The Korean Cultural Centre in London is hosting another series of free film screenings and this one is called, Patchworks: Unwrapping My Korean Cinema.The next film is The March of Fools from 1975 and it comes from Ha Gil-jong. It seems to be an important title in Korean film history. There’s a wealth of information out there thanks to different retrospectives and elements in the Korean film industry who are keen to promote some of their nation’s best works. If you cannot make it down to London, you can watch it legally on YouTube.
Here’s information on the first film in this season as pulled from the website and a clip from the film itself:
Synopsis from the website: In his My Korean Cinema, Kim hong-joon refers to The March of Fools as a film that made a profound impact upon him.The film was directed by Ha Gil-jong, a director who was known for being somewhat of a rebel himself and who unfortunately passed away all too soon. His film is about the dreams of youth and freedom, of love and possibility, but also of realising that life does not always turn out the way one had hoped.
Majoring in Philosophy at college, Byeong-tae becomes acquainted at a group meeting with Young-ja, who majors in French Literature. With the influence of rapidly propagated Western culture, these stylish 70s youngsters are dealing with the agonies of family, school and jobs. Though this agony is coloured with humour and self- scorn, it points towards a bright and promising future.
The March of Fools was recently deemed the best Korean film of all time in a KoFa poll of the top 100 Korean films.
The Korean Cultural Centre hosts this event, and others in the season for free. This is the final season of Korean Film Nights in 2017 so make the most of the free films on offer. The film will begin at 19:00. so you had better arrive early to get a seat. You can book tickets here. The location is:
The Japan Foundation in London recently ran an event dedicated to Japanese food as shown in films and it seems to have been super popular because there is another helping of food-based films for audiences to salivate over and it’s all free to attend (you just need to book a place). Prepare to gorge yourselves on some really delicious looking food served up amidst some great stories by a myriad of cooks!
Wednesday, August 23rd at the Courthouse Cinema, London
This is a historical film set during the Edo period and starring popular talent Aya Ueto. She stars alongside Kengo Kora (The Drudgery Train, A Story of Yonosuke).
Synopsis:Great cook Haru marries into a family of legendary “Kitchen Samurai”, who have served the lords of Kaga for many generations with their wonderful cuisine. While her new husband and successor to the family is a master of the sword, his kitchen-knife skills leave a lot to be desired. Haru vows to make her husband a superb samurai chef and starts to teach him the art of cuisine. A period drama based on a true story.
Thursday, August 24th at the Courthouse Cinema, London
18:30
The Chef of the South Polar
南極料理人 「Omoshiro Nankyoku Ryurinin」
Running Time:126 mins.
Director: Shuichi Okita
Writer:Shuichi Okita(Screenplay), Jun Nishimura (Original Novel)
This is the second feature-length film from Shuichi Okita. Two of his other films, The Woodsman and the Rain, and A Story of Yonosuke are available to purchase in the UK thanks to Third Window Films.
Synopsis:At a research facility located in sub-zero Antarctica, it’s Chef Nishimura’s job to dish up delicious meals for his colleagues using limited ingredients available – soon enough the much-anticipated meals become the only thing keeping them from going crazy! Based on the autobiographical essays by Jun Nishimura, Shuichi Okita serves up a visual feast for the eyes, combining elements of comedy and pathos.
Naomi Kawase’s films are gaining traction in the West with cinema and home releases. Sweet Bean was the first major film of hers to get this treatment and Radiance has been picked up for distribution in the West following a successful run at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Synopsis: After getting released from prison Sentarou (Masatoshi Nagase) worked hard to become the manager of a dorayaki bakery store. An older woman, Tokue (Kirin Kiki), is hired to work at the store, making the sweet red bean paste that fills the dorayaki. Her sweet red beans become popular and the store flourishes, but a rumour spreads that Tokue once had leprosy.
15:15
Tampopo
タンポポ 「Tampopo」
Release Date: November 23rd, 1985
Running Time: 115 mins.
Director: Juzo Itami
Writer: Juzo Itami (Screenplay),
Starring: Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto, Koji Yakusho, Ken Watanabe, Rikiya Yasuoka, Hideji Otaki, Fukumi Kuroda, Mariko Okada,
Synopsis: Two truckers, Goro (Tsutomu Yamazaki) and Gun (Ken Watanabe) stop by a rundown ramen noodle store owned by a widowed woman named Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto). Her business is struggling and she has to look after her son. The two are harrassed by ne’er do wells in the local community who Goro takes on in a series of fights. Tampopo enlists Goro’s help for more important matters as she asks him to help her research the perfect noodle so she can rejuvenate the noodle bar. What ensues is a series comic vignettes as they try and succeed in their quest.
The Korean Cultural Centre in London is hosting another series of free film screenings and this one is called, Patchworks: Unwrapping My Korean Cinema.Garak Market Revolution is a tiny indie film that was shown on a handful of cinema screens according to the Korean film website. The fact that the Korean Culture Centre is showing these films makes it the best way to see indie films from Korea. This film looks like a lot of fun and also has a social critique about youth unemployment and a hopeful message about finding the strength to overcome it – through traditional Korean chess.
Here’s information on the latest film in this season as pulled from the website:
Garak Market Revolution
Hangul: 장기왕: 가락시장 레볼루션
Running Time: 88 mins.
Release Date:February 02nd, 2017
Director: Jung Da-won
Writer:Jung Da-won (Screenplay),
Starring:Jung Doo-won, Choi Si-on, Park Ye-young, Jung Da-won, Kim Kyung-ik, Kim Jae-rok, Jung Do-Won, Ko Gyung-pyo,
Synopsis from the website: In this sweet alternative story of youth and protest, a young man with a college degree takes a job at the local Garak Market without telling his parents. Being teased by younger peers for not having a white collar job and getting harassed by his boss, his life is not exactly ideal, but after discovering his extraordinary gift for playing the traditional oriental chess game, jang-gi, and falling in love with a girl who fights to make the world a better place, he might have just found a possibility to change the world for himself and his friends.
The Korean Cultural Centre hosts this event, and others in the season for free. This is the final season of Korean Film Nights in 2017 so make the most of the free films on offer. The film will begin at 19:00. You can book tickets at this website. The location is:
While attending the Osaka Asian Film Festival I saw a whole host of indie films from directors making their debuts or sophomore titles. The festival provided the perfect platform for these new directors to showcase their work, many of which were funded by grants from the Housen Cultural Foundation or the Cineastes Organization Osaka (CO2), or through crowdfunding sites like Motion Gallery. One particular project, Visualised Hearts caught my attention. This film and its director Akiko Igarashi are, in filmic terms, the very definition of the idiom, “a diamond in the rough” but there’s enough potential here to warrant viewing the film and supporting Igarashi, allowing her to polish her talent and shine as a new voice in Japanese science fiction.
Visualised Hearts is Igarashi’s debut feature-length film. She based it on her short film, Kokoro wo Kashikasuru Kikaiwhich was developed as she studied at film school while holding down her company job. Her feature was made on a tiny budget with limited resourcesand actors recruited from the CO2 Actor Scholarship Project and yet its ideas are big: the benefits and complications of being able to visualise what the human heart feels.
The story takes place in a university located in Kobe where an experiment is being conducted to perfect a machine which can visualise the emotions in a person’s heart. In essence, anybody stood next to the device will have a double created of them as their “heart”is visualised. This double acts like a living breathing, sentient human who can talk. We see the science and its creators in action in the opening sequence.
The lead scientist is the enigmatic and aloofSouichi (Yoshio Shin) and he has co-developed it with his wife, a plain-spoken intelligent woman namedMidori (Nanami Shirakawa). Both are in their late thirties and lead a team ofyoung scientists. They hunker around a computer in a large room which is dominated by a platform surrounded by a mess of wires and tubes tangled around a canister containing water and a crystal. Despite this being a low-budget sci-fi film, the tech looks real enough and pretty interactive. When electricity is passed through the device, ultrasound waves (and an irritating high-pitched noise)are generated and they reveal the imageof anybody stood next to the device. This image is fully interactive and will say what a person truly feels.
Souichi volunteers himself as the guinea pig.
The experiment is initially a success. A double of Souichi appears and seems to say something to Midori but an accident occurs and the double disappears while the real Souichi collapses to the ground having fallen into a coma, his consciousness trapped in the machine. Midori is left heart-broken but driven to continue the research in an effort to visualise her husband’s feelings and find a way to reconnect with him.
The people funding the experiment have other ideas. Sceptical about what’s going on, they want to pull the plug. Enter twenty-something researcher Masaki (Ryuichi Yoshida) who arrives at the laboratory to announce the suspension of the research and collect information. The more time this naive and guileless scientist spends in the company of Midori, the more he admires and likes her. As he encounters Midori’s double and experiments with his own double, his feelings for her strengthenbut will his burgeoning love for her sway Midori from continuing with her experiment to recapture Souichi? A battle of wills takes place as characters try to connect with the ones they love. Will the machine be able make people understand each other better and is the human heart something to be trusted even if the mirror image of a person is telling you what is truly on their mind or is the heart deceitful?
Split into chapters with titles like “Light of the Sunset” the story is told from Masaki’s perspective and he is a great way into the narrativebecause a young and earnest researcher named Asumi (Aoi Ibuki playing cute and childlike)develops a crush onhimand thanks to that crush we get treated toinfo dumps about the science involvedin the form of pleasant conversations. Some quick post-film research suggests that the tech behind visualising the human mind/heart through sonoluminescence seems sound enough. The idea that our hearts and minds produce images that are only detectable through ultrasound is intriguing and a rich source of drama and what occurs through the storyline is more of a philosophical than scientific storyline as a bunch of characters and their doubles get involved in a relationship dance facilitated by the machine.
Human interaction means interpreting the words and actions of others and understanding them. Our interactions are coloured by our mindsets and knowledge and so naivety and experience, insecurity and confidence, count for a lot. The more we learn, the more sophisticated and empathetic we become. This makes for some engaging drama as we see Midori and the othercharacters battle internally and externally (in the form of their doubles) with concepts such as love and selfishness/selflessness.
Masaki, initially clueless about Midori, turns into an eager hormonal schoolboy in the presence of a beautiful, confident, and experienced older woman and Asumi is also reduced from adult to teen as she tries to get her crush to notice her.The central relationship between Midori and Souichi is intriguing as the two seem like a complete mismatch but there are flashbacks and some lines of dialogue dedicated to their relationship to bring to life the initial intrigue and affection they felt for each other to life and give dramatic impetus to their actions further along in the story. It helps that Nanami Shirakawa is an actor with depthand range as she displays steel and vulnerability, playfulness and dedication to her role of Midori.
Just because there are doubles who look exactly like the original person, it doesn’t mean we can trust them to accurately relay what is in the heart and Igarashi’s script muddies the water by having the characters and their doubles switch places and debate things out loud as they wrestle with their emotions – whether it is possible to truly know another person and whether love is selfish or selfless and if we only see what we want to see instead of truly understanding each other. All must face the bitter tincture of reality as they slowly come to understand the feelings they hold for each other and whether their interpretation of the one that they love is the correct one. They use the machine and their doubles to come to some form of truth and it is all competently handled by Igarashi’s direction and writing – especially the use of doubles. At no point is it confusing seeing so many characters on screen. Costume changes and shot-reverse-shots are utilised to get people to talk to their inner selves and it’s all seamless. Some shots are populated by so many characters, it’s a technical marvel.
Indeed, there is some grace to proceedings. For example, asMidori nears understanding why Souichi took the risk of using the machine we see her mirroring his actions from the beginning and following the same path that he did. Meanwhile, Masaki follows Midori’s actions as the characters go smoothly through their elaborate relationship dance.
If there are issues with this film then they are technical, from audio to visual but they are forgivable considering Igarashi is new and, more importantly, they do not hamper the narrative. With support they can be solved. Misjudged sound levels and interference from ambient noise meansome conversations are either muffled because actors are too far away from the microphone or the microphone is pointed at some heavy machinery and picks it up as well as the dialogue. Use of ADR would cure these issues. The microphone intrudes at the top of the screen in one scene (maybe the boom operator was tired). Editing feels choppy at the start of the film so scenes feel scrappy because a beat has been taken out. Once past the start, the rhythm is gentle and allows for contemplation. The lab itself is set on a university campus but it feels curiously lifeless. There is an extended cast which gives a sense that there is a wider world out there but the acting from one personcan best be described ascliched as he gives his rendition of a mad scientist (having worked with scientists, I have yet to meet someone as disengaged from reality as this one chap). Despite these reservations, they are only minor and don’t hold the film back from being interesting and engaging. Indeed, Igarashi kept my attention the entire time and some of her film has remained with me clearly.
There are some stunning shots in this which has an elegiac feel to things. There is an autumnal hue thanks to the light tones and the use of browns, yellows and softer colours, especially when scenes take place on location such as on a beach and during the flashbacks in coffee shops and a cinema and a walk along the coast. One particular scene (and I could be wrong about the location) was shot on Suma Beach and has the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge in the background and the warmness of the area, the landscape, the characters and their interactions, have remained quite vividly in my memory for quite some time. More importantly, I felt for the characters and Igarashi’s writing and direction and most of the actor, while new, kept me engaged.
One of the most important jobs of a film critic is to alert people to films that are worth watching and to highlight new and emerging talent. Critics can and should help nurture and encourage this talent because, well, said talent can make more films worth watching. Igarashi is a talent that should be nurtured. Visualised Hearts is undeniably flawed and not the perfect product out of the box like BAMY but what works well carries this film. Igarashi creates a world worth exploring and a cast of engaging characters that discuss interesting ideas. With enough support and encouragement (and a bigger budget), Akiko Igarashi could create something great.
