Tag: Awards

Prestigious cinema magazine Kinema Junpo has released its always anticipated “Best 10” list for films released in 2023, the 97th edition. Junji Sakamoto’s Okiku and the World takes the top spot, while the director also picks up a screenplay award though Best Director went to Wim Wenders for Perfect Days.

Best 10

1. Okiku and the World (せかいのおきく, Junji Sakamoto)

A samurai’s daughter falls for a lowly manure man in a city on the brink of change in Junji Sakamoto’s touching Edo-era dramedy. Review.

2. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders)

Tokyo-set drama from Wim Wenders following the simple life of a middle-aged man who cleans toilets for a living.

3. Shadow of Fire (ほかげ, Shinya Tsukamoto)

Haunting drama from Shinya Tsukamoto following a young boy who finds himself surrounded by the ghosts and shadows of the post-war era.

4. September 1923 (福田村事件, Tatsuya Mori)

Drama depicting the pogroms against Koreans which took place after the 1923 Kanto earthquake directed by Tatsuya Mori who is best known for his documentary work such as A1 and A2 which focussed on the everyday lives of members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult.

5. The Moon (月, Yuya Ishii)

Controversial drama from Yuya Ishii loosely inspired by the 2016 Sagamihara knife attack starring Rie Miyazawa as a formerly successful writer who begins working at a care facility for the severely disabled.

6. A Spoiling Rain (花腐し, Haruhiko Arai)

Literary adaptation from Haruhiko Arai following a failed pink film director who is forced by his landlord to inform a neighbour, a similarly troubled screenwriter, that he’s being evicted only to sit and have a few drinks with him during which they share tales of romantic disappointment.

7. Monster (怪物, Hirokazu Koreeda)

Latest film from Hirokazu Koreeda starring Sakura Ando as a mother who confronts a teacher after noticing changes in her son’s behaviour.

8. Godzilla Minus One (ゴジラ-1.0, Takashi Yamazaki)

Bombastic and hugely entertaining entry into the long-running series from Takashi Yamazaki set in the immediate post-war era which has however courted controversy thanks to its nationalistic overtones.

9. The Boy and the Heron (君たちはどう生きるか, Hayao Miyazaki)

A young man reeling from grief amid the firebombing of Tokyo enters a strange fantasy world after moving to the country in a surreal adventure from Hayao Miyazaki. Review.

10. Picture of Spring (春画先生, Akihiko Shiota)

Warmhearted comedy from Akihiko Shiota in which a young waitress develops a fascination with an eccentric middle-aged man who researches shunga, or pornographic artwork from the Edo era.

Best 10 International

1. Tar
2. Killers of the Flower Moon
3. Fallen Leaves
4. Eo
5. The Fabelmans
6. The Banshees of Inisherin
7. Decision to Leave
8. Empire of Light
9. Everything Everywhere All at Once
10. Women Talking

Best 10 Documentaries

1. Men with Movie Cameras – Shooting the Great Kanto Earthquake (キャメラを持った男たち ―関東大震災を撮る―, Minoru Inoue)

2. Ikiru: Okawa Shogakko Tsunami Saiban wo Tatakatta Hitotachi (「生きる」大川小学校 津波裁判を闘った人たち, Kazuhiro Terada)

3.* Hama no Don (ハマのドン, Fumie Matsubara)

3.* Maruki Iri, Maruki Toshi: Okinawa Sen no Zu Zen 14 Bu (丸木位里・丸木俊 沖縄戦の図 全14部, Atsunori Kawamura)

5. Maelstrom (マエルストロム, Mizuko Yamaoka)

6. Woodblock-and-Stencil Sarasa: The Textile Art of Suzuta Shigeto (木版摺更紗－鈴田滋人のわざ－)

7. With Each Passing Breath (絶唱浪曲ストーリー, Atiqa Kawakami)

8. The Day of the State Funeral (国葬の日, Arata Oshima)

9. Care wo Tsumuide (ケアを紡いで, Koichi Omiya)

10. Shunga (春の画 ＳＨＵＮＧＡ, Junko Hirata)

*Third place is a tie.

