The BFI is hosting a weekend of contemporary anime films at the BFI Southbank in June. This is a regular event which collects a diverse array of anime movies and a lot on offer in this year’s programme are some of the best and flashiest to be released in recent years.
Harmony is the third film from the Project Itoh trilogy, a a concerted effort to adapt the three novels by late author Project Itoh (real name Satoshi Itō) who died in 2009. It is directed by Takashi Nakamura (Fantastic Children) and Michael Arias (Tekkonkinkreet), at Studio 4°C (Berserk). The director Michael Arias (Animatrix, Tekkonkinkreet) will take part in a Q&A.
Synopsis fromMy Anime List:In the future, Utopia has finally been achieved thanks to medical nanotechnology and a powerful ethic of social welfare and mutual consideration. This perfect world isn’t that perfect though, and three young girls stand up to totalitarian kindness and super-medicine by attempting suicide via starvation. It doesn’t work, but one of the girls—Tuan Kirie—grows up to be a member of the World Health Organization. As a crisis threatens the harmony of the new world, Tuan rediscovers another member of her suicide pact, and together they must help save the planet…from itself.
Empire of Corpses is the first of three films from Project Itoh. The 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).
Synopsis:In 19th Century London, “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. There he is given a clandestine mission: search for the legendary writings of Dr. Victor Frankenstein, left behind a century ago. These private papers allegedly detail the technology behind a more sophisticated reanimated corpse – the original – that could speak and even had free will.
The first clue leads Watson deep into Afghanistan. Alexei Karamazov, a military chaplain and genius corpse engineer for the Russian Empire, was seen leading an army of an unknown type of armed corpse there. He used them to instigate a rebellion before going underground, leading Watson to suspect he may know the whereabouts of Victor’s private papers.
Accompanied by Friday, a corpse that records all his activities, Watson begins the journey of a lifetime in search of Victor’s private papers.
The 1995 classic Ghost in the Shell is brought back to the big screen to celebrate the 25th birthday of Manga Entertainment. Ghost in the Shell is a bonafide classic which mixes science fiction, great action, and existential philosophy. It is arguably Mamoru Oshii’s greatest film and a lot better than the manga it is based on.
Synopsis: Set in a futuristic Japan in the year 2029, the world has come through a brutal world war and science has advanced by leaps and bounds giving humanity the choice to prolong life and reduce suffering with the use of sophisticated cybernetics. With all of humanity linked into one system of minds and personalities known as ghosts, the biggest threat to civilization is the cyber terrorists capable of hijacking people’s bodies and memories.Public Security Section 9 of Niihama City (a fictional setting inspired by Hong Kong) helps police people with modifications and they are a diverse team of AI, cyborgs and unmodified humans who must investigate cases of corruption and terrorism. Their leader on the field is Major Motoko Kusanagi. She has full-body prosthetics, owing to a childhood accident. In this film, her loyal squadmates Batou and information specialist Ishikawa have been assigned an important task: to investigate a hacker known only as “The Puppetmaster.” But as Motoko and her team discover, things are never so simple.
Production I.G are making plenty of entries in the Ghost in the Shell franchise and the latest directors entrusted with the anime are Kazuchika Kise and Kazuya Nomura. Kise is the guy behind the Arise reboot plus a Production I.G vet with work on all of the Ghost in the Shell movies and other titles like City Hunter, Goku II: Midnight EyeGiovanni’s Island and Patlabor. The director is another interesting chap. Kazuya Nomura has directed episodes of incredible anime like Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Dennou Coil and was involved in Ghost Houndand Mind Game. The script comes from Tow Ubukata who has written good cyberpunk titles like Mardock Scramble.
Synopsis: In the latest film a ghost-infecting virus known as Fire-Starter begins spreading through the system resulting in the assassination of the Japanese Prime Minister, Major Motoko Kusanagi and her elite team of special operatives are called in to track down its source. As they delve deeper and deeper into their investigation, they uncover traces of government corruption and a shadowy broker that bears an all-too-familiar face.
Mamoru Hosoda’s latest film is a continuation of his mix of fantasy and reality and 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.
Synopsis:A lonely boy named Kyuta is on the run from his family in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward following the death of his moter. 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 (Koji Yakusho) who takes the boy under his wing and renames him Kyuuta (Aoi Miyazaki / Shota Sometani).
Mamoru Oshii has created a film in a similar vein to his 2002 film Avalon – a mix of CG and live-action. While some of the shots in the trailer look stunning it is the music that captures the imagination! Music from regular Oshii collaborator Kenji Kawai. Reviews are mixed on this one but audiences get to see it on the big screen before it is released in Japan.
Synopsis:A clone war has overtaken the world with three tribes battling for air, land and technology. When one clone finds herself lost and on the run, she falls in with an unlikely group.
The Psycho-Pass movie has garnered lots and lots of positive reviews. It is a continuation of the first season and a stand-alone story so people can watch the film without any knowledge of the world. Production I.G threw all of its resources at it and so to see it on a big screen is really exciting.
Synopsis: Year 2116—The Japanese government begins to export the Sibyl System unmanned drone robots to troubled countries, and the system spreads throughout the world. A state in the midst of a civil war, SEAUn (the South East Asia Union), brings in the Sibyl System as an experiment. Under the new system, the coastal town of Shambala Float achieves temporary peace and safety. But then SEAUn sends terrorists to Japan. They slip through the Sibyl System and then attack from within. The shadow of a certain man falls on this incident. In charge of the police, Tsunemori travels to Shambala Float to investigate. The truth of justice on this new ground will become clear.
I have gorged myself on three Japanese films in my local arthouse cinema – Ran, Our Little Sister and Cesium and the Tokyo Girl. I watched them with family and friends and they got to see me do my film festival thing when I met the director of Cesium and a Tokyo Girl. The new spring anime season started a few weeks ago and while JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable is my favourite show, I’m totally taken with the OP for Kiznaiver:
Chihayafuru is based on a popular long-running manga and it has been given a three-film treatment. It stars Suzu Hirose who is the titular little sister in the Hirokazu Kore-eda film Our Little Sister (2015) and Hirose makes a pretty good impression based on that film.
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.
Scanner: Kioku no Kakera wo Yomu Otoko
Scanner Kioku no Kakera wo Yomu Otoko Film Poster
スキャナー 記憶のカケラをよむ男 「Scanner: Kioku no Kakera wo Yomu Otoko」
Running Time: 110 mins.
Release Date: April 29th, 2016
Director: Shusuke Kaneko
Writer: Ryota Kosawa (Screenplay),
Starring: Mansai Nomura, Fumino Kimura, Atsuko Takahata, Chisun, Hiroyuki Miyasako, Hana Sugisaki, Shota Yasuda, Aina Fukumoto,
Synopsis from IMDB: Kazuhiko Sengoku (Mansai Nomura) is a former comedian who worked as a popular duo with Ryuji Maruyama (Hiroyuki Miyasako) but he also has a special ability to read memories left behind in things or places and he used this ability during his performances. It soon overwhelmed him and so he left the limelight to become a caretaker of a mansion.
Kazuhiko Sengoku is called out of retirement to help find a woman when Ryuji and a high school student named Ami Akiyama (Hana Sugisaki) call on him for help. At first he turns them down but he has a strange vision…
I watched the OVAs for this just before the TV anime aired and I thought it was dull. The trailer for the film looks a lot more fun.
Synopsis: Earth is on the brink of collapse due to depleting natural resources and overpopulation. In order to secure the future of humanity, scientists send moss and cockroaches to help terraform Mars – cockroaches will help spread the moss across the Martian environment an help create an environment that humans can survive in. Years after the project is started, humans are sent to Mars and massacred by a strange presence. It turns out that the cockroaches have mutated!
Another mission is created 15 poor Japanese are sent to Mars to fight the roaches and they have been beefed up with special powers derived from insects. The fight for Mars begins!
Synopsis: This is an erotic supernatural thriller from legenary pink film director Shinji Imaoka about a cinema projectionist named Teiichi (Shima Ohnishi). He has lost some memories but gained a visitor after he becomes haunted by a girl in black. She is reflected onto the cinema’s screen and sat on chairs. He makes contact with the girl and hides her in the projectionist room, but she disappears. Teiichi sees the phantom girl again and she draws him to the riverside where his lost memory then comes back.
Manga wo hamidashita otoko: Akatsuka Fujio
Manga wo hamidashita otoko Akatsuka Fujio Film Poster
マンガをはみだした男 赤塚不二夫 「Manga wo hamidashita otoko: Akatsuka Fujio」
Synopsis: Fujio Akatsuka is the genius behind Genius Bakabon, Osomatsu-kun, and Himitsu no Akko-chan. These are works from the ‘60s that have become long-running family favourites. Osomatsu-kun has been updated to become Osomatsu-san, one of the funniest anime in the last few years. This is a documentary to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Fujio Akatsuka who died at the age of 72 in 2008 and it gathers together family-members, fellow cartoonists and more. There is home video footage as well as film from television. The director of the 2015 dramedy Rolling, Masanori Tominaga, has helmed this.
Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:
Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare (2016/04/16)
Zootopia (2016/04/23)
Crayon Shin-chan Movie 24: Bakusui! Yumemi World Dai Totsugeki (2016/04/16)
I Am a Hero (2016/04/23)
The Revenant(2016/04/22)
Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions (2016/04/23)
Assassination Classroom: The Graduation (25/03/16)
Zutto Mae Kara Suki Deshita: Kokuhaku Jikkou Iinkai (2016/04/23)
Chihayafuru (2016/03/19)
Doraemon the Movie: Nobita and the Birth of Japan 2016 (2016/03/05)
Cesium and a Tokyo Girl is the debut feature film from Ryo Saitani, an animator who runs Laputa Asagaya Art Animation School in Tokyo. His film is a fun and inventive time slip tale which combines live-action and animated sequences to create an adventure that also delivers a serious message about the effects of urbanisation on Japan, destruction of the environment and the threat of radiation following the meltdown of Fukushima Daiichi after the 3/11 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami.
The story starts in the present day with a normal highschool girl named Mimi (Kaira Shirahase) in a canoe in Tokyo bay.
How did she get there?
Mimi is a seventeen-year-old who lives with her parents in the Tokyo suburb, Asagaya. She is intelligent, precocious and virtuous, the type to grill a teacher over something she doesn’t understand and flip ideas around to fully understand them and the type to do the right thing and stick up for people and champion environmental causes. Mimi finds herself called to act in a national crisis when, three days after the 3/11 earthquake tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear accident, cesium is detected in Tokyo and worse still, radiation-contaminated rain has left Mimi with terrible pain in her tongue.
Mimi is determined to find out about the impact of radiation on the environment and this gets connected to the disappearance of her grandmother’s pet mynah bird which flew away at the same time as the meltdown at Fukushima. The bird is connected to her hospitalised grandmother’s childhood and in its absence, her grandmother has become seriously ill. What Mimi doesn’t know is that her search for her grandmother’s bird will lead her to a meeting with the Thunder God and the Wind God and they will introduce her to more Japanese deities from the past, all of whom are also concerned about the environment of Japan.
Mimi and her newfound divine friends embark upon a magical journey through space and time, leaving behind modern-day Tokyo and going back to Tokyo circa 1942 in their search for answers to the changes in the environment and the location of the mynah bird.
Cesium and a Tokyo Girl is an apt title since it suggests the impact of something as huge as nuclear energy on a person’s life and the film uses the juxtaposition of the personal with a huge issue to examine the environmental impact of nuclear power and also urbanisation. Mimi, the idealised schoolgirl, is our lens into the changing environment in Japan and the Gods and adventures soften and make palatable the profound issues that writer/director Ryo Saitani wants to explore.
The film is split into three chapters: Mimi’s childhood, her adventures through time and the completion of her mission. In every scene and sequence there is an element of characterisation or information about Japan’s environment. It all mixes together quite naturally and we see Mimi’s trajectory from layman on the natural world to full on environmental activist quite clearly through her experiences and the film ably justifies how she ended up in Tokyo Bay. Audiences are sure to understand why she feels the way she does about the issue brought up because of the fun encounters and there is also a narrator who informs us of historical facts.
Despite the seriousness of the subject it is rarely overwhelming thanks to the delivery of the scenes. The film alternates between being a travelogue and a caper, a documentary and a musical. There are discussions of moral questions surrounding environmental issues which are delivered in a variety of styles such as drunken rants by the Gods as they guzzle wine at one of the many bars visited by the gang. There will be a musical interlude showcasing fashion trends in Japan and the diatribes against nuclear power are shown with archive footage of mushroom clouds and museum exhibits like the Daigo Fukuryu Maru, the infamous fishing ship whose crew suffered acute radiation syndrome after getting caught up in a hydrogen bomb test. There is discussion about how newspapers manipulate people into believing the benefits of nuclear energy and on-screen maps and charts will be interrupted by a character in a polar bear suit getting into fights. The time travel alone makes sure there are lots of different fun things to see.
The slide from the real to the fantastical is down to the mystery of the mynah bird which is named after the poet Hakushu Kitahara (1885 – 1942) who acts as a brilliant excuse to go back in time and meet different people and see various things including Kitahara himself.
Mimi’s journeys from present day Tokyo to her grandmother’s childhood contrasts the changes from a more natural age and some of the negative developments of modernisation. Mimi’s Tokyo is choked with concrete buildings and bridges, cesium is found in all sorts of places and animals are disappearing. Her grandmother’s Tokyo is a more idyllic place which is all traditional low-rise wooden buildings and green spaces (just before the firebombing of the Second World War) and shot in a sepia tone to evoke nostalgia. There are many musical sequences when Mimi meets her grandmother as the girls go out on the town and showcase the fashions of Modan Gaaru’s while jazz music plays.
The rhythm of the film is fast, the visuals colourful and flashy, the tone fun. Ryo Saitani favours pacey editing and mixes a lot of camera angles to make palatable an otherwise overloaded narrative. There are inventive ways of framing everything. It isn’t enough to have a conversation, extreme close-ups or shooting with a Dutch angle happens a lot. Better yet, the Saitani departs from the conventional and generously uses musical segments and blends in animation inspired by ancient Japanese art such as the Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga scrolls to make things even more fun. The variety keeps events flowing and it keeps getting more inventive. As Mimi meets the Gods they are introduced via animated musical sequences or given odd entrances. She encounters characters which are models brought to life with stop-motion animation and her time travelling can take the form of images of Mimi and other characters dancing across historical photograph of old cultural hotspots like Shinjuku’s Moulin Rouge. There is a sense of joy brought about by this mix of styles and it’s hard not to lose yourself in the fun when the plot stops so a song and dance number can explode on screen, a particular highlight being one that takes place in a public bath where Mimi and a group of other women while singing a jazzy version of a Kitahara nursery rhyme (quite an addictive song).
These techniques, sequences and interludes sound messy but they all fit together seamlessly and are effectively used to paint a picture of a fun adventure while showcasing some of the unique locations in Tokyo and keep the audience engaged so that the message of the director never feels like a lecture and that message urges us that while we can appreciate what we have lost we should work hard to protect our environment. Hard to disagree with that. And so, as Mimi’s adventure comes to an end a bigger one is beginning for her as her desire to protect the environment awakens and audiences may feel the same thing happen for them.
Cesium and a Tokyo Girl is a genuinely fun and inventive time slip tale which combines live-action and animation to create a fun adventure. The environmental message may be a bit heavy-handed but its heart is in the right place and it is delivered with a cheery smile. I am glad I saw it on the big screen and I hope others can enjoy it as much as I did.
4/5
The film plays at Sci-Fi London on May 05th and I recommend it!
I also met the director of the film after the screening and he kindly gave me an autograph and posed for a photo.
This year’s edition of the Cannes Film Festival takes place from May 11th to the 22nd and it’s the 69th edition of the event. The festival’s main programme (every title in competition and Un Certain Regard) has been announced. This year’s line-up looks like its lumbering under the weight of major American films like Steven Spielberg’s The BFG and two Jim Jarmusch films. There are films from European stalwarts such as the Dardenne brothers, Andrea Arnold and Nicolas Winding Refn and there are two familiar Japanese names in the mix but both are in Un Certain Regard… Plus there are two Japanese films in Cannes Classics. It’s a good line-up and continues an upward trend following on from a similarly packed 2015. The only person missing from the party is Takashi Miike!
