Writer:Na Hong-Jin, Hong Won-Chan, Lee Shinho, (Screenplay)
Starring: Kim Yun-Seok, Ha Jung-Woo, Seo Young-Hee, Park Hyo-Joo, Jung In-Gi, Kim You-Jung, Ko Bon-Woong, Min Kyung-Jin,
South Korea has produced a number of high quality serial-killer films likeI Saw the Devil (2010) and Memories of Murder (2003) but The Chaser is one of the darkest and most thrilling. It is based on a real life case where a murderer named Young-chul Yoo struck fear in Seoul by murdering rich old men and then prostitutes before being brought to justice in 2005. He was convicted of the killing of 20 people and was caught thanks mostly to pimps and prostitutes rather than the police. Apparently he was inspired by films like Public Enemy. That case is replicated here in a story where the characters and the world are so brilliantly crafted that you are plunged into the middle of this drama which turns into a relentless tale of brutality.
The story is split between three people.
We start with Ji Young-min (Ha Jung-Woo), the killer.
He seems harmless, a bland-looking slender fellow who is characterless even. In reality he is a disturbed man, a vicious killer. We see how he snares his prey: he calls a prostitute to a meeting on a busy street and they drive to a house tucked away in a wealthy neighbourhood and she vanishes. We know this through simple editing. The prostitute’s car is left parked up for days, a match cut shows the change in time and weather, close ups of the car reveal leaflets stuck between windscreen wipers. Where has she disappeared to? Somewhere behind the walls and gate of the luxurious house he resides in and she will probably end up buried in the front garden.
She isn’t the first prostitute to go missing and one pimp in particular wants to find them.
We are introduced to our next character, Jung-ho (Kim Yun-Seok). He is an ex-cop.
Like a typical Korean movie-detective he bends the rules and is pretty violent but this behaviour meant he was bounced from the force. Having sold out his badge to pimp girls he hounds them to work the streets so they can make money for him. Occasionally a look of guilt flits across his broad face and sad eyes when he has to force sick girls to work and rescue one of them from a violent client. He is our hero, a scumbag with a bit of a conscience. His call-girl business has lost quite a few girls and he is convinced that a repeat customer is kidnapping and selling them on. This is where his former career as a detective comes in handy. He tracks down the names of the missing girls and links them to the same phone number and he realises that one of his few remaining workers, our third main character Kim Mi-Jin (Seo Young-Hee), is with the kidnapper. This is his opportunity to catch the man so Jung-ho gets Mi-Jin to send back details of the address they go to with her mobile phone. All she has to do is stick with him. What Jung-ho doesn’t realise is that the kidnapper is the very same murderer we saw in the beginning and this puts Mi-Jin in great peril.
What ensues is a series of gut-wrenching plot-twists and a race against time to save Mi-Jin. There are a lot of coincidences in this journey as the ex-detective and his prey cross paths with neither fully realising what threat other represents. For Jung-Ho, this is a rival pimp and for Young-Min, well, he doesn’t really care that an ex-cop is chasing him he just wants to kill. Meanwhile we see Kim Mi-Jin manage to survive brutal attacks carried out by Young-Min with hammer and chisel (very Freudian) and these attacks are shown on-screen without the camera flinching away (making it painful to witness) and, thankfully, without the sadism of other films (making the blows quick thus ensuring they aren’t gratuitous and off-putting). These coincidences pique an audience’s excitement as we hope someone, anyone rescues Mi-Jin but there’s an underlying investigation which Jung-Ho carries out and tries to alert the police to and this provides the film with an underlying logical spine as we wait for him or the authorities to nail the criminal.
Jung-Ho hasn’t forgotten his detective training and his base instincts are on point when it comes to investigating, if a little rough around the edges. He uses car registrations to track down houses, quizzes witnesses, conducts searches and he bands together with pimps and prostitutes to build up a picture of a killer the police remain unaware of.
The bigger picture is what everyone is missing because each character and player has a limited view but the audience knows more which makes this story compelling as we see Jung-Ho slowly begin to realise how serious the situation is as he pieces together Mi-Jin’s disappearance and links it to others. We see the police who are slow to respond to the unfolding case since it occurs on a night when the mayor of Seoul is showered with faeces by someone protesting poor living standards and they have a serious lack of evidence. Anything will do to cover up that embarrassment including bringing to justice a serial killer but they have to do things by the book which means that they release killer due to lack of evidence, something that happened in the real life case. This feeds perfectly into the script as our expectations of the film are constantly raised and dashed by the police procedural part and seeing the various powers play politics with the case. The audience’s expectations are continually thwarted. This alone would be fascinating but what raises the film up even higher is when Jung-Ho gets on the tail of Young-min, literally.
True to its title, lots of chasing takes place through the winding hillside streets of Mangwon district, Seoul. Mostly at night and with moody lighting from street lamps and car headlights, the camera keeps pace with medium shots during long-sequences as the two actors breathlessly run after each other. It is thrilling to watch because these moments feature visceral physical action, partly fuelled by wanting to see Young-Min arrested. We have witnessed how evil he can be. Look into his eyes and see a void where empathy should be. Look into Jung-Ho’s eyes and you see empathy is something he gradually picks up in the film as he realises that Mi-Jin is in trouble and he placed her there. Not only that, he has to look after Mi-Jin’s daughter, an overused trope in Korean films but effective since she humanises the characters and adds weight to the story. Again the violence is potent stuff and you get the sense that the actors put everything into each punch and kick, every blow and dodge. It is painful to watch as characters take a golf-club swing to the head, bricks are tossed around and bounce off limbs and the wrestling occurs. You believe each blow and it means all the more because you are invested in the story and the people driving it.
Seo Young-Hee played a female victim very well in Bedevilled (2010) but in that film her character is pushed into revenge. Here she is merely a damsel in distress, her plot serving to add a sense of frisson to the story. This is really a story driven by men and the two are impressive. Ha Jung-Woo is excellently bland and disturbed as Young-Min and his callous disregard for the lives he takes is believable and a world away from the suave actor we see in The Berlin File (2013) and Behind the Camera (2012). Meanwhile Kim Yun-Seok provides the perfect foil as a rotten guy developing a conscience and softening over the course of the film. By the end you are rooting for him, a good turnaround for a character that may be difficult to like and this is one of the gifts of a film with such a complex script so well executed, the characters grab us and never let us go as we chase the finale and hope for the best.
Starring: Ha Jung-Woo, Kim Yun-Seok, Cho Seong-Ha, Lee Cheol-Min, Jeong Man-Sik, Jung Min-Sung,
Director Na Hong-Jin followed up his astounding debut, The Chaser (2008) with this film which proves to be even more macho, nihilistic, and violent as if inspired by the absurd cruelty of the split suffered by Koreans since the Korean War’s ceasefire. It is all played out through the misfortune of a simple taxi driver who finds himself caught between ethnic Korean Chinese and South Korean gangsters after he crosses the eponymous Yellow Sea on a mission to kill.
The film begins in the wintry Chinese city of Yanji, a place where Koreans and Chinese mix. People live in functional apartments and shop in open-air markets and small stores, they spend the night at gambling halls and get around on pot-holed streets clogged with cars from the early 90s. This place is the source of many immigrants that head to South Korea across the Yellow Sea.
Gu-Nam (Ha Jung-Woo), an ethnic Korean, or Joseonjok, is the husband of one such immigrant. His wife made the trip across the water with the intention of sending money back to her husband and daughter but she has disappeared. Now Gu-Nam, who took on massive debts to get a visa for his wife, toils away as a taxi driver and is hounded by gangsters who want the debt repaid. Not even selling his organs will pay things off. When not working, he is often found at gambling halls getting drunk and blowing his money while trying to ignore people who say his wife is having an affair and has abandoned him.
Myun Jung-Hak (Kim Yoon-Seok) makes Gu-Nam (Ha Jung-Woo) an offer
Enter local gangster Myun Jung-Hak (Kim Yoon-Seok) who offers Gu-Nam a deal: if Gu-Nam goes to South Korea to kill a businessman and return in ten days, he will get enough money to wipe out his debts. Not only that, he can search for his wife if he has enough time. Gu-Nam accepts the offer and leaves for South Korea by a route many illegal immigrants take, a rickety fishing boat.
When Gu-nam arrives in South Korea he finds a world slightly different from his own – clean streets, much more modern apartments, convenience stores instead of open air markets, people living closeted lives with more security and order and rich Koreans willing to exploit their poorer cousins who are illegal immigrants. Some things remain the same and there are gangsters but the South Korean variety wears suits instead of fur and leather, they use guns instead of hatchets and knives and they want the same person dead.
Gu-Nam spends a few days monitoring his target, planning his attack. There is a bodyguard and locked gates to get past but if Gu-Nam can get his timing right… but when the time to kill the man comes things go awry and Gu-Nam is left on the run with both ethnic Korean Chinese and South Korean gangsters looking to murder him while the police want to arrest him.
Split into different chapters such as “Taxi Driver” and “Murderer” the film charts the disastrous ten days that Gu-Nam suffers as he tries to head back to China and then solve why he is being targeted. The plot thickens and congeals as the murder goes so awry it quickly becomes clear it is a set-up and he is a fall-guy who is in over his head. The narrative is put together with a mixture of noir and Hitchockian elements – an innocent man accused, a protagonist who cannot trust anyone and gets beaten up constantly, ineffective police officers, a staircase playing a huge role, low-key lighting which favours shadows and darkness, and a convoluted tale that ends with a certain moral ambivalence. The film has a slow-burn energy that seems to build up in stages and peaks with various chase sequences where people get badly hurt, especially the main protagonist.
Gu-Nam (Ha Jung-Woo) on the lam
This being a Korean film, there’s a large dose of violence and its consequences from the brutal stabbing of Gu-Nam’s target to the pitter-patter of blood that flows down a staircase. Characters don’t spring back from punches, they stagger or collapse. Hatchets bite into backs. People are clubbed and kicked to death. Bullets send thugs sprawling. Knives stick and slash, leaving scarlet decorating the set. There’s little sympathy for many of these gangsters especially at the ending which suggests that each life can be wiped out with little consequence despite the ties broken. Indeed, the violence becomes operatic in scale and absurd as a result as so many die but when one considers that everyone exploiting and hurting each other is Korean and they are one people an element of tragedy enters the narrative.
