The Venice International Film Festival is going to take place from September 02nd to September 12th. It is the 77th edition and the first big film festival to take place physically since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. There is one Japanese feature and two VR experiences with a Japanese connection. Without further ado, here are the films!

Wife of a Spy   

スパイの妻「Supai no tsuma」

Release Date: October 16th, 2020

Duration: 115 mins.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Tadashi Nohara (Script),

Starring: Yu Aoi, Masahiro Higashide, Hyunri, Issey Takahashi, Yuri Tsunematsu, Takashi Sasano, Chuck Johnson, Ryota Bando, Minosuke   

Website IMDB

This is the theatrical cut of the NHK drama of the same name which aired on June 06th, 2020. Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa and scripted by Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Happy Hour) and Tadashi Nohara, the film is a period piece that reunites the central couple of Romance Doll Yu Aoi (Hana and Alice) and Issey Takahashi (Shin Godzilla). This is the second time that Yu Aoi has worked with Kurosawa, following Penance and it is the second time for Masahiro Higashide following Creepy. 

To differentiate it from the television version, the movie version will have a new screen size and colour tone.

Synopsis: Japan in the 1940s is very dangerous if you have an opinion that dissents from the wartime rhetoric of the government. As the nation gears up for the Pacific War, a businessman from Kobe named Yusaku (Issey Takahashi) risks everything when he tries to tell the world of a barbaric act he witnessed while on a business trip to Manchuria. For this choice in exercising his right to speak out, he is accused of being a traitor. His wife Satoko (Yu Aoi) swears to stand by her beloved husband whatever the cost. This is her story. The story of Satoko as the wife of a spy. 

Beat (Dir: Keisuke Itoh, 12 mins. website)

“Beat” is a VR experience where viewers encounter a rusted robot who doesn’t have a “heart” to move. The “Heart” of the viewer becomes the power to bring the robot to life as the heart in the animation mimics and vibrates at the same pace at viewers’ heartbeat. The robot will then stand up and move, expressing joy to live out all his strength and also grow as the robot meets other robots.

The Book of Distance (Dir: Randall Okita, 25 mins. website)

National Film Board of Canada

Randall Okita has made an animation of his grandfather Yonezo Okita’s journey from his home in Hiroshima to Canada. Starting in 1935, it takes in drama surrounding the war and state-sanctioned racism. It is billed as “an interactive virtual pilgrimage through an emotional geography of immigration and family to recover what was lost” involving family archives and 2D/3D hand-crafted sets reminiscent of Japanese woodblock prints.

Here is past coverage of the festival:

Venice International Film Festival 2019

Venice International Film Festival 2018

Venice International Film Festival 2017

Venice International Film Festival 2014

Venice International Film Festival 2013

Venice International Film Festival 2012

Milocrorze: A Love Story 

ミロクローゼ   「Mirokuroze」

Release date:  May 08th, 2011

Duration: 90 mins.

Director: Yoshimasa Ishibashi

Starring: Takayuki Yamada (Bresson, Tamon, Ovreneli), Anna Ishibashi (Yuri), Seijun Suzuki (Tattooist), Maiko (Milocrorze), Eiji Okuda (Onsen Owner),

IMDB

Milocrorze: A Love Story is a film all about love. How it shows love in its many-splendoured forms is what makes it a treat as its endlessly inventive and surprising visual execution has maximum impact and much fun.

Milocrorze follows three stories about love from the perspective of three characters and they are done in varying styles. The perspectives audiences are given include a one-eyed ronin named Tamon who inhabits a warped samurai drama, an unconventional relationship therapist named Kumagai Bresson, and Ovreneli Vreneligare, a man-child at the mercy of a mysterious woman’s whims.

All but one of the characters is played entirely by Takayuki Yamada and he approaches the roles as caricatures through which he displays loud emotions.

Fresh from being uber-cool while working on Miike samurai movie 13 Assassins, he tunes himself perfectly to deliver massively different personalities with lovesick and shy Ovreneli completely removed from Tamon who blazes with bushido pride as he searches for his girl, and Bresson who sweats with absurd levels of 70s misogyny and cheesy macho cool. The film is effectively built around Yamada inhabiting these very different characters and it is an impressive display of his acting skills as shuffles, slices and dices, and dances across the screen with glee and quite a lot of enjoyable mugging to bring each personality to life.

Reflecting a change in each of the personalities is a change in visual design as it looks like CGI artists, hair stylists, set designers and costumiers were given the green light to go to town in imagining these characters and the worlds they inhabit. There is a gleeful mixing and mashing of time periods and aesthetic as Bresson’s chintzy disco world rubs up against Tamon’s techno-jidaigeki and the childish Ovreneli sections features cartoonishly oversized sets and props to emphasize the childlike nature of a boy experiencing first love. The use of colours is intense and the character’s costume colours and shapes just as noitceable.

One of the many highlights in a film of constant invention is a slow-motion fight through a bordello caught in an extended tracking shot. Tamon’s story, almost a colourful and zany retread of the 1966 film Irezumi, has the sort of choreography that shows masterful controlled chaos as director Ishibashi gets a huge cast in a complex location full of objects to enact a frenetic battle. It rivals the corridor fight in Oldboy, but with some sneaky edits and flashier costumes and more beautiful ladies. The actors, amidst the carnage, pose and grimacw every so often like figures from an ukiyo-e depicting figures from kabuki theatre to cement the style.

The film has that Survive Style 5+ outlandishness and colour that I remember being a lot more common in the early 2010s when it was made. It could also be said that there is a bit of a throwback to the 60s psychedelia – watch out for a cameo by Seijun Suzuki, master of stylistic changes, as Gazen, the tattoo master! The roots of its madcap approach comes from director Yoshimasa Ishibashi who has a background in the Kyupi Kyupi artist collective and had previously worked on the wonderfully demented Vermilion Pleasure Night, a sketch comedy show that earned global cult status thanks to its lead female comedians who applied themselves to many bizarre situations and skits directed by Ishibashi like The Fuccons, about a family of Americans who live in Tokyo who just happened to be mannequins (which you can see a clip of at the bottom of my おもしろいですね page). He brings together many tones with great control and there is a verve in his direction that keeps things fresh.

Indeed, the segments are separate stories but focus on love and with the bright tone and spirited rhythm, they segue into each other with perfection. If you visualised the taste and sensation of dumping a packet of sherbert in your mouth, you get an idea as the screen fizzes and tingles and pops with sharp colours and styles. While it can be said that the female characters are props, the film manages to capture the delightful feelings the magical effect of love can inspire in people and how it affects the way they see the world through charming and hyper-artistic visual and aural elements. Its stories will take you out of your everyday existence and throw you into a weird an wonderful world where everything is exaggerated and this exaggeration breathes life onto the screen.

Happy weekend, everyone.

I hope you are well.

This week, I posted about the Venice International Film Festival, a review for Milocrorze: A Love Story and a short preview of Summer of Horror Hiho which I have included below.

Summer of Horror Hiho

Summer of Horror Hiho is running for another year and goes live from August to September in Tokyo: Kineka  Oomori (August 21st – September 03rd) in Shinagawa ward; Nagoya: Cinema SKHole (August 29th – September 18th) in Nakamura ward; Osaka: Theater Seven (August 27th – September 04th) in Yodogawa ward. The main features of this fest are new Japanese horror movies, a celebration of director Mario Bava with a screening of four of his films and a revival screening of The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue (1974).

I have included the two Japanese films from the fest in this trailer post.

Here are the films:

Kaidan Shin Mimibukuro Gmen 2020

怪談新耳袋Gメン　2020「Kaidan Shin Mimibukuro Gmen 2020」

Release Date: August 21st, 2020

Duration: 90 mins.

Director: Amane Sato

Writer: N/A

Starring: Amane Sato, Tsuyoshi Goto, Yukihiko Yamaguchi,

Website

No trailer

Synopsis: This is another instalment of the popular paranormal documentary featuring middle-aged men exploring psychic spots across Japan in order the to capture psychic phenomenon on camera. The guys head to the scene of a murder that occurred in the Showa period.

Moebius Evil Woman Red Room   

メビウスの悪女　赤い部屋 「Mebiusu no akujo akai heya」

Release Date: August 21st, 2020

Duration: 66 mins.

Director: Shoji Kubota

Writer: Shoji Kubota (Script), Edogawa Rampo (Original Novel)

Starring: Kaede Shimizu, Naoki Kawano, Yuurei Yanagi, Kazuki Namioka, Jun Miho, Hoka Kinoshita,

Website

The first instalment of the “Red Room” series based on short stories by Edogawa Rampo. It stars former gravure idol Kaede Shimizu who takes on two roles. It sounds a little similar to one of the Trilogy of Terror (1975) stories that Karen Black worked on.

Synopsis: An erotic horror that depicts the lust of one of two twin sisters who kills then impersonates her sibling to get her fiance.

Films On General Release

Ito   

糸 「Ito」

Release Date: August 21st, 2020

Duration: 130 mins.

Director: Takahisa Zeze

Writer: Tamio Hayashi (Script), Miyuki Nakajima (Original Inspiration)

Starring: Masaki Suda, Nana Komatsu, Nana Eikura, Takumi Saito, Fumika Baba, Mizuki Yamamoto, Fumi Nikaido, Pistol Takehara, Yutaka Matsushige,

Website IMDB

After a Covid-19 delay, Ito goes on general release in Japan. It was inspired by a song by the prolific singer Miyuki Nakajima who if often the subject of films and theatre performances screened in cinemas and sings sad ballads about lost love. The background of the film is the changing Heisei era as the protags, real-life couple Nana Komatsu and Masaki Suda, find themselves meeting at different points.

Check out the Nana Komatsu International website to see the story of how the film has been progressing this year and Nana Komatsu Films for more information on Nana Komatsu. Two really good resources full of pictures and information!

Synopsis: Ren Takahashi (Masaki Suda) and Aoi Sonoda (Nana Komatsu) were both born in 1989 and met for the first time in 2002 while in junior high in Hokkaido. They fell in love but were separated in dramatic circumstances and Aoi leaves the island with her mother. They meet again at the age of 21 when Ren travels to Tokyo to a friend’s wedding but despite their unbroken connection, they are kept separate because Ren is a cheesemaker in Hokkaido while Aoi’s life is in Tokyo and Okinawa. Fate brings them back together again one more time at the age of 31 in the final year of the Heisei era but will fate separate them once more or are these two lovers destined to be together? 

Crazy Samurai Musashi   

狂武蔵 「Kyou Musashi」

Release Date: August 21st, 2020

Duration: 91 mins.

Director: Yuji Shimomura

Writer: Akari Tomori (Script), Sion Sono (Original Draft)

Starring: Tak Sakaguchi, Kento Yamazaki, Akihiko Sai, Yosuke Saito, Nobu Morimoto, Ben Hiura,

Website IMDB

This one has been a long time coming. Originally conceived nine years ago and with work put in by Sion Sono, it has finally been brought to life by the crew behind Re:born as a 77-minute no-cut action sequence that brings to life one of the most intense battles Musashi Miyamoto ever too part in. It sounds absolutely bonkers. It is playing at the Fantasia International Film Festival. Here’s a review over at Windows on Worlds.

Synopsis: In 1604, Musashi Miyamoto (Tak Sakaguchi) had been humiliating swordsmen from a prestigious school for swordsmen, the Yoshioka Dojo. One final duel is prepared but it’s a trap since the dojo has got 100 swordsmen loyal to them to show up and they have hired 300 more sellswords. It seems like Musashi is doomed but, before anyone gives the order to kill him, he attacks the 400! 

Flying Rabbit in the Night Sky   

夜空を飛ぶ兎 「Yozora o tobu usagi」

Release Date: August 21st, 2020

Duration: 72 mins.

Director: Andrew Shin

Writer: Andrew Shin (Script),

Starring: Atsuko Kikuchi, Mutsumi Suzuki, Yuta Ishiyama, Mame Yamada, Atsushi Oda,

Website

Synopsis: When Asako (Atsuko Kikuchi) was a child, she was once told by her father that if she were ever in trouble, she should seek out the rabbit flying in the night sky because it would protect her. He disappeared not long after. Years later, Asako, as an adult, is told by a gynaecologist that she is pregnant with a rabbit. Once at home, Asako, deeply worried, falls into a deep sleep in front of the stuffed rabbit left by her father and remembers his words. 

Terrolun and Lunlun   

テロルンとルンルン 「Yozora o tobu usagi」

Release Date: August 21st, 2020

Duration: 49 mins.

Director: Hiroyuki Miyagawa

Writer: Tomoko Kawanoue (Script), 

Starring: Amane Okayama, Rina Ono, Maiko Kawakami, Mari Nishio, Haruki Nakagawa,

Website

Synopsis: A mid-length film set in Hiroshima, it follows two people who feel isolated, one a hikikomori (Amane Okayama) who lives in his parents in the garage of his parents’ house because his father died in an accident, and the other a high school girl (Rina Ono) who is ostracised because she is deaf. Their worlds meet and they communicate through the garage window but the people around them misinterpret their relationship… 

Koshien: Japan’s Field of Dreams   

甲子園　フィールド・オブ・ドリームス 「Koshien Fi-rudo obu Dori-musu」

Release Date: August 21st, 2020

Duration: 94 mins.

Director: Ema Ryan Yamazaki

Writer: N/A

Starring: N/A

Website IMDB

Synopsis: A documentary looking at the meaning of Koshien, Japan’s national high school baseball championship, where school teams compete to play on its hallowed grounds. An American documentary crew and director follow the players and coach of a team as they seek to win the 100th annual Koshien. The film was broadcast on America’s ESPN and screened at the documentary film festival “DOC NYC”. This is an especially poignant film because Covid-19 forced the cancellation of this year’s event.

I Became a Hunter   

僕は猟師になった 「Boku wa Ryoushi ni Natta」

Release Date: August 22nd, 2020

Duration: 99 mins.

Director: Aiko Kawahara

Writer: N/A

Starring: Shinya Senmatsu

Website IMDB

The film is based on an NHK programme first broadcast in 2018 and recorded over 300 days. The theatrical version has narration by Sosuke Ikematsu.

Warning: the trailer does feature violence against an animal

Synopsis: A documentary following a hunter named Shinya Senmatsu who wrote a book of the same named that was published in 2008. Senmatsu graduated from Kyoto University and lives on the border between the city of Kyoto and the mountains. It is here that he hunts wild boars and deer caught by his homemade traps. The purpose of the documentary is also to look at the wealth that nature can offer.

Challenged   

チャレンジド 「Charenjido」

Release Date: August 22nd, 2020

Duration: 90 mins.

Director: Kenichi Oguri

Writer: N/A

Starring: N/A

Website

Visit the website to see the trailer and to get a more detailed synopsis/

Synopsis: A documentary looking at people with mental disabilities who are encouraged to live as part of society rather than hidden away in group homes and hospitals. The film details the prejudicial attitudes held by society, like eugenics which are still in vogue with certain people today, and then charts positive cases where people embrace those less able through their contributions to art. 

To quote the filmmakers on their website:

“Challenged” gives an opportunity for all of us to witness their inspiring activities and to help create an image of a more inclusive society that we could and should be heading to.

Given (movie)   

映画　ギヴン 「Eiga Gibun」

Release Date: August 22nd, 2020

Duration: 59 mins.

Director: Hikaru Yamaguchi

Writer: Yuniko Ayana (Script), Natsuki Kizu (Original Manga)

Starring: Shougo Yano (Mafuyu Sato), Yuma Uchida (Ritsuka Uenoyama), Masatomo Nakazawa (Haruki Nakayama), Shintaro Asanuma (Ugetsu Murata), Takuya Eguchi (Akihiko Kaji),

Animation Production: Lerche

Website ANN MAL

This is the continuation of a TV anime based on a BL manga that was broadcast on Fuji TV’s “Noitamina” block.

Synopsis: High-school student Ritsuka Uenoyama is losing his interest in music when he hears the voice of Mafuyu Sato in his band. They don’t know each other well, but are soon drawn to one another…

This year’s Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 10th to the 20th and they have announced their selection of films. Due to the Covid-19, it is a reduced festival with just 50 titles but there are works from major directors as well as plenty of new talents. In terms of attending the fest, there are some in-person events like drive-ins, outdoor screenings and some indoor screenings, that will be mixed with online screenings and virtual press conferences talks. There are two Japanese films and they are both by leading ladies in the industry. Take a look!