Cannes wouldn’t be complete without Hirokazu Koreeda (Kiseki) and when it comes to his films, well, you can’t go wrong. I’ve watched nearly everything made by the man from Maborosi (1995) and he is consistently brilliant. He reunites with familiar actors like Hiroshi Abe and Kirin Kiki (both of whom were in Still Walking), Yoko Maki and Lily Franky (who were in Like Father, Like Son) as well as new actors like Sosuke Ikematsu (How Selfish I Am!). Stay tuned for a review of Our Little Sister (2015) which was at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Synopsis from IMDB:Dwelling on his past glory as a prize-winning author, Ryota (Hiroshi Abe) wastes the money he makes as a private detective on gambling and can barely pay child support. After the death of his father, his aging mother (Kirin Kiki) and beautiful ex-wife (Yoko Make) seem to be moving on with their lives. Renewing contact with his initially distrusting family, Ryota struggles to take back control of his existence and to find a lasting place in the life of his young son (Taiyo Yoshizawa) – until a stormy summer night offers them a chance to truly bond again.
Koji Fukada is a Japanese director inspired by French cinema and his films have travelled outside of his native country. Indeed, Hotori no Sakuko (Au revoir l‘ete) was released in the UK last year. He is working with actors from that film again – Taiga, Kanji Furutachi – and he’s working with the awesome Tadanobu Asano (Watashi no Otoko, Vital, Bright Future, Survive Style 5+).
Synopsis from IMDB:Toshio hires Yasaka in his workshop. This old acquaintance, who has just been released from prison, begins to meddle in Toshio’s family life.
Kadokawa and Cineric Laboratories worked together to restore this classic Jidaigeki from Kenji Mizoguchi. This is considered one of the best Japanese films from the Golden Age period of filmmaking (and ever as far as I’m concerned). It won Ugetsu the Silver Lion Award for Best Direction at the Venice Film Festival in 1953 and audiences get to see a version which has restored visuals. Martin Scorcese and cameraman/cinematographer Masahiro Miyajima (Ran) acted as consultants. Here’s a trailer from the Masters of Cinema release put out by Eureka in 2012.
Synopsis:The story is set in the Sengoku period and follows a potter named Genjuro and his brother-in-law who leave their loyal wives to become famous samurai only for tragedy to strike Genjuro when he comes under the spell of Lady Wakasa and the ghosts she is surrounded by.
Mitsuyo Seo was a Japanese animator, screenwriter and director of animated films and helped make anime a major force. During World War II he made propaganda films for the Japanese government and Momotaro, Umi no shinpei (Momotaro, Sacred Sailors) is one of his most famous. The film influenced the next-generation animators including Osamu Tezuka and others. After the war American forces confiscated and destroyed many propaganda films but a negative copy of this film was found in Shochiku’s Ofuna warehouse in 1983 and was re-released in 1984. It is now being shown at Cannes.
Synopsis:A propaganda animated feature film made during WWII with the funding by the Ministry of Navy. This is an updated take on the Japanese fairy-tale, Momotaro (the guy born from a peach who rolled with a monkey, dog and pheasant killing ogres). Here he is depicted fighting for the Imperial Japanese Navy defeating European colonisers and taking the fight to America.
A prequel was made for the film (Momotaro’s Sea Eagles) but no sequel because, well, this was made in 1945.
There’s also a Studio Ghibli co-production called The Red Turtle and is the work of an award-winning Dutch animator and director Michael Dudok de Wit (“The Monk and the Fish,” “Father & Daughter” animated shorts). According to Anime News Network:
Director de Wit temporarily moved to Koganei in Tokyo (where Studio Ghibli is headquartered) to work on the film, completing the film’s storyboards and the scenario in his time there, while Studio Ghibli director Isao Takahata checked them. Takahata also serves as the “artistic producer” for the film.
I gorged myself on a lot of new anime this week just to get a feel for the season so I’ve picked up Bungo Stray Dogs, Kiznaiver, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable and Re:ZERO. I spent more time writing film reviews than watching films… I did post about the Japanese films at the Cannes Film Festival and I posted a film review for Cesium and a Tokyo Girl (2015).
What’s released this weekend?
Hero Mania: Seikatsu
Hero Mania Film Poster
ヒーローマニア 生活「Hi-ro- Mania Seikatsu」
Running Time: 109 mins.
Release Date: May 07th, 2016
Director: Keisuke Toyoshima
Writer: Jun Tsugita (Screenplay), Shigeyuki Fukumitsu (Original Manga)
This is an action comedy starring Masahiro Higashide (The Kirishima Thing), Masataka Kubota (13 Assassins) and Nana Komatsu (The World of Kanako). It looks a lot like the film Kick Ass (2010) only not as mean spirited. I’m surprised a film like this hasn’t already been made.
Synopsis: After losing his job at a company, Hidetoshi Nakatsu (Masahiro Higashide) gets work as a part-timer at a convenience store. His frustration with society’s decay reaches boiling point when he has to deal with horrible people in his job and his frustration gets an outlet when he meets a young man named Toshida (Masataka Kubota), who has gadgets, a high school girl named Kaori (Nana Komatsu), who is super smart, and Kusaki (Tsurutaro Kataoka), a man who wields hammers under his sleeves. The four form a vigilante group to take out criminals and slowly become famous. That fame attracts a businessman who wants to form a team of his own…
I read the manga for about two volumes over a year ago and it didn’t appeal that much to me but it’s getting a major push with English-language releases and films by the guys behind the adaptation of Knights of Sidonia. The TV anime has turned out to be good, from what I have heard.
Synopsis from Anime News Network and MAL: 17 years ago, immortals first appeared on the battlefields of Africa. Later, rare, unknown new immortal lifeforms began appearing among humans, and they became known as “Ajin” (demi-humans). Just before summer vacation, a Japanese high school student named Kei is instantly killed in a traffic accident on his way home from school but is instantly revived.
For high schooler Kei—and for at least forty-six others—immortality comes as the nastiest surprise ever.
Sadly for Kei, such a feat doesn’t make him a superhero. In the eyes of both the general public and governments, he’s a rare specimen who needs to be hunted down and handed over to scientists to be experimented on for life—a demi-human who must die a thousand deaths for the benefit of humanity.
Synopsis from IMDB: 1989 is the 64 Shouwa year in the Japanese calendar, thus the unsolved case of a girl who was kidnapped and murdered is called “64 (rokuyon). It has hung over the Criminal Investigation Department in the Prefectural Police Department for fourteen years and the statute of limitations is approaching it. In 2002, Yoshinobu Mikami, an ex-detective who was the lead investigator on the “Rokuyon” works as a Public Relations Officer in the Police Affairs Department and finds his department dealing with a new case connected to the “Rokuyon” case.
One of those Exile Tribe films where idol boys act in dramas. In this one, they are all in different gangs so different trailers for each gang which double as music videos on the YouTube channel and so on.
The story begins in a dangerous and desolate town filled with gangsters.
This area is known as “SWORD”, an acronym attributed to the names of five groups: “Sanno Rengokai”, “White Rascals”, “Oya Koukou”, “RUDE BOYS” and “Daruma Ikka”, and those who belonged to either of these gangs came to be referred to as “G-SWORD” accordingly.
But prior to the formation of SWORD, this area used to be under the rule of a legendary organization called “MUGEN”. But somehow this power monopoly by MUGEN was suddenly dispersed during its deadly battle with an unyielding force called the “Amamiya Kyodai”.
For now, a balance of power is somehow maintained by these groups – until a ghost of the past emerges, setting off a series of events that will shake this town once again.
With the resurgence of the past comes a battle of epic proportions, which will then decide the fate of this town.
Sanma to Qatar: Onagawa Tsunagaru Hitobito
Sanma to Qatar Onagawa Tsunagaru Hitobito Film Poster
サンマとカタール 女川つながる人々「Sanma to Kata-ru: Onagawa Tsunagaru Hitobito」
Synopsis: This is a documentary with its roots in the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. The film takes in the reconstruction of Onagawa in Miyagi prefecture where 80% of the residents lost their homes in the city. An injection of cash from a Qatari friendship fund helped in the rebuilding of the town which we see the results of as well as the emotional journeys of the residents.
Iitatemura no kaachantachi tsuchi to tomo ni
Iitatemura no kaachantachi tsuchi to tomo ni Film Poster
飯舘村の母ちゃんたち 土とともに 「Iitatemura no kaachan-tachi tsuchi to tomoni」
Synopsis: Two elderly sisters, Eiko 78 and Yoshiko 79, were still running their family farm in Iitate which is close to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. They had to evacuate with everyone else and now live in temporary housing. We see these tough ladies carrying on with life, continuing to do what they love while surrounded by grandchildren and other family members.
Synopsis: A documentary on Yoneji Matsuda, an artist who specialises in ceramics who lives and works in Okinawa, specifically the village of Yachimun which is what his pottery is named after. The Okinawa Island Guide has more on the area. Matsuda channels traditional methods of ceramic making – such as local clay, unique kilns – and continues the trend but it is getting harder and harder to pass on the traditions to a new generation…
Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:
Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare (2016/04/16)
Zootopia (2016/04/23)
Captain America Civil War (2016/04/29)
Crayon Shin-chan Movie 24: Bakusui! Yumemi World Dai Totsugeki (2016/04/16)
Chihayafuru Part II Shimo no ku (2016/04/29)
I Am a Hero (2016/04/23)
TerraFormars (2016/04/29)
The Revenant(2016/04/22)
Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions (2016/04/23)
Assassination Classroom: The Graduation (25/03/16)
The 16th edition of the Japanese film festival Nippon Connection will take place in Frankfurt, Germany, from May 24th to the 29th. Over the course of six days audiences will get the chance to watch more than 100 short and feature films and this incudes indies, anime, blockbusters, and documentaries. This is the biggest festival dedicated to Japanese films and so filmmakers are going to attend the event to present their works.
On top of the films there are guests who are coming over from Japan so that means there are also workshops, lectures, panel discussions, performances, exhibitions, and there is also a Japanese market with food on sale. It’s a huge event with lots to see and do.
Good Stripes Film Image
What is on the programme, then? I’ll break it down into sections:
This section features a healthy collection of contemporary titles from 2015 with two stand-outs in the pack based on critical reception which I highlighted with the full preview format:
Starring: Yu Aoi (Tetsuko Arisugawa), Anne Suzuki (Hana Arai), Ryou Kazuji (Kotaro Yuda – a man who holds the key to the murder mystery), Haru Kuroki (Satomi Hagino-sensei – Hana and Alice’s homeroom teacher), Tae Kimura (Yuki Tsutsumi – the ballet classroom teacher),
This film is a joy to watch and from the reaction of critics it seems like it will be a sure fire hit with audiences. It’s the prequel to Hana and Alice (2004), a live-action film directed by Shunji Iwai. He wanted to go back to when the two titular teens met to tell the story of the beginning of their friendship and it all happens through the world’s smallest murder case. Iwai chose to animate the original actors through the power of rotoscoping and it creates a unique look.
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.
Harmony is the third film from the Project Itoh trilogy, a concerted effort to adapt the three novels by late author Project Itoh (real name Satoshi Itō) who died in 2009. It is directed by Takashi Nakamura (Fantastic Children) and Michael Arias (Tekkonkinkreet), at Studio 4°C (Berserk). The director Michael Arias (Animatrix, Tekkonkinkreet) will take part in a Q&A at Nippon Connection and so this is a great chance to get the behind-the-scenes info on the animation process.
Synopsis from My Anime List: In the future, Utopia has finally been achieved thanks to medical nanotechnology and a powerful ethic of social welfare and mutual consideration. This perfect world isn’t that perfect though, and three young girls stand up to totalitarian kindness and super-medicine by attempting suicide via starvation. It doesn’t work, but one of the girls—Tuan Kirie—grows up to be a member of the World Health Organization. As a crisis threatens the harmony of the new world, Tuan rediscovers another member of her suicide pact, and together they must help save the planet…from itself.
When Marnie Was There Film Poster
When Marnie Was There「思い出のマーニー, Dir: Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 99 mins.」is reputedly the last film from Studio Ghibli and 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’s and features the familiar mixture of fantasy and reality where a lonely twelve-year-old girl named Anna travels to a small town to better cope with her asthma and makes a new friend, a mysterious blonde girl named Marnie who lives in a Western style house…
Miss Hokusai Film Poster
Miss Hokusai「百日紅～Miss HOKUSAI～, Dir: Keiichi Hara, 90 mins.」 is the latest film from Keiichi Hara (Colorful). It’s a big blockbuster treatment of the story of the story of Katsushika Hokusai’s third daughter, the outspoken 23-year-old O-Ei. It takes place in 1814 in Edo, a place which is teeming with peasants, samurai, townsmen, merchants, nobles, artists, courtesans, and perhaps even supernatural things. O-Ei helps her father with his art and very often she would paint instead of him, though uncredited. She made art of her own and this is the untold story of O-Ei, Master Hokusai’s daughter: a lively portrayal of a free-spirited woman overshadowed by her larger-than-life father, unfolding through the changing seasons.
Empire of the Corpses「屍者の帝国, Dir: Ryuotarou Makihara, 120 mins.」is one of three films from Project Itoh and it comes to us courtesy of WIT Studio (Attack on Titan, Hoozuki no Reitetsu). It takes place in 19th Century
The Empire of Corpses Film Poster
London at the height of the British Empire only in this universe “corpse reanimation technology” has been developed, rendering the dead useful for basic physical labour. Brilliant medical student John Watson is recruited by the British to search for the legendary writings of Dr. Victor Frankenstein which allegedly detail the technology behind a more sophisticated reanimated corpse – the original – that could speak and even had free will. Watson will go on a globe-trotting mission, fighting enemy agents for those papers.
There are numerous animated shorts, a rich area for seeing invention and ingenuity and surprises:
A Wild Patience – Indie Animated Shorts By Women contains recent works by indie female artists who have animated using a number of different styles. These have been curated by film scholar and journalist Dr. Catherine Munroe Hotes.
Tokyo University of the Arts: Animation is a programme that contains 14 of the best titles from students at the prestigious university and they will be presented by Hiromitsu Murakami, a professor in the animation department. Some of these are at the Annecy International Animation Festival but this looks to be a much more comprehensive programme.
Tokyo University of the Arts Anime Projects
JVTA Presents: Twilight of the Cockroaches 「ゴキブリたちの黄昏, Dir: Hiroaki Yoshida, 105 mins.」was first released in 1987 and went to various film festival. The Nippon Connection website calls this film “one of the most audacious stylistic experiments in anime history, featuring a society of cockroaches fighting to survive in modern Japan. The sophisticated combination of animated images and live-action footage is still an eye-catcher today. The film was provided with new subtitles for the festival by the Japan Visualmedia Translation Academy (JVTA).”
There is an 8 minute film called Macky and Eucki in Midnight Galery directed by Rushio Moriyama playing at this screening.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, one of the greatest living Japanese directors, will be at Nippon Connection where he will receive the Nippon Honour Award, which was created to honour people who have made a significant contribution to Japanese film. Well, Kurosawa has made a significant contribution to film and he’s one of the few contemporary Japanese directors working today that an international audience may be familiar with.
He will accept this award and be present for a screening of Journey to the Shore「岸辺の旅 , Dir: Kiyoshi Kurosawa. 128 mins.」which is an adaptation of the 2010 novel Kishibe no Tabi by Kazumi Yumoto. It is a film about a woman named Mizuki (Eri Fukatsu) whose husband Yusuke (Tadanobu Asano) disappeared. One day, he comes back and asks Mizuki to go on a journey with him visiting all of the places he went to and all of the people he met while he was travelling. Mizuki begins to understand why Yusuke went on his journey. The film earned Kurosawa the Best Director prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.
Kurosawa’s latest film also gets screened so GET HYPED!
I call this a comeback because Kiyoshi Kurosawa has strayed away from horror films and gone into supernatural inflected dramas. This has coincided with a lull in quality from the man. Well he’s back in psychological horror and he has brought in great actors he has worked with before: Hidetoshi Nishijima (License to Live) and Teruyuki Kagawa (Tokyo Sonata). Early reviews from this has suggested that Kurosawa is back on form.
Synopsis: Detective Inspector Takakura (Hidetoshi Nishijima) decides to quit the force after a psychopath almost kills him. He takes up work as a university lecturer in criminal psychology and delves into cold cases, one involving a missing family where only one person survived, Saki (Haruna Kawaguchi). Life changes when Takakura and his wife Yasuko (Yuko Takeuchi) move house and introduce themselves to their next door neighbour Nishino (Teruyuki Kagawa) who hides his wife and daughter from the outside world. Nishino is suspicious enough as a person but when his “daughter” confronts Takakura and tells him that she has no idea who her “father” is, things get really dangerous…
The day after the screening ofCreepyis the screening of Cure「キュア Dir: Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 111 mins.」 which originally came out in 1997 and still scares today. For many, this is the first Kurosawa film they encounter and it’s a really intense serial killer movie were a detective named Takabe (played by regular Kiyoshi Kurosawa collaborator Koji Yakusho) tracking a mesmerist named Mamiya. What makes it memorable is the bleak atmosphere and psychological ambiguity. Here’s my review from year and years ago. I really like this film!
