Tag: Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme

Japanese Girls Never Die (アズミ・ハルコは行方不明, Daigo Matsui, 2016)

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Japanese Girls Never DieJapanese Girls Never Die (アズミ・ハルコは行方不明, Azumi Haruko wa Yukuefumei) but, like old soldiers, only fade away in Daigo Matsui’s impassioned adaptation of the Mariko Yamauchi novel. Crushed by a misogynistic society, these are women who may well want to disappear if only as an alternative to finally being forced into submission to the predefined paths of womanhood – i.e. marriage and motherhood (and nothing else) that have been carved out for them. The young are, however, fighting back if in less than admirable ways. The best revenge on an oppressive society may be living well in one’s own way, but when that same society is at great pains to frustrate your goal the options are few.

As per the title, 28-year-old admin assistant Haruko Azuma (Yu Aoi) has gone missing. Her face, stolen from her missing poster, has been co-opted by a pair of petty punk idiots trying to come-up with a viral graffiti tag to rival Obey, but there’s no art or intention behind their minor act of social transgression so much as bravado and pithy rebellion. Nevertheless, Haruko’s image, plastered throughout the city, has become a hot topic on Japan’s social networking sites where a hundred trolls wade in with their prognostications and salacious fantasies of her violent death at the hands of a sex maniac.

Meanwhile, in an ironic subversion of the normalities of city life, young men have been urged to avoid walking alone at night following a spate of attacks by a gang of rabid school girls taking revenge on the male sex. No exact motive is given for their crusade save the missing poster that precedes Haruko’s and asks for information on a disappeared school girl, but goodness knows they have enough obvious reasons to have decided on a course of vigilante justice.

Haruko’s world is one defined by entrenched sexism. At 28 she finds herself embarrassed to be a still single woman at a wedding while a chance encounter with a school friend (Huwie Ishizaki) at a supermarket leads to more awkwardness when he pointedly remarks he assumed she’d be a housewife by now, and that she looks “old”. At work, Haruko’s colleague Yoshizawa (Maho Yamada), 37 and still unwed, is the butt of hundred jokes for the two middle-aged men who, for some reason, are their bosses though they hardly seem to do any work and automatically earn seven times Yoshizawa’s salary. The bosses urge Haruko to dress in more feminine fashions, asking invasive questions about her personal life while disparaging single women like Yoshizawa who they blame for Japan’s declining birthrate and a related raise in their taxes, avowing that women over 35 are essentially pointless seeing as their eggs are already “rotten”. Yoshizawa has developed a thick skin for their constant needling, realising that it amounts to an odd combination of sexual harassment and constructive dismissal campaign. Unwilling to pay a “higher” salary to an “older” woman, they are waiting for her to quit so they can hire a young and pretty new girl who will be naive enough to accept the pittance they intend to pay her.

It might be thought that the attitudes of Haruko’s bosses are a reflection of their generation, but the two young punks, Yukio (Taiga) and Manabu (Shono Hayama), are no different. 20-year-old Aina (Mitsuki Takahata), a bar girl with ambitions to enter the beauty business, gets swept into their unpleasant orbit after getting into a “relationship” with Yukio, but Yukio thinks of her only as a plaything, even going so far as to encourage the shy Manabu to try his luck because (he claims contemptuously) Aina is the kind of girl who’ll go with anyone. Later she becomes a key part of their mini graffiti movement, but once the pair start to get a little recognition they essentially erase Aina from the story taking all the credit for themselves. Aina, poignantly looking up at the poster advertising the boys’ big moment in the same way she had gazed at Haruko’s missing poster on the police station notice board, realises she’s finally had enough of all their lies and of being made to feel invisible in a society which refuses to recognise her as anything more than an object for exploitation.

Haruko’s face is literally plastered all over town, but she remains essentially faceless, her image stolen and stripped of its identity to be repackaged as a soulless symbol for two idiotic boys who not only do not care who she is or might have been but only seek to profit from claiming to be allies in a struggle while simultaneously propping up the opposing side. The image does, however, gain its own independent power, speaking for all the oppressed and belittled women who find themselves essentially disappeared in being forced to abandon their hopes and dreams in the face of extreme social pressure. The school girls are fighting back – the next generation will (perhaps) not be so keen to remain complicit in the social codes which restrict their prospects. Then again, as the image of Haruko tells one of her lost disciples, the best revenge is living well. Choosing to absent oneself from a system of social control, going missing in a more positive sense, may be the best option of all.

Screened as part of the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2018.

Screening again:

  • Dundee Contemporary Arts – 26 February 2018
  • HOME – 27 February 2018
  • Phoenix Leicester – 1 March 2018
  • Filmhouse – 3 March 2018
  • Showroom Cinema – 6 March 2018
  • Firstsite – 9 March 2018
  • Exeter Phoenix – 13 March 2018
  • Queen’s Film Theatre – 18 March 2018

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Where I Belong (しゃぼん玉, Shinji Azuma, 2017)

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Where I Belong PosterTo the rest of the world Japan often seems as if it exists in the future, all gleaming city scapes and high-tech living, but Japanese cinema has a noticeable ambivalence about urbanisation. Where I Belong (しゃぼん玉, Shabondama) is the latest in a long series of films to lament the coldness and disconnection brokered by the anonymity of life in a metropolis and long for a return to a simpler time in which small communities supported each other in good times and bad, taking care to reinforce positive social values through mutual responsibility. Of course, such pictures of rural life tend towards the optimistic – these communities are accepting rather than judgemental and usually free from extreme hardships, but there is something universally comforting in the solidarity of community providing a home for those otherwise cast out.