The direction is crisp and unfussy and the fights are thrilling to watch before they get too grisly but it is the chases that are the highlights such as Gu-Nam’s escape from the scene of the murder he was assigned to carry out. He has to escape that important staircase into another building and weave his way through alleys and streets with a whole fleet of police cars and a small army of police officers on foot chasing him. Swift camera-work based on POV shots as our main protag and the policemen chasing him gets the blood pumping especially as police cars careen around city streets and crash into each other like this is a remake of The Blues Brothers, albeit much more serious.
Ha Jung-Woo and Kim Yun-Seok are reunited with their director to provide the engine that makes this film run. Ha Jung-Woo transformed from that slim-figured callous sadistic killer in The Chaser (2008) into a contemplative hulking bruiser in The Berlin File (2013). His performance and appearance here is midway between the two as he essays a confused, naive but determined and tough guy dealt a bad hand and scrambling to survive. Kim Yun-Seok goes from being a slightly sympathetic good guy to a beastly but slightly sympathetic bad guy who gets plenty of comedy in between moments of monstrous violence – he jumps into the water to chase Gu-Nam and he clubs a rival gangster to death with a huge bone.
Ultimately this is a great thriller that manages to make its convoluted plot compelling and it works because of Ha Jung-Woo and Kim Yun-Seok who relentlessly chase each other. Definitely one who wants to explore Korean cinema.
Starring: Hwang Jung-Min, Yoo Ah-In, Yu Hae-Jin, Oh Dal-Su, Jang Yoon-Ju, Kim Shi-Hoo, Jung Woong-in, Cheon Ho-Jin, Jeong Man-Sik,
Ryoo Seung-Wan follows up The Berlin File (2013) with this much more light-hearted action romp taking aim at the Chaebol, family-run mega-conglomerates that dictate much of the financial and business side of Korea. There is little sophistication in terms of its story which uses broad brushstrokes to illustrate a world where a dedicated team of cops take on an extremely violent, criminally corrupt and callous corporate playboy who abuses his powers in ludicrous ways.
The playboy in this film is the baby-faced Cho Tae-Oh (Yoo Ah-In), an executive at Sin Jin Trading who dresses sharply and has a smile to die for. As the son of the CEO’s second wife he is battling his siblings for control of the company and must be seen to be doing a good job if he wants the glory. While most people can accept being denied something or having to work hard, Tae-Oh’s family connections see him treated like a prince and so when he doesn’t get what he wants, oh boy. Beneath the cute exterior lies a cocaine-fuelled sadistic psycho who trashes his office, beats up his bodyguards, threatens his staff. His biggest problem is his hair-trigger temper which is unleashed whenever he doesn’t get his way in business and life. Normally, he is a spoilt brat who has no problem humiliating people in order to dominate them and likes to throw parties where underage girls and hard drugs are passed around by politicians, plastic surgeons and pretty boys looking to go wild for a night. Nobody is untouchable in his world…apart from him. This leads to him putting a man in a coma.
Said man is Bae (Jung Woong-in), a truck driver who joined a union along with his fellow drivers and was dismissed without full pay by a subcontractor working for Sin Jin. The man’s protest over being fired leads him straight to Tae-Oh’s office (alongside his cute son) where the corporate prince revels in some horrific brutality that leaves Bae hospitalised after an incident that is near murder. Tae-Oh does everything he can to keep himself from facing justice – all he needs to do is apologise and offer compensation but this guy is so arrogant that he covers it up and it escalates from a beating to attempted murder. Still, there’s a lot at stake and many people to buy off…
Enter Tae-oh’s cousin, senior VP (because this is a family business) Choi (Yu Hae-jin) who is assigned babysitting duties, cleaning up his Tae-Oh’s murderous mess by channelling money and power where it needs to go. A little social commentary about corruption in Korean society emerges as we see the slimy tentacles of this character and big business are shown reaching everywhere from the media to the police and those on the take can benefit quite lavishly and easily just by saying yes and looking the other way. Things such as paying for a kid’s education to foreign travel, securing careers for relatives in offices and even getting to be hired by talent agencies and becoming an actor are on offer if you know the right people. Tae-Oh is that sort of person and so when he needs a favour, well, you don’t say no. Unless you have a sense of moral justice.
Justice is delivered through the antics and righteous indignation of a small band of cops who believe in the mantra, “we may not have money, but we have integrity.” They are more or less led by Detective Seol Do-Cheol (Hwang Jung-min), a loose-cannon cop who we have already been introduced to as he almost single-handedly takes down a gang of smugglers dealing with dodgy Russians in Korea’s famous (or should that be infamous) port city of Busan. During that operation he struck up a friendship with Bae and his young son and showed some working-class solidarity in dialogue where the two discuss men and women not having everything handed to them on a plate and they have to work hard to put their kids through school. If Tae-Oh is a simple commentary on the over-excesses and privileges of an elite gone out of control, these normal guys are who most in the audience will be rooting for and so when Bae gets his beating, the audience will be cheering Detective Seol Do-Cheol for having the guts to stand up to the corruption and fight for old-fashioned values such as justice, honour, decency, and hard work.
With the characters on the bad guys side being a bunch of corrupt officials or automatons in flashy suits with slick-backed hair who are too scared to go against Tae-Oh, Seol Do-Cheol and his cohort of clean cops provide a relatable cast of characters thanks to their less-than-perfect (and thus comedic) approach to investigations. These guys and gals bicker, stumble, grouse, and fight criminals and do so with a firm sense of justice and with unique personalities that emerges in their dialogue and actions. A lot of comedy in the teams interactions with one another such as the team’s idolisation of Miss Bong (Jang Yoon-Ju) who flies across the screen when performing her high kicks, a loyal boss named Oh (Oh Dal-Su) who complains about having to clean up every mess but can fight with the best of them and usually in a comedic manner as well – shoes versus knives and a near miss for his manhood! These characters also allow women to have strong roles, something notable after spending time with Tae-Oh who denigrates the females who are around him. Miss Bong fights with gusto and Seol Do-Cheol rebuffs the corrupt offerings of Sin Jin during an attempted bribe.
With Tae-Oh, Yoo Ah-In does well as a caricatured character we are meant to hate in the many scenes of debauchery and anger that allow the audience to hate him. Hwang Jung-Min operates as an almost similarly broadly painted hero in Seol Do-Cheol, someone who the audience will root for considering his cheeky grin, flashy Taekwondo skills, nerves of steel and sense of justice. He is confident and charming and a good guy and so when Tae-Oh and Seol Do-Cheol face off in a final chase sequence and fight in a brightly lit street somewhere in downtown Seoul there is great entertainment in seeing the sparks fly. This is the highlight of the film as Seol Do-Cheol demonstrates more bravery by taking a beating instead of just dealing it out as he uses social media to ensnare his rich and arrogant foe.
Overall it’s a bit of a confection and easily forgettable once it is done but the final fight provides and the action is cool. Despite the lack of complexity it is well put-together and highly entertaining so give it a go.
I have been reviewing films for V-Cinema but when it came to Japan Cuts I had a car-crash moment when my computer suffered a breakdown during a teaching course. Problem solved but two months late, here’s the review… and I’m publishing it from Japan…
A Road
あるみち「Aru michi」
Running Time: 85 mins.
Director: Daichi Sugimoto
Writer: Daichi Sugimoto (Screenplay)
Starring: Daichi Sugimoto, Yuta Katsukura, Rika Sugimoto,
A Road is the debut feature-length film directed, produced by and starring Daichi Sugimoto. He is a young tyro still at university but already making a name for himself based on this film which has toured major international film festivals such as Berlin and Japan Cuts and it has won major awards such as the 2015 PIA Film Festival’s Grand Prize. Taking inspiration from his own life Sugimoto has made what is essentially a mixture of documentary and drama, asking the questions of at what point on the road to adulthood do we stop trembling with excitement at the prospect of the mundane things and greet the world with a sigh of indifference and is this change in feelings inevitable?
These are some of the themes gently probed by Sugimoto who opens proceedings rather strikingly with a home movie shot by and featuring a younger version of himself. We see Sugimoto as a young boy enthusiastically telling us about his hunt for lizards in his garden. His face crowds the screen as he meticulously recounts observations he has made while speaking in a breathless semi-serious scientific way. It is hard not to be charmed by this youthful exuberance and the mismatch of the age of the person and spoken register. This makes the leap from boyhood to manhood striking as we encounter Daichi again in the present.
here’s a link to the review of film and here’s the trailer:
Ah, being in Japan means I get to miss so many cool Japan-related events in the UK such as this talk with the writer Mitsuyo Kakuta that will take place in London. She is a name that film fans may know of thanks to the adaptations of her works Pale Moon and Rebirth. She is a highly respected author who is visiting London on October 26th for a talk hosted by the Japan Foundation which sent an email out to alert anybody interested about the event. I’m in Tokyo right now but I know a few people who will be interested. Here are the posters for the film adaptations and the details of the talk:
Mitsuyo Kakuta is an award-winning, prolific Japanese author whose works have earned her countless devoted readers. Kakuta started her serious writing career while she was still a university student, and her debut book won her the prestigious literature prize, the Kaien Prize for New Writers in 1990. Kakuta’s works, together with tapping into the more popular “entertainment” end of the literary spectrum, which enabled her to broaden her readership, centre around what resonated with her: the perpetual themes of mother-child relationships, and gauging the mind of ordinary people in society and the occurrences of our everyday life. Not only a household name in Japanese literature, her works have been televised and made into successful films, such as Hanging Gardens and The Eighth Day, both of which the Japan Foundation has had the pleasure of screening as part of their annual Touring Film Programme. In addition to her writing pursuits, she is a monthly supporter of Plan International Japan, for which she underwent the task of translating Because I am a Girl, a short story collection about girls in developing countries, into Japanese.
