Tag: Nippon Connection 2019

Complicity (コンプリシティ, Kei Chikaura, 2018)

June 3, 2019by Hayley Scanlon2 Comments

With an ageing population and an economy trapped in a long period of stagnation, Japan has found itself in an awkward moment of possible crisis as it begins to realise it will need to embrace immigration or face a serious labour shortage. Like many nations, unfortunately, much of Japan remains uncomfortable with the idea of overseas labour especially when it comes to “low skilled” work in construction, manufacturing, and casual jobs such those in restaurants and convenience stores. Given government intransigence and pressing need, workers from other areas of Asia are often employed illegally and subject to exploitation by gangs or unscrupulous employers.

The hero of Kei Chikaura’s Complicty (コンプリシテ), Chen Liang (Lu Yulai), finds himself in just this position as he leaves his sickly mother and feisty grandma alone in rural China in the hope of making enough money in Japan to come home and restart the family business. What he discovers, however, is that he’s essentially been trafficked as cheap labour and is already in hock for an ID card he was conned into paying three times the going rate for on the pretext it was “safer”. Now living under the name Liu Wei, Chen Liang is disturbed to receive calls on his new phone intended for his namesake but is tempted when Liu Wei receives a job offer from an employment agency. Passing himself off as his cover identity, Chen Liang takes the job only latterly realising it’s the rather incongruous position of a trainee chef in a family-owned soba restaurant.

Against expectation, ageing soba chef Hiroshi (Tatsuya Fuji) and his daughter Kaori (Kio Matsumoto) are warm and welcoming people who are actually a little bit excited that someone from China wants to learn about soba. Taken in almost as a member of the family, Chen Liang begins to feel conflicted – he is after all lying to them, at least about his name and circumstances, and his presence in their home might cause them trouble if he is ever found out. Meanwhile, he also strikes up a friendship with an artist who is learning Mandarin but has to lie to her too, pretending they may one day meet up in Beijing when in reality he has never even been there.

His burgeoning romance with Hazuki (Sayo Akasaka) is what precipitates his downfall as she, unaware he is undocumented, reports his stolen wallet to the police. The lies do not stop there – Chen Liang is also lying to his worried mother back at home who thinks he’s working in an office, while she is simultaneously lying to him in pretending everything’s fine in order to facilitate his “happy” life in Japan where he is supposed to make lots of money and come back a wealthy man. In order to make his dream succeed, Chen Liang must become Liu Wei at the exclusion of all else, forsaking his life as Chen Liang and living carefully as if he has nothing to fear.

Chen Liang is onto a good thing and has fared much better than some of his friends who either got themselves picked up by the police for doing the gang’s dirty work or found themselves out in the cold with no feasible way to get back “home”. Hiroshi’s son, with whom he seems to have some kind of bad family history, looks down on Chen Liang unable to understand why his father employed someone from China when the business is on the rocks. His attitude seems to be one shared by many (though not the universally supportive customers in Hiroshi’s soba shop) who see only difference rather than commonality. Despite the language barrier, Hiroshi and Chen Liang are often able to communicate through written characters, while another poignant moment of bonding sees Chen Liang sing the Mandarin lyrics over the top of Hazuki’s cheerful refrain of a popular Japanese song by Teresa Teng beloved all across Asia. Hiroshi himself was born in Beijing at the end of the war – a painful reminder of the complicated history between the two nations, but also one of how much they are interconnected and how little place of birth has to do with cultural identity.

Emphasising how much they have in common rather than the various ways in which Chen Liang differs from the world around him, Chikaura paints a much more sympathetic portrait of a migrant worker than the one usually found in the media. Filling the void left behind by Hiroshi’s own resentful son, Chen Liang becomes a valued and trusted member of the family who are in a sense “harbouring” him but to protect rather than exploit. Pushed to go to Japan despite his misgivings and drifting into the soba shop job through accidental opportunism, Chen Liang had in a sense abandoned his identity in avoiding making concrete decisions. Being Liu Wei was also a way to hide from his insecurities and fears for the future, but only through the unconditional love he received under false pretences is he finally able to reclaim his name, fugitive but free at last. A powerful plea for empathy and cross cultural connection, Complicity is a beautifully drawn character study in which kindness and compassion eventually open new paths for a conflicted young man trying to find his place in an often hostile world.

Complicity was screened as part of the 2019 Nippon Connection Film Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Teresa Teng’s – Toki no Nagare ni Mi wo Makase

Mandarin version – I Only Care About You

Killing (斬、, Shinya Tsukamoto, 2018)

June 2, 2019June 12, 2019by Hayley Scanlon1 Comment

Oppressed peasantry abandoned by their lords and under threat of violence have only ronin to turn to – it’s a familiar, some might say even the archetypal, jidaigeki story. Forever the iconoclast, Shinya Tsukamoto makes his first foray into the world of the samurai, Killing (斬、, Zan,), in typically contrary fashion, turning the classic formula on its head as samurai “justice” brings only more chaos, blood, and terror to the otherwise peaceful fields of ordinary farmers in Bakumatsu-era Japan.

In return for food and lodging, Mokunoshin (Sosuke Ikematsu), a young masterless samurai, has been living alongside a village of kindly farmers who, while deferent to his status, are grateful to have him around because they are desperately short of hands. In addition to helping out with farm work, he’s also been sharing his sword skills with local boy Ichisuke (Ryusei Maeda) who has developed delusions of grandeur that he might one day be allowed to hold a sword of his own. Ichinosuke’s sister Yu (Yu Aoi), meanwhile, has become fond of the handsome samurai but is conflicted by his corruption of her brother with “samurai” values he can never hope to aspire to while she also must know that whatever she might feel nothing good can come of it because a samurai will not marry a farmer’s daughter.

