Japanese Films at the Venice International Film Festival 2024 (August 28th to September 07th)

The Venice International Film Festival is going to take place from August 28th to September 07th. We have the latest Kiyoshi Kurosawa and a surprise Takeshi Kitano while Neo Sora returns for a second year in a row. The Classics section is also stacked with some great titles while the Immersive section has a lot of Japanese filmmakers.

Here’s a glance at the Japanese films and Japan-inspired films.

Out of Competition

Broken Rage

Release Date: N/A

Duration: 62 mins.

Director: Takeshi Kitano

Writer: Takeshi Kitano (Screenplay),

Starring: Takeshi Kitano, Tadanobu Asano, Nao Omori,

Synopsis: Not much is known beyond the title, running time and cast as Takeshi Kitano returns with a surprise film since Kubi was thought to be his last directorial effort. He must have had a good time with Tadanobu Asano and Nao Omori from that film since he has brought them back for Broken Rage. Their chemistry in Kubi was undeniable.

Kitano has previously won the Golden Lion, the highest award at Venice, for HANA-BI in 1997 and he also won the Silver Lion, the award for best director, for Zatoichi in 2003.

I’ll update as more details are released.

Cloud

クラウド「Kuraudo」

Release Date: September 27th, 2024

Duration: 123 mins.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Screenplay),

Starring: Masaki Suda, Kotone Furukawa, Masataka Kubota, Daiken Okudaira, Amane Okayama, Yoshiyoshi Arakawa, Maho Yamada, Tetsuya Chiba, Yutaka Matsushige,

Website Twitter: @cloudmovie2024 IMDB

This is the third Kurosawa film to get a release this year following on from Chime and a remake of Serpent’s Path (which plays in September at San Sebastian). It features a great cast, including Yutaka Matsushige, the antagonist in Kuroawa’s The Guard From Underground.

Synopsis: Yoshii is a factory worker who makes a bit on the side by reselling goods, an occupation he learned from Muraoka, a senior student at a technical college he want to. The reselling business gets so good that he turns down a promotion at the factory and expands his business but just as things start to look good, suspicious events begin to occur around Yoshii and he becomes the target of hatred on the internet that turns into a collective madness and a “hunting game”.

Orizzonti

HAPPYEND

Release Date: October 10th, 2024

Duration: 123 mins.

Director: Neo Sora

Writer: Neo Sora (Screenplay),

Starring: Yukito Hidaka, Hayato Kurihara, Makiko Watanabe, Shiro Sano, Ayumu Nakajima, Kilala Inori, Shina Peng, Pushim,

Neo Sora has released a few documentaries about his father Ryuichi Sakamoto and one was at las year’s Venice Film Festival. This film will also be screened at the New York Film Festival.

Synopsis: The world is about to change. Kou and Yuta are rambunctious best friends who live in a near-future Tokyo where the threat of a catastrophic earthquake is ever present. Just before their high school graduation, they prank the principal of the school which leads him to install a surveillance system…

Venice Classics

There are two Japanese films in the Venice Classics section.

Manji (All Mixed Up)

卍(まんじ) 「Manji」

Release Date: July 25th, 1964

Duration: 90 mins.

Director: Yasuzu Masumura

Writer: Kaneto Shindo (Screenplay), Junichiro Tanizaki (Original Manga),

Starring: Ayako Wakao, Kyoko Kishida, Eiji Funakoshi, Yusuke Kawazu,

IMDB

This film is the first cinematic adaptation of a Junichiro Tanizaki movie and it has a stellar cast with Ayako Wakao, who was director Yasuzo Masumura’s muse, working with him on this. She also appeared in his films Irezumi (1966) and Red Angel (1966). She also worked with Yuzo Kawashima on The Temple of Wild Geese (1962) and The Graceful Brute (1962) and with Kon Ichikawa on An Actor’s Revenge (1963).

Wakao is the object of affection for Kyoko Kishida (Ozu’s An Autumn Afternoon (1962), Teshigahara’s Woman in the Dunes (1962), Ichikawa’s Ten Dark Women (1961), Kobayashi’s The Human Condition (1961)), and Eiji Funakoshi who worked with the two leading ladies on a number of those films and also worked on the original adaptation of Fires on the Plain (1959).

Remade multiple times, including this year with a gender-flipped version. I cannot speak for those ones but this one is super claustrophobic and intense as it is mostly shot in interior locations and the production design closes in on the delirious thinking of the characters.

Synopsis: Love is like quicksand for four people in Manji, which starts when Sonoko, a bored married woman, goes to an art class and falls for a fellow student, the young and beautiful Mitsuko, whom she asks to be a life model. Their relationship becomes one of obsession that drags in their partners…

The Man Who Put His Will on Film

東京战争戦後秘話「Tokyo sensou sengo hiwa」

Release Date: June 27th, 1970

Duration: 124 mins.

Director: Nagisa Oshima

Writer: Nagisa Oshima, Tsutomu Tamura, Masato Hara, Mamoru Sasaki (Screenplay),

Starring: Kazuo Goto, Emiko Iwasaki, Kazuo Hashimoto, Sukio FukuokaSukio Fukuoka, Menichi Fukuda, Tomoyo Oshima,

I’m not familiar with this one but it is regarded as one of Oshima’s best.

Synopsis: This circuitous film begins with the alleged suicide of a young activist who is part of a radical film collective. When his camera is recovered by a friend, Motoki, it is revealed that the footage is nothing but mundane street scenes of Tokyo.

Miyazaki, l’esprit de la nature

Release Date: N/A

Duration: 82 mins.

Director: Leo Favier

Writer: N/A

Starring: N/A

IMDB

Synopsis: Not much information beyond this being a documentary that explores the connection between Hayao Miyazaki and nature and how the natural world has influenced his work and how his work reflects his passion for the natural world.