 Earthquake and Tsunami. The film looks at what it is to live with the fear of the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the determination to have a healthy birth.
Synopsis: LinQ are idols from Fukuoka and set about promoting their city in a film directed and shot by people who are also from Fukuoka. Here’s an interview with the director.
Kudaka Odyssey Part Three Kaze Akira
Kudaka Odyssey Part Three Kaze Akira Film Poster
久高オデッセイ 第三部 風章 「Kudaka Odyssey Part Three Kaze Akira」
Synopsis:This is the final chapter of a three-part series of documentaries that captures the “Island of God”, Okinawa Kudaka. The series has been over twelve years in the making and director Junichiro Oshige actually passed away during the process. The films showcase the people of the island who take fishing, living with the sea and nature and a certain local religion very seriously. There is a tradition where a woman takes on the role of “Izaiho” but due to a lack successors the tradition was broken. How will the islanders continue?
Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:
Assassination Classroom: The Graduation (25/03/16)
Doraemon the Movie: Nobita and the Birth of Japan 2016 (2016/03/05)
Batman vs Superman Dawn of Justice (25/03/16)
Chihayafuru (2016/03/19)
The Town Where Only I Am Missing(2016/03/19)
The Good Dinosaur (2016/03/12)
The Masked Rider #1 (2016/03/16)
Room (2016/04/01)
Ayashii Kanojo (2016/04/08)
Eiga Precure All Stars: Minna de Utau Kiseki no Mahou! (2016/03/19)
Synopsis: A moving, nostalgic portrait of the men behind the golden age of chanbara (sword-fighting dramas and films), Uzumasa Limelight goes behind the scenes of the distinctive film genre for which Japan is famous. It takes place in Uzumasa Studios (just outside Kyoto), the Hollywood of Japan. In this venerable studio are a group of performers who are “kirare-yaku” (actors whose main job is to “to be cut”–and show a beautiful, spectacular death on screen after being killed by the hero). Our lead character is named Kamiyama (real-life kirare-yaku Seizo Fukumoto) and he has devoted 50 years of his life as a kirare-yaku in sword-fighting movies produced at Uzumasa Studios. A master of the art, he lives to die. Now an elderly man, Kamiyama lives very modestly but has earned immense respect from his peers, some of them movie stars. When the studio where he works decides to discontinue its chanbara productions, Kamiyama finds himself at a loss. Hope arrives in the form of a young girl named Satsuki (Chihiro Yamamoto), who soon becomes Kamiyama’s disciple. Will the art of dying by the sword live on?
Uzumasa Limelight Chihiro Yamamoto and Seizo Fukumoto Train
EXTRAS
A behind the scenes featurette and theatrical trailer.
SEIZO FUKUMOTO: as Seiichi Kamiyama
Born February 3, 1943. Seizo Fukumoto entered Toei Studio Kyoto (Japan) at the age of 15. Since then, he has been on films, TV, and jidaigeki for more than a half century. His forte is kirareyaku, “to-be-killed actor” who loses sword fights. In 2003, he was starred in the Hollywood film The Last Samurai (starring Tom Cruise) as the role of the Silent Samurai, and the film brought him before an international audience.
CHIHIRO YAMAMOTO: as Satsuki Iga
Born August 29, 1996. Chihiro Yamamoto started learning Tai Chi when she was 3 years old. In 2012, she won 1 gold medal and 2 silver medals at World Junior Wushu Championship. Uzumasa Limelight is her debut in a film.
Director: Ken Ochiai
Ken Ochiai made his first film at age 12. Immediately following his high school graduation, he left his hometown of Tokyo, Japan, to pursue his dream of becoming a film director in the United States. Ochiai graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 2006 with a BA in production. In 2008, he received his MFA from the American Film Institute Conservatory in directing.
To date, Ochiai has made more than 30 short films, commercials, and music videos including “Half Kenneth” which won the Jury Prize from the Directors Guild of America; Frog In The Well which won the Crystal Award at the Heartland Film Festival; and Miyuki’s Wind Bell which won the Sapporo Peace Award at the Sapporo Short Fest.