Kiyoshi Kurosawa will also be around for the film breakfast. This is an event where audiences can enjoy a buffet and a film with a filmmaker present. The film that is getting screened is:
Tokyo Sonata 「トウキョウソナタDir: Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 119 mins.」which, in my opinion, is one of the best dramas to have ever come from Japan. The story is about the fallout when the patriarch of a typical middle-class Japanese family loses his job but maintains the façade in the face of a family who are going through their own changes.
Sion Sono
There are two SionSono movies at the festival and both have been on the festival circuit but they seem to be very different.
The Whispering Star 「ひそひそ星, 100 mins.IMDB」 was originally created and screened as part of an art exhibition which had the theme of dystopia running through it. The film was shot in different locations in Fukushima prefecture, turning the depopulated and irradiated areas into a futuristic landscape that speaks of hopelessness, pollution, and abandonment. It stars people who live in the areas and Sion Sono’s wife.
Synopsis:A spaceship shaped like a Japanese bungalow careens through the galaxy. It carries a humanoid robot named Yoko (Megumi Kagurazaka), a sort of interstellar UPS delivery person. Her job is simple: to distribute packages to human beings scattered across sundry planets. But with so much spare time between deliveries, Yoko begins to wonder what’s in those packages.
Love and Peace「ラブ＆ピース , 117 mins」 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. It’s getting a release in the UK at some point thank to the film distributor Third Window Films.
Synopsis:The story is about a put upon salaryman who once had the dream of being a punk-rocker. 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…
New Feature Films
This section features the newest or unreleased films. Full write-ups for these for anyone interested although I have copied and pasted the synopses from Nippon Connection for many to hurry up this preview and ensure greater accuracy. There are a lot of great looking titles here.
A Cappella「無伴奏, Dir: Hitoshi Yazaki, 132 mins. 」 is a drama which stars Riko Narumi (Shindo) as a high school girl named Kyoko living in 1969, a period when there was 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. Kyoko becomes influenced by these things and joins a rally at a university which gets violent. After she is wounded she shelters 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 but the politics of the age puts their love in great danger…
The Man Who Was Eaten is a cynical sci-fi comedy and a true indie film considering it has come from a production team composed of current students from Osaka University of Arts. The director will be present at the screening.
Synopsis:Following an alien invasion, humanity has been turned into cattle for the invaders to devour and children are educated from an early age about how much it is an honour to be chosen as food for aliens. Miserable middle aged divorcee Murata Yoshio is an isolated loner but when he is selected for alien food he is given a week-long heroes send-off which makes him ponder the question, “Do you think I am delicious?” He spends his final days trying to right mistakes…
Hakodate Coffee「函館珈琲, Dir: Hiroshi Nishio, 90 mins.」Synopsis from Nippon Connection: Eiji, a struggling writer who wants to open a second hand bookstore in Hakodate (Hokkaido), moves into a house which he shares with several artists. As it turns out, all of the residents, including Eiji, seem to struggle with problems. But soon they begin to have a positive impact on Eiji’s life. The actor Tony Nakajima will be in attendance.
Synopsis: In a film where the past and present mixes we see the daily lives of four young soldiers who are raising the orphaned son of their commanding officer. As they each decide to go working in munitions factories, it is up to four women to take care of the boy as they wait for the men to return. It is based on a script from 1944 and shot in long black-and-white takes but it takes place in a strange present where clothes, locations and other things are familiar but the war still rages on.
This is so indie I can’t find anything on it beyond the trailer and Nippon Connection’s page and yet this one looks like fun! And no, this isn’t a sequel to the anime Bakemonogatari.
Synopsis from Nippon Connection: Chronicling the adventures of a young man and his sheep as well as the exploits of a middle-aged man who’s running after his first love, this film juxtaposes youthful spirit and nostalgic longing. While the two episodes range from cartoonish to melancholic, they both share a lot of warmth and humour depicting their sometimes fallible, but ultimately very lovable characters.
The director will be in town to introduce the film!
Search for this drama and you will find old entries dating back to 2011 and that is because the director Shoji Hiroshi made a short film of the same name and it travelled to different film festivals. From that short came this feature about two friends who deal in drugs. This has been picked up by Third Window Films for world sales.
Synopsis from JFDB: Ken (Kato Shinsuke) and Kazu (Maiguma Katsuya) are partners in crime who use a car repair shop as their front for dealing stimulants. Ken tries to make a clean break after his girlfriend Saki (Iijima Shuna) gets pregnant, but Kazu has a secret…
Synopsis from Nippon Connection: After a long prison sentence, Yoko’s father is released and placed in his daughter’s care, since no nursing home is willing to take him in. However, looking after her father every day gradually becomes a heavy burden for Yoko. Atsushi Urabe presents this story in a challenging reductionist style. Here, looks convey more than words do – and they can convey a simple yet deeply humanistic message.
Ryuichi Hiroki served as main director for the adaptation of Naoki Matayoshi’s bestselling novel – the first Japanese Netflix series, presented at Nippon Connection as a world premiere prior to its official release.
Synopsis from Nippon Connection: Tokunaga is an aspiring comedian who becomes the apprentice of veteran Kamiya. But while Tokunaga rises to fame, Kamiya starts to lose his shine.
This screening will take place in the presence of the leading actors Kento Hayashi and Kazuki Namioka as well as director Shinji Kuma.
Synopsis from Nippon Connection: Midori’s and Masao’s relationship has almost reached its end, when Midori realizes that she is pregnant. The couple unenthusiastically decides to marry, and over the course of the preparations they slowly begin to reconcile. In her second feature film, director and screenwriter Yukiko Sode shows her talent for telling a charming love story with memorable characters in an everyday setting.
The director Yukiko Sode will be in town to introduce the film!
Familiar Feature Films
Familiar films is a section dedicated to titles I have written about for trailer posts and previews of other festivals countless times. There are a many films that get their international premiere at Nippon Connection and some which have played at film festivals this year such as Osaka. The ones I think are the most interesting or worth watching to get the breadth and depth of Japanese cinema will be given full previews:
This small character-driven drama was one of the more interesting looking films from last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival. It’s directed by Satoko Yokohama and it’s her second feature film after a career of shorts which has taken her to film festivals around the world. The film stars Ken Yasuda a man who many Japanese will recognise as a character actor with a colourful career but now he is coming into his own as a lead actor. The film has earned good reviews.
Synopsis from the Tokyo International Film Festival: Takuji Kameoka (Ken Yasuda) is a 37-year-old bachelor whose occupation is a “miscellaneous actor”. His only interest is drinking. One day he falls in love with a bar owner (Kumiko Aso) and his boring life begins to change. The film is based on the book “Actor, Takuji Kameoka” by Akito Inui, a five-time nominee for Japan’s most prestigious literary prize, the Akutagawa Prize. Satoko Yokohama, a much-admired up-and-coming newcomer, directs the film and we can immediately tell that she is a special talent, with a unique understanding that flows through to her actors and crew.
The Ark in the Mirage「 蜃気楼の舟, Dir:Yasutomo Chikuma, 99 mins.」is about a man who works at a homeless shelter for old men. He exploits the people he looks after for their welfare payments. He was abandoned by his father after his mother died and has a cynical attitude but one day, he finds his father among the homeless men.
Being Good「きみはいい子, Dir:Mipo O, 121 mins.」 Mipo O is a director/writer who tackles tough subjects as seen in The Light Shines Only There. Her latest film is the adaptation of the book Kimi wa ii ko (You’re a Good Kid). The book is by Hatsue Nakawaki which won the 2012 Tsubota Jōji Literature Award. The book is a collection of five stories about child abuse and people trying to prevent it, each story occurs in the same town and on the same rainy afternoon. The film adapts two stories into one: Santa no konai ie (The House where Santa Doesn’t Come) and Beppin-san (Pretty Girl). The first story sees Tasuku (Kengo Kora), an idealistic primary school teacher struggling to deal with his class and their parents especially when he discovers that one of his pupils is being abused by his parents. The second story is about Masami (Machiko Ono), a woman who appears to be a good mother, can’t help lashing out at her own child because of traumas she suffered as a child…
Gonin Saga is another film that has been on the top ten lists of film critics. It has a good pedigree since it comes from Takashi Ishii, a veteran manga artist and filmmaker who specialises in hardboiled crime stories. Gonin Saga is a continuation of one of his best films as we revisit the story but through the eyes of the children of the original characters. The cast includes a range of talented young actors like Masanobu Ando, Masahiro Higashide, and Anna Tsuchiya. See this to watch a good crime drama from a master of the form.
Synopsis from the Vancouver International Film Festival’s website: Ishii Takashi’s Gonin (VIFF 1995) set the standard for neo-noir yakuza movies with its tale of five down-on-their-luck men taking on a powerful yakuza gang, the Goseikai—and facing deadly reprisals. Twenty-years-later, the sequel Gonin Saga brings this story up to date. Some of the original mavericks had families: Hisamatsu, for example, left a wife and son. Hisamatsu’s son Hayato (new star Higashide Masahiro) has an honest, crime-free life but is best friends with Ogoshi’s son Daisuke, who’s still working as a bodyguard for the gang. It all kicks off when a reporter asks Hayato’s mother to reveal the truth about the original attack on the Goseikei—and soon history is threatening to repeat itself.
The Inerasable「 残穢–住んではいけない部屋–, Dir:Yoshihiro Nakamura, 107 mins」 is a horror/mystery film from Yoshihiro Nakamura (The Snow White Murder Case) which is based on an award-winning novel. Both the film and novel are told in the first person as the main character investigates a haunted apartment and the fates of all the people involved in previous investigations, deaths and hauntings. Ai Hashimoto stars in this!
Her Father, My Lover「友だちのパパが好き, Dir:Kenji Yamauchi, 105 mins.」 stars Mitsuru Fukikoshi (Cold Fish2011) who plays the object of affection for his daughter Taeko’s best friend at university Maya who takes extreme measures to get her man. He’s not an entirely innocent party as he has been having an affair with another woman. The truth will come out and it will get even more ridiculous as Taeko can only watch…
Lowlife Love「下衆の愛 , Dir:Eiji Uchida, 110 mins.」comes from Eiji Uchida (Greatful Dead 2013) and takes a cunical look at the film industry in Japan through its leading character, a young indie director named Tetsuo (Kiyohiko Shibukawa) who had one big hit and, well… not much else. He now lives with his mother and scrounges off anyone he can. A potential second shot enters his life when he meets a talented scriptwriter and a girl fresh from the countryside who wants to be an actor. He thinks he can make something special…
Kiyohiko Shibukawa and the film’s producer Adam Torel (owner of Third Window Films) will be at the screening.
Three Stories of Love has been topping the end of year lists for many critics who specialise in Japanese films. It looks like a heady combination of comedy and drama rooted in strong writing that gives us the everyday lives of three people experiencing romance and frustration.
Synopsis: Bridge inspector Atsushi is grieving for his wife, the victim of a cruel murder, housewife Toko is longing to escape her unsatisfying marriage, and gay lawyer Shinomiya fails to be as successful in his love life as he is in his job.
Ryuzo And The Seven Henchmen「龍三と七人の子分たち, Dir:Takeshi Kitano, 111 mins.」 is Takeshi Kitano’s latest film and it is about an old yakuza gangster named Ryuzo and his seven former henchmen who have all retired and live quiet lives as regular old men until, one day, Ryuzo becomes the victim of a phishing scam and is outraged. He calls his seven men together to reform their criminal society.
Pieta in the Toilet「トイレノピエタ, Dir:Daishi Matsunaga, 120 mins.」is about a dying young artist who has stomach cancer. He gets the will to live again in his final three months after meeting a high school girl who believes in his art. This is based on the diary kept by the famous manga artist Osamu Tezuka (creator of Astro Boy) in the last weeks of his life. Tezuka also died of stomach cancer, but not at a very young age (61). The director will be present for the screening.
Sore Dake That’s It「それだけ that’s it, Dir: Gakuryu Ishii, 110 mins.」is a crime film starring a whole host of great actors – Shota Sometani, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Gou Ayano – and it sees them fight to get back their stolen identities from criminal organisations. The title of the film “Soredake” was inspired by the 1999 song “Soredake” by Japanese rock band Bloodthirsty Butchers. The band’s music is also feature in the film. This is the German premiere and audiences can watch it in the presence of actor Kiyohiko Shibukawa (only on May 24).
Synopsis: When three siblings named Fujio (Koji Kiryu), Yoshio (Yoichiro Saito) and Akiko (Yuri Nakamura) were children, they lived in a mountain village and saw the elusive “Ryoumou Deer,” but nobody believed them. As adults their paths have diverged. The eldest child Fujio still lives in the same village and runs small factory but he is in serious debt. The middle child, Yoshio is living in the psychiatric ward of a hospital. The youngest child, Akiko, lives Tokyo, having fallen in love with a man and ran away there. When their father becomes ill the three siblings reunite in their mountain village.
Pink and Grey「 ピンクとグレー, Dir:Isao Yukisada, 119 mins.」is a film about the dark side of fame and acting. In this story, Rengo Shiraki (Yuto Nakajima) and Daiki Kawata (Masaki Suda) have been friends since childhood and they both love movies so they go into acting. Rengo becomes popular and Daiki gets left behind. When Rengo dies he leaves six letters and Daiki has to decide which one to publish. Questions arise as to whether Rengo committed suicide or if he was murdered and now that Daiki is becoming popular due to the scandal, people are asking if he had something to do with it…
The director will be present when the film is screened.
Sanchu Uprising: Voices at Dawn「新しき民, Dir: Junichiro Yamasaki, 117 mins.」 is an indie film with ambition since it’s a jidaigeki! It’s based on a real life historical incident: in 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 off-screen as we follow the cowardly protagonist Jihei (Naohisa Nakagaki) who weighs the risks of rebellion and its aftermath. Synopsis part taken from Japan Cuts which aired it last year.
Their Distance「 知らない、ふたり, Dir: Rikiya Imaizumi, 106 mins.」stars a group of Japanese actors and Korean popstars. In this tale, Leon, a young man who earns his living as a shoemaker, is shy and keen to avoid others. He spends his days working although he does go out to a park he loves. This is where he sees a Korean woman named Sona (Hanae Kan) passed out and sleeping on a bench. This is a case of love at first sight because Leon keeps thinking about the girl but his co-worker at the shoe shop, Kokaze (Fumiko Aoyagi), has feelings for him… The director will be at the screening.
If you want to see the film but cannot make the festival then you can purchase or rent it online on YouTube.
Nagasaki: Memories of My Son「 母と暮らせば, Dir:Yoji Yamada, 130 mins.」Yoji Yamada is a stalwart of the Japanese film industry having worked with Yasujiro Ozu as an assistant director and then becoming a director himself. His films win awards and tend to feature family stories. This one is described as a sad but hopeful one. Its story sounds hard. Nobuko (Sayuri Yoshinaga) lives in post-war Nagasaki and works as a midwife. She survived the atomic bomb which killed her son Koji (Kazunari Ninomiya) three years earlier. She had already lost another son and her husband so she is alone. Then, one night, Koji appears again and gives comfort to his mother and they reminiscence about her painful past as well as pleasant times.
Starring: Kasumi Arimura, Atsushi Ito, Shuhei Nomura, Rie Minemura, Ken Yasuda, Airi Matsui, Yo Yoshida, Tetsushi Tanaka,
The film is based on the novel “Gakunen Biri no Gyaru ga 1 nen de Hensachi o 40 Agete Keio Daigaku ni Geneki Gokaku Shita Hanashi” by Nobutaka Tsubota (published December 26, 2013 by Kadokawa) and the novel is based on the true story of the author Nobutaka Tsubota, who runs a cram school, and his student Sayaka Kobayashi who went from academic zero to hero in the space of a year. This is a fun and revealing look at the Japanese education system with characters you come to love!
Synopsis: Blonde-haired “gyaru” Sayaka has always been more interested in fashion than her studies. Because of this, she now has the scholastic aptitude of a 4th grader as a second-year high school student. However, when she visits a cram school, lecturer Mr. Tsubota recognizes her innate intelligence. After an informal discussion, and with the support of her family, Sayaka becomes determined not only to improve her grades, but to spend her final year of high school working hard toward getting accepted into prestigious Keio University.
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…
My Technicolor Girl「夢の女 ユメノヒト, Dir:Rei Sakamoto, 71 mins.」This was one of a number of films at Nippon Connection that was at the Osaka Asian Film Festival which I wrote about back in March. It stars Kazuhiro Sano as a man named Nagano who has been hospitalized at a 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. Nagaon’s strongest desire is to meet the woman he loved and so he sets out on a bike headed for Tokyo.