Izumi (Kento Hayashi), a young man of indefinite age, was abandoned by his mother after his parents divorced and has lived the majority of his life on the streets. He gets by by bag snatching – mostly targeting the vulnerable, elderly and lone women. To make the job faster he carries a knife to cut the handles, never meaning to hurt anyone with it, but one night an attempted mugging in a rainy underpass ends in tragedy when his target is injured during the struggle. Getting out of town, Izumi finds himself kicked out of a truck in the middle of the mountains where he later finds an apparently abandoned scooter. Just as he’s about to continue his escape, an old woman cries out from the grassy verge. Izumi can’t quite bring himself to just ride off and helps the woman, Suma (Etsuko Ichihara), back to her home, after which he is rewarded by a hearty meal prepared by the warmhearted old ladies of the village and finds himself beginning to fight the urge to run in favour of hiding out in this strange little place where the people are unexpectedly warm.

Izumi’s not a bad guy, but he’s had a lot of bad luck. Let down so badly by family, his life has led him to believe all connections are necessarily suspect and it’s everyman for himself when it comes to surviving on the streets. He wanted to steal Suma’s scooter, but his better nature wouldn’t let him leave a little old lady bleeding on the side of the road where no one else might see her for days. The film’s central message is that kindness repays kindness, but kindness requires mutual trust – something of which the city robs its citizens though its persistent quality of anonymity and abnegation of one’s responsibility for others.

Describing himself as the soap bubble of the Japanese title, Izumi’s sense of loss and restlessness at having no particular place to return to is the root cause of his despair and lack of belief in a credible future. Through meeting Suma who repeatedly tells him that he is “good”, trusts him implicitly, and instils in him a belief in himself that had long been absent, Izumi is at last able to begin moving forward and imagine a future for himself with a place to call home. Taking to the woods with harsh but wise forager Shige (Katsuhiko Watabiki) and then helping the village prepare for a festival, Izumi begins to feel as if he can finally become a part of something bigger but equally that in order to do so he will have to make peace with his life in the city by submitting himself to its justice and paying his debt to society so that he can return and make a fresh start as a man who has finally found his place.

The first feature from TV director Shinji Azuma, Where I Belong is not solely a tale of the importance of community, but also of Japan’s changing social structure as small mountain towns find themselves devoid of youngsters leaving the elderly to fend for themselves. Izumi’s restored hopes are not so much to do with the goodness of country people, benefits of hard work, or the crisp mountain air, but simple human kindness and a consequence of the gradual awakening of his sense of self worth thanks to the often blind faith placed in him by others for nothing other than his kind heart.

Screened as part of the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2018.

Screening again:

  • HOME – 19 February 2018
  • Phoenix Leicester – 7 March 2018
  • Storyhouse – 11 March 2018
  • Depot – 13 March 2018
  • Midlands Arts Centre – 17 March 2018

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Initiation Love (イニシエーション・ラブ, Yukihiko Tsutsumi, 2015)

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initiation loveMost romantic comedies don’t come with warnings about twist endings and a plea not to give them way, but Initiation Love (イニシエーション・ラブ) is not your average romantic comedy. Set in the early bubble era, Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s double sided feature is itself a wry look at the problematic nature of nostalgia. Harking back to a perhaps more innocent era in which lack of political and economic turmoil left plenty of time for romantic confusion coupled with the corruption of the consumerist dream, Initiation Love pits innocent romance against cynical success but subtly suggests that grown up love is a kind of compromise in itself.

Side A: In the summer of 1987, Yuki Suzuki (Kanro Morita) – a geeky, overweight young man who is shy but has a kind heart, is unexpectedly invited to a college drinking party where he earns some major white knight points for interrupting the increasingly inappropriate grilling of new invitee Mayuko (Atsuko Maeda). Mayuko is pretty, sweet, and cute if in a slightly affected way. She is way out of Suzuki’s league, but later confesses that she’s looking for someone a bit different, like Suzuki, an awkward-type who won’t lie to her or play around. Bonding over a shared love of reading, the pair grow closer, Mayuko rechristens Suzuki “Takkun”, and he vows to spruce himself up to become “worthy” of her.

Side B: Takkun (Shota Matsuda), now slim and handsome, is given a surprise promotion to Tokyo. Rather than suggest marriage or that Mayuko come with him, he settles on long distance and promises to come back to Shizuoka at weekends while waiting to be approved for a transfer back home. In Tokyo, however, Takkun’s personality begins to shift. Seduced by city sophistication and the promises of an elite salaryman lifestyle, Takkun draws closer to upper-class career woman Miyako (Fumino Kimura) whose jaded straightforward confidence he regards as “grown up” in contrast to the innocent charms of Mayuko waiting patiently at home.

The overarching narrative is provided to us via a melancholy voice over and accompanied, in the manner of a classic mix-tape, by a song from the era which is deliberately on the nose in terms of its aptness – a song about giving up on summer just as the couple are stuck in a traffic jam on the way to the beach and about to have a gigantic row, or a song about lucky chances coming up on TV just as our hero is plucking up the courage to allow himself to be bamboozled into going on a date with the girl of his dreams. The carefully placed positioning of the songs reminds us that we are inside someone’s carefully curated memories. Just as Takkun’s vision of Mayu-chan is one surrounded by flowers and light, the early days of romance are a condensed and romanticised version of real events seen entirely from one perspective and coloured with the gradual fading of time. Nostalgia is an unreliable narrator, recasting real life as Hollywood fiction.