The problems begin when twin threats descend on the village – first the appearance of cooler than ice ronin Sawamura (Shinya Tsukamoto) who wants to recruit Mokunoshin for his mission to support the rule of the Shogun in Edo and Kyoto, and the second a group of bandits hovering menacingly on the horizon but as yet doing no real harm. A pragmatist at heart, Mokunoshin prefers diplomacy to action and so he talks to the bandits and rates them as minimally dangerous as long as they’re treated fairly. Unfortunately, fairness is not what they get from hotheaded Ichisuke whose small conflict with them soon sparks into a conflagration when Sawamura starts wielding the sword of justice and doing it imperfectly, bringing yet more chaos down on all their heads.

Violence spreads like a virus contracted by the sword. A victim of his ideology, Sawamura sees his blade as his whole being and the embodiment of his right to act with honour and authority. He thinks the answer is to stamp out the bandits, whereas Mokunoshin knows there are always more than it first seems and to strike at them simply means there will never be an end to the petty tit for tat reprisals. His solution is to let it lie, but to Sawamura that simply looks like cowardice and dereliction of duty.

Despite the prevailing ideology of the world in which he lives, Mokunoshin is opposed to the idea of killing yet if pressed his reasoning is less humanistic pacifism than personal discomfort. Mokunoshin may be a samurai and a fine swordsman, but he has never killed and it seems is afraid to do so. He sees those around him whom he has come to love endangered but cannot act, refusing to raise his sword while the bandits do as they please with none of the existential confusion which cripples Mokunoshin’s ability to serve his own ideals. Rather than insist on an end to the rule of the sword, Mokunoshin resents himself for wishing he could kill as easily as Sawamura and be like the other men of his age.

Yu meanwhile looks on from the sidelines as the samurai code of violence tears her world apart and finally infects her too as she finds herself, far from pleading with him not to die as a substitute for asking him not to leave, insisting that Mokunoshin be the one to fix the mess he made by infecting her brother with a samurai’s lust for glory. Sawamura, meanwhile, becomes fixated on the notion of fixing Mokunoshin through a duel to death in which it is kill or be killed. He is prepared to die for his ideal and hopes that Mokunoshin will in the end choose his life over his soul and become the prized warrior for the Shogun that he knows he is destined to be.

Opening in flames as if to imply the sword is a weapon forged in hell, Killing centres itself not so much on the act but on its repercussions. The bandits too are a product of the inequalities of their times, and if they visually resemble the ragged soldiers of Fires on the Plain it is probably no accident. The code of violence spreads from one generation to the next with inexorable inevitability. Ending in a wail of despair, Killing finds little cause for hope in its relentlessly bleak conclusion which sees no release from the meaningless cycle of violence while humanity refuses to reject the cruel and oppressive social codes which fuel its existence.

Killing was screened as part of the 2019 Nippon Connection Film Festival.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

The Call Of Zon (ゾンからのメッセージ, Takuji Suzuki, 2018)

June 1, 2019by Hayley ScanlonLeave a comment

Walls – do they constrain or protect? The residents of Yumetoi which has been sealed off for the last two decades by a mysterious force known as “Zon” cannot help but ask themselves the question. No-one claims to know what Zon is or why it arrived, but everyone has their own opinion on its existence from the youngsters brimming with curiosity about what lies outside to the older residents who think perhaps its best not to question the thing which keeps you safe.

Among the curious, intrepid youngster Ippo (Ryudai Takahashi) has got his hands on a videocamera and begun investigating the local environment, venturing well beyond “safe” limits in his quest for truth which is how he encounters the eccentric figure of Kantaro (Shogo Ishimaru) – a strange middle-aged man living in a disused building right next to the Zon barrier. Thanks to Kantaro, Ippo learns that Zon likes to throw things out into the world and is particularly intrigued by a strange black box (it’s a VHS tape but he’s too young to know what that is) he thinks might be some kind of message.

The small town of Yumetoi is a wholesome, nostalgic place filled with happy, innocent people who ostensibly want for nothing. Most of them have become used to Zon and accepted it as their new reality, neither resenting it nor particularly feeling its presence because they have little desire to leave. Others however, like Ippo, are intensely curious and begin to doubt everything they’ve been taught, wondering if Zon is really “dangerous” at all and if what lies outside of its walls really is nothing more than the land of the dead or if a lie has been spun to keep them from venturing forth.

Conceived in the wake of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Zon makes a subtle point about invisible barriers and the business of sealing off “unsafe” territory in wondering which side of the wall one is really on. Many residents of Yumetoi, like Kantaro, think Zon keeps them safe from external “evil” (as evidenced by adult magazines, apparently), while Ippo wonders if it might not be the opposite and it’s Zon keeping them prisoner. In any case, he wants to understand the message even others warn him that it’s best not to poke the beast and he’s better to let things lie. Nevertheless, he begins trying to communicate with the strange manifestation of existential dread through its own medium – by sending it video messages asking for greater clarification.

His quest has a profound impact on the town at large and most particularly Kantaro along with his former friend turned creepy cult minister running “rebirth” workshops, Ninomiya (Masahito Karakama). The pair “lost” a friend to Zon when he decided to cross the barrier in search of his own sound never to return. Though many have ventured outside, none have made it back. Some believe they died, others that they merely could not return, but still there are those who wait for them, like Michiko – the owner of Bar Yu who regards it as her calling to provide a place to which those who are lost can return.