True Mothers   

朝が来る 「Asa ga kuru」

Release Date: October 23rd, 2020

Duration: 139 mins.

Director: Naomi Kawase

Writer: Naomi Kawase, Izumi Takahashi (Script), Mizuki Tsujimura (Original Novel)

Starring: Arata Iura, Hiromi Nagasaku, Miyoko Asada, Taketo Tanaka, Ren Komai, Go Riju, Hiroko Nakajima, Reo Sato,

Website IMDB

True Mothers is the latest movie by Naomi Kawase (Sweet Bean (2015), Radiance (2017)) and is based on a novel by Mizuki Tsujimura. It was turned into an eight-episode series based on broadcast in 2016 and has now been given a feature film treatment so fine that it was going to be screened at Cannes 2020 but the fest was cancelled due to Covid-19.

Synopsis: Kiyokazu Kurihara and his wife Satoko had given up trying for a baby after years of struggle but were lucky enough to be able to welcome a boy into their lives through special adoption. They have spent six happy years with their son, Asato, but the woman who gave birth to Asato, “Hikari Katakura”, tells them, “I want you to return my child.” The sordid history of Hikari and her impact on the Kurihara family is keenly felt in this drama… 

Under the Open Sky

すばらしき世界 「Subarashiki Sekai」

Release Date: February 11th, 2021

Duration: 115 mins.

Director: Miwa Nishikawa

Writer: Miwa Nishikawa (Script), Ryuzo Saki (Original Novel)

Starring: Koji Yakusho, Taiga Nakano, Isao Hashizume, Meiko Kaji, Seiji Rokkaku, Masami Nagasawa, Narumi Yasuda, Yukiya Kitamura,

Website IMDB

Under the Open Sky is the latest work from Miwa Nishikawa (Sway (2006), Dear Doctor (2009)) and the first film she has directed that isn’t based on a novel or script written by herself. The novel is by Ryuzo Saki and that had the original title Mibuncho and it sounds (slightly) a bit like Kikujiro (1999), in that it is about an ex-criminal who tries to adjust to life outside of the slammer and goes on a search for his mother.

Synopsis: Masao Mikami (Koji Yakusho) has spent 13 years in prison for committing a murder. Upon his release, he struggles to re-integrate and even begins to think about his mother, from whom he was separated from as a child. However, he becomes connected with various people including two men from a TV station who want to make a TV program that shows his life. 

That’s it for now. I’ll update it if any other films are added.

Here is past coverage:

Toronto International Film Festival 2011

Toronto International Film Festival 2012

Toronto International Film Festival 2013

Toronto International Film Festival 2014

Toronto International Film Festival 2015

Toronto International Film Festival 2017

Toronto International Film Festival 2018

Toronto International Film Festival 2019

The L’Etrange Festival is set to run at Forum des Images for its 26th edition from September 02 to 13 as a physical event and it comes during the Covid-19 pandemic. As such, rules have been put in place (read them here) to ensure everybody’s safety so they can enjoy some masterful cinematographical delights on a big screen. The Japanese focus features three familiar films from Seijun Suzuki, a fanciful delight from the son of manga genius Osamu Tezuka and a short film from new young star Nao Yoshigai.

What Japanese films are programmed at L’Etrange this year?

Tezuka’s Barbara   

ばるぼら 「Barubora」

Release Date: November 2019

Duration: 100 mins.

Director: Macoto Tezuka

Writer: Hisako Kurosawa (Screenplay), Osamu Tezuka (Manga)

Starring: Goro Inagaki, Fumi Nikaido, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Shizuka Ishibashi, Minami, Eri Watanabe, Moemi Katayama,

Website IMDB

Macoto Tezka, son of famous manga-ka Osamu Tezuka, turns his father’s novel into a film with Goro Inagaki and top actress Fumi Nikaido taking the lead in the “writer and his muse” story that mixes pink film thrills with weird tales. The cinematography is done by Christopher Doyle and it looks extremely erotic and a little magical. This one is backed by Third Window Films and it has been on the international festival circuit for a while, starting at Tokyo last year and appearing more recently at Fantasia. This was made for the 90th Anniversary of Osamu Tezuka’s birth.

Synopsis: Osamu Tezuka re-imagines The Tales of Hoffmann which creates a series of meetings wrapped up in lust, forbidden love, the occult, art and all-round weirdness for a famous writer named Yosuke Mikura and a mysterious girl named “Barbara” who he meets in an overpass tunnel. When he takes her home, his life takes a bizarre turn.

Grand Bouquet   

Release Date: May 23rd, 2019

Duration: 15 mins.

Director: Nao Yoshigai

Writer: Nao Yoshigai (Script), Miyuki Nakajima (Original Inspiration)

Starring: Hanna Chan

Website IMDB

Synopsis from Nao Yoshigai’s site: A helpless woman confronts “a black object” with a power greater than hers. The “black object” shoots her questions. The woman has answers to these questions, but can’t say them aloud. She feels up against the wall, and begins to throw up beautiful colorful flowers instead of speaking.

TAISHO TRILOGY

This is a trilogy of independent films that draw heavily on their namesake period for story and aesthetics and were brought to the screen by an iconoclastic filmmaker.

Seijun Suzuki’s (1923 – 2017) career as a director is split into two parts – as one of Nikkatsu studio’s stable of salaried directors, he was tasked with making rather generic low-budget yakuza films but Suzuki’s output was different because he had a keen sense of style and humour that subverted the genre products he was hired to write and direct. Brave use of dissonance in terms of arty visuals, sounds and music, and penning irreverent stories with outrageous twists made his films more memorable for audiences but less palatable for the guys running Nikkatsu who were not so enamoured with creating art and more interested in making a quick buck. This period came to an end with Branded to Kill which proved to be a critical and commercial flop and so the head honchos at Nikkatsu fired him for making, and I quote Suzuki-kantoku himself, “movies that make no sense and no money.” Suzuki successfully sued them for wrongful dismissal but successfully challenging industry figures tends to get a person blacklisted (just ask Kiyoshi Kurosawa after his run-in with Juzo Itami) and so he spent ten years in the movie making wilderness formulating ideas with other creatives.

Suzuki, proving that creativity is everything, made a comebac and re-established his filmmaking career with his period drama series, the Taisho Trilogy – Zigeunerweisen (1980), Kagero-za (1981), and Yumeji (1991). The first two of these films are based on novels from the period, the third an original story, and all capture the sense of an age where modernity and liberalisation brought changes and social advancement, politics hit fever-pitch with anarchists and ultra-nationalists clashing whilst the nation moved heavily into its colonial practices and the arts were struck by highly stylised works defined by lashings of eroticism, grotesquerie, absurdism, the supernatural and violence melded into an artistic movement called ero-guro. Here’s a trailer for the trilogy:

Zigeunerweisen

ツィゴイネルワイゼン 「Tsuigoineruwaizen」   

Running Time: 145 mins

Director:  Seijun Suzuki

Writer: Yozo Tanaka (Screenplay), Hyakken Uchida (Original Novel)

Starring: Yoshio Harada, Naoko Otani, Toshiya Fujita, Kisako Makishi, Akaji Maro, Kirin Kiki, Yuki Kimura, Nagamasa Tamaki, Sumie Sasaki,

Website IMDB

Here’s my review

Synopsis: We see the strange relationship between Aochi (Toshiya Fujita) and Nakasago (Yoshio Harada). Both lead characters are academics who have been friends since their university days but only Aochi continues his job at a military academy where he teaches German and has married Taeko (Kisako Makishi), a Modern Gal who loves hedonistic pleasure. Meanwhile Nakasago strikes out on mysterious journeys involving searching out beautiful women and visions of the grotesque. They meet once again when Nakasago is accused of murder at a small seaside town. Aochi helps his friend out and the two go for dinner where they meet and fall in love with a beautiful geisha named O-ine (Naoko Otani). The two part ways again but six month’s later, meet again and Aochi learns that his Nakasago has married a woman who bears a strange resemblance to O-ine…

The two men and their wives enter into a series of bizarre love triangles full of supernatural twists, doppelgangers, phantasmic illusions told through brilliant period details, wild story telling and imaginary monsters all filtered through Suzuki’s colourful approach to film making.

Heat-Haze Theatre / Kagero-za   

陽炎座 「Kagero-za」

Release Date: August 21st, 1981

Duration: 139 mins.

Director: Seijun Suzuki

Writer: Yozo Tanaka (Script), Kyoka Izumi (Original Novel)

Starring: Yusaku Matsuda, Michiyo Yasuda, Mariko Kaga, Katsuo Naamura, Yoshio Harada, Eriko Kusuda,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: Following the success of Zigeunerweisen, Seijun Suzuki and producer Genjiro Arato worked together on this story which is based on a short story by Kyoka Izumi. It is 1926 and a playwright named Shungo Matsuzaki (Yusaku Matsuda) is haunted by a beautiful but mysterious woman named Shinako (Michiyo Yasuda) who he feels, but cannot quite work out, if he might have a connection to…

Yumeji   

夢二 「Yumeji」

Release Date: May 31st, 1991

Duration: 128 mins.

Director: Seijun Suzuki

Writer: Yozo Tanaka (Script), 

Starring: Kenji Sawada, Tomoko Mariya, Masumi Miyazaki, Kazuhiko Hasegawa, Tamasaburo Bando, Yoshio Harada, Leona Hirata, Michiyo Yasuda, Kimiko Yo,

Website IMDB

From the fest’s own write-up: the movie is freely inspired by the life of the artist Yumeji Takehisa (1884-1934), known for his erotic watercolors.

Synopsis: It is 1917 and we are in Kanazawa. The artist Yumeji (Kenji Sawada), an aesthete and womaniser, is waiting to meet a lover named Hikono (Masumi Miyazaki) but gets involved with a widow named Tomoyo (Tomoko Mariya) whose husband, Wakiya (Yoshio Harada), was murdered by her jealous lover Onimatsu (Kazuhiko Hasegawa). His dalliance with this woman leads him into a dreamy erotic maelstrom involving the artist with the murderer, the ghost and the girl they all desire.

The music you hear in the trailer will remind you of the melody for the Wong Kar-Wai film In the Mood for Love. That is because the it was made by the same composer Shigeru Umebayashi.

Here’s my past coverage of the event:

l’etrange 2019

l’etrange 2018

Happy weekend, everyone!

I hope you are all well.

I have been back in work on the regular this week but, despite that, I managed to get some writing done. I’m covering some titles at the New York Asian Film Festival. I covered the Toronto International Film Festival and L’Etrange Festival (a post I enjoyed writing) and I have a few more things planned. In terms of films that I watched, Jackie Chan featured heavily with Police Story 1 and 2 and The Protector. I am struggling to read The Bonfire of the Vanities but storming through the game Front Mission 3.

What is released this weekend?

Soiree   

ソワレ「Suware」

Release Date: August 28th, 2020

Duration: 111 mins.

Director: Bunji Satoyama

Writer: Bunji Satoyama (Script), 

Starring: Nijiro Murakami, Haruka Imou, Takashi Okabe, Noriko Eguchi, Kanami Tagawa,

Website

This sounds like it could be a powerful drama that looks at the suffering of the younger generation in a society that crushes people’s spirits. It stars two young talents who are making waves, Nijiro Murakami (The Gun, Destruction Babies) and Haruka Imou (Sayounara).

Synopsis: Shota Iwamatsu (Nijiro Murakami) is a young man who left Wakayama to go to Tokyo to become an actor but he is struggling and forced to make ends meet with his acting skills as part of scams. He is in a theatre troupe but his time there is pretty tough due to a merciless director. When that troupe heads to Wakayama to conduct an acting workshop at a nursing home for the elderly, Shota meets a young woman who works there named Takara Yamashita (Haruka Imou) who is suffering abuse at the hands of a man. The two encounter him on their way to a summer festival and an incident happens…

Stigmatized Properties   

事故物件　恐い間取り「Jiko Bukken: Kowai Madori」

Release Date: August 28th, 2020

Duration: 111 mins.

Director: Hideo Nakata

Writer: Brazilli Ann Yamada (Script), Tanishi Matsubara (Original Inspiration)

Starring: Kazuya Kamenashi, Nao, Megumi, Noriko Eguchi, Shohei Uno, Mao, Koji Seto, Houka Kinoshita,

Website

Synopsis: Yamame (Kazuya Kamenashi) and his partner Nakai (Koji Seto) are a struggling manzai act desperately searching for some route to fame. When Nakai suggests that Yamame make a programme where he stays at a “stigmatized property where a murder took place,” the depressed Yamame goes along with things and… something supernatural happens! It proves to be a hit for a television producer who wants more encounters of the spooky kind. Looking to capitalise on this, the two guys hire one of their few fans, a woman named Azusa (Nao) who can actually see ghosts and work with a dodgy real-estate agent who specialises in stigmatized properties to let them into places which have increasingly scarier ghosts…

Blue, Painful, and Brittle 

青くて痛くて脆い「Aokute Ikakute Moroi」

Release Date: August 28th, 2020

Duration: 118 mins.

Director: Shunsuke Kariyama

Writer: Noriaki Sugihara (Script), Yoru Sumino (Original Novel)

Starring: Ryo Yoshizawa, Hana Sugisaki, Amane Okayama, Honoka Matsumoto, Nana Mori, Ken Mitsuishi, Tasuku Emoto, Hiroya Shimizu,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: Kaede Tabata (Ryo Yoshizawa) and Hisano Akiyoshi (Hana Sugisaki) are both university students who struggle to interact with people, however, with each other, despite their different personalities, they are fine. They are also united by a shared desire to change the world so they create a secret club they call Moai to make things better. However, one day, Hisano disappears from “this world” and Kaede is left behind to carry on. Moai proves to become popular with other students and turns into a job-hunting group which people use to network and get jobs with companies. The more popular it gets, the more Kaede becomes disillusioned as it drifts away from his and Hisano’s original idea and so he initiates the “Recapture Moai Plan” with his best friend…

Two Silhouettes   

ふたつのシルエット「Futatsu no shiruetto」

Release Date: August 28th, 2020

Duration: 37 mins.

Director: Yasutomu Chikuma

Writer: Yasutomu Chikuma (Script), 

Starring: Kei Sato, Tomomitsu Adachi, Jan, Naomi,

Website

Synopsis: Former lovers Keiya and Kanae meet at a restaurant by the sea for the first time in seven years. This was the last place that they visited together. Since then, Keiya, got married and started a family while Kanae moved on to a new job and her current partner has proposed to her. During their reunion, the two talk about the present, past, and future. Eventually, the two will start a timeless conversation with their current partners.

Kiseki to no deai. – Kokoro ni yorisou. 3   

奇跡との出会い。　心に寄り添う。3「Kiseki to no deai. Kokoro ni yorisou. 3」

Release Date: August 28th, 2020

Duration: 94 mins.

Director: Takayuki Okutsu

Writer: N/A

Starring: Rin Kijima, Ryoma Ichihara,

Website

Synopsis: The third in a series of documentary films where actress Rin Kijima acts as a guide. Following on from the first volume, which deals with people who face difficulties such as bullying and disabilities, and the second volume, which explores the meaning of “living” through the interaction between seniors and young people, this time the film asks “What is a miracle?” It tries to answer this by interviewing people who experienced a miracle whilst enduring tremendous hardships. These include men who have been declared terminally ill with cancer, women who have been suffered serious physical injury. 

Gekijouban Ninja Jajamaru-kun   

劇場版　忍者じゃじゃ丸くん「Gekijouban Ninja Jajamaru-kun」

Release Date: August 28th, 2020

Duration: 119 mins.

Director: Ainosuke Shibata

Writer: Etsuro Hiratani (Script), Ninja Jajamaru-kun (Original Video Game)

Starring: Isamu Sugihara, Hiroaki Kawatsure, Yuka Kuramochi, Yuu Komeda, Kentaro Shimazu,

This one has its roots in crowdfunding, as shown by the fact that the only trailer I could find was from Motion Gallery (the Japanese equivalent of Kickstarter). Based on the same-name video game which was first made in 1985.