In light of the upcoming translation of The Eighth Day into Spanish, the Japan Foundation is proud to invite Mitsuyo Kakuta to explore her writing career, style, and gaze towards the contemporary Japanese society. Joined in conversation by Megan Bradshaw, Editor at Large, Asymptote Journal, Kakuta will also discuss issues such as the lives of women in Japan as well as trends in the Japanese literature world.
This event is free to attend but booking is essential. To book your place via Eventbrite, please click here
Kakuta’s feature stories such as The Eighth Day and Hanging Gardens are available in English through the British Library’s database, and her short stories can be purchased on Amazon’s Kindle if you wish to read her books in anticipation of this event.
Lowlife Love has been reported on here multiple times. I tracked it from its inception as a Kickstarter Project (which I backed) and then I wrote about it four times when it featured at a number of prestigious film festivals and got it’s theatrical release in Japan. It has been a long road and I got the chance to watch it at the Tollywood Cinema in Shinjuku after being invited by the film’s producer, the ever-cool Adam Torel. The film was an interesting ride to say the least. I was expecting a comedy but it is dark, a rather grimy expose of some of the horrible things that go on in the world of cinema in Japan. Despite having seen the director Eiji Uchida’s previous film, Greatful Dead, I was taken aback by this. It’s a must-see for anyone who wants a dose of reality. Thankfully it has a veneer of comedy and some great performances to keep it from being unbearable.
I am still in Tokyo and still writing about films and still getting press releases so here’s the information for its UK release on Blu-Ray and DVD.
Here’s the press release:
The first 100% Third Window Films production!
Third Window films team up with GREATFUL DEAD director Eiji Uchida to produce a darkly comic satire of Japan’s no-budget film industry!
Dual format bluray & dvd set out November 21st
Featuring a Making Of, Cast interviews, Deleted Scenes, Alternate ending, Music video, Theatrical Trailer
“A nasty peek at the underbelly of the Japanese independent film scene.” – Screen Anarchy “Lowlife Love is a fantastic piece of Japanese indie cinema, and a bold offering from the talented and creative Eiji Uchida.” – Eastern Kicks
“Presents uncomfortable truths in sharp, funny ways.” – The Japan Times
Lowlife Love
Lowlife Love Film Poster
下衆の愛「Gesu no Ai」
Running Time: 110 mins.
Release Date: April 02nd, 2016
Director: Eiji Uchida
Writer: Eiji Uchida (Screenplay),
Starring: Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Denden. Masahiko Arai, Masato Arai, Kanji Furutachi, Yumi Goto, Aki Hiraoka, Nanami Kawakami,
Lowlife Love was brought to life through a Kickstarter campaign (which I helped by backing). The cast are the type who regularly appear in the releases of Third Window Films so if you like The Woodsman and the Rain and so on, you will dig this. Lowlife Love was at last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival and it was at this year’s Rotterdam International Film Festival which was the place of its international premiere. The film is directed by Eiji Uchida (Greatful Dead) and stars Denden (Cold Fish).
Synopsis from IMDB: Tetsuo (Kiyohiko Shibukawa) is a lowlife. A film director with a small indie hit many years back, yet he has never gotten any further as he refuses to go against his ‘artistic integrity’. He’s a real loser. Despite being in his late 30s, he still lives with his mother and sister, borrowing money off them and scrounging from all he comes in contact with. This includes his best friend Mamoru (Yoshihiko Hosoda), who makes porn films with him for dodgy characters in order to make money, as well as the film actors’ school they’ve setup to exploit their students as well as for him to sleep with wannabe actresses. He’s a real jerk. Then one day two new students come to his school: Minami (Maya Okano), a naive and fresh girl from the countryside who wants to be an actress and Ken (Shugo Oshinari), a scriptwriter who has been living overseas. Tetsuo thinks Minami could be a real star and Ken has a brilliant script which could relaunch his career as a director, with Minami his muse. With the help of Kida (Denden), an unsavoury film producer, they strive to turn this project into something tangible, but Minami’s ability starts to turn the heads of other film directors such as Kano (Kanji Furutachi) and Shinjo (Kanji Tsuda), and soon Tetsuo’s world stars to unravel.
FESTIVALS
28th Tokyo Film Festival (Japan) 45th Rotterdam Film Festival (Holland)
6th Taipei Golden Horse Fantastic Film Festival (Taiwan)
18th Udine Far East Film Festival (Italy) 16th Nippon Connection Japanese Film Festival (Germany)
17th Hamburg Japanese Film Festival (Germany) 70th Edinburgh Film Festival (UK)
37th Durban Film Festival (South Africa) 10th Japan Cuts Film Festival (USA)
20th Fantasia Film Festival (Canada)
1st New Asian Cinema Film Festival (Brasil)
2016 Singapore Japanese Film Festival (Singapore)
43rd Film Fest Gent (Belgium)
20th SPLIT Film Festival (Croatia)
2016 Hong Kong Asian Film Festival (Hong Kong)
27th Sarasota Cine-World Film Festival (USA)
Happy Halloween! This is the time of year when people celebrate the supernatural and ghoulish aspects of popular culture and national myths. I do my part by highlighting horror movies on Halloween night. So far I have reviewed Nightmare Detective, Strange Circus, Shokuzai, POV: A Cursed Filmand Charisma. This is the fifth year of this strand
and I am doing it in Tokyo, Japan. The last two weeks has seen the city go into Halloween overdrive and I am told it is a recent phenomenon. For my part I have viewed things from afar (such as from on top of Roppongi Hills and down onto a parade) rather than get stuck in what looks like a proper melee in jam-packed crowds (boring, I know, but I want to eat my ghost cakes and pumpkin Kitkats and drink my Halloween juice).
Anyway, this year’s film is from the ‘90s and it came from a young director who is now a familiar name thanks to a scary person who curses people via VHS. This isn’t Ringu, it’s an earlier film…
We are in Japan in the ‘90s. A promising young director Toshio Murai (Yurei Yanagi) and his beautiful lead actors Hitomi Kurokawa (Kei IshibashI) and Saori Murakami (Kei Ishibashi) and the film staff are working hard on a film in a studio that has been around since the Second World War. It’s a huge place with a set that is built like a traditional house from the 1940s, props and scenery and other feature both modern and from the time of the studios construction as well as a lot of film canisters containing rolls of films from forgotten television shows and movies. It is an ideal location for the war drama being filmed and also place with a lot of memories. There is nothing so out of the ordinary at first glance and with so many people on set it looks like a lot of fun. Unless one looks up.
Hanging above everyone is rigging that looks like it dates back to the construction of the studio. It is the sort of ancient-looking wood and ropes ensemble that groan with the slightest pressure and sprinkle dust with the slightest movement. Worse still is the darkness pooled above the platforms. It is like an empty gulf that light cannot pierce. Who know what lurks in it, where it leads or maybe where it connects to. It might be best not to look up.
Of course, when someone senses something, maybe a stare or an emotion, they will look up to see where it emanates from. That is exactly what the cast and crew do, breaking scenes as their gaze drifts up into the rigging and stays rooted in place, a look of intense dread developing on their faces.
A scene can be reset and the set and props put back in place but the negative feelings linger amongst the people drawn to look. What is even more noticeable is the way that their film seems to be infected with the negative energy of the studio. When watching the rushes, the crew witness scenes from an old drama that was thought to be destroyed. The footage bleeds into Murai’s movie and shows an unknown actress on a similar set screaming in terror and clutching her throat as a woman with long black hair, pale skin, and a white dress laughs behind her. Said woman is out of focus, a blur, but the fear on the actresses face is unmistakeable and it is clear that the blurry woman in the background is causing the pain. There is a tragedy linked to that film which was thought lost but people don’t quite know what.
People are disturbed and the fear spreads amongst the crew. There’s a sense that something evil is lurking in the pitch blackness and it is corrupting the film’s production. That corruption is clear to see from the film’s rushes. Still, the director is desperate to get to the bottom of the mystery while finishing his film and does a little detective work, driven by the growing unease of the people he is leading and his own scarred memories since he seems to recognise that mystery film which has leaked onto his. An editor, an older member of staff gives stern warnings about the film.
“The film felt evil. Who knows what went on here. This place is 50 years old. Best let sleeping dogs lie, and throw out the film.”
That may not be an option since whatever lives in the old studio is awake and the director and his actors are determined to finish the film even if death strikes the set…
Nakata wrote the story and set/shot it in a location that he knows well, Nikkatsu’s Chofu film studio. Nakata worked at the famed production company Nikkatsu in the ‘80s and was familiar with the Chofu film studio so he was able to shoot Don’t Look Up on the abandoned stages after the company went bust.
Who knows what sort of superstitions and history had built up in the place by the time Nakata worked there with but there is something intriguing about the history of a place, the idea that some psychic trauma is so strong it leaves an impression and ghosts spring up from that impression. Imagine rummaging through things whether it’s a stack of books, a box of toys, or reels of film, and all of the human imprints that have been left on them. Why not technology? We are all familiar with film, cameras and the like and the idea that these things take our images and may steal souls or how televisions, in being able to receive information broadcast through thin air can access some other realm, a supernatural one. This sort of use of technology to make horror stories is always cool and actually makes a great hook for audiences since it roots them in a familiar place and with familiar things. While Don’t Look Up’s story is as thin as a white sheet worn by ghosts it is a very reasonable and schematic simple story for seventy minutes that showcases the skill Nakata has at evoking atmosphere.
Nakata ably sets up the atmosphere of the film-shoot with a limited cast and a few locations (the studio, a couple of exteriors and an apartment) and through clever use of camera angles on a set he clearly has control over. The mise-en-scene is perfect since the location is the real deal and must have been filled with the objects used in real films. Nakata uses all of the creepy parts to increase the terror and does so through strong direction of camera movement and framing – low-angle shots aimed at the ceiling and rigging of the studio to show the vulnerable POV of the crew as they stare into the inky-blackness and high-angle shots to show the ghost stalking its prey, reaction shots and movements where strange things are glimpsed. These simple but effective things are harnessed to the idea that technology is facilitating the haunting. The strange occurrences increase as equipment breaks down (usually signalling some ratcheting up in the haunting) or records the strangest things and people are stalked by shadows or hear voices. Overlapping audio tracks and blending of film negatives in editing that suggest the film is inviting horrific entities into the lives of the characters and the shadowy figures glimpsed in the background of scenes. It’s all great and when you keep in mind that it’s from 1996 there is a lot to admire. Strangely it is not quite scary.