Shooting in a constraining 4:3 and heightened colour palate, veteran director Takuji Suzuki adds an unexpectedly meta dimension to his already surreal exploration of physical and mental imprisonment in allowing the film crew to to appear on screen and including scenes of retake and rehearsal. In a roundabout way, the film crew itself becomes a manifestation of “Zon” as it literally captures the dreamy world of Yumetoi from outside as if trapping it in cinematic amber. Zon in itself may be a state of mind, a manifestation of the complex push and pull between the anxious need for safety and natural longing to understand the nature of the world, but it also serves as a literal barrier to transgressive thought as the more conservative residents resent any attempt to question its true purpose while the curious young insist on change and inquiry. The gift of Zon may be a kind of paradise but it’s one that comes at a price that the young are increasingly unwilling to pay. Zon’s message is its own undoing, urging the curious to free themselves from the accepted order by questioning its authority and finally finding the courage to step outside its bounds.

The Call of Zon was screened as part of the 2019 Nippon Connection Film Festival.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

It’s Boring Here, Pick Me Up (ここは退屈迎えに来て, Ryuichi Hiroki, 2018)

May 31, 2019July 21, 2019by Hayley ScanlonLeave a comment

Where now the dreams of youth? Japanese cinema seems to have been asking that very question since its inception but the answer remains as elusive as ever. The heroine(s) of Ryuichi Hiroki’s adaptation of a series of short stories by Mariko Yamauchi, It’s Boring Here, Pick Me Up (ここは退屈迎えに来て, Koko wa Taikutsu Mukae ni Kite), idolise Audrey Hepburn and long for urban sophistication only to find themselves hung up on unfulfilled high school promise and unable escape the wholesome romanticisation of their small-town youth to embrace the demands and possibilities of adulthood.

Hiroki follows his small-town high schoolers from 2004 to 2013, jumping freely between time periods as memories spark one another in emotional rather than chronological order. We begin with the unnamed protagonist, “I” (Ai Hashimoto), who has returned to her hometown after 10 (seemingly disappointing) years in Tokyo and now works as a freelance journalist for the provincial paper writing local culture articles on ramen shops and patisseries. She has contacted only one friend since her return, Satsuki (Yurina Yanagi), who has suggested, rather tongue in cheek, that they reconnect with former high school crush Shiina (Ryo Narita).

Back in high school, Shiina was like some kind of untouchable god. Everyone just wanted to be around him as if he alone made the sun shine. All the girls were in love with him, and the all boys wanted his approval. Asked about his hopes and dreams, Shiina just wants high school to go on forever, perhaps realising that he’ll never have it so good again. “I” meanwhile, claims that she wants to “become someone”. A small town girl who didn’t fit in, she hoped to find herself amid the hustle and bustle of the big the city but has returned with an even deeper sense of alienation than when she left with only the bright memory of her brief time as a chosen member of Shiina’s after school posse to cling to.

Satsuki, meanwhile, stayed behind but seems equally hung up on unfinished high school business. Having never been to Tokyo she is envious of her friend’s experiences and longs for the anonymity of the city. If you mess up in Tokyo, she claims, people will eventually forget whereas if you make a mistake in the country it’s all anyone will talk about for the rest of your life. That certainly seems to be true for another of the girls’ contemporaries (Rio Uchida) who left to become an idol only for it all to go wrong and come home branded as a loose woman. Cynical and calculating, she decides on an arranged marriage only to find herself shackled to an old man she doesn’t like very much while her shy friend (Yukino Kishii) seems to have found love by stealth and apparently won the jackpot without even knowing it.

Continuously travelling, the now almost-middle-aged high schoolers meander without direction as if circling around the locus of their departing youth and the sense of possibility disappearing with it. Running into another classmate, Shinpo (Daichi Watanabe), also connected with Shiina, I and Satsuki get a few more clues about their high school crush who apparently now lives a fairly ordinary life as a driving instructor thanks to Shinpo’s recommendation without which he was set to hit rock bottom after some kind of breakdown while failing to make it in Osaka. Nicknamed “Chinpo” (which means “willy”) in school, Shinpo’s dream for the future was to exist alongside someone that he loved but he seems to have given up even on this depressingly compromised desire and resigned himself to loneliness and lovelorn misery as someone who will never be able to find his place in a conservative and conformist society.

I meanwhile, like a similarly unnamed counterpart (Mugi Kadowaki) who really did date Shiina until he cruelly cast her aside, is finally able to burst her high school bubble by confronting it directly and seeing the reality rather than her romanticised impression of it. Those shining days of fun and friendship with everything still ahead will never come again, and so the memory of them remains bittersweet at best. Adult life is dull and disappointing, but there is perhaps melancholy happiness to be found in learning to embrace the present moment rather than harping on a largely imagined past or idealised future.

It’s Boring Here, Pick Me Up was screened as part of the 2019 Nippon Connection Film Festival.

International trailer (English subtitles)

The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine (菊とギロチン　女相撲とアナキスト, Takahisa Zeze, 2018)

May 30, 2019November 19, 2019by Hayley ScanlonLeave a comment

“I see it now, we can’t change anything” a despondent would-be-revolutionary decries in a moment of despair. Almost 100 years later, you might have to concede they have a point when the world finds itself on a tipping point once again and the same old prejudices refuse to disappear. Takahisa Zeze’s The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine (菊とギロチン　女相撲とアナキスト, Kiku to Guillotine Onna Zumo to Anarchism) casts an unflinching eye back towards the Japan of 1923 caught in the aftermath of a devastating natural disaster which followed on from a chaotic era of rapid social change and bewildering modernisation during which a series of battles were being fought for the future direction of a nation still trying to define itself in world dominated by empires.

When the Great Kanto Earthquake struck claiming mass loss of life and extreme damage to infrastructure, the ensuing chaos gave rise to a vicious rumour that Koreans were taking advantage of the situation to foment the independence movement by poisoning wells and committing arson leading to a pogrom against anyone who failed to prove themselves Japanese enough to satisfy the mob. Meanwhile, the same forces also turned on political opponents whose influence they perceived as destructive to their own aims culminating in the murder of prominent anarchist Sanae Osugi along with his feminist wife Noe Ito and their six-year-old nephew.