The warm and fuzzy glow of Side A is undercut by the subtly questionable actions of Mayuko and our own prejudices about why she might be with a guy like Takkun. Self-consciously cute, Mayuko makes needling suggestions – dress better, get contacts, learn to drive, which, objectively speaking, might all help Takkun to gain some much needed confidence if only he were not doing all of them solely because he fears losing a woman like Mayuko. If Mayuko wanted a guy she could remake and boss around, she might have come to the right place but she does, at least, also try to insist that she likes Takkun anyway and so any changes he makes to himself will make no difference to her.

Side B, by contrast, turns the dynamic on its head as Takkun’s Tokyo persona becomes increasingly violent, resentful, and cruel while Mayuko seems genuine, innocent, and hurt by the increasing distance between herself and the man she loves. Seduced by city sophistications, Takkun leans ever closer to dumping the innocent country bumpkin, a love he has now outgrown, for a leg up into the middle-classes by marrying the elegant daughter of a wealthy Tokyo businessman. He is, however, torn – between the nostalgic glow of first love’s innocence, and the realities of adult life, the certain past and the uncertain future.

This is the philosophy ascribed by Miyako (apparently given to her by her own first love) that the first failed romance is a crucial part of growing up, an “Initiation Love” that breaks your heart by revealing the idea of true love as a romantic fallacy, allowing you move into the adult world with a degree of emotional clarity. A sound idea, but also sad and cruel in its own way. The final twist, offered as a cynical punchline, can’t help but feel cheap, carrying mildly misogynistic undertones dressed up as a kind of joke aimed at cowardly men who are incapable making clear choices and refuse to see their romantic partners as real people rather than the self created images of them they maintain. Takkun remains torn, between past and future, town and country, old love and new but nostalgia is always a trap – a false impression of a true emotion that impedes forward motion with a promise of a return to something which can never be delivered.

Screened as part of the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2018.

Screening again:

  • QUAD – 10 February 2018
  • Brewery Arts Centre – 2 March 2018
  • Filmhouse – 9 March 2018

Playlist: Side A

Yureru Manazashi (Kei Ogura)

Kimi wa 1000% (1986 Omega Tribe)

Yes-No (Of Course)

Lucky Chance wo Mo Ichido (C-C-B)

Ai no Memory (Shigeru Matsuzaki)

Kimi Dake ni (Shonentai)

Side B:

Momen no Handkerchief (Hiromi Ota)

Dance (Shogo Hamada)

Natsu wo Akiramete (Naoko Ken)

Kokoro no Iro (Masatoshi Nakamura)

Ruby no Yubiwa (Akira Teruo)

Show Me (Yukari Morikawa)

 

Sing My Life (あやしい彼女, Nobuo Mizuta, 2016)

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Sing my life posterWhen Miss Granny was released in Korea back in 2014, it became an instant smash hit with remake rights quickly bought by a host of Asian countries and Chinese (20 Once Again), and Vietnamese (Sweet 20) versions already proving popular in their respective nations. Sing My Life (あやしい彼女, Ayashii Kanojo) shifts away from the Korean film’s pervasive misery for a more typically Japanese determination to grin and bear one’s troubles. Structured like a classic musical, Sing My Life may only hint at the hardships of life in post-war Japan, but co-opts the classic “hahamono” for a musical tribute to motherhood in all of its complexities and complications.

Katsu Seyama (Mitsuko Baisho) is a 73-year-old woman who likes to sing and dance her way through life while making a point of haggling over her purchases and boasting loudly about how proud she is of her daughter who is the editor-in-chief of a famous fashion magazine. Her daughter Yukie (Satomi Kobayashi) has, however, unbeknownst to her been demoted in favour of a flashy, younger candidate. After getting caught by an ore ore scam and blaming Yukie for preventing her from doing all the things she wanted to do in life, Katsu runs away from home and finds herself at a strange photo studio from which she emerges as her 20-year-old self (Mikako Tabe). Suddenly given the chance to experience the youth she never knew, Katsu ends up joining her grandson’s punk band as the lead vocalist singing a number of her favourite retro hits in new, modern versions.

Unlike the Korean version, Katsu’s story is less one of resentment at a fall in social status than an ongoing struggle born of constant hardships. A war orphan with childhood friend Jiro (Kotaro Shiga) her only “familial” connection, Katsu has had to fight all her life just to survive. A shotgun wedding was followed immediately by widowhood and a serious illness for her child who she was told would not survive past infancy. Yet unlike the granny of Miss Granny, Katsu is not actively mean as much as she is irritating and occasionally petulant. Loving to boast of the successful career woman daughter she managed to raise alone, Katsu is not above playing the martyr in reminding those around her of everything she sacrificed to make it happen.

A single mother in the ‘60s, Katsu had to work day and night to support herself and her daughter leaving her with a lifelong love of thriftiness and a kind of no-nonsense bluntness that is occasionally (if accidentally) hurtful. In the original Korean version, a widowed mother pours all of her ambition and desires into her son who she hopes will become a successful member of society able to return the favour by supporting her in her old age. Katsu’s child is a girl but has also become a successful career woman and later a single mother herself following a brief marriage followed by divorce. There may be tension in the relationship between the two women, but Katsu’s returned youth provides the opportunity for greater intimacy and a return to the less complicated mother-child relationship of early childhood brokered by greater mutual understanding.