The big surprise is that this film isn’t scary. It features chilling scenes but suffers too much from seeing the monster which is a spin on the traditional yurei – long limp black hair and a white kimono folded the way dead people have them folded. Her laughter is unnerving and the blurred sight of her hair-raising but seeing her in all of her glory blunts her terror by the end as we come to recognise the human aspect of her. The more terrifying thing is the way technology acts as a conduit for the dead and there is one really memorable bit and it is the old grainy black and white footage of the ‘lost’ film which is a disturbing set of images as we see the terrified actress, the unknown threat, and a child ascend a set of stairs to an attic where horrors lurk. Like Ringu, that old film is the thing that will stick in the mind.
“There’s an attic at the top of the stairs. Inside the attic is something so terrifying”
This video, the use of technology in hauntings and the way the supernatural is rooted in a recognisable world and bringing the traditional yurei into this world are all hallmarks of Nakata’s style. The film serves as a fun way for audiences to see the nascent skill of Nakata and how this is clearly a forerunner to Ringu in many ways. Actors reappear in Ringu such as Yurei Yanagi and the technology angle is also covered. I like it. It reminds me of a time when J-horror wasn’t a cash-cow for idol projects and there was solid direction and ideas. It is a relic from an earlier time and audiences will get something from it regardless of scares.
Regular readers might know that I set up this blog to review Japanese films and track my journey to Japan. Nearly six years after starting out I have made it to Japan. I am on a working holiday and have been in the country since September 10th but I haven’t had the chance or motivation to write anything. Instead, I have been out and about exploring places, trying things out, eating new food, and making friends. I have travelled from Osaka to Tokyo to Yokohama to other places in Kanagawa and Gunma. I am only just getting started since I have around ten months left in my working holiday. I timed my working holiday to take in as many film festivals as I possibly could. The first film festival I went to was the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF).
The Tokyo International Film Festival was pretty awesome. I was there for four days and three films. It takes place in the rather upmarket area of Roppongi and the films I watched were in two locations – Toho Cinemas in Roppongi Hills and Ex Theater Roppongi. Both cinemas are earthquake-proof (as was constantly announced before film screenings) and look really cool – space-age structures of glass and steel and cool lighting.
The seats are super comfortable and the cinemas are huge and can fit lots of people. There’s also a stage in front of the screen which is perfect for the Q&As that normally follow.
I would have seen more but tickets sold out quickly at many screenings so it’s a good idea t book online on the day they are released or go down to the box office early.
This festival is the best chance for people who don’t speak Japanese to watch films with subtitles since regular cinemas don’t do them. I have watched a couple of films without subs – Scoop! At the Kichijoji Odeon and Hana’s Miso Soup at the Tokyo Food Festival – and found that while fun and interesting, I missed he finer details. Not so with TIFF where subtitles and translators are on hand. The festival is staffed by an army of staff and volunteers (including English-language speakers) who make sure things run like clockwork. I think it’s a particularly Japanese thing where you have so many people sent to do all jobs conceivable including watching over festival-goers and guiding them, shouting our directions to ticket booths etc, This was vital for people who don’t speak top-tier Japanese.
Each of the screenings I went to catered to English-language speakers and there were staff members willing to speak English around which is vital for the Q&As. At one screening, a translator sat next to me and gave me the entire Q&A between Shunji Iwai and a film critic. At another screening I had an ear piece and a translator on stage did a fine job of conveying the conversation between the director Mipo Oh and another film academic.
I had hoped to take part as a volunteer but ended up going as an audience member and sitting with the press and watching the films on huge screens. This paid off because I got to sit close (oh so close!!!) to two of my favourite directors – Shunji Iwai, director of The Bride of Rip Van Winkle, and Mipo Oh, director of The Light Shines Only There. I was able to take photographs and record videos but due to the lighting the pictures I took are blown-out in areas. I have the memories at least and,more importantly, I made friends and now I have something special lined up for next year thanks to them.
This was my first film festival in Japan and it went smoothly for the most part especially since the majority of the festival always takes place in Roppongi. Here’s some travel advice. You can reach it via the Oedo and the Hibiya subway lines. These lines run through major stations like Tokyo, Ginza, and Shinjuku. You can also use other lines such as the Chiyoda and Marunouchi but you will have to transfer at Kasumigaseki or another station a couple of stops away. That’s what I had to do since I am in Asagaya.
Roppongi station has exits that lead directly out into Roppongi Hills via a large escalator or a street exit which is five minutes away from Ex Theater Roppongi. Like most JR and Tokyo Metro stations, there’s a lot of retail stores attached to the station.
The subway/railway system in Tokyo is extensive and easy to use so I recommend getting a Suica card. Suica is an IC card that works across the entirety of Japan and can be used to ride buses, trains, and subways systems and it can be used to pay for goods and services. It also has a cute penguin on it if you still need convincing! The only downside is that you will spend so much money on it because it is so convenient.
If you want to eat then you can try any of the restaurants or, if you want to play it safe, there’s are McDonald’s and Starbucks in the area. Both places offer free wi-fi.
Roppongi is a pretty lively place and the Hills tend to be the focus of many events such as parades and art exhibitions. I went there on my second day in Japan to view the Ghibli expo in the Mori Tower, a huge structure that acted as the HQ for the TIFF. You can get impressive views of the city from there.
I hope to have reviews of the films I saw released over the next couple of weeks. I just need to write them.
Here are some more pictures from the festival and Roppongi. Next up is Tokyo FILMeX.
Akihabara – this is a long and rambling post so feel free to just look at the pictures. If you’re feeling brave you can listen to this music while you read:
Akihabara (Electric Town as it’s also known) is billed as the electronics and nerd-culture centre of Japan. If you like anime, manga, computers, video games, cameras or any other types of electronic and otaku goods then this is the area that you need to visit. I have been aware of it since at least my high school years when I heard of its legendary collection of video game and anime goods. I had pictured a densely packed warren of streets containing arcade dens full of herds of video game nerds clustered around classic beat-em-up game cabinets while anime fans pored through second-hand book stores and cute guys and gals cosplayed colourful anime characters and the scene was complete with the neon glow and anime music cast out by ads on video screens. I imagined myself pushing my way through aisles of goods crowded with other fanboys and fangirls, making my way to holy grails of videogamedom. Even as an adult with less interest in games and anime I still held onto that dream and made it a point to visit it during my first week.
Akihabara wasn’t like I imagined it.
The reality was a little underwhelming when I first visited. There were herds of otaku, alright, but also lots and lots of foreigners (some of whom were otaku) who were also drawn to Akihabara for anime and games. It was crowded alright and you had to push phalanxes of foreigners and families as well as native otaku, all of whom amassed outside stores and around cheap electrical goods products and anime figurines. What punctured the atmosphere even more was the fact it was still daytime and instead of walking down alleys full of arcades and manga stores I stuck to the main boulevard where traffic inched up and down streets lined with chain cafes and restaurants and mainstream electronic stores and the AKB48 Theatre (the AKB stands for Akihabara) where idol girls sing their hit songs to legions of fans. There were cosplay girls (including some dressed up in AKB48 uniforms) there but they were outnumbered by tourists from America, Britain, Malaysia and other places.
No Denny, I didn’t go in there, sorry
Akihabara was not the subculture heaven I had imagined. In reality it is a really commercial area with multi-storey stores owned be commercial giants like Sofmap and Yodabashi Camera while smaller otaku havens like Mandarake and Super Potato operate in the spaces in between. My first trip ended in a dash into a Book Off store which sold second-hand games and then stopping at a sushi restaurant before turning back for home due to a headache. My next visit was a more leisurely one which combined Japanese practice with a friend and game nostalgia. Over the course of six hours and well into the evening, my friend and I spoke in Japanese and English and we perused classic games.
My next visit after was on a splendidly sunny Thursday. I walked from a nearby temple and got involved in serious game and goods hunting which saw me delve into the alleys and the small stores that are nestled between the giant towers. Akihabara has recently become a finishing destination of mine during my long walks from Yurakucho, Ginza, and Yotsuya (which take two to three hours). The stores are a reward for me since I get search through them and relive nostalgia for old games I owned or wished I owned such as Wonder Project J2,Rival Schools, Saga Frontier, and Romancing Saga. I love the artwork and the game music from the ‘90s and I do feel a chill run up and down my spine when I can read the kanji or katakana on a game case and find a lost treasure.
While I don’t have the time to play video games now, I have a collection which I add to from time to time with the intention of running through each game when I do get the chance to play them. Japanese import games form a large part of that collection especially for the Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo DS, and Sony PSP. I have other systems but these are the only ones that are multi-region and I have got a couple of titles during my Japan trip for them but I am not about to break the bank on games and have kept it to sensible levels of spending.
That written, I recently decided to call it a day on buying video games and anime in Tokyo so I had two items I wanted to get as a special goodbye to Akihabara – a JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure cup and a PSP game called Tactics Ogre.
The cup was going to be the most difficult thing to get since a search on the different sites came up with nothing in stock except doujinshi aimed at fujoshi and I didn’t want to go trawling through that so I thought I’d head down to the stores to find them for myself.
The first place I went to was Animate which is a huge store dedicated to all things anime and manga. It mostly skews to series and movies that are currently airing or recently ended but it has a wide range of products for perennial favourites. Unlike other buildings targeted at an otaku audience, this one is actually pleasant to walk through. Yes it has the tight spaces and hordes of people poring patiently over manga but there’s a sense that it’s clean and healthy especially with the colour scheme of blue and white, the neatly lined up goods and the bright lights. I slipped in with the crowds perusing the manga and scoured the first two floors of the store before asking assistants some variation on,
ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 のgoodsはどこですか。 – Where are the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure goods?
ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 のgoodsは何階ですか？ – What floor are the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure goods on?