We begin, however, with a different band of outsiders in the Tamaiwa itinerant female sumo wrestler troupe many of whom have taken refuge in an isolated world of female solidarity in order to escape abusive relationships. Kiku (Mai Kiryu) is one such woman who found the courage to run away from a violent husband on catching sight of the powerful female wrestlers who made her realise that she too could become strong like them. Having accepted that “weak people can’t change anything”, Kiku has vowed to become “strong” in order to claim her own agency and ensure that she can’t be pushed around ever again.

Meanwhile, an anarchist sect known as the Guillotines are fomenting a more general kind of revolution but have not been very successful and are now on the run from the authorities which is how they end up running into the female wrestlers and more or less bringing them into the struggle. Led by libertine and (as yet) unpublished poet Tetsu Nakahama (Masahiro Higashide), the Guillotines are more romantic bandits with high ideals than serious revolutionaries. They rob the rich to fund their “activism” but spend most of the money on sex and drink while plotting revenge for the murder of Osugi with various schemes which imply that at heart they aren’t so different from that which they hate.

Nevertheless, the forces of darkness are rising and history tells us that, temporally at least, they will win. The vigilante militias which carried out the massacres were largely made-up of farmer soldiers who’d served in Russia and experienced terrible hardship. Unable to bear the idea that their traumatic wartime experiences had been a senseless waste, they doubled down on militarist ideology and insisted on their nationalistic superiority. This led them to hate, to regard anything that lay outside of their code as inferior and dangerous. Though the massacres were condemned by the government and the perpetrators prosecuted for their crimes, the convictions were largely quashed a short time later which is why we see our major villains rewarded by the state and our revolutionary “heroes” imprisoned for their resistance towards state oppression and desire to create a fairer, more equal society.

Ironically enough, Nakahama’s big utopian idea is an overly idealistic vision for a future Manchuria which in hindsight proves extremely uncomfortable but is perhaps an indication of the naivety of the times. Even so, the Guillotines for all their romanticism are essentially progressive in their thinking and in full support of sexual equality, insisting on the necessity of the wrestlers to embrace their physical capabilities in order to defend themselves against an oppressive and patriarchal society fuelled by male violence. Though this in itself might be mildly problematic in implying that in order to become “equal” women must learn to be more like men, it also plays into the film’s subtle sense of irony in which the tools of militarism are being subverted in order to oppose it. The “intellectual” Guillotines find their revolutions failing, while fighting fire with fire may be the only surefire way to win even if it legitimises the problematic act of violence in the process. Then again, as another of the Guillotines puts it, the truly strong are those who have no need of killing.

In any case, the Tamaiwa stable becomes a tiny enclave of progressive values built on female solidarity though they ultimately discover that solidarity is not quite enough and they cannot protect each other from the ravages of the times without external assistance. Even so, they attempt to hold the line, literally pushing back against the fascist incursion while insisting on their right to resist as human beings with will and agency. The prognosis seems bleak. 100 years later the same battles are still being fought and the same tensions rising in the wake of new disasters yet there are also those who will continue to resist and like the Tamaiwa wrestlers refuse to give in to those who threaten to restrict their freedom.

The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine was screened as part of the 2019 Nippon Connection Film Festival.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Marriage Hunting Beauty (美人が婚活してみたら, Akiko Ohku, 2018)

May 29, 2019November 12, 2021by Hayley Scanlon1 Comment

Is life really easier for “beautiful” people or do they simply experience a different series of problems? Some might say beauty is a nice problem to have, but however much people may scoff there is perhaps a price to be paid for physical attractiveness as the heroine of Akiko Ohku’s Marriage Hunting Beauty (美人が婚活してみたら, Bijin ga Konkatsu Shite Mitara) is at pains to point out though few are willing to sympathise. What she discovers, however, is that her beauty has perhaps been her blindspot in that it has made her self-centred and entitled while preventing her from realising what is it that has really been bothering her.

At 32, Takako (Mei Kurokawa) remains romantically naive and has wound up in a series of dead end relationships with terrible men who happened to be married (though she didn’t find out until it was too late). Her best friend, married housewife Keiko (Asami Usuda), tells her that her problem is that she’s too beautiful – single guys are too intimidated to make the first move while the married ones are emboldened by their desire to play with fire and the knowledge that the relationship is essentially meaningless because they already have “commitment” elsewhere. Hitting rock bottom, Takako suddenly has an epiphany that she wants to get married if only to prove that she is worthy of becoming someone’s wife rather just their mistress.

Takako is, it has to be said, perfectly aware that she is an attractive woman and sees little point in deflecting praise that comes her way because her of appearance – something that begins to grate on Keiko as Takako fails to submit herself to the level of socially accepted modesty which would require her to protest when called “beautiful”. Keiko’s categorising her as a sad princess is perhaps accurate in that she certainly likes to paint herself as hard done by while refusing to engage with the aspects of her life which cause her to feel miserable and empty. Entering the world of “konkatsu” – accelerated dating with a view to marriage, is then a humbling experience in which she must simultaneously raise and lower her expectations in order to work towards an “ordinary”, conventional kind of settled domesticity.

Of course, “beautiful” people aren’t supposed to need such services, and so Takako’s first few matches on a dedicated marriage orientated website are predictably depressing – a parade of strange older gentlemen hoping to bag a beauty and usually selling their social capital (houses, steady jobs etc) to do so. The one guy she does kind of hit it off with, Sonogi (Tomoya Nakamura), is a shy salaryman who seems nice but lacks confidence and remains creepily in awe of her beauty. Meanwhile, a singles mixer at an “elite” bar introduces her to cynical dentist Yatabe (Kei Tanaka) who seems to have confidence in abundance but very little kindness.