The Toronto International Film Festival takes place from September 07thto the 17th and I intend to keep providing coverage of this particular festival because there is usually a good line-up of Japanese films. This year, there are two. Or, two that have been announced so far. In previous years which I have covered (Toronto 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011), there have been many more programmed so it might be the case that more will be announced at a later date but the festival organisers cut up to 20 per cent (60) films that will be screened (source). What has resulted is that Asian films have been hit very hard. See the update for some exciting additions!
I may be missing something so I’m making this post a sticky and will update it if anything crops up. For now, two films, one feature and one short. One horror and one drama.
UPDATE: 16/08/2017
I spoke too soon about there being too few Japanese films! Radiance, Birds Without Names, and The Third Murder have been added! This year’s slate of Japanese films at Toronto is shaping up to be a nice bunch!
Naomi Kawase is a veteran filmmaker whose works are finally leaving the festival circuit and becoming widely available in the West via home distribution. Her latest was at the 2017 Cannes film festival and it radiates with some glowing praise. Her latest film sees her reunite with the actor Masatoshi Nagase who worked with her on An (2015), a film that appeared at Cannes 2015 and a whole host of other festivals before getting released in the UK and US amongst other foreign territories.
Synopsis: Masaya Nakamori (Masatoshi Nagase) is a genius photographer. Hemeets Misako Ozaki (Ayame Misaki), a woman who is involved in a voice acting project for the visually impaired. The two initially don’t get on because Masaya has a cold attitude but when Misako sees a photograph of a sunset shot by him, she is inspired to look into Masaya’s life and discovers that he is losing his sight and their relationship changes.
Kazuya Shiraishi has moved from heavy crime dramas like The Devil’s Path and Twisted Justice on to the light-hearted Roman Porno Dawn of the Felines in terms of his career as a director. This one looks like a return to the drama and it stars Yu Aoi and Sadao Abe (Dreams for Sale) among others.
Synopsis: Towako (Yu Aoi) is in a relationship with an older man named Jinji (Sadao Abe). She hates him because he has a deadend job and no social grace but she needs him because of the money. However, she pines for an ex-boyfriend despite the fact he physically hurt her badly. When she meets Mizushima, a married man with a kid, he reminds her of Kurosaki and they begin an affair. Then the police visit Towako and tell her that Kurosaki has vanished…
Hirokazu Koreeda’s murder mystery will be travelling from the Venice Film Festival to Toronto (and hopefully on to London). This one sees him bring together a great cast, some of whom he has worked with before. Suzu Hirose was the eponymous little sister in Our Little Sister and Masaharu Fukuyama was one of the fathers in (Like Father Like Son) and there’s also the masterful Koji Yakusho who has worked with most of the great modern directors like Juzo Itami (Tampopo), Takashi Miike (Thirteen Assassins), and Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure) and Tetsuya Nakashima (director of the still totally mind-blowing film The World ofKanako. There is also the wonderful underused actor Mikako Ichikawa who took the lead in the utterly charming Rent-a-neko!
Synopsis:Shigemori (Fukuyama) is a hot-shot lawyer on a mean winning streak but when he is compelled to take on defending a man named Mikuma (Yakusho) he finds the first case which could cause the wheels to fall off his career.
Mikuma is accused of a murdering the president of a company and setting fire to the corpse. It looks like an open and shut case since Mikuma has confessed and he was convicted of a murder that took place 30 years ago. The death penalty is almost a certainty but the more Shigemori investigates and the more he talks to Mikuma, the less certain he becomes of the man’s guilt and the case itself.
The truth lies with the daughter of the murdered president, Sakie (Hirose)…
Vampire Clay is the feature-length film debut of writer/director Soichi Umezawa, a man who has had a long career as a special make-up effects artist on many doramas and films like those of the Tomie franchise, low-budget horror like the truly awful Alien vs Ninja and Dead Waves and the rather excellent Kiyoshi Kurosawa film Bright Future. This one looks more in line with his horror films and the special effects look pretty good – gooey and creepy dolls made from clay and some even creepier paintings!!!
The cast are mostly young newbies but they are held down by some really experienced actors such as Asuka Kurosawa who has worked with Shinya Tsukamoto when she gave a powerful lead performance in A Snake of Juneand she has also worked with Sion Sono on Cold Fish as a truly memorable sexy psycho. She has also appeared in two highly rated Tetsuya Nakashima films – The World of Kanako and Memories of Matsuko.
Kanji Tsuda is her co-actor and he has worked with great directors like SABU, Ryuichi Hiroki, Takeshi Kitano (Sonatine, Kids Return, Dolls) Shunji Iwai (April Story), Takeshi Miike (Audition) and Takashi Shimizu (Ju-on: The Grudge) and Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Tokyo Sonata). He also has a lot of experience with low-budget horror such as Shibuya Kaidan and Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl as well as a number of unspeakably gory Sushi Typhoon films. Survive Style 5+ is another one and I highly recommend seeing it.
The trailer I found is a compilation one for a horror film festival with films like Jeepers Creepers and The Fog and a couple of other titles. The third film featured is Vampire Clay.
Synopsis:The students of a rural art school are hunted and eaten by a scary vampire clay demon. It looks like they also turn on each other.
The director is Kei Chikaura and he is new to me. He grew up in Germany and Japan and studied economics and cinema at Osaka University before founding “Creatps Inc”, a media production company based in Tokyo. In 2012, he started a career directing movies with music documentaries and live concert films forming much of his filmography. Signature is his third short film and it has already been at the Locarno Film Festival (source).
Synopsis:An anxious young man from China is in the middle of the noise and crowds of Shibuya searching for something that will change his life…
Director’s statement: This film is about the sadness of youth in the age of international migration.
In Japan, there is a training program for other Asians called Technical Intern Training Program. Originally, its objective was assisting Asian developing countries. However, nowadays the situation has changed a lot. Some companies use it just for hiring a lot of young foreign workers under extremely low wage; not providing them any education. In this background, more than 5,800 trainees a year escape from the companies they belong and eventually become illegal overstayers or workers.
In this film, I wanted to look closely into an innocent young man from China, and find in me some connection with him. (Source)
The Korean Cultural Centre in London is hosting another series of free film screenings and this one is called, Patchworks: Unwrapping My Korean Cinema.The final film is La vie en Rosefrom 1994. There’s not much out there about this award-winning film but if you want convincing that this might be worth a watch then read this interesting review.
That this is the final film in the series is fitting because it was the debut film of Kim Hong-joon, the celebrated professor and film scholar whose documentaries and books have helped inspire this season of films being screened at the Korean Cultural Centre. There is a special event being held at Birkbeck Cinema on August 25that 19:00 where Kim Hong-joon will give a talk about Korean cinema and his work and he will screen five films. If you have a deep interest in Korean films then this is the event to go to since he is a member of the Korean Film Commission, and the founder of the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan). Find out more at this webpage.You can book tickets for the talk here.
Here’s information on the final film in this season as pulled from the website:
La Vie en Rose
Running Time: 93 mins.
Release Date: August 06th, 1994
Director: Kim Hong-joon
Writer:Yook Sang-hyo (Screenplay),
Starring:Choi Myeong-gil, Choi Jae-sung, Cha Gwang-soo. Lee Jee-hyung. Hwang Mi-seon, Choi Jong-won,
Synopsis from the website: La Vie en Rose feels like a Tarantino movie set in a comic book shop. It’s a film that works over many genres, ranging from martial arts to vengeance, from coming-of-age to finding your place in life. Clerks (Kevin Smith: 1994) meets High Fidelity (Stephen Frears: 2000) as Seoul’s youth try to create and protect the place and
The community they’ve come to love. “Should I stay or should I go?” is a question many young people ask themselves, whether they are from the country or the city, from the east or the west. it is a story about refusing to give up even under impossible circumstances; it’s about refusing to give in to the destructive forces of everything from organised crime, to governmental bans and crackdowns on illegal activities; it’s also about trying to build something together, a community you feel you can belong to, where the outcasts, half criminals and homeless can also feel welcomed.
The Korean Cultural Centrehosts this event, and others in the season for free. This is the final season of Korean Film Nights in 2017 so make the most of the free films on offer. The film will begin at 19:00. so you had better arrive early to get a seat. The talk also takes place at 19:00 so get there early to get a prime seat as well. You can book tickets here. You can book tickets for the talk here.
Prepare Yourself for Another Helping of Samurai Cooking! The Japan Foundation in London recently ran two events dedicated to Japanese food and they proved to be super popular. Well, good news! The organisers have announced that there will be one more free film screening of A Tale of Samurai Cooking – A True Love Story due to the insatiable appetites of J-film fans. It will take place at the Rich Mix cinemaon August 26th at 12:00. Tickets were quickly snapped up for the film’s first showing so you had better book now to avoid disappointment!
This is a historical film set during the Edo period and starring popular talent Aya Ueto. She stars alongside Kengo Kora (The Drudgery Train, A Story of Yonosuke).
Synopsis:Great cook Haru marries into a family of legendary “Kitchen Samurai”, who have served the lords of Kaga for many generations with their wonderful cuisine. While her new husband and successor to the family is a master of the sword, his kitchen-knife skills leave a lot to be desired. Haru vows to make her husband a superb samurai chef and starts to teach him the art of cuisine. A period drama based on a true story.
Eureka Entertainment will release Naomi Kawase’s award-winning film, The Mourning Forest in a dual format blu-ray and DVD set on August 21st (you can order it on Amazon). It is released as part of The Masters of Cinema Series and Naomi Kawase has certainly earned that title since she is a stalwart of the festival circuit and has won many awards. Here are the details on the film:
Naomi Kawase is a native of Nara and most of her films are either autobiographical as they touch on her turbulent early life living with a great-aunt after her mother and father split, or connected to Nara and the surrounding region in some way. She became the youngest winner of the Caméra d’Or award which is given to best new directors at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival for her first 35mm film and ten years later, she returned to Cannes and won the Grand Prix for The Mourning Forest.
As mentioned previously, she is a regular fixture of the film festival circuit and one of the few women to be regularly seen amongst the likes of Michael Haneke and others. Her latest film, Radiance, was at Cannes 2017 and will be seen at Toronto 2017.
Synopsis from Masters of Cinema: Machiko (Machiko Ono) is a young nurse who still carries the burden of her young son’s death. Shigeki (Shigeki Uda) is an elderly widower and a resident at the nursing home where Machiko works. After celebrating Shigeki’s birthday, Machiko takes him for a drive in the countryside, but their car breaks down and Shigeki absconds into the nearby forest. Machiko has no choice but to follow, and they become lost in the dense woodlands, before their fates eventually become entwined.
Drawing comparisons to Shohei Imamura (particularly his Palme d’Or winning The Ballad of Narayama) and Terence Malick, Naomi Kawase’s The Mourning Forest is a hauntingly beautiful, symbolically rich masterpiece, and The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present the film for the first time ever on Blu-ray, in a special Dual Format edition.
The Raindance International Film Festival returns to London on September 20th and runs until October 01st and it is celebrating 25 years of screening independent films. The venue has changed to the Vue Cinema in Leicester Square but there’s still a megaton of indie films for people to gorge themselves on. Here’s the amusing trailer for you to get hyped with!
This year’s line-up of Japanese films is pretty awesome. The opening film is Oh Lucy!which will be shown prior to a 90s-themed party at Cafe de Paris. There are seven other feature films and one documentary which will be screened over the course of the festival. I’ll list them below (click the title to be taken to the film you want to see).
Atsuko Hirayanagi attended NYU Tisch School of Arts in Asia and holds a blackbelt in karate. She came out with a number of short films including the award-winning shortOh Lucy! (2014)which was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and was developed into this project that was screened at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Critics gave the film praise and it’s pretty awesome that it’s the opening film for this year’s Raindance. You can read more here but it’s an inspiring story and the resulting film looks great. Here are two clips and the trailer:
Synopsis from the filmmakers: The drama-comedy tells the story of Setsuko Kawashima (Terajima), a lonely, chain-smoking office lady in Tokyo who is past her prime. After deciding to take an English class, she discovers a new identity in her American alter ego, ‘Lucy,’ and falls for her instructor, John (Hartnett). When John suddenly disappears, Setsuko earnestly sets out on a quest to find him, eventually leading her to the outskirts of Southern California.
This is the latest film from Eiji Uchida, director of Greatful Dead (2014) and Lowlife Love (2016). It was produced by Adam Torel of Third Window Films, a person who did a lot to build up the profile of Japanese films in the UK and he has made another cracking title with this twisted romantic saga. This review by Elizabeth Kerr from The Hollywood Reporter makes it sound like a worthwhile watch full of great performances from its young cast:
“…Love and Other Cults packs a boggling amount of narrative into its lean 95 minutes. At times it can feel like too much, but Uchida juggles his characters’ various arcs efficiently, making every frame and line of dialogue count. An energetic pop-punk sensibility keeps the film moving at a breezy clip…“
The film is very accessible and not as abrasive as Eiji Uchida’s earlier works but it still gets dark. Sairi Itoh gives a loveable performance as a lost lamb looking for love in all the wrong places and she is sure to charm audiences. Third Window Films announced that Eiji Uchida will be at the festival for a Q & A so be sure to attend this screening and ask some interesting questions on September 27th.
Synopsis: Ai’s (Sairi Itoh) has never had a stable home. Her religious mother stuck her in a cult and then she lands with a gang of drug-users and dropouts, a traditional nuclear family and worse. While she bounces around different environments, her classmate Ryota (Kenta Suga) follows a similar path as he falls in with a gang of wannabe yakuza. They harbour feelings for each other but will they be able to express them? It turns out that the two are star-crossed lovers of sorts, destined to meet each other in unsavoury circumstances
Perfect Revolution
パーフェクト・レボリューション 「Pa-fekuto Reboryu-shon」
Running Time: 117 mins
Director: Jumpei Matsumoto
Writer: Jumpei Matsumoto (Screenplay),
Starring:Lily Franky, Nana, Seino, Eiko Koike, Kimiko Yo, Amane Okayama,
Synopsis: Kuma (Lily Franky) is disabled, suffering from congenital cerebral palsy, but despite living most of his life as a wheelchair user, he likes sex and so he became an activist for sex for the disabled. He meets Mitsu (Nana Seino), a prostitute who suffers from a personality disorder, and gradually starts opening his heart to her. Their ultimate love has the power to destroy social barriers and their own personal obstacles.
