Full Strike (全力扣殺, Derek Kwok & Henri Wong, 2015)

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A former badminton champ begins to rediscover herself after being permanently banned for bullying behaviour when charged with coaching a bunch of former bank robbers in Derek Kwok & Henri Wong’s zany sports comedy Full Strike (全力扣殺). Dedicated to “all the beautiful losers”, the film is less about literal winning as it is about learning to turn one’s life around in moments of profound despair and draw strength from even non-literal victories in simply refusing to be looked down or belittled.

It’s ironic in a sense that Dan (Ekin Cheng Yee-Kin), Kun (Wilfred Lau Ho-Lung), and Chiu (Edmond Leung Hon-Man) became bank robbers because they didn’t want to be bullied having grown up as friendless orphans. Former badminton champ Kau Sau (Josie Ho Chiu-Yee), meanwhile, was such as tyrannical diva that she gained the nickname “The Beast” before being banned because of her unsportsmanlike behaviour and treatment of her long-suffering assistant. But cast out of the sports world, she’s become a dejected layabout not quite working in her brother’s restaurant and otherwise hiding out from the world. Her life changes when she’s publicly mocked after running into her former assistant who has since gone to take her position as a reigning champion. Running out into the night, she spots a shuttle-cock-shaped meteor and is chased to a badminton club by what she assumes is an “alien” but might have just been a frightened homeless man.

In any case, she takes it as a sign she should pick up a racket once again which as Dan later points out she probably wanted to do anyway and was just waiting for an excuse. He can’t explain why he chose the unlikely path of becoming a badminton player to help him turn over a new leaf after leaving prison but reflects that perhaps you don’t really need a reason only the desire to change. Dan, Kun, and Chiu all developed disabilities as a result of their life of crime but slowly discover that they can actually help them on the court in a literal process of making the most of their life experiences no matter how negative they might have assumed them to be while Kau Sau similarly regains her self esteem while acknowledging the destructive patterns of her previous behaviour careful never to bully her new teammates as they all square off against her bullying cousin “nipple sucking Cheung” (Ronald Cheng Chung-Kei) who tries to use his newfound wealth to cover up a lack of skill by hiring Kau Sau’s old teammate. 

Cheung is also trying to overcome low self-esteem and is later forced to realise that becoming a champion won’t really change that much about how he sees himself, though apparently still relying on an ever capable middle-aged woman to fight (literally) his battles for him. Meanwhile, the gang are coopted by a media mogul hoping to make an inspirational documentary about them but also manipulating their lives and hyper fixating on their criminal pasts to the point of staging a fake arrest as they enter the stadium for a competition. Doubting the chances of success in setting up new lives for themselves as badminton players, Chiu is drawn back towards a life of crime while feeling somewhat distanced from the team as a tentative romance between Kau Sau and Dan seems to fall otherwise flat.

A throwback to classic mou lei tau nonsense comedy, the zany gags come thick and fast but are at times over reliant on low humour while the central premise of staking everything on an “unexciting” game like badminton perhaps wears a little thin by the time it gets to the high stakes finale with the heroes fighting twin battles squaring off against their traumatic pasts rather than the literal opponents in front of them. Winning becomes a kind of irrelevance when the contest was within the self. Each rediscovering the spark of life, the players rediscover the will to live while bonding as a team and sticking to their training in pursuit of their goal. Kwok and Wong lay it on a little thick with the martial arts parody in the uphill battle to master badminton but otherwise lend a poignant sense of warmth and genuine goodwill in sympathy with the underdogs’ quest if not quite to win then to own their loserdom on their on terms in reclaiming their self-respect and dignity. 

Full Strike is available to stream in the UK until 30th June as part of this year’s Odyssey: A Chinese Cinema Season.

Original trailer (Traditional Chinese / English subtitles)

JAPAN CUTS Announces 2023 Lineup

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Following last year’s hiatus, JAPAN CUTS makes a very welcome return for 2023 once again presenting a selection of the best of recent Japanese cinema at Japan Society New York from July 26 to Aug. 6. This year’s Cut Above award goes to the actor Yuya Yagira who will be appearing in person to present Under the Turquoise Sky alongside director KENTARO.

Opening Film: THE FIRST SLAM DUNK

The first feature length film in 33 years based on the classic high school basketball-themed manga also marks the directorial debut of original author Takehiko Inoue. Following Ryota Miyagi as he takes centre stage at the Inter-High Championships, the movie won the Japan Academy Film Prize award for Best Animation.

Centerpiece Film: Under the Turquoise Sky

Introduction and Q&A with Director KENTARO and Actor Yuya Yagira; Followed by Centerpiece Party

Soulful road movie starring Yuya Yagira as the spoiled grandson of a wealthy businessman who is sent to Mongolia in search of the daughter his grandfather left behind during the second world war. Directorial debut of the actor KENTARO.