Though Katsu had not revealed any great dream of being a singer, her beautiful voice soon gets her noticed by the music biz and producer Takuto Kobayashi (Jun Kaname) who is sick to the back teeth of soulless teenage idols who lack the life experience to truly connect with the material they’ve been given. Encompassing a host of Showa era hits from the Kyu Sakamoto tune Miagete Goran Yoru no Hoshi wo, to Hibari Misora’s Makkana Taiyo, and the central performance of the depression themed Kanashikute Yarikirenai originated by Folk Crusaders, Sing My Life takes a (slightly) more cheerful run through ‘60s Japan emphasising the fortitude and determination of struggle rather than the misery and hardship of difficult times. Fun and touching, Nobuo Mizuta’s adaptation improves on the Korean version in adding a subtle commentary on the ironic invisibility of the elderly in ageing Japan whilst also refocusing the tale onto a deliberately female perspective, examining how two women from different generations have dealt with a similar problem, and allowing them the opportunity to repair their fractured relationship through a process of mutual understanding.

 Screened as part of the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2018.

Screening again:

  • ICA – 8 February 2018
  • QUAD – 11 February 2018
  • Showroom Cinema – 20 February 2018
  • Firstsite – 25 February 2018
  • Depot – 27 February 2018
  • Phoenix Leicester – 10 March 2018
  • Midlands Arts Centre – 13 March 2018
  • Broadway – 18 March 2018

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Kyu Sakamoto’s Miagete Goran Yoru no Hoshi wo

Hibari Misora & The Blue Comets – Makkana Taiyo

Folk Crusaders – Kanashikute Yarikirenai

Joy of Man’s Desiring (人の望みの喜びよ, Masakazu Sugita, 2014)

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Joy of Man's Desiring posterWhen disaster strikes false cheerfulness takes hold as those left behind attempt to push each other forward and away from the wreckage of their old lives, but refusing to deal with the reality causes more problems than it solves. This is doubly true when it comes to children who find themselves all alone when robbed of everything they’ve known by forces beyond their control. First time feature director Masakazu Sugita, himself a survivor of the 1995 Hanshin Earthquake which struck when he was just 14 years old, was led to the realisation of a long gestating project after the devastating earthquake and tsunami which struck Japan in March 2011 leaving many facing loss and bereavement. Though the children at the centre of Joy of Man’s Desiring (人の望みの喜びよ, Hito no Nozomi no Yorokobi yo) are lucky enough to have surviving relatives prepared to take them in and raise them with love and care, their lives are far from easy as they attempt to come to terms with the aftershocks of disaster.

12 year old Haruna (Ayane Ohmori) tugs at roof tiles now lying on the floor with no house underneath them. Her nightdress is covered in blood stains and dust and she has deep cuts on her heels, hands, and face. Finally someone drags her away from her broken home and towards a makeshift settlement with a oil drum fire where a relative later finds her. Though she and her brother Shota (five, still in the hospital) survive, both her parents have been killed. The relatives who’ve been looking after her don’t want to make it a long term arrangement and suggest sending the siblings to an orphanage all with Haruna lying awake listening in the next room. Her other aunt won’t hear of it and so Haruna and Shota (Riku Ohishi) are packed off to live in a quiet coastal town with their mother’s sister (Naoko Yoshimoto) and her family which includes their slightly older and very sulky cousin Katsutoshi (Shumpei Oba) as well as their uncle (Koichiro Nishi) and his father who is all too happy to have another two grandchildren to spoil.

The quiet coastal town with its natural beauty, wide open roads and winding streets dotted with pleasant looking houses should be the ideal place for the children to settle down in peace and they are indeed lucky in their aunt’s willingness to take them in as full members of the family (especially given the initial ugliness which exposed the relative lack of compassion from others) but moving to a completely new town to live with near strangers is a difficult prospect at the best of times, especially for young children, even if they aren’t also trying to process the loss of their parents. Whether because they didn’t have the heart, or they thought he wouldn’t understand, or perhaps just because they were waiting for his physical health to fully recover, no one has explained to little Shota that his parents will not be coming back. He can’t understand why they haven’t come to fetch him and has taken to hanging around the ferry terminal all day watching the figures coming off the boat in case they should eventually arrive.

Shota is lively and boisterous, adapting much more quickly to his new life than his older sister who remains quiet and withdrawn, sitting alone at school and staying in her room at home. Everyone is so caught up in the need to be cheerful and get on with life that no one has stopped think about the various effects the new living situation is having on all involved. The community is small and so new kids moving in is a rare event, making Haruna a mild novelty at her new school whether she likes it or not. People keep telling her to “hang in there” and they mean well, but all they really do is remind her that she’s been bereaved, that she’s “different” from the other children, and that she doesn’t quite belong in their world.

Meanwhile, they also discourage her from talking to them about her feelings of grief and guilt, but talking’s not something generally done by people making a great effort to get on with things as demonstrated by a final frustrated outburst by Haruna’s aunt who has been trying to care for the children while her own son turns his resentment back on her, her husband leaves everything to his wife, and Haruna offers some unkind words at just the wrong time. Katsutoshi is perhaps justified in his petulant resentment of his new siblings, fearing (as one unkind school friend indelicately puts it) that his parents don’t want him anymore, and that he’s unwittingly become associated with the mild whiff of intrigue surrounding the newcomers, but it’s his inability to voice any of his concerns in a more normal way that provokes the eventual family crisis which sees Shota and Haruna finally set out on a course of reconciliation with their past.