Like looking at videos from home since I spent so much time in and around Akihabara. Minus the violence of course. This looks like a heartfelt drama from newbie director Yusaku Matsumoto who has a credit on a horror movie as an editor. The screening on September 26th includes Q & A with the director Yusaku Matsumoto so please make him feel welcome.
Synopsis from IMDB: Eight years have passed from the Akihabara massacre. A pop star whose mother was killed in the incident, a teenager who left her home to Akihabara, a delivery boy who turns his directionless anger to the city. This is a story about the characters striving to grasp the string of hope within the darkness surrounding the city, the incident, and the people.
I saw this psychological chamber piece at the Osaka Asian Film Festival earlier this year. It’s an interesting title which won over a lot of the serious critics who viewed the film. It all hinges on the central performance of lead actor Chise Ushio and the cruel world that Koji Segawa crafts for her. Don’t worry, it’s not all bitter and angry. There’s black humour and a neat ending. It’s great to see that it is travelling around the world and it would be interesting to see what a UK audience makes of it.
Synopsis: Mariko, a seemingly normal housewife, has been together with her younger husband named Tomoharu for six years and has been dissatisfied every day. Despite having a son together, Tomoharu is often absent from home and she suspects he might be having an affair. Her workplace, a batting center, is also a miserable environment because the sleazy manager chases after her and the customers are rude. With constant pressure bearing down on her in public and private, Mariko becomes dominated by a certain obsession that eats away at her perception of reality.
This is a Japanese indie film that benefited from crowdfunding and a lot of super talented collaborators ranging from Hollywood types to real-life bands such as The Privates and The Neatbeats and the 50 Kaitenz. Essentially, a bunch of cool-looking guys inspired by British bands such as the Beatles, Buzzcocks and others. Mike Rogers, an American who has lived in Japan since the 80s, also has a rock background. The trailer makes the film look like a lot of fun. To find out more about Ghost Roads and the people behind it, read this blog entry.
Synopsis: Tony (Mr. Pan) is the lead singer of The Screamin’ Telstars, a retro rock band who have been struggling for recognition for years. One day, their leader, Tony, goes to buy a guitar amp but little does he know that it’s haunted by the spirit of an old blues guitarist who will offer him a Faustian pact in exchange for fame. Tony gets everything he’s dreamed of – but with a hidden catch…
This has been paired up with the British short film Johnny Jeana : Portrait of a Tokyo Rockabilly (Dir: James Partridge, 7 mins). It’s all about the eponymous Johnny Jeana who “keeps 50s Americana alive in the heart of Tokyo. In this film, we delve into Japan’s Rockabilly culture and Johnny’s dreams of superstardom.”
This is a stop-motion animation from Takahide Hori. It’s based on a short he spent four years developing by himself and it is available online to watch. The feature film was crowdfunded and he needed as much cash as possible if he was to quit his job and develop the film full time. I’m not sure if he did quit his job but Junk Head has been invited to many different film festivals! Well done, Takahide Hori! You can read the crowdfunding story here.
Synopsis: Some time in the future, humans have lost the ability to procreate. An explorer is sent underground to investigate tales of human mutants…
Kazuyoshi Kumakiri (My Man, Sketches of Kaitan City) brings the drama with Go Ayano (The Light Shines Only There) in this film which looks visually sumptuous judging by the trailer.
Synopsis: Kengo Yatabe (Gou Ayano) was an accomplished kendo practitioner but he suffered two tragedies: his mother passed away and his father, also a great kendo master, is now in a vegetative state. Kengo lost his will to live and lost the will to keep practicing kendo after an incident and he is reduced to spending his days drinking and working as a security guard in Kamakura. Another Kendo master tries to shake him out of his stupor by sending a rap-obsessed high school student named Tooru Haneda (Nijiro Murakami). Tooru also has a talent for the martial art but will it be enough to pull Kengo back from destruction?
This is a documentary produced by the American Ian Thomas Ash who is a skilled documentarian himself (his works have played at Raindance in the past) and it received its world premiere at Nippon Connection. The screening on September 28th includes a Q & A with the film’s producer Ian Thomas Ash.
Synopsis:As the title suggests, it’s all about the world of gay prostitution in Tokyo. The film crew travelled to Shinjuku 2-chome, a neighbourhood is considered to be “the gay center of Asia” and a place with a connection to prostitution since the 17th century. Here you can find the highest density of establishments catering to homosexual customers in the world, a place where many young and mostly straight boys sell their bodies. These guys are called “Urisen” and they have lots of stories to tell. The documentary looks at a number of subjects and gets their backgrounds, how they were recruited, and how they live now and it gets the story through talking head interviews and animation.
OnSunday 24thSeptember 2017, a brand new film festival, theJapanese Avant-garde and Experimental Film Festival(JAEFF) – WEBSITE – will host a special screening of the Teinosuke Kinugasafilm A Page of Madness at the Arthur & Paula Lucas Lecture Theatre, King’s College London. This screening will include a live score and benshi narration in English and it will be followed by a panel discussion.
Booking open from 6pm Thursday 24th August on Eventbrite:
The screening takes place on the 91st anniversary of the film’s theatrical release and so the fine folks running the Japanese Avant-garde and Experimental Film Festival are pulling out the stops to host a screening of this film which will be on 35mm.
At one point, this was a long-lost classic. To quote JAEFF, “Produced in mid-1920s Japan, the film is widely considered a touchstone of early avant-garde cinema. Reminiscent of Robert Weine’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), it challenged and advanced the potential of cinema at a time of historic change and theoretical division within the artform.
The film is loosely based on a treatment written by 1968 Nobel Prize winning novelist Yasunari Kawabata and is a product of his and Riichi Yokomitsu’s avant-garde group: Shinkankakuha (The New Sensation School). Considered lost for 45 years, Kinugasa thankfully rediscovered the print in his storehouse in the early 1970s. The print existing today is missing nearly a third of what was shown in theatres in 1926.”
Benshi Tomoko Komurawill be narrating the scenes and dialogue (in English) in real time, as would have happened at the film’s theatrical release. Clive Bell, Sylvia Hallettand Keiko Kitamurawill provide a live score on the shakuhachi, piano and koto respectively.
There will also be a post-screening discussion, with a panel consisting of Japanese cinema specialist Jasper Sharp, silent film expert Pamela Hutchinson, benshi Tomoko Komura, and director of the UCL Centre for the History of Psychological Disciplines: Professor Sonu Shamdasani. A special video introduction from Professor Aaron Gerowwill precede the screening – his book A Page of Madness: Cinema and Modernity in 1920s Japanremains the definitive work on the film.
A Page of Madness
狂った一頁 「Kurutta Ippeji」
Running Time: 60 mins.
Release Date: September 24th, 1926
Director: Teinosuke Kinugasa
Writer:Yasunari Kawabata, Teinosuke Kinugasa, Minoru Inuzuka, Banko Sawada (Screenplay), Yasunari Kawabata (Original Short Story)
Synopsis: A retired sailor (Masao Inoue) becomes a custodian at a mental hospital to be closer to his estranged wife (Yoshie Nakagawa), one of the patients at the facility. Their daughter (Ayako Iijima) is soon to be married, but the father’s fear and pain surrounding his wife’s mental state—along with the reasons for her captivity—threaten the future happiness of the family. Kinugasa utilises flashbacks, rhythmic intercutting, and impressionistic symbolism, all without intertitles, to supersede naturalistic representation by visually inhabiting the emotional lives of the characters.
The Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival is back this Autumn and like in previous years (2016, 2015, 2014) I’m working for and covering it! Here’s information on this year’s event!
The Largest Festival of Japanese Animation in Wales Announces Dates, Locations and Films for 2017
The Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival returns to Wales for another edition in 2017 with audiences able to enjoy a whole host of Welsh premieres, a Japanese marketplace, and a Q&A and special film screening hosted by an important figure from the Japanese animation industry.
The festival begins in Cardiff at Chapter Arts on the evening of Friday, September 29th with a screening of Masaaki Yuasa’s film The Night is Short, Walk on Girl(2017), a charming romantic romp featuring a love-sick student chasing a girl through the streets of Kyoto, encountering magic and weird situations as he does so. Festival head, Eiko Ishii Meredith will be on hand to host the opening ceremony and a party to celebrate the start of the festival which will last until October 01st and include a diverse array of films from near-future tales Napping Princess (2017) to the internationally famous mega-hit Your Name (2016). The Cardiff portion of the festival ends with a screening of another Yuasa film, the much-requested Mind Game (2004), a film definitely sure to please fans of surreal and adventurous animation. This is the perfect chance for people to see it on the big-screen since it is rarely screened. A selection of these films will then be screened at the Aberystywth Arts Centre on October 28th as Kotatsu helps to widen access to Japanese animated films to audiences in different locations.
We are also very excited to welcome a very special guest to Wales, Professor Yuichi Ito. He is an award-winning animator who works in television and film as well as teaching at Tokyo National University of Arts. He will be travelling from Japan to Europe where he will present films and a Q&A to the public. He has graciously chosen Kotatsu (September 30th) as one of his two UK dates the other will be at the Encounters Film Festival in Bristol on September 22nd.
Running alongside the film screenings and the animation workshop will be a series of Japanese-themed events and a Japanese market place which sells things such as food, model kits, video games and manga and other goods from Japan. Returning for another year is the very popular children’s workshop run by the artist Asuka Bochenska Tanaka who has kindly returned from London to help teach the art of drawing manga. This will allow kids the chance to create their own comic books and get an insight into some of the styles and techniques that go into making the films and television shows they watch.
Just before the final film screening the results of the ever-popular raffle will be announced with prizes on offer.
Kotatsu will provide audiences in Wales the best chance to enjoy a programme made up of the latest and very best in anime, both mainstream and independent, as well as a plethora of cultural activities related to Japan and the creation of anime. This year’s line-up of films will continue to inspire, entertain, and educate audiences about anime since it is full of award-winners that prove once again that Japan is the home to some of the best animation and artists in the world.
Here are the schedules:
Cardiff, Chapter Arts, 29th September – 1st October
Festival opening reception in Chapter foyer
OPENING FILM:
FRIDAY, 18:00 – (with 10 minute intro)
The Night is Short, Walk on Girl 「夜は短し歩けよ乙女」 (2017)
Running Time: 93 mins.
Director: Masaaki Yuasa
Writer: Masaaki Yuasa, Reiko Yoshida (Screenplay) Tomihiko Morimi (Original Novel),
Animation Production: Science SARU
Starring: Kana Hanazawa (Kurokami no Otome), Gen Hoshino (Senpai), Kazuya Nakai (Seitarou Higuchi), Yuuko Kaida (Ryouko Hanuki), Nobuyuki Hiyama (Johnny), Aoi Yuuki (Princess Daruma), Junichi Suwabe (Nise Jougasaki),
The Night is Short, Walk On Girl is based on a best-selling novel by Tomihiko Morimi, author of other books adapted into anime such as The Eccentric Family and The Tatami Galaxy. The staff who created The Tatami Galaxy reunited for this film which was released in Japan in April. I saw posters of it plastered all over Kyoto while I wandered around the city and it’s no wonder since the novel is set there much like the rest of Tomihiko Morimi’s works.
Synopsis:A black haired girl is walking around the streets of Kyoto as she goes bar-hopping, searches for a book from her childhood, and makes friends and enemies. She is being followed by a guy from her class, her senpai, who tries to arrange “coincidental meetings” in order to declare his love but as the night drags on, the city presents weird sights for the two from Tengu to a scooter-riding monkey…
Production I.G has been the creative home to director Kenji Kamiyama and he directed the TV anime Eden of the East, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and Moribito – Guardian of the Spirit.Napping Princess is an original anime from Kamiya and it was produced by Signal.MD. a subsidiary studio of Production I.G. The film was screened at the New York Children’s Film Festival and Yubari Fantastic Film Festival. The film stars Mitsuki Takahata who was one of the leads in Japanese Girls Never Die.
Synopsis:Days before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Kokone, a high school girl who spends more time sleeping than studying, has the same strange dream filled with futuristic warring machines which seem to be connected to her family in some secret way. She will soon uncover the truth after her mechanic father is arrested and she travels to Tokyo and between dreams and reality to rescue him.
Neo Craft Animation – A Certain Japanese Stop-motion Animation
A Series of Screenings Hosted by Yuichi Ito followed by a Q&A 100 mins PG
Yuichi Ito is an award-winning animator and a professor in the department of animation at Tokyo National University of Arts Graduate School. His work spans TV animation, commercials, and music videos and he has won many fans around the world and as a result, he is touring Europe and giving talks and presentations. We at Kotatsu are proud to say that our festival is one of two UK dates he will be present for (the other will be at the Encounters Film Festival in Bristol on September 22nd) and audiences will get the chance to learn from this highly experienced animator.
He will present his film Harbor Tale, a stop-motion adventure following the travels of a red brick at Yokohama harbour which has been infected by the human desire to explore the world.
Also screening is work from his students at Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate Schools Film and New Media, Department of Animation.
Following a presentation of his work, he will conduct a masterclass and will explain more about his creative process and different animation techniques from VFX to puppet animation.
KNYACKI!!