Closing Film: The Three Sisters of Tenmasou Inn

Tearjerking melodrama directed by Ryuhei Kitamura and adapted from the manga by Tsutomu Takahashi in which a traditional Japanese inn becomes the waystation between life and death. A young woman (Non) arriving after a car accident is unexpectedly reunited with the half-sisters (Yuko Oshima & Mugi Kadowaki) she never knew she had.

TRIBUTE TO RYUICHI SAKAMOTO: Tokyo Melody: A Film about Ryuichi Sakamoto

Screening on 16mm

Opening comments by Akiko Yano; Screening followed by a Q&A with Director Elizabeth Lennard

French-Japanese TV documentary co-production directed by Elizabeth Lennard following Sakamoto during the production of his 1984 album Ongaku Zukan.

Best Wishes to All

Horror film produced by Takashi Shimizu in which a young woman begins to question her reality after visiting her grandparents’ home and discovering what brings them happiness.

Convenience Story

Surreal drama based on a story by Japan Times critic Mark Schilling and directed by Satoshi Miki starring Ryo Narita as a blocked writer who finds himself drawn into a strange alternate combini universe. Review.

Father of the Milky Way Railroad 

Prestige drama based on the life of legendary poet and children’s author Kenji Miyazawa (Night on the Galactic Railroad) starring Masaki Suda and Koji Yakusho as his supportive father.

From the End of the World

The first feature in eight years from Casshern’s Kazuaki Kiriya, this pre-apocalyptic drama takes place in the two weeks before the end of the world and follows a young woman (Aoi Ito) who has the power to stop the disaster.

Hand

Nikkatsu Roman Porno homage from Daigo Matsui adapted from the novel by Nao-Cola Yamazaki following a young woman with a fetish for older men whose photos she collects in a scrapbook.

I Am A Comedian

Documentary following comedian Daisuke Muramoto who was once a popular figure on Japanese television but soon found his bookings cancelled when he began including controversial topics such as the Fukushima nuclear disaster and discrimination against ethnic Koreans into his act. Review.

I Am What I Am

Empathetic social drama starring Toko Miura as a young asexual woman who struggles to find acceptance for her lack of interest in sex and romance in a society largely defined by marriage. Review.

MONDAYS: See you “this” week! 

Witty workplace timeloop comedy in which a collection of office workers are forced to relive the same dull working week several times over while trying to figure out how to escape their corporate purgatory.

Plastic

Latest film from Daisuke Miyazaki in which a young couple bond over their shared love of a ’70s glam rock band only to break up when the demands of their lives place a strain on their relationship.

Single8

Charming teen summer adventure movie set in 1978 in which a group of high school students inspired by the success of Star Wars get together to make a sci-fi movie for the school cultural festival.

The Fish Tale

Quirky dramedy from Shuichi Okita starring Non in a role inspired by the real life fish-obsessive Masayuki Miyazawa, aka Sakana-kun. Review.

The Legend & Butterfly

Introduced by and followed by a Q&A with director Keishi Otomo

Lavishly produced historical epic starring Takuya Kimura as Oda Nobunaga and Haruka Ayase as his wife Nohime who find themselves falling in love while plotting the unification of Japan and dreaming of a new life in a distant land.

Wandering

Adapted from the novel by Yu Nagira, the latest from from Lee Sang-il is a morally complex drama in which a university student is accused of kidnapping after taking in a neglected little girl.

Winny 

Drama from Yusaku Matsumoto (Noise) contemplating the implications of the legal case surrounding file sharing programme Winny which saw its developer prosecuted for aiding and abetting copyright theft.

Amiko

An unusual little girl living in an idyllic Hiroshima village retreats into fantasy when her family unit begins to crumble in the wake of an unexpected tragedy in the debut feature from Yusuke Morii.

J005311

Minimalist directorial debut from actor Hiroki Kono who stars as a petty thief agreeing to drive a fleeing salaryman in exchange for a million yen.

People Who Talk to Plushies Are Kind 

Empathetic drama adapted from the novel by Ao Omae in which sensitive university students talk through their worries with a series of stuffed toys to avoid burdening others with their troubles. Review.

Saga Saga

Drama in which a former actress plagued by strange dreams reassesses past and future while pursued by a mysterious woman and bonding with an anxious teenage girl.

Sanka: Nomads of the Mountain 

Drama set in the 1960s in which a young man becomes friends with a nomadic people after moving to his grandmother’s village from Tokyo.

When Morning Comes, I Feel Empty

Followed by a Q&A with Director Yuho Ishibashi

Zeitgeisty indie drama in which a young woman struggles to move forward with her life after discovering the corporate world was not for her. Review.