Haruna thinks she has to be strong for Shota, keeping the secret of their parents death to avoid causing him pain but also leaving her with no one to talk about them with. Shota, however, is equally devoted to his sister, gently patting her futon while she’s ill and arriving with a pretty daisy he’s picked to cheer her up in the film’s poignant final scenes. Sugita keeps things natural but enlivens the drama with interesting composition and a shift into the expressionist for the traumatic scenes of destruction which mark the film’s opening. A repeated motif of the sun shining through water serves an apt metaphor of the grief process as a kind of drowning, but like the daisy at the film’s closing it also offers hope in the possibility of life after disaster but only once the waters have receded.

 Screened as part of the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2018.

Screening again at:

  • Queen’s Film Theatre – 11 February 2018
  • Firstsite – 18 February 2018
  • Depot – 21 February 2018
  • Filmhouse – 4 March 2018
  • Broadway – 19 March 2018

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Mumon: The Land of Stealth (忍びの国, Yoshihiro Nakamura, 2017)

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MumonJapan prides itself on its harmonious society, but just like the Spartans of Ancient Greece, there have always been those who choose to do things differently. In the late 16th century, Japan was divided into a number of warring states but one visionary general, Oda Nobunaga, had begun a campaign of conquest which he intended to extend across the nation creating peace through unification under a single ruler. One tiny province held out – Iga, home to the ninja and renowned for the petty heartlessness of its mercenary men.

In the September of 1579, two rival ninja clans are engaging in a little practice fighting to the death during which Mumon (Satoshi Ohno), “the greatest ninja in Iga”, takes a commission to assassinate the younger son (Shinnosuke Mitsushima) of the opposing general, which he does with characteristic style and efficiency. The dead man’s older brother, Heibei (Ryohei Suzuki), is heartbroken not only by his brother’s death but by the relative lack of reaction it provokes in his father (Denden) who remarks that the loss of a younger son is no different to that of a foot soldier, and foot soldiers die all the time.

Ironically enough for a man nicknamed “no doors” because no doors can bar him, Mumon is currently locked out of his own house because his wife is upset about his meagre salary. When he stole her away from her noble home, Mumon exaggerated slightly in his tales of his great wealth and social standing and now Okuni (Satomi Ishihara) has decided he can’t come home ’til she gets what she was promised.

The death of Heibei’s brother sets in motion a chain of politically significant events which are set to change not only the course of history but the outlook of at least two men in the “land of stealth”. In Iga, the men are known are known for their beastliness and lack of common human decency. Skilled in stealth warfare, they have no allegiance to any but those with the biggest wallets and live by the doctrine of strength. The weak die alone, and that’s a good thing because it means the tribe is strong.

Later a retainer (Makita Sports) to the son of Oda Nobunaga, Nobukatsu (Yuri Chinen), says something similar – that only might can unite, the weak must either follow or be destroyed. He regards Iga as weak because it is small and alone, but Iga thinks it is strong for exactly the same reasons. The Nobunaga contingent have no idea just how beastly and petty minded the Igans can be when comes to defending their independence, little suspecting that they are embroiled in a well planned conspiracy.

Heibei, disillusioned with the inhumanity of his fellow ninja defects, offering his services to the new regime with the advice that they invade and wipe out the heartless warriors like the beasts they are. Mumon, sold to the Iga as a child, has known nothing but the Iga way of life and is as greedy and self-centred as any other ninja save being able to command a higher price thanks to his fame and abilities. He now has a problem on his hands in the form of Okuni who manages to dominate him fully with her insistence on replicating the way of life she was originally promised. Mumon cares deeply for his stolen bride and does not want to lose her, but she objects to his natural indifference to the cruelty of his people, opening his eyes to the harshness he had always regarded as normality.

When greed is the only accepted virtue, there can be no honour and without honour no unity. This Mumon eventually comes to understand. Far from the famed independence of the Iga, he, Heibei, and a host of others have been well and truly played by a corrupt and secretive tyranny. Daizen (Yusuke Iseya), an honourable samurai forced to betray his own code in killing his former lord, has a point when he says that the ninja spirit has not been destroyed but merely scattered and will endure through the ages – a chilling thought which results in an echo of the modern world and the horrors wrought by intensive individualism. Rather than embrace the traditional genre tropes of the jidaigeki, Nakamura opts for a post-modern style filled with punk and jazz while the ninjas perform their death defying stunts and Mumon pauses to wink at the camera. The result is an anarchic foray in a historical folly in which triumph is followed quickly by defeat and always by the futility of life without compassion.

Mumon: The Land of Stealth (忍びの国, Shinobi no Kuni) was screened as part of the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2018.

Also screening at:

  • QUAD – 10 February 2018
  • Phoenix Leicester- 11 February 2018
  • Showroom Cinema – 13 March 2018
  • Eden Court – 15 March 2018
  • Broadway – 17 March 2018
  • Firstsite – 25 March 2018

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Room for Let (貸間あり, Yuzo Kawashima, 1959)

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room for rent poster“Life is just goodbyes” exclaims a tenant of the small, rundown boarding house at the centre of Yuzo Kawashima’s Room for Let (貸間あり, Kashima Ari). Best remembered for his anarchic farces, Kawashima takes a trip down south to the comedy capital of Japan for an exploration of life on the margins of a major metropolis as a host of eccentric characters attempt to negotiate the difficult post-war economy, each in someway having failed badly enough to end up here. Though the setting is perhaps depressing, the lively atmosphere of the boarding house is anything but and the residents, depending on each other as a community of solidarity, know they have the ultimate resource at their disposal in the form of infinitely kind hearted, multi-talented fixer Goro Yoda.