Selected Episode: Macaroni
Created: 2007
Duration: 5m
Broadcast since 1995, Knyacki is a children’s animation about the small adventures of a little mint-green caterpillar and his friends.
NORABBITS MINUTES
Selected Episodes: Piano (Ep2) & Art and Skating (Ep3)
Created: 2006
Duration: 3m
Bosom rabbit brothers Norabbits and Minutes are living in their underground apartment in the woods, in this cute, surreal, heartwarming premium short film.
You Are My Friend
Created: 2004
Duration: 5m
This is a music video for Mr Ken Hirai, a Japanese singer, released in May 2004. An animation depicting the strong friendship between a boy and a dragon.
HARBOR TALE
Created: 2011
Duration: 18m5s
This animation makes full use of the “neo-craft animation” technique of combining stop-motion animation with CGI. In the port town of “Y” (modelled on Yokohama), a piece of red brick in a western-styled building has been looking down on the town for 100 years. One day it finally slipped away from the building.
YOKOHAMA TALE
Title: Chat – The White Sea Mew
Created: 2011
Duration: 1m
This is an animation planned for commemorating the century-old red brick warehouse in Yokohama, Japan.
Blue Eyes in HARBOR TALE
Created: 2014
Duration: 7m40s
This is a continuation of “HARBOR TALE”. In the scene of the port town “Y”, new picture representation mingles with a very strange drama. A little story begins with bisque doll that one day came out of the boathouse moored to the bank of the canal.
Doron Coron
Created: 2004
Duration: 5m
The earth “Doron Coron” got life in a strange way. This is a story about his small adventures and miracles.
Candy.zip
Director: Tomoki Misato
Created: 2017
Duration: 4m30s
Aoko is confident about the documents she creates at work, but doesn’t get any positive feedback. Then, she witnesses her colleague secretly changing the documents she created. Aoko is turned into a piece of candy to keep her quiet…
Mind Room
Director: Moe Kuribara
Created: 2017
Duration: 4m11s
Little by little, something has gone wrong with a career woman’s personal life. But these little things are what fill the big hole in her heart.
I Think You’re A Little Confused
Director: Iku Ogawa
Created: 2016
Duration: 8m30s
One day a letter takes a blood-sausage to his friend, liver-sausage. So, he went…
Manga Drawing Workshop 13:30
Artist: Asuka Bochanski Tanaka
Duration: 120 mins
Price: £20
Age: 12+
During this two hour lesson, people will learn how to draw their very own manga character with expert guidance from manga designer Asuka Bochanska Tanaka.
For more information about the workshop, please email Asuka directly on:
Makoto Shinkai is an anime auteur that has been around since at least the early 2000s. He has steadily worked on films which contain themes of loneliness, long-distance relationships, and fate, but this is his first breakout hit that has got him international recognition from the mainstream. I managed to miss this while I was in Japan.
Synopsis:Mitsuha Miyamizu lives in a rural area and longs to live in Tokyo while Taki Tachibana lives a busy life in Tokyo, balancing a part-time job and studying architecture. Their lives intersect when the first visible comet for a thousand years approaches Japan and they begin to switch bodies. Despite the initial fun and confusion of body-swapping, a dark journey lies ahead.
The Project Itoh Trilogy comes to a close with Genocidal Organ, a film long in the making. It should have been released last year after Harmony and Empire of Corpses but when Manglobe (Ergo Proxy), the studio animating the film, filed for bankruptcy, it was passed on to Geno Studio who completed the animation process. It has since been screened in Japanese cinemas and the Kotatsu screening follows very closely to its UK premiere.
Synopsis:Following the detonation of a home-made nuclear device in Sarajevo, the World’s leading democracies changed their tactics in the war on terror and transformed themselves into total surveillance states whilst the developing world is drowned in a wave of genocides. The mysterious American John Paul seems to be behind the collapse of the world system, and it’s up to intelligence agent Clavis Shepherd to track John Paul across the wreckage of civilizations and to find the true heart of darkness—a genocidal organ.
This is an animation dating back from 1973 and it has returned to the world having undergone a 4K restoration based on the original negatives. It is an erotic anime, the third and last of the adult-oriented Animerama trilogy produced by the “Godfather of Manga” Osamu Tezuka and directed by his long-time collaborator Eiichi Yamamoto (Astro Boy). It is based on the book Satanism and Witchcraft by French writer Jules Michelet which suggests that witchcraft is a rebellion against the patriarchal rule of church and state. The film features a psychedelic folk rock soundtrack and surreal sexual imagery.
Synopsis: Young and innocent peasant woman Jeanne is ravaged by the local lord and in her distress she makes a pact with the Devil himself. The Devil grants her the powers of witchcraft but this leads to misfortune as the community find their taste for violence and libidos awakened and Jeanne is the focal point of their sexual frenzy…
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 01st, 2017
A Silent Voice 「声の形」 (2016) 12A
koe-no-katachi-film-poster-2
Running Time:129mins.
Director: Naoko Yamada
Writer: Reiko Yoshida (Screenplay), Yoshitoki Ooima (Original Manga)
The film comes from Kyoto Animation, the studio behind super-hits such as the swimming anime Free! and the mystery series Hyouka. It was directed by Naoko Yamada, a veteran of the studio and one of the most promising directors in the anime world.
Synopsis:When Shoko, a young deaf student, transfers to a new elementary school she is bullied by Shoya for her hearing impairment. The class soon turns on Shoya for his lack of compassion and he finds himself ostracised. This experience leaves a mark on Shoya who is tormented by his past behaviour long after school and so he decides he must see Shoko once more to atone for his sins.
Manga Drawing Workshop 13:30
Artist: Asuka Bochanski Tanaka
Duration: 120 mins
Price: £20
Age: 12+
During this two hour lesson, people will learn how to draw their very own manga character with expert guidance from manga designer Asuka Bochanska Tanaka.
For more information about the workshop, please email Asuka directly on:
This animation was created to be part of a mixed-media stage production that combined line readings, animation, music, and sand art to present a story about the March 11th disaster to audiences in Tokyo. Production I.G was a co-producer of the stage play, and has international rights for the whole play, but focussed on the animation part only. It is based on a manga by Machiko Kyo who explores personal feelings toward the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, although it is never explicitly stated in the story, out of consideration for those affected by the disaster. It was directed by Yoshimi Itazu and it is his directorial debut after a career working for Madhouse and Production I.G.
Synopsis: A pigtail braided girl who lives alone in a house by the sea survives an
unspecified disaster. The earth shook. The sea roared. And then… The girl continues to
live there alone since that day and she carries out her usual routines unaware that
everyday objects around her have a life of their own.
A selection of other short films from Production I.G will also be shown.
Masaaki Yuasa took a manga by Robin Nishi and filtered it through a number of experimental styles to create a surreal tale of love that has gone down as a cult-classic. It recently had a successful Kickstarter that will see it released worldwide on Blu-Ray. Kotatsu will provide audiences the big screen version!
Synopsis:Nishi is a twenty-something with a simple dream: to become a manga artist and marry his childhood sweetheart Myon. Reality is much more complicated. She’s already been proposed to and she thinks Nishi is too much of a wimp. This changes when he visits her family’s diner and encounters a couple Yakuza. This leads to an epic adventure that involves meeting God and being trapped in the belly of a whale.
Aberystwyth, Aberystwyth Arts Centre 28th October
Kotatsu will move to Aberystwyth on October 28th. While the programme is slightly smaller, it features a diverse slate of titles with Fairy Tail Dragon Cry, Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale,and Genocidal Organ plus a raffle with fantastic prizes.
OPENING FILM
Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale 「劇場版 ソードアート・オンライン –オーディナル・スケール–」 (2017) 12A
Running Time: 119 mins.
Director: Tomohiko Ito
Writer: Reki Kawahara. Tomohiko Ito (Screenplay) Reki Kawahara (Original Creator), Animation Production: A-1 Pictures Starring: Yoshitsugu Matuoka (Kazuto Kirigaya/Kirito), Haruka Tomatsu (Asuna Yuuki), Ayahi Takagaki (Rika Shinozaki/Lizbeth), Ayana Taketatsu (Suguha Kirigaya/Leafa),
Synopsis: The Sword Art Online series continues with the movie “Ordinal Scale,” a new tale about a hit game utilizing augmented reality technology which brings the virtual world to the real one. Things start off innocently enough but when the border between fantasy and reality is blurred, people get hurt. Can Kirito and Asuna and their party of friends save the day or will it be game over for them?
Synopsis:The wizards of the Fairy Tail guild accept a mission to head to the Kingdom of Stella to recover the Dragon Cry, a magic staff powerful enough the destroy the world. Natsu and his friends find that getting the staff back puts them in danger as they infiltrate the Stella Kingdom and face powerful foes.
The Project Itoh Trilogy comes to a close with Genocidal Organ, a film long in the making. It should have been released last year after Harmony and Empire of Corpses but when Manglobe (Ergo Proxy), the studio animating the film, filed for bankruptcy, it was passed on to Geno Studio who completed the animation process. It has since been screened in Japanese cinemas and the Kotatsu screening follows very closely to its UK premiere.
Synopsis:Following the detonation of a home-made nuclear device in Sarajevo, the World’s leading democracies changed their tactics in the war on terror and transformed themselves into total surveillance states whilst the developing world is drowned in a wave of genocides. The mysterious American John Paul seems to be behind the collapse of the world system, and it’s up to intelligence agent Clavis Shepherd to track John Paul across the wreckage of civilizations and to find the true heart of darkness—a genocidal organ.
CLOSING FILM
Mind Game 「マインド・ゲーム」 (2004) 15
Running Time: 104 mins.
Director: Masaaki Yuasa
Writer: Masaaki Yuasa (Screenplay), Robin Nishi (Original Manga),
Masaaki Yuasa took a manga by Robin Nishi and filtered it through a number of experimental styles to create a surreal tale of love that has gone down as a cult-classic. It recently had a successful Kickstarter that will see it released worldwide on Blu-Ray. Kotatsu will provide audiences the big screen version!
Synopsis:Nishi is a twenty-something with a simple dream: to become a manga artist and marry his childhood sweetheart Myon. Reality is much more complicated. She’s already been proposed to and she thinks Nishi is too much of a wimp. This changes when he visits her family’s diner and encounters a couple Yakuza. This leads to an epic adventure that involves meeting God and being trapped in the belly of a whale.
About Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival
Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival has been running since November 2010 at the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, where it has brought Japanese anime and culture to a growing audience. In 2014 we expanded the festival’s reach to include the Aberystwyth Arts Centre where audiences could watch some of the same great films that were seen in Cardiff. 2017 sees the festival include more for visitors such as animation workshop with one of Japan’s leading animators as well as our continuing manga workshops and Japanese marketplace.
For further information contact: info@kotatsufestival.com
Chapter is regarded as one of the first arts centres in the UK that brought together different art forms under one roof. For over 40 years Chapter has been the heartbeat of creativity in Cardiff and through its unique venue it presents, produces and promotes international art, live performance and film alongside a dynamic social space with over 800,000 visitors welcomed every year.
Aberystwyth Arts Centre is an award winning organisation that has a wide-ranging artistic programme which includes drama, dance, music, visual arts, applied arts, film, new media, and community arts. Aberystwyth Arts Centre is a department of Aberystwyth University and sits at the heart of the university’s campus, with stunning views over the town of Aberystwyth and along the coastline of Cardigan Bay.
A screening of The Villainess will take place on Monday, September 11th at 19:30 at the Regent Street Cinema. This is the final teaser screening in the run-up totheLondon Korean Film Festival which will be held from October 26thto November 19th. The film screening coincides with the programme launch so attendees will be able to see what else has been programmed for the festival!
The Villainesshas got glowing reviews for its action making it one of the Here’s the first paragraph from Maggie Lee’s review over at Variety.
“Channeling “La femme Nikita,” “Kill Bill,” Nikkatsu’s ’70s female exploitation films and a gazillion Hong Kong martial arts heroines, “The Villainess” nonetheless succeeds in being one-of-a-kind for its delirious action choreography and overall narrative dementia. Writer-director Jung Byung-gil indulges in all the excesses of South Korean screen violence, punishing his avenging angel played by Kim Ok-vin as much as she does her foes, the cumulative effect of which is a brain-melting daze for the audience.” (Maggie Lee, Variety)
It stars Kim Ok-Vin, who I adore but I’ve only reviewed two of her films: Thirst (in which she gives a barnstorming performance as a woman freshly turned into a vampire and insane with the lust and power) and Behind the Camera (a comedy involving the top actors in Korea making a train-wreck of a film.
The Villainess was at FrightFest where a couple of friends of mine saw it and one wrote a review which you can read here.
Here are the details on The Villainess:
The Villainess
Hangul: 악녀
Running Time: 123 mins.
Director: Jung Byung-gil
Writer:Jung Byung-gil (Screenplay),
Starring:Kim Ok-Vin, Shin Ha-kyun, Sung Joon, Kim Seo0Hyung, Jo Eun-ji, Lee Seung-joo, Jung Hae-Kyun,
Synopsis from the website: Trained killer Sook-hee (Kim Ok-vin, Thirst) is the architect of an unforgettable opening sequence, shot in breathtaking first person point-of-view, as she breaks into a warehouse and lays waste to the multitude of thugs contained within. When the pregnant young woman eventually goes down, she’s picked up by the mysterious National Intelligence Service (NIS).
Given the choice to join them or die, she reluctantly accepts a new identity and trains in order to complete a future assignment and eventually win freedom for herself and her daughter. Matters are further complicated by the feelings arising from the murder of her father, a past relationship with a gang-boss ex-lover and the tantalising chance at a happy future offered by an undercover agent with a mission to win her affections…
Jung Byung-gil infuses a tale containing many of the hallmarks of modern Korean thrillers with original action elements and an unflinching style that recalls Park Chan Wook’s Oldboy while also pointing towards the female-led narratives offered by Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill and Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita. Despite these nods to the past, the film manages to carve out its own stylish niche in the current cinematic landscape.