I actually managed to get conversations going with shop assistants based on those two lines which is great since I am meant to be practising my Japanese during this working holiday. I was taken to a shelf with a small basket by a polite and helpful young lady who showed me what was on offer – a diary and a mobile phone case. She apologised for the paucity of items related to Jojo’s and I thanked her for her help. The mobile phone case with Jotaro Kujo was cool (I really did want it) but not what I was looking for (too expensive).
I left Animate and tried this old figures store and asked the question:
ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 のgoodsはどこですか。– Where are the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure goods?
Again, a conversation started with the store owner who showed me all sorts of goods under the heaps of toys but I didn’t get a cup. There was a Jotaro figure and a collection of shot glasses and we talked in Japanese about how old the products were. I asked the owner,
どんな場所はジョジョの奇妙な冒険 のgoodsを売りますか？– What sort of place sells JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure goods?
Dodgy Japanese aside, he did understand me and was kind enough to tell me about another store five minutes away located in a big black building.
Mandrake is what I had in mind when I first imagined Akihabara. A dark and dingy place with narrow aisles where people shuffle past each other hemmed in by glass cabinet cases full of stuff that reach for the rafters. This is a multi-storey haven for otaku which sells all sorts of goods such as models, key-chains and cards. It covers different eras from around the ‘70s (and maybe earlier) to now and there is a huge range of characters and items from toy cars to Ultraman. There were Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure figures but I didn’t bite since I don’t collect figures. Space restrictions aside, it’s easy to navigate since there is lots of English signage about. If I have one bit of advice for this store then it’s take the lift up and the stairs down since there are eight floors. Just watch out for pushy otaku and crowds in general.
So, the search for a JoJo’s mug turned up figures and shot glasses but no crockery. Well, money saved, I guess. Maybe, if I get some more money I will go back for the mobile phone case. Time for Tactics Ogre.
I love this game. I already have the PAL version and ended it on the perfect save file – I saved my nearest and dearest and got a magical waifu! – so I don’t want to touch it. I wanted a Japanese version to try out new things and test my Japanese. Chances of finding it were good since this version of Tactics Ogre was widely released and quite recent and find it I did at this store.
Retro Game Camp is awesome! This one was tucked away between two huge anime shops selling plushes and figures but as you can see there’s Super Mario sat outside. I discovered it by accident with a friend who I was practising Japanese with. We went in and looked at all of the titles, reading out the ones we knew the kanji for and telling each other about childhood memories. I was gaping at the myriad of different SNES and PlayStation games on offer and talked to one of the shop attendants about how to get the Japanese PCP board out of the Japanese cartridge and into a PAL one but since my Japanese wasn’t that great I lost track after a while. What I did understand was his answer to my question about what his favourite game is. Mario Kart! Good choice!
I also asked if I could take pictures since there were so many games to gawp at and some locked in cases so here are a few shots.
Tactics Ogre was easy to spot due to the use of katakana and I marvelled at the find despite having a special edition released by Square Enix in the UK a few years ago. Since my friend is a fan of Final Fantasy Tactics (another great game), I recommended this one to him due to its perfect combat/job/levelling balance and storyline and music and art. I must point out at this point that I am also a fan of Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy XII (still the best mainline Final Fantasy game in the series)and both games share the same director, Yasumi Matsuno.
Some of the real bargains in Akihabara are to be found in markets and alleyways so my advice is to get off the main strip where you have huge store fronts and gorgeous girls in costumes scouting for customers for maid cafes and explore a bit by going into the back alleys and plazas where you will find smaller shops and girls dressed as ninjas and school girls scouting for customers for maid cafes. Not much of a change. You will also find markets selling second-hand goods such as vinyl LPs, video games, plushes, jewellery, clothes and more. I was less interested in that and had another designation in mind…
The biggest draw for a lot of foreigners is Super Potato.
I found it late in the evening with my friend after asking a nearby cosplay girl where it was and almost lost my mind when I saw some the games in there. Super Potato is tucked away in the upper floors of an anonymous building but it is special since it hides vintage video game goods that I have been fascinated with since I was a kid. I can honestly say that I walked around with a stupid grin on my face as I examined stacks of Sega Saturns and Super Famicons, hoards of Dreamcast games and lots of PC Engines and all with those brilliant ‘80s and ‘90s anime illustrations.
Split over three floors, the first two feature tight aisles stacked with everything from Super Famicon to GameCube games, Dragon Quest plushes to cups with the Dreamcast logo on. You can find music by the band Serani Poji next to the soundtrack of Secret of Mana and posters from Street Fighter, Kirby’s Dreamland, and Dungeons and Dragons adorn the walls. Music and images from the Donkey Kong games play out alongside the antics on recordings of Game Centre CX whose host plays hard video games through to completion. The lighting is low on the first floor which makes it a little romantic while the second one is bright. In either case you can carefully look at the spines of games and see the history of Japanese video game development.
The third floor offers a video game arcade with King of Fighters arcade machines guarded by a Solid Snake statue (minus his gun) from the Metal Gear Solid series. Despite being less interested in games (I’m starting to doubt that assertion now) I still feel a connection with them and so spent quite a while looking in the stacks. If you go on a weekday morning then you will only have to battle crowds of foreigners but if you go on a weekend then most of Tokyo shows up including families.
There are some treasures still on offer such as Rival Schools, Ikaruga, and maybe Sakura Taisen 4 and one of the Shiren the Wanderer games but I settled for buying a long sought-after video game soundtrack from one of the Suikoden games and souvenirs for relatives. Being in Super Potato was the happiest I had been in Akihabara and I have visited it a couple of times but resisted the urge to buy anything else.
Truth be told, I want to save my money for something special, something unique. Buying games isn’t a priority for me so much as learning Japanese and getting to know people and experiencing Japan without needing a television the screen to watch films or play games, but through games I have been able to meet people and make human connections on my trip as I talked to random people in Akihabara and further afield and discovered we had a lot in common through our shared interest in Japanese games. While I didn’t feel a tight sense of community with the otaku crowd (I am more of a film guy), I still liked the atmosphere and Super Potato is the closest I came to realising that nerdy dream I’ve had since I was a child.
Apologies for the length of this post… Here are some hard facts.
Getting to Akihabara is easy. Akihabara Station is a major JR station with the Yamanote Line and Chuo-Sobu line running through (trains from Shinagawa, Ueno, Tokyo, and Shinjuku stop here). If you’re nervous about travelling then rest easy. Like most JR stations, Akihabara is large and terribly busy but easy to navigate since the station has signs that come in Japanese and English. There are also members of staff who can speak English.
As soon as you step out of Akihabara station’s Electric Town exit you will be in one of a number of areas where you will see an array of otaku-themed businesses like
I didn’t go in here, either
the Gundam cafe and the AKB48 Cafe sitting side-by-side with more mainstream stores including the ubiquitous Atre Akihabara which has become a regular haunt of mine since it is currently running a series of pop-up Final Fantasy events prepping the populace of Tokyo for the launch of Final Fantasy XV. I’ve seen a couple of Final Fantasy XV cups and t-shirts that I really want…
The nearest Tokyo Metro station is Suehirocho which is at the top of town closer to Ueno. It’s a short walk down towards the more cult stores and you will pass by plenty of eateries. If you’re unsure about local cuisine then there’s always a McDonald’s with cheap food and a Mr Donut with expensive doughnuts but you should definitely try some of the small sushi and ramen restaurants where you can get plates of the stuff from the conveyor belts. There’s also a wallet-friendly Coco’s Family Restaurant which has a variety of meals at cheap prices.
On Sundays, the streets are closed to traffic for a few hours and you can walk freely on the roads which makes it a slightly more relaxed experience.
As for the maid cafes? While I talked briefly with the lovely girls handing out the flyers there was no way I was going into one of them without a Japanese friend with me to make sure I wasn’t going to make a costly error. Akihabara is strictly about video games as far as I am concerned.
I arrived in Japan on September 10th and while I had a few things I knew I wanted to do such as visiting specific museums I didn’t plan things out in too much detail and forgot about certain events such as the Tokyo Game Show (TGS). It wasn’t until a friend mentioned going to it on the final day that I realised that I was about to miss a weekend extravaganza of games.
TGS is the second biggest video game event in the world after E3 and it’s the chance for the Japanese video game industry to showcase what it can do. The majority of the event is for journalists only but on the final weekend the public get to experience the games on the show floor. The part of this year’s TGS that was open to the public ran from September 17th to the 18th and, as in previous years, took place in the Makuhari Messe in Chiba Prefecture which is less than an hour away from Tokyo. Since I was based in Ikebukuro I had to catch a Yamanote Line train to get to Tokyo Station and then a Keiyo Line train to get to the Kaihin-Makuhari Station from where I could get to the convention hall. This was my first trip to Tokyo Station so I was unprepared for how huge it was but that wasn’t much of a problem due to the signs that were in Japanese and English and the logical layout of the station itself. The train ride was a short trip made slightly longer by the fact I missed my stop and had to double-back. I knew I was on the right train due to the high number of Westerners, otaku, and video gamers but totally didn’t register when they got out at the right station…
Once I arrived at the station at around 14:00 and met my friend we followed a huge line of video gamers towards the Makuhari Messe. It was a long journey along concrete concourses, up and down flights of stairs and weaving through pillars. Very grey and dull, which matched the weather.
The Makuhari Messe convention hall is a cluster of huge box-like structures that look like aircraft hangers and what with all the wide open spaces concreted over it and security personnel it struck me as looking like an international airport. There were a number of ticketing booths outside of the hall itself and with so much choice it wasn’t immediately obvious to me which one we should go for and even my Japanese friend was confused to begin with but we eventually found the right one and paid about 1200 yen each. We then had another epic walk towards the hall proper with another huge crowd amidst which I found some fellow Britons and had a brief conversation about how huge the place was. I would see them from time to time during the day but kept to my own company and that of my friend.