Takako is back to the familiar problem of trying to choose between two men, one nice but servile and the other selfish and indifferent but admittedly exciting. Yatabe is a walking collection of red flags, which is to say that he’s just Takako’s type, but fortunately she’s beginning to figure out that what she likes is not always what’s good for her. Then again, she’s also trying to move past her conception of herself as a “beautiful” woman so Sonogi’s constant deference and gratitude for being allowed in the presence of someone so out of his league is exactly the opposite of what she’s looking for even if she’s beginning to warm to his nice guy charms.

Meanwhile, she remains uncomfortable with her own sense of desire and struggles to reconcile it with society’s preconceived notions of what “beautiful people” should be. Despite their otherwise close friendship, Takako is unable to talk honestly even with Keiko and largely fails to take much of an interest in her friend’s life. Keiko, meanwhile, seems to be trapped in an unfulfilling marriage and secretly may not want Takako to change because she is vicariously enjoying her messy bachelorette lifestyle. Nevertheless, it’s friendship which eventually wins out as the two women agree to meet on more equal terms, sharing their essential selves honestly and without fear as they commit to supporting each other with mutual understanding.

“There are no shortcuts to love”, Takako finally acknowledges as she realises what wanted all along wasn’t superficial acceptance but recognition. What looked like haughtiness was really low self esteem. A quirky tale of a middle-aged woman finding the courage to step into herself, Marriage Hunting Beauty might be telling a familiar story but does so with genuine sympathy for its beautiful heroine as she finally finds the strength to reject the social straightjacket and reclaim her sense of self as a person worthy of respect rather than reverence or ridicule.

Marriage Hunting Beauty was screened as the opening night gala of the 2019 Nippon Connection Film Festival.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Hard-Core (ハード・コア, Nobuhiro Yamashita, 2018)

May 16, 2019by Hayley Scanlon1 Comment

“The world will always be corrupt”, the cynical brother of the angry young man at the centre of Nobuhiro Yamashita’s Hard-Core (ハード・コア) advises him, “you just have to work around it”. Unfortunately, Ukon (Takayuki Yamada) just wants to do “the right thing”, but it is constantly unsure of the best way to do it while remaining resentful and conflicted in his conviction that the world has already rejected him. Yamashita has made a career out of chronicling the struggles of disenfranchised young men but Ukon and his pals are less genial slackers than potentially dangerous idealists looking for a way back to a simpler time in which the world was not quite so rotten.

An opening bar scene in which Ukon gets slowly drunk and then lays into a rowdy bunch of guys bothering a middle-aged woman (Takako Matsu) just trying to enjoy a drink showcases his propensity to abruptly lose his temper and fall into a self destructive cycle while also subtly pointing out his entitlement issues in his taking the guy to task by praising himself for leaving the lady alone while he presumably had exactly the same desire not to. In any case, after getting banned from the bar, he ends up joining an ultranationalist political cell, the Crimson Hearts, which aims to teach the youth of Japan to re-embrace its traditional culture. In order to facilitate his goals, the elderly and eccentric leader, Kaneshiro (Kubikukuri Takuzo), has enlisted Ukon, along with a friend, Ushiyama (Yoshiyoshi Arakawa) who is almost entirely mute, to dig out a mysterious cavern where he is convinced there is buried Edo-era treasure.

It’s easy to see why Ukon might fall for the rather insane ramblings of Kaneshiro. They reinforce his sense of moral decline while giving him a banner to follow and a place to belong. His loyalty to Kaneshiro is as absolute as a retainer’s to his lord, though he is perhaps conflicted in his commitment to the core ideology even as he sees obvious merit in wanting to reclaim something of the old Japan. Meanwhile, his relationship with his family appears strained. His younger brother Sakon (Takeru Satoh) has become a cynical salaryman out for nothing other than greed and self interest, staring into his own empty eyes in the reflection of the full glass panelling of his high rise office as he has meaningless sex with anonymous office ladies. Ukon just wants to do the right thing, but Sakon wants to make the smart choice and doesn’t particularly care about the wider implications of his choices.

Meanwhile, Ukon is fiercely loyal to his friends and fellow outsiders in solidarity with all those who feel the world will never be willing to accept them. Ushiyama, a man laid low by familial expectation and societal pressure, lives in an abandoned factory where he has made “friends” with a broken robot that Ukon manages to repair and names “Robo-o”. Believing that Robo-o is just like them in that he would be ostracised if people discovered his true nature, Ukon and Ushiyama set about disguising him and even get him in on their gold hunting gig (where he gets paid!) at which he proves adept considering his considerable technical superiority. Ukon’s first instinct is to protect his friend, while Sakon’s is how best to exploit him.

Nevertheless, events at the Crimson Hearts begin to escalate as unpleasant underling Mizunuma (Suon Kan) considers taking the battle to the next stage to “overthrow the corrupt totalitarianism masquerading as democracy” through actions others will regard as terrorist. Meanwhile, Ukon has also begun to fall for Mizunuma’s damaged daughter Taeko (Kei Ishibashi) whom he met by chance after being inappropriately charged with spying on Mizunuma’s new girlfriend to make sure she wasn’t sleeping around (as women do, according to Mizunuma). Ukon, as the first scene implied, is not in favour of all this obvious misogyny but can only find the strength for passive resistance. What he chooses, in the end, is his friends and his precious group of outsiders, albeit with his hopes pinned on his cynical brother and the illusionary lustre of historical treasure. The power of friendship eventually enables even Robo-o to break his programming, though it’s Sakon’s cynicism that, in one sense at least, seems to triumph. Yamashita takes his troubled young heroes on a rocky, noirish path through the “rotten” world which they are increasingly convinced holds no place for them but finally finds hope in human compassion even if that compassion may be the long buried treasure of an archaic civilisation.