He received the Young Alumni Award from the USC Asian Pacific Alumni Association in recognition of his achievements in filmmaking.
His first feature film, Tiger Mask was released in the fall 2013 in several Asian countries. The film is based on a Japanese legendary comic book series and produced by Toshiaki Nakazawa, producer from an Oscar®-winning film “Departures.” His latest film is Ninja the Monster which came out in February.
Official site: www.kenochiai.com
This month’s film screening at the Japanese embassy is Adrenaline Drive which is a late ‘90s comedy action flick directed by Shinobu Yaguchi. Shinobu Yaguchi has made family friendly films as well as experimental ones. Waterboys (2001), Happy Flight (2008), Swing Girls (2007) and, most recently, Wood Job! (2014) are what I would see as broad comedies designed to appeal to wide audiences but as good as these are (and they are good) it’s his early experimental film The Rain Women which has me most intrigued after I wrote about it screening at the Berlin International Film Festival this year.
Anyway, this is a parody of action and romance movies and it contains slapstick comedy. It is held together by likeable performances from lead actors Masanobu Ando and Hikari Ishida.
Masanobu Ando should be familiar to J-film fans from his incredible performance as Shinji in Kids Return (1996) and Kiriyama in Battle Royale (2000). He has appeared in many other cult films and worked with a variety of directors and has proven himself to be a great leading man, so it is a shame he isn’t used more… Hikari Ishida is another underused actor although I must admit that the only other film I have seen her in is Séance (2000)…
Here are the details:
Adrenaline Drive
アドレナリン・ドライブ 「Adorenarin Doraibu」
Release Date: June 12th, 1999
Running Time: 112 mins.
Director: Shinobu Yaguchi
Writer: Shinobu Yaguchi (Screenplay),
Starring: Masanobu Ando, Hikari Ishida, Reila Aphrodite, Yutaka Matsushige, Taro Suwa, Kirina Mano, Kanta Ogata, Mikita Ogata,
Synopsis:After an unfortunate accident with a gangster in a black Jaguar, Satoru is taken to the yakuza’s lair. The thug adopts a threatening pose, ready to exact extortionate retribution. At that very moment, a violent explosion rips through the den, killing off almost the entire gang. Shizuko, a plain, timid nurse, happens to be outside the building demolished by the explosion and discovers Satoru, dazed and slightly wounded. She helps him into an ambulance. They are joined by the only other survivor, the Jaguar driver, who lies unconscious on a stretcher. All hell breaks loose. Amid the chaos, Satoru and Shizuko, acting in collusion, steal a trunk full of bloody cash and go on the run. To make matters worse, they soon find they have the Jaguar man and a gang of hooligans in hot pursuit. A fierce three-way scramble for 200 million yen now begins.
The film will be screened on Wednesday, April 27th at 18:30. Admission to the films is free but you need to register for a ticket. For more information, head to the embassy’s site.
I am feeling very, very tired today. I attended a film festival last night and watched Cesium and a Tokyo Girl (2015) and then attended an after-party where I met the director and his translator and had a few drinks – mostly apple juice! I didn’t get home until late and that was after heading to a Chinese take-away and didn’t get to sleep until past midnight. I’m staying up late again to write this after wasting a whole Saturday. Tomorrow… I go to see Ran (1985) in a cinema. This week, I posted about the DVD/Bluray release of Uzumasa Limelight (2014) and the screening of Adrenaline Drive (1999) at the Japanese embassy.
I Am a Herowas first published in 2009 and in the years since it was launched it has over 4 million copies in print. My review of the manga shows how much I like it and I have been half-anticipating half-dreading seeing what the film will turn into. The trailer has left me relieved. I like what I see. Here’s a preview I wrote for the film.
Synopsis:Hideo Suzuki (Yo Oizumi) is a manga artist assistant who is struggling to get his own manga made. As he struggles with life a mysterious virus spreads throughout Japan and the rest of the world. People with the virus are known as ZQN and they turn into zombies with super speed and strength and attack other people. One of the victims of the virus is Hideo’s girlfriend Tetsuko (Nana Katase) who comes down with the virus and attacks him. Hideo flees Tokyo and heads out into the country.