JAPAN CUTS 2023 runs at Japan Society New York July 26 to Aug. 6. Tickets are on sale now for Japan Society Members and open for the general public on June 27. Full details for all the films are available via the official website and you can also keep up with all the latest details by following the festival’s official Letterboxd, Instagram, Facebook page and Twitter account.

I Am What I Am (そばかす, Shinya Tamada, 2022)

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Part way through Shinya Tamada’s empathetic social drama I Am What I Am (そばかす, Sobakasu), the heroine’s sister remarks that she wishes she could live as if the world did not concern her as she assumes her sister does. In many ways, it’s an incredibly ironic statement because Kasumi (Toko Miura) finds herself constantly at the mercy of a world which refuses to acknowledge her, certain that the truth she offers freely of herself must be a lie or at least a cover for some other kind of shame. 

The fact is that Kasumi is asexual and has no interest in love or dating. As the film opens, she appears to be on some kind of awkward double date but seems isolated and aloof, as if deliberately left out of a conversation as she will be several times throughout the course of the film because of the centrality of “romance” in most people’s lives. She’s constantly asked about her “type”, or what she finds attractive in a man with a clear presumption of heteronormativity in also in play. Not wanting to get into it, Kasumi finds herself just nodding along offering some vague, stereotypical comment to smooth things over. When one of the men does strike up a more interesting conversation to which Kasumi can enthusiastically contribute, he doesn’t even listen to her but abruptly gets up to chase her friend. She ends up going to ramen bar on her own to decompress before running the gauntlet at home between mum, sister, and grandma who are all very confused by her lack of interest in marriage. 

Kasumi’s mother tells her that she has to get married someday, unable to accept that not to do so is also valid choice. Whether she does this because she feels embarrassed to have a 30-year-old unmarried daughter fearing that it reflects negatively on her parenting, is genuinely worried that Kasumi is lonely and unable to progress romantically because of shyness, or has a practical concern that she’ll be alone when she’s old, remains unclear though it does seem that her quest to marry Kasumi off is more to do with herself than her daughter. But with grandma apparently having had three divorces of her own, Kasumi’s sister Natsumi (Marika Ito) paranoid her husband’s cheating on her while she’s pregnant, and the parents’ marriage strained by her father’s depression it’s only natural she may wonder what’s so great about marriage anyway. 

In any case, though Kasumi constantly tells people quite directly that the issue is she has never experienced romantic desire and is fine the way she is they refuse to believe her assuming either that she is shy, stubbornly rebellious, or as her sister later suggests, gay. “No one would judge you for that,” she spits out less than sympathetically even while quite clearly judging her for this, as if it denies a basic fact of biology as unthinkable as someone claiming not to breathe the air. Her friend, Yashiro, who introduces her to a new job at a kindergarten, reveals that people did indeed judge him for being gay which is why he’s returned to his hometown. Not even he really believes Kasumi though eventually develops a sense of solidarity with her when her attempt to update Cinderella for a new, more inclusive generation leaves her both exposed and humiliated with a conservative politician visiting the school remarking that he thinks “diversity” is all very well but it only confuses the children and perhaps they should learn about it after developing “solid values”. 

The irony is that Kasumi is remarkably unjudgemental and accepting of all those around her, Yashiro remarking that he just knew she would be a safe person to disclose his sexuality to while she also bats nary an eyelid on reconnecting with a middle school friend (Atsuko Maeda) who turns out to have become a famous porn star in Tokyo only keen to protect her from the unwanted attention of star struck teenage boys and the accusatory eyes of those around them. Each of her attempts to find platonic friendship also fails because sooner or later romance gets in the way. She hits it off with the guy at the omiai marriage meeting her mother tricked her into attending because he also reveals that he has no desire to date or get married, but as much as she thinks she’s found a kindred spirit it turns out that his issue was a more conventional reluctance to enter a serious relationship. When he develops feelings and she has explain again that she meant it when she said she had no interest in romance he takes it personally, insisting that she’s lying and resentful that she doesn’t find him attractive. An attempt to get flat with a female friend also hits the rocks when she decides to get back together with an ex instead. 

When questioned about dating activities and giving the unoriginal answer of the cinema, Kasumi had mentioned a fondness for Hollywood remake of the War of the Worlds starring Tom Cruise. She later elaborates on her statement that she likes the way he runs to explain that in most of his other films, Tom Cruise is usually running towards something but in this one he’s just a regular guy running from trouble which something she can relate to because she’s been running away all of her life too. Yet the unexpected discovery that her mini stand over Cinderella might have done some good after all along with encountering someone who might indeed be a kindred spirit gives her the courage to start moving forward, less concerned by the world and more confident in herself. An empathetic tale of one woman’s attempt to live her life the way she wants frustrated by a conformist society, Tamada’s gentle slice of life drama is a refreshingly empathetic in its fierce defence of its heroine’s right to chase happiness in the way that best suits her.