Entering the hall through a set of huge hanger doors was like entering another world (I think we entered through the wrong entrance but whatever). The grey light of the day receded, barely touching the darkness of the high-ceilinged space. What did pierce the black was the brightly-lit and noisy spectacle of video games played on huge screens, spotlights and ambient lighting, game demo stations, booth models, cosplayers, idols and actors all wearing brightly coloured costumes and more. The music from the games was so loud it morphed into noise and was an absolute din what with percussive bass and the high-pitched singing of idol girls along EDM tracks. It was a cavalcade of noise that hurt the ears. Despite the discomfort there was plenty to see and enjoy. There was the red-velvet game area for Persona 5 and the purple screens of the Twitch Street Fighter competition. A replica haunted house with a shooting range was set up for Resident Evil 7 while Final Fantasy XV just looked epic what with all the cool-looking banners hanging down from the rafters. If you wanted to see Joshi Wrestling, it was there and there was also a mecha suit for some PC game or other. The most impressive set-up had to be the large section for Sony’s VR kits where people had to wait in line to try on the head-sets where I could see many players moving around gingerly with huge grins on their faces while the games that they were playing games were shown on televisions next to them.
As my friend and I wandered around I talked about the games that we were passing. Having not played games for quite a while I found my interest slowly reviving as I recounted the history of Final Fantasy and Biohazard (Resident Evil) in film and games but my friend has little interest in video games while I was in my element despite my constant claims that I don’t care for them. I like playing certain games but don’t have the time or inclination these days but an event like this appealed to me due to my long-held love of Japanese role playing games where you can find fun characters such as this guy:
In fact, the first mascot I encountered was a Prinny from the Disgaea franchise. He was the highlight, dood. Otherwise, it was just me and my friend roaming around elaborate booths which were surrounded by hoards of fans. Indeed it was incredibly crowded with throngs of people gathered outside booths set up by companies. The reason for renting out this convention hall quickly became obvious since something of its size was needed to contain all of the stuff and the people who wanted to see and play games. There were more people than demo stations at the booths and business stands and so I didn’t get to test out any of the games. I had visited in the middle of the second and final day and the number of people was so huge it was going to be impossible to play anything. You had to queue and hope that you would get a position close enough to a game station to play it by the event’s finish at 17:00. I had to settle for just walking around and taking in the sights but even that was fun. I was slowly slipping back into thinking about the games I could play after the walk and then thought about the reasons why I shouldn’t to prevent it.
My friend and I stayed right up to the end before heading off to do some clothes shopping at a nearby retail park full of outlet stores. We thought we’d give it an hour for the crowds to let up.
You can leave early to catch a train if you want but it won’t make any difference when it comes to beating the crowds since there is a large and steady stream of people heading both to the convention hall and back to the train station. It isn’t just Tokyo that’s crowded, it’s whatever commuter city and event space near it that gets flooded with people.
Next year’s TGS will take place from September 21st to September 24th. I don’t think I will go but at least I experienced it once.
From the previous post about Akihabara you can tell that I slipped back into buying video games but the question is, will I play them when I am back home?
At a time I am currently working on a documentary in Japan I get an email about a cool season of Japanese documentaries filmed by indie creatives. The Japan Foundation and Institute of Contemporary Arts have teamed up for a retrospective of the documentaries of Shinsuke Ogawa and his acolytes. The event starts on November 17th and lasts until December 11th and it features films that chart the tumultuous period of the ‘60s and ‘70s when there were many student protests and a lot of social change as Japan modernised itself and controversial defence treaties were signed with the US which was embroiled in the Vietnam war. This is the best line-up of Japanese documentaries I have seen in the West so far and so it’s a great chance to learn more not just about Japan but filmmaking. I have written about one of these films (the Narita airport one) and recognise a couple of others but Japanese documentaries are a blindspot I have yet to watch any listed here so this I would have loved to see.Here’s a trailer:
There is a generous selection of films programmed and a generous range of prices on offer in terms of tickets so if you like the sound of this then you had better book it now because the event starts soon. If you need convincing then check out what Peter Bradshaw has to say over at The Guardian.
Here is information from the event organisers:
The ICA proudly presents a film retrospective of the documentaries of Ogawa Shinsuke(1936-1992) and the collective of Japanese filmmakers Ogawa Pro, founded in the late 1960s under his direction. Documenting the student struggles and the Sanrizuka protests from the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, these films recorded major political and social upheavals in Japan with remarkable dedication and commitment. These works were a formidable force in postwar independent Japanese cinema, and their influence is still felt today in Asian documentary filmmaking.
Multibuy ticket offer: book tickets for 2-5 screenings and get them for £9 each, or 6-9 screenings and get them for £8 each.
To find out more information including trailers of the films and how to buy tickets, head over to the ICA website.
People in New York have a nice winter treat since Metrograph will play host to a series of movies by the genius that is Takeshi Kitano. This event will see most of his major works screened on 35mm prints from November 17th to November 25th. It features highlights such as Sonatine, Boiling Point, A Scene at the Sea and Kids Return. There’s also one of his weaker efforts, Getting Any?, a comedy that wears out its welcome after 30 minutes… Otherwise, this is a stellar selection of films.
Kikujiro Takeshi Kitano Masao Yusuke Sekiguchi
Here’s the write-up on the site:
Comedian, television host, painter, author, producer, distributor, and all-around superstar, Takeshi “Beat” Kitano is best known to international audiences as one of the great contemporary filmmakers. As an actor he’s a preternaturally calm, eternally impassive presence, billed as “Beat”; as a director, he’s all about rhythm—the long quiet lull before a storm of violence, the canny delivery of the ace comic. Watching Kitano’s films, you learn to expect the unexpected, whether it’s a swiftly-delivered chopstick into the brainpan or Kitano’s radical shifts between bleak yakuza films, contemplative character pieces, and ventures into wistful comedy.
That’s a good summation and since the first film starts tonight audiences will have the chance to find out for themselves. Here’s the line-up. If you need more convincing then take a gander at my reviews:
It’s a grey day today and snowing in Tokyo. I have to go out into the cold to get more clothes fit for winter. It makes me think of home back in the UK which is also cold as winter gets a grip over there. That won’t stop me writing about events related to Japan and here’s one that has been in my email inbox for a while. The avant-garde Musician Koichi Makigami will give a talk and performance in London on December 03rd. I had to look up his work and it seems like fun based on the first couple of videos I found:
Here’s the information from the organisers:
Koichi Makigami is an internationally acclaimed musician and avant-garde vocalist with a very distinct voice. Also the leader and vocalist of the now legendary band Hikashu, Makigami regularly performs and records solo vocal experiments, combining elements of Japanese theatre traditions and presenting an exciting and energetic array of vocal acrobatics and personalities. Makigami’s compositions and improvisations have gained him numerous fans around the world and have inspired collaborations both within and beyond the field of music.
A musician with a colourful and eclectic career, Makigami will talk about his inspirations, the basis of his work and his career as a solo artist as well as the leader of Hikashu, while reflecting on Tokyo’s underground music scene in the late 70s through to today.
Joined in conversation by Dr Alan Cummings, music journalist and lecturer at SOAS, Makigami will talk about his international collaborations, discussing the potential of these practices and suggesting how music can be a connecting force between different cultures and disciplines.
During the event, there will be a short performance by Koichi Makigami
The talk takes place at The Horse Hospital, Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1JD. Saturday, December 03rd at 7:00pm. You can book a free ticket to secure a place here.
TheLondon International Animation Festival is due to launch at the end of the week and it lasts ten days (December 02nd to December 11th). There are over 200 films getting screened and many of them are Japanese. The titles are spread across competitions and special screenings and there is a wide variety of Here’s a preview based on a press release and information from the festival site:
Mirai Mizue represents Japan in this section. His animation is normallyabstract and experimental and his latest, Retro Future (2015, Dir: Mirai Mizue, 7 min) looks to push boundaries since it is set in a futuristic world imagined in childhood – what will the buildings look like?
The competition section of the festival received 2,400 entries from many talented animators from around the world but, as usual, Japanese animators have a significant impact and make a strong showing in the various parts.
This section is full of shorts between three and fourteen minutes long and the works come from many familiar names such as Mirai Mizue and Kawako Sabuki. Other names have cropped up in festivals I have covered such as Annecy.
Saties “Parade” (Dir: Koji Yamamura, 14 min) is in International Competition 7 and its subject matter revolves around French composer Erik Satie’s essays on the music he composed for the 1916 ballet “Parade”. Here’s a trailer:
(Netherlands, 2016, Dir: Maarten Schmidt, Thomas Doebele 54 mins )
This is billed as a documentary portrait of the Oscar-winning Dutch animator and director Michael Dudok de Wit who’s debut feature The Red Turtle made waves after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2016 where it won the special jury prize. It is included in this list since it was co-produced by Studio Ghibli, and it is their first-ever international co-production.
Directors Maarten Schmidt and Thomas Doebele followed Michael and his team for more than two years, during the making of the film and they captured many different facets of a character described as a perfectionist used to creating his hand-drawn animated films himself but having to work with a team of 30 animators from all over Europe for The Red Turtle.
Here’s a trailer for The Red Turtle which I wrote about when it appeared at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Mitsuyo Seo was a Japanese animator, screenwriter and director of animated films who made propaganda for the Japanese government during World War II. Momotaro, Umi no shinpei (Momotaro, Sacred Sailors) is one of his most famous and influenced the next-generation animators including major figures like Osamu Tezuka. 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 was shown at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
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.
The film has been licensed for release by Funimation in the US and Anime Limited in the UK.
The film will be shown with the short Spider and Tulip(1943, Dir Kenzo Masaoka, 16 min ) which, according to the Barbican website, was v, oted the fourth best anime short of all time by Japanese magazine Animage. The story is about a spider’s attempts to trap a young ladybird but she isn’t fooled by his cunning ploys.
That’s it for the festival this year. Another great line-up which is sure to provide viewing pleasure for audiences.
I have been a bit quiet lately because I have embarked on a new project on another website (more on that) and I have moved to another city in Japan for a couple of weeks. I have also been hanging out with friends who took me to an onsen and then a maid cafe. Despite a hectic schedule I managed to watch one film, At the Terrace. My review for the film At the Terrace is up over at V-Cinema. Here’s a preview with trailer and images following:
Playwright and director Kenji Yamauchi premiered his film At the Terrace during the 2016 edition of the Tokyo International Film Festival where it garnered positive buzz from critics for its mix of sensuous and caustic comedy. Based on one of his plays, Trois Grotesques, Yamauchi refuses to cleave away too far from his source and keeps things simple with a film shot in a single location with a cast of seven actors, all of whom were players in the preceding play itself. Perhaps because of their familiarity with the material, the director and his cast bring about a film that, while not being particularly cinematic, proves to be awfully amusing and painfully funny as it explores some bitter feelings and bad behaviour bubbling away underneath polite Japanese exteriors of a group of acquaintances.