Hard-Core was screened as part of the 2019 Udine Far East Film Festival. It will also be screened at the 2019 Nippon Connection Film Festival on 31st May at 22.30pm and 1st June, 22.45pm.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Lying to Mom (鈴木家の嘘, Katsumi Nojiri, 2018)

May 13, 2019by Hayley Scanlon1 Comment

Learning to live with loss is difficult for any family, but when the loss was caused by suicide the pain is even more acute as those left behind try to understand why it is their loved one had to die and if there was anything else they could have done to prevent it. The family at the centre of Lying to Mom (鈴木家の嘘, Suzukike no Uso) choose, initially at least, to avoid dealing with it at all. Each taking their individual paths through grief, they keep the past painfully alive by pretending that oldest son Koichi (Ryo Kase) is only temporarily absent and will eventually return.

Koichi, who has been a hikikomori for many years, takes one last look at the peaceful suburban scene outside his window and hangs himself from a storage closet in his room. His mother Yuko (Hideko Hara), out at the time, only discovers the body when trying to get him to come down to lunch. Panicked, she injures herself and ends up in a coma in hospital while nothing could be done for Koichi. When she wakes up some time later, she’s lost all her memories of the incident and the family don’t have the heart to tell her that her son is gone so they pretend he went to work for his uncle in Argentina.

This is of course very comforting to Yuko who now believes that as a result of her illness Koichi has finally been able to leave his room for a more productive life, but it places a strain on the other family members – father Yukio (Ittoku Kishibe) and daughter Fumi (Mai Kiryu), who remain conflicted about keeping up the pretence while dealing with their own grief in secret. Fumi, whose idea it was to lie in the first place, types out beautiful letters supposedly from Koichi to be handwritten in his handwriting by an associate in Argentina which detail his new life full of freedom and promise overseas.

Meanwhile, Yukio ponders on his relationship with his son with whom he admits he never quite bonded. He sets about trying to find a mysterious woman named on Koichi’s life insurance policy less for practical reasons than to ascertain some sort of evidence that his son lived, even if he lived the last years of his life alone in a room. The reasons for Koichi’s isolation are never exactly explained with Yuko blaming high school bullying and the stagnant economy, but it is clear that he never managed to find himself in Japan and perhaps if he really had gone to Argentina things might have been different.

Wracked with guilt, Fumi finds herself trying out a support group for relatives of those who died by suicide but struggles to put her own thoughts in order. Though people try their best, insensitivity reigns when they try to offer words of condolence. Only love can save people, Fumi’s colleague smugly tells her with a random story about coaxing a shy high school student out their room, little realising he’s tacitly accusing her of not trying hard enough to save her brother. People can’t be saved, Fumi retorts, and she might well have a point. Even the leader of the support group shows himself up when he considers banning a grief-stricken woman with a loud personality because her problems are “smaller” seeing as she’s wealthy. As another attendee tells him, people grieve in different ways and having money or not is unlikely to affect the degree of your emotional pain even if it might in some sense reduce the burden. Besides, his assumptions about her are mostly wrong because he’s not been paying attention to the things that really matter only to his own surface level prejudices.

Despite the prevalence of suicide, the Suzukis still find themselves embarrassed by Koichi’s passing. They tell people it was an illness or avoid mentioning it all. Meanwhile they keep the secret from Yuko and avoid talking about it amongst themselves until finally forced to deal with all of their anger, guilt, pain and confusion. A comforting lie may serve its purpose, but only an emotional reckoning can clear the air. There may be no real answer to why Koichi did what he did, but the Suzukis will have to make their peace with it, finding fresh hope in the process as they begin to repair their emotional wounds together as a family.

Lying to Mom was screened as part of the 2019 Udine Far East Film Festival. It will also be screened at the 2019 Nippon Connection Film Festival on 30th May at 7.30pm.

International trailer (English subtitles)

Melancholic (メランコリック, Seiji Tanaka, 2018)

May 11, 2019June 12, 2019by Hayley ScanlonLeave a comment

Just because you’re smart and graduated from a top university, does that necessarily mean you have to put on the salaryman straitjacket in order to become “a success”? The dejected hero of Seiji Tanaka’s Melancholic (メランコリック) isn’t quite so sure, but then he’s always been the type to amble through life going wherever the wind blows him. The time is about to come, however, when decisions must be made and priorities decided lest someone else decide them for you.

Kazuhiko (Yoji Minagawa) graduated from Tokyo University but he’s never been in full time employment and has no definite career plans. Still living at home with his parents, he floats between part-time jobs with little sense of forward motion while his mum and dad are content to let him find his way, if a little exasperated. On a rare visit to a public bathhouse he ends up running into an old high school classmate, Yuri (Mebuki Yoshida), who half-jokingly advises he apply for the open job at the baths seeing as it’s bound to be less stressful than your average salaryman gig. Smitten but too awkward to do much about it, Kazuhiko applies for the job and consents to go to a school reunion as a means of seeing Yuri again. Much to his surprise, however, the bathhouse has a second life as a yakuza kill room with on site body disposal facilities.

Asking questions about what goes on at the bathhouse after dark, Kazuhiko’s boss Azuma (Makoto Hada) tells him that it’s dangerous to know things you aren’t supposed to know, but Kazuhiko is not good with hints and his natural curiosity won’t it let it rest. After he finds out about the secret yakuza backroom deal, Kazuhiko has a “difficult” choice to make – elect to help out with the “night shift”, or die. Kazuhiko chooses to help out (he likes being helpful) and discovers that he actually doesn’t mind it all that much, especially considering the “bonus” package Azuma gave him for being a good boy.