Whether the protagonist deserves the moniker bestowed by the film’s title is ultimately left for the audience to decide yet with its delirious indulgence in the excesses of South Korean action cinema, The Villainess offers a bold new take on the neo-noir genre.
To find out more about the film and to book tickets, please visit the cinema’s website.
The BFI revealed their programme earlier today and for this year’s festival which runs from October 04th to October 15th. The festival is separated into different strands such as Thrill, Laugh, and Debate and there is a huge range of titles to choose from. Japan comes up good with a mix of films with Takashi Miike, a festival regular, showing up with Blade of the Immortal. He’ll be in town to talk about his career! Even more exciting is the presence of Masaaki Yuasa, an anime auteur who is blowing up after years of us otaku screaming out he is a genius. Many of these films have been at other festivals and won awards but it’s great that they are in London!
Naoko Ogigami is one of Japan’s interesting female directors, quietly working away making good films and many people are familiar with them. Yoshino’s Barber Shop (2004), Kamome Diner (2006), Glasses (2007), and Rent-a-Cat (2012) could be described as quirky dramas that pack a powerful emotional punch but Close-Knit is a lot more serious as Ogigami looks at LGBTQ issues in Japan, a country that is still conservative in some ways.
Close-Knit may be serious but it features many well-rounded characters that will suck you into the world of the characters and show you that love is everything when it comes to family and through this you will definitely get you to understand the issues. Here’s an interview involving Naoko Ogigami which goes through the film a bit more. Expect a review soon.
Synopsis: Eleven-year-old Tomo is pretty much left to her own devices by a mother who is flighty, to say the least. Unwashed dishes are piling up in the sink and supermarket onigiri are all there is to eat again. Tomo’s single mother usually comes home late, and drunk. When she leaves her daughter for good one day the girl has to rely on help from her uncle, who takes in Tomo to live with him and his girlfriend Rinko. At their first meeting Tomo is flabbergasted to discover that Rinko is a transsexual. Rinko immediately sets about taking care of Tomo; not only does she lovingly prepare meals but she also succeeds in creating a new home for the girl. But before long cracks appear in their perfect nest.
Warner Bros. Japan have hired an utter pro for their latest adaptation of a manga – Takashi Miike! With this film, the maestro has made 100 films and audiences around the world have been enjoying Blade of the Immortal. He has great form when it comes to jidaigeki considering he made 13 Assassins (2012) and Hara-Kiri (Death of a Samurai) (2013). Warner Bros have the financial muscle and a crew experienced in that genre considering they were behind the excellent Rurouni Kenshin, Rurouni Kenshin Kyoto Inferno and Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends.
Blade of the Immortal was shot in Kyoto from November, 2016 until January of this year. It stars Takuya Kimura (I Come with the Rain – a decent yet rather unheard of serial killer film – and 2046), Hana Sugisaki (Pieta in the Toilet), Chiaki Kuriyama (Shikoku, Exte: Hair Extensions), Min Tanaka (Maison de Himiko, Haruneko, and the Rurouni Kenshin films) and Sota Fukushi (Library Wars).
Reviews were pretty glowing for this one (here’s a post which collected them) and it should appeal to an action audience as well as Japanese film fans familiar with Miike. He will be in London to take part in a Screen Talk about his career (link to the page with more information). Arrow Films have picked this one up for distribution but nothing beats the big screen!!!
Synopsis: Manji’s (Takuya Kimura) is a wandering swordsman. That’s nothing special but what makes him different is the fact that he was given eternal youth and immortalityyounger by a mysterious woman after his sister was killed in front of him and he was left for dead but came back from the brink to kill their attackers. During his journey he encounters Rin Asano (Hana Sugisaki) whose parents were killed by a group of swordsmen belonging to “Itto ryu” and her parents’ fencing studio was destroyed. She desires revenge for her parents’ death and after seeing Manji in action she asks him to be her guard as they take on the “Itto ryu”.
Lu Over the Wall is released in Japan on May 19th and it has picked up awards since then including at Annecy, where it took the “Cristal for a Feature Film” award. It is directed by Masaaki Yuasa with a script written by Reiko Yoshida, a woman who has written many different anime such as A Silent Voice, Yowamushi Pedal, and Shirobako. It was produced by Yuasa’s protege (and a highly talented animator) Eun young Choi, and animated by Science SARU and these folks are the geniuses behind Mind Game, Ping Pong: The Animation, and The Tatami Galaxy amongst other great artistic titles. It is their second film released this year following the release of Night is Short, Walk On Girl back in April.
It has the look of the 2009 Ghibli film Ponyo if I were to make a glib comparison but the animation and style are pure Science SARU, a studio finally picking up fans in the mainstream. The film has been picked up for UK distribution by Anime Limited.
Synopsis:Middle school student Kai finds himself forced to move from Tokyo to the declining fishing town of Hinashi to live with his father and grandfather following his parents’ divorce. For a kid from the big metropolis, there’s little for him to do besides composing music and sharing it on the Internet. One day his classmates Kunio and Yuuho invite him to join their band, and when he reluctantly accompanies them to practice on Mermaid Island, the three of them meet a mermaid named Lu. Through meeting her and playing music, Kai is slowly able to open up about his emotions but calamity soon strikes the town and he must find a way to avert it with his new-found friends and community!
This is a French-Japanese co-production that was at Annecy. It’s based on a comic-book series and brought to life by Studio4°C (Batman Gotham Knight, Animatrix, Tekkonkinkreet, the three BerserkCGmovies) and Ankama (WAKFU series). Mutafukaz is full of pop-culture references to things such as John Carpenter’s They Live and Batman and is described as “fast-paced, very gory, flowing with juvenile humour and a total riot.”
Synopsis:Angelino is one of the thousands of deadbeats living in Dark Meat City, a Californian ghettowhich could best be described as a hell hole. Angelino may be an orphan but he has friends such as Vinz who has a flaming-headand he has a pizza-delivery job. Said job gets him involved in a scooter accident caused by seeing the heavenly vision of a mysterious girl and pretty soon Angelino starts experiencing violent headaches doubled with strange hallucinations involving monstrous creatures lurking throughout the city…
This one is a cult film that has floated around the internet (update: it is available on DVD thanks to Eureka’s release from 2006). It has been given a 4K restoration. I have not watched it all the way through so here’s details from the festival and a trailer for you to make up your mind. Plus, here’s a review from ace film critic Goregirl!
Synopsis from the festival site:Take a walk on the subversive side with Toshio Matsumoto’s wild, kaleidoscopic vision of the underground scene in 1960s Japan. A significant influence on Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, Matsumoto’s journey through the drag queen bars, dimly-lit nightclubs and student digs that defined Tokyo’s counter-cultural landscape is a hallucinogenic blast. Trans actor Peter, so memorable as the androgynous Fool in Kurosawa’s Ran, here plays Eddie (more than a passing reference to Edie Sedgwick), one of the most desired hostesses at Bar Genet. Her tryst with the bar’s owner infuriates his main squeeze and the bar’s domineering drag queen-cum-matriarch Leda, ultimately leading to violence. Blending fictional drama with dramatic documentary footage, Matsumoto rails against Japanese patriarchy, American imperialism and what he saw as his country’s inability to reconcile its outdated value system with a rapidly changing world. Gorgeously shot, unashamedly erotic and occasionally very funny, this is a bouquet worth savouring.
Camera Japan 2017 starts in just under a months time in Rotterdam and Amsterdam and there is plenty to dig into so having the festival programme is a must. You can also read about the various films and events here on this site where I will have this guide complete with addresses and links to other, more detailed posts covering
Feature Films | Anime and Short Anime Films | Documentaries
Special Screenings and Short Films | Workshops and Events
Check back over the week to read more!
So, what’s happening? Camera Japan starts off with a special event in Rotterdam on the 15th September at an artistic venue known as WORM. The event consists of a film screening and music. The film getting screened is Gui aiueo:S A Stone from Another Mountain to Polish Your Own Stone, an experimental black-and-white documentary film about a band travelling Japan and exploring different sounds and this is followed by a concert by Krautrock band Minami Deutsch who hail from Tokyo and sound like Kraftwerk.
The main body of the festival then starts with the Rotterdam run which will take place from 21st– 24th September at LantarenVenster and this is where the bulk of the films and events will be hosted. The festival then moves to Amsterdam from 29th September – 01st October and there will be lots to see. I have added annotations to show what is being screened where. It’s needed because there is so much on offer.
Click on a city to be taken to the programme with dates and times.
The theme of this festival is Kyushu which is one of the main islands of Japan and where the Dutch, were the only Western nation to hold a trading post. “This trading post was Japan’s window to the West, but also proved to be a starting point for the diffusion of Japanese culture in the world.” The island is described as combining “natural beauty with a rich and unique cultural heritage and is characterised by a stunning and diverse landscape, ranging from active volcanoes to bubbling hot springs.”
There are films set in Kyushu and further afield and there are events connected to the place. The good folks at Camera Japan have unleashed their 2017 programme and it’s packed so, as mentioned earlier, either use their website or take a gander at this post, click on the titles to be taken to posts with trailers and enjoy.
Feature Films at Camera Japan 2017
There are 29 feature films programmed for this edition of the festival with a diverse array of stories all from contemporary Japan and all made by the current and next wave of Japanese filmmakers. This will give a good overview of the film industry since it spans big-budget features (Death Note) and indies (At the Terrace).
The standouts from my perspective are definitely, The Long Excuse, Seto and Utsumi, Love and Other Cults and Close Knit. I will slowly fill out this page with reviews as I publish them but if you want a mixture of comedy and drama then these are definitely worth going to see.
Japan is rich with documentarians who tackle a huge array of subjects and you cannot get a more disparate set of stories than here. Indeed, these films blow away typical ideas of what Japanese people are like by exploring subjects such as deafness, punk rock and gay prostitution and all from interesting and intimate angles. All four of these titles have appeared at Nippon Connection over the last two years but I haven’t seen them programmed elsewhere so if you have a taste for documentaries and finding out what some lives are like in contemporary Japan then these three are going to be essential viewing.
Gui aiueo:S A Stone from Another Mountain to Polish Your Own Stone R
Anime at Camera Japan 2017
The selection of anime feature the hugest hits to come from Japan in the last year with a Ghibli classic thrown in for good measure. When I write that these films are the hugest hits in Japan, we’re talking about the biggest earners in anime. So huge, they go as far as to rival live-action movies at the box-office and, in the case of Princess Mononoke, eclipse them altogether. That written, these films are more than just money-makers, they have become cultural lightning rods for Japanese and anime fans worldwide and they have wowed the critics who love them for their stories and characters. The quality is so high that they are among the best rated animated films in cinemas. Indeed, these are the biggest critical hits with In This Corner of the World winning Best Film at the Japan Academy awards. Camera Japan is the best opportunity to do that in Holland!
The films programmed for the Special Screenings run across decades from the 1920s to 2008. Some of these are associated with the Kyushu aspect of the festival and all are rarely screened. Indeed, the oldest film, A Page of Madness, is a recently rediscovered classic that was once thought lost. It is now getting traction globally (there will be a special screening in London around the same time) but the process has just started and it’s slow. Imagine being able to see it with a live benshi performance like it was originally intended to be seen… It’s happening at Camera Japan! Also screened is Shinji Aoyama’s epic slow-burn drama Eureka which is both visually and emotionally beautiful.
There are concerts and art installations for people to get involved with over the course of the festival. There are even “Interventions” which sounds serious and menacing but they are short plays performed by actors or dancers and martial artists jumping onto the scene. More sedate things are on offer such as a sencha workshop, getting to create unique scents with Japanese materials, art and sound installations, and concerts. Everything except the Filmbrunch takes place in Rotterdam. Check back for a full post that will cover everything.
Hafu2Hafu – Portraits of half Japanese people and their unique question to you.
Camera Japan 2017 celebrates documentaries in this section. Japan is rich with documentarians who tackle a huge array of subjects and you cannot get a more disparate set of stories than here. Indeed, these films blow away typical ideas of what Japanese people are like by exploring subjects such as deafness, punk rock and gay prostitution. A deaf woman overcoming stereotypes through an epic cycle ride across the length of Japan, gay sex on offer in conservative Japan and the hetero and gay guys who sell it, a rock band recording strange sounds and encountering stranger situations. See the country as you’ve never seen it before and all from interesting and intimate angles.
All four of these titles have appeared at Nippon Connection over the last two years (three in 2017 and one in 2016) but I haven’t seen them programmed elsewhere so if you have a taste for documentaries and finding out what some lives are like in contemporary Japan then these three are going to be essential viewing.
Click on the titles to be taken to the corresponding festival page for more information. You can head to a larger overview of Camera Japan 2017 via this link.
A week before the launch of CAMERA JAPAN there will be a multidisciplinary evening at WORM, consisting of this experimental black-and-white film and a concert by Krautrock band Minami Deutsch.
Synopsis:Go Shibata and the members of the band GUI AIUEO:S travel the landand on their journey, they search for UFOs, meet odd hermits, and are introduced to the sustainable toilet. During their journey, the gang use their sound and film equipment like musical instruments and create an audiovisual work of art.
Ayako Imamura was born deaf and that has informed her filmmaking. After studying sign language at Aichi University as well as film and deaf culture at California State University, she has been shooting documentary films about the everyday life of deaf people in Japan. Her mission is to raise awareness about the discrimination of deaf people in Japan through lectures and film screenings. She also teaches sign language at Japanese universities. She has made many documentaries but this is the first where she is the subject and it looks epic!
