This year’s Hawai’i International Film Festival runs from October 12th to the 22nd on O‘ahu -and through November 5th on neighbouring islands.
There is a rich mixture of films from across Asia, including many of this years award winners. This post focusses on Japanese films but here are links and reviews I have written for some of the non-Japanese titles that have been programmed:
The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil (review)
Here’s what is programmed (click on the title to be taken to the corresponding festival page):
君たちはどう生きるか 「Kimitachi wa Dou Ikiru ka」
Release Date: July 14th, 2023
Duration: 125 mins
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Writer: Hayao Miyazaki (Screenplay)
Starring: Soma Santoki (Masato Maki), Aimyon (Himi), Kou Shibasaki (Kiriko), Takuya Kumura (Shoichi Maki), Masaki Suda (The Gray Heron), Jun Fubuki (Maid #2), Kaoru Kobayashi (Old Pelican),
Animation Production: Studio Ghibli
This is the first animated feature film directed by Hayao Miyazaki in 10 years since The Wind Rises.
The title uses Genzaburo Yoshino’s novel How Do You Live? as an inspiration for a story that also draws upon Miyazaki’s own youth/family history.
Release Date: 2023
Duration: 124 mins.
Director: Wim Wenders
Writer: Wim Wenders, Takuma Takasaki (Screenplay),
Starring: Koji Yakusho, Aoi Yamada, Min Tanaka, Arisa Nakano, Tokio Emoto, Yumi Asou,
Koji Yakusho (Cure, Charisma) won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival 2023 for his role in this film. He plays a toilet cleaner in Tokyo encountering various people in four vignettes that were brought to the screen after a 17-day shoot. While at Cannes, the film was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or but ultimately won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the aforementioned Best Actor Award.
Synopsis: Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) lives in a small house full of plants and analogue technology in a quiet neighbourhood in Tokyo that is full of cafes and bookshops. He works as a cleaner of public toilets and his hobbies include music and photography. His life is scored to the music of the likes of The Rolling Stones, Patti Smith, and Lou Reed. Each day, he encounters different people and they all reveal some aspect of this quiet and unassuming man’s character.
怪物 「Kaibutsu」
Release Date: June 02nd, 2023
Duration: 125 mins.
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Writer: Yuji Sakamoto (Screenplay),
Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto
Starring: Sakura Ando, Eita Nagayama, Yuko Tanaka, Mitsuki Takahata, Soya Kurokawa, Akihiro Kakuta, Shido Nakamura,
Kore-eda won the Palme d’Or for Shoplifters back in 2018 and returned last year with his Korean-set drama Broker. Those were based on original scripts written by himself.
With Monster, he has gravitated to working with more mainstream names making big moves in the Japanese movie industry. The film is based on a screenplay by Yuji Sakamoto (We Made a Beautiful Bouquet, Crying Out Love, in the Center of the World) and the film is produced by powerhouse screenwriter, producer and director Genki Kawamura (A Hundred Flowers, If Cats Disappeared From the World, Villain). Music was composed by the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto (Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise) who sadly passed away earlier this year.
The film ultimately took the Award for the Best Screenplay. It won another award but I consider revealing its name a bit of a spoiler.
Synopsis: The community of a small town with a large lake becomes the focus of the media as two children get into a fight at school and the conflicting claims draw attention from wider society. The people involved include a single mother and her son, a teacher, and others. None could guess how things would escalate as, during a stormy morning, the children disappear…
悪は存在しない 「Aku wa Sonzai Shinai」
Release Date: 2024
Duration: 106 mins.
Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Writer: Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Screenplay),
Starring: Hitoshi Omika Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, Ryo Nishikawa, Ryuji Kosaka, Ayaka Shibutani, Happy Hour
Ryusuke Hamaguchi has two films out this year, this one and Gift. Both have their roots in a collaboration with musician Eiko Ishibashi (composer on Drive My Car). Gift features a live music score that is performed by Ishibashi. Evil Does Not Exist is more of a straight narrative, it appears. It features work by cinematographer Yoshio Kitagawa – Happy Hour, The Sound of Waves, Intimacies, and the Joy of Man’s Desiring.