The extra money made Kazuhiko feel as if he could grasp that swanky salaryman life without having to submit himself to the rat race. He uses the money to take Yuri to a fancy French restaurant where he’s flummoxed by the wine list and she’s uncomfortable, but still it goes well even if they both resolve to go somewhere more casual next time. Kazuhiko’s inferiority complex is only enflamed by the lingering presence of Tamura (Yuta Okubo), another old classmate made good, who is also interested in Yuri and is everything Kazuhiko feels himself not to be – handsome, successful, filthy rich, cultured, and confident.

Being allowed in on the after hours business made Kazuhiko feel as if he’d been promoted, that Azuma obviously trusted him and that there might be more overtime coming if he played his cards right. His confidence receives a further knock, however, when he realises that a punkish colleague who joined at the same time as him, Matsumoto (Yoshitomo Isozaki), is technically in a more senior position despite being a barely literate drop out with bleach blond hair. In way over his head, Kazuhiko still desperately wants to regain some of that status and approval he felt was his when the cleanup business was their little secret.

An awkward, naive, but sincere man, Kazuhiko marvels on realising how many yakuza seem to be “around” before Azuma and Matsumoto remind him that not everyone involved with crime is a bona fide yakuza. The bathhouse outfit is, more or less, run by freelancers but still at the mercy of mob boss Tanaka (Masanobu Yada) who has an iron hold over Azuma because of outstanding debts. Azuma would like to put a stop to the night shift, but can’t – or so he claims. As is later pointed out, for those getting on in years an unsatisfying status quo is often preferable to a turbulent new. Though Kazuhiko has no real objection to working the night shift as far as the clean up goes, he is not completely comfortable with its wider implications, often asking why it was someone had to die only for Matsumoto and Azuma to shrug and say it doesn’t matter. They had orders and carried them out, anything else is an irrelevance they don’t need to worry about.

Kazuhiko, however, does worry if in a fairly minor way until his gradual descent into the world of crime drags him into a vicious quagmire in which he must accept the seriousness of his situation along with its potential costs. Despite the original animosity and natural sense of distrust, what wins out is a sense of fellow feeling between unlikely allies Matsumoto and Kazuhiko who begin to see a way out of their mutual malaise through seizing their own futures and daring to pin their hopes on things they assumed unattainable, like love and friendship. Rather than chasing the salaryman dream, or climbing to the top of the yakuza tree, they pick an ordinary kind of “good enough” success in which moments of warmth and togetherness become the only things which give life meaning. A surreal ode to just muddling through and learning to be happy in the moment, Melancholic more than lives up to its name but despite all the darkness eventually finds real joy in the easy pleasures of mediocrity and mutual acceptance.

Melancholic was screened as part of the 2019 Udine Far East Film Festival. It will also be screened at the 2019 Nippon Connection Film Festival where director Seiji Tanaka and actor Yoshitomo Isozaki will be present for a Q&A.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Nippon Connection Confirms Full Lineup for 2019!

May 9, 2019by Hayley Scanlon20 Comments

Nippon Connection, the largest showcase for Japanese cinema anywhere in the world, returns with another fantastic selection of new and classic films screening in Frankfurt from 28th May to 2nd June. Opening with the latest quirky rom-com from Tremble All You Want’s Akiko Ohku Marriage Hunting Beauty, the festival will also welcome Guest of Honour Shinya Tsukamoto with a screening of his latest film Killing plus classics Tetsuo: The Iron Man and Tokyo Fist. Meanwhile, this year’s classics strand is dedicated to Golden Era actress Ayako Wakao. The programme in full:

Nippon Cinema

And Your Bird Can Sing – Adapted from the novel by Yasushi Sato, And Your Bird Can Sing follows a trio of lost youngsters as they drift into an almost certainly destructive ménage à trois.
Another World – a middle-aged man keeps his family at a distance but the reappearance of a childhood friend begins to shake his world in the latest from Junji Sakamoto.
Asako I & II – A young woman finds herself torn between old love and new in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s whimsical drama. Review.
The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine – Taisho era tale of sumo and revolution in which a band of anarchists find themselves fascinated by an itinerant troupe of female sumo wrestlers shortly after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 in the latest from Takahisa Zeze.
Dare to Stop Us – Kazuya Shiraishi’s nostalgic look back at the heyday of Wakamatsu Production through the eyes a young female AD. Review.
Dawn Wind in my Poncho – a trio of college kids takes a last roadtrip before graduation.
Fly Me to the Saitama – zany comedy from Hideki Takeuchi in which the residents of Saitama have become an oppressed minority. Review.
Hard-Core – a purehearted guy with a violent streak laments the cruelty of the modern world but finds friendship with a lonely homeless man and a robot they find in an abandoned factory.
Inuyashiki – an angry young man and mild-mannered dad get superpowers on the same day in Shinsuke Sato’s blockbuster manga adaptation. Review.
It’s Boring Here, Pick Me Up – ensemble drama from Ryuichi Hiroki following 10 years in the lives of a collection of lost souls from small town Japan.
Jam – Returning to the realms of Dangan Runner, Sabu brings three dreaming guys together through the power of cosmic coincidence. Review.
Killing – a samurai prefers not to pick up his sword in Shinya Tsukamoto’s first foray into the jidaigeki.
Love at Least – a young woman with bipolar tries to get her life together but is frustrated by the reappearance of her supportive boyfriend’s manipulative ex. Review.
Lying to Mom – When her son tries to hang himself, the mother of the Suzuki family knocks herself out in an effort to save him and winds up in a coma. When she wakes up, she can’t remember anything of the incident. Lacking the heart to tell her the truth, the family pretend he is alive and well and living in Argentina.
Marriage Hunting Beauty – manga adaptation from Akiko Ohku in which a beautiful woman with terrible taste in men decides to get married.
The Miracle of Crybaby Shottan – shogi drama from Toshiaki Toyoda.
Ramen Shop – a bereaved ramen chef travels to Singapore after finding the diary of his late mother.
Room Laundering – a young woman puts her ability to see ghosts to a productive use. Review.
Special Screening: Tetsuo: The Iron Man – classic 1989 cyberpunk from Shinya Tsukamoto.
Special Screening: The Legend of the Stardust Brothers – rediscovered ’80s cult classic from Macoto Tezka.
Special Screening: Tokyo Fist – classic boxing drama from Shinya Tsukamoto.
Thicker Than Water – ironic warring siblings comedy. Review.
We are Little Zombies – anarchic pop comedy in which four orphaned kids decide to start a band!