During his escape he meets a high school girl named Hiromi Hayakari (Kasumi Arimura) but she has been bitten by a ZQN, a baby without teeth, so her infection isn’t as bad. During their escape they head to a mall where a group of survivors lead by NEETs are hiding on the roof. There they meet Nurse Yabu (Masami Nagasawa) who hopes she can draw an antibody from Hiromi.
Sharing has toured the international film festival circuit having cropped up at this year’s Rotterdam International Film Festival and the 2014 Vancouver International Film Festival amongst other places. It is now hitting cinemas in Japan and it looks interesting and was described as psychological Cronenberg-like film which is a description that you almost never see to describe contemporary Japanese films. It’s different and different is good. The lead is played by Kinuwo Yamada and she has appeared in Villain(2010), Confessions (2010) and There’s Nothing to Be Afraid of (2013).
Synopsis:Eiko (Kinuo Yamada) is a psychology teacher in a university. She lost her husband in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and this pushes her to research cases of individuals who claim to have had precognitive dreams about the disaster. One of her students, Kaoru (Asuka Hinoi), is a member of the drama club, and is writing a stage a play about the disaster. The two become so engaged in their projects that it pushes friends and colleagues away from them as they become more extreme n their work…
Zutto Mae Kara Suki Deshita: Kokuhaku Jikkou Iinkai
Zutto Mae Kara Suki Deshita Kokuhaku Jikkou Iinkai Film Poster
ずっと前から好きでした。 告白実行委員会 「Zutto Mae Kara Suki Deshita: Kokuhaku Jikkou Iinkai」
Synopsis from Anime News Network: The Kokuhaku Jikkō Iinkai ~Renai Series~ project centers around such popular songs as “Kokuhaku Yokō Renshū” (Confession Rehearsal), “Hatsukoi no Ehon” (The Picture Book of the First Love), and “Yakimochi no Kotae” (The Answer to Jealousy). HoneyWorks has released three albums, Zutto Mae Kara Suki Deshita. (I’ve Always Liked You.) in January 2014, Boku Ja Dame Desu ka? in November 2014, and Naru Sono Shunkan o (That Moment I Fell in Love) on July 15.
Sound! Euphonium the Movie: Welcome to the Kitauji High School Concert Band
Sound! Euphonium the Movie Welcome to the Kitauji High School Concert Band Film Poster
劇場版 響け！ユーフォニアム～北宇治高校吹奏楽部へようこそ～ 「Gekijouban Hibike! Euphonium: Kitauji Koukou Suisouraku-Bu e Youkoso」
Synopsis from My Anime List: After swearing off music due to an incident at the middle school regional brass band competition, euphonist Kumiko Oumae enters high school hoping for a fresh start. As fate would have it, she ends up being surrounded by people with an interest in the high school brass band. Kumiko finds the motivation she needs to make music once more with the help of her bandmates, some of whom are new like novice tubist Hazuki Katou; veteran contrabassist Sapphire Kawashima; and band vice president and fellow euphonist Asuka Tanaka. Others are old friends, like Kumiko’s childhood friend and hornist-turned-trombonist Shuuichi Tsukamoto, and trumpeter and bandmate from middle school, Reina Kousaka.
However, in the band itself, chaos reigns supreme. Despite their intention to qualify for the national band competition, as they currently are, just competing in the local festival will be a challenge—unless the new band advisor Noboru Taki does something about it.
Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions
Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions Film Poster
劇場版 遊☆戯☆王 THE DARK SIDE OF DIMENSIONS 「Kono Danshi, Mahou ga Oshigoto Desu.」
Synopsis from Anime News Network: In the past Yūgi Yami and Kaiba have clashed many times. Yami Yūgi, who resides in Yūgi Mutō’s body, and Kaiba will have a duel that bets their prides and accepts each other’s mutual experience. “Kaiba and Aigami, who seek to obtain the Millennium Puzzle, finally duel!,” “The duel field turns into dimensional terrain through Aigami’s power!,” and “Kaiba’s monsters become powerless…!”