Shorts
Cinéma Concrete (23 mins) directed by Takashi Makino explores the tenuous links of memory and thoughts as he combines musique concrete composed by Dutch musician Machinefabriek with imagery that plays with screen depth through layering and superimposing images and shadows. This is played with Action Direct, which is described as “an homage to the late music critic Teruto Soejima and will be accompanied live by Makino and British jazz musician Hilary Jeffery.” Both films can be viewed in 3D.
Skip City International D-Cinema Festival Presentfeatures three short films from 2015 and the titles are The Afterimage 「あの残像を求めて, Hiroki Kumamoto, 25 mins.」, Girl, Wavering 「空っぽの渦, Noriko Yuasa, 25 mins.」and Ondine’s Curse 「オンディーヌの呪い, Dir: Sayaka Kai, 30 mins.」.
Horror Films
This section is dedicated to scary Japanese ghost stories. These stories usually revolved around women used and abused by samurai who came back from the dead (NEVER, EVER underestimate women). Each of these films is a classic and so they are introduced by film critics and scholars. Full write-ups because I have watched around half of these and can confirm they are worth tracking down.
Kadokawa and Cineric Laboratories worked together to restore this classic Jidaigeki from Kenji Mizoguchi. This is considered one of the best Japanese films from the Golden Age period of filmmaking (and ever as far as I’m concerned). It won Ugetsu the Silver Lion Award for Best Direction at the Venice Film Festival in 1953 and audiences get to see a version which has restored visuals. Martin Scorcese and cameraman/cinematographer Masahiro Miyajima (Ran) acted as consultants. Here’s a trailer from the Masters of Cinema release put out by Eureka in 2012.
Synopsis:The story is set in the Sengoku period and follows a potter named Genjuro and his brother-in-law who leave their loyal wives to become famous samurai only for tragedy to strike Genjuro when he comes under the spell of Lady Wakasa and the ghosts she is surrounded by.
Kwaidan consists of four tales are adapted from Greek-born Lafcadio Hearn’s classic collection Japanese ghost stories about mortals caught up in forces beyond their comprehension when the supernatural world intervenes in their lives. The film has gone down as a classic and is widely available in the west. With striking cinematography and surrealist hand-painted sets, Kwaidan’s look is a unique abstract mix of luminescent colours that seemingly come from another world.
An introduction by Tom Mes precedes the screening.
Synopsis from Nippon Connection: During a civil war in medieval Japan, an old woman and her daughter-in-law lure warriors into traps, then kill them and sell their goods to make a living. But soon, the girl’s affair with a neighbor ends the partnership with her mother-in-law, with fatal consequences. Shot in deeply aesthetic black and white, ONIBABA combines grim realism, erotic elements, and subtle horror to tell a parable about the terrors of war.
Synopsis from Nippon Connection: A doctor and his wife must face a vengeful ghost and an old curse that is tied to their house. Nakagawa’s use of both stark black-and-white imagery and gorgeous colour photography shows his masterful ability to create suspense and atmosphere. He would follow up with two milestones of Japanese horror cinema: The Ghost of Yotsuya and Jigoku.
Synopsis from Nippon Connection: Shiro and his ominous fellow student Tamura kill a man in a car accident. Conscience-stricken, Shiro is drawn into a seemingly inescapable vortex of dramatic events, leading him into the most horrible depths of hell. With his surrealistic masterpiece Jigoku, Nobuo Nakagawa created an atmospheric and unique vision of a bleak world (and terrifying underworld) filled with sins and suffering.
Arguably the most famous Japanese ghost story of all time, Yotsuya Kaidan has been remade multiple times (30 times!!!) with the most recent example being Kaidan directed by Hideo Nakata. This one is the 1959 version directed by Nobuo Nakagawa, the man who would later go onto to film Jigoku (also at this festival). It is based on a Kabuki play written way back in 1825 and follows the misfortunes of two families locked in a deadly curse. According to Nippon Connection, this one is considered one of the finest versions because of its focus on the psychological aspects of the story.
Other adaptations of the film are available at this festival such as…
Synopsis from Nippon Connection: Influenced by an old friend, down-and-out masterless samurai Iemon forges a plan to murder his obedient wife Oiwa and marry the rich and beautiful Oume. However, plagued by his guilty conscience, he is soon destined for doom. Keisuke Kinoshita reinterprets the classic horror story as a human tragedy. Instead of malice and hate, he depicts weak souls sealing their own tragic fate.
Synopsis from Nippon Connection: Kenji Misumi’s Yotsuya Kwaidan is presumed to be the first coloured film version of the famous play. Deviating heavily from the original source, Fuji Yahiro depicts cold blooded protagonist Iemon as a tragic hero. The “righteous revenge” for his ruthlessly murdered wife leads to the redemption of her evil spirit. The visionary finale is without a question the apex of this underrated masterpiece.
This two hour plus documentary ostensibly looks at life inside an oyster factory in the small harbour town of Ushimado on the Japanese Inland Sea but takes in the lack of young people entering the works, the generational divide and Chinese-Japanese relations as Chinese workers are brought in to help keep an oyster factory running.
Synopsis from the film’s website: In the Japanese town of Ushimado, the shortage of labor is a serious problem due to its population’s rapid decline. Traditionally, oyster shucking has been a job for local men and women, but for a few years now, some of the factories have had to use foreigners in order to keep functioning. Hirano oyster factory has never employed any outsiders but finally decides to bring in two workers from China. Will all the employees get along?
Daku (Hug) / A Lullaby Under the Nuclear Sky 「抱く, Dir: Tomoko Kana, 69 mins.」The director Tomoko Kana turns the camera on herself and her pregnancy. After the 3/11 Earthquake and Tsunami she visited the evacuation zone around the Fukushima nuclear disaster and found out that she was pregnant. From that moment on, she investigated the fear of radiation.
The Birth Of Saké「Dir: Erik Shirai、90 mins.」is a documentary that looks at Japan’s Yoshida Brewery which was founded more than 140 years ago and is one of the last places to still practice the traditional method of creating sake which means that workers, eat, sleep and live together for half of the year, working long hours to create the liquor. Director Erik Shirai looks into the process of making sake, the skill and effort of the people involved including Toji Yamamato, the head brewmaster who has worked at Yoshida for more than 55 years, and a new generation of people at the brewery, and looks at the sake itself showing why it is an internationally famous beverage. Audiences at the screening will get a bento box, apple wine, and sake!!!
Doglegs 「Dir: Heath Cozens、89 mins.」features a pro wrestler with cerebral palsy named Shintaro. The story revolves around his desire to retire after twenty years and he wants to go out with a bang with a match against his more able-bodied mentor and nemesis, Kitajima. There’s another film called Budding, Swelling (Dir: Ryoya Usuha, 7 mins.) that plays with this doc.
Under the Cherry Tree「桜の樹の下, Dir: Kei Tanaka, 91 mins.」 is about a group of elderly people who live in a public housing complex in Kawasaki city reveal their tough lives complete with laughter and tears and now they face retirement in an inhospitable building.
Live Fashionably or Die「神様たちの街, Dir: Yukio Tanaka, 75 mins.」 looks at a project that was set up to help people overcome the disastrous earthquake in January 1995 in Kobe and that project helps elderly people through a fashion show where they walk the runway as models. The short film, The Girl Who Never Knew War 「Dir: Yoshimasa Jimbo, 20 mins.」is screened with this one.
Katabui – In the Heart of Okinawa「Dir: Daniel Lopez, 80 mins.」is all about the islanders struggle to keep their identity whilst living with the U.S. military bases in Okinawa and the dominance of Tokyo.
Nature and Its Manifestations: From Four Poems「自然と兆候/4つの詩から, Dir: Takamasa Iwasaki, 50 mins.」 travels to the ghost towns and depopulated landscapes to see how nature reconquers the space freed from human presence and does so through the eyes of three fellow artists who explore the poetic chronicle of life, death, and rebirth.
Close but Distant 「ちかくてとおい, Dir:Yui Okubo, 53 mins.」 looks at the town of Otsuchi in Iwate Prefecture and its reconstruction. What makes this a personal story is that this is the director’s home town and he involves his niece who has never known what it looked like before the disaster.
Dryads in a Snow Valley 「風の波紋, Dir: Shigeru Kobayashi, 99 mins.」 follows a family who moved from Tokyo to a remote mountain village in Niigata prefecture to join a few other people making a new start. The family built their own house and grow their own rice and endure the tough climate. This documentary captures their day-to-day lives to try to understand the motivation behind the choice to leave cities behind.
Daisuke Hosaka made his feature film directorial debut with Be the World for Her (2005) which won him the Special Jury Award at the 2005 Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival. Since then he has worked in the television industry as a director as well as writing scripts. His movie comeback is Thank You, Mom (2015). Both films mentioned are played at the festival and the director plus the actor Shigeo Osako will be in attendance.
Synopsis from Nippon Connection: As an unmarried salaryman, Shugo still lives with his dad and can hardly believe his “luck” when a “robotic mom” moves in with the two men. The entertaining family short film was produced under the artistic auspices of Daisuke Hosaka in the context of a seminar at the Film School of Tokyo.
Synopsis from Nippon Connection: Hiroki and Kaori seem like two normal Japanese high school teenagers involved in the usual disasters of everyday life. When Hiroki mysteriously disappears, Kaori discovers a conspiracy of incredible proportions. Daisuke HOSAKA’s teenage-sci-fi-parable became the surprise hit at the 2005 Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival.
You can stream the film via the Loadshow website if you cannot attend the festival but remain interested.
The Japanese Embassy in London will Screen Kei Kumai’s Film Darkness in the Light on April 12th at 18:30. Doors open at 18:00 and you will need to register before heading in.
Kei Kumai is probably most well-known for the period drama The Sea is Watching (2002) which got a DVD release in the UK (it’s in my local library) although Darkness in the Light is completely different since it offers a take on a tragedy in contemporary Japan, the sarin gas attacks that took place in 1994. It played at the Berlin Film Festival in 2001.
Synopsis: The poison gas incident that occurred in the city of Matsumoto on the night of 27 June 1994 was a terrible disaster that claimed a large number of casualties. The police searched the home of a man, an average citizen, who was the first to inform them of the incident and who was himself one of the victims, on suspicion of murder, without any clear grounds for suspicion.
Through the eyes of high school students who later investigate the mass media coverage of the crime, the film depicts an innocent human being who finds himself in desperate straits due to the power of the police and the mass media, which made wildly inaccurate reports. It also highlights his strong bonds with his family who firmly believe in his innocence in spite of all the cruel slander and prejudice they experience. The director forcefully scrutinises the media reporting and the police investigation carried out at the time as he painstakingly brings the truth to light.
The film will be screened on Thursday, May 12th 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 watched one film this week and that was Ran (1985) for the third time this year after watching it at a cinema for the first time ever. If you live in the UK you can watch it on BBC iPlayer – it screened on BBC Four! – for a day more (I should have reported on it being on iPlayer earlier). I have completed lots of writing because I want to spend the next few months studying. Two posts this week, one for Nippon Connection and another for a film screening at the Japanese embassy.
Synopsis: Juzaburo Kokutaya (Sadao Abe) and his fellows are working to meet impossible taxes and labour demands. To overcome their problems they plan to lend large amounts of money to a han (historical term for the estate of a warrior) and distribute the interest annually to the residents, but if they’re caught breaching social etiquette like this they will lose their lives.
HK: Forbidden Super Hero the Abnormal Crisis
Hentai Kamen Abnormal Crisis Film Poster
HK 変態仮面アブノーマル・クライシス「HK Hentai Kamen Abunomaru Kuraishisu」
Synopsis: HK Kamen, real name Kyosuke (Ryohei Suzuki), lives in a city where panties are disappearing but he still wears Aiko’s (Fumika Shimizu) panties to battle evil but she takes her panties back and this leaves Kyosuke unable to transform just as a new enemy appears…
The Whispering Star was originally created and screened as part of an art exhibition which had the theme of dystopia running through it. The film was shot in different locations in the Fukushima prefecture, turning depopulated and irradiated areas into a futuristic landscape that speaks of hopelessness, pollution, and abandonment. It stars people who live in the areas and Sion Sono’s wife.
Synopsis:A spaceship shaped like a Japanese bungalow careens through the galaxy. It carries a humanoid robot named Yoko (Megumi Kagurazaka), a sort of interstellar UPS delivery person. Her job is simple: to distribute packages to human beings scattered across sundry planets. But with so much spare time between deliveries, Yoko begins to wonder what’s in those packages.
The director for this one is Akira Nagai and he made Judge! (2014) which is a fun comedy a million miles away from this. It’s a serious drama with Takeru Sato (Rurouni Kenshin and Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno), Aoi Miyazaki (The Great Passage, Eureka), Mieko Harada (Ran) and other good actors. I met Akira Nagai and he was a nice chap.
Synopsis: A postman (Takeru Sato) who has recently started living independently learns that he doesn’t have much time left to live due to a terminal illness. A devil (Takeru Sato) appears and offers to extend his life if he picks something in the world that will disappear. The man thinks about his relationships with friends (Gaku Hamada), ex-lovers (Aoi Miyazaki), his mother (Mieko Harada) and father (Eiji Okuda) and other relatives and friends who will be sincerely sad when he dies.
Synopsis: A documentary about the man, the legend, Sion Sono. We get to hear about his background, his early films and his current ones like Shinjuku Swan and Whispering Star. This documentary was shot by Shin Oshima, son of Nagisa Oshima.
About My Liberty
About My Liberty Film Poster
わたしの自由について SEALDs 2015 「Watashi no juyu ni tsuite: SEALDs 2015」
There’s an English language option on the website so check out this important story if you want to know more about Japanese politics.
Synopsis from the films website: A documentary following the turmoil of summer 2015 in Japan and the student activist group ‘SEALDs’ that led the crowds and kept protesting in front of the National Diet building.
Synopsis from the films website: A documentary which looks into the visual representation of “deaf music” with many of the staff and performers made up of deaf people. It’s an interesting concept.
Synopsis from the films website: This documentary shows couples in the Chugoku Mountains living independently from the rest of the world once they reach their sixtieth birthday. We see the difficulties in being separated from family as well a good times.
Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:
Zootopia (2016/04/23)
Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare (2016/04/16)
64: Part 1 Prequel (2016/05/07)
Captain America Civil War (2016/04/29)
Crayon Shin-chan Movie 24: Bakusui! Yumemi World Dai Totsugeki (2016/04/16)
Road to High & Low (2016/05/07)
Chihayafuru Part II Shimo no ku (2016/04/29)
I Am a Hero (2016/04/23)
Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions (2016/04/23)
This year’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival takes place from June 13th to the 18th and the event sees a global collection of artists and animators attend the prestigious event to showcase their works, give talks and take part in other industry events. You can’t talk animation without including Japan and this year there is a varied list of titles.
Tatsuyuki Nagai is a director and Mari Okada is a writer who specialise in telling dramatic stories in anime. Their greatest collaboration is arguably anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day but this, their latest work together, looks good.
Synopsis from the official English-language website: Jun is a girl whose words have been sealed away. She was once a happy girl, but because of a [certain thing] she said when she was very young, her family was torn apart. One day, the egg fairy appeared in front of her and sealed away her ability to talk in order to stop her from hurting anybody else. Since this traumatic experience, Jun lives in the shadows away from the limelight. But, one day she is nominated to become an executive member of the “community outreach council.” On top of that, Jun is also appointed to play the main lead in their musical…
This is an animation dating back from 1973 and it has returned to the world having undergone a 4K restoration based on the original negatives. It is an erotic anime, the third and last of the adult-oriented Animerama trilogy produced by the “Godfather of Manga” Osamu Tezuka. The film was directed by his long-time collaborator Eiichi Yamamoto (Astro Boy). It is based on the book Satanism and Witchcraft by French writer Jules Michelet and it features a psychedelic rock soundtrack.
Synopsis: Young and innocent Jeanne is ravaged by the local lord and makes a pact with the Devil himself. The Devil–voiced by legendary actor Tatsuya Nakadai (Ran, The Human Condition)–appears in phallic forms and, through Jeanne, incites the village into a sexual frenzy.
Mamoru Hosoda’s latest film is a continuation of his series of stories that mix fantasy and reality and 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.
Synopsis:After his mother’s death, Ren decides not to live with his guardians but fend for himself in the streets of Tokyo. There, he meets the powerful warrior Kumatetsu, and retreats into the world of beasts. Being one of two contenders to become the new Beast Lord of the realm, Kumatetsu must train an apprentice before earning the title. He chooses Ren as his disciple and changes the boy’s name to Kyuta.