Individual Awards

Best Director: Wim Wenders (Perfect Days)

Best Screenplay: Junji Sakamoto (Okiku and the World)

Best Director (international): Todd Field (Tar)

Best Actress: Shuri (Shadow of Fire)

Best Actor: Koji Yakusho (Perfect Days, Familia, Father of the Milky Way Railroad)

Best Supporting Actress: Fumi Nikaido (The Moon)

Best Supporting Actor: Hayato Isomura (The Moon, (Ab)Normal Desire, The Dry Spell, Hard Days, Ripples, Tokyo Revengers 2: Bloody Halloween – Destiny, Tokyo Revengers 2: Bloody Halloween – Decisive Battle)

Best Newcomer (actress): Aina The End (Kyrie)

Best Newcomer (actor): Oga Tsukao (Shadow of Fire)

Readers’ Choice Best Director: Toichiro Ruto (G-Men)

Readers’ Choice Best Director (international): Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon)

Readers’ Choice Award: Saburo Kawamoto (Eiga wo Mireba Wakaru Koto)

Source: Kinema Junpo official website.

Prestigious cinema magazine Kinema Junpo has released its always anticipated “Best 10” list for films released in 2022, the 96th edition. Small, Slow But Steady takes the top spot plus Actress and Supporting Actor while there’s also a strong showing for pandemic-era social drama No Place to Go which picks up Best Director and Screenplay.

Best 10

1. Small, Slow But Steady (ケイコ 目を澄ませて, Sho Miyake)

Yukino Kishii stars as a young deaf woman and aspiring boxer who is slowly losing the will to fight amid the constant strain of life in a largely unaccommodating society. Shot in grainy 16mm, the latest from Sho Miyake (And Your Bird Can Sing) is equal parts boxing movie and character study in which its scrappy heroine gradually regains her momentum.

2. A Man (ある男, Kei Ishikawa)

The latest film from Kei Ishikawa (Gukoroku: Traces of Sin, Arc), A Man stars Satoshi Tsumabuki as a lawyer who is pulled into a web of intrigue when a former client asks him to investigate her late husband who had been living under an assumed identity.

3. No Place to Go (夜明けまでバス停で, Banmei Takahashi)

Social drama from Banmei Takahashi (Rain of Light) exploring the effects of the pandemic on the homeless community through the story of a 45-year-old woman who loses her home and job when the yakitori restaurant she was working in is forced to close.

4. Amiko (こちらあみ子, Yusuke Morii)

Quirky drama loosely inspired by Natsuko Imamura’s novel Atarashii Musume following an eccentric young girl in the wake of a traumatic event in her family.

5. A Winter Rose (冬薔薇, Junji Sakamoto)

Social drama from Junji Sakamoto focussing on an aimless young man, Jun (Kentaro Ito), whose parents (Kaoru Kobayashi & Kimiko Yo) run a shipping business. Jun does not work or pursue education and spends his time hanging out with other young people of a similar outlook until one of his friends is attacked.

6. The Zen Diary (土を喰らう十二ヵ月, Yuji Nakae)

Contemplative foodie drama starring Kenji Sawada as a man living a self-sufficient life in the mountains while struggling to move on from the loss of his wife several years previously.

6. Anime Supremacy! (ハケンアニメ, Kohei Yoshino)

Broad comedy inspired by the CLAMP manga in which a young woman who has been patiently working towards her directorial debut in the anime industry enters a rivalry with the director who once inspired her and is returning to the director’s chair for the first time in eight years.

6. Plan 75 (Chie Hayakawa)

Powerful dystopian drama expanded from Hayakawa’s short in the 10 Years Japan anthology. Chieko Baisho stars as an elderly woman increasingly excluded from mainstream society who is pushed towards a voluntary euthanasia programme for the over 75s.

9. Missing (さがす, Shinzo Katayama)

Eerie mystery thriller drawing inspiration from the true life “Twitter Killer” case in which a young girl becomes concerned for her father when he disappears shortly after claiming to have spotted a fugitive serial killer in the local area.

9. Thousand and One Nights (千夜、一夜, Nao Kubota)

Plaintive drama in which two women are left with a series of unanswered questions following the disappearances of their husbands. While the older continues to wait in patient desperation 30 years later, the younger seeks permission to move on though neither of them know any peace.