Our introduction to the boarding house follows the passage of an outsider, Yumiko Tsuyama (Chikage Awashima) – a ceramicist who wants to make use of Goro’s printing facilities, but to find him she’ll first have to run the gamut of eccentric residents from the batty bee keeper to the geisha currently trying to fumigate one of her patrons by riding him around the room and the henpecked husband who responds to his wife’s frequent shouts of “Darling!” with a military style “yes, sir!”. On her way to Goro’s jam packed annex, Yumiko notices a room to let sign along with a kiln in the courtyard which catches her eye. Taking a liking both to the room and to Goro, Yumiko moves in and subsequently gets herself involved in the oddly exciting world of an old-fashioned courtyard standing on a ridge above a rapidly evolving city.

Played by well known comedian Frankie Sakai (who played a similar role in Kawashima’s Bakumatsu Taiyoden of two years earlier), Goro is an awkward symbol of post-war malaise and confusion. Goro, a jack of all trades, is the man everyone turns to when they run into a seemingly unsolvable problem, and Goro almost always knows a way to solve them (for a price). His sign in the marketplace proclaims that he speaks several languages and is available for tutoring students, he’s written “how to” books on just about everything you can imagine, he knows how to make the perfect cabbage rolls and konyaku, ghostwrites serial fiction, and runs a small printing enterprise, yet Goro is not a scholar, (licensed) lawyer, doctor, or successful businessman he’s a goodhearted chancer living on his wits. He runs away from success and eventually from love because he doesn’t think he deserves it due his continuing “fakery”.

Despite his minor shadiness, Goro’s kindness and sincerity stand in stark contrast to the evils of his age. Like Goro, many of the boarding house residents are trying to get ahead through somewhat unconventional means including the bawdy lady from upstairs whose main business is blackmarket booze, the peeping-tom street punk who peddles dirty pictures near the station, and the sad young woman working as an independent geisha (Nobuko Otowa) to save enough money to marry her betrothed whom she hopes is still waiting for her at home in her tiny village. That’s not to mention the mad scientist bee keeper who can’t help describing everything he sees in terms of bees and has attempted to turn their apian secretions into a cream which increases sexual potency, or the enterprising landlady who realises she could charge a few more pennies for patrons who want to sit in a fancy seat or watch TV while they eat dinner.

Yumiko isn’t the only outsider sending shockwaves through the community, a young student armed with a camera and the determination to avoid parental disapproval, intends to petition Goro to take his exams for him. The aptly named Eto (Shoichi Ozawa) is a dim boy with seemingly infinite wealth who’d rather scheme his way to the top than invest his energy in getting there the honest way. In this he’s the inverse of Goro whose simple sincerity and easy going nature are, it is subtly suggested, partly the reason he hasn’t made his way in the increasingly duplicitous post-war society. Goro does, however, give in to Eto’s nefarious plan even if it conflicts with his otherwise solid honour code which also sees him turn down the “opportunity” of sleeping with his neighbour’s seemingly insatiable wife in one of the stranger requests coming in to his do anything shop.

Kawashima’s true mastery lies not in the myriad moments of small comedy that pepper the main narrative, but in the glorious way he brings them all together as a perfectly constructed farce. The residents of the boarding house (one of whom is so proud of the “room to let” sign he made that he doesn’t want to rent the room because then he’d have to take the sign down) each face their own difficulties and disappointments but even when darkness creeps in (suicides, arrest, sexual assault, and animal cruelty all raising their ugly heads) the absurd positivity and warmth of these ordinary Osakans seems to be enough to combat it. Life may be a series of goodbyes, but it must still be lived, at least to the best of one’s ability.

 Screened as part of the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2018.

Also screening at:

(Un)true Colours: Secrets and Lies in Japanese Cinema – The Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2018

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the long excuse still 2The Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme returns for 2018 with another diverse selection of recent and not so recent Japanese cinema. This year’s theme is secrets and lies and each of the films on offer attempts to shine a light on the various delusions at the heart of everyday life.

After School

after school landscapeYo Oizumi stars as a high school teacher investigating the disappearance of a friend in another darkly comic, twist filled farce from Kenji Uchida (Weekend Blues, A Stranger of Mine).

Birds Without Names

birds without names still 1Kazuya Shiraishi (Dawn of the Felines) adapts the popular novel by Mahokaru Numata in which a young woman (Yu Aoi) lives with an older man (Sadao Abe) but continues to pine for an old boyfriend who has apparently been missing for the last five years…

The Dark Maidens

Dark MaidensWhen a schoolgirl falls off a roof foul play is suspected. Who better to investigate than her fellow members of the literature club at an elite academy catering to the daughters of the rich and famous?

Gukoroku – Traces of Sin

gukouroku stillA young reporter (Satoshi Tsumabuki) investigates the brutal murder of a model family whilst trying to support his younger sister (Hikari Mitsushima) who is currently in prison for child neglect while his nephew remains in critical condition in hospital. Interviewing friends and acquaintances of the deceased, disturbing truths emerge concerning the systemic evils of social inequality. Review.

Screenwriter Kosuke Mukai will be present for a Q&A following screenings at the ICA, Watershed Bristol, and MacRobert Arts Centre, Stirling. 

Initiation Love

initiation love still 1Based on a best selling romantic novel which captured the hearts of readers across Japan, Initiation Love sets out to expose the dark and disturbing underbelly of real life romance by completely reversing everything you’ve just seen in a gigantic twist five minutes before the film ends…

Japanese Girls Never Die

Japanese Girls Never DieA young woman goes missing and unwittingly becomes the face of a social movement in Daigo Matsui’s anarchic examination of a misogynistic society.