NIPPON VISIONS

Ahum – atmospheric black and white horror film in which a nuclear plant employee begins to lose his grasp on reality.
Blue Hour – a young woman takes her best friend on a roadtrip to her home town but finds old wounds reopening on reuniting with her family.
The Call of Zon – experimental science fiction film in which a small town has been walled off by a mysterious force known as Zon for the past 20 years.
The Chaplin – Ren Osugi stars as a prison chaplain ministering to death row prisoners.
Complicity – an undocumented man from China starts working at a soba restaurant but lives in constant fear of discovery.
Jesus – a 10-year-old boy moves to his grandmother’s out in the country and has to attend a Christian school.
Life Finds a Way – the latest from Hirobumi Watanabe is a meta take on the filmmaking process.
Melancholic – a graduate of a top university takes a job in a bathhouse and is shocked to discover it doubles as a yakuza killing ground in Seiji Tanaka’s ironic debut.
Sea – a man who witnessed a rape as a teenager but did nothing to help muses on his failings when he meets the perpetrators again years later.
Tourism – two women take a trip to Singapore but things take a turn for the strange when one gets lost.

Nippon Docs

Boy Soldiers: The Secret War in Okinawa – documentary exploring the child soldiers who fought under the Japanese during the battle of Okinawa.
From All Corners – a young man gives up his job to become a cardboard picker.
I Go Gaga, My Dear – director Naoko Nobutomo follows her elderly parents and charts the development of her mother’s Alzheimer’s.
Japanese Documentaries Presented by NHK World-Japan – two NHK docs including the first episode of 10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki, and another about a Syrian musician’s discovery of a piano which survived the 1945 nuclear attack.
Kagura Troupe on the Beat – traditional shinto music and dance.
Portraits of the Rainbow – Ayumi Nakagawa follows photographer Leslie Kee as he photographs members of the LGBT community in order to combat their invisibility within Japanese society.
Sending Off – Nippon Connection regular Ian Thomas Ash returns with a documentary following a doctor and her team of nurses as they offer hospice care to patients in their homes.
Shinjuku Tiger – Yoshinori Sato follows the man in the tiger mask often seen around Shinjuku.
Tower of the Sun – Love at Least director Kosai Sekine uses Taro Okamoto’s Tower of the Sun as a jumping off point to explore the evolution of Japanese culture

Nippon Animation

Hiroyasu Ishida: Animation Shorts – a selection of shorts from the Penguin Highway director who will also be on hand to discuss his career after the screening.
Liz and the Blue Bird – the latest from Naoko Yamada follows two friends in their final year of high school as their friendship is tested by rehearsing the famous musical piece.
Nippon Film Breakfast: Mirai – the latest from Mamoru Hosoda in which a little boy tries to come to terms with the arrival of his baby sister. Screening in Japanese with German subtitles only.
Okko’s Inn – a young girl moves in with her grandmother after losing her parents and makes friends only she can see. Screening in Japanese with German subtitles only, and in German dub.
Penguin Highway – a young boy tries to solve the mysterious arrival of random penguins in his ordinary town. Review.
Tokyo University of the Arts: Animation Shorts – selection of student shorts.
Transience – The Best of Recent Indie Animation – selection of indie shorts.

Nippon Retro: Ayako Wakao – Magnificent Icon of Japanese Cinema

An Actor’s Revenge – Kon Ichikawa classic in which an onnagata attempts to avenge the death of his parents.
The Blue Sky Maiden – cheerful melodrama in which a young woman travels to live with her birth father’s family but is fiercely resented by her step-mother and half siblings. Marks the first collaboration between Yasuzo Masumura and his later muse. Review.
Elegant Beast – satirical comedy from Yuzo Kawashima in which a criminal family meets their match in a wily entertainment accountant.
Floating Weeds – Ozu classic in which the leader of an itinerant theatre troupe reunites with his former lover in a seaside town.
The Goddess of Mercy – Yasuzo Masumura’s adaptation of the Junichiro Tanizaki novel in which a bored housewife enters a relationship with a woman she meets at art class who reminds her of the goddess of mercy. Review.
The Red Angel – Ayako Wakao stars as a frontline nurse in Masumura’s powerful anti-war drama. Review.
Seisaku’s Wife – a young woman marries an old man and continues to live alone after he dies suddenly becoming a social pariah until she falls in love with a model soldier.
Women are Born Twice – Wakao stars as a melancholy geisha in another comic drama from Yuzo Kawashima.

Nippon Connection takes place in Frankfurt, Germany from 28th May to 2nd June. Tickets are available from 11th May via the official website where you can also find full details on all the films as well as timetabling information. Unless otherwise stated, films screen in Japanese with English subtitles. In addition to the films the festival will also host a series of events including director talks and workshops in a rich cultural programme. You can keep up with all the latest information by following the festival on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and Instagram.