Synopsis: The ninja Jajamaru moves to Akihabara with his brother and get mixed up with yakuza. Jajamaru falls for the daughter of the group, Sakura but she is taken hostage by a figure from Jajamaru’s past life in the ninja village he comes from… 

UVERworld Otoko Matsuri FINAL at TOKYO DOME

UVERworld 男祭り FINAL at TOKYO DOME「UVERworld Otoko Matsuri FINAL at TOKYO DOME」

Release Date: August 28th, 2020

Duration: 160 mins.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: Takuya∞ , Katsuya, Akira, Nobuto, Shintaro, Seika

Website

No trailer or poster

Synopsis: The 6-member rock band “UVERworld” celebrate the 20th anniversary of their formation in 2020. They celebrated the 15th anniversary of their debut in a concert on December 19th at Tokyo Dome with a live performance for a male-only crowd. 45,000 guys watched the concert and now it’s on cinema screens in select theatres for everyone to watch. 

This year’s San Sebastian International Film Festival runs from September 18th to the 26th and they have announced their selection of films. Due to the Covid-19, the festival has reduced what it will show and created a mixed programme of physical and online activities (details here). There are three Japanese films, as far as I am aware and they are detailed below. Take a look!

Official Selection

True Mothers   

朝が来る 「Asa ga kuru」

Release Date: October 23rd, 2020

Duration: 139 mins.

Director: Naomi Kawase

Writer: Naomi Kawase, Izumi Takahashi (Script), Mizuki Tsujimura (Original Novel)

Starring: Arata Iura, Hiromi Nagasaku, Miyoko Asada, Taketo Tanaka, Ren Komai, Go Riju, Hiroko Nakajima, Reo Sato,

Website IMDB

True Mothers is the latest movie by Naomi Kawase (Sweet Bean (2015), Radiance (2017)) and is based on a novel by Mizuki Tsujimura. It was turned into an eight-episode series based on broadcast in 2016 and has now been given a feature film treatment so fine that it was going to be screened at Cannes 2020 but the fest was cancelled due to Covid-19. It will also be screened at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Synopsis: Kiyokazu Kurihara and his wife Satoko had given up trying for a baby after years of struggle but were talked into a special adoption by a company. Since then, they have spent six happy years with their son, Asato, but when a young woman named Hikari appears and claims to be the one who gave birth to him, she shakes the family to its core. Satoko decides to confront Hikari… 

Any Crybabies Around?   

泣く子はいねぇが「Nakuko wa ineega」

Release Date: November 20th, 2020

Duration: 95 mins.

Director: Takuma Sato

Writer: Takuma Sato (Script), 

Starring: Taiga Nakano, Riho Yoshioka, Kanichiro, Takashi Yamanaka, Yoki Miko, Toshiro Yanagiba, Kimiko Yo

Website IMDB

Takuma Sato has four films to his name so far, all original stories, with two released last year (link to a trailer post), and he has worked with Taiga Nakano (Au revoir l’ete, Harmonium, Japanese Girls Never Die). For this film, he draws upon the Namahage festival that takes place in Akita Prefecture and uses this ancient tradition to tell a story depicting young adults in contemporary society.

Synopsis: Tasuku (Taiga Nakano) isn’t the best husband around, as proven by the fact that it is New Year’s Eve and he is out drinking with his friends while his wife Kotone is pregnant and about to give birth. Deciding to turn over a new leaf, he declares he will go home. But not before a last sip of sake. This sends him over the edge and he tears off his clothes and tears out into the street. This being Oga, it is the time of Namahage – an ancient tradition where men wear costumes and go door-to-door to scare kids. A naked Tasuku crashes this event and it is caught on television. This shameful moment causes a national uproar that causes Kotone to divorce him and Tasuku to flee to Tokyo.

Two years later, Tasuku returns after he discovers that Kotone is now working in a red-light district and raising their daughter alone but the situation is more difficult than he anticipates…

PERLAK – Opening Night Film

Wife of a Spy   

スパイの妻「Supai no tsuma」

Release Date: October 16th, 2020

Duration: 115 mins.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Tadashi Nohara (Script),

Starring: Yu Aoi, Masahiro Higashide, Hyunri, Issey Takahashi, Yuri Tsunematsu, Takashi Sasano, Chuck Johnson, Ryota Bando, Minosuke   

Website IMDB

This is the theatrical cut of the NHK drama of the same name which aired on June 06th, 2020. Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa and scripted by Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Happy Hour) and Tadashi Nohara, the film is a period piece that reunites the central couple of Romance Doll Yu Aoi (Hana and Alice) and Issey Takahashi (Shin Godzilla). This is the second time that Yu Aoi has worked with Kurosawa, following Penance and it is the second time for Masahiro Higashide following Creepy. 

To differentiate it from the television version, the movie version will have a new screen size and colour tone. This will be shown at the Venice International Film  Festival.

Synopsis: Japan in the 1940s is very dangerous if you have an opinion that dissents from the wartime rhetoric of the government. As the nation gears up for the Pacific War, a businessman from Kobe named Yusaku (Issey Takahashi) risks everything when he tries to tell the world of a barbaric act he witnessed while on a business trip to Manchuria. For this choice in exercising his right to speak out, he is accused of being a traitor. His wife Satoko (Yu Aoi) swears to stand by her beloved husband whatever the cost. This is her story. The story of Satoko as the wife of a spy. 

New Directors

In the New Directors section of the festival is this Japan-Vietnam production by a familiar name.

Along the Sea   

海辺の彼女たち「Umibe no Kanojotachi」

Release Date: 2021

Duration: 88 mins.

Director: Akio Fujimoto

Writer: Akio Fujimoto (Script),

Starring: Hoang Phuong, Anh Huynh Tuyet, Nhu Quynh

Website IMDB

Akio Fujimoto has, so far, specialised in telling Asian stories that reveal profound connections between Japan and its continental neighbours. He previously travelled to Myanmar to make Passage of Life (2017), a film about a family dealing with the pressures of emigrating to Japan, and Bleached Bones Avenue (2019), which shows the process of recovering Japan’s war dead from the Battle of Imphal. I interviewed him about that film. With this movie, he re-assmebles his team, including cinematographer Kentaro Kishi, and looks at the fate of three Vietnamese women who are in Japan on a technical intern programme but go on the lam.

Synopsis: Phuong, An, and Nhu are Vietnamese women in their early 20s. The three become illegal residents in Japan after escaping from their workplace as technical trainees. An contacts a broker to help them find work. The broker takes them to a fisherman’s ice-covered hut where they can stay in exchange for labour. They are happy because, as well as finding a job, they have also doubled their salary. As they start their work, Phuong suddenly falls, stricken with severe pain. Worried, An and Nhu take Phuong to a hospital, but they are refused admission for not having an ID card. Second feature film by its director.

A Beloved Wife   

喜劇　愛妻物語 「Kigeki Aisai Monogatari」

Release Date: September 11th, 2020

Duration: 115 mins.

Director: Shin Adachi

Writer: Shin Adachi (Screenplay/Novel)

Starring: Gaku Hamada, Asami Mizukawa, Chise Niitsu, Eri Fuse, Kaho, Kayoko Ookubo, Ken Mitsuishi, 

Website    IMDB

Writer/director Shin Adachi really grabbed the attention of the cinema world with his script for 100 Yen Love (2014) which charted one female loser’s rise from zero to hero via boxing. Following that he returned to writing scripts and made a number of hits but soon directed his debut film, the warmly received 1980s-set nostalgic comedy 14 That Night (2016). For his sophomore feature, A Beloved Wife, he adapted his semi-autobiographical novel and the old adage that “it is better to write what you know” turned out to be true as it won Best Screenplay at the 2019 edition of the Tokyo International Film Festival. A painfully funny and awkward comedy about marital disharmony, one hopes that this isn’t too close to reality.

The famous proverb, “Behind every great man is a great woman” applies to A Beloved Wife as it gives audiences ringside seats into a painfully funny dysfunctional marriage between a sex-obsessed writer and his long-suffering partner.

While every marriage has its peaks and troughs, for the Yanagida’s, the troughs have been longer and much deeper and it is all linked to the husband Gota Yanagida (Gaku Hamada) for he is a pompous and lazy scriptwriter running on the fumes of past successes. Suffering writer’s block, he has been living off his wife Chika (Asami Mizukawa) for the last 10 years. Contenting himself to occasionally doing cooking, cleaning and childcare and always promising to write a hit, he has forced her to her turn into the family breadwinner and so she is constantly working, constantly tired and very unhappy about their situation and has no problem loudly denouncing her husband because of it. Meanwhile, their daughter Aki (played by the adorable Chise Niitsu) is a cheerful poppet concerned mainly about having fun.

A certain unsatisfying but liveable stasis has set in for these marriage partners and it is familiar from every long term relationship as people settle for a status quo, only here it is defined by low-level sexual pestering from Gota and the increasingly regular verbal flare-ups from Chika. Big things seem to be on the horizon, however, as Gota catches a break from a film producer: he is given the task of writing a screenplay for his story of “a high school girl who makes udon noodles at a tremendous speed”. All that is required is that he travel to Kagawa Prefecture in Shikoku and tour the place and interview people. Alas, Gota has no driver’s license and will need to be chauffeured so he persuades Chika that their fortunes might be changing for the better and his work trip can also double as a family holiday. Chika reluctantly agrees but it turns out to be a holiday from hell as Gota has sex on the brain and an unerring ability to let it cloud his motivation which initiates a self-destruct timer in an ongoing meltdown from Chika who has had enough.

While the film is told from Gota’s perspective, Chika is the real hero here as she bravely battles to make a success of her husband. The film revels in showing how difficult a task this is.

Gaku Hamada, really good at playing uncomfortable characters like his veritable shut-in struggling to break free in See You Tomorrow, Everyone (2013), has the unenviable task of being sordid and pathetic and he nails the role of Gota perfectly as he slouches and sleazes his way across Shikoku without being so unlikable that he turns the audience off. For the few moments of genuine immorality and obnoxious egotism, there are some that give a glimpse of a softening trait like being unconfident and we do get a sense that he does love his wife but cannot find the motivation to do anything to better his situation and it feels like a believable helplessness that comes from being too complacent for too long and we see how Chika hates it.

It wasn’t always this way. Flashbacks to earlier times show him as more go-getting and her as a more hopeful and unabashedly enthusiastic and supportive woman but a settled domesticity snuffed out that fire and being taken advantage of by Gota has led to Chika’s frustrations with her louche and lazy other half which has warped her personality into that of a fiery harridan, as exemplified by her stream of reproval and irritation over his demands for sex which she resists at every turn. We sympathise as we get a real insight into Gota through his shockingly honest narration, which gives his personal observations and sleazy thoughts, and through his thoughtless lust-fuelled but funny misadventures which bring shame and even danger to his family.

Acting as his counterweight is Asami Mizukawa who was the ladylike love interest in Fuku-chan of Fukufuku Flats (2014). She is a real revelation here with her blunt behaviour. Having been worn down by her situation, she often gives up pretences to being ladylike and splays her body out in exhaustion, drinks hard liquor at every opportunity, and doesn’t mince words as she offers fusillades of coruscating criticism to Gota that either had my jaw on the floor over the verbal devastation or a grin on my face that I was never quite certain if it was due to a feeling of horror or hilarity.

This fearlessness in bucking any and all attempts at social etiquette and stereotypes of how Japanese women present themselves provides fuel to the comedy fire as she publicly dominates and demeans her husband, who we have very little sympathy for as we understand what a lazy slimeball he is, and she comes off as a hero as she does her best to push him to be a better writer and family man. The film hits harder in realistic details such as how hard a writer’s life is and where the two squabble over the cost of living and we see how Chika budgets, from showing a gruelling trip by local train from Tokyo all the way down to Takamatsu, and life living in cheap hotel rooms. It is easy to be both horrified and made to double-over with laughter at her behaviour but ultimately we sympathise with her. Also, points for showing how both sides of the couple navigate sex realistically, especially in a family situation.

While the sound of an arguing couple might be a turn-off, far from being hellish company, the two are consistently funny as they contend with each other. What keeps this relationship from tipping over into an essay about abuse is that affection still exists between them as they soften at times so the verbal and physical jabs they give each other are sometimes playful and perfect for a blackly comic take on modern marriage. The pairing of the lead actors is priceless as Mizukawa’s loudness and physical size and her fesityness overwhelm Hamada. While sex and nudity are shown and some perversion is shown, it is really unerotic and often played for laughs, especially the moments when Gota feebly struts around, his manhood out, and Chika banishes him. There is the sense that these two are equals and can work out things which leads to a painful/hopeful ending where tears and laughter emerge as they declare how frustrated they are. Once they begin to communicate again, hopefully they can move forward together.

This was a long review but A Beloved Wife was a really fun film with fantastic performances and witty writing and I highly recommend it!

Third Window Films are going to issue a dual-edition DVD/blu-ray release of the indie film Melancholic on September 07th with a selection of great extras typical for TWF.

Extra features (*all in standard definition):

Dual Format (Both DVD and Blu-ray included)
Behind the Scenes
Q&A with director and cast
Melancholic Short Film
Trailer

Here’s the trailer and synopsis and a little extra info:

Melancholic 

メランコリック  「Merankorikku」

Release Date: August 02nd, 2019

Duration: 113 mins.

Director: Seiji Tanaka

Writer: Seiji Tanaka (Screenplay),

Starring: Yoji Minagawa, Yoshitomo Isozaki, Mebuki Yoshida, Makoto Hada, Hiroko Shinkai, Keiji Yamashita, Takanori Minagawa

Website IMDB

Seiji Tanaka’s debut feature Melancholic won him a share of the Best Director prize in the Japanese Cinema Splash section at the 2018 Tokyo International Film Festival (Masaharu Take also won for his film, The Gun) and one can see why as it manages to combine a number of tones and genres to create a film that feels fresh and original. Following that, it won a string of awards including:

Best Debut Feature, Udine Far East Film Festival
Audience Award, Japan Cuts Film Festival
Audience Award, Nippon Connection

These awards were richly deserved as it managed Seiji Tanaka made a socially conscious film that addresses very important themes surrounding the way society expects young adults to behave and the world of work through a wonderful genre mash-up of hard-boiled crime, romance and workplace comedy. It is definitely one of the freshest Japanese films to emerge in recent years as it mixes laughter and death with ease and always defies expectations of how it will play out as well as having something to say about how people live their lives and it is all anchored by a great performance by Yoji Minegawa who shows promise of being a really interesting leading man. I recommend heartily it. Here’s my review.

Synopsis: Kazuhiko (Yoji Minagawa) graduated from the prestigious halls of Tokyo University and you would expect him to be in some high-flying job but since leaving academia but he has moved back home with his parents and lived the life of a slacker. A chance encounter with a girl he knew at high school at a onsen (bathhouse) motivates him to take a job there as an attendant and he quite likes it, not least because he can talk to the girl. However, what seems like a normal onsen turns out to be a killing space for yakuza-ordered hits and when Kazuhiko stumbles upon this he ends up getting dragged into the criminal underworld…

Happy weekend, everyone.

We made it to another one and thank you for joining me here.

This week was packed to the rafters with coverage of the New York Asian Film Festival and all the while I had to go back to regular work, with an admittedly reduced schedule, and amend a funding form for a film festival. I have been busy writing reviews for films and posted a preview for the San Sebastien Film Festival 2020 which launches later this month. Already underway is the Venice International Film Festival. I also posted about the upcoming release of Melancholic by Third Window Films. Here’s my review.

What were the films I reviewed?

Dancing Mary Dir: Sabu (2019) – a fun genre mash-up movie where a supernatural romance meets a road trip with yakuza action and Kurosawa style atmospherics. Sabu uses familiar themes of fate and finding a purpose whilst utilising a similar structure to some of his more recent films by having an extended flashback tie everything up. My review is over at V-Cinema

One Night Dir: Kazuya Shiraishi (2019) – it started off promisingly with a uncomfortable yet believable depiction of people dealing with domestic violence and the insidious ways that it can destroy and reshape people, but a let crime-fuelled subplot used to ease the characters into a cathartic ending was too contrived to be believed. My review is over at V-Cinema

A Beloved Wife Dir: Shin Adachi (2019) – a stellar comedy that is both hilarious and uncomfortable about the dysfunctional relationship between a lazy sex-mad writer and his long-suffering wife. The writing was pure perfection as these two angular characters clashed as she pushes him to be a better guy and he focuses on getting laid. A late redemption for everyone feels earned and highly rewarding. One of my favourite films of the year. Here’s my review.