Best 10 International

1. Licorice Pizza 
2. Top Gun: Maverick 
3. Parallel Mothers
4. Cry Macho
5. Annette
6. Coda
7. Belfast
8. West Side Story
9. Beanpole
10. In Front of Your Face

Best 10 Documentaries

1. Watashi no Hanashi Buraku no Hanashi (私のはなし 部落のはなし, Yusaku Mitsuwaka)

2. Kagawa District 1 (香川1区, Arata Oshima)

3. Tamaneko, Tamabito (たまねこ、たまびと, Hiroyasu Murakami)

4. Education and Nationalism (教育と愛国, Hisayo Saika)

5. Soup and Ideology (スープとイデオロギー, Yang Yonghi)

6. Patriotic Confessions: Breaking the Silence Part2 (愛国の告白—沈黙を破るPart2—, Toshikuni Doi)

7. Ushiku (牛久, Thomas Ash)

8. Yakeato Chronicle (焼け跡クロニクル, Masato Hara)

9. Long Time Passing (失われた時の中で, Masako Sakata)

9. Kita no Tomoshibi: Neuengamme Kyosei Shuyojo to Bullenhuser Damm no Kodomotachi (北のともしび −ノイエンガンメ強制収容所とブレンフーザー・ダムの子どもたち−, Shizu Azuma)

Individual Awards

Best Director: Banmei Takahashi (No Place to Go)

Best Screenplay: Aki Kajiwara (No Place to Go)

Best Director (international): Pedro Almodóvar (Parallel Mothers)

Best Actress: Yukino Kishii (Small, Slow But Steady; God Wants Payback; Inu mo Kuwane do Charlie wa Warau; One Day, You Will Reach the Sea)

Best Actor: Kenji Sawada (The Zen Diary)

Best Supporting Actress: Ryoko Hirosue (2 Women, The Hound of the Baskervilles: Sherlock the Movie, The Confidence Man JP -Episode of the Hero)

Best Supporting Actor: Tomokazu Miura (Small, Slow But Steady; Sen wa, Boku wo Egaku; Goodbye, Cruel World)

Best Newcomer (actress): Lina Kahafizadeh (My Small Land)

Best Newcomer (actor): Ren Meguro (Phases of the Moon, Osomatsu-san)

Readers’ Choice Best Director: Sho Miyake (Small, Slow But Steady)

Readers’ Choice Best Director (international): Sian Heder (Coda)

Readers’ Choice Award: Saburo Kawamoto (Eiga wo Mireba Wakaru Koto)

Special Award: Nobuhiko Kobayashi (novelist and film writer)

Source: Kinema Junpo official website.

Prestigious cinema magazine Kinema Junpo has released its always anticipated “Best 10” list for films released in 2021, the 95th edition. Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car largely sweeps the board taking not only the top spot but several of the individual awards including director, screenplay, and supporting actress while Yuya Ishii’s pandemic-era drama A Madder Red comes in second with an acting nod for Machiko Ono.

Best 10

1. Drive My Car (ドライブ・マイ・カー, Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

A theatre director reeling from the death of his wife finds an unexpected connection with a reserved young woman hired to drive his car in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s deeply moving adaptation of a short story by Haruki Murakami.

2. A Madder Red (茜色に焼かれる, Yuya Ishii)

Set during the pandemic, Yuya Ishii’s latest stars Machiko Ono as a widowed single mother whose husband was killed in a traffic accident caused by an elite bureaucrat who refuses to apologise. Forced to close her cafe, she works part-time at a garden centre and supplements her income through sex work but struggles to make ends meet while falling in love with an old classmate who predictably turns out to be not quite all he seems.

3. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (偶然と想像, Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

The second film Hamaguchi released this year is a delightfully Rohmer-esque triptych of tales inspired by serendipitous encounters and a healthy dose of romantic fantasy that lead each of its wounded souls towards a kind of liberation.

4. Under the Open Sky (すばらしき世界, Miwa Nishikawa)

Inspired by Ryuzo Saki’s 1993 novel, Miwa Nishikawa’s melancholy social drama stars Koji Yakusho as a purehearted man of violence who struggles to adapt himself to the hypocrisies of the contemporary society after spending the majority of his adult life in prison.