I Am What I Am screened as part of this year’s Nippon Connection.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Images: ©2022 “I am what I am” film partners

Day Zero (Joey De Guzman, 2022)

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“This has been a really catastrophic day” according to a sympathetic, if not very reassuring, voice on the radio at the conclusion of Joey De Guzman’s zombie horror Day Zero. As the title suggests, the film takes place over 24 hours and marks the beginning but not end of the outbreak which will continue long after the end credits roll with ordinary people desperately trying to escape the seemingly endless stream of undead assailants. 

Perfectly placed to face off against them is Emon (Brandon Vera), though he’s spent the last few years in prison for serious assault resulting in permanent disability. Emon is a former US special forces soldier and has apparently been a model prisoner so has won his parole and is hoping to return home to his wife Sheryl (Mary Jean Lastimosa), and daughter Jane (Freya Fury Montierro), who is deaf, but his hopes are dashed when he’s surrounded by other prisoners who attack him when he sticks up for his timid friend Timoy (Pepe Herrera) at which point his release is cancelled. As it turns out, that doesn’t matter very much because of an outbreak of suspected Dengue fever which has mutated causing corpses to come back to life and attack people. The warden apparently had a moment of compassion before becoming a zombie and opened the gates telling the prisoners to escape and allowing Emon and Timoy to try to make their way back to Sheryl and Jane.

Like the similarly themed Train to Busan, the narrative arc is paternal redemption as Emon must reclaim his role as a father by becoming a man who can protect his family even if it’s true that it’s the same self-destructive forces, his capacity for violence, which enable him to do so. Even the warden had remarked on Emon’s intimidating physicality admitting that it’s unsurprising the other inmates largely leave him alone while his attempt to impress Sheryl by telling her how some guys hassling Timoy had walked away when they saw him coming backfires as she sees it as evidence that he really hasn’t changed and is still wedded to a destructive code of masculinity founded on dominance and violence. The implications of the fact he learned these skills as a member of the US military otherwise goes largely uncritiqued as does the presence of heavy weaponry including an assault rifle in the home of a local police officer.

Then again, police chief Oscar (Joey Marquez) later becomes a secondary enemy after turning on some of the other survivors when someone close to him is zombified though it’s Sheryl, not Emon, who must eventually contend with him. The two men present conflicting visions of fatherhood, one protective and the vengeful prepared to kill a child just to get revenge against her father. In any case, Emon must learn to channel his violence in a more positive direction by killing as many of the zombified locals as possible to clear a path for Sheryl and Jane to escape the apartment building where the family have become trapped. Though he may eventually be able to reclaim his paternity, it’s also true the problematic violence that allows him to do so may prevent him from reintegrating into his family in a more “normal” post-outbreak world. 

The film doesn’t have much time to go into its zombie mythology save the allusion to Dengue fever, but does give them the novel quality of falling asleep when not otherwise engaged allowing the survivors to escape through a life or death game of grandmother’s footsteps. This leaves Jane additionally vulnerable because of her disability but also grants her an advantage as the family can communicate through sign language to avoid waking the zombies. Most of the action is however left to Emon who staggers through darkened corridors armed with an assault rifle, pistol, knife, and finally just his fists facing off against the zombie hoards hoping to hold back the tide so his family can escape to look for safety and stability. Mostly serious in tone, the film allows a few moments of dark comedy such as a teenage survivor’s attempt to take care of a zombie using a rechargeable drill frustrated by its battery life, but mostly relies on the claustrophobic atmosphere of the darkened apartment block and heartwarming story of familial reconciliation along with intense zombie action to carry itself through.

Day Zero is available on Digital now in the US and released on DVD & blu-ray July 11 courtesy of Well Go USA.

Thorns Of Beauty (恋のいばら, Hideo Jojo, 2023)

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“Can two women who like the same guy become best friends?” A loose remake of Pang Ho-Cheung’s 2004 Hong Kong comedy Beyond our Ken, Hideo Jojo’s Thorns of Beauty (恋のいばら, Koi no Ibara) finds a jilted ex teaming up with the current squeeze against a no good guy who has compromising photos of each of them he could potentially expose online anytime he feels like it. Not quite everything is as it first appears, yet as they plot revenge against the caddish Kentaro (Keisuke Watanabe) the pair begin to discover a bond that runs deeper than their shared quest for validation.