I watched some non-Japanese films including Grizzly Man Dir: Werner Herzog and Taxi Dir: Jean-luc Besson.

What is released this weekend?

The Brightest Roof in the Universe   

宇宙でいちばんあかるい屋根「Uchu de Ichiban Akarui Yane」

Release Date: September 04th, 2020

Duration: 115 mins.

Director: Michihito Fujii

Writer: Michihito Fujii (Script), Tomoso Nonaka (Original Novel)

Starring: Kaya Kiyohara, Kaori Momoi, Kentaro Ito, Maki Sakai, Miki Mizuno, Takashi Yamanaka, Hidetaka Yoshioka,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: 14-year-old Tsubame (Kaya Kiyohara) lives in a nice place with her father Toshio (Hidetaka Yoshioka) and stepmother Asako (Maki Sakai) and the boy she loves, university student Toru (Kentaro Ito), and her biggest issue in life is not being able to declare her feelings for him. Then, one day, she learns that Asako is pregnant and she begins to feel left out. The place she works through her feelings is the rooftop of her calligraphy class which is where she finds a strange kickboard scooter and a mysterious old woman Hoshi-baa (Kaori Momoi) who suddenly appears in front of her.

Ninzu no Machi   

人数の町「Ninzu no Machi」

Release Date: September 04th, 2020

Duration: 111 mins.

Director: Shinji Araki

Writer: Shinji Araki (Script), Tomoso Nonaka (Original Novel)

Starring: Tomoya Nakamura, Shizuka Ishibashi, Eri Tachibana, Junpei Hashino, Rio Kanno, Elisa Yanagi, So Yamanaka,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: Aoyama (Tomoya Nakamura) is a young man shackled by debts but his life changes when a mysterious bearded man tells him of a town where he can indulge himself in the pleasures of food, clothing and more. Aoyama arrives in this town and discovers that it is a place people can freely enter but cannot leave… 

Restart After Come Back Home 

リスタートはただいまのあとで「Risuta-to ha tadaima no ato de」

Release Date: September 04th, 2020

Duration: 99 mins.

Director: Ryuta Inoue

Writer: Kumiko Sato (Script), Cocomi (Original Manga)

Starring: Yuki Furukawa, Ryo Ryusei, Eri Murakawa, Gaku Sano, Hiroko Nakajima, Yukijiro Hotaru, Masahiro Komoto,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: Mitsuomi Kozuka (Yuki Furukawa) quits his job in Tokyo due to his boss and returns to his hometown in the countryside. It has been 10 years since he was last there and he struggles to win back the approval of his family and his community. He meets Yamato Kumai (Ryo Ryusei), a young man adopted by one of his neighbours during his time away and the two become good friends, but, one night, Mitsuomi Kozuka kisses Yamato Kumai while he is sleeping…

Our Lies and Truths: Documentary of Keyakizaka46   

僕たちの嘘と真実 Documentary of 欅坂46「Bokutachi no uso to shinjitsu Documentary of Keyakizaka46」

Release Date: September 04th, 2020

Duration: 136 mins.

Director: Eiki Takahashi

Writer: N/A

Starring: Keyakizaka46,

Website

Synopsis: The first documentary movie for the idol group “Keyakizaka46”, we get footage from their debut in 2016, their participation in NHK’s annual Kouhaku, a large-scale arena tour nationwide, their two-day Tokyo Dome performance, the retiring of member Yurina Hirate and their activities during the present coronavirus crisis. 

Ile Noire Black Island   

イル・ノワール　黒い島「Iru nowa-ru Kuroi Shima」

Release Date: September 04th, 2020

Duration: 35 mins.

Director: Kishin Shinoyama

Writer: N/A

Starring: Rina, Mari,

Website

Synopsis: A video work showing the sisters Rino and Mari by famous photographer Kishin Shinoyama (Wikipedia link) who specialises in sensual pictures shot in monochrome. 

Kiss Cam! COME ON, KISS ME AGAIN!   

キスカム！ COME ON, KISS ME AGAIN!「Kisu Kamu! COME ON, KISS ME AGAIN!」

Release Date: September 04th, 2020

Duration: 91 mins.

Director: Hana Matsumoto

Writer: Rinrin (Script),

Starring: Shono Hayama, Akane Hotta, Arisa Yagi, Takashi Tsukamoto, Aika Yukihira, Nao,

Website

This has been billed as a ‘ kiss film’ that will get viewers in the mood to kiss someone. The cast mostly consists of charismatic women in their 20s born after 1989.

Synopsis: A guy named Umi (Shono Hayama) gets dumped by his girlfriend Saya (Akane Hotta) and is feeling down but when the cosmetics company he works for assigns him to a subsidiary company called “Amorous Consultations”, his mood changes as he gets involved in work designed to solve problems in love through kisses. Then, one day, he gets a query from Saya.

Denen Boys THE MOVIE   

劇場版　田園ボーイズ「Gekijouban denen bo-izu」

Release Date: September 04th, 2020

Duration: 95 mins.

Director: Kenichiro Nishiumi

Writer: Sadayume Ikeura (Script), 

Starring: Shotaro Arisawa, Yuu Imari, Naoki Tanaka, Yuuya Matsuura, Yoko Mitsuya,

Website

A movie sequel to a drama that was broadcast on local, stations.

Synopsis: Somewhere in rural Japan are four handsome guys who think they can cut it as the best hosts in Tokyo’s Kabukicho and start their own host club. They are Shinji, a clerk at the gas station, Yasuo, a civil servant. Jiro, the son of a farmer, and their audience consists of local middle-aged women. Frustrated with their lack of success, they struggle along but when an actress named Misono, who is shooting a movie nearby, comes to visit, she introduces the guys on SNS and they suddenly become famous… 

TK from Ling Tosite Sigure Studio Live for “SAINOU” Film Gig Emotion 

TK from 凛として時雨 Studio Live for “SAINOU” Film Gig Emotion「TK from Ling Tosite Sigure Studio Live for “SAINOU” Film Gig Emotion」

Release Date: September 04th, 2020

Duration: 77 mins.

Director: Kentaro Saisho

Writer: N/A

Starring: TK

Website

Synopsis: TK of the rock band Ling Tosite Sigure performed a live session that has been recorded. This features unreleased songs that were newly produced for this theatrical release.

The island where we were born OKINAWA 2018   

私たちが生まれた島 OKINAWA2018「Watashitachi ga Umareta Shima OKINAWA 2018」

Release Date: September 04th, 2020

Duration: 141 mins.

Director: Shinya Todori

Writer: N/A

Starring: N/A

Website

Synopsis: Following on from the documentary, Okinawa 1965 (2017), which looked at the prefecture when it was under U.S. control, director Shinya Todori looks at how contemporary Okinawans regard the base, from teenagers to those in their 40s.

Reframe THEATER EXPERIENCE with you   

私たちが生まれた島 OKINAWA2018「Watashitachi ga Umareta Shima」

Release Date: September 04th, 2020

Duration: 85 mins.

Director: Taketoshi Sado

Writer: N/A

Starring: Perfume: Ayano Omoto,Yuka Kashino, Ayaka Nishiwaki,

Website

Synopsis: Perfume’s Reframe concert, which took place at the Line Cube Shibuya concert venue in October 2019, is brought to the screen by director Taketoshi Sado, who previously helmed the the group’s last concert film, WE ARE Perfume -WORLD TOUR 3rd DOCUMENT, and it uses the scope of cinema to provide an enhanced view of the performance.

Daibutsu Kaikoku The Great Buddha Arrival   

大仏廻国 The Great Buddha Arrival「Daibutsu Kaikoku The Great Buddha Arrival」

Release Date: September 04th, 2020

Duration: 85 mins.

Director: Hiroto Yokokawa

Writer: Hiroto Yokokawa, Yuki Yonezawa, Kazuma Yoneyama, Kensaku Sakai (Script), Yoshiro Edamasa (Original Work)

Starring: Masanori Kikuzawa, Kazuma Yoneyama, Iwata Momoka, Yuma, Ai Aoki, Yukijiro Hotaru, Akira Takarada, Shiro Sano, Akira Kubo, Yukiko Kobayashi, Norman England

Website Wikizilla

The Great Buddha Arrival is a reboot of a same-named film made in 1934 by Edamasa Yoshiro. It original was one of the earliest Japanese “Tokusatsu (special effects)” movies but was destroyed during World War ll. The remake was produced by 3Y Film and was made with the cooperation of the grandson of the original director, Yoshiro Edamasa. Additional footage with new actors, many famous from tokusatsu films, was shot to extend the film’s run time for international distribution, with still more footage shot for a Japanese theatrical release in 2020. Details from Wikizilla.

Synopsis: The plot focuses on one particular giant Buddha statue (known in Japan as a “Daibutsu”), the 33ft tall Shurakuen Buddha statue, located in Aichi, which suddenly springs to his feet and wanders around Nagoya city and the story becomes even stranger when Heaven and Hell appear later in the film. 

Meg Lion   

メグ・ライオン「Megu Raion」

Release Date: September 04th, 2020

Duration: 52 mins.

Director: Minoru Kawasaki

Writer: Minoru Kawasaki, Hirotoshi Kobayashi (Script), 

Starring: Mami Hase, Anna Asano, Jonathan Sieger, Yuta Watanabe, Ryu Manatsu, Shimako Iwai, Miwako Tanaka, Sakura Rin, Shiffon, Mio Momoyama,

This film stars Mami Hase, a regular middle-aged woman (non-actress), who got the role through buying a lucky bag at a department store, a custom that happens every around new year as stores offload old goods. You don’t know what is in each bag that you buy but it turns out that being a film star was the lady’s dream!

Synopsis: One day, Meg Shido (Mami Hase), a frustrated office lady in her 50s who is a bit of a loner, sees a naked handsome man named Jonathan appear out of thin air Terminator-like, and he tells her, “You are the princess of the King Lion star and the daughter of the Galactic Federation’s 10 billion star royal family.” Then, Jonathan’s kiss tries to transform her into a beautiful woman, but an Ultra Tiger alien who tries to obtain her secret power stretches out a devil’s hand. 

The Sleeping Insect   

眠る虫「Nemuru Mushi」

Release Date: September 05th, 2020

Duration: 62 mins.

Director: Yurina Kaneko

Writer: Yurina Kaneko (Script), 

Starring: Ryo Matsuura, Takeo Gozu, Kaoru Mizuki, Yura Sato, Hirobumi Watanabe,

Website

This is the feature film debut by director Yurina Kaneko, who has received attention for her Pia Film Festival Award 2019 winning work Walking Plants which screened at Nippon Connection earlier this year. Sleeping Insects went on to win he 2019 MOOSIC LAB Grand Prix. You can view it, and other MOOSIC LAB films, here.

Synopsis: Kanako Seri is on a packed bus heading to band practice. She becomes fascinated by a melody being hummed by a fellow passenger, an old man who is a stranger. When the bus reaches Kanako’s stop, she doesn’t get off, she continues on the route. The number of passengers on the bus gradually decreases until she eventually reaches the final stop in what turns out to be a strange journey.

Sore wa maru de ningen no you ni   

それはまるで人間のように「Sore wa maru de ningen no you ni」

Release Date: September 05th, 2020

Duration: 78 mins.

Director: Nebiro Hashimoto

Writer: Nebiro Hashimoto (Script), 

Starring: Chiho Shishime, Yasuyuki Sakurai, Yumiko Teradansu, Yuuta Katagishi, Iyo Tomita,

Synopsis: Nebiro Hashimoto, the director of the short film Tokyo Girl (the 8-minute short which was programmed for Japan Cuts 2020) which won the Grand Prix at the Tokyo Gakusei Eigasai, makes his debut feature film with this story about the relationship between Hana and Suzuki who love each other at the outset, but gradually fall apart as Hana becomes fed up with Suzuki, living off her.

Tokyo Jihen 2020.7.24 Leap Vision Special News Flash

東京事変2020.7.24閏vision特番ニュースフラッシュ「Tōkyō jihen 2020. 7. 24 Urū vision tokuban nyu-su furasshu」

Release Date: September 05th, 2020

Duration: 78 mins.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: Tokyo Jihen: Ringo Sheena, Ukigumo, Seiji Kameda, Ichiyo Izawa, Mikio Hirama, Toshiki Hata,

No trailer

Synopsis: Tokyo Jihen, ace musician Ringo Sheena’s group, reformed for the first time in eight years back in January 2020 and were planning to hold a national tour “Live Tour 2020 News Flash” from February to April, but due to the spread of the covid-19, that plan was abandoned and then, on July 24th, when the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics was supposed to be held, band members and staff gathered at the NHK Hall in Shibuya, Tokyo, and gave a live performance of “Live Tour 2020 News Flash” to an audience. This film is available on certain streaming services and will be screened for four days in September – 5th, 12th, 13th, 14th.

Hibiki ausekai Resonance   

ひびきあうせかい RESONANCE「Hibiki ausekai Resonance」

Release Date: September 05th, 2020

Duration: 70 mins.

Director: Toshinori Tanaka

Writer: Toshinori Tanaka (Script), Cocomi (Original Manga)

Starring: Takuji Aoyagi, Yasumasa Ohara, Seiko Obara, Marcus Archer,

Website

Synopsis: A documentary following the activities of Takuji Aoyagi, a musician who was born and raised in Tokyo with a guitarist grandfather and mother. A musician and father with two daughters, he left the modern city where people and nature were separated and moved to Okinawa. With the grandfather’s dream of creating harmony that transcends national borders through music, he creates a participatory music event, “Circle Voice,” where people form a circle and join together with musicians around the world. The film follows Aoyagi’s journey to Okinawa, Tokyo, Munich, and Leipzig, and reflects a peaceful world found at the moment when people join their voices together across borders and races. 

Hataraku Saibou!! Saikyou no Teki, Futatabi. Karada no Naka wa “Chou” Osawagi!   

「はたらく細胞!!」最強の敵、再び。体の中は“腸”大騒ぎ！ 「Hataraku Saibou!! Saikyou no Teki, Futatabi. Karada no Naka wa “Chou” Osawagi!」

Release Date: August 22nd, 2020

Duration: 112 mins.

Director: Hirofumi Ogura

Writer: Yuuko Kakihara (Script), Akane Shimizu (Original Manga)

Starring: Kana Hanazawa (Red Blood Cell), Tomoaki Maeno (White Blood Cell), Akira Ishida (Cancer Cell), Daisuke Ono (Killer T Cell/Memory T Cell), Rie Takahashi (Lactic Acid Bacteria)

Animation Production: David Production

Website ANN MAL

Synopsis: A spin-off movie from the second season of the show that takes us into the inner-workings of the human body where many cells are at work. White blood cells (neutrophils) and red blood cells meet the normal cells that protected the lost lactic acid bacteria. White blood cells (neutrophils) and general cells go to the intestine to send lactic acid bacteria to their friends, where the strongest enemy cancer cells were waiting. The intestinal environment is devastated by cancer cells and bad bacteria, causing the body to enter an unprecedented pinch. 

Miyamoto   

宮本から君へ 「Miyamoto kara Kimi e」

Release Date: September 27th, 2019

Duration: 129 mins.

Director: Tetsuya Mariko

Writer: Tetsuya Mariko, Takehiko Minato (Screenplay), Hideki Arai (Manga)

Starring: Sosuke Ikematsu, Yu Aoi, Arata Iura, Kenichi Matsuyama, Tokio Emoto, Kanji Furutachi, Jiro Sato, Pierre Taki,

Website IMDB

Miyamoto is based on a seinen manga by Hideki Arai that ran from 1990 to 1994 in the magazine Weekly Morning. This slice-of-life story, based somewhat on Arai’s background, detailed the maturation of Hiroshi Miyamoto, a young man from Yokohama who is uncertain of himself as he is fresh out of college and new to living life in Tokyo. Scenes of work and romance are tied to his struggle to establish himself as a man and start a family and everything is given the gaman/gambarimasu treatment with some shocking moments of violence and lots of hot-blooded emotions as he holds true to ideals of love and honour even if it puts him in a world of hurt.

For many international audiences, this 2019 movie adaptation will be their first contact with the franchise. It is a direct continuation of a 2018 drama. Both the drama and film were written and directed by Tetsuya Mariko, the man who helmed the absolutely bleak portrait of lost youth Destruction Babies (2016). Indeed the movie version of Miyamoto was filmed from September 09th to October 30th after the TV show finished airing in the summer of 2018, and so, a director with a strong vision reunites with a cast of great actors as they adapt the middle part of the manga and the main character, the titular Miyamoto, moves on to romancing a new woman, Yasuko.