Synopsis:Facing profound grief and despair following the death of her mother and grandfather, director Ayako Imamura decided to overcome those feelings by combining cycling and communication in one film. She travelled with her cameraman across Japan from Okinawa to Hokkaido, a total of 3,824 kilometers in 57 days, by bicycle over the course of the summer of 2015. Her goal was to confront and record issues deaf people face when communicating with hearing people and problems she felt that she had in this regard. While exploring her country she also discovered elements of herself and proceeded to grow as a person which can be seen in this documentary road movie.
This is a documentary produced by the American Ian Thomas Ash who is a skilled documentarian himself and it received its world premiere earlier this year at Nippon Connection and it will go to Raindance in London. As the title suggests, it’s all about the world of gay prostitution in Tokyo.
Ian Thomas Ash will be at a screening where he will participate in a Q&A.
Synopsis: Afilm crew travelled to Shinjuku 2-chome, a neighbourhood is considered to be “the gay center of Asia” and a place with a connection to prostitution since the 17th century. Here you can find the highest density of establishments catering to homosexual customers in the world, a place where many young and mostly straight boys sell their bodies. The documentary looks at a number of subjects and gets their backgrounds, how they were recruited, and how they live now.
Synopsis: The Stalinwere a punk rock band formed in June 1980, by leader and vocalistMichiro Endo. It was disbanded in 1985 and Endo went on to make new bands but The Stalin remained very influential for many years. Endo turned sixty in 2011 and went on a tour. It was around the time that the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred. Michiro Endo is a native of Fukushima and a socialist activist according to Wikipedia and so he went back to his hometown and visited family to it, in the face of in Fukushima to survey the damage and was inspired to start the charity “PROJECT FUKUSHIMA!” This documentary chronicles his efforts.
Camera Japan 2017 has pulled together some of the best anime films made in the last year with a Ghibli classic thrown in for good measure. It’s a mixture of the biggest box-office earners and all are critical darlings (although I’m not sure about the recently released, Your Voice). Many of these films have become cultural lightning rods for Japanese people and anime fans worldwide as awareness of anime has spread worldwide and really rocketed in the last few years. Indeed, the mainstream critics are taking notice, ensuring that a huge audience are watching these film and distributors are placing them in cinemas for limited runs. The best example is In This Corner of the World which won Best Film at the Japan Academy awards. That too has become a huge hit worldwide and the screenings I attended in both the UK and Japan were packed.
All of these films have become break-out success stories around the world with each one getting a release in territories from Asia to America and I am fortunate enough to work for a film festival where we have programmed all but two. If you get the chance to see them all in one place, do! Camera Japan is the best opportunity to do that in Holland!
Not only do you get feature-film goodness, there are animated shorts which will show the strength of a new generation of Japanese animators.
To get a full overview of the festival, click on this link.
Probably the biggest anime not named Your Name, this film took the Animation of the Year award at the 40th annual Japan Academy and I am not surprised since it is a beautiful and stately film about an absent-minded artistic young woman trying to survive the hardship of war. It has also won the Hiroshima Peace Film Award at the Hiroshima International Film Festival in November last year and the film magazine Kinema Jump named it the best Japanese movie of 2016 and it awarded Katabuchi the Best Director Award.
The film was orchestrated by Sunao Katabuchi who directed the awesome Mai Mai Miracle and the TV animeBlack Lagoon.It was animated by the studio MAPPA (Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis, Terror in Resonance).
Synopsis: Suzu Urano is a Hiroshima girl from a close-knit family but when she marries a naval officer, she has to move from Hiroshima City to Kure, the city which launched the battleship Yamato and the site of one of Japan’s largest naval bases. As a new housewife, she encounters uncertainty in her new family, her new city, and her new world but she perseveres and finds happiness even as the war grinds on and comes closer to home.
Production I.G has been the creative home to director Kenji Kamiyama and he directed the TV anime Eden of the East, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and Moribito – Guardian of the Spirit.Napping Princess is an original anime from Kamiya and it was produced by Signal.MD. a subsidiary studio of Production I.G. The film was screened at the New York Children’s Film Festival and Yubari Fantastic Film Festival. This is the Dutch premiere.
Synopsis:Days before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Kokone, a high school girl who spends more time sleeping than studying, has the same strange dream filled with futuristic warring machines which seem to be connected to her family in some secret way. She will soon uncover the truth after her mechanic father is arrested and she travels to Tokyo and between dreams and reality to rescue him.
Not to be confused with Your Name this is a recently released anime from Madhouse, the guys behind the works of Satoshi Kon and many other classic anime. This looks like a typical teen drama with a supernatural twist so not a million miles away from Makoto Shinkai’s works. Kudos to the festival organisers for picking an unexpected title! This is the Dutch premiere.
Synopsis: Impatient high school student Nagisa isn’t really sure about what she wants to be when she grows older. But then one day she wanders into an abandoned radio station and jokingly she pretends to be a DJ. To her surprise her voice is broadcasted to an unexpected audience. Could her grandmother’s stories about spirits that dwell in words really be true?
The film comes from Kyoto Animation, the studio behind super-hits such as the swimming anime Free! and the mystery series Hyouka. It was directed by Naoko Yamada, a veteran of the studio and one of the most promising directors in the anime world. This is the Dutch premiere.
Synopsis:When Shoko, a young deaf student, transfers to a new elementary school she is bullied by Shoya for her hearing impairment. The class soon turns on Shoya for his lack of compassion and he finds himself ostracised. This experience leaves a mark on Shoya who is tormented by his past behaviour long after school and so he decides he must see Shoko once more to atone for his sins.
Princess Mononoke is one of Studio Ghibli’s most beloved films thanks to its strong central female protagonist and its rich story which weaves environmentalism and spirituality into an action-packed adventure. It’s in the festival because it is set in the ancient forests of Yakushima, a stunning island off the southeast coast of Kyushu. I cannot recommend this one enough. Any Ghibli film in a cinema is a great time out but this one is just epic! Just look at that poster! It’s awesome, just like the film! Go see it on the big screen!
Synopsis: A village is attacked by a fierce boar which is possessed by a demon. The young prince Ashitaka valiantly defends his people by killing the beast but he ends up cursed. Said curse will slowly drain his life away unless he gets a cure so Ashitaka travels westward and encounters the people of Tatara, the Iron Town, where he finds himself embroiled in a fierce conflict between Lady Eboshi who is cutting down a nearby forest, and Princess San, who aims to defend the sacred spirits of the forest from humans.
A selection of contemporary artistic and experimental short animation films, directed by both exciting newcomers and experienced veterans. The selected films differ greatly in style and substance, and offer you a chance to discover what the future of Japanese anime has in store.
A selection of the best animated graduation films from Tama Art University, a private art university in Tokyo. It is known as one of the best art schools in the country.
Camera Japan 2017 starts in just under a months time in Rotterdam and Amsterdam and there is plenty to dig into so having the festival programme is a must. You can also read about the various films and events here on this site where I will have this guide complete with addresses and links to other, more detailed posts covering
Camera Japan 2017 is almost upon us. The films programmed for the Special Screenings held in Rotterdam run across decades from the 1920s to 2008. Some of these are associated with the Kyushu aspect of the festival and all are rarely screened. Indeed, the oldest film, A Page of Madness, is a recently rediscovered classic that was once thought lost. It is now getting traction globally but the process has just started and it’s slow. Imagine being able to see it with a live benshi performance like it was originally intended to be seen… It’s happening at Camera Japan! Also screened is Shinji Aoyama’s epic slow-burn drama Eureka which is both visually and emotionally beautiful.
I’ve also thrown in information on the live-action short films that will be screened at Rotterdam. You can access a page which contains an overview of the entire festival through this link.
Teruo Ishii is a pretty famous V-cinema director and he helped make Meiko Kaji a superstar with this film. It has been released in various territories around the but seeing it on the big screen is a must (I say this with all films). This screening will bepreceded by an introduction from film scholar Tom Mes, who will tell audiences more about Meiko Kaji who is the subject of his upcoming book “Unchained Melodies: The Films of Meiko Kaji.”
Synopsis:Akemi (Meiko Kaji) is leads an all-girl yakuza gang known as the Tachibana clan. This fearsome girl with a dragon tattoo slashes the eyes of an opponent whose blood is soon lapped up by a black cat appears setting in motion a supernatural curse as which leads to a trail of dead Yakuza girls, their dragon tattoos skinned from their bodies.
This film is based on a manga of the same title, written by Nobuhiro Sakata, drawn by Nakahara Yu, and serialized for as long as nine years according to JFDB. It is supposed to be hugely popular and lives up to its title by depicting the lives of a high school track and field team, one of whom wants to take on Ekiden, a road relay race run in Kyushu. “Extensive location shooting on Iki island and in Nagasaki city, where the story takes place, has captured beautiful scenery and the excitement…” of the event.
Synopsis:An elementary school girl, Naoko suffers from severe asthma and so she is sent to the island of Kyushu to recuperate but she suffers an accident and falls into the sea. She is rescued by Yusuke’s (Haruma Miura) father, but he drowns in the process. When Naoko (Juri Ueno) is at high school, she meets Yusuke again by chance at an athletic competition and discovers that he is now a star runner in his high school athletics team and his dream is to represent the prefecture at the high school road relay race and become a road relay race runner like his father. What happens next is a story of determination and sporting excellence as they help each other and their team overcome many obstacles.
INFO FROM CAMERA JAPAN: A Page of Madness is a silent film by Teinosuke Kinugasa which was made in 1926. It was originally accompanied by a benshi performer and so people who attend the Camera Japan screening will get something similar sincethe film will be accompanied by a live soundtrack (bass solo + electronics) from musician/visual artist Bruno Ferro Xavier da Silva. The actual filmitself was lost for forty-five years until being rediscovered by Kinugasa in his storehouse in 1971. It is based on a short story by Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata and it is rarely screened film. The film’s style has seen it compared toDas Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. The Wikipedia entry for this is fascinating and I highly recommend reading it!
Synopsis:The film depicts the delusions of an institutionalized woman (Yoshie Nakagawa) and her husband’s (Masao Inoue) attempts to rescue her from the mental asylum she is trapped in…
This film is considered a classic and it’s Shinji Aoyama’s best work by far. Shot in a sepia tone and with little dialogue, it’s a deeply moving tale of overcoming a traumatic incident with great performances from Koji Yakusho and Aoi Miyazaki in the leads.
Synopsis:Two years after a gruesome bus hijacking, the three remaining survivors come together to try and cope with the traumatizing memories. Among them is bus driver Makoto, who faces suspicions over his role in the tragedy. He tries to track down the brother and sister who also survived. A deeply moving, slow-burning drama set in the countryside of Kyushu, where time moves significantly slower than in other parts of Japan.
Various directors (Japan 2017, 102 min, Colour, Eng. sub.)
A selection of shorts presented by Tokyo’s Short Shorts Film Festival introducing some of the best of the new crop of shorts produced in Japan. A wide range of styles, from animation and drama to fantasy and sci-fi by both young talents and seasoned veterans.
Camera Japan 2017 starts in just under a months time in Rotterdam and Amsterdam and there is plenty to dig into so having the festival programme is a must. You can also read about the various films and events here on this site where I will have this guide complete with addresses and links to other, more detailed posts covering
My Camera Japan 2017 coverage continues with this quick round-up of events that will be taking place during the festival. Some of these are not listed on the website or have been mentioned in earlier posts such as the general overview. Everything except a Filmbrunch takes place in Rotterdam.
Events kick off on the 15th of September with a warm-up of the festival at WORM in Rotterdam which is a multidisciplinary evening, consisting of the experimental black-and-white movie Gui aiueo:S A Stone from Another Mountain to Polish Your Own Stone by Go Shibata (see the documentary section for more) and a concert by Krautrock band Minami Deutsch.
Hāfu2Hāfu – Portraits of half Japanese people and their unique question to you.
Tetsuro Miyazaki is a half-Belgian half-Japanese photographer whose project involved photographing hāfu (Japanese mixed with another ethnicity) from every country in the world and sharing their most significant questions about identity, sense of belonging and growing up with two different cultures. This is an interesting follow-up to the 2013 documentary Hāfu – The Mixed Race Experience in Japan.
Yasuhito Arai is a Japanese artist currently residing in the Netherlands. He is known for his sound installations and concerts in which the audience often finds “nature” within and around themselves. His passion is to express his feelings that resonate with the place and audience at a particular moment. His latest installation
Maki Ueda devles into the world’s first modern novel, The Tale of Genji, through smells. Home fragrances (or soradakimono) play a big role. They are used as metaphors for the seasons, characters or emotions. During this workshop people will first learn about the scents described in the story, after which they will get to make them using traditional materials. The result is a “fragrant sachet” that they can use as a home fragrance.
Green tea is everywhere in Japan! It’s consumed more than Coca-Cola! It’s only rival is water and beer but even then you don’t see them handed out every few seconds during meetings in Japan!Takahide Suzuki will lead a workshop where he will teach students everything there is to know about sencha, a very popular kind of Japanese green tea. There will also be the chance to taste many varieties of sencha inclduing the most high grade sencha known as “Gyokuro”. Takahide Suzuki hails from Shizuoka, the tea capital of Japan so he knows what he’s talking about!.
Interventions At Camera Japan
Interventions sound menacing – like rescuing someone from a cult – but fear not, these are short acts which will “transport you briefly to another world” through dazzling feats of comics, martial artists, and dancers who will appear at random during the festival.
Do you know what else is common in Japan? Miso soup. Every meal I had with Japanese people usually had miso involved. What is Miso? Fermented soybean paste and it’s an essential ingredient in Japanese cooking. It’s great stuff and Camera Japan is the place to learn how to make miso with an expert from Malicafe Organic Vegan Food in Amsterdam and find out about its importance in Japanese society.