This one played at Venice, Toronto and at San Sebastian (all in September), London, Vancouver and Chicago (October).
The film won the Grand Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI Award from the International Federation of Film Critics at Venice.
Synopsis: Takumi and his daughter Hana live quiet lives in a village near Tokyo. The bucolic peace of the place is disrupted when land developers arrive with the announcement that they intend to build a big tourist attraction in the form of a glamping site for tourists to go camping. It will be built near Takumi’s house. The locals, sensing life beginning to change, offer resistance to the project while the land developers from the big city are determined to move forward and change the natural environment. Conflict ensues…
首 「Kubi」
Release Date: November 23rd, 2023
Duration: 11 mins.
Director: Takeshi Kitano, Shuta Takahata
Writer: Takeshi Kitano, Takehiko Minato (Screenplay), Takeshi Kitano (Original Book)
Starring: Ken Watanabe, Beat Takeshi, Hidetoshi Nishihima, Ryo Kase, Nao Omori, Shido Nakamura II, Tadanobu Asano, Kenichi Endo, Susumu Terajima, Kenta Kiritani, Jun Soejima, Ittoku Kishibe, Yoshiyoshi Arakawa, Kanji Tsuda,
Six years since his last directorial effort, Kitano is back with a historical film.
This is the 19th film by Takeshi Kitano and it is based on a novel he wrote. For this production, he also wrote the script and edited the footage.
Looking at various notes, it seems that this was conceived 30 years ago, around the same time as Sonatine (1993), his breakthrough hit internationally. It even attracted the attention of Akira Kurosawa who had shown an interest in the work.
Takeshi Natsuno, president and representative director of Kadowkawa studio has said, “It is a rare film, on a scale similar to Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai and Kagemusha, with a tragicomic quality that feels Shakespearean.” The scale of the story certainly sounds impressive based on the convoluted synopsis based on the real-life incident at Honno-ji of 1582 as the film retells the assassination of Oda Nobunaga in a temple in Kyoto.
The cast is incredible as it features familiar Kitano collaborators and the cream of the crop of acting talent to emerge in the 80s and 90s. It stars Ken Watanabe, Tadanobu Asano (Bright Future), Hidetoshi Nishijima (License to Live, Drive My Car), Susumu Terajima (Hole in the Sky), and Ryo Kase (Outrage).
Synopsis: As Oda Nobunaga (Ryo Kase) wages his campaign to unify Japan, a general named Murashige Araki (Kenichi Endo) rebels and disappears. Nobunaga summons his generals, Mitsuhide Akechi (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and Hideyoshi Hashiba (Beat Takeshi), and orders them to search for and capture Murashige. Plotting between generals and a former ninja unable to kill Murashige makes frustrates Nobunaga’s plan and he comes to believe that Tokugawa Ieyasu (Kobayashi Kaoru) is the mastermind behind everything and orders the assassination of Ieyasu. MEANWHILE, peasants take to the battlefields to improve their station in life. All of these characters and storylines converge on Honnoji,
#マンホール「#Manho-ru」
Release Date: February 10th, 2023
Duration: 99 mins.
Director: Kazuyishi Kumakiri
Writer: Michitaka Okada (Screenplay),
Starring: Yuto Nakajima, Nao, Kento Nagayama,
Kazuyishi Kumakiri (My Man, Hole in the Sky) works with pop star Yuto Nakajima and rising actress Nao (The Sound of Grass, My Broken Mariko) to deliver this odd-looking story of a man trapped down a manhole.