For the uninitiated, Miyamoto (Sosuke Ikematsu) has a job at a stationery company as a salesman. He’s not very good since he is clumsy and has no idea what he wants to do with his life but he is also a nice guy with a sense of justice which is part of what attracts a woman named Yasuko Nakano (Yu Aoi) to him as he declares he will protect her with his life after an unpleasant encounter with her ex-boyfriend. Through a cut-up narrative, we watch as the two fall for each other and court, how their romance enriches their life and gives them both a direction to aim for, and how they face difficulties as the sly and thuggish son of one of Miyamoto’s clients almost sunders the connection between the two and how Miyamoto summons his bravery to seize his future and his happiness with Nakano.

There is no need to worry about entering this franchise via the film as it works as a standalone experience and even though the source material is from the 90s, it feels like a snapshot of today as the social mores and props/sets are current.

The film has a nonlinear narrative that jumps between different points in the timeline and it serves to obfuscate what is going on. Viewers may find it a little slippery to get a grip on proceedings but visual clues such as Miyamoto’s missing teeth act as markers. Indeed, the disconnected structure creates a sense of foreboding as we are shown moments of violence and division experienced by Miyamoto and Nakano and they acts out as a counterpoint to the happy scenes. This makes the film more compelling to watch than if it were told straight as audiences will be gripped by figuring out how the story will develop instead of just being able to guess the direction.

By the end, the film offers a satisfying resolution to everything after we are carried along by the waves of drama, although this comes with some caveats as a terrible act of violence is visited upon a character and some more critical audience members may form the opinion that it is never adequately addressed and serves as little more than motivation for Miyamoto. The film is still a strong drama as the performers are magnificent while the direction is perfect.

Having Tetsuya Mariko as director means that the film violence is no holds barred and painfully realistic. The flashes of conflict is, indeed, vicious, violent and vile. Meaty punches from ogre-sized bullies pulverise Miyamoto’s face to almost sickening effect and moments such as his head hitting cars doors with a heavy thunk has the look and sound of such a painful impact as to be wince-inducing for the audience. This level of pain builds the commensurate feeling of rage and fear and defiance felt by both Miyamoto and Nakano that feels real and very moving. If it seems like overkill, one need only read the manga and see how exact the film is in capturing it and there are some heart-stopping, nay, insane moments of near-death experience that will have viewers on the edge of their seats.

It isn’t all grit and grime as Mariko brings some stunning moments of beauty and warmth as well as taking us into settings that make the film feel rooted in real life.

The time spent with Miyamoto and Nakano are in places like drunken gatherings with fried food at dingy dives, warm parties in friend’s small apartments, humdrum pokey offices and the warrens of small streets define Tokyo. The more memorable and breathtaking moments come with time visiting their parents, Nakano’s in Hokkaido which takes us to a working class area with the family-run factory and a scene at a beach defined by an oncoming storm complete with a dramatic windswept lightning laced horizon that is breathtaking to view. Then there is the warmer confines of the Miyamoto household in Yokohama where there are scenes of the parents succumbing to the melancholy of parting from their boy who is growing up.

This is all anchored by two towering performances from Sosuke Ikematsu and Yu Aoi who convince as a couple passionately in love and also two individuals who are prepared to fight to carve out their own lives.

Their chemistry is good as they go at their roles with much gusto and really throw themselves into the drama and they will sweep viewers along. They sparkle on the screen when happy, radiate ferocity when angry and offer streams of tears when sad but I was personally moved by the moments of quiet intimacy they shared. The aforementioned beach scene in Otaru, Hokkaido, the way the film gives an honest depiction of how dating can be defined by holding hands, the overwhelming embarrassment and excitement of a kiss in public, the sweet but passionate sex that is accompanied by declarations of love and gales of laughter as both characters enjoy every aspect of their first touches, and the film doesn’t shy away from this thanks to some tactfully shot nudity.

Sosuke Ikematsu really captures the air of a seinen hero whilst Yu Aoi is a firecracker with her defiant attitude. Their committed performances made the drama accessible and beautiful and so I was gripped by the drama, moved by the connection and commitment between characters/performers, and related to the everyday behaviour and pleasures/pains we offer each other.

The whole cast capture the looks of their characters to perfection. With a manga of hot-blooded people, the drama is amped up and the performers meet it with everyone imbuing their roles with a convincing life, so much so that one feels these characters will walk off screen and continue living and that is the greatest tribute that you can give to a drama like this. That it feels real and we want to stay with the characters and see how they will grow and seeing them live their lives to the fullest inspires viewers to do the same. From Miyamoto to us. In that regard, this whole film is a success.

Beneath the Shadow   

影裏　 「Eiri」

Release Date: February 14th, 2020

Duration: 134 mins.

Director: Keishi Otomo

Writer: Kaori Sawai (Script), Shinsuke Numata (Story) 

Starring: Gou Ayano, Ryuhei Matsuda, Mariko Tsutsui, Tomoya Nakamura, Ken Yasuda, Jun Kunimura,

Website IMDB

After spending the 90s working in TV, director Keishi Otomo moved into film and has built a filmography stacked with adaptations of novels and manga. He is best known for the internationally successful Rurouni Kenshin trilogy, a big-budget samurai series with a visual sheen of intense action, dizzying stunt work and exquisite period details that swept viewers away. He reigns everything in for his latest work, Beneath the Shadow, Eirin in Japanese. 

This is based on a same-named 2017 Akutagawa prize-winning novel by Shinsuke Numata and is set in the director’s hometown of Morioka, Iwate Prefecture, both before and after the 3/11 disaster. It features a slow-burn character-driven drama that teases audiences with a light mystery that hinges on the idea that our interpretations of people’s behaviour can be wrong if our emotions get in the way but also, that all of us have something we keep in the shadows.

The story starts in the summer of 2009 and follows Shuichi Konno (Gou Ayano) after he has been transferred by his pharmaceutical company from Saitama all the way to Morioka in the far north for a three-year assignment. New in town and friendless and desperately alone, he lives an unassuming life but he catches the eye of a co-worker, a fellow loner named Norihiro Hiasa (Ryuhei Matsuda) who loves fly fishing and flouting the rules. As the two hang out Norihiro behaves with a casual dynamism, physicality and an unselfconsciousness that draws the more reserved Shuichi out of his shell over the course of their long summer and autumn days together stalking the rivers and streets around the the city.

Throughout the story it is clear that Shuichi struggles with his emotions and Gou Ayano sensitively depicts this and it helps to show the impact that this newfound friendship has on him. At first, we see his huddled body-language and hear his low voice and view him tamp down on his feelings through close ups of him looking pensive as he processes difficult encounters. This is then contrasted with his broad smiles and openness he displays as he basks in his new friend’s dazzling company as they go drinking, to the cinema, and fishing. A scene where tears roll down Shuichi’s face as they watch a film together suggests this is the companionship Shuichi has craved but this goes much deeper than simple friendship as he is soon all smouldering glances and the film underlines his growing feelings for an ever-smiling Norihiro with cuts to various parts of their bodies slowly getting into a shared rhythm and their casual physical proximity to each other.

His sexuality comes increasingly out of the shadows and clearly into view as we understand that his character wrestles with it. The delight and disquiet produced by Norihiro’s habit of sleeping over at his place and the look of surprise and even gratification that his new friend doesn’t think twice about chomping down and slurping the juice of a pomegranate they share say more than reams of dialogue. Just as Shuichi believes there is deeper erotic potential in all of this male bonding, Norihiro’s actions go from friendly to rather inscrutable.

Their blooming relationship is abruptly put on ice one bitter winter when Norihiro quits his job without saying a word and disappears.

Then, in the following summer of 2010, he begins showing up unannounced like he used to, only this time it is in a salesman’s suit and with a plea for Shuichi to buy a policy from a clearly dodgy mutual aid society to help bump up his sales quota. Smitten that his friend has returned, Shuichi signs up and the two fall back into their easy camaraderie again but the atmosphere has been disrupted. Their chats are terse and trust is thin as Shuichi struggles increasingly with his homosexuality and Norihiro shows a certain callousness and desperation that suggests he is using his friend. As their relationship deteriorates, the man he considered a trusted friend offers a stark comment:

 “Don’t act like you know everything. What you see is where the light hits for an instant, no more than that. When you look at someone, you should look at the other side, the part where the shadow is deepest.”

The film swings on this comment as it foreshadows the coming drama and mystery as, in the spring of 2011, Norihiro disappears in the 3/11 disaster. Without ever truly knowing what his friend was up to or getting to say goodbye, Shuichi is driven to go looking for him and discovers he didn’t really know his friend at all…

The remainder of the film is a series of conversations that go to change the image Shuichi had of Norihiro as he comes to understand the depth of betrayal his one-time trusted friend has performed. Each revelation comes in what amounts to an interview Shuichi holds with someone who has a different perspective. Each interview is essentially a monologue as Shuichi retreats into himself but each one comes from the lips of a great performer like Jun Kunimura (Vital), Ken Yasuda (The Actor) and Mariko Tsutsui (Harmonium) who are able to make static conversations feel compelling and packed with a long history of emotion that reflect the devastation of the disaster and losing someone close, which is what Shuichi, although he is a transplant in the area, is feeling.

The script and Matsuda’s performance leave open to interpretation whether Norihiro is a parasite that deliberately targets the vulnerable, such as the lonesome Shuichi and those people he signs up for the mutual aid society, or if he is simply a care-free guy who lives without regard for others because he is free-flowing like the rivers he fishes in but his an enigmatic character is founded on Matsuda’s dreamy performance and smartly contrasted with Gou Ayano’s more controlled character and the disaster is respectfully utilised to emphasise the depth of Shuichi’s loss. Images of wrecked rooms, rushing water and announcements on radio and in newspapers set the stage while the tragedy ties everything up thematically as a wider sense of loneliness, love and loss that marks the entire film reaches its crescendo. It is this disaster that prompts Shuichi to look into his friend’s shadow and also allows Shuichi to move his sexuality out of the shadows and openly embrace it and finally quell his emotions he has tried to keep a tight lid on.

Despite the sense of a bigger mystery, the film settles with Shuichi coming to terms with the loss of a friend and being able to move on with his life in the summer of 2012 as he accepts his sexuality as his three years in Morioka come to an end. Akiko Ashizawa, cinematographer for Kiyoshi Kurosawa on many titles like Loft (2005), Retribution (2006) and Tokyo Sonata (2008) and To the Ends of the Earth (2019), works with Otomo to show off Morioka and its surrounding natural environs at their most stunningly beautiful with lush forests and running rivers seen in different seasons. This, coupled with the good acting, make the film worthwhile as we can enjoy some simple character-driven drama.

Happy weekend, everyone!

I hope you are all genki.

September is going to be very busy in terms of this blog as I aim to cover a grip of festivals and also release reviews. I’ve got one post planned for tomorrow. So far this week, I’ve posted a review for Beneath the Shadow and Miyamoto and, over at Anime UK News, an article about the Inter-College Animation Festival 2020, a showcase of the talent in the Japanese university system, and how it is possible to watch it via the internet.

What is released this weekend?

A Beloved Wife   

喜劇　愛妻物語 「Kigeki Aisai Monogatari」

Release Date: September 11th, 2020

Duration: 115 mins.

Director: Shin Adachi

Writer: Shin Adachi (Screenplay/Novel)

Starring: Gaku Hamada, Asami Mizukawa, Chise Niitsu, Eri Fuse, Kaho, Kayoko Ookubo, Ken Mitsuishi, 

Website    IMDB

Shin Adachi is best known for his script for 100 Yen Love (2014) and has worked on other projects, including directing a warmly received comedy 14 That Night (2016). He adapts his autobiographical novel for his sophomore film as a director and it is a delight as Asami Mizukawa wows playing a permanently p*ssed wife dealing with a pervy husband essayed by a skeevy Gaku Hamada. Behind the shockingly bitter but often funny tirades is the beating heart of a loving couple but there is a lot of tears and laughter (sometimes at the same time) to get to that realisation. This won Best Screenplay at last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival.

Here’s my review.

Synopsis: Gota Yanagida (Gaku Hamada) is a scriptwriter with a family and a desperate need for a hit film. His wife of 10 years, Chika (Asami Mizukawa), is the family breadwinner and very unhappy about their lack of money. His daughter Aki (Chise Niitsu) is beginning to view him as a bit of a loser. His desperation for a break is finally answered when a film producer tasks Gota with writing a screenplay for his story of “a high school girl who makes udon noodles at a tremendous speed”. Gota has a chance to travel to Kagawa Prefecture to write a screenplay and so he persuades Chika and Aki to go with him, but when he arrives he discovers a different film project has already been decided…

Reiwa Uprising   

れいわ一揆　 「Reiwa Ikki」

Release Date: September 11th, 2020

Duration: 248 mins.

Director: Kazuo Hara

Writer: N/A

Starring: Ayumi Yasutomi

Website IMDB

Kazuo Hara (The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On) gave the world premiere of this at last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival last year and a collection of international fests. It has earned praise for being both an entertaining and fascinating, as this review at the Japan Times states. The subject is broadly on the various candidates of the Reiwa Shinsengumi party that was set up by charismatic actor-turned-charismatic-politician Taro Yamamoto (Kawada in Battle Royale) but the focus gradually zeroes in on the issues they campaign on. I really want to see this one!!!

Synopsis: Kazuo Hara follows a selection of candidates from the anti-establishment party Reiwa Shinsengumi party as they embark on a national campaign for a seat in Japan’s Upper House in Parliamentary elections. Figures that are on screen include Ayumi Yasutomi, a transgender Tokyo University professor, Teruko Watanabe, a single mother, and Eiko Kimura and Yasuhiko Funago, who are both disabled. Through following them, the film paints a broader picture of people championing the rights of the disabled and the marginalised.

Humanoid Monster Bela   

妖怪人間ベラ「Youkai Ningen Bera」

Running Time: 100 mins.

Release Date: September 11th, 2020

Director: Tsutomu Hanabusa

Writer: Daisuke Hozaka (Screenplay),

Starring: Emma, Win Morisaki, Akane Hotta, Sosuke Yoshida, Seiji Rokkaku,Rinne Yoshida, Hiyori Sakurada, Hiroya Shimizu, Akira Onodera,

Website 

Yokai Ningen Bem (Humanoid Monster Bem) is a 26-episode anime supernatural adventure anime that aired from 1968 to 1969 that has been further adapted into more anime and live-action properties. The original story followed Bem, Bela, and Belo who are ugly humanoid monsters who live among humans and protect them from evil monsters. Caught between the world of humans and monsters, the three continue to fight in hopes of one day becoming humans themselves. Bela is transformed into a beautiful school girl played by single-named emma, a model turned actress.

Synopsis: Kosuke Arata (Win Morisaki) works at an advertising firm and his latest assignment is researching Yokai Ningen Bem. This entails entering an abandoned building and it is there that he finds the anime’s “illusive final episode.” It is also there that he encounters Bela Yurigasaki Bela, a high school student whose supernatural presence drives people crazy. Kosuke begins to tall into a whirlpool of crazy as he chases after Bela and his wife Ayumi (Akane Hotta) and son Hinata (Sosuke Yoshida) begin to affected… 

The Magnificent Kotobuki Complete Edition 

荒野のコトブキ飛行隊　完全版「Kouya no Kotobuki Hikoutai Kanzenban」

Running Time: 119 mins.

Release Date: September 11th, 2020

Director: Tsutomu Mizushima

Writer: Michiko Yokote (Screenplay),

Starring: Sayumi Suzushiro (Kirie), Akiko Yajima (Madame Lulu), Aoi Koga (Betti), Nao Toyama (Ririko), Misaki Yoshioka (Anna),

Animation Production: WAO World, GEMBA,

Website ANN MAL

Tsutomu Mizushima and scriptwriter Michiko Yokote’s original television anime The Magnificent KOTOBUKI now has a compilation film that will include new footage and be shown in MX4D screenings.