Joy of Man’s Desiring

joy of man's desiringA brother and sister are orphaned after a natural disaster and taken in by relatives but struggle to come to terms with the aftermath of such great loss.

The Long Excuse

the long excuse stillMiwa Nishikawa adapts her own novel in which a self-centred novelist is forced to face his own delusions when his wife is killed in a freak bus accident. Review.

Actor Masahiro Motoki will be present for a Q&A following the screening at London’s ICA.

Memoirs of a Murderer

Memoirs of a Murderer still 1When the statute of limitations passes on a series of unsolved murders, a mysterious man (Tatsuya Fujiwara) suddenly comes forward and confesses while the detective (Hideaki Ito) who is still haunted by his inability to catch the killer has his doubts in Yu Irie’s adaptation of Jung Byoung-Gil’s Korean crime thriller Confession of Murder.

Director Yu Irie will be present for a Q&A following screenings at Showroom Sheffield, Broadway Nottingham, and Queen’s Film Theatre Belfast. He will also be visiting London for a special event on March 24 (full details TBC).

The Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji

mole song stillToma Ikuta stars as maverick cop Reiji in Takashi Miike’s madcap manga adaptation. Reiji has been kicked off the force for trying to arrest a councillor who was molesting a teenage girl but gets secretly rehired to go undercover in Japan’s best known yakuza conglomerate.

MUMON: The Land of Stealth

mumon stillYoshihiro Nakamura (Snow White Murder Case, Golden Slumber) journeys back to the feudal era as a lazy ninja faces the twin pressures of Oda Nobunaga and his newly wedded wife’s material concerns.

Room for Let

room for let dvd coverYuzo Kawashima would have turned 100 in 2018. A comic tale of life on the Osakan margins, Room For Let is a perfect example of the director’s well known talent for satire and stars popular comedian Frankie Sakai as an eccentric writer/translator-cum-konnyaku-maker whose life is turned upside down when a pretty young potter moves into the building.

Oh Lucy!

oh lucy still 2Embittered 55 year old OL Setsuko gets a new lease on life when introduced to an unusual English conversation teacher, John, who gives her a blonde wig and rechristens her Lucy. “Lucy” falls head over heels for the American stranger and decides to follow him all the way to the states… Review.

Sing My Life

sing-my-life-horizontal.jpgA remake of Korean hit Miss Granny, Sing My Life stars Mitsuko Baisho as an evil granny who gets a second chance to experience the happiness of which she was cruelly robbed in her youth when she’s magically transformed into her 20 year old self (Mikako Tabe) and ends up becoming the lead singer in her grandson’s rock band!

Sword of the Stranger

sword of the stranger still 1A small boy recruits the mysterious samurai “No Name” as a bodyguard after his dog is injured in an ambush in the landmark animation from 2007.

Where I Belong

Where I belong landscape posterA no good lowlife makes his way by stealing from elderly women but experiences a change of heart when he’s taken in by a kindly old lady deep in the mountains.

The Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme runs at London’s ICA from 2nd – 11th February, 2018 before touring to:

You can keep up with all the latest news via the Japan Foundation’s official website, Twitter Account, and Facebook Page.

A Silent Voice (聲の形, Naoko Yamada, 2016)

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silent-voiceChildren – not always the most tolerant bunch. For every kind and innocent film in which youngsters band together to overcome their differences and head off on a grand world saving mission, there are a fair few in which all of the other kids gang up on the one who doesn’t quite fit in. Given Japan’s generally conformist outlook, this phenomenon is all the more pronounced and you only have to look back to the filmography of famously child friendly director Hiroshi Shimizu to discover a dozen tales of broken hearted children suddenly finding that their friends just won’t play with them anymore. Where A Silent Voice (聲の形, Koe no Katachi) differs is in its gentle acceptance that the bully is also a victim, capable of redemption but requiring both external and internal forgiveness.

Classmates Shoko (Saori Hayami) and Shoya (Miyu Irino/Mayu Matsuoka) are almost mirror images of each other, sharing the first syllable of their names (at least phonetically) but representing two entirely opposite poles. Before Shoko transferred into his school, Shoya was the class clown, behaving disruptively and acting as the leader of a group of mean kids who, if not exactly bullies, certainly exert a degree of superiority over their meeker classmates. Shoko, hard of hearing, remains necessarily quiet, communicating through messages written on a notepad. Though some of the other pupils are fascinated by the novelty of someone like Shoko suddenly appearing, delighting in writing messages back and for and eagerly embracing the opportunity to learn sign language in order to communicate with her more easily, the mean kids, with Shoya as the ringleader, delight in making her life a misery just because they can.

Though some of the other children object to the way Shoya and the others are behaving, they do little to defend their new friend. Some of the more impressionable kids even halfheartedly join in, perhaps feeling bad about it but also enjoying being part of the angsty pre-teen group of nasty kids, but when it all gets too much and Shoko decides to move on everyone is suddenly struck with remorse and a need to blame someone else for the harm they’ve caused. Hence, Shoya gets a taste of his own medicine, ostracised by his peers as the lowlife who hounded a deaf girl out of school. Who’d want to hang around with someone like that?

Humbled, the stigma follows Shoya on into his next school as feelings of guilt and self loathing intensify until he reaches a point at which he can’t go on. Intending to finally end it all, Shoya unexpectedly runs into Shoko again and eventually manages to make a kind of motion towards an apology, attempting to make friends after all this time and making use of the sign language he’s taught himself to show his sincerity.

