The 37th Japan Academy Prize results were announced on Friday and two films, Like Father, Like Son and The Great Passage, dominated the proceedings.
The Great Passage, the film about the making of a dictionary which turned out to be a lot more funnier than anticipate, allowed the cast and staff to win the prizes for best picture, best director (Yuya Ishii), best screenplay (Kensaku Watanabe), best art and editing and for best actor (Ryuhei Matsuda).
The emotionally powerful Like Father, Like Son scooped up the awards of supporting actress (Yoko Maki) and supporting actor (Lily Franky).
Further good news for Yoko Maki came when she won the award for best actress for performance in The Ravine of Goodbye.
Best cinematography went to the Japanese adaptation of Unforgiven.
Hayao Miyazaki’s latest (and supposedly last) film, The Wind Rises, won in the animation category, beating Captain Harlock and the latest Madoka film. The film’s soundtrack composer, Joe Hisaishi, took the award for best soundtrack although he would have had a hard time losing since he was nominated for three films this year – Tokyo Family, The Wind Rises, and Princess Kaguya.
Nagisa Oshima and Isao Natsuyagi were awarded posthumous Chairperson’s Special Awards for lifetime achievement.
Les Miserables took the award for best foreign film.
This is the first year I have seen nearly all of the films nominated and I have to say that the results are pretty spot on for what I regard as the best films. Ryuhei Matsuda was fantastic in the lead for The Great Passage and Yoko Maki stole my attention in the films she starred in. It’s great to see Yuya Ishii win a big award but I felt that Kore-eda’s direction was slightly better. Of course, Why Don’t You Play in Hell? should have won everything but wasn’t nominated because it’s too much for some people to handle…
To get a full list of winners, head over to the official site. Congratulations to all involved.
Here are posters for the nominated films!