Synopsis: Shunsuke Kawamura is surely on the path to success. He is the top agent at the real estate company he works at and he’s about to marry his boss’ daughter. When we meet him, people are throwing him a party in Shibuya on the night before the wedding. Drunk when he leaves the occasion, he walks home and ends up falling down a manhole. When he wakes up, he realises a few things: it is still night time, he’s hurt, he’s trapped and his wedding is imminent. Trying to raise people on his phone proves hard, especially as the GPS isn’t working, so Kawamura starts a “manhole woman” account on social media and asks netizens to locate him and rescue him.
こんにちは、母さん 「Konnichiha, Kasan」
Release Date: September 01st, 2023
Duration: 110 mins.
Director: Yoji Yamada
Writer: Yoji Yamada, Yuzo Asahara, (Screenplay), Ai Nagai (Stageplay),
Starring: Yo Oizumi, Sayuri Yoshinaga, Mei Nagano, YOU, Kankuro Kudo, Min Tanaka, Moe Edamoto, Akira Terao,
Apparently, this is the third film in Yoji Yamada’s “Mother Trilogy”, each of entry of which stars Sayuri Yoshinaga.
Synopsis: Akio Kanzaki is stressed because of his HR job and his relationship with both his wife and college-student daughter is bad. One day, he decides to visit his mother Fukue whom he hasn’t seen in a long time. She lives in a more traditional area of Tokyo but there is at least one sign of change: his mother. Instead of wearing her apron, she’s wearing clothes and looking like she is in love. By spending time with his mother, Akio begins to rediscover what he had lost sight of in life.
Release Date: March 10th, 2023
Duration: 127 mins.
Director: Yusaku Matsumoto
Writer: Yusaku Matsumoto, Kentaro Kishi (Screenplay), Junki Watanabe (Original Novel),
Starring: Masahiro Higashide, Takahiro Miura, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Mai Kiryu, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Yo Yoshida,
Masahiro Higashide has had a career resurgence thanks to the indie scene as can be seen from his performance in The Sound of Grass (2021). He’s working with Yusaku Matsumoto (Noise, Bagmati River) in this film based on a real person. He’s supported by a great cast like Mitsuru Fukikoshi (Cold Fish), Takahiro Miura and Kiyohiko Shibukawa. The DoP and co-scriptwriter is Kentaro Kishi (The Sower) who is secretly one of the best people making serious dramas in the Japanese film industry.
Synopsis: In 2002, software developed Isamu Kaneko created a file-sharing application called Winny. This programme became the software of choice for online piracy in Japan. Pirates were arrested but prosecutors decided to make an example of Kaneko and scooped him up for copyright infringement, too. A trial took place and it is dramatised here!
MONDAYS このタイムループ、上司に気づかせないと終わらない 「MONDAYS Kono Taimu Ru-pu, Joushi ni Kizuka Senai to Owaranai」
Release Date: October 14th, 2022
Duration: 82 mins.
Director: Ryo Takebayashi
Writer: Ryo Takebayashi, Saeri Natsuo (Script),
Starring: Wan Marui, Makita Sport, Koki Osamura, Yuugo Mikawa, Kotaro Yagi, Harumi Shuhama,
Following on from yesterday where we had a time-loop horror, we get a time-look comedy that stars Wan Marui (Kontora) and Makita Sports (All Esper Dayo!).
Synopsis: Yoshikawa is an ambitious young woman seeking to leave a small advertising agency to go to a major firm but, one Monday morning, she is informed by two junior staff members that they are repeating the same week over and over again. Soon the rest of the staff notice. Well, everyone except that manager and it seems like he holds the power to break the loop but first he has to notice what is going on!
高野豆腐店の春 「Takano Tofuten no Haru」
Release Date: August 18th, 2023
Duration: 120 mins.
Director: Mitsuhiro Mihara
Writer: Mitsuhiro Mihara (Screenplay),
Starring: Tatsuya Fuji, Kumiko Aso, Kumi Nakamura, Yu Tokui, Masato Yamada,
Drama co-starring Tatsuya Fuji (Let Him Rest in Peace) and Kumiko Aso (The Workhorse and Big Mouth) about a father and daughter who run a traditional tofu shop in Onomichi.