Synopsis from My Anime List: In a desolate world where the safest form of transporting cargo is by zeppelin; air pirates roam the sky, preying on aerial commerce and holding remote towns for ransom. Against these airborne marauders, the only defense is to hire high-flying protection of your own, and that’s where mercenary pilots like the girls of the Kotobuki Squadron come in. Behind the joysticks of their lightweight Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa fighters, these lady falcons play a deadly game of escort, where a single mistake can end up in a fiery crash or mid-air collision. But for birds of prey like Kylie, Reona, Chika, Emma, Kate, and Zara, the danger is worth it for the chance to spread their wings and soar into the heavens. The wild blue yonder gets even wilder as every dogfight becomes a catfight in THE MAGNIFICENT KOTOBUKI!

Crayon Shin-chan the Movie: Crash! Rakuga Kingdom and Roughly Four Heroes   

映画クレヨンしんちゃん　激突！ラクガキングダムとほぼ四人の勇者「Eiga Crayon Shin-chan Gekitotsu! Rakuga Kingdom to Hobo Yonin no Yūsha」

Running Time: 103 mins.

Release Date: September 11th, 2020

Director: Takahiro Kyougoku

Writer: Ryou Takada (Screenplay), Yoshito Usui (Original Creator)

Starring: Yumiko Kobayashi (Shinnosuke Nohara), Miki Narahashi (Misae Nohara), Satomi Koorogi (Himawari Nohara), Toshiyuki Morikawa (Hiroshi)

Animation Production: Shinei Animation

Website ANN MAL

Synopsis: Rakuga Kingdom (the name is a pun on the word “rakugaki” meaning “scribbling”) floats in the sky and gets its energy from scribbles, but lately the scribbles are decreasing and the kingdom is in danger of collapsing. To save the country, the military start forcing humans to scribble which is where Shin-chan enters the story and gets his hands on a magical crayon.

Umibe no Étranger   

海辺のエトランゼ「Umibe no Etoranje」

Running Time: 59 mins.

Release Date: September 11th, 2020

Director: Akiyo Ohashi

Writer: Akiyo Ohashi (Screenplay), Kanna Kii (Original Creator)

Starring: Taishi Murata (Shin Hashimoto), Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (Mio Chibana), Yu Shimamura (Sakurako), Hana Sato (Oba-chan), Sayaka Nakaya (Suzu), Kanae Itou (Eri)

Animation Production: Studio Hibari

Website ANN MAL

Synopsis: Shun Hashimoto fled his home to stay on a distant island in Okinawa following the breaking of ties with his family for being gay. This aspiring novelist now enjoys the atmosphere and the view but one day, a lone figure on the beach catches his attention. He is Mio Chibana, an orphan who spends his free time gazing at the sea. The two talk and they gradually get closer but Mio must soon depart the island to go and study in the city. He does so with the promise to return to Shun but when he does, three years later and with a declaration of love, Shun is hesitant…

The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese   

窮鼠はチーズの夢を見る「Kyuso wa Chizu no Yume wo Miru」

Release Date: September 11th, 2020

Duration: 130 mins.

Director: Isao Yukisada

Writer: Anne Horiizumi (Script), Setona Mizushiro (Original BL Manga)

Starring: Tadayoshi Okura, Ryo Narita, Shiori Yoshida, Honami Sato, Miyu Sakihi, Noriko Kijima.

Website IMDB

As of late, the Isao Yukisada films I have seen indicate that he really enjoys getting under the skin of people with broken personalities through lengthy relationship dramas with a touch of mystery to them. The stories withhold everything until a final twist at the end. It’s seen in Aroused by Gymnopedies (2016), Pink and Gray (2015), and Parade (2009). My own favourites are from earlier in his career with Go (2001) and the lost romance Crying Out Love in the Center of the World (2004). His latest film seems as straightforward as it can get.

Synopsis: Kyoichi (Tadayoshi Okura) works at an advertising company and has a beautiful wife but due to his indecisive personality he has affairs with other women. Suspecting this, his wife hire a private detective. This detective is Wataru (Ryo Narita) and it turns out that the two went to the same university together and he even fell in love with Kyoichi. Wataru senses this is his chance to make something happen and tells Kyoichi that he will cover up his infidelities if the two can have a sexual relationship. Kyoichi resists at first, but…

Lost Baby Lost   

ロストベイベーロスト 「Rosuto Beibe- Rosuto」

Release Date: September 12th, 2020

Duration: 92 mins.

Director: Hayato Tsuge

Writer: Daisuke Sagara (Script), 

Starring: Shuhei Matsuo, Yukino Murakami, Takuji Suzu, Tohta Nakamura, Yu Yoshii,

Website

The movie debut of Hayato Tsuge who was studying at Kyoto University of Art and Design (now Kyoto University of Arts) Film Department. He tragically died after the filming of this work but it was edited and brought to cinemas for people to see. It stars Yukino Murakami who was in Orphan’s Blues.

Synopsis: When Yohei returns how, he meets his lover Rinko who tells him something earth-shattering: “I brought you a baby.” Eventually, Yohei begins to face the reality of having a baby… 

Tokyo Butterfly   

東京バタフライ　 「Toukyou Batafurai」

Running Time: 81 mins.

Release Date: September 11th, 2020

Director: Keitaro Sakon

Writer: Tomomi Kawaguchi, Keitaro Sakon, (Screenplay),

Starring: Kamin Shirahata, Atomu Mizuishi, Ryuju Kobayashi, Hisao Kurozumi, Shogen,

Website 

Tokyo Butterfly is the first feature by up-and-coming film director Keitaro Sakon who graduated from Nihon University College of Art, and  garnered attention with his final school film short “Kazoku no Fūkei” (Family Scenery) which starred Sosuke Ikematsu. 

This is actually the fourth live-action film produced by WIT STUDIO, the guys behind Attack on Titan, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, and Vinland Saga.

Synopsis: This film sensitively unpicks the various emotions felt by a group of friends who were in a band but broke up when they were on the verge of stardom. It jumps six years into their futures after the lead singer walks out and they are living in their late twenties and with their own personal troubles in various situations like the guy who won’t give up his dream, the guy who starts a family and the girl who regrets her decision. Lead actress Kamin Shirahata is a real-life singer/songwriter.

Hagure Idol: Jigoku-hen   

はぐれアイドル　地獄変「Hagure Idol: Jigoku-hen」

Release Date: September 12th, 2020

Duration: 107 mins.

Director: Tsuyoshi Shoji

Writer: Tsuyoshi Akama, Takato Nishi (Script), Rui Takato (Original Manga)

Starring: Rina Hashimoto, Sakiko Nishiyama, Reina Asaki, Shoji Yuki, Saryu Usui,

IMDB

Synopsis: Misora Haebara is an 18-year-old karate expert from Okinawa who has a dream! She wants to be an idol! So, she packs her bags and goes to Tokyo. She signs up with a talent agency and reluctantly assents to taking part in a gravure shoot but when she arrives on set her agency suddenly tells her she has to perform in an adult video. Misora has to fight to survive.

Beasts Clawing at Straws   

지푸라기라도 잡고 싶은 짐승들「Jipuragirado Jabgo Sipeun Jibseungdeul」

Running Time: 108 mins.

Release Date: February 19th, 2020

Director: Kim Yong-hoon

Writer: Kim Yong-hoon (Screenplay), Keisuke Sone (Original Novel – 藁にもすがる獣たち)

Starring: Jeon Do-yeon (Yeon-hee), Jung Woo-sing (Tae-young), Bae Sung-woo (Jung-man), Jung Ga-ram (Jin-Tae), Kyung Jin (Young-Seon),

IMDB

Crime thriller Beasts Clawing at Straws is the debut feature of director Kim Yong-hoon and while he may be new name on the scene what is on the screen has all of the narrative slickness and stylistic panache associated with Korean cinema to ensure it stands with the best of his nation’s crime films.

Based on a Japanese novel by Keisuke Sone, it’s hard to imagine a director from Japan, outside of Takeshi Kitano or Tetsuya Nakashima, being able to do this hard-boiled story with the grit, the grue, the darkness, the bouncy pacing and the wry sense of humour that seems more natural for modern Korean film-makers and Kim applies these elements to a collection of morally compromised characters colliding with each other as they all chase a Louis Vuitton Boston bag stuffed to the brim with cash.

“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

This line from the Bible perfectly sums up what happens to a range of people from the port city of Pyeongtaek as they tear around the city putting themselves in increasingly perilous situations to get their grubby paws on cash that promises to be their escape from desperate straits.

There is Jun-man (Bae Sung-Woo), a middle-aged man patiently struggling with a difficult elderly parent and a demanding kid with university fees to pay while he has little but the measly wages from his part-time work at a sauna and his exhausted wife’s cleaning job. Beautiful Mi-ran (Shin Hyun-Bin) is a woman who moonlights as a hostess because she is shackled by debt which is the excuse used for vicious bouts of domestic violence by her sadistic husband. Then there is Tae-young (Jung Woo-sung), a charismatic border patrol officer who has a week to deliver a lot of cash to stab-happy gangsters he is in debt to after co-signing a loan with his beloved girlfriend Yong-hee (Jeon Do-yeon) who took the cash and walked out on him. Each character gets sight of the cash and each struggles to get it.

Split into a series of chapters with ominous titles such as “Debt” and “Bait” that describe direness of the circumstances the characters are trapped in, the film cuts between their various subplots which are filled with treachery and danger as they are pushed into an increasingly frenzied conflict over the money. It is done in such a way as to make these stories feel as if they are happening linearly but drive-by exposition from grisly news reports give us clues as to the timeline and some foreshadowing of future events in what is a carefully constructed non-linear narrative.

When the various subplots crash together, it’s usually a shock that fills the film with a lingering tension as we watch the characters, whom we’ve seen betray and hurt others already, interact. Suffice it to say that when everyone is linked together, the ending, which is reportedly different from the book, is both horrifying and gratifying as money and blood continue to flow.

It’s a film full of betrayals and counter-betrayals between people as their precarious lives and increasingly reckless attempts at getting the cash bring out their claws. Each character is cut from normality, distinctly drawn and believably flawed and these character flaws, whether hubris or too much decency, provide the angles of betrayal to wring the most tension from the film and often times laughter as egos clash and their is a madcap scramble to get on top of a situation based on wits and bluffing.

The vices and reasons for their actions are rooted in real-world problems which makes the characters sympathetic which means that, as the bloody violence crescendos and becomes gruesome and the storyline encompasses bawdy cops and laconic gangsters in the Kitano mould, we feel for them as they place themselves in danger and we gasp as they shed their humanity. But it would be a mistake for audience members to get too attached as the film has no problem betraying expectations and utilising its cast of desperate characters to suddenly and violently off people, making this a highly unpredictable thrill ride.

The film’s aesthetics are a mix of the neon-lit nightlife of bars and floodlit ports common to Korean crime films mixed with the humdrum domestic that shows the character’s dingy lives and troubles. These are welcome nods to normality and also really good at character building. The set design seen in Tae-young’s messy bachelor pad, which is transformed from desolate and dirty to a comfortable home by a woman’s touch, speaks to how love can transform life while Jun-man’s cosy home is full of family photos and household objects that lurk Chekhov gun-like, to inflict a lot of pain on people. And that Boston bag with its distinctive pattern… That’s a death sentence if the wrong people see it. Everything shown is intelligently utilised by the plot of tells you something about the characters and so it’s even more engaging beyond the story.

In the world of Beasts Clawing at Straws, trusting someone is a sure way to get in debt, loving the wrong person can get you killed, and being honest won’t help as the only truth is money and people will do anything to get it. The seemingly most trustworthy people can turn out to be the biggest predators and watching everyone devour each other over the money provides head-spinning twists and heart-rending turns. 

Having won the special jury award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and having been invited to Berlinale 2020, it was one of the international breakout titles from Korea before covid-19 hit. My anticipation was high going in and the film did not disappoint as it delivered the thrills and spills of a crime story, especially because it is packaged with that Korean bravura action and style. Definitely recommended.

Battle Royale   

バトル・ロワイアル「Batoru Rowairu」

Release Date: December 16th, 2000

Duration: 109 mins.

Director: Kinji Fukasaku

Writer: Kenta Fukasaku (Script), Koushun Takami (Original Novel)

Starring: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Takeshi Kitano, Chiaki Kuriyama, Kou Shibasaki, Taro Yamamoto, Masanobu Ando,

IMDB

Some time in the near future, Japan has suffered a major economic collapse that has resulted in an explosion in unemployment and the attendant fraying of society as increasing numbers of kids cease to respect adults, classrooms are abandoned and teachers face escalating violence. The Japanese government decide that the only way to control this new generation of disruptive teenagers is to punish them and so they issue the Battle Royale act, an ultra-violent attempt to stop juvenile delinquency whereby, every year, a random class of 15 year olds is kidnapped and dumped in a remote area with nothing but a stockpile of weapons and they are forced to fight until only one survivor is left.

The film follows the 42 students and two transfers of class 3-B of Shiroiwa Junior High as they go through the Battle Royale challenge on an abandoned island just off Shikoku.

Our hero is Shuya Nanahara (Tetsuya Fujiwara in his breakout role), a bit of an everyman protag as a good-natured kid who, along with 41 of his classmates, is forced to fight to the death. While he focuses on protecting his love interest Noriko Nakagawa (Aki Maeda) and resists killing until the very last few scenes of the film, others in the class take to murder and mayhem with varying degrees of aplomb, from flame-haired uzi-toting demon Kiriyama (Masanobu Ando) and the laconic sneering shotgun-wielding Kawada (Taro Yamamoto), to the class deviant Mitsuko Souma (Kou Shibasaki really going dark) and her bloody scythe. With their movements affected by explosive neck collars, a shocking bloodbath unfolds.

Battle Royale is a film from the year 2000. It was the 60th title directed by Kinji Fukasaku but his first to feature teenage protagonists. Approaching his 70s, Fukasaku was introduced to the same-named novel by his son Kenta (director of X-Cross (2007)) and immediately identified with the story’s characters who are stuck in an impossible situation by adults due to his own wartime experience as a teenager at a munitions factory in Hitachinaka city. While there, he and his classmates were trapped in the midst of death and destruction and he developed a hatred for adults who created that situation. At the age of 70 and with prostate cancer, he would go on to direct this movie, arguably the last big entertainment film to challenge Japanese society and a work that would revolutionise the world of entertainment.

The film has its basis in the conroversial 1999 novel by Koushoun Takami but Kenta Fukasaku’s script differs from its source in various ways, dropping its alternate history setting of a fascist government winning World War II and terrorising its populace into compliance through a death game and rooting the film in our reality of Japan’s decade-long economic depression, the resulting loss of confidence felt by adults and the seemingly inexplicable spikes in youth crime that rocked the country in the late 90s. These real-world problems and anxieties are glimpsed in snatches of flashbacks such as Shuya’s recollections of his depressed unemployed father to shocking acts of delinquency done by various classmates and while these real-world influences are big deviations tha serve to make the film hit harder and feel more relevant, the kill list and the characters remain mostly unchanged and we watch as a group of what are near enough children fight to the death.

Hunting humans wasn’t necessarily a new cinematic concept at the time this was made. There are antecedents like the old RKO film The Most Dangerous Game (1932) and The Running Man (1987), but the idea of a death game this raw and full-on and, again, I cannot stress this enough, so rooted in our reality and not sci-fi, had never been seen before, especially with teens who we can identify with and with a bodycount this high and with our real-world concerns.

While the novel has the benefit of lengthy backstories to set up characters and internal monologues to add extra weight to each kid’s choice on whether to trust their classmates or not, the film streamlines a lot of this so the theme of trust is played down a little in favour of amping up the action but nearly all of the teens are humanised and feel real, not like the stereotypes in this film’s sequel, and we constantly sympathise with them and feel the losses more as we watch the tragedy of youth being destroyed due to an unfair system.

As the kids fight and die, they are being monitored by their teacher, Kitano. This is a bravura performance from Takeshi Kitano who was clearly hired for his work as a gameshow host and takes to his role with a puckish delight that flips to ruthless violence as his character lets seep out his deep-seated resentment and fear of the teens who had mocked and harassed him in the past. The film’s depiction of his character is more entertaining and empathetic than the book’s cartoonish sadist and the dream on the riverside he shares with Noriko and the snatches of his family problems really humanise him and make him tragic as well.