She is often described as the Japanese answer to Björk and Mum because of her mix of poppy tunes and experimental electronics which she has developed over the course of releasing 15 albums. She is a musician, songwriter and filmmaker based in Paris and visitors to Camera Japan will see her as she performs as the lead actor in the film Kuro. After the screening, she will perform a concert after the screening!
Camera Japan are pairing up two films with a food fest stocked with delicious Japanese inspired goodies. Make a Sunday special with a screening of ‘Oh Lucy!’, nd ‘Her Love Boils Bathwater’ and some delicious treats!!!
One of the many things that unites Europe and Japan is a love of beer. We Europeans are now getting used to big Japanese brands like Asahi, Sapporo and Kirin (usually brewed over here but whatever) but what is the Japanese craft beer market really like. Unless you travel to Japan you may never taste it… Unless you go to Camera Japan! There will be a tasting session where you will get to try some of the best Japanese craft beers. The evening includes a short documentary titled Craft Beer in Japan, co-director by Dutch filmmaker Maarten Roos.
Kids love hands on activities and both Nippon Connection and Camera Japan provide them. This year, the festival will provide a special afternoon for children and their parents full of workshops, games, and, yes, films!
This is a collaborative project between designers Emilie Pallard (FR), Makiko Shinoda (JP) and Niels Heymans (NL). The three worked together over a period of two years and investigated the craft of Kurume Kasuri: a weaving technique typical to the Kurume region of Fukuoka prefecture, Kyushu. The technique requires yarn to be tied and dyed before weaving, resulting in lush patterns with a subtle, hazy appearance. Pallard and Heymans will present both a film and a book about their project, and the textile will be displayed in an installation. The images on the website make it look rather interesting.
Camera Japan 2017 starts in just under a months time in Rotterdam and Amsterdam and there is plenty to dig into so having the festival programme is a must. You can also read about the various films and events here on this site where I will have this guide complete with addresses and links to other, more detailed posts covering
Camera Japan 2017 starts in just under a months time in Rotterdam and Amsterdam and there is plenty to dig into so having the festival programme is a must. You can also read about the various films and events here on this site where I will have this guide which acts as an overview and comes complete with addresses and links. There are other, more detailed posts covering
Special Screenings and Short Films | Workshops and Events
This particular post covers feature-length films which will be shown in Rotterdam (21st– 24th September)at LantarenVenster and Amsterdam from (29th September – 01stOctober)and there will be lots to see.
Tokyo is home to many world famous parks such as Yoyogi and Ueno but when I lived in the mega-metropolis I developed a soft spot for Inokashira Park out in the fashionable area of Kichijoji. It may not be as big as the others but I found it an equally wonderful serene green space with lots of interesting features. It recently reached its 100th anniversary and the film “Parks” was commissioned to commemorate the special occasion.The film is as charming as the locale. A little unwieldy in structure but fizzing with fun performances and song and dance numbers. I still have positive memories of the screening so I hope people go and see this and feel similarly!
Synopsis: Divided into chapters, the story follows three friends trying to recover a love song recorded at Inokashira Park in the ‘60s. It all begins with a university student named Jun (Ai Hashimoto) who lives near Inokashira Park. Having recently broken up with her boyfriend and struggling to find the creativity to complete her university course, she muddles her way through life. When a high-spirited high school girl named Haru (Mei Nagano) knocks on her door, it seems things may change. Haru may be a stranger but she hasn’t appeared at random. She was searching through her late father’s personal effects when she discovered a letter from and photograph of an ex-girlfriend who lived in the exact same apartment that Jun lives in and, in the name of preserving her father in her memory, Haru wants to find out more about him from the ex-girlfriend.
Like looking at videos from home since I spent so much time in and around Akihabara. Minus the violence of course. This looks like a heartfelt drama from newbie director Yusaku Matsumoto who has a credit on a horror movie as an editor. The screening a Q & A with the cast and crew. Director Yusaku Matsumoto is attending Raindance so he is likely to show up.
Synopsis from IMDB: Eight years have passed from the Akihabara massacre. A pop star whose mother was killed in the incident, a teenager who left her home to Akihabara, a delivery boy who turns his directionless anger to the city. This is a story about the characters striving to grasp the string of hope within the darkness surrounding the city, the incident, and the people.
This was at the Tokyo International Film Festival last year and reviews like this one paint a picture of a great family drama thanks to the actors Rie Miyazawa (Pale Moon, Twilight Samurai), Joe Odagiri (Bright Future, Mushishi), and Hana Sugisaki (Pieta in the Toilet).
Synopsis: Futaba and her daughter Azumi live in a house connected to their family-run bathhouse in a small town. Their used to be three people in their family but husband and father Kazuhiro left them for another woman and since then, the bathhouse has been closed. Everything changes when Futaba is diagnosed with terminal cancer, giving her only months to live. The approach of death fires her up to make the most of her remaining time. She develops a head of steam and becomes determined to reunite her family, reopen the bathhouse, and take care of her daughter. Her journey will uncover new friends and secrets as she makes peace with the world before leaving it.
This one was at the Tokyo International Film Festival last year and it earned good reviews. It’s a dramedy about ageing and loneliess from writer Ayako Kato and director Takeo Kikuchi. He previously worked on Dear Deer (2016) which toured international festivals.
Synopsis:High school student Aoi (Sayu Kubota) is top of the class when it comes to grades but fails when it comes to friendship. She’s lonely because of this and her busy parents not spending time with her. To forget her loneliness she steals things and one day, she decides to steal something from her classmate Hazuka (Minori Hagiwara) in revenge for some slight bullying. Aoi discovers that Hazuka is worried about whether she is pregnant by her ex-boyfriend. During a confrontation, the two girls meet an elderly woman named Etsuko (Masako Motai) with Alzheimer’s disease. She asks the girls for help in giving a love letter to her first love. Hazuka and Aoi decide to help out and maybe, in so doing, they will help each other…
From what I can tell, Tadashi Nagayama and Yuriko Suzuki are both new to the movie-making world but their debut feature-film won the Grand Prix at the 2017 Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival. Apparently, the story is based on Nagayama’s experiences with his own father!
Synopsis:A boy, his father and their pet turtle join their reckless uncle and his fiancée on a crazy road trip that quickly escalates, leaving traces everywhere they stop.
Tujiko Noriko is a musician who has been operating for quite some time. Her music mixes all sorts of instruments and electronic sounds with breathless vocals that tumble over each other. She is described as being like Bjork and that’s pretty accurate. She has made a film with the artist Joji Koyama and she will be performing a concert and conducting a Q&A before it is screened at Camera Japan!
Synopsis from the website:Romi, a Japanese woman living in Paris, works in a karaoke bar. At home in the suburbs, she tends to her paraplegic lover Milou. To pass the time she recounts to him a story alluding to a period they once spent together in Japan. Soon, the mystery of a man named Mr. Ono begins to unsettle everything. Weaving together personal history, anecdotes and myths, the story takes a dark turn.
This is Michio Koshikawa’s sophomore film but he has an extensive filmography as a producer with titles like The Wife of Gegege, Sketches of Kaitan City (both 2010), Our Homeland (2012) and “A Band Rabbit” and a Boy (2013), and Asleep (2015). This is a war movie and it was the second film made by Hikari Mitsushima in 2017 (the other is Trace of Sin) who has worked with Koshikawa on one of his films. She is paired up with Kento Nagayama in this romantic war-time melodrama.
Synopsis:It is 1945 and World War II is about to reach its end. Saku (Kento Nagayama) arrives on the island of Kakerojima, just south-west of the coast of Kyushu, to take command of navy special forces. His entry enlivens the place as the children on the island admire him and he sets the pulse of the elementary school teacher Toe (Hikari Mitsushima) racing. As the war winds down, she develops feelings for him until, one day, Toe receives a letter from Saku with a simple message, “please come to the beach around 9PM tonight.”
Yoshihiro Nishimura… Get ready for some gore from the master of blood and guts!
I did a summer of splatter films a couple of years back and found his films with their extreme effects were initially fun but so full-on with goopy special effects and action that they became exhausting. That written, his body of work as a director is still impressive: Tokyo Gore Police (2008), Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (2009), Mutant Girls Squad (2010), Helldriver (2010). His body of work as a special effects/make-up artist is even more impressive Attack on Titan (live-action) and Cold Fish are just two titles he has worked on and he is in demand internationally.
This one is a sequel to Meatball Machine (2005) so it will be interesting to see what those evil little aliens get up to in this new film. Nishimura brings back his favourite actors such as Takumi Saito (For Love’s Sake) and Eihi Shiina (Audition). Yoji Tanaka takes the lead and he has been in so many films, one of which, Getting Any? Is released in the UK in a month’s time. What about the trailer?
Yep, just as insane as his other works but with even better special effects!!! Watching this was like a shot of nostalgia from a time when I first started writing about his works. Also, Miyuki Toriiwas in Fine, Totally Fine(2008) which is more nostalgia.
Synopsis:On the day a debt collector hears he has terminal cancer, aliens attack Tokyo. With death approaching whatever he does, he takes his life into his own hands and fights back!
Cats are awesome. I suppose that if you liked the Neko Samurai films then you’ll be sure to like this since it is made by the same crew.
Synopsis from the festival site:Kagerota is a young ninja who embarks on his first mission: stealing the goldfish from a wealthy samurai. He succeeds, but then a mysterious fat cat starts following him. His distinctive red nose leads Kagerota to believe that the feline stalker is actually the reincarnation of his long last father, a legendary ninja who left him when he was ten years old.
This is an ensemble dramedy from Rikiya Imazumi(Sad Tea, Their Distance) thatpremiered at last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival. It’s set in Fukushima and Tokyo and uses the world of filmmaking to explore the meaning of death through religion and romance.
Synopsis from JFDB:Film director Kajiwara (Yahagi Masaru) does music videos to make ends meet but has been stuck in a rut for quite a while. Aspiring actress Aoba (Matsumoto Marika) witnesses the suicide of her film director boyfriend and tries to cover things uo. Landscape company owner Taro (Uchibori Taro) gets a call from a woman claiming to be the girlfriend of his younger twin brother Jiro, who has been missing for a while…These three tales join together in unexpected ways.
Look at the name of the director. Tatsushi Ohmori. He made, The Whispering of the Gods, The Ravine of Goodbye, and Bozo. Three emotionally brutal films. Harsh. Unflinching in their depiction of people causing others misery and feeling misery. Traumatising… Then he makes this light-hearted comedy! Woo! Seto & Utsumi is a slice-of-life tale of two friends that is sure to please a wide audience thanks to the chemistry between Masaki Suda (The Light Shines Only There) and Sosuke Ikematsu (How Selfish I Am!)!
Here’s a taste of the film:
Synopsis from the festival site:High school buddies Seto and Utsumi spend their days hanging out by a dry riverbed in Osaka, chatting about girls, cram school and their annoying parents.
Miwa Nishikawa is the truth. She is one of the best directors working in Japan. Look at her filmography and you will find stand-out films like Wild Berries,Dear Doctor, Sway, and Dreams for Sale. This one is brilliant. Quite possibly my film of the year. I have watched it three times and cried and learned something each time. It is based on a novel she wrote which is considerably darker and brought to life by a fine cast. I’d say this is my recommendation of the festival. If you want further convincing, this film was winner of the Audience Award at Nippon Connection in Frankfurt.
Synopsis: Sachio is a very successful but arrogant writer who is cheating on his wife Natsuko. During a trip away, Natsuko and her friend Yuki are killed in a bus accident. Sachio – whose celebrity status has led to media interest in the tragedy – initially finds himself unable to grieve. Ultimately, however, his life begins to fall apart as the reality of his wife’s absence hits him. During the public inquiries into the crash, he encounters Yuki’s husband Yoichi. Yoichi’s job as a truck driver has left him in a tight spot, unable to stay at home with his two young children. Sachio cautiously agrees to look after the kids while their father is out of town.
Eriko, Pretended is part of the 12th CO2 Grant-recipient Film section of the 2016 edition of the Osaka Asian Film Festival and has since gone on to tour the international film festival circuit. It was the subject of an international crowd funding campaign and it features a group of experienced crew who have worked on other films. I’m getting desperate to see this one because I have yet to watch it despite having worked in Osaka this year!!!
Synopsis:Eriko (Haruka Kubo) moved to Tokyo to become an actor but after ten years of trying she hasn’t quite made it. When her sister dies, Eriko returns home to attend the funeral where she delivers a eulogy. After the event she has to answer awkward questions about her acting career but, more importantly, she states that she will care for her sister’s ten-year-old son Kazuma…
This is another film that was at the Tokyo International Film Festival. I remember the evening I went to see it. I spent the day rambling around Yoyogi Park and the adjacent areas with a friend before going to get curry udon. Poolside Man was one of the hottest indie titles at the fest, getting better word of mouth than Japanese Girls Never Die. I had the pleasure of meeting and getting the autograph og Hirobumi Watanabe at Raindance a few years ago.
Synopsis from the festival site: Yusuke lives a lonely life in a suburb north of Tokyo. He eats breakfast, he drives to work at the local pool, he watches the TV news and listens to the radio. All the while, he barely says a word. Even when he is forced to drive his chatty co-worker Koji to a neighbouring pool, Yusuke just sits in total silence. Beneath this calm but cold exterior, however, there is something dark brewing within Yusuke. As he sits listening to news of atrocities from around the world, there is an anger brewing up inside this young, lonely man.