Momo (Honoka Matsumoto), a mousy librarian, first accosts Riko (Tina Tamashiro), an aspiring dancer who works at a nightclub, on a bus, staring at her intensely until she finally removes her earphones. In truth, Momo never quite shakes an edge of possibly dangerous eccentricity and there is always an underlying doubt that she is telling the truth when she explains to Riko that she and Kentaro were previously an item and he has private photographs of her she fears he may intend to post online. For whatever reason, Riko decides to hear her out and though insisting that Kentaro’s not that sort of guy seems to think there may be something in it. A photographer by trade, Kentaro has in the past photographed her without her consent claiming that he spends all day photographing things other people find beautiful and wanted capture something for himself in his free time. 

Much of the story is filtered through a version of Sleeping Beauty that Momo finds at the library where she works. As the two women bond in their shared quest for revenge, Jojo often plays with the image of them as “witches” lighting them in an eerie green while they dress in black with hats that cast shadows over their faces. Yet we also find ourselves wondering who the sleeping beauty is in this scenario, an unexpected candidate turning out to be Kentaro’s elderly grandmother who has dementia and spends her days collecting shiny things to build a vast fairytale castle. Momo comes to see herself as hoping to wake Riko from a moment of romantic fantasy with a man who in the end doesn’t really care for her which she likely knows but has allowed the relationship to continue mainly out of a sense of inertia. 

But in teaming up with Riko, Momo also begins to awaken from her own low self-esteem in believing herself to be inferior to someone like her. There are times when we wonder if this is going to turn into a Single White Female-style bid at identity theft as Momo seems to idolise her new friend possibly planning to eliminate her and reclaim her place in Kentaro’s life. In the end, however, both women are throughly awakened from their romantic illusions in realising that Kentaro is indeed that sort of person with a hard disk full of pictures of other women just like them while their friendship also begins to take on a distinctly homoerotic quality that clearly runs beyond simple friendship or female solidarity. 

As Momo reflects, Sleeping Beauty is a passive heroine who is asleep for the entirety of her own story. When she’s born, the fairies give her various gifts that turn her into a stereotypical figure of idealised femininity and leave her with nothing to want or strive for. Momo wonders if that doesn’t make her a little boring and if Sleeping Beauty actually wanted any of those things or in the end they were just burden to her. Momo would only be grateful for things she actually wanted like the ability to totally become herself, while Riko reflects on a “past life” as a woman living happily with her two sons by a lake in Switzerland. Cutting through the thorns of their illusions, they awaken each other to a sense of possibility each of them may long have forgotten. Strangely poignant in the touching quality of its central romance along with fairytale allusions, the film in the end allows both women to reclaim an image of themselves from a man who tried to take it from them without ever really bothering to look at it. 

Thorns Of Beauty screened as part of this year’s Nippon Connection.

International trailer (English subtitles)

Lonely Castle in the Mirror (かがみの孤城, Keiichi Hara, 2022)

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Kokoro isn’t “lying” when she complains of a stomach ache to avoid going to school, it’s just that it’s the anxiety she feels at the prospect that is making her physically ill. Based on a novel by Mizuki Tsujimura, Keiichi Hara’s fantasy-infused anime Lonely Castle in the Mirror (かがみの孤城, Kagami no Kojo) explores the effects of school phobia in uniting a series of teenagers who each for one reason or another have turned away from education often because of bullying or the rigidity of the contemporary schools system. 

As we discover, Kokoro (Ami Toma) gradually stopped going to school after her life was made a misery by manipulative popular girl Sanada who operates a small clique of bullying minions yet appears all sweetness and light with the teaching staff. Unable to fully explain what’s been going on, Kokoro largely remains at home while her understanding mother (Kumiko Aso) explores opportunities in alternative teaching and tries to support her as best she can. Though the film is very sympathetic towards Kokoro and the children in insisting that it isn’t their fault they can’t attend school but the fault of an unaccommodating system, it perhaps misses an opportunity to fully commit to educational diversity when the end goal becomes getting Koroko back in class undaunted by the presence of her bully. 

Nevertheless, it offers her another outlet when the mirror in her bedroom suddenly becomes a magic portal that transports her to a fantasy fairytale castle where she meets six other school phobic teens who are all dealing with similar issues. A young girl in wolf mask informs her that they have until the end of the school year to locate a key which if turned will grant one, but only one, of their wishes. When the key is turned, they will all lose their memory so it’s unclear if they will know whether or not the wish was granted but in any case are left with a choice between achieving their dreams and the new friendships they’ve formed at the castle. The issues that plague each of them are various from bullying to dealing with grief, purposelessness, a feeling of not fitting in, parental expectations, and an implication of sexual abuse at the hands of a close relative. As the Wolf Queen tells them “collaboration is beautiful” and it is the connections they forge with each other that give them strength to go back out into the world while each vowing to pay it forward and make sure to stand up to injustice by protecting other vulnerable kids like themselves when they’re able to. 