As is Fukasaku’s style, this is a pure action experience that is exciting, efficient and fast-flowing. From the moment the Toei ocean logo with crashing waves hits the screen while Verdi’s Requiem Dies Irae bombards the viewer from the speakers with its epic sound to the last minute where characters urge audiences to run, the film is a relentless barrage of incidents and conflict and constant development that goes at a breakneck pace.

Within the opening 20 minutes, through on-screen text, and a few quick sequences (including the infamous video introduction), we are transported into a nightmarish death game, given its rules and then we dash off into the fray. For the remainder of the film, we run with the kids, we try to make sense of things at the same time that they do, and we share their horror as they commit and experience acts of violence. We are embedded in this class thanks to Fukusaku’s camerawork, contemplative and still in thoughtful moments of moralising or constantly active and swirling in each chaotic action scene. It really plants us in the Battle Royale experience as we view a variety of high school archetypes from the rich kids and nerds to the sports guys and queen bees play out their little dramas and see the moments each child chooses to either run, hide, kill or be killed. This is often times devastating stuff as members of the class profess their indignation over their situation and kill themselves, others cling to friendships and try to unite and escape and some let themselves loose in a killing frenzy fuelled by fears brought to the island from the classroom and public life, all of which audiences will be able to relate to.

For all of the heightened action, there is a neat juxtaposition with the blackly comic as Kitano playfully doles our news of deaths and issues instructions with a cracked smile. The aforementioned briefing video is an exercise is corporate cute and character deaths can sometimes by played for laughs and irony. This constant mixing of tones prevents the film from sliding into the purely ugly and there is a lot of beauty on display in the island as rugged beaches, rain soaked forests and dams bathed in the glow of a sunset provide the backdrop for dramatic deaths of kids we get attached to.

Battle Royale is one of my key Japanese films. After buying the Tartan release in 2002, I watched it multiple times and, a year later, I went to see the extended cut when it had a limited theatrical run. I felt the movie spoke to me. I was around the age of the film’s protags and learning to distrust those in authority and I found its artistic and brutal telling of its a story really thrilling and even moving as it spoke to me as it utilised melodrama to tap into the teenage emotions that get dismissed as mere melodrama by so many films. Its exhortation to the audience to live life to the full moved me to tears each time I watched it and it still works to this day as its righteous anger lingers.

I recently took part in a podcast about this film which you can listen to here.

Tthe 31st Tokyo Student Film Festival runs from October 15th to October 17th in Shibuya Eurospace and 19 have been selected for audiences to enjoy. The line-up consists of films produced by students from across Japan and they are submitted to the festival which is run by a small team of students who have created a space where the free-flowing and unique ideas people have in their student days can thrive. Some of these films go on to the international festival circuit so this is a good way to check out future talent.

This event is the largest student film festival in Japan with the longest history and people who have cooperated in the past include Nobuhiko Obayashi, Mamoru Oshii, Yuya Ishii, Satoko Yokohama, Yoshihiro Nakamura Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Shinji Aoyama, Kazuo Hara and more. This being a student festival, funds are tight so organisers have arranged a crowdfunding campaign to help with the venue cost and the printing cost of flyers and pamphlets.

Here are the films with information pulled from the festival site and the YouTube pages for the trailers as well as other resources I discovered (badly translated):

Papyrus

パピルス　 「Papirusu」

Release Date: 2019

Duration: 52 mins.

Director: TANYŪ   (Kyoto University of Art and Design, Tokyo Zokei University) / Furui Hito

Writer: TANYŪ

Starring: Mon, Kyuu, CHOU VETCH B, YO-CHIN

Described as “a trip on the subway that unfolds in a set like a “trompe l’oeil” built in the living room of a rental apartment,” the shooting of the movie took place entirely in the living room of a rented apartment and is full of handmade props and artistic lighting that sell the world of the film.

I originally wrote about this when it played at last year’s Kanazawa Film Festival. I had been following the website of the director for quite a while now and enjoying its updates on games, art, and life and this film. You can follow more of her work here.

Synopsis: Deep underground is a train that travels long distances. Travelling in this underground world is not that exciting because there is only darkness outside so the passengers are getting very bored …

Tandake gakkai jiken

蛋ヶ岳学会事件「Tandake gakkai jiken」

Duration: 20 mins.

Director: Ryo Teraishi (Film School of Tokyo (Eiga Bigakko))

Synopsis: Numakawa is a part-time cleaner at a hospital who secretly repeats an experiment in a room in his apartment…

Futari

ふたり「Futari」

Release Date: September 28th, 2019

Duration: 47 mins.

Director: Risa Negishi (Waseda University)

Writer: Risa Negishi (Script), 

Starring: Meirin, Manami Usamaru, Mokuren, Shohei Yamashita, Nagisa Umeno,

This one was released last year as part of a special series of screenings to upcoming talent. It stars Manami Usamaru who had a lead role in the film Sisterhood (2018)

Synopsis: You’re far away when you’re together. Being here properly even though you are far away. The loneliness that only I feel when I’m two is highlighted.

River of Youth

夏日春風 「Kajitsu Harukaze」

Duration: 62 mins.

Director: Han Chengyu (Musashino Art University)

Website

Synopsis: Xinxiang City, Henan Province in China, just before the summer vacation. We follow the lives of the main character, a high schooler, his mother and his older brother, who is studying hard to enter a university in America. The main character works part time at a poultry farm and doesn’t go to school very often. His female friend shows him some notes from class but he is uncertain about her feelings. Meanwhile, his father, who has been absent for a decade, suddenly returns home.

Mud

泥 「Doro」

Release Date: N/A

Duration: 35 mins.

Director: Miyaka Naruse (Film School of Tokyo (Eiga Bigakko))

Writer: Sakiko Yashige (Script), 

Starring: Aki Morita, Yukari Saito, Atsushi Oda, Yoko Akita, Natsuki Murata

Website

Synopsis: Shoko, a 40-year-old  high school teacher, feels the desire to touch a girl and when a lonely student in her class pursues her, she gets her chance.

Light / Walk

Release Date: N/A

Duration: 25 mins.

Director: Kosuke Yonezawa (Nagoya University of Arts and Sciences)

Also playing at the Nara International Film Festival where it receives its world premiere.

Synopsis: Ayumu, a 23-year-old young man working part-time as a detective. One day, his older sister visits his house for the first time in 10 years. She wants him to look after her 9-year-old daughter, Hikari, from August 9th to August 14th. This will be their first meeting. His niece. A life with a mysterious sense of distance. Meanwhile, Ayumu is doing detective-work and investigating the identity of a man.

Until Winter Fray

冬のほつれまで 「Fuyu no hotsure made」

Release Date: N/A

Duration: 68 mins.

Director: Daisuke Tamochi (Musashino Art University)

Writer: Daisuke Tamochi (Script), 

Starring: Chisa Aone, Kyoka Kitazaki, Naoki Kondo, Yuri Hirose, Yudai Tsuruta, Keita Hosokawa,

Website

Also at the Pia Film Festival

Synopsis: Ikumi Nemoto is a second year high school student and her hobby is observing. Her routine is going to high school and watering the plants on the balcony of an empty classroom, keeping an eye on what happened during class and what the coffee shop customers say and do after school, and then drawing a picture based on her observations in her sketchbook. Honoka Tachibana, a classmate who is interested in her behaviour, tries to interact with Ikumi. However, Ikumi does not want to be interfered with at all. Her time flows to her.

When we see and consider Ikumi Nemoto’s way of life, the story gets audiences to questions the establishment of oneself, how the people around us change, and whether there may be human beings who live only for themselves.

Pray for the Afterglow

残光に祈りを 「Zanko ni inori o」

Duration: 30 mins.

Director: Akira Muramoto (Nihon University)

Starring: Hidemichi Miyata, Narumi Uno

Synopsis: “The roar of fireworks, the cry of an unnamed young man”

One day at a fireworks display, a young man who calls himself the Prime Minister appears to have launched a “nuclear firework”, a traditional rocket that has radioactive substances.

Tonda Shisen

飛んだ視線「Tonda Shisen」

Duration: 20 mins.

Director: Soto Wakita (Tokyo Zokei University)

Synopsis: Aki immerses herself in Natalie’s house almost every day. Natalie says that the image of her staring from the next room comes to mind. The voice of a man reading a poem can be heard from outside. Both, when together and when alone, begin to think about the “mysterious gaze.”

Berusu-zu

ベルスーズ「Berusu-zu」

Duration: 33 mins.

Director: Soichiro Uchida (Keio University)

Synopsis: A story about a man with insomnia and a woman trying to put him to sleep. The woman speaks kindly to the man and tries to rest him, but his symptoms do not improve. The woman finally collapses because of physical and mental fatigue.

Mothers

Release Date: N/A

Duration: 64 mins.

Director: Maiko Seki (Japan Institute of the Moving Image)

Writer: N/A

Starring: Takuji Seki, Momoko Seki, Maiko Seki, Kanata Ikemura, Mirasol Seki

Also at the Pia Film Festival

Synopsis: A documentary about the director’s own family. She and her sister live with their unstable father and they have “three mothers”: the mother who gave birth, the mother who raised them, and the mother who is living with them now. However, nobody can say, “This person is my mother.”

Short Film Competition

Elephant in the Shower House

浴場の象「Yokujo no zo」

Duration: 04 mins.

Director: Jialin Cheng (Tokyo Zokei University)

Website

Synopsis: In the late 90’s in China, there was a factory bath in the town where I lived. You could meet an elephant there. As the times change, a mysterious story unfolds.

Female

Duration: 12 mins.

Director: Yutaka Tsunemachi (Tama Art University)

I couldn’t find information on this one.

Hitoma

Duration: 07 mins.

Director: Takuya Miyahara (Enbu Seminar)

Synopsis: It’s not six tatami mats, but in the space of one room, I think that human activities are still going on today.

This is Broadcasting Room to Major Tom

こちら放送室よりトム少佐へ「Kochira hoso-shitsu yori Tomu shosa e」

Release Date: N/A

Duration: 11 mins.

Director: Takuya Chisaka (Nihon University)

Writer: Takuya Chisaka (Script), 

Starring: Tokuma Kudo, Chika Arakawa

Also at the Pia Film Festival

Synopsis: It is the summer of 1989 and a lonely broadcaster boy and a girl attending night school make a relay radio drama together through a cassette tape. This work was produced as a third-year college training assignment and shot on 16mm film.

Dawn

Duration: 12 mins.

Director: Keita Tsuji (Musashino Art University)

Synopsis: A boy and a girl are lost in a town where the moon shines in the dark. The two who were confused by the dark night forgot what they should return to or where their souls are.

Strawberry Candy

いちご飴「Ichigo Ame」

Duration: 07 mins.

Director: Nianze Li (Tokyo University of the Arts)

Synopsis: She has an unspeakable secret but the memory is gradually fading. The little girl is no longer sure if it was a dream or reality.

I don’t want to forget it, but I’m not sure

忘れたくないのに定かじゃない「Wasuretakunai no ni sadaka janai」

Duration: 12 mins.

Director: Fumiko Fujimaru (Musashino Art University)

A mix of live-action and animation and a cracked sense of humour makes this a unique film.

Synopsis: The story of pets. I want to remember everything, I don’t want to forget anything. It’s so important, but I’m really disappointed that I don’t remember.

Seventeen

セヴンティーン「Sebunti-n」

Duration: 10 mins.

Director: Yukiko Miyata (Nihon University)

Synopsis: A 17-year-old girl feels inferior to an adult.

Idol        

アイドル「Aidoru」

Release Date: September 23rd, 2020

Duration: 20 mins.

Director: Ryushi Lindsay

Writer: Ryushi Lindsay (Script),

Starring: Ryoka Neya (Miyabi), Miyu Sasaki (Kasumi), Sawa Takahashi (Ami), Akira Takanohashi (Yoshimura), Yui Matsuura (Rie), Yuki Mayama (Junya),

Website IMDB

Ryushi Lindsay is a British-Japanese filmmaker based in Japan and the UK. Even with just a couple of shorts to his name, he is beginning to carve out an interesting filmography as he works across genres and approaches subjects with an eye for the politics that underlie things.

Lindsay’s debut film, the experimental baseball documentary Kokutai (2019), finds uncomfortable parallels with the pomp and circumstance of fascistic events of the past and the current martial aesthetics of Japan’s popular national high school baseball tournaments. His latest, Idol, is a drama set in the world of girl groups.

Long a ubiquitous facet of Japanese entertainment, pop idols present a broad range of issues ripe for examination, from the objectification of performers to their role in the mass media in defining femininity and gender relations. These issues were looked at in Kyoko Miyake’s 2017 documentary Tokyo Idols. Idol uses it as background for a dark drama but focuses on the economic drivers that make the parents push their children to perform as we get front row seats of one parasitic parent’s extreme behaviour.

Taking place over two nights in Tokyo, the story enters at the point of crisis for a young single mother named Miyabi as her child idol daughter Kasumi is unceremoniously dropped from the line-up of a stage act just minutes before a performance and replaced by someone more popular. At first Miyabi argues against her daughters firing, then begs with the manager for another chance, all to no avail. She won’t give up and this sets in motion a foolish plan involving another child idol named Ami that will have viewers tensing up with a sense of foreboding.

This sense of foreboding is created through some smart choices in set decoration/locations to ground us in the harsh reality that Miyabi exists in and compelling performances that sell the behaviour of characters.

Running contrary to the glamorous images of mega concerts and dazzling lights that the word “idol” at the very peak of performance conjures up, this 20-minute film is more a social realist glimpse at the miserable foothills of the industry. We are at the part of the production cycle where girls perform dance routines at small venues in DIY costumes and are lit with lurid lighting. While we get a sense that the money earned at this early stage is pocket change, it is vital for people who are at the poorer end of society. In effect, this creates the grounds for exploitation of the needy.

Unwilling to mask this reality, director Ryushi Lindsay deliberately withholds a view of the concerts that might provide relief through some showbiz magic and plants us in uncomfortable liminal spaces located around the stage and homes of characters, often caught in long shots and harsh lighting, as we have our noses rubbed in the heartless business end of things which Miyabi clings on to for survival in an unforgiving urban environment.

Already in financial hardship due to being a single mother, a demographic that has grown in Japan in recent years, it is clear that Miyabi is using Kasumi as her meal ticket. A few lines of dialogue as she pleads poverty with the manager and sight of her home life, a poky apartment defined by clutter and towers of unwashed plates littering the kitchen and 200 yen cup noodles shared with Kasumi for dinner, is enough to convincingly show that the two are living just shy of poverty. This explains Miyabi’s motivation and this understanding is bolstered by a sense of desperation that emanates from actress Ryoka Neya as her character goes off the rails.

Ryoka Neya, glimpsed in Love and Other Cults (2017), is on full display and gives an intense performance as the mother whose desperation to keep her daughter in the limelight has consequences she never thought about. The cloying insistence and spikes of anger she shows suggest a person so driven by emotion as to be unreliable and a glimpse of her personal life suggests she is more of a scavenger rather than a maternal figure so there is a tragic inevitability to disaster.

And yet!

When things go well, Miyabi is kind and caring. These times are like a moment of clarity that offsets any negatives. As such, the camerawork feels more personal and the lighting warmer and the two beam at each other.

If we were judging Miyabi against traditional notions motherhood then she would be a picture of bad parenting but we have sympathy for her due to their situation which is so ably described by set details. Also key to this sympathy is Miyu Sasaki, the actress who portrayed the poppet rescued by the patchwork family in the Hirokazu Kore-eda film Shoplifters (2018). She provides the requisite cute factor as the innocent unaware of her value and what her mother is doing. She is happy and we cannot take that away from the two and so it creates an uncomfortable situation where, as much as we may want to condemn Miyabi for her behaviour and her objectification of her own daughter, there are mitigating circumstances that feel real and speak to a growing hardship in Japan that the the glamour of idol culture covers up. When the ending comes, it does hit hard.

Ultimately, this film is a well-conceived short that packs a lot in at 20 minutes. Looking at the world of idols through this lens makes it a refreshingly different and political look at the media phenomenon. I believe this short has the legs to be expanded into a feature, which is what Lindsay is doing right now, and I hope to see it and the performers as they tackle this story again.

Happy weekend, everyone.

I hope everyone is fine and dandy.

I’ve been trying to get my life in order by writing schedules down for myself with achievable goals. Normally, I just have a bunch of things I want to do and get around to them eventually but I have to push myself harder. That also means practising Japanese again.