When I first arrived in Tokyo, posters for this film were everywhere:
A shot of the posters for “Nanimono” and “Ikari” taken at Shinjuku Station
Shuichi Yoshida is a novelist who explores the darker side of human psychology and he has had many of his books (many of which are fascinated with the idea of evil and people hiding their true identities) turned into films. A Story of Yonosuke (2013), Villain (2010), Parade (2010) and The Ravine of Goodbye (2013) have all either graced festival screens in Europe or are available to purchase from European distributors like Third Window Films. Sang-il Lee handled the big-screen adaptation of Villain (2010) and crafted a good drama. Rage is even grander in scale as it takes in many different locations and a huge and starry cast who give great performances, Satoshi Tsumabuki in particular. If you want a big and meaty drama then watch this film! Here’s my review!
Synopsis: A a married couple is brutally murdered by someone. The only clues are that the murderer is a man and he wrote the word “Ikari” (“Anger”) with the blood of the couple. The killer undergoes plastic surgery and flees and Japan is gripped by the crime and whenever a male stranger appears in a community, the people there suspect that the stranger might be the murderer.
People such as Yohei Maki (Ken Watanabe) who works at a harbour in Chiba. He is concerned that the man his daughter Aiko (Aoi Miyazaki) is dating, Tetsuya Tashiro (Kenichi Matsuyama), might be the killer, because Tetsuya is not his real name.
An advertising executive named Yuma Fujita (Satoshi Tsumabuki) falls for a man named Naoto Onishi (Gou Ayano) and they begin to live together but Yuma soon develops suspicions that Naoto is the killer.
Izumi Komiya (Suzu Hirose) and her mother (Urara Awata) move to an isolated island in Okinawa and Izumi meets a backpacker named Shingo Tanaka (Mirai Moriyama) who is hiding a secret.
Three different communities across Japan, three different stories involving different people, all linked by one murder.
Atsuko Hirayanagi attended NYU Tisch School of Arts in Asia and holds a blackbelt in karate. She came out with a number of short films including the award-winning shortOh Lucy! (2014)which was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and was developed into this project that was screened at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Critics gave the film praise. Now, it’s travelling the festival circuit and it’s the opening film for this year’s Raindance. You can read more here but it’s an inspiring story and the resulting film looks great. Here are two clips and the trailer:
Synopsis from the filmmakers: The drama-comedy tells the story of Setsuko Kawashima (Terajima), a lonely, chain-smoking office lady in Tokyo who is past her prime. After deciding to take an English class, she discovers a new identity in her American alter ego, ‘Lucy,’ and falls for her instructor, John (Hartnett). When John suddenly disappears, Setsuko earnestly sets out on a quest to find him, eventually leading her to the outskirts of Southern California.
This is the latest film from Eiji Uchida, director of Greatful Dead (2014) and Lowlife Love (2016). It was produced by Adam Torel of Third Window Films, a person who did a lot to build up the profile of Japanese films in the UK and he has made another cracking title with this twisted romantic saga. This review by Elizabeth Kerr from The Hollywood Reporter makes it sound like a worthwhile watch full of great performances from its young cast:
“…Love and Other Cults packs a boggling amount of narrative into its lean 95 minutes. At times it can feel like too much, but Uchida juggles his characters’ various arcs efficiently, making every frame and line of dialogue count. An energetic pop-punk sensibility keeps the film moving at a breezy clip…“
The film is very accessible and not as abrasive as Eiji Uchida’s earlier works but it still gets dark. Sairi Itoh gives a loveable performance as a lost lamb looking for love in all the wrong places and she is sure to charm audiences.
Synopsis: Ai’s (Sairi Itoh) has never had a stable home. Her religious mother stuck her in a cult and then she lands with a gang of drug-users and dropouts, a traditional nuclear family and worse. While she bounces around different environments, her classmate Ryota (Kenta Suga) follows a similar path as he falls in with a gang of wannabe yakuza. They harbour feelings for each other but will they be able to express them? It turns out that the two are star-crossed lovers of sorts, destined to meet each other in unsavoury circumstances
Writer/director Katsuya Tomita has been busy working on the indie scene making a couple of films with Saudade (2011) being an award-winner (here’s an interesting review over at the Hollywood Reporter. He has a fascination with Thailand considering the influences the country and its people seem to exert on the story of that film and this current one which gets a German premiere involving the associate producer Terutaro Osanai.
Synopsis: Deep in Bangkok’s red-light district is a woman named Luck. She lives a lavish and luxurious lifestyle while also providing for her family in a rural province. One day she meets Ozawa, a Japanese ex-soldier with whom she once was in love and their worlds intersect again.
The reviews for this one generally seem good. German premiere with the director/writer Yujiro Harumoto and one of the lead actors, Masahiro Umeda.
Synopsis: Asahi is a boxing trainer in Tokyo. He grew up in an orphanage but now he is going to start a family with Kaori because they plan to marry soon despite the fact that Kaori’s mother looks down on her prospective son-in-law because of his background and job. When Asahi’s best friend Hiroto is scammed by a shady businessman he has to make a difficult choice between the two closest people in his life.
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 of manners. 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 which explains why their comic performances are so perfect. Here’s my review.
Synopsis:The film takes place 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 drags on for a small group of guests because the more they drink the more they feel the need to linger behind and explore some bitter feelings and bad behaviour bubbling away underneath their polite Japanese exteriors.
Naoko Ogigami is one of Japan’s interesting female directors, quietly working away making good films and many people are familiar with them. Yoshino’s Barber Shop (2004), Kamome Diner (2006), Glasses (2007), and Rent-a-Cat (2012) could be described as quirky dramas that pack a powerful emotional punch but Close-Knit is a lot more serious as Ogigami looks at LGBTQ issues in Japan, a country that is still conservative in some ways.
Close-Knit may be serious but it features many well-rounded characters that will suck you into the world of the characters and show you that love is everything when it comes to family and through this you will definitely get you to understand the issues. Here’s an interview involving Naoko Ogigami which goes through the film a bit more. Expect a review soon.
Synopsis: Eleven-year-old Tomo is pretty much left to her own devices by a mother who is flighty, to say the least. Unwashed dishes are piling up in the sink and supermarket onigiri are all there is to eat again. Tomo’s single mother usually comes home late, and drunk. When she leaves her daughter for good one day the girl has to rely on help from her uncle, who takes in Tomo to live with him and his girlfriend Rinko. At their first meeting Tomo is flabbergasted to discover that Rinko is a transsexual. Rinko immediately sets about taking care of Tomo; not only does she lovingly prepare meals but she also succeeds in creating a new home for the girl. But before long cracks appear in their perfect nest.
TheDeath Note franchise continues ten years after the original when a new Death Note has been found on Earth and it has been used to orchestrate mass murders in New York and Japan. Itsemergence coincides withmysterious cyber terrorist attacks. A new generation of detectives led by Tsukuru (Higashide) and Ryuzaki (Ikematsu) will have to use their deduction skills to stop the person behind this new threat.
Synopsis from the festival site: From one moment to another the world goes dark in a catastrophic power outage. The Suzuki family decides to leave the struggling megalopolis of Tokyo and learns to survive in the Japanese countryside. Shinobu YAGUCHI’s charming film effortlessly mixes comedy, drama, and adventure genres while at the same time asking serious questions about the way we live.
Synopsis: Mitsuo was one of those brave souls who answered the call for volunteers to clear out the debris left behind by the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami. The strain of the task proved to be too much and he spent three years in psychiatric care. Upon his release, Mitsuo finds solace in reuniting with his brother and his nieces Chie and Itsuki. But a tragic accident soon disrupts the newly found happiness when the two girls are left in his care and Itsuki is killed. Though he had no direct involvement in the incident, Mitsuo is blamed and he must deal with the burden of guilt and the struggle for atonement.
Synopsis from the film festival site: This film tells the true story of Satoshi Murayama, who devoted his life to his two greatest struggles: against shogi (Japanese chess) master Yoshiharu Habu and against an incurable disease. Through his love of shogi he developed an astonishing strength of will, but ultimately, it cost him his life.
I have heard nothing but good things about this drama and it is only to be expected since it is based on a novel by Yasushi Sato (The Light Shines Only There, Sketches of Kaitan City) and directed by Nobuhiro Yamashita (The Drudgery Train) and stars Joe Odagiri (Mushishi), Yu Aoi (Japanese Girls Never Die), and Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Tokyo Fist, Fires on the Plain). A friend of mine who saw it during the Tokyo International Film Festival came back super excited and regaled me with the film so it is on my to-watch list.
Synopsis: Shiraiwa (Odagiri) is a recently divorced man and newly arrived in Hakodate, Hokkaido. He attends a vocational college to learn carpentry to continue receiving unemployment benefits. He is trapped in a routine and he is not along as there are other students who are in the same boat as he. This connection leads his classmates to invite him to join them at a hostess club where Shiraiwa meets a strangewoman who is passionately imitating the courtship dance of an ostrich. It turns out that she likes Shiraiwa and although he is irritated with her at first, he begins to like him. Her name is Satoshi (Aoi) and the two fall in love.
Before We Vanish (English Title) / Strolling Invader (Literal Title)
In between teaching the next generation of filmmakers at Tokyo University of Fine Arts, Kiyoshi Kurosawa has regularly been making films himself and his latest is based on a stage-play by Tomohiro Maekawa which was first performed in 2005. Its story has the feel of something like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It stars Ryuhei Matsuda (Nightmare Detective, The Great Passage, My Little Sweet Pea), Masami Nagasawa (Our Little Sister) and Hiroki Hasegawa (priceless as the mad director in Why Don’t You Play in Hell?).
Synopsis: Narumi (Masami Nagasawa) and her husband Shinji Kase (Ryuhei Matsuda) are having problems of the marital sort. Things may be bad but are they bad enough to justify Shinji disappearing for seven days? Masami is left wondering, especially because after his disappearance and return he seems like a totally different person, a kinder and gentler man who likes to go for a walk every day. This just happens to coincide with strange events in town and the brutal murder of a family. Masami begins to piece things together but Shinji surprises her again by telling her that he came to Earth to invade.
Synopsis: Novelist Masaru Sakumoto (Atsushi Ito) was once a celebrated hotshot in the literary world but a severe case of writer’s block means he is now forced to churn out a zombie-themed serial novel to make ends meet. Panicked by feelings of failure, he seeks out an old house in the countryside to find inspiration and jumpstart his creativity. He thought he was the only person in the premises but he isn’t alone. One by one, neighbourhood cats start showing up and despite his desire for solitude to work in, well, who can resist cute cats?
Synopsis:Biological terrorism has almost wiped humanity out but there are survivors and they are split into two different kinds of human survivors. There are the Nokusu who were infected with the virus but survived and now they carry an antibody. These are a unique breed of human because most of them are young, healthy and have high intelligence, but they are sensitive to ultraviolet rays and so they are active mostly during the night. The other group are the Kyurio, people who have survived by never having been infected by the virus. The Kyurio are discriminated against and live in pverty. One such Kyurio is Tetsuhiko Okudera (Ryunosuke Kamiki) and he wishes he could be a Nokusu. Yui Ikuta (Mugi Kadowaki) is Tetsuhiko’s childhood friend.
Camera Japan 2017 starts in just under a months time in Rotterdam and Amsterdam and there is plenty to dig into so having the festival programme is a must. You can also read about the various films and events here on this site where I will have this guide complete with addresses and links to other, more detailed posts covering
Eureka recently announced their slate of newest acquisitions and it included two Japanese fims – Tag (2015), Sion Sono’s carnival of chaos as Japanese schoolgirls take part in epic death-games, and Re:Born (2017), the recent return of action-man Tak Sakaguchi (Versus, Deadball) where he plays an ex-special-forces soldier fighting for his loved ones. Re:Born will have its UK premiere on September 16th as the main film of The Fighting Spirit Festival which takes place at the Boleyn Theatre in London.
The Fighting Spirits Festival is a relatively new event which is in its second year of operation. It celebrates and promotes Martial Arts Culture and those who have made martial arts as a careerthrough films and demonstrations. The films screened range from feature-length titles to shorts, classics like Shaw Brothers titles like The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) to more modern takes such as Herman Yau’s 2013 movie Ip Man. It has support from the Chinese Visual Festival, East Winds Film Festival, Arrow Video and Eureka so it’s guaranteed a lot of great films. Show some love for East Asian movies and take a look at the festival.
It’s pretty exciting to see a Japanese martial arts movie take the top spot, especially with Tak Sakaguchi in the lead role which is what drew my attention to it. Here are more details:
RE:BORN stars Tak Sakaguchi. Even if the films he is in are gore-fests where the main highlight are the special-effects and humour, he tends to make an impact because he can act and he has the charisma and martial arts skills to make a good action hero. He has been making horror and action movies for a while as an action director (he worked on High & Low: The Red Rain (2016) and Sion Sono’s movies Tag and Love Exposure, Himizu) and an actor (Osaka Snake Road: Snake of Violence, Tokyo Gore Police, Alive, Shinobi: Heart Under Blade and Meatball Machine: Kodoku). He was fantastic in Sion Sono’s (yes, him again,) Why Don’t You Play in Hell? which, if you had to watch one performance, is the one I’d recommend.
He is working with another prolific action director named Yuji Shinomura (Library Wars, Strayers Chronicle, I Am a Hero) and the fight choreographer Yoshitaka Inagawa, a former close combat instructor for U.S. Special Forces and other international commando units. The film showcases Inugawa’s Zero Range Combat System – a technique focused around extremely quick and efficient movements at close range.
The action in the trailer looks breathtaking and Tak Sakaguchi looks focused and cool in the lead role. Hardcore action films like this seem to be in short-supply from Japan and so it’s great seeing this on the big screen in the UK!!!
Synopsis:Toshiro (Tak Sakaguchi) is a seemingly normal guy who runs a convenience store in a small town. He lives a quiet life with his young niece Sachi but in the past, Toshiro was known as “Ghost” and was a lethal member for a special covert forces unit. He thought he had left that life behind but when his ex-comrades kidnap Sachi, he has to be reborn as a beast to get her back!