Synopsis from MAL:Gamba, a town mouse with a brave, adventurous spirit decides to go on an adventure to discover the ocean. On his way, he meets a troubled child mouse, Chuta. He says his family and other mice have been killed by a clan of weasels living on a nearby island. Chuta asks a group of ship mice, the bravest of their kind, for help, but when they find out that the villain behind this event is the terrifying weasel-leader Noroi, they give up on helping Chuta. However seeing the hopeless Chuta, Gamba promises him to save the island, his family and the other mice. Gamba and his friends team up to go on their adventure to defeat the evil Noroi and his clan.
The Focus on Territories programme has a Focus on Tokyo section where “which will feature talented representatives from the Tokyo animation industry, selected by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.”
Koji Fukada, a director famous for live-action films like Au revoir l’ete (2013) made the anime La Grenadière(2006, 48 mins.) and that will be screened at this year’s Annecy. Fukada has his latest live-action film premiering at Cannes this week.
Japan has a healthy system of creating animators and you can see graduation works from the latest crop of young animators. These include Natsu no megami no kuchi no naka (Dir: Liu Xinin) and the story is a simple one: The beach of a Chinese resort is packed. People are enjoying the summer holidays. An abrupt thundershower makes them run around in a flurry.
Nanimo-minakuteii (Nothing You Need to See)(Dir: Keigo Ito) is a little weirder since it features a young man turning his face inside out… And then there is Feed (Dir: Eri Okazaki) which is about: Two enormous creatures count down the end of a day, food is served as it was the day before. Children feed their goat as usual, feeling uneasy about their own daily life.
Other anime can be found in places like Commissioned Films in Competition 1 where Ez3Kiel “L’Œil du cyclone” (Dir: Masanobu Hiraoka) is playing. This is a music video which can be found online:
There’s also the music video for Sasanomaly “The Synesthesia Ghost” (Dir: Atsushi Makino):
There’s a Japanese entry in TV Films in Competition 4 called Super Short Comics “Into the Pocket” (5 mins. Dir: Keisuke Matsumoto). There are shorts like Suijungenten (Dir: Ryo Orikasa) in the Short Film Competition. Yoshiro Ishihara (1915–1977), who burst upon the scene of Japanese modern poetry in the mid-1950s, is now remembered as a “poet of silence.” He said, “A poem is an impulse to resist writing.” This film is an attempt to seek out the landscape from his poem. There is also “Parade” de Satie (Dir: Koji Yamamura).
The film section on the Japan Society (New York) website has a listing for a screening of Love Exposure (2009). There’s this sentence:
“In anticipation of the upcoming 10th edition of JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film (July 14-24, 2016) we screen Sion Sono’s notorious masterpiece about love, family, religion and upskirt photography.”
That sentence leads me to assume that Sion Sono’s two latest films, Whispering Star and Love and Peace will get screened at Japan Cuts this year. The two have been on the festival circuit and are at this year’s Nippon Connection.
Back to Love Exposure. It is a fun film, very long, and filled with cool references like Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41. There are great performances from Makiko Watanabe as a super sex maniac, Atsuro Watabe as a hapless priest and Hikari Mitsushima as a kick-ass girl! Here’s my review from four years ago. The film is occasionally played on television in the UK and you can purchase the Third Window Films Blu-ray and DVD release.
Synopsis: After feeling rejected by his Catholic priest father for not having any sins to confess, high schooler Yu dives headfirst into sinning by becoming a master “peek-a-panty” photographer. Along the way, he gets entangled in an absurd love triangle involving his step-sister and his female alter ego, all the while being stalked by a parakeet-handling cult leader intent on taking everyone he loves away from him. A JAPAN CUTS fan-favorite and one of the most memorable films released in the last ten years, Love Exposure is destined to be regarded as a classic of Japanese cinema.
This has been a bit of a quiet week for me. I reviewed two films and I watched two films this week: Petal Dance (2013) and Florence Foster Jenkins (2016). I started watching the TV anime The Lost Village (Mayoiga 迷家). I am on episode three and I think it’s the funniest thing I have seen since Osomatsu-san. It is filled with characters and so over the top it has become absurd. I’m also watching Two Best Friends Play Silent Hill 2 because I find the Best Friends funny and because I’m a big Silent Hill 2 fan.
Film of the week! This is the latest film from Hirokazu Koreeda (Kiseki) which is playing at Cannes and reviews are good. In The Hollywood Reporter review from Deborah Young she states:
“As sweet as a ripe cherry at first glance, it has a rocky pit, as viewers who bite deeply will find out. More casual audiences may not even perceive it. This bittersweet peek into the human comedy has a more subtle charm than flashier films like the director’s child-swapping fable Like Father, Like Son, but the filmmaking is so exquisite and the acting so calibrated it sticks with you.”
“Featuring an uncomplicated plot and easily relatable personalities, this is a divertissement compared with the thematic heft of “Like Father, Like Son.” Still its gentle contemplation of life’s disappointments and human inadequacy may draw new recruits beyond the director-writer’s euro-arthouse base.”
He reunites with familiar actors like Hiroshi Abe and Kirin Kiki (both of whom were in Still Walking), Yoko Maki and Lily Franky (who were in Like Father, Like Son) as well as new actors like Sosuke Ikematsu (How Selfish I Am!). Stay tuned for a review of Our Little Sister (2015) which was at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Synopsis from IMDB:Dwelling on his past glory as a prize-winning author, Ryota (Hiroshi Abe) wastes the money he makes as a private detective on gambling and can barely pay child support. After the death of his father, his aging mother (Kirin Kiki) and beautiful ex-wife (Yoko Make) seem to be moving on with their lives. Renewing contact with his initially distrusting family, Ryota struggles to take back control of his existence and to find a lasting place in the life of his young son (Taiyo Yoshizawa) – until a stormy summer night offers them a chance to truly bond again.
Garm Wars: The Last Druid
Garm Wars the Last Druid Film Poster
ガルム・ウォーズ 「Garumu Wo-zu」
Release Date: May 20th, 2016
Running Time: 92 mins.
Director: Mamoru Oshii
Writer: Mamoru Oshii, Geoffrey Gunn, Gen Urobuchi (Screenplay),
Starring: Lance Henriksen, Kevin Durand, Melanie St-Pierre, Dawn Ford, Summer H. Howell, Andrew Gillies, Garm wars the Last Druid
I wrote about this one when I reported on the BFI’s Anime Weekend in June. I picked this trailer for the post because it has music from regular Oshii collaborator Kenji Kawai. Mamoru Oshii has created a film in a similar vein to his 2002 film Avalon – a mix of CG and live-action. While some of the shots in the trailer look stunning it is the music that captures the imagination! Here’s an interview conducted with the director for the Toronto International Film Festival.
Synopsis:A clone war has overtaken the world with three tribes battling for air, land and technology. When one clone finds herself lost and on the run, she falls in with an unlikely group.
Synopsis:Taira Ashihara (Yuya Yagira) and his younger brother Shota (Nijiro Murakami) live by themselves in the small seaport town Mitsuhama. Taira Ashihara is always getting into scuffles and so he moves to the city of Matsuyama where he picks fights whenever he spots someone who looks tough. This attracts the attention of a criminal named Yuya Kitahara (Masaki Suda) and the two steal a car and head out of town with an occupant named Nana (Nana Komatsu) still in it. Shota goes looking for his brother…
Synopsis:The story surrounds a man named Tatsuo and his two friends. They run a badger game and extort money from their victims. One day, they pick the wrong target. A person they thought was an ordinary man turns out to be a yakuza. This mistake costs Tatsuo’s friend Hide a severe beating and two ribs that are pulled out of him. Tatsuo finds himself forced to enter even further into the criminal underworld where he finds he is now made to take revenge on others at any cost…
I have vague memories of reading or watch a programme based on Shojo Tsubaki the original source for this film, Midori – The Camellia Girl. It is an example of ero-guro (the erotic grotesque) and has been influential. Film director and clothes designer, TORICO takes up the tale and uses his skills to create a unique film.
Synopsis:Midori (Risa Nakamura) is a 14-year-old girl who doesn’t have a family who is picked by the Aka Neko circus troupe alongside Wanda Masamitsu (Shunsuke Kazama), a man who has supernatural powers. Midori has an affinity for Wanda, but she is afraid of him. Wanda gets members of the circus troupe to follow him using his supernatural powers and even commits murder.
I really like the TV anime and watched it through. There are so many elements to the live-action doramas and films that I find it overwhelming and something I am not prepared to get into but the anime was a great introduction. I am not sure how popular it was with fans but I am happy to see it get a continuation in movie form.
Synopsis from Anime News Network and MAL: León, who has succeeded the name of Golden Knight “GARO” devotes himself to train a young Makai Knight for the next generation, together with Prince Alfonso of the Valiante Kingdom. Then, they receive an order to exterminate the most beautiful Horror in the world which resides in a neighboring country “Vazelia”. At the same time, a young Makai Knight for the next generation is kidnapped by an unknown person. León desperately follows them, only to find that he is surrounded by his enemies at a dead end. Then, a Makai Knight Dario who was supposed to be missing for some time suddenly appears and rescues him. Under his guidance, León is led to the town where he meets up a totally unexpected person.
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin III Dawn of Rebellion
Mobile Suit Gundam The Origin III Dawn of Rebellion Film Poster
機動戦士ガンダム THE ORIGIN III 哀しみのアルテイシア「Kido Senshi Gundam: The Origin III Akatsuki no Hōki」
Synopsis: This is the third in a four part series that will tellthe story of Casval Rem Deikun and Artesia Som Deikun (Char and Sayla, before Char became known as the Red Comet) before the One-Year War in UC.0068. The episode follows the youth who would become known as Char Aznable and his future comrade Garma Zabi after they join the Zeons’ military academy. Find out more at Anime News Network.
Synopsis from from Anime News Network: This is the third OVA episode from the Durarara!! series that hs been released in cinemas. It slots in between episode 19 and 20 and is titled “Dufufufu!!.” The episode revolves around an incident with a “fake Shizuo.” Who gets caught up with and another blonde-haired, sunglasses-wearing man wearing a bartender outfit named Shidzuo Nobusuma. Shidzuo is a young hoodlum. As the two men’s fates are entangled, a new legend is born on the streets of Ikebukuro.
Naze Ikiru: Rennyo Shounin to Yoshizaki Enjou
Naze Ikiru Rennyo Shounin to Yoshizaki Enjou Film Poster
なぜ生きる 蓮如上人と吉崎炎上 「Naze Ikiru: Rennyo Shounin to Yoshizaki Enjou」
The film is based on the 2001 book Naze Ikiru written by Kentetsu Takamori and apparently that book was later published in English in 2006 under the title You Were Born for a Reason: The Real Purpose of Life.
The author, Takamori, is the chairman of Jodo Shinshu Shinrankai, an organization which conveys the teachings the Buddhist monk Shinran, who lived during Japan’s Kamakura period. Shinran is considered to be the founder of Shin Buddhism, the most widely practiced branch of Buddhism in Japan. The anime is distributed by Suurkiitos, the guys who produced My Pretend Girlfriend.
Synopsis from MAL: Ryouken, a young man who hates temples and monks, laments his misfortunes but finds hope in his soon-to-be-born child. An unfortunate accident took everything from Ryouken. In the days of self-abandonment and suffering in darkness, Ryouken finds the teachings of the high priest Rennyo. In it, he finds answers to the question “Why live” as explained by the sage Shinran. As he is drawn into the teachings and no longer hesitates, Ryouken becomes Rennyo’s apprentice. The number of worshippers increase, but the Honganji temple becomes a target of the other sects, forcing Ryouken and Rennyo to flee from Kyoto. In order to find a new place to teach, they arrive in Yoshizaki (now in Fukui Prefecture) in the Hokuriku region.
She and Her Cat – Everything Flows
She and Her Cat – Everything Flows Film Poster
彼女と彼女の猫 Everything Flows 「Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko Everything Flows」
Synopsis from MAL: For the longest time, it’s just been the two of them. “Kanojo” and her cat Daru are inseparable, having grown up together. Now a junior in college, Tomoka—her roommate of a year and a half—moves out of their shared apartment, and in order to keep her living space, Kanojo must find a job. Day by day, Daru watches her continued efforts from a cat’s-eye view, eagerly awaiting his owner’s return. When she gets back, once again, it’s just she and her cat.
Yamikin Dogs 3
Yamikin Dogs 3 Film Poster
闇金ドッグス 3 「Yamakin Doggusu 3」
Release Date: May 21st, 2016
Running Time: 77 mins.
Director: Tetsuhiko Tsuchiya
Writer: Masao Iketani (Screenplay),
Starring: Yuki Yamada, Kanji Tsuda, Ami Tomite, Megumi, Naoki Yamazaki,
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.Characters from the first film show up like Erina Himeno, a former idol, who has not given up her dreams despite being in a tough situation. Things are bad because the president of an unscrupulous production company is taking advantage of the people he works with.
Synopsis: Mosh Pit is what the title suggests a music documentary shot on 17 cameras. It records a concert on November 18, 2015 at Tokyo’s Ebisu Liquid Room. We’re taken through numerous performances with a helping hand from the singer Asami Hokuto of the rock band “Have a Nice Day!”
Synopsis: Japan is famous for many many things and that extends to swords which is what this documentary is about. We see what types of swords there are, the techniques involved in making them which have been handed down from ancient times and the manufacturing process. There are interviews with chaps like Sadatoshi Gassan. You can find out more about him in this interview first published in 2001.
Synopsis: Hisako Matsui is a famous documentary and fiction film maker who has had her works screened at festivals around the world. Her last film was a look at feminism in Japan and this one is about the Japanese Costitution and different people like academics, diplomats, housewives and freeters reflecting on it and what it means.
Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:
Zootopia (2016/04/23)
The Magnificent Nine (2016/05/14)
If Cats Disappeared From the World (2016/05/14)
Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare (2016/04/16)
64: Part 1 Prequel (2016/05/07)
Captain America Civil War (2016/04/29)
Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions (2016/04/23)
Crayon Shin-chan Movie 24: Bakusui! Yumemi World Dai Totsugeki (2016/04/16)
Great news! The film distributor Third Window Films has announced a release date for Love and Peace! It will be out on DVD and Bluray from July 11th!!!
This announcement is on the appropriate day since it’s World Turtle Day and the film features a magical turtle!
Love and Peace Pikadon!
Love and Peace is based on a script that Sion Sono wrote 25 years ago, around the time of Suicide Club. It is story is definitely from a time period when Sono was making wild films. This is a fantasy comedy of sorts about a sad-sack company man meeting a magical turtle and becoming a rock star! 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. This as been labelled as one of Sono’s passion projects and a slice of the “real” Sion Sono. Reviews are all positive that this is a great title to watch!
“If you see just one new Sion Sono movie this year, make it “Love & Peace”” Variety
“Ambitious and silly, perfectly blending the surreal with the saccharine to create something that’s simply a joy to watch.” Twitchfilm
“Visually stunning, endlessly creative, and it doesn’t fail to deliver on the kaiju promise!” Eye For Film
Synopsis: 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…
It’s available to pre-order at Amazon. Fans of Sion Sono who live in New York can see his epic love storyLove Exposure on the big screen next month when Japan Society New York screen it.
The 2016 Edinburgh International Film Festival takes place in June and it runs from the 15th to the 26th. The programme was revealed today and there is an interesting line-up that mixes classic and contemporary films. Highlights include Satoko Yokohama’s latest, The Actor and indie crime film Ken and Kazu.
This small character-driven drama was one of the more interesting looking films from last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival. It’s directed by Satoko Yokohama and it’s her second feature film after a career of shorts which has taken her to film festivals around the world. The film stars Ken Yasuda a man who many Japanese will recognise as a character actor with a colourful career but now he is coming into his own as a lead actor. The film has earned good reviews.
Synopsis from the Tokyo International Film Festival: Takuji Kameoka (Ken Yasuda) is a 37-year-old bachelor whose occupation is a “miscellaneous actor”. His only interest is drinking. One day he falls in love with a bar owner (Kumiko Aso) and his boring life begins to change. The film is based on the book “Actor, Takuji Kameoka” by Akito Inui, a five-time nominee for Japan’s most prestigious literary prize, the Akutagawa Prize. Satoko Yokohama, a much-admired up-and-coming newcomer, directs the film and we can immediately tell that she is a special talent, with a unique understanding that flows through to her actors and crew.
Starring:Aiko Nagayama, Katsutaka Ito, Tatsuya Nakadai, Chinatsu Nakayama,
This is an animation dating back from 1973 and it has returned to the world having has undergone a 4K restoration based on the original negatives. It is an erotic anime, the third and last of the adult-oriented Animerama trilogy produced by the “Godfather of Manga” Osamu Tezuka and directed by his long-time collaborator Eiichi Yamamoto (Astro Boy). It is based on the book Satanism and Witchcraft by French writer Jules Michelet and it features a psychedelic folk rock soundtrack.