Even so, Kokoro takes her time on even deciding whether or not to use the mirror and for some reason the castle is only open business hours Japan time. If they stay past five they’ll be eaten by wolves! Many things about the fantasy land do not add up and Kokoro begins to worry that it’s all taking place in her head, her new friends aren’t really real, and she’s being driven out of her mind by the stress of being the victim of a campaign of harassment she can’t even escape by staying home minding her own business. But through her experiences she is finally able to gain the courage to speak out against her bullying while supported by her steadfast mother and an earnest teacher who is keen to find the best solution for each of her pupils rather than trying to force them back into a one size fits all educational system. 

In any case, Kokoro’s quest is to find her way back through the looking glass to rediscover her sense of self and take her place in mainstream society free of the sense of loneliness and inferiority she had felt while being bullied by Sanada and her clique of popular girls though in an ironic touch the film does not extend the same empathy to her or ask why Sanada has an apparent need to need to pick a target to destroy. A variable animation quality and occasional clash of styles sometimes frustrate what is at heart a poignant tale of finding strength in solidarity and learning to take care of each other in a world powered more by compassion than an unthinking devotion to the status quo.

Lonely Castle in the Mirror screened as part of this year’s Nippon Connection.

International trailer (English subtitles)

To The Supreme! (もっと超越した所へ。, Santa Yamagishi, 2022)

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Is it worth staying in a dissatisfying relationship just so that you’ll have someone to carry your rice? The idealist in all of us might want to say no, but it’s undeniably a strong argument. The four heroines of Santa Yamagishi’s To the Supreme! (もっと超越した所へ。, Motto Chouetsushita Tokoro e), adapted from the stage play by Shuko Nemoto, find themselves asking just this question as their relationships with a series of narcissistic, selfish men reach a crisis point on the eve of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Opening in early 2020, the film finds costume designer Machiko (Atsuko Maeda) reconnecting with middle school friend Reito (Fuma Kikuchi) who abruptly announces he’s moving in because he’s worried about her given the tone of her late night tweets. Former actress turned variety star Suzu (Shuri) lives with her gay best friend, Tommy (Yudai Chiba), after ending a 10-year relationship with petulant former child star Shintaro (Takahiro Miura) who is now seeing sex worker Nanase (Mei Kurokawa). Miwa (Marika Ito), meanwhile, is in a relationship with vacuous hipster Taizo (Reiji Okamoto) who spent an exorbitant amount of money on gold grills as a present and seems to be very concerned about this new virus going around. 

None of these men have a full-time job and all are (or were at one time or another) supported by their partner who is shouldering the responsibility for rent and domestic bills singlehandedly, not that there’s anything wrong with that in itself if were not such a blatant attempt to take advantage of the women they claim to love. In a flashback to 2018, we discover that Miwa was previously in a relationship with Reito and she’s carried on giving him pocket money every month for the last two years despite having moved on romantically. In his sudden announcement to Machiko that he’ll be stying by her side for the foreseeable future, it’s difficult not to wonder if he’s simply looking for a free place to stay especially as he largely continues to mooch off her while doing so claiming his live streaming channel is sure to take off soon. 

Shintaro had similarly been supported by Suzu during the time they lived together and put on a big show of letting her kept the apartment when he left even though the apartment was hers anyway because it was her name on the lease and she paid the rent while he wasn’t working. More practically minded, Suzu had been taking jobs that paid in light entertainment and variety only to be branded a sellout by Shintaro who was nevertheless jealous of her success. A former child star, he feels humiliated taking bit parts and even working as an extra but talks a big game to Nanase whom he often brands “stupid” and looks down on for being a sex worker. He makes her shout out that he’s the best actor as she climaxes and quizzes her about foreign directors when she says she struggles to watch the films of Shunji Iwai because they make her wonder if there’s something wrong with her eyesight. When she genuinely tells him that she enjoyed his “performance” after spotting him as an extra in a movie, he tells her that a sex worker’s opinion doesn’t count despite having been paying for just that kind of validation the entire time. 

Suzu runs into a similar problem in developing feelings for Tommy who rejects her in an incredibly insensitive way when she tries to make a move on him. During a heated argument, Tommy yells at Suzu for ruining all his plans because he wants to start a family and was intending to marry a woman Suzu being a prime candidate. The film flirts with but does not really get into Tommy’s internalised homophobia in which he seems to regard his sexuality as a barrier to achieving the life he wants given the still conservative culture has not yet legalised same sex marriage and makes life difficult for same sex partners who want to raise children together. He lets himself off the hook suggesting that his sexuality permits him to be “selfish” while admitting that he too has taken advantage of women’s feelings for him without really giving much thought to their own. 