For the sake of his motives, Aigami spies on Yugi and his friends as they live their everyday lives. However, after coming in contact with Kaiba, and because their goals conflict, they begin a duel. To combat Kaiba, a skilled and powerful duelist, Aigami employs frightening tactics…!
Synopsis:Biological terrorism has almost wiped humanity out but there are survivors and they are split into two different kinds of human survivors. There are the Nokusu who were infected with the virus but survived and now they carry an antibody. These are a unique breed of human because most of them are young, healthy and have high intelligence, but they are sensitive to ultraviolet rays and so they are active mostly during the night. The other group are the Kyurio, people who have survived by never having been infected by the virus. The Kyurio are discriminated against and live in pverty. One such Kyurio is Tetsuhiko Okudera (Ryunosuke Kamiki) and he wishes he could be a Nokusu. Yui Ikuta (Mugi Kadowaki) is Tetsuhiko’s childhood friend.
Dodgeball no Shinri 01
Dodgeball no Shinri 01 Film Poster
ドッジボールの真理 code01 伝説のレッドブルマー 「Dojjibo-ru no shinri koudo 01 densetsu no redo buruma-」
Synopsis:Rei and Mari have gained supernatural powers from playing dodgeball and these powers serve them well when they enter a private high school and take part in a tournament with a beautiful girl who also has strange powers.
Death Forest Kyoufu no Mori 4
Death Forest Kyoufu no Mori 4 Film Poster
デスフォレスト恐怖の森4「Desu Foresuto Kyoufu no Mori 4」
Release Date: April 23rd, 2016
Running Time: 65 mins.
Director: Yasutake Torii
Writer: Satoshi Okonogi (Screenplay), Kazz (Original Game Creator)
Starring: Julia Tomita, Mitsuki Kimijima, Cyborg Kaori, Kouta Kosugi,
More death forest films… I never thought it would turn into a series. Here’s what I wrote for the second one and I think the comment still stands:
I never thought that the first Death Forest (released last December) would get a sequel but the Japanese film industry will adapt anything (because original ideas are too dangerous to bet on). The reason for my cynicism? These Death Forest films are based on a free downloadable game where people get chased by a big white headed thing. Japanese let’s players have tackled this in a number of videos. The new film looks worse than the first.
Synopsis: Characters played by J-pop idols and actors from previous films team up toface the huge fac monsters again. Their journey takes them to a suspicious hospital and a haunted forest…
The next two films are from Nepal but directed by a Japanese person
Synopsis from Wikipedia entry on the novel: 45 years old Suyogbir is the main male protagonist. An ex-army serviceman Suyog fought against Japan in the second world war but being poor hearted was not even able to kill a single soldier and had not received any medal. Although his village is in hills, he lives in Kathmandu valley. His daily routine has become to drink alcohol in the evenings in the bar. He brutally raped and murdered several indigenous girls and he remembers several incidents during the war.
He meets and becomes friend with Shivaraj in the bar. Shivaraj has three sisters: Mujura, Sakambari and Sanu. Suyogbir unknowingly becomes near to them all and falls in love with Sakambari but he finds difficult to tell her. One day finding her alone, he kisses her revealing his love towards her.
Later, Suyogbir stops visiting Shivaraj and his family. He later knows Sakambari was ill and one day he comes to know Sakambari has committed suicide.
Sci-Fi London is a festival of science fiction films and it has run for sixteen years. The event takes place from April 27th to May 06th It has played host to a number of Japanese films in the past but this is the first year that I am going to report on it. There are two indie films on the programme and they look good.
Cesium and a Tokyo Girl is playing at sci-fi London and seems to be going around the UK since I have seen the film and it is a fun and inventive timeslip tale which combines live-action and animation to create a fun adventure as well as deliver a serious story involving the 3/11 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami. Sci-fi London’s page for the film describes it thusly:
Saitani effortlessly combines live action and animation to depict Mimi’s view of modern Japanese history – equally comfortable in the realms of fantasy and realism.
The film screens on Thursday, May 05th at 19:00. Expect a review soon!
Synopsis:A delightful adventure fantasy about Mimi and the seven gods.