Synopsis: Young and innocent Jeanne is ravaged by the local lord and makes a pact with the Devil himself. The Devil–voiced by legendary actor Tatsuya Nakadai (Ran, The Human Condition)–appears in phallic forms and, through Jeanne, incites the village into a sexual frenzy.
Lowlife Love has finally come to Britain after touring world film festivals from Tokyo to Rotterdam to Nippon Connection and reviews are positively glowing.
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…
Search for this drama and you will find old entries dating back to 2011 and that is because the director Shoji Hiroshi made a short film of the same name and it travelled to different film festivals. From that short came this feature about two friends who deal in drugs. This has been picked up by Third Window Films for world sales.
Synopsis from JFDB: Ken (Kato Shinsuke) and Kazu (Maiguma Katsuya) are partners in crime who use a car repair shop as their front for dealing stimulants. Ken tries to make a clean break after his girlfriend Saki (Iijima Shuna) gets pregnant, but Kazu has a secret…
Originally released in 1983, this UK/Japanese co-production is most famous for Ryuichi Sakamoto’s soundtrack. It’s a relationship drama played out between four men, two of them portrayed by great actors and one by Ryuichi Sakamoto! Takeshi Kitano (Hana-bi, Kikujiro, Battle Royale) plays a brutal and jovial cam guard while David Bowie proves he can be a great actor as well as a great musician. It’s one of Oshima’s more famous films and more readily available. The British producer of the film, Jeremy Thomas will be present to discuss the film.
Synopsis: Major Jack Celliers (Bowie) was captured on a chindit raid and is now a POW. Captain Yonoi (Sakamoto) is the camp commandant. The two feel drawn to each other as kindred spirits because they both carry guilt from past incidents they were/weren’t involved in. Lieutenant Colonel John Lawrence (Conti) and Sergeant Hara (Kitano) both witness and question the bond of the two men. All four find themselves caught up in the vagaries of a cruel war.
This screened on British television in the early 2000s and it bowled me over. I would love to see it again in a cinema. Here’s more from the festival website:
Synopsis: Based on the memoirs of Vladimir Arsenievan, the early 20th century explorer who mapped much of the territory of the Russian Far East, Akira Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala tells the story of an unusual friendship between Arseniev (Yuri Solomin) and the nomadic tribal hunter for whom the film is named (Maksim Munzuk). The unspoiled vastness of the Siberian wilderness, so utterly unlike the modern Japanese landscape with its cultivated forests, offered a radically new canvas for Kurosawa. Always a powerful visual stylist with a flair for action, the director crafted some of his most striking imagery for this breath-taking drama.
Synopsis: Yoshiro “Yocchan” Kamogawa (Sometani) is an ordinary (virgin) high school boy who finds his life literally changes overnight when he wakes up with the ability to read other people’s minds. Sounds awesome! But he uses it for trivial things. He’s not alone in gaining weird powers as a café worker named Teru-oichan (Sports) gains telekinetic powers. Sounds really awesome! But he uses them for sex toys. Yosuke Enomoto (Fukami), a fellow school-pupil of Kamogawa and a basketball player, also gains a power, the ability to teleport. Sounds super-awesome! But it only works while he is naked. Get ready to see how they use their powers when they battle rival espers!
The classic Lone Wolf & Cub manga was adapted into a long-running movie series that went on to become a cult classic especially when the five films were re-edited into one called Shogun Assassin. This is the first entry in the film series and it is a brilliant title that will leave you craving for more. The manga is brilliant so give that a try as well.
Synopsis: Ogami Itto is the shogun’s special executioner. He has taken the heads of hundreds of men. However the shogun is scared of him and when the Yagyu Clan frame him for treason the shogun orders his death. Ogami’s family is attacked by three ninjas, his wife Asami is killed but his son Daigo lives and both father and son wander Japan, father pushing the baby cart as he heads from town to town working as an assassin for hire as he treads the path of vengeance…
Synopsis: Readers in the UK will know about Golgo 13 through the anime that screened late at night on the Sci-Fi Channel. There have been a number of live-action films about this unstoppable hitman and they were made at a time when genre cinema was churning out OTT action films and men were men etc. etc. Ken Takakura takes the lead role and he has to go to Iran to eliminate a bad guy.
I have had a busy week galavanting up and down the country and so I haven’t had much time to watch many films. That written, I watched a bunch of films Heat (1995), Dear Doctor (2009) and TV dramas like Rose Red, an adaptation of a Stephen King novel. I’ve started getting more work from film festivals which is great so more films for me to watch.
Keisuke Yoshida has directed two good films, My Little Sweet Pea(2013) and The Workhorse & the Bigmouth (2013) and he tries his hand at adapting a manga by Minoru Furuya, the man behind Himizu(2012). Watch the trailer and gasp as it goes from a rom-com to super-serious thriller! Also, Gaku Hamada (The Foreign Duck, The Native Duck, and God in a Coin Locker) looks good in this. I like the look of this!!
Synopsis:Susumu Okada (Gaku Hamada) works on a cleaning team. One of Susumu’s team, Yuji (Tsuyoshi Muro), asks Susumu to act as cupid and get a café worker named Yuka (Aimi Satsukawa) to go out with him. Things get complicated when she says she loves Okada. Even worse, Yuka has her own problems, a classmate of Susumu’s from high school, Shoichi (Go Morita), is stalking Yuka…
Hold My Hand
Hold My Hand Film Poster
手をつないでかえろうよ シャングリラの向こうで 「Te wo Tsunaide Kaeroyo Shangurira no Mukou de」
Synopsis:Masato (Jay Kabira) is a school pupil in a special class in middle school because he is mentally slower than other people. Unfortunately he becomes the victim of bullying but he finds solace from a fellow pupil named Sakura (Nanami) who has a similar learning disability. The two become attracted to each other and eventually marry but to protect Sakura, Masato becomes a criminal and works for the yakuza. It looks like it will all go wrong when he meets a mysterious girl named Reiko (Sumire) who asks him “What is God? What is history? What are human beings?” Masato thinks back on his honeymoon and Sakura.
Synopsis:Rin (Sumire Sato) is the titular match girl. Her matches are special because they are “delusion matches” which turn momentary delusions into reality in their flickering flames. What delusions will this mysterious girl spark up?
Ryuichi Hiroki flits between mainstream and passion projects again. Fans of films like Vibrator and Tokyo Trash Baby still find plenty to love in even the glossiest of titles like this one which stars Fumi Nikaido (Himizu, Why Don’t You Play in Hell?). I’ve only reviewed one of his films here and that’s Kimi no Tomodachi(2008).
Synopsis:High school girlErika Shinohara (Fumi Nikaido) pretends she has a boyfriend when she is with her friends but maintaining the façade of a relationship is hard with nothing but her word to go on so she finds a pretty boy on the street and takes his picture abd pretends that he is her boyfriend. The boy is Kyouya Sata (Kento Yamazaki) and he attends the same school as Erika so she asks Kyouya to be her pretend boyfriend little realising that behind the pretty face is a dark side.
Lyrical School no michi tono sogu
Lyrical School no michi tono sogu Film Poster
リリカルスクールの未知との遭遇 「Ririkaru Suku-ru no michi tono sogu」
Release Date: May 28th, 2016
Running Time: 75 mins.
Director: Demo Tanaka
Writer: Demo Tanaka, MC BOO, Junya Kato (Screenplay),
Starring: Ayaka, Mei, Yumi, Ami, Minan, Hime, ANI, Zen-la-rock,
I used to listen to Hip Hop back in high school but not much these days since the recent acts (mainstream at least) coming out of America don’t hold a candle to The Wu-Tang Clan, Lord Finesse, MF Doom and others from the ‘90s. Figures that I’d get back into the genre through Japan. Lyrical School are a group of talented, bubbly girls who bring the fun back to a genre that badly needs it.
Synopsis:Lyrical School are a hip-hop idol unit which is made up of talented girls, ayaka, mei, yumi, ami, minan, hime. They hang out in a warehouse where they create their music. One of their props is a doll which came from outer space! One day it comes to life and tells them it doesn’t have the energy to go back to its home. To make the energy it needs the girls orchestrate a party that attracts a large crowd so they can gather power….
Synopsis:This movie sees Yakuza fighting half grey (criminals unaffiliated to any crime syndicate) in a free-for-all which may upset the old criminal order. The film stars Sho Aikawa who appears in gangster films pretty regularly like Dead or Alive. I’ve reviewed two of his films – Serpent’s Path and Eyes of the Spider (1998).
Anohito – The One
Anohito Film Poster
あのひと 「Anohito」
Release Date: May 28th, 2016
Running Time: 87 mins.
Director: Ichiro Yamamoto
Writer: Ichiro Yamamoto (Screenplay), Sakunosuke Oda (Screenplay)
I first wrote about this for the film’s international premiere at Nippon Connection 2016 and that festival ends tomorrow.
Synopsis: In a film where the past and present mixes we see the daily lives of four young soldiers who are raising the orphaned son of their commanding officer. As they each decide to go working in munitions factories, it is up to four women to take care of the boy as they wait for the men to return. It is based on a script from 1944 and shot in long black-and-white takes but it takes place in a strange present where clothes, locations and other things are familiar but the war still rages on.
Synopsis: Utako Suzuki’s manga is adapted into a film starring Natsumi Hirashima, one of the original AKB48 idols. It’s a story set in a high school where a girl named Momoko (Hirashima) is at the bottom of the school hierarchy with no friends, boyfriend, or nything fun to do. She’s an outsider and treated like a fool by her classmates. Momoko is going to snap….
Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:
Zootopia (2016/04/23)
The Magnificent Nine (2016/05/14)
If Cats Disappeared From the World (2016/05/14)
Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare (2016/04/16)
After the Storm (2016/05/21)
64: Part 1 Prequel (2016/05/07)
Captain America Civil War (2016/04/29)
Crayon Shin-chan Movie 24: Bakusui! Yumemi World Dai Totsugeki (2016/04/16)
Girlz und Panzer der Film (2015/11/21)
Gundam: The Origin III Dawn of Rebellion (2016/05/21)
Hirokazu Koreeda has become the director of choice for film fans worldwide who are eager to get an intimate slice of normal Japanese life and Our Little Sister is his latest in a career mostly (but not always) spent making films focussing on families. The story is adapted from a manga called Umimachi Diary (Seaside Town Diary) created by Akimi Yoshida and Koreeda uses cinema to showcase her tales of a female-led family facing different emotional hurdles and ultimately knitting together. Prepare to become part of a family, a community, and a way of life.
The film begins with three sisters. 29-year-old Sachi Kouda (Haruka Ayase) is a nurse at the local hospital and the mature one. 22-year-old Yoshino Kouda (Masami Nagasawa) is a bank teller and a party girl who likes to love and leave men. The youngest is 19-year-old Chika Kouda (Kaho) who is a shop assistant and an oddball with a unique taste in clothes and boyfriends. They live in a house once owned by their grandmother in the seaside city of Kamakura.
It is an old-fashioned rambling house with sliding doors, paper screens, rich wooden furnishings and family heirlooms. Their parents are divorced. Their father left the family for another woman fifteen years ago and their mother doing likewise from shame and frustration.
When they learn of their father’s death, the three sisters head north to a hot spring in Yamagata prefecture so they can attend his funeral and it is here where they meet their 14-year-old half-sister Suzu Asano (Suzu Hirose), an innocent looking girl in her sailor uniform and the result of the affair that broke up the sister’s family.
From the very first moment the four meet it is clear that Suzu is a responsible and earnest girl and the more Sachi talks to her the more she gets the sense that Suzu took care of their father in his dying days. What’s more, it becomes obvious that there is nobody at the funeral who really cares for her. Sachi makes a spur of the moment decision and invites Suzu to join the sisters in Kamakura. Suzu hesitates but only for a moment and she accepts the offer and the three women gain a younger sister.
And so begins an enchanting tale of Suzu’s integration into her new family and her new home which is a seaside town audiences will long to visit. The film is made up of a series of incidents in the lives of the sisters but they stack up to show how a community and family come together and achieve a sort of harmony.
The setting is an idealised Japan. Kamakura is a slightly slow but peaceful place where timeless traditions such as summer festivals, watching fireworks, gathering to celebrate the haul of fish from the sea, and more modern things such as cheering on the school football team draw everyone together, even outsiders like Suzu who finds her football skills make her a star. The house the four sisters live in is the focal point in an idyllic fantasy. It comes complete with family heirlooms and a shrine and a garden full of plum trees planted by the sister’s grandmother and tended to by them as they carry on the family tradition of making plum wine. It all suggests stability and safety, a haven and continuity.
Suzu can use the house as a base from which she can safely explore the past.
A trip to a seaside restaurant with friends for whiting on toast leads to her meeting her father’s old friend (Lily Franky). A post football match celebration at the Sea Cat Diner reveals the owner (Jun Fubuki) is a family friend with a treasure trove of embarrassing tales about the three sisters from when they were Suzu’s age. These reminisces about the past add to the present tense narrative as well as giving funny little anecdotes which delight audiences and Suzu. The tales prompt Suzu to open up about her memories and this helps the others around her.
This isn’t just Suzu’s tale because the three sisters benefit from her presence as they hear more about their father from the recent past and come to terms with long simmering disappointments and betrayals his actions fostered. The new perspective Suzu brings allows them to mature and these changes make the story richer as more plot threads are added. Two of the sisters get promotions at work, Sachi being asked to take charge of a new terminal care ward and Yoshino rising from bank teller to loan manager. Their new jobs give them, and by extension the audience, the opportunity to get to know their town more intimately and this helps when it comes to investing emotions into the community.
The film’s script never forgets anyone and joins different character’s narrative threads together into a cord that represents a community, a supportive one. Koreeda unpacks these nurturing moments through his typical considered pace and so the story feels natural, a slice of life. There is nothing contrived about the meeting of characters as they reminisce about the past and consider their present and the film’s script achieves a rich emotional tone through a series of subplots that coalesce into a quiet and pleasurable series of crescendoes.
Koreeda’s relaxed observation of the family interactions leaves the audience free to see the subtleties of the performances. One of the chief joys of the films is the way Koreeda uses the camera to frame scenes with a serene and simple style, allowing actors to establish a position in a location and then letting the audience see them perform. We can sit back and get thoroughly absorbed in the growing emotional connections between the characters as they slowly reveal what is on their minds, Sachi and her worries for the future and Suzu holding regrets for the past.
Patient camera work means shots linger on a fine ensemble working together with great chemistry who, through subtle and engaging acting show the changing emotional states. Haruka Ayase is absolutely perfect as a sort of de facto matriarch of the family. Her patient and kind face breaking with frowns of consternation or a smile of happiness as she navigates her family’s thorny history. Suzu Hirose in her debut performance is a fantastic find as she captures the innocence of her character perfectly. The whole cast is brilliant but the final word goes to the location. Kamakura is gorgeous and seductive. Every shot is beautiful but the best is one scene where Suzu rides pillion on a bicycle down a road lined with cherry blossoms in full bloom. It is spectacular. The locations are an absolute delight made better with the great company. You are brought into the care of a group of beautiful community that you will enjoy staying with and will want to revisit multiple times.
Our Little Sister is a movie that could only have been made in Japan, a nation which has a cinema dedicated to making so many female-driven films and a nation that isn’t afraid to make them as pleasant and subtle as this. The typically patient and fine direction from Koreeda and perfect acting from the talented cast makes this a relaxing and emotionally fulfilling experience that makes this so enjoyable to watch.
4.5/5
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 Koreeda is and this film won four Japanese Academy Awards – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Lighting.
This film has toured the festival circuit 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 currently working.
Right, down to business. I’ll be taking a bit of a break from the blog because I am about to embark upon a teaching course. I have film reviews stacked up but the trailer posts might thin out since they take up time and I want to spend as much time as possible studying. I’ll try and keep them going but I need to hit the books. I hope everything works out. There are film festival screeners possibly winging their way to me over the next month or so and I have a couple of film festival posts to write and publish amidst the reviews but I will go dark for some time. I will respond if you comment on a post because I really do appreciate everyone who reads my writing. Thank you to all my regular commenters. I hope to see you guys soon!
I also want to wish Adam Torel, owner of Third Window Films, a speedy recovery. He’s a great guy and brings life to the Asian film scene in the West.