Taizo is much the same. On the surface, it looks like he is genuinely solicitous of Miwa though it’s really more that he doesn’t want to get sick himself or be responsible for looking after someone who is ill. When Miwa goes to the hospital thinking she may be pregnant, she gets some other distressing news but all Taizo can do is focus on himself not wanting to accept the responsibility of becoming a father. When she looks to him for comfort, he fixates on his own relief. These men are selfish, self-involved, proud and fragile in their masculinity requiring the women in their lives to take care of all their basic needs without lifting a finger to help. But the film doesn’t quite let the women off the hook either, a sudden coup de théâtre bringing them together to reconsider making clear that they themselves enable the men’s behaviour by forgiving them if in part because they expect little better and having someone around who could theoretically help out, for example by carrying heavy bags of rice home from the store, might make life easier even if they never actually do it. Witty and slickly edited, Yamagishi ends with a sudden intrusion of eijanaika dancers as if literally to say “what’s wrong with that?”, which might present a rather cynical view of contemporary romantic relationships but one that is also admittedly difficult to argue with. 

To The Supreme! screened as part of this year’s Nippon Connection.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Mountain Woman (山女, Takeshi Fukunaga, 2022)

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A young woman charged with disposing of the corpse of an infant has only a few words to impart as she lowers its body to the river, “Don’t be born human in your next life.” Set in late 18th century Tohoku where famine ravages the land, Takeshi Fukunaga’s bleak fable Mountain Woman (山女, Yama Onna) sees humanity in extremis pushed to its most inhumane but also offers refuge in spirituality and a retreat to a less sophisticated existence. 

Calling this existence sophisticated might be a stretch, but there is more than a little constraint attached to the idea of community in this typical farming village in a feudal society. Bad weather has produced two poor harvests, and the villagers are beginning to feel desperate. As the film opens, a woman goes through a painful and traumatic labour only for the midwife to silently offer a cloth to her husband (Takashi Yamanaka) who ignores her pleas and smothers the child. They have nothing to feed it, and perhaps a part of him thinks it’s kinder this way. A young woman, Rin (Anna Yamada), waits outside for the inevitable and accepts a few coins to spirit the baby’s body away. Rin’s family is shunned by the other villagers because of a crime her ancestors apparently committed, and it’s for this reason that they deal with the dead. 

When it comes to handing out the rice rations, the village chief gives Rin’s father Ihei (Masatoshi Nagase) only half but justifies it as a kindness explaining that he is entitled to nothing because his family owns no land (it was taken from them because of their ancestral crime) but even those tainted with the legacy of criminality are still considered part of the community and so they are doing what they can. It’s this liminal status that begins to eat away at Rin. She’s expected to support a community that as she later says considers her less than human and gives her nothing in return. When her father is caught stealing from the rice reserves, she selflessly claims responsibility and Ihei lets her, savagely beating his daughter in front of the village elders as if he thought that might be enough to settle the matter.

It’s at this point that Rin decides to leave the village, taking off her sandals and leaving them at the gate to imply that she has been “spirited away” though everyone likely knows she has walked into the mountains to die. Several times we see her gazing at Mt. Hayachine which is where locals believe souls go after death, praying to its goddess who was herself apparently a thief and sympathetic to those who find themselves in moments of desperation. As Rin tells her younger brother who is rejected by the community because he is blind, the goddess Hayachine accepts everyone the same, good or bad, rich or poor, unlike the hypocrites from the village desperate to find a scapegoat on whom to blame their plight. There is no longer any space for sentimentality in their lives. Listening only to an old shamaness who claims to be in contact with the gods, they squabble amongst themselves for what little that remains before deciding they must sacrifice a virgin girl to the Weather God to end the bad harvests. 

But what Rin discovers in the mountains is freedom in simplicity. Having broken a taboo in stepping beyond the Mountain God Stone, she is freed from the constraints of “civility” and later tells a man who has come to rescue her that she has no desire to return for only in the mountains has felt herself to be a true human being. She encounters another person there she assumes is the mysterious Mountain Man (Mirai Moriyama) and is kind to him though he never speaks and shows her only silent comfort. It may be this that later saves her life in a fable-like moment that frees her to return to the mountain and the only place she has ever felt alive, but also says something of the inhumanity of so-called civilisation that only in a “savage” land can she find comfort and serenity. Often shot in crushing darkness contrasted with the overwhelming light and beauty of the forest, Fukunaga’s bleak tale of human selfishness implies that only by shaking off the false sophistication of an oppressive “civilisation” can one discover true humanity.

Mountain Woman screened as part of this year’s Nippon Connection.