In terms of films, I posted reviews for Battle Royale and an indie short called Idol. I also posted a round-up of the films playing at the Tokyo Students Film Festival. They all look exciting and I want to see them!!! The previous week, I reviewed the Korean film Beasts Clawing at Straws.

What is released this weekend?

Cenote   

セノーテ「Seno-te」

Release Date: September 19th, 2020

Duration: 75 mins.

Director: Kaori Oda

Writer: Kaori Oda (Script) 

Starring: voices of: Araceli del Rosario Chulim Tun, Juan de la Rosa Mibmay

Website

Documentarian Kaori Oda studied under Béla Tarr in Sarajevo and while in Bosnia she filmed the lives of coal miners (Aragane) and also her own journey as a filmmaker and human in (Towards a Common Tenderness).

Synopsis: Kaori Oda travels to the Northern Yucatan in Mexico where she ventures around natural sinkholes called ‘cenotes’ and explores the past, where Mayans used them for water sources as well as sacrifices and saw the cenotes as a connection to the afterlife, and she sees how these memories inform the present of those living around the cenotes. She pushes her style further here in what look like beautiful sequences.

Daughters   

Daughters（ドーターズ）「Do-ta-zu」

Release Date: September 18th, 2020

Duration: 105 mins.

Director: Hajime Tsuda

Writer: Hajime Tsuda (Script), 

Starring: Ayaka Miyoshi, Junko Abe, Nene Ohtsuka, Tomoka Kurotani, Shingo Tsurumi,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: Koharu (Ayaka Miyoshi) and Ayano (Junko Abe) are flat-mates and friends in Tokyo’s Nakameguro ward. These two 27-year-olds work dream jobs, one as an event manager and the other in fashion marketing. Their lives are fulfilling. However, when Ayano confesses she is pregnant and she doesn’t know who the father is, it’s a shock for Koharu. When she states she will raise the child, it changes their friendship. 

Sirotsumekusa   

白爪草「Sirotsumekusa」

Release Date: September 19th, 2020

Duration: 105 mins.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: Cyber Girl Siro / Dennou Shoujo Siro

Website

You may not know what a VTuber is. Well, it’s a Virtual YouTuber and the most famous is probably Kizuna Ai, but there are many, many others. One of them is Siro, a cyber girl who takes on two roles in this movie.

Synopsis: Siro plays Ao Shiratsubaki, a girl who works at the flower shop “Hanagumi” whose life is quiet until she receives a message from her twin sister, Beni Shiratsubaki (also Siro), who is in prison and wants to meet her. Ao decides to meet Beni, despite her past crime. Ao waits for Beni to visit in a room surrounded by flowers, but she feels uneasy and begins to think about returning home to escape from Beni. However, at that time, a chime that announces the visitor sounds…

The Hardness of Avocado   

アボカドの固さ「Abokado no kata-sa」

Release Date: September 19th, 2020

Duration: 100 mins.

Director: Masaya Jo

Writer: Masaya Jo, Shintaro Yamaguchi, Mizuki Maehara (Script), 

Starring: Mizuki Maehara, Akie Namiki, Yoko Hasegawa, Zuru Onodera, Akie Namiki,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: Maehara is a wannabe actor who is suddenly dumped by his girlfriend who had been together with him for five years. He wants to save their relationship but can he pull himself together and get his life back on track? 

Tomodachi Yameta.   

友達やめた。「Tomodachi Yameta.」

Release Date: September 19th, 2020

Duration: 84 mins.

Director: Ayako Imamura

Writer: N/A

Starring: N/A

Website

Synopsis: A documentary directed by Ayako Imamura, who has worked on internationally screened documentary films such as Start Line. She is deaf by birth and through this film, she thinks about her relationship with her friend Maa-chan who has Asperger’s syndrome and finds it hard to deal with people. Ayako can sympathise due to her own situation. Through watching the interaction between two people with disabilities, we can see the various definitions of human relationships that everyone has experienced, and face the essential problem of how to coexist with people with different backgrounds.

Okaeri Tadaima   

おかえり　ただいま「Okaeri Tadaima」

Release Date: September 19th, 2020

Duration: 112 mins.

Director: Junichi Saito

Writer: Junichi Saito (Script), 

Starring: Yuki Saito, Aimi Satsukawa, Miyoko Asada, Mayumi Ozora, Kenta Suge,

Website

Director Junichi Saito has covered true-crime stories before and he looks at the Nagoya Yami Site Murder Case in a film that mixes documentary and drama. 

Synopsis: At midnight on August 24, 2007, a woman on her way home was abducted and killed, and her body was abandoned in the mountains. Three men who met online were arrested for the crime and the victim’s mother campaigned for the death penalty. At the trial, only one was sentenced to death while the other two got life in prison. However, there were more twists in this case to come…

Jazz Kissa Basie: Swifty’s Ballad   

ジャズ喫茶ベイシー Swiftyの譚詩（Ballad）「Jazu Kissa Beishi-: Swifty no Ballad」

Release Date: September 18th, 2020

Duration: 104 mins.

Director: Tetsuya Hoshino

Writer: N/A

Starring: Shoji Sugawara, Sadao Watanabe, Hozumi Nakadaira, Seiji Ozawa, Kyoka Suzuki,

Website

Synopsis: This documentary looks at the history of a jazz cafe called Basie (after Count Basie) and gives us five decades of jazz history in Japan. The manager of the cafe is Shoji Sugawara, who goes by the name of Swifty, and he and other interviewees talk about the things they have seen including student protests and performances. The documentary contains footage of live performances at the cafe. Here’s an article from Asahi Shimbun with a great write-up explaining more.

Violet Evergarden: The Movie 

劇場版ヴァイオレット・エヴァーガーデン 　 「Gekijouban Baioretto Eba-ga-den Gaiden」

Release Date: September 18th, 2020

Duration: 140 mins.

Director: Taichi Ishidate

Writer: Reiko Yoshida (Screenplay), Kana Akatsuki (Original Creator)

Starring: Yui Ishikawa (Violet Evergarden), Daisuke Namikawa (Gilbert Bougainvillea),

Animation Production: Kyoto Animation

Website ANN MAL

Almost a year since the “side story” of Violet Evergarden as given a release, we get the movie which acts as a continuation of the TV series.

Synopsis: Following the end of the Great War, Violet Evergarden, a young girl raised to destroy the enemy, was left with a shattered body and only words from the person she held dearest, but with no understanding of their meaning. She finds new purpose acting as an “Auto Memory Doll,” amanuenses that transcribe people’s thoughts and feelings into words on paper and travels the world in an adventure that will reshape the lives of her clients and hopefully lead to self-discovery.

In this film, Violet still holds the memory of her former employer Gilbert dearly because it was he who taught her of love. Even when his older brother Dietfried tells her that she should forget about him, she refuses. Soon after, Violet hears that the post office has discovered a letter with no address sitting in their warehouse.

My Exercise (Short Movie Version)

マイエクササイズ（短編映画版）「Mai ekusasaizu (tanpen eiga-ban)」

Running Time: 02 mins.

Release Date: September 19th, 2020

Director: Atsushi Wada

Writer: N/A

Starring: N/A

Animation Production: NEWDEER

Website

Synopsis: Atsushi Wada is the director of The Great Rabbit, which won the Silver Bear Award in the short film section of the Berlin International Film Festival 2012. He has a lot of other short films, many of which are going to be screened alongside commercials and other things made by the animator at a special event. My Exercise, his newest work, depicts an overweight boy doing sit ups with a shiba-inu. Eventually, more animals join in and it becomes very surreal because of their involvement. You can watch a recent NHK World talk with Atsushi Wada on the NHK website.

Love Me, Love Me Not   

思い、思われ、ふり、ふられ（アニメ版）「Omoi, Omoware, Furi, Furare」

Running Time: 103 mins.

Release Date: September 18th, 2020

Director: Toshimasa Kuroyanagi

Writer: Ereika Yoshida (Screenplay), Io Sakisaka (Original Creator)

Starring: Marika Suzuki (Una Ichihara), Megumi Han (Akari Yamamoto), Nobunaga Shimazaki (Rio Yamamoto), Soma Saito (Kazuomi Inui), Aya Hisakawa (Yuna’s Mother), Minami Hamabe (Chiyo), Riko Fukumoto (ayuko), Takumi Kitamura (High School Boy),

Animation Production: A-1 Pictures

Website ANN MAL

Following on from last month’s release of the live-action version, comes the anime movie with the cast of the former film taking on side roles here.

Synopsis: Akari and her friend Yuna are poles apart when it comes to personality. Akari is practical and forward while Yuna is more romantic and shy. The two get involved with two boys who are also very different in outlook. Yuna falls for Rio, Akari’s stepbrother and a guy who falls in love at the drop of a hat, while Akari develops feelings for Yuna’s childhood friend Kazuomi, a complete airhead. These four classmates end up leading a youthful romance that will surpass their expectations.

The Vancouver International Film Festival 2020 (VIFF) runs from September 24th to October 07th and it is packed with over 100 feature films from around the world. This year’s fest is going to be available for people to view online so this means that viewers in British Columbia can watch from the comfort of their homes via VIFF Connect, VIFF’s new online streaming platform. There will be talks and conferences that are open the everyone around the world to tune into on top of that.

Here’s the round-up of Japanese films.

The Town of Headcounts   

人数の町「Ninzu no Machi」

Release Date: September 04th, 2020

Duration: 111 mins.

Director: Shinji Araki

Writer: Shinji Araki (Script), Tomoso Nonaka (Original Novel)

Starring: Tomoya Nakamura, Shizuka Ishibashi, Eri Tachibana, Junpei Hashino, Rio Kanno, Elisa Yanagi, So Yamanaka,

Website IMDB

Described as “ambitious and compelling,” and “one of the most politically astute Japanese films in years”, this film looks like an interesting deconstruction of our consumerist age with big politics and dodgy social interactions all used to create a thriller. It looks like an original concept and definitely one of the more interesting Japanese films released this year! The film stars Shizuka Ishibashi (The Tokyo Night Sky is Always the Densest Shade of Blue), daughter of Ryo who is in a film mentioned below.

Synopsis: Aoyama (Tomoya Nakamura) is a young man shackled by debts and pursued by loan sharks but his life is saved when a mysterious bearded man in orange overalls takes him away to “The Town”, a place where he can dodge his debts and indulge himself in every comfort available, be it the pleasures of food, clothing or sex. It sounds like a great deal but Aoyama discovers that it is a place people can freely enter but cannot leave after he gets involved with a woman looking for her missing sister… 

A Life Turned Upside Down: My Dad’s an Alcoholic 

酔うと化け物になる父がつらい 「You to bakemono ni naru chichi ga tsurai」

Release Date: March 06th, 2020

Duration: 95 mins.

Directors: Kenji Katagiri

Writers: Kenji Katagiri, Ayumu Kyuma (Script), Mariko Kikuchi (Original Book)

Starring: Honoka Matsumoto, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Rie Tomosaka, Shohei Uno, Joe Odagiri, Tamae Ando, Kenta Hamano, Yui Imaizumi,

Website IMDB

Synopsis: Adapted from a comic essay by Mariko Kikuchi who turned her troubled life into a story about a girl named Saki (Hoka Matsumoto) whose father (Kiyohiko Shibukawa) is an alcoholic and whose mother is a follower of a new religion. Saki hates her father’s behaviour when he is drunk and loutish but the support of her sister and best friend, and the ability to turn her life into a comic gets Saki through the collapse of her family. However, it affects her behaviour and future choice in partner…

Special Actors   

スペシャルアクターズ　 「Supesharu Akuta-zu」

Release Date: October 18th, 2019

Duration: 109 mins.

Director: Shinichiro Ueda

Writer: Shinichiro Ueda (Screenplay) 

Starring: Hiroki Kono, Takuya Fuji, Ayu Kitaura, Yosuke Ueda, Yaeko Kiyose,

Website IMDB

Japan Cuts 2020 gets going with the latest film from Shinichiro Ueda, director of One Cut of the Dead, who once again. makes an ensemble comedy with a cast gathered from a workshop.  

Synopsis: Kazuto is a timid young guy who prefers to stay indoors to watch the adventures of the psychic hero Rescueman instead of being stressed outside. He had wanted to be an actor but a certain medical condition that causes him to faint at the first sign of stress affects him. Despite this, thanks to his brother, he joins an acting agency where he takes on small roles such as being a stand-in at a funeral. The stakes are raised when he ends up being recruited for a real life drama when a young woman named Yumi asks for help from the Special Actors to save her family’s inn from being sold to a brainwashing cult and it turns out that the Special Actors devise a complex plan that depends upon Kazuto…

Dancing Mary   

ダンシング・マリー　「Danshingu Mari-」

Release Date: N/A

Duration: 105 mins.

Director: SABU

Writer: SABU (Script) 

Starring: NAOTO, Aina Yamada, Ryo Ishibashi

Website   IMDB

Following on from  jam (2018), SABU continues his collaboration with LDH production, the parent company of which manages the Gekidan EXILE group, whereby members from that group take roles in the films made. This one features Naoto, model-turned-actress Aina Yamada and musician-turned-actor Ryo Ishibashi (he who picked the wrong girl in Audition) in a love fantasy film with some yakuza action. It is based on an original script and was filmed in Kitakyushu, Tokyo and Taiwan.

Here’s my review

Synopsis: Kenji (EXILE Naoto) is a civil servant taking part in the creation of a gigantic shopping centre. When Kenji is assigned the task of overseeing the demolition of an old dance hall he discovers his job becomes impossible because some mysterious force stops every attempt. Turns out that the place is cursed so Kenji turns to a young woman who is a medium who can grant him access to the spirit world of spirits. But ghosts may be the least of his problems because the local yakuza clan gets involved…

Here’s my coverage of Vancouver from previous years:

Vancouver 2019

Vancouver 2018

Vancouver 2017

Vancouver 2016

Vancouver 2015

Vancouver 2014

Vancouver 2013

2020 has knocked everyone sideways, not least film fests across the globe, many of which went virtual to protect audiences from Covid-19. This year’s London Film Festival follows many others in being a virtual event as well as having physical screenings in Loondon. It runs from October 07th to the 18th and viewers across the UK will be able to access all of the films wherever they are. Reflecting the other tumultuous events of this year, specifically the long-ignored issue of racial justice, there is a substantial presence of black filmmakers, a traditionally under-served demographic, that is finally getting their chance to shine.

In terms of Japanese films there are none. We get the first episode of a TV show. This lack of films is rather ironic considering 2020 is the year that the BFI is going all in on its Japanese movie coverage to leverage any and all interest in the now-postponed Tokyo Olympics but I guess it’s another sign of a Covid-19 casualty.

Here’s what is programmed (click on the title to be taken to the corresponding festival page):

A Day-Off of Kasumi Arimura   

有村架純の撮休「Arimura Kasumi No Satsukyu」

Release Date: March 20th, 2020

Duration: 42 mins.

Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda

Writer: Sakura Higa (Script), 

Starring: Kasumi Arimura, Jun Fubuki, Shinnosuke Mitsushima

Website

This is the first of an 8-part TV series that aired from March to May this year. The series had a variety of directors like Satoko Yokohama (The Actor) and Rikiya Imaizumi (Just Only Love) involved in imagining what real-life actress Kasumi Arimura does on her days off.

Synopsis: As is his style, Hirokazu Kore-eda (Our Little Sister, Distance, After the Storm, Shoplifters) weaves a fiction from reality and blends the two in a playful drama that shows what Kasumi Arimura returning home and her mother showing off her famous daughter to friends and neighbours.

This episode was the first filmed and it features, yes, Kasumi Arimura, one of the leads in the fantastic zombie film I Am a Hero (2016), joined by Jun Fubuki (powerful in Kiyoshi Kurosawa movies Seance (2001) and Charisma (2000) and Shinnosuke Mitsushima (Hanagatami (2017)).

Other Kore-eda films I have reviewed include:

The Third Murder

Still Walking

Like Father, Like Son

Kiseki

That’s it for now. I’ll update it if any other films are added.

Tickets went on sale yesterday.

Here’s past coverage of the London Film Festival:

London Film Festival 2011

London Film Festival 2012

London Film Festival 2013

London Film Festival 2014

London Film Festival 2015

London Film Festival 2016

London Film Festival 2017

London Film Festival 2018

London Film Festival 2019