Synopsis: Takano Tofu Shop is run by Tatsuo and his daughter Haru. Father and daughter make tofu using their own special soybeans, and enjoy a peaceful time with their old-fashioned friends. Each of them encounters a new person in their daily lives.
リボルバー・リリー 「Riboruba- Riri-」
Release Date: August 11th, 2023
Duration: 139 mins.
Director: Isao Yukisada
Writer: Isao Yukisada, Tatsuo Kobayashi (Screenplay), Kyo Nagaura (Original Short Story)
Starring: Haruka Ayase, Hiroki Hasegawa, Jinsei Hamura, Jiro Sato, Sadao Abe, Renji Ishibashi, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Itsuji Itao, Etsushi Toyokawa,
Isao Yukisada of Parade (2010) and Crying Out Love, in the Centre of the World (2004) fame has taken on Kyo Nagaura’s hardboiled action suspense story set in the Taisho era. The film has a fine cast led by Haruka Ayase (Our Little Sister – 2015) and Hiroki Hasegawa (Love & Peace – 2015).
Synopsis: It is 1924 and the Taisho era is drawing to a close. In a small bar in Tokyo’s Hanamachi district is the owner, Yuri, a former spy who was involved in the deaths of 57 people over a period of three years, mostly in East Asia. One day, Yuri meets a boy named Shinta. His family was murdered and he is on the run because he holds a key to missing money drawn from the Imperial Japanese Army. Shinta asks Yuri for help and the two find themselves hunted by the army’s elite troops.
山女 「Yama Onna」
Release Date: June 30th, 2023
Duration: 100 mins.
Director: Takeshi Fukunaga
Writer: Takeshi Fukunaga, Ikue Osada (Screenplay)
Starring: Anna Yamada, Ayame, Denden, Masatoshi Nagase, Toko Miura, Mirai Moriyama, Haya Nakazaki, Ryutaro Ninomiya, Yota Kawase,
Takeshi Fukunaga made waves with his Hokkaido-set drama Ainu Mosir (currently on Netflix) that draws on the conflict between contemporary Japan and the traditions of the Ainu people. He’s back with Mountain Woman, a film which ditches the contemporary part and looks at old Japan in a story that looks at poverty and discrimination. It is another well-received work and stars a who’s who of contemporary actors and actresses.
You can read my review and my interview with director Takeshi Fukunaga.
Synopsis: We are taken to Tohoku, circa the 18th century, to a village short on food due to extreme cold weather. Rin (Anna Yamada) is despised by her fellow villagers but finds peace at Hayachimine mountain. A shrine to the goddess of thieves is set up there. When Rin’s father (Masatoshi Nagase) causes an incident and she defends him, she leaves home and goes deep into the mountain where she meets a mysterious mountain dweller (Mirai Moriyama)…
BAD LANDS バッド・ランズ 「BADDO RANZU 」
Release Date: September 29th, 2023
Duration: 143 mins.
Director: Masato Harada
Writer: Masato Harada (Screenplay), Hiroyuki Kurokawa (Original Novel)
Starring: Sakura Ando, Ryosuke Yamada, Katsuhiko Namase, Mitsuo Yoshihara, Noriko Eguchi,
This is the latest film directed, written, and produced by Masato Harada (Kamikaze Taxi).
Synopsis: Neri is a con woman who helps run phone scams in Osaka. When her younger half-brother Joe returns from prison, Neri convinces her boss to hire him. Where she is smart and resilient, he’s violent and a loose cannon and it isn’t long before Joe ropes her into a dangerous plan that sees them make off with millions of yen and bad guys on their tails.