Synopsis:Sayaka (Mitsuki Takahata) is an office lady looking for love. She finds it in the form of a man who has collapsed in front of her home. His name is Itsuki (Takanori Iwata) and she takes him inside and they begin to live together. Itsuki teaches Sayaka about cooking and she begins to grow as a person but he has a secret…
Synopsis:Kie Hirano (Haruka Ayase) is an office lady who often daydreams. She works with Mitsumasa Kodai (Takumi Saito), an elite salaryman and the eldest son in the Kodai family. He is telepathic, having inherited his special ability to read other people’s mind from his British grandmother. He falls in love with Kie and the two begin to date which is when Mitsumasa introduces her to his very unique family…
Detective Mitarai’s Casebook: The Clockwork Current
Detective Mitarai’s Casebook The Clockwork Current Film Poster
探偵ミタライの事件簿 星籠の海 「Tantei Mitarai no Jikenbo Seiro no Umi」
Synopsis:Private Detective Kiyoshi Mitarai (Hiroshi Tamaki) and his assistant Miyuki Ogawa (Alice Hirose) travel to Fukuyama to investigate a case which involves bodies which were found drifting in the Seto Inland Sea…
Takashi Shimizu is the horror auteur behind the Ju-On films but he has been working on more mainstream films like the live-action Kiki’s Delivery Service lately. He makes his horror comeback with this short that stars Tomorowo Taguchi (Tetsuo: The Iron Man).
Synopsis:Rika (Nana Seino) has dreams of seeing a girl in a heavy rain, at a railroad crossing meeting a mysterious woman wearing black clothes. The woman embraces the girl as a train approaches… The dream leaves Rika feeling depressed especially when the anniversary of the death of her mother approaches….
Synopsis:A couple of years ago the deaf musician and composer Mamoru Samuragochi made the headlines when it was revealed that he wasn’t as deaf as he claimed after a series of articles drew doubts about his deafness and it was revealed that a man named Takashi Aragaki had served as a ghost writer for 18 years. This documentary looks at the man at the centre of the uproar and how he dealt with the press coverage. Here’s a fascinating article on the Japan Times website in which the director talks about the film.
Danchi
Danchi Film Poster
団地 「Danchi」
Release Date: May 04th, 2016
Running Time: 103 mins.
Director: Junji Sakamoto
Writer:Junji Sakamoto (Screenplay),
Starring: Naomi Fujiyama, Ittoku Kishibe, Mari Hamada, Mayu Harada, Hikaru Horiguchi, Renji Ishibashi,
Synopsis:Hinako (Naomi Fujiyama) and Seiji Yamashita (Ittoku Kishibe) once owned a store that sold traditional Chinese herbal medicine but retired and moved into the local housing complex after selling their store. Old customers come calling and it provides something for Seiji to do until he runs in an election to select the next president of the housing complex. He shuts himself away under the floorboards of the apartment out of embarrassment and soon rumours spread that he has been killed by Hinako! Here’s a review at the Japan Times.
Synopsis: Genji Shibata (Yoshikazu Ebisu) is an ex-yakuza fresh out of prison after serving a sentence connected to him avenging the murder of his boss. He heads home to lead a quiet life but former colleagues tell him that the real culprit for the murder of Genji’s boss is still alive and actually sent him up! Genji comes out of retirement for revenge…
Tetsuya Kumakawa K-Ballet Company “Don Quixote” in Cinema
熊川哲也 Kバレエ カンパニー 「ドン・キホーテ」 in Cinema「 Kumakawa Tetsuya K-Bare Kanbani- “Don Kiho-te” in Cinema」
Tetsuya Kumakawa K-Ballet Company “Don Quixote” in Cinema Film Poster
Synopsis: Bunkamura Orchard Hall in Shibuya played host to an adaptation of Don Quixote where the titular old knight encounters young lovers Kitri and Basilio and potential love rival, the foppish aristocrat Gamache who wants to wed Kitri. Don Quixote also falls in love with Kitri and a chase ensues when the young lovers flee…
Tokyo Sunrise
Tokyo Sunrise Film Poster
走れ、絶望に追いつかれない速さで 「Hashire, zetsubo ni oitsuka renai hayasa de」
Tokyo Sunrise comes from Tokyo New Cinema, a talented group of indie filmmakers who have two other titles to their name, Plastic Love Story (which I helped promote) and August in Tokyo. Their films are usually visually stunning and this one looks like a solid drama.
Synopsis from IMDB: ‘Tokyo Sunrise’ presents a young man’s journey to face an incomprehensible death of his best friend.
Here’s a Q&A the director took part in during last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival where he discusses the film which was programmed for the event.
Japanese Movie Box Office Results for this Week:
Zootopia (2016/04/23)
Wolf Girl and Black Prince (2016/05/28)
Snow White and the Huntsman Winter’s War (2016/05/27)
If Cats Disappeared From the World (2016/05/14)
The Magnificent Nine (2016/05/28)
Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare (2016/04/16)
64: Part 1 Prequel (2016/05/07)
After the Storm (2016/05/21)
Crayon Shin-chan Movie 24: Bakusui! Yumemi World Dai Totsugeki (2016/04/16)
Summer Holiday Everyday is the next film to get screened at the Japanese embassy in London and it’s a gentle comedy that looks at middle-class mores and social order when a seemingly respectable family fall apart. It is adapted from a comic book written by Yumiko Oshima, one of Japan’s best comic artists for girls and the story involves subjects like school bullying and corporate conformism. The director, Shusuke Kaneko, has worked across genres and I am most familiar with him from his work on Necronomicon: Book of Dead (segment “part #2: The Cold”) and the Death Note films. It looks like a gentler version of Tokyo Sonata or Wild Berries.
Synopsis:Set in Tokyo in the early 1990s. The Rinkaijis are, by all appearances, a well-to-do Japanese family. The stepfather Nariyuki works for an elite corporation, which gives his wife Yoshiko status in their suburban neighbourhood. One day the daughter Sugina, who herself has secretly stopped going to school as she is being bullied, discovers that Nariyuki has quit his job. He decides to start his own company with Sugina as vice-president: a nandemo-ya (a do-anything service). This only causes embarrassment for Yoshiko in front of her gossiping neighbours and her former husband, and she finds her world falling apart. Their first job does not go off very well, but he and Sugina soon find a closeness they have never had before. Much to Yoshiko’s consternation, the next job comes from Beniko, Nariyuki’s ex-wife, seemingly in a plot to get him back.
The film will be screened on Tuesday, June 21st at 18:30 (d00rs open at 18:00). Admission to the films is free but you need to register for a ticket. For more information, head to the embassy’s site.
The 2016 New York Asian Film Festival takes place from June 22nd to July 09thand it is the 15th edition of the event. This year’s run features art-house and mainstream films, crime and romance, and a healthy stock of Japanese titles with guests jetting in from Japan! I’ll be reviewing a couple of these so stay tuned.
Synopsis: Twisted Justice is based on the 2011 non-fiction novel Hajisarashi Hotsukaidoukei Akutoku Keiji no Kokuhaku by Yoshiaki Inaba, a former detective. He serves as the basis of the main character, Yoichi Moriboshi (Gou Ayano), who goes from a green detective in the 1970s to a gun-running menace in the 2000s.
The New York Asian Film Festival plays host to this film’s international premiere with the director Kazuya Shiraishi and lead actor Gou Ayano appearing at the festival on June 22nd and 28th respectively. Ayano will be awarded the Screen International Rising Star Award at his appearance.
Shunji Iwai is in town to pick up an award and three brilliant films of his will play:
Reviews for this one have been really positive about the top quality of this film and I am looking forward to reviewing this one.
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…
The film plays on Friday, June 24th at 6:15pm and director Shunji Iwai will be presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
This was the film that introduced me to Shunji Iwai and it was an intense emotional experience with beautiful cinematography and an incredible score. I think it might have been better to start with some of his older works but don’t let that musing put you off. I guarantee you will be left feeling emotionally desolate after this so take tissues and stay through the end credits and dry those tears.
Synopsis: This film is pure heartbreak as it examines loneliness, isolation, and bullying in the lives of lonely kids isolated by technology but also drawn together by the singer Lily Chou-Chou, a singer with music powerful enough to break through the emotions of these cast-away kids and summon them to her concerts. It is told from multiple perspectives as a holiday goes wrong and almost near-fatal for one character which unleashes a horrible mixture of hatred, alienation, and confusion in him that ripples out to others and causes chaos as things intensify into bullying, rape, and prostitution.
I have this on DVD but haven’t watched it yet but this sci-fi film is indicative of the way Iwai flits between genres.
Synopsis from the festival site: Near‐future sci‐fi shot with handheld cameras and edited to a twitchy rhythm, SwallowtailButterflyposits an alternate history where an economically flush Japan has attracted millions of immigrants who live in the Yentown ghettos, working on the margins, always on the hustle, trying to score that yen. Pop star Chara plays, well, a pop star who achieves fame when her Yentown comrades co‐opt a Yakuza cash scam and become rich enough to open a nightclub andrelease albums.
The film plays on Saturday, June 25th at 2:45pm and it ends with a Q&A with Shunji Iwai
This can be considered a comeback for Kiyoshi Kurosawa because he has strayed away from horror films and gone into supernatural inflected dramas. This has coincided with a lull in quality from the man. Well he’s back in psychological horror and he has brought in great actors he has worked with before: Hidetoshi Nishijima (License to Live) and Teruyuki Kagawa (Tokyo Sonata). Early reviews from this has suggested that Kurosawa is back on form.
Synopsis: Detective Inspector Takakura (Hidetoshi Nishijima) decides to quit the force after a psychopath almost kills him. He takes up work as a university lecturer in criminal psychology and delves into cold cases, one involving a missing family where only one person survived, Saki (Haruna Kawaguchi). Life changes when Takakura and his wife Yasuko (Yuko Takeuchi) move house and introduce themselves to their next door neighbour Nishino (Teruyuki Kagawa) who hides his wife and daughter from the outside world. Nishino is suspicious enough as a person but when his “daughter” confronts Takakura and tells him that she has no idea who her “father” is, things get really dangerous…
The film plays on Wednesday, June 29th, 6:00pm
HK: Forbidden Super Hero the Abnormal Crisis
Hentai Kamen Abnormal Crisis Film Poster
HK 変態仮面アブノーマル・クライシス「HK Hentai Kamen Abunomaru Kuraishisu」
Synopsis: HK Kamen, real name Kyosuke (Ryohei Suzuki), lives in a city where panties are disappearing but he still wears Aiko’s (Fumika Shimizu) panties to battle evil but she takes her panties back and this leaves Kyosuke unable to transform just as a new enemy appears…
The film plays on Wednesday, July 06th at the SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd Street
This one is apparently based on a once banned novel.
Synopsis: Shigeo Katsuura (Kenichi Endo) was once the leader of the yakuza in Kyoto but after losing his arms and legs in an act of betrayal from an underling he is forced to go around to his debtors’ homes to collect on debts and make money. He does this with the aid of his loyal henchman/nursemaid Kenta (Masaki Miura) and the sight of his body scaring people.
The film plays on Tuesday, July 05th at 6:00pm and the director Hideo Sakaki is making an appearance.
Miss Hokusai is an award-winning film I wrote about last year in a trailer post packed with information and links. The film is directed by Keiichi Hara who has worked on the Japan Academy Prize-winner Summer Days with Coo (2007), a film about a kappa and the suburban family he lives with, and Annecy double winner (Jury’s Special Distinction and the Audience Award) Colorful (2010) , a dark but ultimately life-affirming story about suicide and the afterlife.
Synopsis:This is the story of Katsushika Hokusai’s third daughter, the outspoken 23-year-old O-Ei. It takes place in 1814 in Edo, a place which is teeming with peasants, samurai, townsmen, merchants, nobles, artists, courtesans, and perhaps even supernatural things. O-Ei helps her father with his art and very often she would paint instead of him, though uncredited. She made art of her own and this is the untold story of O-Ei, Master Hokusai’s daughter: a lively portrayal of a free-spirited woman overshadowed by her larger-than-life father, unfolding through the changing seasons.
Synopsis: A family is thrown into chaos when the matriarch Tomiko (Kazuko Yoshiyuki) announces to her husband Shuzo (Isao Hashizume) that she wants a divorce. Their children are shocked about the news of the separation and things spiral out of control as each member of the family opens up about their grievances.
Tetsuo: the Iron Man is considered one of the defining titles in the ‘body horror’ movement and a cyberpunk classic and if you want to see a truly unique and intense film then go and see this one. Here’s my review. Here’s a bit of a biography I wrote about the director Shinya Tsukamoto.
Synopsis: A strange man known as the “metal fetishist” (Shinya Tsukamoto) is knocked over in a hit and run incident involving a salary-man (Tomorowo Taguchi) and his girlfriend (Kei Fujiwara). The next day the salary-man finds himself transforming into a half human-half metal monster….
The film plays on Saturday, June 25th, 5:15pm with an appearance by the director Michael Arias
Tekkonkinkreet
Tekkonkinkreet Film Poster
鉄コン筋クリート 「Tekkonkinkreet」
Running Time: 110 mins.
Director: Michael Arias
Writer: Anthony Weintraub (Screenplay), Taiyo Matsumoto (Original Creator),
I bought the soundtrack to this before watching the film. There were many years in between both acts… Great soundtrack. Great film!
Synopsis from the festival site: Deep in Treasure Town, the tough, violent Black and the far more innocent White are orphans are orphans who soar through the twisted streets like pint‐sized superheroes.Black decides that he needs to rule Treasure Town and protect White and startsgoing after the yakuza trying to raze the place and turn it into and turn it into an amusement park. Snake, the yakuza boss, is angry at Black’s victories over his men and decides to hire three almost superhuman hit men totake him out. Soon it is up to White to save Black, and perhaps all of Treasure Town, from Black’s own dark nature.
The film plays on Sunday, June 26that 5:15pm when the cinema will play host to director Michael Arias.
Two more Japanese films will be revealed at a later date.
I did say I would take a break but I had a spare hour and started writing previews and thought, ‘why stop now? I did say I would try and keep the previews going…’ My serious studying starts next week (honest), I have one or two more festival films to review and possibly a DVD and Blu-Ray. I rushed this post so apologies.
Synopsis:Natsumi (Kasumi Arimura) follows in her father’s footsteps on a path to become a photographer and heads to a forest to take a picture of a certain type of firefly. She encounters a family that live there and thinks back on her childhood.
Synopsis from IMDB: 1989 is the 64 Shouwa year in the Japanese calendar, thus the unsolved case of a girl who was kidnapped and murdered is called “64 (rokuyon). It has hung over the Criminal Investigation Department in the Prefectural Police Department for fourteen years and the statute of limitations is approaching it. In 2002, Yoshinobu Mikami, an ex-detective who was the lead investigator on the “Rokuyon” works as a Public Relations Officer in the Police Affairs Department and finds his department dealing with a new case connected to the “Rokuyon” case.
Synopsis from IMDB:Human rights for sexual assault and child abuse victims are global concern that is not only in addressed in Japan but throughout the world. From his debut, Director Masato Ozawa has continued to create films which shine a light on these serious social issues. In his previous work “Remiges,” Ozawa expressed the struggles of a girl and a boy who have been victims of violence with a fresh perception and won “Best Picture Prize” at the 14th Jeonju International Film Festival. With his works Ozawa have quickly gathered acclaim as one of Japan’s up-and-coming director. For “Lost Serenade” Ozawa challenged to depict original sin and redemption through a direct approach towards sexual violence also known as the ‘soul murder.’ Starring rising stars, Nori Sato and Uwa Ishibashi who poured their heart and soul into their characters, actors who shared Ozawa’s passion in this theme, Yota Kawase, Asuka Kurosawa and Jun Miho also supported the film.
Synopsis IMDB: Yuji Itabashi works for investigating to make maps. One day, a woman who he never know visits his room. She says she came to visit Goto, a boyfriend she lived together, and come to pick up the thing that she left behind. Later on, Yuji’s friend, Kosuke Nishida; a junk dealer, who was with Yuji when the strange woman came, starts to make a fuss saying he saw Ghost in the room while he was alone. What was the Ghost the Nishida saw?
Synopsis: A documentary following kids in Osaka with disabilities who all stay or visit a special children’s house which is a home away from home. It offers them and their parents some time to rest.
SING LIKE TALKING LIVE MOVIE Strings of the night
SING LIKE TALKING LIVE MOVIE Strings of the night Film Poster
Japan Cuts 2016 takes place from July 14th to the 24th and there are lots of familiar titles, many of which I’ll put as shorter entries to save space. However you cut it the line-up is really good with a diverse mixture of genres and stories. The guestlist is absolutely fantastic with the likes of Lily Franky, Atsuko Maeda, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Sion Sono, and so many more talented filmmakers descending upon the festival! Here’s hoping Adam Torel of Third Window Films gets to attend the festival to introduce three films he has helped come into being. There’s also Japan Cuts Microcinema which sees some of the best short films from the last ten years played throughout the festival. Each film lasts around 30 minutes and people can jump in and watch whichever title takes their fancy between films. There’s also an interesting talk which analyses the Japanese film industry and how films get made.