Original trailer (dialogue free)

Images: ©YAMAONNA FILM COMMITTEE

I Am a Comedian (アイアムアコメディアン, Fumiari Hyuga, 2022)

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Can comedy change the world? Daisuke Muramoto was once one of the most popular comedians in Japan appearing regularly on television screens across the nation, but the moment he began to joke about serious subjects such as the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, Comfort Women, discrimination against ethnic Koreans, and the US military bases on Okinawa, his bookings swiftly declined. Fumiari Hyuga’s documentary I am a Comedian (アイアムアコメディアン) in part explores the concept of freedom of speech in a nation in which taking about sensitive issues makes people uncomfortable and is also a portrait of a wounded idealist who in the end wants to make friends if only through “upsetting” people. 

Even Daisuke’s mother says he “upsets” her every time they meet so it’s often easier to communicate with him through text message and email. He can certainly be blunt and at times unthinking but it does not appear that he has any intention of hurting people’s feelings only of speaking his mind and perhaps encouraging them to think about things they’d rather ignore. It seems odd to him that the TV stations aren’t interested in his “controversial” comedy and especially NHK which is funded by the licence payer so doesn’t have to worry about upsetting sponsors. What it does have to worry about, however, is dealing with viewer complaints and so you can see why they’d rather self-censor than deal with aggressive telephone calls and letters from people who don’t agree with Daisuke’s point of view and are offended. 

Daisuke insists on his right to offend and plans to move to America where he thinks there is more freedom of speech and stand up comedy is necessarily “political”, but the inevitable paradox is that the issues he wants to comment on are all those of contemporary Japan. Talking to a Japanese comedian fluent in English who has been performing in New York for some years, he tries out a joke about Catholic priests but she just looks at him bemused not quite knowing what to say. Eventually she explains that though it’s not something people might be familiar with in Japan it’s been done to death in America and some comedians have based their entire careers on making jokes about the Catholic church so it’s not a good angle for his stateside debut. He may be able to speak his mind in America, but as an outsider as yet unfamiliar with the culture would he really have very much to say that isn’t simply recycled outrage aside from an actually quite funny Trump-related one liner? 

Getting a mad idea and diving straight in seems to be very on brand for Daisuke whose mother and school friends recall a sudden determination he had as boy to go to Brazil and become a footballer despite never having played football before and not belonging to any club (he started taking monthly lessons but soon gave up). His grand plan is to change Japanese society through laughter, confronting people with difficult issues and making them think so maybe they’ll take their new ideas to the ballot box. But most people, including his own father, think he’s being naive and if he really wants to change society he should get into politics instead. For all the support he receives from those who appreciate his frankness, there are also those who resent his attempt to inject his views into their entertainment. 

As for Daisuke himself, he admits to being a wounded soul occasionally insecure as a middle school dropout afraid that people look down on and laugh at him for unintended reasons. He recounts suicidal thoughts in his youth caused by his sense of futility and the fracturing relationship between his parents who later divorced. Several times, his routines turn dark and end on a worrying note of sadness as Daisuke abruptly retreats from the stage and thanks the audience for saving his life. After learning that his farewell tour will be cancelled because of the coronavirus, he cries backstage as if everything he has has suddenly been taken from him. In Japan he plays 1000-seater venues despite his controversial status, but finds himself once again playing tiny rooms in bars in an attempt to make it in America. Some of the things he says may upset people, but as he later suggests it’s less about liking or disliking than recognition and what he’s trying to do is see others equally, meeting them eye to eye with an unflinching gaze. Daisuke finds the humour in his tragedy and uses it as a reason to live like spotting a star in the darkness. Can comedy change the world? Maybe, or at least change the world within the man. 

I Am a Comedian screened as part of this year’s Nippon Connection.

International trailer (English subtitles)

Focus Hong Kong Returns to BFI Southbank 12th to 15th July

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Focus Hong Kong returns to the BFI this July with three highly anticipated recent releases and the long-awaited restoration of a 1980s classic.

Where the Wind Blows

Philip Yung’s long-awaited return after 2015’s Port of Call is a complex historical epic exploring the corruptions of colonialism as morally compromised cops Aaron Kwok and Tony Leung Chiu-wai forge dangerous connections with organised crime. Review.

A Guilty Conscience

A cynical lawyer’s existence is upended when a case he’d assumed would be easy ends in a bereaved mother being sent to prison for seventeen years for a crime she almost certainly did not commit in this often hilarious courtroom drama which puts social inequality on trial. Review.

Let it Ghost

Comedic horror anthology mixing scares and satire from first time director Wong Hoi.

Nomad (4K Restoration, Director’s Cut)

Heavily censored on its release, Patrick Tam’s 1982 classic stars a young Leslie Cheung as an aimless young man from a wealthy family who spends his time hanging out with friends at the beach until his cousin’s romance with a fugitive from the Japanese Red Army threatens to upset their idle days.

Screenings take place at the BFI, London, 12th to 15th July. Tickets are already on sale via the cinema’s website and you can keep up to date with all the latest news via Focus Hong Kong’s official website, Facebook Page, Twitter account, and Instagram channel.