The film opens at a lavish house somewhere in the suburbs of Tokyo. The house is owned by Mr Soejima (Kenji Iwaya), the director of a company, and his wife Kazumi (Kei Ishibashi), both of whom are hosting a night-time party which is concluding on a happy note if the shouts and cheers of happy people who are going home slightly inebriated are anything to go by.
They are at the front of the house.
The action actually takes place entirely on the titular terrace at the back of the house. The first character (human character, at least) we meet is Haruko Saito (Kami Hiraiwa), a beautiful young lady who has wandered onto the terrace to check her phone in private. She has attracted the attention of Tanoura (Hiroaki Morooka), a timid and sensitive engineer for the Toyota car firm. It seems he has fallen for Haruko little realising that she is married to a graphic designer named Taro Saito (Ryuta Furuta), a confident looking man sporting a flashy purple suit and a bit of a beard that masks an occasional devilish grin.
I have been very slack writing posts for the blog because I have been working on various project and exploring Tokyo. I finally made it to Japan. Some days I become blasé about certain things but then I remember that I am on the other side of the planet and in a country I have always been interested in. It’s amazing. I have gotten used to commuting in and around Tokyo and following train etiquette, I use chopsticks without having to think about things, and I am picking up Japanese words at a fair clip.
I have two jobs at the moment and contribute to a film project. Next year, I will head to the Osaka Asian Film Festival to work as a volunteer. I am finally contributing to Japanese cinema.
As a result of this I travel around and speak to the locals and I experience all sorts of new things and making friends. I want to keep doing this.
I had a busy day starting with a Japanese class and then I watched three films. I went to see Rogue One: A Star WarsStory with a work colleague, I then watched the Satoshi Kon anime Tokyo Godfathers and Paprika.
Although I feel a little homesick I also feel comfortable here in Japan and I have met many wonderful and kind people. I hope to continue meeting great people and experiencing unique things. I will try and get my work rate for this blog up again but for now, here’s an OP which I have always wanted to use when I thought about posting videos from Japan:
I am writing this in Japan. It has been one of my long-term goals to get to Japan. It has, in fact, been a dream since childhood. It hasn’t been an obsession but it has been a major facet of my life. I have made friends from Japan and learned some of the language. So much of my everyday life has centred around Japanese media. I just naturally gravitate towards things like anime and video games, music, and films and that has matured into high culture and a vague goal of becoming a part of Japanese society in some way. I have been doing that from Britain with the nebulous plan of getting to Japan. Now I am finally living in Japan. Following dreams really does work!
The resolutions I made for 2016 were mostly about one dream and staying positive and taking any opportunities that I could get
My resolutions for 2016
I will go to Japan,
I will continue to review films.
I achieved all of my resolutions. I kept it simple for 2016 and I finally travelled to Japan. I also kept the film reviews coming although they slowed down to a trickle over the last four months. This, during the year when I became a contributor to V-Cinema! I’ll try and increase the output and make my writing more interesting. If I had to highlight film reviews worth reading I’d select these:
I don’t know about the quality of the writing but I’d like to select them because of the strong memories I have attached to the process of watching and reviewing them and because I want to highlight these works as genuinely great films worth your time, or, at the very least, they are interesting.
The reason they have slowed down is because I have been doing something every day.
I’m in a new country. I shouldn’t really sit in dark rooms all day every day watching films!
I have two jobs as an English teacher, I am helping to make a documentary, I am involved in an art project, and I am constantly going out and exploring, meeting new people and having fun. I haven’t really had time for films but I have been to Japanese cinemas and I attended the Tokyo International Film Festival 2016. I have lived in a Japanese style in parts of the country I have never heard of and I have eaten food that is unique to those regions. I walk through Tokyo with some confidence since I am becoming familiar with the city due to my solo explorations, trips to art galleries and the times I hang out with friends at interesting places. Throughout it all I have met great people who are kind and generous and who have made me think so much about life.
I hope I am growing as an individual!
I hope I continue to grow!
It has been an amazing experience!
I finally made it and there’s still so much for me to learn and do. Next year, I will be going to Osaka to help out at the Osaka Asian Film Festival and I will do more travelling. I wouldn’t have got here without the help of others and so I’d like to take the time to thank them. I would like to thank family and friends who encouraged me to go and gave me all sorts of support. I would like to thank my bosses at work who okayed my trip and the people who interact with me on Twitter and through this blog. I write this every year but I really mean it…
I would like to thank everyone who has visited my blog and commented on it and I hope you continue to come back and share your opinions and film experiences with me plus your support. It means a lot.
So, I am about to leave the place I am staying and head to Sensou-ji to meet a seriously sophisticated and beautiful lady-friend (and fellow JoJo’s fan) to see in the New Year in Japanese style but before I go…
My resolutions for 2017
I will travel across more of Japan,
I will learn to speak, read, write and listen to Japanese to a much higher level than I currently do,
I will write down more of my adventures,
I will improve my writing style,
I will continue to review films.
2017 is on the horizon and I hope that there’s more peace and harmony and happiness in the world and we can share it along with great films. I hope I can make the most of my time in Japan and I continue to make friends as well. I hope good things keep happening. The journey continues!
Goodbye, 2016, goodbye. I have had a lot of happy memories this year and I hope to make more next year in 2017.
Following on from last month’s Japanese avant-garde music talk with Koichi Makigami, The Japan Foundation in London has lined up another great free talk involving music and Japan only this time it’s the World of Anisong, which is probably something easier to get into but no less interesting. It’s a free event and it takes place at Foyles Bookshop on January 18th at 6:45pm. There will be an actual singer/seiyuu at the event, a certain Aya Ikeda (My Anime List profile) who I’ve never heard of since she’s involved with the girl’s anime Precure!
Here’s a video of Aya Ikeda in action:
This event is free! So if you have the time and you like Japanese culture, this is a must-attend, as far as I am concerned.
Here’s more information from the organisers:
From the onset of anime in Japan, the accompanying music has always been fine-tuned to the content of the anime as well as its audience. While the music style of each song varies and differs depending on the period, the songs used and created for anime are often passionate, melodic and almost always undeniably infectious. Recently the songs have evolved from mere accompaniments or frills to the anime to become more independent and acknowledged in their own right as a genre known as anisong (“Anime songs”).
Responding to this musical phenomenon, the Japan Foundation present a special event delving deep into the topic of anime music, which is today considered one of the main driving forces in the Japanese music industry. Featuring a talk by Dr Rayna Denison, lecturer at the University of East Anglia, the event will trace anime music’s brief historical journey while examining the impact it has had upon the anime industry and its viewers.
Following on from the talk, there will be a special performance by Aya Ikeda, the songstress behind the themes of the very famous anime series Pretty Cure (aka PreCure) a “magical girl” anime, as well as the opportunity to sing along too!
Come and immerse yourself in the musical world of anime and kick-off 2017 in style!
Toru Takemitsu was a self-taught musician and composer who contributed the scores to many highly-regarded, even classic, films from the 1960s and beyond. More than ninety films received his work such as many New Wave titles like Hiroshi Teshigahara’s most important films (Pitfall, Woman in the Dunes, The Face of Another) and Masaki Kobayashi’s Kaidan and Harakiri. Not only those, he worked with Akira Kurosawa (Ran), Shohei Imamura (Black Rain), and Nagisa Oshima (Empire of Passion). Here’s an example of his work:
His work melded Eastern and Western influences and his inspirations ranged from Debussy to John Cage. His work became highly regarded around the world and he won many awards. Here’s an interesting article on The Guardian website from 2013.
On Sunday, January 22nd, the Japan Foundation is hosting an event that looks over his legacy, which comes ahead of a special event where NHK Symphony Orchestra will perform his work at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in March. The talk will take place at King’s Place, Hall Two, 90 York Way, London, N1 9AG.
Here’s the information on the Japan Foundation event plus a link to the NHK concert which was sent out by the organisers:
Toru Takemitsu is among the most important composers in the history of Japanese music. Almost entirely self-taught, Takemitsu went on to compose several hundred independent works and score over ninety films. The first composer to be fully recognised in the West, Takemitsu achieved international renown for his distinctive style. Combining elements of the Occident and the Orient, Takemitsu created music that was sensuous yet accessible.
Takemitsu’s daughter and music producer, will examine the significance of Takemitsu’s work and share their unique experiences reflecting on his life and legacy.In honour of this talented composer The Japan Foundation are proud to present a special talk as a prelude to NHK Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Takemitsu’s Requiem for Strings in March. Oliver Knussen CBE, a close friend of Takemitsu who has presided over many of Takemitsu’s works himself and Maki Takemitsu,
This event will focus not only on the music of Toru Takemitsu but also on the life that influenced such vast and intricate musicscapes.
Tickets for this event are priced at £3 (with free entry for students and minors). To purchase tickets please visit: kingsplace.co.uk/Takemitsu
If you are a student, free places for this event can be booked by contacting event@jpf.org.uk
This event is co-produced by the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo
NHK Symphony Orchestra perform Takemitsu’s Requiem for Strings alongside Mahler’s Symphony No.6, ‘Tragic’ at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall on Monday, 6 March 2017, 7:30pm, as part of the International Orchestra Series. For further details, please click here
It sounds like a great event and the tickets are pretty cheap (free in the case of students) so this is something definitely worth going to, especially if you want to find out more about older Japanese films.
His non-film work is also quite beautiful and mysterious and I have recently taken up listening to it while writing:
The good folks at The Japan Foundation announced the titles that will be screened across the UK in their Touring Film Programme for 2017 and it’s an eclectic bunch of films connected by the theme of odd obsessions! The idea is to look at Japan through movies that depict desires, hopes and impulses and these cinematic delights stretch across many mediums and genres from anime romances to a documentary on a fish market.