5. Minamata Mandala (水俣曼荼羅, Kazuo Hara)

15 years in the making, Kazuo Hara’s epic documentary charts the fight for justice among those affected by the Minamata Disease caused by industrial pollution in the 1960s many of whom find themselves battling an intransigent state that refuses to recognise their suffering.

6. Aristocrats (あのこは貴族, Yukiko Sode)

Mugi Kadowaki and Kiko Mizuhara star as two young women from opposite ends of the class spectrum involved with the same man (Kengo Kora) who is himself a prisoner of outdated feudalistic social codes in Yukiko Sode’s empathetic social drama.

7. Intolerance (空白, Keisuke Yoshida)

Keisuke Yoshida’s intense drama stars Arata Furuta as a bullying father of a teenage girl killed in a traffic accident trying to run away from a store clerk (Tori Matsuzaka) who caught her shoplifting. Refusing to believe his daughter could have been guilty of the theft, the father turns his ire towards the store owner who is consumed with remorse while unfairly victimised by an unforgiving media.

8. A Balance (由宇子の天秤, Yujiro Harumoto)

A TV documentarian’s journalistic integrity is strained when a student at her father’s cram school claims that he is the father of her child in Yujiro Harumoto’s emotionally complex social drama.

9. Ito (いとみち, Satoko Yokohama)

The latest quirky dramedy from Satoko Yokohama is set in her native Aomori and follows a shy young woman who gradually learns to accept herself and her past trauma while working in a maid cafe and perfecting the art of Tsugaru shamisen.

10. We Made a Beautiful Bouquet (花束みたいな恋をした, Nobuhiro Doi)

Romantic drama from Nobuhiro Doi starring Masaki Suda and Kasumi Arimura as a young couple who meet after missing the last train home and later fall in love only for their innocent romance to gradually fall apart over the following five years.

Best 10 International

1. Nomadland (Chloé Zhao)
2. City Hall (Frederick Wiseman)
3. Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell)
4. American Utopia (Spike Lee)
5. The Father (Florian Zeller)
6. Last Night in Soho (Edgar Wright)
7. Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains (Gu Xiaogang)
8. The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion)
9. Minamata (Andrew Levitas)
10. Better Days (Derek Tsang Kwok-cheung)

Best 10 Documentaries

1. Minamata Mandala (Kazuo Hara)

2. Lamafa (Bon Ishikawa)

3. Now Is the Past – My Father, Java & the Phantom Films (Shinichi Ise)

3. Ceramic Road (Shohei Shibata)

5. Sanma Democracy (Magoari Yamazato)

6. Asu wo Heguru (Tomoki Imai)

7. Tokyo Kurds (Fumiari Hyuga)

7. Tokyo Jitensha Bushi (Taku Aoyagi)

9. Owari no Mienai Tatakai: Shingata Coronavirus Kansensho to Hokenjo (Nobue Miyazaki)

10. Whiplash of the Dead (Haruhiko Daishima)

10. Green Jail (Huang Yin-Yu)

Individual Awards

Best Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car / Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy)

Best Screenplay: Ryusuke Hamaguchi & Takamasa Oe (Drive My Car)

Best Director (international): Chloé Zhao (Nomadland / Eternals)

Best Actress: Machiko Ono (A Madder Red / A Family)

Best Actor: Koji Yakusho (Under the Open Sky)

Best Supporting Actress: Toko Miura (Drive My Car / Spaghetti Code Love)

Best Supporting Actor: Ryohei Suzuki (Last of the Wolves / Baragaki: Unbroken Samurai / Mole Song Final)

Best Newcomer (actress): Yumi Kawai (A Balance / It’s a Summer Film! / Unfeigned Happy Ending)

Best Newcomer (actor): Iori Wada (A Madder Red)

Readers’ Choice Best Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car)

Readers’ Choice Best Director (international): Chloé Zhao (Nomadland)

Readers’ Choice Award: Shiraku Tatekawa (Tatekawa Shiraku no Cinema Tsurezuregusa)

Special Award: Tadao Sato (Critic)

Source: Kinema Junpo official website.