HAPPY SANDWICH 〜幸せのサンドウィッチ〜 「HAPPY SANDWICH – Shiawase no Sandouicchi-」
Release Date: September 29th, 2023
Duration: 94 mins.
Director: Tsukasa Kishimoto
Writer: Tsukasa Kishimoto (Screenplay)
Starring: Shogo Manna, Yayoi Shiroma, Kodaira-kun, Akari Seragaki, Daiki Miura, Mimi Saita,
This film is billed as a documentary movie with drama and it contains the history, food culture, and nature of Okinawa.
Synopsis: Set in the northern part of Okinawa, we follow Shogo Manna, the owner of a BBQ restaurant named Manmi, is asked by Kaminchu (Shinto priests in Okinawa) to make a special sandwich as an offering to the gods. In order to create a sandwich fit for gods, Manna travels around the island by jeep to interview various people, including chefs, farmers, and food critics, to learn more about their ideas of food and food production.A hybrid film that blends documentary and fiction, HAPPY SANDWICH is an uplifting foodie road movie, representing the wonders of Okinawa culture
Release Date: 2023
Duration: 89 mins.
Director: Katherine McRae
Writer: Katherine McRae (Screenplay),
Starring: Sachiko Fukumoto, Kimi Werner, Rava Ray, Ioana Turia, William Trubridge,
Synopsis: Following her own experience searching for a place that offered natural water-birth, freediver Sachiko Fukumoto sought out other “ocean-women” from across the Pacific region to find out about their deep connection to the ocean and how this played a big role in their pregnancy and birthing choices. In so doing, she also interviews healthcare professionals and learns of the ways parents can be supported emotionally, physically and culturally, to have a positive birth experience. It is all told in this documentary.
島に還る 「Shima ni Kaeru」
Release Date: 2023
Duration: 89 mins.
Director: Naoto Mitake
Writer: Naoto Mitake (Screenplay),
Starring: Shogen, Kazuma Sakiyama, Hitomi Nakahodo, Tsukushi Horai, Shinobu Miyara
This film was made in celebration of the 50th reversion anniversary of Okinawa from the U.S.
Synopsis: This is an ensemble drama made up of eight short interconnected stories, all taking place in Yaeyama, Okinawa, all featuring people who have lost somebody important in their lives and in search of places where they can feel at home. The stories include one of a high school graduate who encounters a traditional dance, a widower reminiscing about his wife, and a school teacher torn between a man she has long loved and someone introduced by her parents.
Aum: The Cult at the End of the World
Release Date: 2023
Duration: 107 mins.
Directors: Chiaki Yanagimoto, Ben Braun,
Writer: N/A
Starring: N/A
This documentary delves into the Aum cult and has been screened at Sundance already and it has gotten good reviews. It is co-directed by Chiaki Yanagimoto, the brains behind the SAKKA streaming service – a great way to support Japanese indie movies! – and Chiaki Yanagimoto will be present at the screening for a Q&A.
Synopsis: This documentary goes in depth into the background and actions of the infamous Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, the ones who manufactured nerve gas and released it in their 1995 terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway that left 14 dead and 6,000 injured. It features lots primary source footage shot by the cult members themselves.
Release Date: N/A
Duration: 118 mins.
Director: Marc Marriott
Writer: Dave Boyle, Ayako Fujitani (Screenplay),
Starring: Arata Iura, Goya Robles, Ayako Fujitani, Robin Weigert, Jun Kunimura, Scout Smith,
Dave Boyle and Ayako Fujitani are names that should be familiar from other US-Japanese productions such as The Man From Reno. Their latest work has the great Jun Kunimura and Arata Iura and comes from Marc Marriott, a director who studied film in Japan under Yoji Yamada.
Synopsis: A salaryman named Hideki moves from Tokyo to a Montana in a desperate move to acquire a cattle ranch and change his life but the experience proves tougher than expected. By facing his problems, he embarks on a life changing journey and learns to appreciate people and places more.
Past Coverage: