Tag: Kenta Satoi

Bayside Shakedown the Final: The New Hope (踊る大捜査線: THE FINAL 新たなる希望, Katsuyuki Motohiro, 2012)

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Is it really the end? Billed as the “final” instalment in the Bayside Shakedown series which began with a TV drama in 1997, Bayside Shakedown the Final: The New Hope (踊る大捜査線: THE FINAL 新たなる希望, Odoru Daisousasen the Final: Aratanaru Kibou) once again finds the gang contending with annoying red tape but also with a police force which is intrinsically corrupt and self-serving while questioning if they should remain in an occupation in which they are treated with such disdain. Continuing the familiar pattern from throughout the series, the gang find themselves coming up against a serial killer who may be a crazed vigilante only to discover that the whole thing may have been an extreme inside job designed with the intention of drawing attention to inadequacies in the justice system. 

The problem is that the body they’ve found appears to have been shot with a gun which was removed from the police evidence locker and is linked to a kidnapping case six years previously which just happens to have been handled by Mashita (Yusuke Santamaria) when he was a hostage negotiator. Mashita had ordered an end to the negotiations because of pressure from above to play by the rules with the consequence that the child later died while the prime suspect in the case was recently acquitted of the crime at trial (a staggeringly rare occurrence in Japan). When Mashita’s young son is kidnapped, all eyes are on a rogue policeman, Kuze (Shingo Katori), but it is obvious he is not acting alone. 

Toragai (Shun Oguri), the authoritarian detective from the previous film, has continued along a dark path which only intensifies when his paper on police reforms is rejected out of hand. He too thinks the police force needs structural reform but leans hard into the idea that too many people are getting away with crime rather than concentrating on removing the barriers which prevent police from doing their jobs as Muroi (Toshiro Yanagiba) and Aoshima (Yuji Oda) would probably suggest. Muroi’s lasting dream is of building a police force which trusts policemen to do the right thing and he frequently tells his subordinates that they should feel free to exercise their own judgment. 

Meanwhile, the local cops continue to suffer under the command of the elitist officers from HQ who not only look down on them but assign menial tasks, as does Mashita in finding himself short staffed while most are busy providing security for a local energy summit. While Aoshima had experienced a health crisis that turned out to be a false alarm in the previous film, so this time Sumire (Eri Fukatsu) finds herself struggling with ongoing effects from her shooting in Bayside Shakedown 2 eventually deciding that it might be better to leave the police force entirely while lamenting her unfinished business with Aoshima which remains unresolved even in this “final” instalment while he somewhat unsympathetically can only ask her not to leave rather than express his true feelings. 

Ironically enough, by the time of the final showdown neither of them are actually in possession of a police badge, Aoshima scapegoated by Toragai who still holds a grudge against him while inconvenienced by interference in his scheme to frame a local petty thief for the killings, presenting him with an invitation to resign following serious misconduct accusing him of beating up suspects and planting evidence. One again, the police chiefs sit around a large circular table issuing orders from afar but are mainly concerned how to bury the “scandal” of having a police officer steal a gun from evidence and then use it to commit a murder. In a bizarre twist of fate, it later turns out that the whole thing may be an elaborate, not to mention entirely amoral, plan to expose police shortcomings with a side dose of revenge against Mashita for contributing to the child’s death by insisting on following protocol while receiving heat from above. 

As such the apparently “final” instalment skews a little darker than the series norm while as the subtitle implies offering a new ray of hope in the reversal of Muroi’s fortunes allowing him to embark on the police reforms which have been his and Aoshima’s goal throughout the series. Meanwhile, the film pays tribute to its previous instalments with frequent words of wisdom from the late Waku read from his notebook by his nephew and the ironic return of the previous chiefs reinstated as volunteer mentors as part of a reinforcement programme while familiar faces such as the Captain Kirk cosplayer also make their customary appearances. What’s clear is that there will never really be a “final” outing for Aoshima who reaffirms himself as the last line of defence protecting the local population as he once again runs toward sunset and the next case waiting just behind. 

Trailer (no subtitles)

Bayside Shakedown 3: Set the Guys Loose (踊る大捜査線 THE MOVIE 3 ヤツらを解放せよ！, Katsuyuki Motohiro, 2010)

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It’s all change at Wangan police station in the third instalment in the Bayside Shakedown series, Let the Guys Loose (踊る大捜査線 THE MOVIE 3 ヤツらを解放せよ！Doru Daisousasen the Movie 3: Yatsura wo Kaihou seyo!). Seven years on from the previous film, many things have changed. Aoshima (Yuji Oda) is now in charge of his team and the precinct is set to move to new purpose-built premises boasting the latest high-tech security systems which will aid them in combating potential terrorism and safeguarding local dignitaries. Even so, the gang will have to deal with some unfinished business from the past before they can fully move on as the circular tale takes us right back to the original film’s villain. 

Following the familiar formula, Motohiro opens with a gag sequence in which Aoshima prepares to give a briefing only it’s not about a case it’s about the logistics of moving offices of which he is in charge and characteristically vowing to do the best job possible. Hindering his progress, however, are two bizarre crimes, the first a bank robbery investigated by his colleague/long-term love interest Sumire (Eri Fukatsu) in which no money is stolen, and a bus hijacking he investigates himself in which the hijackers simply left the scene again without stealing anything. Ironically enough a theft does take place during the move involving three pistols which happen to belong to Aoshima, Sumire, and a new recruit from China, Wang (Kenichi Takito). Soon enough a body turns up on a boat along with Aoshima’s gun sending the gang on the chase for the mysterious thieves. 

The thing we’re constantly told about the new building is how secure it’s going to be, which makes the theft even more ironic, but the truth is that in true franchise style pretty much anyone and everyone is walking in and out carrying moving boxes so nothing is ever really “secure” even in the police station, harking back to the minor villain in the first film who was able to sneak in because he was wearing a fake cosplay police uniform and no one noticed him. Inevitably, this invisible vulnerability eventually comes back to haunt them when the criminals are simply able to steal the manual for the security system and replace it with one of their own to render it unusable to the police later trapped inside the building. Meanwhile approaches to public safety become a matter for debate when it arises that the criminals’ demand is that all of the villains we’ve seen Aoshima arrest so far including psychopathic serial killer Manami (Kyoko Koizumi) who still has a sizeable following online should be released. Counter-intuitively, the police bigwigs are in favour of acquiescing with only Muroi (Toshiro Yanagiba), who has now been promoted to sit at the table himself, objecting on the grounds that it simply isn’t safe to release such dangerous criminals back into society. 

Rather than simply bureaucracy and funding concerns, Bayside Shakedown’s third instalment is more directly critical of the interplay between politics and justice as it becomes clear that the majority of police chiefs care more about public opinion than the law while also mindful of the upcoming general election. Meanwhile the same problem arises with the local police being sidelined by the elites from HQ, a smooth liaison officer Torikai (Shun Oguri) arriving to solve any disputes insisting that the locals be fully respected and allowed to turn their jobs only to turn dark and authoritarian after suffering a catastrophic injury on the job. Once again, Aoshima is forced to consider if his work has real value not only because of the way he’s treated by the cops from HQ but subjected to a healthcare crisis which leads him and many others to assume he’s not long to live. It’s later discovered that he’s been misdiagnosed during his annual checkup, but his boss unethically decides to keep that from him noticing he’s become depressed and lost his mojo, hoping that he’ll be easier to manager but quite the reverse turns out to be true. Again mimicking their previous heart-to-hearts throughout the series, Aoshima perks up after some encouraging words from Sumire in addition to some words of wisdom from the late Waku presented by his rookie nephew and decides to live as if there’s no tomorrow going flat out for justice while caring nothing for his safety. 

Even more than ten years on from the TV series and first big-screen outing, the romance between Aoshima and Sumire still hasn’t quite blossomed despite their respective brushes with death. Many things seem set to change for the Wangan police, the new building acting as a kind of reset while Muroi prepares to move into a more political role and a new, somewhat surprising, local police chief is selected to lead them into a new future just as dedicated to compassionate local policing defined by fairness and justice as they have ever been. 

Trailer (no subtitles)

Bayside Shakedown 2 (踊る大捜査線 THE MOVIE 2 レインボーブリッジを封鎖せよ！, Katsuyuki Motohiro, 2003)

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A big screen outing for a popular TV drama, Bayside Shakedown proved a runaway box office hit on its release in 1998. Five years later the team at Wangan Police Station are back and much seems to have changed even as the sequel cleverly mirrors the first instalment, but where the earlier film had satirically taken aim at chronic underfunding and excessive bureaucracy, Bayside Shakedown 2 (踊る大捜査線 THE MOVIE 2 レインボーブリッジを封鎖せよ！, Odoru Daisosasen the movie 2: Rainbow Bridge wo Fuusa seyo!) ultimately ends a defence of authority in the face of criminal anarchy. 

Five years on, the team are faced with yet another difficult serial killer case in which top CEOs are being bumped off and artfully posed in public places next to a rotten apple, once again necessitating the arrival of the guys from HQ. This time, however, Muroi (Toshiro Yanagiba), a friend of earnest detective Aoshima (Yûji Oda), has been pushed to the sidelines in favour of the big wigs’ latest favourite, Okita (Miki Maya), who has a much more authoritarian view of policing than many at Wangan are comfortable with. Meanwhile, Sumire (Eri Fukatsu) and Aoshima are busy with their own cases, a pickpocketing family and a “vampire” who bites high school girls’ hair and then runs off respectively, but all the office is a twitter over a love letter penned by their boss and accidentally emailed to everyone in the station because of a computer virus. 

Former Wangan guy Mashita (Yusuke Santamaria), who had transferred to the city, returns having trained as a negotiator but for some reason mostly doing profiling and eventually figuring out that their killers are likely disenfranchised salarymen made redundant by their companies amid the backdrop of a stagnant economy. With no hope for the future, they’ve turned against society and started an anarchist revolution as a collective without leaders. “No bosses, no workers. No ordering, no obeying. No firing, no being fired,” they explain of their principle of equality, adding, “when there’s a leader the individual means nothing”. On one level the film sympathises with them in recognising the pressures they’re facing and unfairness of the economic reality, while simultaneously condemning the idea of a horizontal society. “If the leader is good then the group is strong,” Aoshima explains to them though of course they don’t agree. 

Then again, he says this immediately Muroi has resumed command in the knowledge that he is a “good” leader precisely because he trusts those under him and gives them the freedom to exercise their own judgement in contrast to Okita whose authoritarian micromanaging is soon exposed as a cover for under confidence. A police officer is seriously injured during an operation because she hesitates to make a decision, while both Sumire and Aoshima are forced to let their suspects escape when Okita orders them to stay at their post trying to protect a woman she has effectively decided to use as bait. “Organisations don’t need emotion,” she insists, later irritated by the officers’ reluctance to follow her command when she simply instructs them to “replace” the critically injured officer as if their life were completely disposable. 

Just in the first film, Sumire and Aoshima are forced to question the value of local policing in the face of Okita’s elitism as she tells them that their individual cases can wait because the murder takes priority, describing them as “just local stuff”. “Punch ups and pickpockets, what a waste of police time,” she adds leaving each of them feeling as if their work has no meaning and is not useful to or valued by the community. Aoshima only gets his mojo back after remembering an act of kindness done to him by someone he’d helped in the past, realising that even small things have a positive effect on the society and are always worth doing. That said, he’s not especially sympathetic towards the teenage “vampire” victim largely because he only bit her hair but later gets on the case after more girls turn up with bite marks on their necks. 

In the end it is indeed the local which is good, Okita’s failure allowing Muroi to make good on his promise and allow the local police to do their jobs rather than being relegated to boring legwork such as traffic stops and trawling surveillance footage. Despite having rejected the leaderless anarchy of the villain’s horizontal society, Muroi’s first instruction is to “forget rank, forget class” and have everyone work together encouraging the local cops to help them identify the kinds of places only a local would know which might not be on the map and may be a good hideout for the assassins. There might be something uncomfortable in Aoshima’s insistence on the necessity of a leader in the implicit defence of the hierarchal society, but then Muroi is a good leader who can indeed be trusted wield his power well largely because he trusts those below him, while a weak leader like Okita who holds tight to power because they don’t have the confidence to wield it freely is worse than no leader at all. Once again ending on a note of ironic police accountability, Bayside Shakedown 2 takes aim at the inequalities of the modern society but ultimately makes the case for the value of compassionate local policing in which all crimes at least are treated equally.  

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Bayside Shakedown (踊る大捜査線 THE MOVIE, Katsuyuki Motohiro, 1998)

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Those who believe that Japanese cinema has continued to decline throughout the 21st century often cite the release of Bayside Shakedown (踊る大捜査線, Odoru Daisosasen) as a turning point arguing that its vast and unexpected success ushered in an era of populist filmmaking dominated by existing franchises such as television drama, manga, and light novels. Leaving aside the question of whether the industry can really be said to be in a creative decline, the criticism is in itself a little unfair in that the film is exactly what it’s intended to be, perfectly enjoyable mainstream entertainment, while like the television series quietly subversive in its criticisms of police bureaucracy using humour to make subtle digs at the service in a way more “serious” films may not be able to. 

Director Katsuyuki Motohiro signals his intentions in the opening scene in which grizzled, trenchcoat-wearing detective Aoshima (Yuji Oda) stakes out a pleasant suburban house later joined by two colleagues who appear equally serious, yet as it turns out they aren’t on the look out for criminals but simply waiting for their boss, Police Commissioner Yoshida (Shigeru Koyama), to emerge so they can drive him to a police golfing tournament. Ironically enough, the scene is soon repeated, only for Yoshida to be tasered and kidnapped for ransom. Meanwhile, another difficult case arises when a body is found floating in a local river and is discovered to have been murdered, a soft toy found sewn into his stomach. 

The bizarre murder is a problem for the detectives at Wangan Police Station because whenever there’s a difficult case they have to call in the guys from HQ and are then financially responsible for them which is why the guys in accounts would really rather they write down suicide and leave it at that. Budgetary constraints are a persistent theme, the other random case hovering in the background being a phantom thief who keeps stealing the detectives’ receipts so they can’t claim their expenses. In any case, the kidnapping means HQ are involved anyway, quickly taking over an upper floor of the station and locking the local cops out of their investigation or else relegating them to demeaning leg work such as traffic stops and info gathering. 

The conflict between HQ and the local branch is further brought out by the awkward friendship between careerist policeman Muroi (Toshiro Yanagiba) and the earnest Aoshima who have each made a promise to each other that Muroi will climb the ladder while Aoshima takes care of business in the streets to ensure the police force continues to function correctly. Muroi is however in a difficult position, another officer informing him that he’s being put in charge because he’d be an easy fall guy as he went to a regional college while the others are all Todai alumni and minded to look out for each other. He finds himself compromised, unable to keep his promise to Aoshima because of the pressure from above while feeling guilty about the way the local cops are being treated by the bigwigs from the city. Meanwhile the police chiefs sit around a large circular table not unlike the war room in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove issuing orders via video link while spending most of their time trying to make sure the local force is sidelined and squabbling over who actually gets to make an arrest. 

Pressured over their expenses, expected to work long hours, and generally made to feel unappreciated the detectives start to wonder what it’s all for, energetic female detective Sumire (Eri Fukatsu) in particular keeping a resignation letter in her desk uncertain whether or not to hand it in. Nevertheless through their quest to save the commissioner along with all the other cases including a potential serial killer operating through a murder fantasy website and a thief who seems to enjoy sneaking into people’s workplaces and stealing small personal items including those of the police officers, they each come to re-appreciate the importance of compassionate local policing along with their responsibility to each other as friends and colleagues even making sure they hold their fellow officers to account especially those involved with the budget. Lighthearted in tone yet boasting a fair few impressive action sequences Bayside Shakedown has in the past been unfairly maligned but is undeniably entertaining with a series of solid mysteries at its centre along with a few jibes at the overly bureaucratised nature of modern policing. 

Trailer (no subtitles)

Iwane: Sword of Serenity (居眠り磐音, Katsuhide Motoki, 2019)

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The contradictions of the samurai code conspire against one noble-hearted young man in Katsuhide Motoki’s adaptation of the long running series of historical novels by Saeki Yasuhide, Iwane: Sword of Serenity (居眠り磐音, Inemuri Iwane). Yet this truly serene samurai is a stoical sort, learning to bear his pain with fortitude while standing up for justice in an increasingly corrupt Edo where money rules all while an ascendent merchant class continues to challenge the fiercely hierarchical social order. 

Beginning in 1772 which turned out to be a disastrous year, the tale opens as hero Iwane (Tori Matsuzaka) prepares to return home after completing his three year rotation in Edo in the company of childhood friends Kinpei (Tasuku Emoto) and Shinnosuke (Yosuke Sugino). Shinnosuke is in fact married to Kinpei’s sister Mai, while Iwane will himself be married to Kinpei’s other sister Nao immediately on his return so close are they. As Iwane’s father tells him, there are great hopes for these young men that they can “turn our outdated clan around”, but events will conspire against them. Spoiling the happy homecoming, Shinnosuke is accosted by a drunken uncle who convinces him Mai has been unfaithful in his absence with the consequence that he kills her immediately on his return home. Unable to understand this turn of events, Kinpei confronts his friend but eventually kills him, while Iwane is then forced to kill Kinpei after he goes on murderous rampage in revenge for the wrong done to his sister. 

In trying to mediate the case, the argument is put forward that Shinnosuke acted rashly and should have brought his suspicion to the authorities rather than opting for summary execution. The lord however disagrees, condoning Shinnosuke’s actions under the rationale that to do so would have been considered “weak minded” while as Shinnosuke himself had claimed he acted in accordance with the samurai code in which female adultery is illegal and punishable by death. By contrast, he finds Kinpei’s rashness offensive, insisting that he also should have recognised the legitimacy of his sister’s murder and simply left quietly with her body. Having learned the truth in which his childhood friends became victims of clan intrigue, romantic jealousy, and tragic misunderstandings in this Othello-like plot, Shinnosuke and childhood sweetheart Nao are also consumed by the rashness of samurai law each exiled from their clan and cast adrift in Edo-era society. 

Edo-era society is however also itself corrupt. Some months later, Iwane has returned to Edo as a lowly ronin lodging with a kindly old man, Kinbei, who helps him find a job firstly gutting eel then as a bodyguard at a money exchange which has been receiving anonymous threats they assume are from rival broker Awaya who has hatched a nefarious plan to manipulate the currency market to stop the current Shogun introducing a new unit which can be used in both Edo and Kyoto which would understandably cut into his already corrupt business model. Luckily, Imazuya is an honourable man who backs the new currency plan and wants to do the right thing which makes him a perfect fit for Iwane’s innate sense of justice. “You don’t know the way of the merchant” Awaya snaps at him, suggesting both that the samurai are already on their way down as the merchants rise and that his unwillingness to play dirty will be his downfall. Nevertheless, Iwane is the type to adapt quickly, instantly coming up with a way to play Awaya at his own game and kick his destructive amoral capitalism to the curb. 

Meanwhile, he continues to pine for Nao while drawing closer to Kinbei’s earnest daughter Okon (Fumino Kimura). As we discover Nao is also a victim of an intensely patriarchal social order but through the tragedy that befalls them also finds strength and agency making a life changing decision that allows her to become independent while looking after her family if in the knowledge that the childhood romance she shared with Iwane is a thing of the past. Iwane too agrees that he is trapped in a living hell of guilt and grief, yet choosing to go on living anyway as calm and cheerful as he’d ever been while standing up to Edo-era corruption though uncomfortably enough this time against the destabilising influence of the rising merchant class and therefore in contrast to most jidaigeki reinforcing the legitimacy of the samurai order which has paradoxically also ruined his life with its rigid and implacable social codes. In any case, Motoki’s classic chanbara melodrama has a serenity of its own as the cheerfully laidback hero resolves to live his life by a code of his own free of samurai constraint. 

Trailer (no subtitles)

Aristocrats (あのこは貴族, Yukiko Sode, 2021)

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“Is that still a thing?” a young boy asks incredulously of his rather severe grandmother as she quite insensitively sets up new marriage meetings for her granddaughter seconds after being told that her fiancé has unilaterally ended their engagement earlier that day. The “aristocracy” might seem like something from a bygone age, yet as those of us living in highly stratified societies can attest it continues to place a near invisible stranglehold over the mechanisms which govern our lives. Even so, the system traps all as Yukiko Sode’s sensitive drama Aristocrats (あのこは貴族, Ano Ko wa Kizoku), adapted from the novel by Mariko Yamauchi, makes plain as two women involved with the same man, as dejected and unhappy as either of them, eventually find common ground in attempting to seize their own agency from within a fiercely patriarchal society. 

At 27, Hanako (Mugi Kadowaki) is beginning to feel as if her life is slipping away from her. As we first meet her, she’s on her way to a posh New Year meal at a fancy Tokyo hotel. The taxi driver envies her, lamenting that he drives people here all the time but has never set foot inside. The reason she’s running late, however, is a mild sense of embarrassment as evidenced by the empty chair at her side intended for the fiancé who won’t be coming. Explaining that he broke off the engagement because the timing was bad, Hanako attempts to put a brave face on the apparent shame she seems to be feeling while her sisters and mother suggest it might be for the best, he was a little too “flamboyant” and in any case they’re ideally looking for someone suitable to take over the family medical practice. While everyone is busy proposing alternative matches, only Hanako’s brother-in-law (Takashi Yamanaka) bothers to ask her what it is she really wants but all she can muster is that she’d be fine with someone “normal”. 

After a few miserable omiai meetings with dreadful men from an awkward doctor with a photo fetish to a sleazy playboy salaryman who thinks women only say they like jazz because at some point a guy liked it, Hanako begins to lose the will to live thinking perhaps that looking for the “right guy” might be aiming too high and she should just take the best offer on the table. When she meets Koichiro (Kengo Kora), however, it’s love at first sight. Showing up like Prince Charming he’s handsome, poised, softly spoken, and even posher than she is. Hanako is the perfect choice to be his wife essentially because of her innate blandness. She’s everything the society wife is supposed to be, quiet, reserved, and unassuming in her total obedience to the tenets of her “upbringing”.  

Meanwhile, Koichiro has also been in a longterm non-relationship with another woman, Miki (Kiko Mizuhara), a bar hostess from a small town who has had to struggle the whole way to make a life for herself. The pair first met at Keio University, but Miki was forced to drop out before graduating when her father lost his job despite having studied her socks off just to get a place. A member of the “in-crowd”, Koichiro’s acceptance was guaranteed because he attended an affiliated school filled with the children of the rich and powerful. Mirroring Hanako’s lunch date with her society ladies, we see Miki and her friend invited by a couple of upperclass classmates to a fancy afternoon tea only to gorp at the menu and its exorbitant price list at which the “in-crowd” do not even glance. When they meet again 10 years later and Miki explains she didn’t exactly choose her line of work, Koichiro laments it’s exactly the same for him, which it of course isn’t, but he is in a similar way trapped. 

“I just want my family to continue” he later explains to Hanako, “it’s just how I was brought up. The same reason you married me”. In a certain way, Koichiro was no more free than Miki, ironically feminised reduced to his capacity to perpetuate the family line while aware that his whole life has been mapped out for him since the day he was born. He went to Keio, married a suitable woman, and is expected to run for political office. Hanako married him because she was expected to marry someone and it was undoubtedly a good match, yet she’s unhappy because the relationship is devoid of intimacy while her in-laws ironically pressure her about the lack of an heir. She suggests getting a job for something to do, but asking her brother-in-law for advice is reminded she’d need to talk to her husband and family first. 

Hanako’s friend, fellow aristocrat and concert violinist Itsuko (Shizuka Ishibashi), meanwhile has remained quite defiantly single explaining to Miki whom she’d met by chance that she believes a woman should be financially independent partly because her mother had wanted to leave her father who had several affairs and numerous illegitimate children but couldn’t because she had no way to support herself, upperclass women largely being brought up to be the wives of important men. As she tells Miki, she hates society’s tendency to pit women against each other and isn’t here to judge her about her relationship with Koichiro but merely to talk. Rather than a bitter love triangle what arises between the women is a sense of solidarity, each finding common ground in being victims of a patriarchal society even if their “upbringings” and social status are currently very different. While Miki perhaps admires from afar but does not particularly resent the “in-crowd”, Hanako begins to see the various ways her “upbringing” has trapped her, attracted by Miki’s sense of confidence and independence remarking that her life seems “lived in”, struck by the warmth of the photos she has on her wall of various trips with friends. 

Her mother had told her to “close her eyes to some things and try to get along” hearing the sad tale of a woman who managed to escape the golden prison of the aristocracy but only at the cost of her child, a cruelty Hanako had been too naive to consider. As Itsuko had told her, Tokyo is a compartmentalised city where you only meet members of your own social class, yet through her accidental contact with Miki she begins to realise another life is possible even if not quite shaking off her privilege as she rejects the tenets of her upbringing to seize her own agency while Koichiro remains trapped within the feudal legacy unable to free himself of the outdated notions of filial responsibility. A tale of cross-class, female solidarity, Aristocrats takes aim at the ironic equality of a system which damages all, even if some remain wilfully complicit, while affording the ability to its protagonists to sidestep the forces which constrain them to claim their own freedom brokered by mutual support and the aspiration towards a freer society. 

Aristocrats streams in Germany until 6th June as part of this year’s Nippon Connection.

International trailer (English subtitles)