Audiences across England, Scotland, and Ireland will get the chance to see all of this at various points from February 03rd to March 29th as the tour takes in fifteen cities with events kicking off in London at the ICA (see below for the full list of venues).
The programme is stacked with interesting titles which I will detail below:
The film is based on the bestselling book “Gakunen Biri no Gyaru ga 1 nen de Hensachi o 40 Agete Keio Daigaku ni Geneki Gokaku Shita Hanashi” (How a Teen Girl Went From Academic Absurdity to an Elite University in One Amazing Year) by Nobutaka Tsubota, this is the true story of how the author Nobutaka Tsubota, who runs a cram school, helped his student Sayaka Kobayashi go 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 and as a result she is bottom of her second-year high school class. In a last ditch effort to improve her standing she visits a cram school where an unconventional lecturer named 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.
Shuichi Okita is attending the festival so this will be a screening to get to!
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 his old-rocker father Osamu (Akira Emoto), that his girlfriend Yuka (Atsuko Maeda) is pregnant and they are getting married. His parents are simultaneously upset over the lack of preparation and excited about having a wedding and a grandchild but things get difficult when Osamu collapses and is taken to hospital where a serious problem is revealed for the old man…
The story about the dying young artist is based on the last diary entry by the famous comic manga artist Tezuka Osamu (creator of Astro Boy) just before he died of stomach cancer at the age of 61.
Synopsis:Hiroshi (Yojira Noda) once had ambitions of being a painter but has given up and now works cleaning officewindows. That’snot the worst thing that has happened to him because he has found out that he has three months left to live because he has stomach cancer. It is during these final months that he meets a bold and outspoken high school student named Mai (Hana Sugisaki) who believes in him and his art and because of her inspiration he refuses to give up on life…
Ryuichi Hiroki is a director who has flitted between pink films and dramas. Kimi no Tomodachi (2010) is an example of the latter. It’s a film with a large ensemble cast, something Hiroki likes to return to as seen with Kabukicho Love Hotel, a film which also has a large ensemble cast full of talented people. This one takes place in one of the seedier areas of Tokyo, a place where beautiful men and women work in yakuza-run clubs and fleece customers of their money.
Synopsis: A group of people are all connected by the fact that they are staying in a love hotel in Kabukicho. These people include Toru (Sometani), the manager of the love hotel, and his lover, a musician named Saya (Maeda), a cleaning woman named Satomi (Minami) and her husband Yasuo (Matsushige), a salaryman named Kagehisa (Murakami), a music producer, a prostitute scout named Masaya (Oshinari) and call girl business manager named Masashi (Taguchi). Their lives intersect and crash together in the titular hotel.
Paper Moon is based on a novel by Mitsuyo Kakuta which was then adapted into a dorama. The film is directed by Daihachi Yoshida who was last reviewed in this blog for brilliantly bringing The Kirishima Thing (2012) to life. It stars Rie Miyazawa as an adulterous housewife/bank employee involved with a student and I sung her praises for her performance in The Twilight Samurai.
Synopsis: Set in 1990s Japan, just after the economic bubble has burst. Rika Umezawa (Miyazawa) lives a dull life. Despite being a highly rated employee with her clients at a bank, a seemingly loveless marriage with her husband leaves her feeling a profound sense of emptiness and this leads her to embark on an affair with a young man named Kota (Ikematsu), a university student. Spending money on him is a costly endeavour what with hotel suites and fancy restaurants and so she begins to embezzle money from her clients and neglect her husband as she becomes addicted to her illicit affair…
Apparently, this is the Japanese-version of My Fair Lady, replacing high society London with Kyoto geisha.
Synopsis: Haruko Saigo (Kamshiraishi) is a country-bumpkin from Kagoshima with dreams of becoming a geisha. She heads to Kyoto and starts life as a maiko (apprentice geisha) but finds that learning the traditions and coping with the different way of life is a little bit harder than expected as she overcomes her rough manners and learns how to be a classy geisha.
I have been out of the loop with Japanese films since moving to Japan (how ironic) but I have heard people talk this indie title up. It has a cast worth watching since it stars award-winning actors Yuya Yagira (Nobody Knows), Nana Komatsu (The World of Kanako), Denden (Cold Fish), Sosuke Ikematsu (How Selfish I Am!) and Masaki Suda (The Light Shines Only There, Princess Jellyfish). This film is being billed as the best performances from some of them in Japanese cinema this year. Head to the cinema to see if the hype is real. This one is getting a release in the UK thanks to Third Window Films but the cinema is always a lot of fun.
Synopsis from Third Window Films: Taira, an unnervingly quiet delinquent teen, mysteriously leaves town right before the coming of age festival. His disappearance doesn’t worry anyone except for younger brother Shota, his only remaining family, who sets off to look for him amidst the faded downtown neon lights.
Taira aimlessly wanders through a nearby city, provoking fights with random bystanders. His violent streak intrigues high schooler Yuya who rallies him to beat up more people. As the night progresses, street-side scuffles soon turn into a sinister game, becoming even more mindless and indiscriminate. The two leave behind a trail of blood and mass confusion.
I remember seeing this on the Tokyo International Film Festival programme and not giving it a second look due to its story – a woman falls in love with a hairdresser. The write-up at the Japan Times makes it sound interesting, an intimate character study of a woman embracing love. These are the sorts of films I should watch more of after my experiences in Tokyo (plus I recently had a haircut in a salon so I’ve got the experience to appreciate it, haha).
Synopsis: Sayoko (Takako Tokiwa) is a middle-aged housewife with a happy family. Her husband is a salaryman who loves her and she has a sweet-natured daughter. Yet, somehow, Sayoko finds herself becoming hopelessly infatuated with a young curly-haired hairdresser Kaito (Sosuke Ikematsu), an infatuation that may go too far…
This is based on a manga and it stars Miki Nakatani (Zero Focus, The World of Kanako) who plays a dress-maker. According to the Japan Foundation write-up:
Featuring the original clothing created by acclaimed designer Sachiko Ito (who also designed costumes for Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Airdoll), this film artfully depicts the beauty of clothing and a long-forgotten way of life.
Synopsis: Ichie (Nakatani) takes over her grandmother’s dressmaking shop but instead of making changes to her new business she follows the old ways by using old fashioned sewing machines and lots of care and attention. This makes the clothes she creates very popular and soon people from far and wide come to visit and she gets involved in their lives…
Japan’s ageing population is pretty fertile ground for stories as seen in Takeshi Kitano’s comedy Ryuzo and his Seven Henchmen (2015). This one may not have a big-budget or a star-studded cast but it proved to be a hit. Filmed on location in Saitama prefecture, this will give you an idea of what places outside of glamorous and famous areas like Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and Hokkaido are really like.
Synopsis: Tae is a 77-year-old widow who wants to inject a ‘spark’ into her life by finding a new person to love and be loved by. She signs up with a matchmaking service to find that love but faces resistance from friends and family who can only think of social mores. Despite this, Tae embarks upon her search.
This is an erotic experimental film based on a novel which was inspired by a painting by Paul Klee. The painting is modern art so you have been warned. More interestingly, this film, which is distributed by Nikkatsu, is said to have foreshadowed the “Roman Porno” genre which saved the studio from bankruptcy.
Synopsis: Ichiro Iki is a cosmetics salesman who is disturbed by the idea that his recently deceased father slept with his wife when she modelled for him. He searches for the truth and during this mental turmoil he finds himself drawn into conversation with an unfamiliar young lady Akiko who invites Ichiro back to a hotel where they make love without exchanging details.
A week later, they have a second chance encounter and what starts is his entry into Akiko’s turbulent relationship with her sister Kyoko, a bar hostess. Akiko asks him to give her absolute hell…
Synopsis: Tsukiji fish market is famous around the world. It is the largest fish market around with 700 wholesalers selling a huge amount of high quality fish. It has been like this for 80 years. When it was announced that the market was to be closed back in 2014, director Naotaro Endo started shooting and he spent a year capturing the daily operations of the place.
This is another film about a dysfunctional family torn asunder by sex and obsession but it comes from 1960 and it’s a film by Kon Ichikawa, so don’t expect anything too scandalous to be shown on screen. The story still packs erotic punch and it proved to be a hit at the Cannes film festival in 1960 where it won the Special Jury Prize.
Synopsis: Kenmochi is an elderly man with a young wife and no libido. He attempts to sexually satisfy her by engineering an affair between his wife and future son-in-law in order to inflame his jealousy and restore his sexual virility. Kenmochi’s cunning plan however, has tragic consequences.
Since arriving in Japan I have been out of the loop when it comes to anime and so the only thing I know is that Kimi no na wa. has been the massive hit (because most people I speak to have seen it or want to see it). This one looks far more interesting, a slice-of-life about a bully who tries to redeem himself by asking for forgiveness from his target, a girl who is deaf. This comes from Kyoto Animation and it’s directed by Naoko Yamada, one of the most promising female directors going.
Synopsis from the festival site:Shoko, a young Deaf student, transfers to a new school where she is bullied by Shoya for her hearing impairment. While Shoya originally leads the class in bullying Shoko, the class soon turn on him for his lack of compassion. When they leave elementary school, Shoko and Shoya do not speak to each other again, but Shoya, tormented by his past behaviour, decides he must see Shoko once more to atone for his sins – but is it already too late?
Here’s the list of venues with links to each website where you can
The list of venues has grown since I began reporting this with more venues in Scotland hosting the tour but Wales is not covered at all. Perhaps there will be a venue brave enough to host the touring film programme next year. As for me? I’m in Japan so I can’t attend since I am in Osaka.
and you see empathy is something he gradually picks up in the film as he realises that Mi-Jin is in trouble and he placed her there. Not only that, he has to look after Mi-Jin’s daughter, an overused trope in Korean films but effective since she humanises the characters and adds weight to the story. Again the violence is potent stuff and you get the sense that the actors put everything into each punch and kick, every blow and dodge. It is painful to watch as characters take a golf-club swing to the head, bricks are tossed around and bounce off limbs and the wrestling occurs. You believe each blow and it means all the more because you are invested in the story and the people driving it.