Isolated both by the continuing rumours of his primary school days and an intense personal feeling of unworthiness, Shoya finds it impossible to interact with his fellow students whose faces are each covered by a large blue cross. Bonding first with another lonely outcast, Shoya’s world begins to open up again but the spectre of his past continues to haunt him. Reconnecting with some of the other kids from primary school he finds that not everyone remembers things the same way they’ve become engraved in his mind. Though a few are anxious to atone, one of his former friends, Naoka (Yuki Kaneko), takes a different approach to the problem in continuing to blame Shoko – for the “attention” her condition attracts, the “requirement” for others to modify their behaviour to suit her, for simply existing in the first place enabling the behaviour which took place (about which Naoka remains unrepentant), and being the root cause that her merry band of friends fell apart.

If it seems like the tale disproportionately focuses on Shoya’s guilt and and redemption rather than Shoko’s suffering the balance shifts back towards the end as the pair truly mirror each other with another suicide attempt forming the climax of the second act. Shoko responds to her often cruel treatment with nothing other than friendliness, smiling with hands outstretched even whilst continuing to receive nothing but rejection. Though she may seem all smiles and sweetness, her overly genial persona is itself an act as she tries to overcompensate for the “burden” she feels herself to be causing through her need for “special treatment”. Eventually, Shoko snaps – firstly in primary school as her well meaning attempts to bring Shoya over to her side fail once again, and then later in a much more final way as she decides that there is nothing left for her in a world which fails to accommodate for difference.

The story of a girl who struggles to be heard, and a boy who refuses to listen, A Silent Voice is a quiet plea for the power of mutual understanding and reconciliation. Director Naoko Yamada and screenwriter Reiko Yoshida bring the same kind of quirky slice of life humour which made K-On and Tamako Market so enjoyable along with the raw visual beauty which has come to define Kyoto Animation to this often dark tale, perfectly integrating the more dramatic elements into the otherwise warm and forgiving world in a believable and natural way. Nuanced, complicated and defiantly refusing total resolution, A Silent Voice is one of the more interesting animated projects to come out of Japan in recent times and further marks out Yamada as one of its most important animation auteurs.

Screened as part of the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2017.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

A Sparkle Of Life (燦燦　さんさん, Bunji Sotoyama, 2013)

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sparkle-of-lifeAs Japan’s society ages, the lives of older people have begun to take on an added dimension. Rather than being relegated to the roles of kindly grandmas or grumpy grandpas, cinema has finally woken up to the fact that older people are still people with their own stories to tell even if they haven’t traditionally fitted established cinematic genres. Of course, some of this is down to the power of the grey pound rather than an altruistic desire for inclusive storytelling but if the runaway box office success of A Sparkle of Life (燦燦　さんさん, Sansan) is anything to go by, there may be more of these kinds of stories in the pipeline.

77 year old Tae (Kazuko Yoshiyuki) lost her husband some years ago after nursing him through a long illness. Spotting a pretty wedding dress in a shop window and examining the adverts on the outside, Tae ventures in and attempts to sign up with the matchmaking service which so prominently promises a happy ending at its doorway. The clerk is surprised, to say the least, after realising that Tae is not a pushy relative trying to find a spouse for an unmarried son or daughter but is seeking someone to brighten her remaining days. Now that she is totally free, Tae just wants to feel her heart flutter again and perhaps enjoy the warm glow of companionship one last time.

Looking it up on the computer, Ayako (Kanami Tagawa) – the assistant dealing with Tae’s application, is surprised to find there are a number of older men already on the books. Accordingly, she sets Tae up with some of the more promising candidates though it seems that men don’t really change all that much and not all of them are exactly after “a relationship” after all. Eventually Tae hits it off with a charming older gentleman, Yuichiro (Gaku Yamamoto), who seems to be everything she wants in a partner but there’s something else that seems to be keeping them apart.

Just as Ayako originally reacted with mild horror on learning that Tae herself was seeking a romantic partner, not everyone approves of her decision. Tae’s longtime friend (the best friend of her late husband), Shinji (Akira Takarada), is strangely angry and somewhat resentful though, predictably, he has reasons which are more personal than social or moral when it comes right down to it. Tae’s family, finding out by accident after letting themselves into her home while she’s out, are also outraged. Getting over the shock, Tae’s son announces that he supposes it’s OK for her to think about getting remarried but finds the idea of using a dating service embarrassing and orders her to stop right away.

Like Tae’s son, many people try to infantilise Tae and her friends, relegating them to a kind of second childhood now that their working or family lives have ended. Running into her friends from the Sunny Day Club, Tae is exasperated by their game of throwing hoops which, as Shinji says, they used to enjoy as children. Tae may be older but she still wants more out of life than being handed a juice box and told to sit in the corner while the grownups talk.

Dating is, however, harder with so much already in the past. Yuichiro may describe his relationship with Tae as being like a second stab at first love but with everything so different than it was before the situation presents its own set of difficulties. The essential problems are, of course, the same though Tae’s longed for second chance for love may have been right by her side all these years only too bound up with duty and tradition to have made his feelings plain.

Bunji Sotoyama’s approach is tailor made for his target audience but the warm and gentle atmosphere coupled with the often laugh out loud humour is sure to appeal to all age groups. Tae’s quest for love and determination to enjoy the time she has left to the fullest despite what anyone else might have to say about it is a quiet but firm bid for freedom and individual happiness in old age rather than the unwelcome relegation to the world of second childhood otherwise offered to women in Tae’s position. A comedic tale of late life love, A Sparkle of Life is a lesson in realising you only see the fireworks once it begins to get dark but that only makes them all the more precious.

Screened as part of the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2017.

Original trailer (English subtitles)