17-yr-old Mimi lives with her parents in the Tokyo suburb, Asagaya on the Chuo Line. Three days after the terrible eastern Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident, Mimi’s fate changes drastically as radiation-contaminated rain has left Mimi with terrible pain in her tongue. She is determined to find out why.
Mimi and the gods start measuring cesium levels throughout Tokyo. They visit hot spots of cesium pollution to see the reality of damage from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.
Will Mimi and her divine friends manage to squeeze out a happy ending? A magical mystery tour through space and time begins!
This sci-fi actioner was at last year’s Nippon Connection where it won the special mention of Nippon Visions Jury Award. Sci-fi London‘s page for the film describes it like this:
With nods to Japan’s neighbours who are so divided, Hasegawa has directed a solid story, well told, with a futuristic vision – a great example of contemporary independent Japanese sci-fi.
The film screens on Tuesday, May 03rd at 17:00 and Thursday, May 05th at 13:00.
Synopsis:In 2034, following a civil war, Japan is divided into North and South. Yoriko, a nurse living in the north, had lost her daughter during the war but when she is abducted by guerrilla terrorists she discovers that her daughter may exist in the ‘Information Life’: a digital collection of memories.
Yoriko’s kidnappers tell her about the Nephe Corporation, a mighty high-tech giant, and she becomes involved in the hacker resistance. In exchange for carrying a mysterious dead body from North to South, she is promised help to find her daughter.
Along the way, she also meets a highly-capable agent, Ayumi, who helps her infiltrate the corporation’s headquarters. Their ownership of the Information Life technology allows them to retain a stranglehold over both the North and South. What are Nephe’s real intentions with the system and will Yoriko be reunited with her child?
Sci-Fi London is a festival of science fiction films and it has run for sixteen years. The event takes place from April 27th to May 06th It has played host to a number of Japanese films in the past but this is the first year that I am going to report on it. There are two indie films on the programme and they look good.
Cesium and a Tokyo Girl is playing at sci-fi London and seems to be going around the UK since I have seen the film and it is a fun and inventive timeslip tale which combines live-action and animation to create a fun adventure as well as deliver a serious story involving the 3/11 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami. Sci-fi London’s page for the film describes it thusly:
Saitani effortlessly combines live action and animation to depict Mimi’s view of modern Japanese history – equally comfortable in the realms of fantasy and realism.
The film screens on Thursday, May 05th at 19:00. Expect a review soon!
Synopsis:A delightful adventure fantasy about Mimi and the seven gods.
17-yr-old Mimi lives with her parents in the Tokyo suburb, Asagaya on the Chuo Line. Three days after the terrible eastern Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident, Mimi’s fate changes drastically as radiation-contaminated rain has left Mimi with terrible pain in her tongue. She is determined to find out why.
Mimi and the gods start measuring cesium levels throughout Tokyo. They visit hot spots of cesium pollution to see the reality of damage from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.
Will Mimi and her divine friends manage to squeeze out a happy ending? A magical mystery tour through space and time begins!
This sci-fi actioner was at last year’s Nippon Connection where it won the special mention of Nippon Visions Jury Award. Sci-fi London‘s page for the film describes it like this:
With nods to Japan’s neighbours who are so divided, Hasegawa has directed a solid story, well told, with a futuristic vision – a great example of contemporary independent Japanese sci-fi.
The film screens on Tuesday, May 03rd at 17:00 and Thursday, May 05th at 13:00.
Synopsis:In 2034, following a civil war, Japan is divided into North and South. Yoriko, a nurse living in the north, had lost her daughter during the war but when she is abducted by guerrilla terrorists she discovers that her daughter may exist in the ‘Information Life’: a digital collection of memories.
Yoriko’s kidnappers tell her about the Nephe Corporation, a mighty high-tech giant, and she becomes involved in the hacker resistance. In exchange for carrying a mysterious dead body from North to South, she is promised help to find her daughter.
Along the way, she also meets a highly-capable agent, Ayumi, who helps her infiltrate the corporation’s headquarters. Their ownership of the Information Life technology allows them to retain a stranglehold over both the North and South. What are Nephe’s real intentions with the system and will Yoriko be reunited with her child?
