@Courtesy of Kino Films There are a few times when the very first few images of a movie are able to set the tone of it. This is the case of this psychological melodrama directed by Kichitarô Negishi. The beauty of a red umbrella passing through an aisle on a rainy morning. The simplicity of…
The word Serendipity stands for “the faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident,” it’s basically a blessing in disguise. The film directed by Akiko Ohku seems to explore the darker aspect of life’s fortuitous events. The destinies of the characters involved in the story, rather than finding something good accidentally, traverse unexpected sorrows and someway…
The prodigious documentary directed by Amélie Ravalec focuses on a time of profound social change in the Land of the Rising Sun: the Sixties. Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers portrays how the turbulent times of the postwar era inspired an artistic explosion across the Nipponic nation, with the emergence of a revolutionary scene of avant-garde artists who…
GKIDS presents a new anime film, that is based on an autobiographical manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto best known for Chainsaw Man: Look Back. The picture is directed by Kiyotaka Oshiyama, who also curated the character designs. He adapted the 143-page one-shot web manga that was published on Shueisha’s Shōnen Jump+ and that, upon its release,…
©PKFP PARTNERS Performing Kaoru’s Funeral : When a screenwriter named Kaoru dies suddenly, she leaves behind a tangle of relations who are all pulled together for the final act in her life: performing her funeral. The chief mourner is her ex-husband, Jun. A failed actor, he drifts around Tokyo as a driver for callgirls. He…
©Courtesy of Japan Cuts The title of the most “kawaii” film from this year’s Japan Cuts undoubtedly goes to director Tetsuya Chihara‘s debut feature, Ice Cream Fever. This innovative film intricately depicts the intersecting longings, affections, and obsessions of four women living in Tokyo. The project showcases Chihara’s keen artistic vision of finding beauty in…
©Courtesy of Japan Cuts The centerpiece film of this year’s Japan Cuts, Shadow of Fire is the third feature in Shinya Tsukamoto’s “War” trilogy, following his previous works Fires on the Plain and Killing. Renowned for his mastery in creating intense atmospheres and exploring visceral subject matter, Tsukamoto once again draws audiences into the harrowing world…
©Courtesy of Japan Cuts The Making of a Japanese : Located in one of Tokyo’s sprawling suburbs, Tsukado is one of the largest public elementary schools in Japan with nearly 1,000 students. In the nation’s unique educational system, children are tasked to run their own school in order to teach communal values and how to play…
©Courtesy of Japan Cuts Between the White Key and the Black Key :Music sweeps through 1980s Ginza, a glamorous and dangerous neighborhood where well heeled Tokyoites, artists and thugs all sway together under the power of jazz. Sosuke Ikematsu stars in this spiraling, splintering, intersecting Mobius strip of a film based on the memoirs of…
The 2024 Japan Cuts line-up features an impressive documentary on the past, present and future of sexually explicit art prints known as shunga. Director Junko Hirata has been exceptionally meticulous in bringing together the human stories that mark this Nipponic art form, along with a chronicle of the preservation of these works and public display in…
The first thought that comes to mind with the term “Blue Period” is Picasso’s body of work that spans from 1901 to 1904, which had a prevalence use of blue-green shades. But the film that is part of Japan Cuts, called Blue Period, is not about the established Spanish painter of the 20th century. The movie…
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