What is on the programme, then? This is a quick preview but there’s a lot. I’ll break it down into sections and you can view trailers and more details for each on the films by clicking on the links:
Director Daichi Sugimoto is currently studying at Tokyo Zokei University, Department of Design as a film major but his film A Road has won a major award in the shape of the 2015 PIA Film Festival’s Grand Prize. It sounds like a fascinating dive into a person’s memory.
Synopsis: Daichi Sugimoto stars as himself, so to speak. His character is studying film at university but he misses the joys of childhood when he and his friends used to catch lizards. A university assignment in documentary film making leads him to look for the point when his childhood ended but despite his camera being able to capture the world, he finds that his memories of life, lizards and those he knows/knew and love/loved are harder to nail down.
Synopsis from the festival site:Ah, the wistful summers of near adulthood—or, for high schooler Kako (the ever-amazing Fumi Nikaido), drudging through the humid months of caring for her young niece at her family’s sleepy restaurant in Kitashinagawa, Tokyo. However that all changes when her aunt Mikiko (Kyoko Koizumi), thought to have died 18 years ago in an explosive accident, suddenly returns, bringing with her rumors of anti-government terrorist plots, international intrigue and maternal drama. A follow-up to The Extreme Sukiyaki (JAPAN CUTS 2014) by acclaimed playwright, novelist and screenwriter Shiro Maeda, winner of the 52nd Kishida Drama Award and 22nd Yukio Mishima Prize, Kako: My Sullen Past finds Maeda in full control of his cinematic instrument, channeling his characteristic dialogue and parodic cynicism through his wonderful cast and engrossing tale of radical politics and quotidian angst.
Kensaku Watanabe will be in town to introduce the film
Synopsis from the festival site:Up-and-coming manzai stand-up comedy duo Emi-Abi has lost consummate funny man Unno (a surprisingly touching Tomoya Maeno) to an accident, leaving conceited straight man Jitsudo (Ryu Morioka) to contend with his diminished career prospects as a bland, pretty face entertainer. Guided by his manager Natsumi (Haru Kuroki), who demonstrates stronger comedy chops than her own star, Jitsudo comes to learn the circumstances of his friend’s passing, as well as the life-and-death stakes of a career in comedy. Demonstrating a careful balance of tone across tragedy and deadpan and gross-out humor, writer/director Kensaku Watanabe expands Emi-Abi’s hilarious premise into a strikingly assured meditation on artistic rivalry and self-actualization.
Search for this drama and you will find old entries dating back to 2011 and that is because the director Shoji Hiroshi made a short film of the same name and it travelled to different film festivals. From that short came this feature about two friends who deal in drugs. This has been picked up by Third Window Films for world sales.
Synopsis from JFDB: Ken (Kato Shinsuke) and Kazu (Maiguma Katsuya) are partners in crime who use a car repair shop as their front for dealing stimulants. Ken tries to make a clean break after his girlfriend Saki (Iijima Shuna) gets pregnant, but Kazu has a secret…
Familiar Feature Films
Familiar films is a section dedicated to titles I have written about for trailer posts and previews of other festivals countless times. Japan Cuts has a carefully considered programme which brings together the filmmakers and at least one or two of their works for talks.
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…
The early Gakuryu cyberpunk film Burst City 「爆裂都市, Dir: Gakuryu Ishii, 117 mins.」 plays at the same festival. Here’s more from the site: Sogo (Gakuryu) Ishii’s hugely influential film kicked off the Japanese cyberpunk movement of the late 1980s by taking Mad Max’s futuristic, dystopian biker gang aesthetic and smashing it together with the frenetic energy and antiauthoritarian sneering of the contemporary Japanese punk scene while foregrounding a hyper-inventive, groundbreaking visual style heavy on fast cutting, alternating film speeds, and concert documentary shooting. The loose, frenzied plot revolving around a violent confrontation between several gangs of punk musicians, yakuza, bikers and cops over the attempted construction of a nuclear power plant quite literally erupts into an explosive finale. A peerless punk cinema manifesto, Burst City remains as vibrant today as it did when it roared new life into Japanese cinema over 30 years ago.
This small character-driven drama was one of the more interesting looking films from last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival. It’s directed by Satoko Yokohama and it’s her second feature film after a career of shorts which has taken her to film festivals around the world. The film stars Ken Yasuda a man who many Japanese will recognise as a character actor with a colourful career but now he is coming into his own as a lead actor. The film has earned good reviews. There will be an introduction and Q&A with Satoko Yokohama.
Synopsis from the Tokyo International Film Festival: Takuji Kameoka (Ken Yasuda) is a 37-year-old bachelor whose occupation is a “miscellaneous actor”. His only interest is drinking. One day he falls in love with a bar owner (Kumiko Aso) and his boring life begins to change. The film is based on the book “Actor, Takuji Kameoka” by Akito Inui, a five-time nominee for Japan’s most prestigious literary prize, the Akutagawa Prize. Satoko Yokohama, a much-admired up-and-coming newcomer, directs the film and we can immediately tell that she is a special talent, with a unique understanding that flows through to her actors and crew.
A Cappella 「無伴奏, Dir: Hitoshi Yazaki, 132 mins. 」 is a drama which stars Riko Narumi (Shindo) as a high school girl named Kyoko living in 1969, a period when there was 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. Kyoko becomes influenced by these things and joins a rally at a university which gets violent. After she is wounded she shelters 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 but the politics of the age puts their love in great danger…
Being Good「きみはいい子, Dir: Mipo O, 121 mins.」 Mipo O is a director/writer who tackles tough subjects as seen in The Light Shines Only There. Her latest film is the adaptation of the book Kimi wa ii ko (You’re a Good Kid). The book is by Hatsue Nakawaki which won the 2012 Tsubota Jōji Literature Award. The book is a collection of five stories about child abuse and people trying to prevent it, each story occurs in the same town and on the same rainy afternoon. The film adapts two stories into one: Santa no konai ie (The House where Santa Doesn’t Come) and Beppin-san (Pretty Girl). The first story sees Tasuku (Kengo Kora), an idealistic primary school teacher struggling to deal with his class and their parents especially when he discovers that one of his pupils is being abused by his parents. The second story is about Masami (Machiko Ono), a woman who appears to be a good mother, can’t help lashing out at her own child because of traumas she suffered as a child…
Synopsis: Koen Shirakawa (Ito) 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.
Synopsis: A nameless man sits down in a busy shopping street and says nothing. People are intrigued and interpret his silence in different ways and soon a crowd begins to gather. This crowd includes people handing him cash and food which yakuza steal, monks who see some religious aspect to his actions and pray by his side, the Street Performers’ Association who want him to join them and suicidal youths feel soothed in his presence; the press wants to know if he’s a victim of Abenomics. Eventually, the man is caged and given an army guard…
Lowlife Love 「下衆の愛 , Dir: Eiji Uchida, 110 mins.」comes from Eiji Uchida (Greatful Dead 2013) and takes a cunical look at the film industry in Japan through its leading character, a young indie director named Tetsuo (Kiyohiko Shibukawa) who had one big hit and, well… not much else. He now lives with his mother and scrounges off anyone he can. A potential second shot enters his life when he meets a talented scriptwriter and a girl fresh from the countryside who wants to be an actor. He thinks he can make something special…
Director Eiji Uchida, actor Denden and producer Adam Torel (owner of Third Window Films) will be at the screening to introduce the film.
Three Stories of Love has been topping the end of year lists for many critics who specialise in Japanese films. It looks like a heady combination of comedy and drama rooted in strong writing that gives us the everyday lives of three people experiencing romance and frustration.
Synopsis: Bridge inspector Atsushi is grieving for his wife, the victim of a cruel murder, housewife Toko is longing to escape her unsatisfying marriage, and gay lawyer Shinomiya fails to be as successful in his love life as he is in his job.
Hush! 「 ハッシュ！, Dir: Ryosuke Hashiguchi, 135 mins. IMDB」is the sophmore film from Ryosuke Hashiguchi and it has got great reviews as it takes in the lives of both gay and straight characters and the social pressures they face in critically succesful dramas. This story focusses on two adult gay guys named Naoya (Kazuya Takahashi) and Katsuhiro (Seiichi Tanabe) who are asked to help a slightly unhinged young woman (Reiko Kataoka) father a child.
Synopsis: Juzaburo Kokutaya (Sadao Abe) and his fellows are working to meet impossible taxes and labour demands. To overcome their problems they plan to lend large amounts of money to a han (historical term for the estate of a warrior) and distribute the interest annually to the residents, but if they’re caught breaching social etiquette like this they will lose their lives.
Nagasaki: Memories of My Son 「 母と暮らせば, Dir: Yoji Yamada, 130 mins.」Yoji Yamada is a stalwart of the Japanese film industry having worked with Yasujiro Ozu as an assistant director and then becoming a director himself. His films win awards and tend to feature family stories. This one is described as a sad but hopeful one. Its story sounds hard. Nobuko (Sayuri Yoshinaga) lives in post-war Nagasaki and works as a midwife. She survived the atomic bomb which killed her son Koji (Kazunari Ninomiya) three years earlier. She had already lost another son and her husband so she is alone. Then, one night, Koji appears again and gives comfort to his mother and they reminiscence about her painful past as well as pleasant times. Composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise) is introducing this one!
Starring: Kasumi Arimura, Atsushi Ito, Shuhei Nomura, Rie Minemura, Ken Yasuda, Airi Matsui, Yo Yoshida, Tetsushi Tanaka,
The film is based on the novel “Gakunen Biri no Gyaru ga 1 nen de Hensachi o 40 Agete Keio Daigaku ni Geneki Gokaku Shita Hanashi” by Nobutaka Tsubota (published December 26, 2013 by Kadokawa) and the novel is based on the true story of the author Nobutaka Tsubota, who runs a cram school, and his student Sayaka Kobayashi who went from academic zero to hero in the space of a year. This is a fun and revealing look at the Japanese education system with characters you come to love!
Synopsis: Blonde-haired “gyaru” Sayaka has always been more interested in fashion than her studies. Because of this, she now has the scholastic aptitude of a 4th grader as a second-year high school student. However, when she visits a cram school, lecturer Mr. Tsubota recognizes her innate intelligence. After an informal discussion, and with the support of her family, Sayaka becomes determined not only to improve her grades, but to spend her final year of high school working hard toward getting accepted into prestigious Keio University.
Bakuman comes from Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, the creators of Death Note. It is very popular and has been collected in over compiled volumes of manga and has been the basis of three television series produced by J.C. Staff since it was first published in Weekly Shounen Jump back in August, 2008. It has a star-laden cast and a director who has worked on indies and bigger budgeted films. It stars Takeru Sato and Ryunosuke Kamiki who worked together on Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno. Reviews for this have been super positive!
Synopsis: Moritaka Mashiro (Satoh) is a talented artist but after the death of his uncle, a manga-ka who died because of exhaustion, he resents art and wants to become an office worker. Then he meets and falls in love with a girl at school named Azuki Miho, an aspiring voice actress. Azuki tells Moritaka they can marry, but only after they both achieve their dreams. Moritaka then teams up with fellow classmate Akito Takagi (Kamiki), a talented writer, and they aim to publish their first manga.
The first ever movie with an android as one of the stars. It is a collaboration between Japanese playwright Oriza Hirata and the leading robotics scientist Hiroshi Ishiguro who works at Osaka University and the film was directed by Koji Fukada (Hospitalité, Au revoir l’été).
Synopsis: The population of Japan is being evacuated due to radioactive contamination. Tanya (Bryerly Long) is a foreign refugee with an illness so she will be among the last to leave while healthier Japanese escape. She has an android named Reona (Geminoid F) who supports her in her final days as everyone around her leaves.
This is a solid looking drama with an impressive-looking cast. Lily Franky takes the lead and shares the screen with Ai Hashimoto (The Kirishima Thing), Sosuke Ikematsu (How Selfish I Am!) and Shinobu Terajima. Director Yoshifumi Tsubota and star Lily Franky are in town to do a Q&A.
Synopsis: A blind man (Lily Franky) works studying as a conchology scholar. He is now a world-renowned expert and lives a peaceful existence studying the shells on a remote island in Okinawa. All of that changes when a painter named Izumi (Shinobu Terajima), appears in front of the blind scholar and tells him she suffers from a rare disease. The scholar knows how to cure the woman’s disease by using poisons from certain shells and so when word of his medical skills spread people gather on the island to meet him…
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…
Synopsis:Hinako (Naomi Fujiyama) and Seiji Yamashita (Ittoku Kishibe) once owned a store that sold traditional Chinese herbal medicine but retired and moved into the local housing complex after selling their store. Old customers come calling and it provides something for Seiji to do until he runs in an election to select the next president of the housing complex. He shuts himself away under the floorboards of the apartment out of embarrassment and soon rumours spread that he has been killed by Hinako! Here’s a review at the Japan Times.
You can watch an early Junji Sakamoto film called Face「顔 , Dir: Junji Sakamoto, 123 mins.」which sees him on an earlier project working together with the cast from The Projects. Here’s more from the festival site: Face is a ripped-from-the-headlines tale of middle-aged seamstress Masako, set free from the emotional abuse and isolation of her family’s dry cleaning business in a shocking act of violence. Painfully shy and clumsy, she is an unlikely fugitive from the law when the nationwide manhunt for her is interrupted by the 1995 Kobe Earthquake. Masako’s life on the lam brings her in contact with a host of lonely characters, who see the face of this sympathetic killer change from humiliation to self-assurance. With Face, Junji Sakamoto sharpened his keen balance of violence and humor, moving from masculinist heroics to this unruly take on the fallen woman genre anchored by stage actress and comedian Naomi Fujiyama in her mesmerizing star debut.
This part of the programme is dedicated to experimental anime shorts ranging from 3 – 14 minutes in length. Some are music videos, some have narratives and others are atmospheric surreal cascades of colours. You have major animators such as Mirai Mizue and more who regularly travel to other festivals such as Vancouver. The animator Onohana will be there to talk animation!
Sion Sono
There are three SionSono movies at the festival, two of which have been on the festival circuit while the third is a documentary released last month. Sion Sono and his wife Megumi Kagurazaka are in town so drop by and see a genius in Q&As!
Synopsis: A documentary about the man, the legend, Sion Sono. We get to hear about his background, his early films and his current ones like Shinjuku Swan and Whispering Star. This documentary was shot by Shin Oshima, son of Nagisa Oshima.
The Whispering Star 「ひそひそ星, 100 mins.IMDB」 was originally created and screened as part of an art exhibition which had the theme of dystopia running through it. The film was shot in different locations in Fukushima prefecture, turning the depopulated and irradiated areas into a futuristic landscape that speaks of hopelessness, pollution, and abandonment. It stars people who live in the areas and Sion Sono’s wife.
Synopsis:A spaceship shaped like a Japanese bungalow careens through the galaxy. It carries a humanoid robot named Yoko (Megumi Kagurazaka), a sort of interstellar UPS delivery person. Her job is simple: to distribute packages to human beings scattered across sundry planets. But with so much spare time between deliveries, Yoko begins to wonder what’s in those packages.
Love and Peace「ラブ＆ピース , 117 mins」 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. It’s getting a release in the UK at some point thank to the film distributor Third Window Films.
Synopsis:The story is about a put upon salaryman who once had the dream of being a punk-rocker. 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…
Documentaries
Three fascinating documentaries play out at the festival. I’d really like to see the first:
Synopsis:A couple of years ago the deaf musician and composer Mamoru Samuragochi made the headlines when it was revealed that he wasn’t as deaf as he claimed after a series of articles drew doubts about his deafness and it was revealed that a man named Takashi Aragaki had served as a ghost writer for 18 years. This documentary looks at the man at the centre of the uproar and how he dealt with the press coverage. Here’s a fascinating article on the Japan Times website in which the director talks about the film.
Synopsis: Contemporary artist Rei Naito is reputed for her work “Matrix” which is exhibited in Teshima Art Museum in Kagawa Prefecture on an island in the Seto Inland Sea. Highlighting the two-year communications between Naito, an artist who has never revealed her creating processes to the outside world, and director Yuko Nakamura, this film shows the quest of five women, all invariably enchanted by Naito’s art, as they explore her artistic world based on the question of whether it is in itself a blessing to be alive.
Synopsis: The Stalinwere a punk rock band formed in June 1980, by leader and vocalistMichiro Endo. It was disbanded in 1985 and Endo went on to make new bands but The Stalin remained very influential for many years. Endo turned sixty in 2011 and went on a tour. It was around the time that the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred. Michiro Endo is a native of Fukushima and a socialist activist according to Wikipedia and so he went back to his hometown and visited family to it, in the face of in Fukushima to survey the damage and was inspired to start the charity “PROJECT FUKUSHIMA!” This documentary chronicles his efforts.
