The L’Etrange Festival runs from September 03 to 15 and there are some familiar Japanese films are programmed at L’Etrange this year?
箱男 「Hako Otoku」
Release Date: August 23rd, 2024
Duration: 120 mins.
Director: Gakuryu Ishii
Writer: Gakuryu Ishii, Kiyotaka Inagaki (Screenplay), Kobo Abe (Original Story)
Starring: Masatoshi Nagase, Tadanobu Asano, Koichi Sato, Ayana Shiramoto, Yuko Nakamura
This is based on a novel by Kobo Abe that was published in 1973. First seen at Berlinale 2024.
Synopsis: A photographer named “Myself” spots a man with a cardboard box over his head venturing around Tokyo and writing down what he sees through a peephole. Inspired to do the same thing, “Myself” dons a box himself but a variety of people try to tempt “Myself” from his new lifestyle…
This section has some top titles that have been given remasters. Both Japanese ones are being put out for home distribution by Third Window Films on Blu-ray.
逆噴射家族 「Gyakufunsha kazoku」
Release Date: June 23rd, 1984
Running Time: 106 mins.
Director: Sogo Ishii
Cinematographer: Masaki Tamura
Writer: Sogo Ishii, Fumio Konami, Yoshinori Kobayashi, (Screenplay),
Starring: Katsuya Kobayashi, Mitsuko Baisho, Yoshiki Arizono, Yuki Kudo, Hitoshi Ueki, Kazuhiko Kishino, Akira Ogata, Toyoko Koumi,
The Crazy Family comes from Gakuryu Ishii, a filmmaker whose films contained a punk ethos and helped define some of the cyber punk 80s aesthetic. He is responsible for Crazy Thunder Road, but branched out into a variety of genres like serial killer thrillers (Angel Dust) and existential apocalypses (Isn’t Anyone Alive, another Third Window Films release from years gone by) and mainstream drama Bitter Honey. He’s a film professor now and has earned his stripes. This was one of the films produced by the Directors Company (1982-1992) and distributed by the Art Theatre Guild (ATG), a production company that operated between 1961 and 1984 which made films by New Wave directors like Shohei Imamura and Koji Wakamatsu.
The fact that Gakuryu (formerly Sogo) Ishii was one of the last directors to have a release handled by ATG is fitting since he represented a new generation, that included Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Shinji Somai, who emerged with the Directors Company. Many of that new generations films were on tour around the world over the last couple of years and this year, too.
Here’s a famous clip from the film:
Synopsis: The Kobayashi family consists of hard-working Katsuhiko, his loving wife Saeko and their two kids, Erika and Masaki and their pet dog. They have hit a patch of good fortune. Erika has got a record company audition while Katsushiko has finally got them a nice house in the suburbs far away from their tiny, cramped Tokyo apartment. Alas, things start to fall apart (almost literally) since the suburban house of their dreams is infested by termites and their unwanted grandfather Yasukuni moves in and starts getting World War II flashbacks. The family begin to fall to pieces as well as Masaki studies obsessively for an exam and Erika is equally obsessed with her audition. Katsuhiko becomes so worried about his family’s “sickness” that he thinks can only be cured by boarding up the doors and windows and getting everybody to perform group suicide… This is the start of a fight in which everyday objects become weapons in a battle for survival…
人魚伝説 「Ningyo Densetsu」
Release Date: April 14th, 1984
Duration: 110 mins.
Director: Toshiharu Ikeda
Writer: Takyuya Nishioka (Screenplay), Kazuhiko Miyaya (Original Story)
Starring: Mari Shirato, Jun Eto, Kentaro Shimizu, Junko Miyashita, Takashi Kanda, Hiroko Seki,
Film fans went crazy for this when this re-emerged into public consciousness a couple of years ago and comes amid a wave of new appreciation of the works of filmmakers from the 80s like Shinji Somai and Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
Synopsis: Migiwa is an ama diver whose husband s killed for witnessing a murder. Caught in the middle of powerful local figures and yakuza and framed for her husband’s murder, she seeks revenge…
Carte Blanche 30 Years of Étrange
Noémie Merlant, actor who appeared in Paris, 13th District (2021) and Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) and the upcoming reboot of the Emmanuelle franchise, which will have its world premiere at the San Sebastián International Film Festival in September, has a love of genre films and picked this as one of her titles for this section of the festival.
殺し屋1 「Koroshiya 1」
Release Date: December 22nd, 2001
Duration: 128 mins.
Director: Takashi Miike
Writer: Sakichi Sato (Screenplay), Hideo Yamamoto (Original Creator),
Starring: Nao Omori, Tadanobu Asano, Shinya Tsukamoto, Alien Sun, Sabu, Susumu Terajima, Shun Sugata, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Jun Kunimura,
This has been subject to a 4K remaster.
Takashi Miike’s reputation was practically made between this film and Audition as he came to prominence in the late 90s/early 2000s. So notorious were the works that they were talked about on television and compared to Video Nasties, thus securing their cult reputation.
The actual experience is funny, gruesome, and horrifying and has a stunner ending on the level of Cure.
Synopsis: Anjo, a sadistic yakuza boss, is murdered and his body vanished by a clean up crew who frame. Kakihara, his sadomasochistic underling, searches for him and tortures people for information. This puts Kakihara on a collision course with Ichi, a young man whose innocent and cowardly demeanour hides a psychotic and bloodthirsty rage…
Here’s my past coverage of the event: