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Haunted By Recurring Apparitions, A Young Girl Embarks On A Supernatural Journey To A Tsunami-ravaged Japan In Search Of Her Mother In This Poignant Drama About Love And Loss

The New Director's Award-nominee At San Sebastian Makes Its North American Premiere On SVOD Service Indiepix Unlimited On September 13, 2024

Synopsis

Haunted by recurring apparitions, sixteen-year-old Ami (Mihaya Shirata) embarks on a supernatural journey from Singapore to Japan in search of her mother who went missing during a cataclysmic tsunami. Upon her arrival in Tokyo, she meets Isamu (Masatoshi Nagase), her cynical taxi-driving uncle, who becomes her custodian and reluctant guide through the ravaged landscape and her family's dark past.

Set against the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku tsunami and shot mostly in Rikuzentakata, a city almost wiped out during the tsunami, Last Shadow At First Light is a “post-apocalyptic story of survivors' trauma” (The Film Verdict) that reckons with lingering family trauma.

‘Snow Leopard’, ‘Paradise’, ‘The Goldfinger’ and ‘Godzilla Minus One’ also land multiple nods.

South Korean box office hit 12.12: The Day and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist lead the nominations for the 17th Asian Film Awards, with six nods each including best film.

Also up for best film is Prasanna Vithanage’s Paradise from Sri Lanka-India, Wim Wenders Perfect Days from Japan and Chinese feature Snow Leopard by the late Pema Tseden.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Hong Kong on March 10 and will be decided by a...

It was kind of an unspoken (probably) agreement among artists from Japan, to not deal extensively with the events of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, for ten years, probably as a sign for respect for the ones lost and the ones who suffered due to the events. Since 2021 though, the local industry has started focusing on the events intently, with a number of movies and dramas being released since then. “Last Shadow at First Light” also moves in the same path, in an international co-production involving people from Singapore, Japan, Slovenia, Philippines and Indonesia, which premiered at the 71st San Sebastián International Film Festival in September.

Last Shadow at First Light screened at Qcinema

16-year-old Ami is a girl living with her father in Singapore, after her mother's death when she was little. Both of them miss her intensely, with him having embarked in a kind of solemn silence in...

A woman buries her anger deep under a lake of serenity only to discover that every small action or decision can set off a chain of reverberating ripples, in the latest movie from director Naoko Ogigami, aptly named “Ripples” (波紋 Hamon). Her trademark quirky comedy style and unique perspective are still here, but this time her narrative voice is a notch more dramatic.

Ripples is screening at Five Flavours

A prologue set in the aftermath of a fictional eco-disaster, introduces the Sudo family living in a tranquil suburban neighbourhood. Yoriko Sudo (Mariko Tsutsui) is a woman in her 50s, defined by her roles of wife of a salaryman, mother of a disaffected young man and reluctant carer of Osamu's bedridden – but well able to fondle her – father. Water is scarce, as probably contaminated after the earthquake, and bottled water has become a precious good. One ordinary day, Yoriko calls everybody...

Singaporean writer-director Nicole Midori Woodford is on a roll with her debut feature, Last Shadow At First Light, which premiered in New Directors at San Sebastian film festival and has two nominations at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSAs) for best screenplay and best performance (Mihaya Shirata).

Filmed in Singapore and Japan, the film follows a Singaporean teenage girl with a special connection to the spiritual world who goes on a road trip to uncover the mystery of her Japanese mother’s supposed death. She has been told her mother died by suicide during the recovery effort following the Japan 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed her maternal grandparents. But she doesn’t believe this to be true.

Meeting up with an uncle in Tokyo, they travel together to a town that was swept away by the tsunami although her uncle is more interested in the local pachinko parlour than helping with the quest.

A woman buries her anger deep under a lake of serenity only to discover that every small action or decision can set off a chain of reverberating ripples, in the latest movie from director Naoko Ogigami, aptly named “Ripples” (波紋 Hamon). Her trademark quirky comedy style and unique perspective are still here, but this time her narrative voice is a notch more dramatic.

Ripples is screening at Camera Japan

A prologue set in the aftermath of a fictional eco-disaster, introduces the Sudo family living in a tranquil suburban neighbourhood. Yoriko Sudo (Mariko Tsutsui) is a woman in her 50s, defined by her roles of wife of a salaryman, mother of a disaffected young man and reluctant carer of Osamu’s bedridden – but well able to fondle her – father. Water is scarce, as probably contaminated after the earthquake, and bottled water has become a precious good. One ordinary day, Yoriko calls...

In her feature debut, director Nicole Midori Woodford explores the aftermath of an apocalyptic event and examines how trauma leaves an indelible mark on its survivors that ripple onto close family relationships. Crafting evocative atmospheres and elemental textures as metaphors for hauntings, hallucinations and dreams, the director delicately weaves the supernatural and the lyrical into a coming-of-age road trip of a teenager yearning to uncover the reason for her mother’s vanishing in Japan. Starring the acclaimed Masatoshi Nagase, Mariko Tsutsui, Peter Yu, and newcomer Mihaya Shirata.

J-horror has taken a different face recently in the country, with local filmmakers more interested in exploring the borders of the category and how much a realistic base (as in the case of actual events) can be implemented in such types of films. Yosuke Goto also implements this approach in “Bldg N.”, based on a true story that took place in an apartment complex in Gifu Prefecture in 2000.

“Bldg N.” is screening at Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival

Although Maho does not know it, her boyfriend Keita is still seeing his ex, Maho, who is experiencing an intense thanatophobia, as they attend the same college. For one of his projects, a horror film, the three of them decide to visit an abandoned apartment complex on the outskirts of the city. However, as soon as they arrive there, they realize that it is not uninhabited at all. The inhabitants, however, function like a cult of sorts,...

In true fashion, the inspiration for the Japanese horror film Bldg. N is an urban legend. In the early 2000s, there was a media storm about the “poltergeist apartments” in Tomika, Gifu. This new complex lured many tenants with its cheap rent, but they gradually cleared out once the paranormal activity began and the news coverage became unreasonable. The reports on the supposed haunting don’t come across as especially unique, so director and writer Yōsuke Gotō understandably had to fill in the gaps when writing his adaptation of the incident. What he came up with is indeed unusual, given that Japanese ghost films don’t typically include Midsommar-esque death cults.

Bldg. N (or N-Goto) opens with the literal definition of thanatophobia, an intense fear of death and the dying process. The story then introduces the character afflicted with said phobia and shows how much of a toll it has taken on her life.

Yoriko Sudo (Mariko Tsutsui) is a woman in her 50s. She draws fine ripples in the sand every morning as she tends to the Zen garden in her yard, which seems incongruous with her modern house in its quiet residential area. Yoriko is devoted to a cult-like religion, the Ryokumei-kai or the Green Life Water Society, and spends her days in prayer and study. One day, her husband Osamu (Ken Mitsuishi), who abandoned her and their son several years ago, comes back. His return is like a rock that makes ripples on the quiet surface of her life. The earthquake, nursing care for the aged, new religions, discrimination against the handicapped – the unexplained darkness in the world appears in the Sudo family. When Yoriko’s emotions which have been stifled are revealed, the film rises from despair to entertainment. (Source: Japanese Film Database)

Ripples is written and directed by Naoko Ogigami...

The family drama genre quite frequently takes an extreme, perverse hypostasis in Japanese cinema, with the harsh realism actually being one of the trademarks of local titles. Actor/Filmmaker Hideo Sasaki stumbled upon such a script 10 years ago, written by Takehiko Minato, eventually managing to shoot a movie out of it when he met Aimi Satsukawa, who embodies the protagonist in the best fashion. The result was “Confession”.

The story starts in the present, in a house deep in the mountains, where Mizuki, a 32-year-old woman is living peacefully, almost in complete silence, with her older, potter husband. The serenity is broken, however, when her stepbrother Iori shows up along with his girlfriend, after 15 years of absence, to inform her that their mother has died. Both his and his girlfriend’s attitude is somewhat contentious, and through a series of flashbacks, we soon learn why.

The movie then takes a leap backwards,...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Fabian: Going to the Dogs (Dominik Graf)

In the first hour of Dominik Graf’s Fabian: Going to the Dogs, we see the title character running around 1920s Berlin, bumping into eccentric characters at bars and nightclubs while the camera moves and cuts at a whirlwind pace. It’s a time of indulgence and recklessness for Fabian and other young people in Germany, and then he finds himself standing face to face with a young woman in the back of a club. The camera cuts to a rapid-fire montage of both characters together and in love, scenes from later in the film we haven’t gotten to yet. Up to this point, Fabian was living in the present; without warning he begins to see a future,...

The Suzuokas are a seemingly regular family of three, living in the suburbs. The husband, Toshio, runs a small metalworking industry in the basement of the house they live in. His wife, Fumie is a homemaker and their little daughter, Hotaru goes to the elementary school and takes harmonium lessons.

“Harmonium” is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema

However, when Kusataro Yasaka, an old acquaintance of Kanji arrives unexpectedly to their house, after he is released from prison, everything changes. Kanji seems to have a past life that Mariko did not know of, and a secret he shares with Kusataro that makes him invite him to stay at their house. Mariko is infuriated in the beginning, but as time passes and Kusataro reveals the reasons he went to prison, he takes a liking to him. The same applies to Hotaru, as Kusataro also knows how to play...

How much our lives can get destroyed just by plain coincidence or the particularly bad string of coincidences? It is an ages-long philosophical question that has been treated in movies practically from the beginning. Japanese auteur Koji Fukada, however, does not take the usual path to tell this kind of story. It is not a mystery or a thriller, it is a psychological drama focused on one singular character in the midst of the turmoil. “A Girl Missing” premiered in Locarno and we caught it at Viennale.

“A Girl Missing” is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema

The character here is Ichiko, whom we meet as Risa Uchida, a widow looking for a change in her life. She says that directly to her hairdresser Kazumichi (Ikematsu Sosuke), explaining that she chose him because of his last name he shares with her late husband. The two of them...

A seemingly regular family gets an unexpected visitor

The Suzuokas are a seemingly regular family of three, living in the suburbs. The husband, Toshio, runs a small metalworking industry in the basement of the house they live in. His wife, Fumie is a homemaker and their little daughter, Hotaru goes to the elementary school and takes harmonium lessons.

However, when Kusataro Yasaka, an old acquaintance of Kanji arrives unexpectedly to their house, after he is released from prison, everything changes. Kanji seems to have a past life that Mariko did not know of, and a secret he shares with Kusataro that makes him invite him to stay at their house. Mariko is infuriated in the beginning, but as time passes and Kusataro reveals the reasons he went to prison, he takes a liking to him. The same applies to Hotaru, as Kusataro also knows how to play the harmonium and begins teaching her.

Festival opens with physical red carpet and video messages of congratulations from global industry figures.

Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) opened with a physical ceremony on Saturday (October 31) and video messages of support from global industry figures such as Robert De Niro and Christopher Nolan.

Nolan commented: “The fact that in these challenging times you’ve found a way to honour and enjoy watching films on the big screen is a source of inspiration to myself and other filmmakers around the world.”

De Niro said: “We hope TIFF will be a big, big success and we know it will be.

Watching a character make poor choices can be a trying experience, depending on the genre at hand. Seeing this in a comedy? Potentially hilarious. Observing similar acts in a drama? Quite possibly heartbreaking. The new drama Lost Girls & Love Hotels comes very close to going too far over the edge, but a tremendous central turn from Alexandra Daddario saves the day. Without her, it would have been a bleak and unduly trying experience. With her, it becomes a tough but compelling bit of cinema. By no means is it an easy one to watch, but armed with Daddario’s performance, there’s enough here to make it worthy of a slight recommendation. The movie is a character study, mixing some thriller elements into its drama. Margaret (Daddario) has found herself in Japan, living a duel life. By day, she’s an English teacher at a flight attendant academy, teaching a...

In what’s shaping up to be the strangest weekend yet since the coronavirus outbreak forced American theaters to close, the biggest release is Beyoncé’s visual album, “Black Is King,” a visionary feature-length companion to her 2019 album, in the tradition of “Lemonade.”

A number of studio movies — including Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” — had tentatively planted their flag on July 31, only to delay amid the latest spike of infections. But the strategy is changing lately, as Russell Crowe road-rage thriller “Unhinged” moves forward with its release … abroad. Now “Tenet” and other titles are weighing a similar international-first strategy.

That leaves U.S. audiences with two very different options: Buy a ticket and fly abroad to see the tentpoles you’re missing (assuming foreign nations let Americans enter the country), or make do with the virtual releases that remain. In some cases, films are still pushing for limited theatrical releases among...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Black Is King (Beyoncé)

Four years ago, Beyoncé dropped the film version of Lemonade, which brought together directors Kahlil Joseph, Jonas Åkerlund, Mark Romanek, Melina Matsoukas, and more to deliver a visual album that, like many of her works, had an immense cultural impact. She is now returning with Black Is King, a film in production for an entire year that reimagines the tale of The Lion King through the perspective of the Black experience. Now available on Disney+, we imagine it’ll be the most-watched film of the weekend.

Where to Stream: Disney+

Bull (Annie Silverstein)

There’s not much to do around Kristyl’s (Amber Havard) hard...

Nothing is as it seems in A Girl Missing, the latest feature from writer and director Kôji Fukada. Mariko Tsutsui stars as Ichiko, a visiting nurse who becomes a suspect in the kidnapping of Saki (Miyu Ozawa), a young student she had been helping study for school exams. Flashbacks follow Ichiko before and after the incident as she discards her past and her fiancé for a solitary life in a new neighborhood. What happens to Saki and her older sister Motoko (Mikako Ichikawa) unfolds simultaneously through two timelines.

Tsutsui also appeared in Fukada’s Harmonium, which won Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes. Fukada has been a member of the Seinendan theater group, founded by Oriza Hirata, since 2005. Seinendan actors, as well as Hirata’s theories about “quiet drama,” have figured significantly in Fukada’s work. (His 2015 sci-fi drama Sayonara was based on a Hirata play.)

We spoke with...

"It had to come out eventually." Film Movement has debuted an official trailer for a Japanese indie drama titled A Girl Missing, the latest from acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Koji Fukada. This film first premiered at the Locarno and Toronto Film Festivals last year, and stopped by a number of international festivals throughout the fall. Koji Fukada's followup to the critically-acclaimed Harmonium, A Girl Missing "is a satisfying slow-burn drama expertly told." A home-care nurse's relationship with the family she has spent years working for is threatened when her nephew is arrested for kidnapping their daughter. Japanese filmmakers love to tell dramatic stories about family and interpersonal relationships with devastating twists and turns. The film stars Mariko Tsutsui, Mikako Ichikawa, and Sôsuke Ikematsu. This looks like it starts out rather slow & calm and gets extremely intense as it goes on. Here's the official US trailer (+ two posters) for Kôji Fukada's A Girl Missing,...

After gaining international acclaim with his Cannes prize-winning family drama “Harmonium,” Japanese director Kōji Fukada returned with “A Girl Missing,” reuniting with actress Mariko Tsutsui for a slow-burning mystery thriller which premiered at Locarno Film Festival last year before going on to play at the Toronto International Film Festival and New York Film Festival. And now, the film’s (virtual) release approaches this Friday July 31st.

Read More: ‘Martin Margiela: In His Own Words’ Trailer: The Elusive Fashion Genius Tells His Story In New Doc

In “Harmonium”, Mariko played a woman whose life was destroyed by tragic circumstances beyond her control.

Continue reading ‘A Girl Missing’ Trailer: New Kōji Fukada Film Promises Slow-Burning Mystery at The Playlist.

One of the most intriguing careers to track this past decade has been that of Kōji Fukada. Gaining international acclaim with his Cannes prize-winning family drama Harmonium, the Japanese director followed it up with A Girl Missing, a slow-burn mystery thriller that premiered at Locarno Film Festival last year and went on to play at the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. Now set for a release in Virtual Cinemas nationwide beginning this Friday, we’re pleased to debut the exclusive trailer courtesy of Film Movement.

The film follows two timelines, both featuring Mariko Tsutsui’s character. In one, she works as a home nurse for a family, but one of their granddaughters goes missing and someone in the family may be involved. In another timeline, she forms a relationship with a younger hairdresser. One of the film’s many pleasures lies in Fukada’s specific...

Guilt by Dissociation: Fukada Explores the Burden of Others in Exemplary Melodrama

Director Kôji Fukada presents a melodrama hung on absurdity for his fourth feature, A Girl Missing, another Dostoevskyian tale collapsing the lines between crime and punishment into a complex grey area of juxtaposing social norms and self-serving desires. Reuniting with his Harmonium (2016) lead Mariko Tsutsui, Fukada creates another emotionally palpable tale about perspective. The original Japanese title, Yokogao, means “side profile,” and as we come to learn, each angle of this unique melodrama arrives with deep-seated complexities, including that of its protagonist, an affable healthcare worker whose relationship to both the perpetrator and the victim in a crime which sparks significant media attention places her in a catch-22 situation.…...

A Girl Missing director Kôji Fukada seated in front of posters for James Crump’s Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco and Atsuko Hirayanagi’s Oh Lucy! at Film Movement Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Kôji Fukada’s A Girl Missing (Yokogao), shot by Ken'ichi Negishi (Akihiro Toda’s Neko Ni Mikan), stars Mariko Tsutsui with Mikako Ichikawa, Miyu Ogawa, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Sôsuke Ikematsu, and Ren Sudo. Fukada’s Harmonium won the Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize in 2016 and he is also the director of The Man From The Sea and Au Revoir L’Été. At Film Movement in New York I spoke with Kôji about his love of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, how some say his heroine resembles Golden Globe winner Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker in Todd Phillips’ movie, unravelling societal conventions, and what he did to create the sound design in post-production.

Motoko (Mikako Ichikawa) with Ichiko (Mariko...

How much our lives can get destroyed just by plain coincidence or the particularly bad string of coincidences? It is an ages-long philosophical question that has been treated in movies practically from the beginning. Japanese auteur Koji Fukada, however, does not take the usual path to tell this kind of story. It is not a mystery or a thriller, it is a psychological drama focused on one singular character in the midst of the turmoil. “A Girl Missing” premiered in Locarno and we caught it at Viennale.

“A Girl Missing” is screening at Viennale

The character here is Ichiko, whom we meet as Risa Uchida, a widow looking for a change in her life. She says that directly to her hairdresser Kazumichi (Ikematsu Sosuke), explaining that she chose him because of his last name he shares with her late husband. The two of them commence a friendly relationship that might turn into something more romantic,...

A Girl Missing has fleeting swirls into trancelike bizarreness such as when its protagonist, the middle-aged Ichiko (Mariko Tsutsui), dreams herself crawling on all fours, growling at a young woman, ready to pounce—before the former wakes up in her untidy apartment. The betrayal that drove this cut-short revenge fantasy begins to unravel. Kôji Fukada’s A […]

The post ‘A Girl Missing’ Review: A Kidnapping Leads to a Suffocating Character Study [Nyff 2019] appeared first on /Film.

Mariko Tsutsui stars as home-care nurse embroiled in kidnapping aftermath.

Film Movement has snapped up North American rights to Kôji Fukada’s Tiff selection A Girl Missing ahead of its North American premiere tomorrow (9).

The acquisition bulks up the distributor’s slate of Tiff titles that includes Dian Yi’nan’s Chinese gangland noir The Wild Goose Lake, Bertrand Bonello’s horror-fantasy Zombi Child, and Hlynur Palmason’s A White, White Day.

Mariko Tsutsui plays a home-care nurse to an elderly matriarch whose relationship with the family is threatened when her nephew is arrested for the kidnapping of one of the family’s daughters.

“Does someone who’s broken a family deserve a happy future?” teenage Motoko fires at middle-aged Ichiko halfway through Koji Fukada’s A Girl Missing. The woman falters, and the question is left unanswered, hanging like a Damocles sword all throughout Fukada’s follow up to Harmonium. Much like his Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize winner, A Girl Missing unspools as a revenge drama homing in on people paying a price for their kindness, a tale of family disequilibrium with Mariko Tsutsui–already seen in Harmonium–serving as a magnetic lead. But even her performance can hardly salvage a film that gets swamped in its own intricated scaffolding, a knotted tale about a woman wrestling with unresolved scars, just as hopeless to find some closure as the story to morph into a satisfying whole.

By the time Motoko (Mikako Ichikawa) throws her jibe, Tsutsui is still Ichiko. In a...

The intriguing ambiguity suffusing Kôji Fukada’s “Harmonium” returns to a certain degree in “A Girl Missing,” but this time the writer-director neglects to reinforce onscreen relationships, resulting in a disappointing and unmoving drama of how a good woman’s life is shattered by keeping quiet. Thankfully, actress Mariko Tsutsui, who played the wife in “Harmonium,” exudes an intriguing off-kilter combination of sympathy and mystery as a visiting nurse whose world is changed drastically when her nephew abducts a girl she’s been mentoring, yet unfortunately the lack of script support undercuts audience involvement far more than the parallel timelines. Fukada’s reputation on the festival circuit guarantees a certain amount of play but is unlikely to win the director new fans.

An excellent opening ramps up expectations through a gratifying combination of confident filmmaking and skilled performances, playing on the potential for intimacy between a hairdresser and a first-time client.

Film at Lincoln Center has set its main slate of 29 films for the 57th New York Film Festival, running September 27-October 13. The festival already announced it will get underway with the Martin Scorsese-directed The Irishman, with the Noah Baumbach-directed Marriage Story its centerpiece, and the Edward Norton-directed Motherless Brooklyn its closing-night film. Several of the films have played other festivals, including Bong Joon-ho’s Palme d’Or winner Parasite and Pain and Glory by Pedro Almodovar, who designed the Nyff poster this year.

Here is how the whole slate looks, with films from 17 countries:

Opening Night

The Irishman

Director: Martin Scorsese

Centerpiece

Marriage Story

Director: Noah Baumbach

Closing Night

Motherless Brooklyn

Director: Edward Norton

Atlantics: A Ghost Love Story

Director: Mati Diop, Us Premiere

Building on the promise—and then some—of her acclaimed shorts, the Diop-directed drama that skirts the line between realism and fantasy, romance and horror,...

The 72nd Locarno Film Festival, a longtime beacon of the international indie filmmaking community, is being shaken up under new artistic director Lili Hinstin. She is the Swiss event’s second female chief since it was founded in 1946 and one of the few women to head an A-list fest.

Hinstin takes the reins from Italy’s Carlo Chatrian who went on to become Berlinale co-director after six years at Locarno’s helm, his last edition characterized by movies with women at their center. The Swiss fest will run Aug. 7-17.

In announcing her selection, Hinstin, who previously headed France’s Entrevues Belfort Intl. Film Festival, says she’s aiming to “surprise, perturb and raise questions” and points out that “the choices you make for your first festival all tend to become a kind of manifesto.”

The Locarno opener is clearly significant: “If Only,” a partly autobiographical sentimental comedy about three kids of divorced parents,...

Italian director Ginevra Elkann’s directorial debut, “If Only,” about kids with divorced parents, will open the 72nd Locarno Film Festival, its first edition under new artistic director Lili Hinstin, who has assembled an edgy mix of promising titles from young auteurs and more established names.

“If Only” and the fest closer, iconic Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Uzbekistan-set “To the Ends of the Earth” will both premiere in Locarno’s 8,000-seat Piazza Grande.

Also set for a launch from the Piazza Grande is Amazon’s terrorist drama “7500,” directed by Patrick Vollrath, with star Joseph Gordon-Levitt in tow; Valerie Donzelli’s comedy “Notre Dame”; and fellow French director Stephane Demoustier’s “The Girl With a Bracelet,” in which a teenager stands trial for murdering her best friend.

Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” which premiered in Cannes, will also screen on the Piazza (without talent in...

In the world of enka singer Hiroshi (Sho Aoyagi) most of his life revolves around the various performances he has to give in front of crowds largely consisting of middle-aged women. Bored and visibly appalled by these events, he tries to leave them as soon as possible, but this time Masako (Mariko Tsutsui) stops him on his way out of the last venue he sang in. Eventually Hiroshi finds he has been drugged by Masako and drops unconscious, only to find himself back at her apartment when he wakes up.

Interwoven with Hiroshi’s story are the stories of Tetsuo (Nobuyuki Suzuki) and Takeru (Keita Machida). The first is an ex-con who returns to his home town, after having spent many years in jail, to take revenge on those on some men who betrayed him, which eventually led to his arrest. Takeru’s girlfriend is in a coma and as...

“Antiporuno” is one of five films made by leading Japanese directors as part of Nikkatsu’s Roman Porno Reboot Project celebrating the 45th anniversary of the genre. Roman porno films were Nikkatsu’s response to falling ticket sales and the popularity of the low-budget pink film (pinku eiga) in the early 1970s. These were mainstream films, mainly marketed at a male audience, which can be categorized loosely as softcore pornography. Shot on a limited budget, generally in a week, the distinguishing feature of roman porno films was that they had to have a sex scene every 10 minutes. Aside from those restrictions, directors were free to experiment with both genre and narrative form.

“Antiporuno” screened at Japan Cuts

The emphasis on the reboot was to move the films away from their misogynistic roots and emphasis on male desire to focus on female subjectivity and desire outside the male gaze. “Antiporno” has...

Ken Watanabe and Koichi Sato star in the film.

Japanese studio Kadokawa Corp is arriving in Cannes with a busy slate headed by action drama Fukushima 50, starring Ken Watanabe and Koichi Sato, and also including new titles from Takahisa Zeze, Koji Fukada and Michihito Fujii.

Directed by Setsuro Wakamatsu (The Unbroken), Fukushima 50 tells the story of the courageous group of workers who remained on site to stabilise the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant during its meltdown following the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami.

Based on Ryusho Kadota’s book On The Brink: The Inside Story of Fukushima Daiichi, the...

Japanese auteur Koji Fukada’s “A Girl Missing” tops the slate of MK2 Films. The shingle also has Agnes Varda’s “Varda by Agnes” and “Jessica Forever” playing at the Berlin Film Festival. MK2 is introducing “A Girl Missing” to buyers at the European Film Market.

“A Girl Missing” reunites Fukada with the star of his Un Certain Regard prize-winning “Harmonium,” Mariko Tsutsui, in the story of a private nurse who has become part of the family she works for until a fateful day when one of the daughters disappears. The media soon reveals the kidnapper to be the nurse’s nephew.

“Anchored by Koji Fukada’s meticulous dissection of flawed and failing family relationships, ‘A Girl Missing’ is a carefully crafted film which will surprise audiences as the story unfolds,” said Juliette Schrameck, the managing director of MK2 Films.

“The sobriety and quiet beauty of the seemingly tranquil setting...

Sion Sono is known for being both prolific and provocative, with grotesque horrors such as “Suicide Club” (2002) and more thoughtful pieces like “Himizu” (2011). In “Antiporno” he gives his own unusual take on the adult film industry, discussing themes of sex, sexism, patriarchal society, and female liberation.

Antiporno is screening at the 19th Japan Film Fest Hamburg

The film begins in a peculiar yellow room, that serves not only as living quarters, but also as a sort of inescapable psychological space, a cell, and a film set. We see our a woman dancing alone to classical accompaniment. Around her are a dazzling array of lit candles and she seems in an joyful mood as she glides elegantly around the room. This cuts to the woman, Kyoko, waking up, underwear around her knees, and stumbling to the bathroom, which is connected to the main room and painted vivid red. The character seems conflicted,...

Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Sion Sono's Antiporno (2016), which is receiving an exclusive global online premiere on Mubi, is showing from December 8, 2017 - January 7, 2018 as a Special Discovery.Few directors before or since Russ Meyer have so enthusiastically worn their art’s sexual obsessions on their sleeves as Japanese auteur Sion Sono. But if Meyer once claimed that he wasn’t interested in anything “below the belt,” Sono is the complete opposite, reveling in the upskirt wonderland of schoolgirls and women in uniform, whether it be the group suicide that opens his notorious Suicide Club (2001), the panty-shot perverts in Love Exposure (2008), or the small army of oblivious high schoolers in his ultra-violent Tag (2015). Such an obsession seemingly made him a perfect choice for the “Roman Porno Reboot Project” of Japanese movie studio Nikkatsu, an ambitious series of five movies commissioned by the legendary...

He appears like a ghost, standing ramrod-straight in his white dress shirt, lurking silently in the daylight. “You’ve lost weight,” says Toshio (Kanji Furutachi), the family man who greets him at the entrance to the garage. “Everyone loses weight in there,” goes the reply, and we understand instantly, before we’ve even gotten to know either of these men, what has kept them apart for years. The face from the past belongs to Yasaka (Tadanobu Asano, from Ichi The Killer and the Thor movies), here to make up for lost time after a small eternity rotting behind bars. Within minutes, Toshio has offered his estranged friend a job within the workshop he runs from the garage. And within hours, he’s invited Yasaka to move into his small, dimly lit home—a decision that perplexes and agitates Toshio’s wife, Akié (Mariko Tsutsui), who hasn’t heard one story...

Koji Fukada’s tale of a dull domestic routine disturbed builds to a bleak, stunning conclusion

In this dark Japanese drama, Akie (Mariko Tsutsui) and her husband, Toshio (Kanji Furutachi), lead a dull suburban existence that revolves around their precocious young daughter, Hotaru (Momone Shinokawa). When Toshio’s old friend Yasaka (Tadanobu Asano) turns up one day hoping for work and board, all slick white shirt and self-possessed flirtatious energy, their drudgery is disrupted. Toshio obliges, unable to refuse for reasons revealed later, setting a life-altering chain of events in motion, the tension ratcheted up with the help of harmonium-playing Hotaru’s clacking metronome.

At the centre of the film is a trio of characters whose contrasting personalities rub up against each other in interesting ways; tensions arise between the carnal Yasaka, repressed housewife Akie and Toshio’s weak, withholding masculinity. Tsutsui’s tightly coiled performance is particularly compelling, a fury burning beneath her wearied,...

In Koji Fukada’s slow, elegant film, the appearance of an old acquaintance throws a family out of balance

This highly accomplished Japanese drama, which won the prize in the Un Certain Regard section at last year’s Cannes, is well worth watching for those with the stomach for a cold, bitter, intoxicating deep drink of bleak. Director Koji Fukada’s latest is constructed according to a certain ruthless logic even if the method of its reckoning remains opaque. In a nondescript suburban house, metalworker Toshio (Kanji Furutachi) lives with his mousy Christian wife Akie (Mariko Tsutsui) and daughter Hotaru (Momone Shinokawa), a kid of about eight or nine who is learning to play the titular instrument, a sort of cross between a mini piano and an organ. The arrival of Yasaka (the always bewitchingly watchable Tadanobu Asano), an old acquaintance from Toshio’s past, throws the little triad out of balance.

Having directed nearly fifteen films this decade alone, Japanese director Sion Sono (whose Why Don’t You Play in Hell? and Tokyo Tribe seemed to get the most substantial U.S. releases as of late) will be adding onto his resume his latest film, Anti-Porno. Ahead of a Japanese release this month, the first trailer has now arrived.

For this project, Sono has collaborated with Japan’s mega entertainment company Nikkatsu with the goal of resurrecting the old iconic Roman Porno series—a series of Japanese softcore pornographic films that ran from November 1971 to May 1988. The director also plans to put forth his own creative touch on the pornographic genre with refreshing tones on women’s sexuality that’s rarely shown on the big-screen. While the trailer doesn’t have subtitles, one can glean a glimpse at Sono’s vibrant color palette.

Starring Ami Tomite and Mariko Tsutsui, check out...

A seemingly regular family gets an unexpected visitor

The Suzuokas are a seemingly regular family of three, living in the suburbs. The husband, Toshio, runs a small metalworking industry in the basement of the house they live in. His wife, Fumie is a homemaker and their little daughter, Hotaru goes to the elementary school and takes harmonium lessons.

However, when Kusataro Yasaka, an old acquaintance of Kanji arrives unexpectedly to their house, after he is released from prison, everything changes. Kanji seems to have a past life that Mariko did not know of, and a secret he shares with Kusataro that makes him invite him to stay at their house. Mariko is infuriated in the beginning, but as time passes and Kusataro reveals the reasons he went to prison, he takes a liking to him. The same applies to Hotaru, as Kusataro also knows how to play the harmonium and begins teaching her.

"What? I wouldn't let myself be eaten!" Eureka has released an official UK trailer for Japanese director Kôji Fukada's latest film Harmonium, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this year and won the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard category. Harmonium is a slow burn drama about a Japanese family. One review stated "the film's insights into the isolation evident in the relationships most take for granted – marriages, parent-child connections and long-term friendships – don't merely hit their targets; they smash them with a sledgehammer." The cast includes Mariko Tsutsui, Tadanobu Asano, Kanji Furutachi, Kana Mahiro, Takahiro Miura, Taiga, and Momone Shinokawa. This also reminds me of Hirokazu Koreeda's Like Father, Like Son a bit, but I'm sure it has plenty of insight to offer on its own. Have a look. Here's the official UK trailer (+ quad poster) for Kôji Fukada's Harmonium, direct from YouTube: In...

Eureka Entertainment has announced plans to release Kôji Fukada’s Harmonium in UK cinemas on 5 May 2017, following a string of festival engagements beginning with its UK premiere at the first London East Asia Film Festival (Leaff) on 24 October 2016. Other bookings include the Cambridge Film Festival (27 Oct 2016), Bath Film Festival (7 Nov 2016) and the Leeds International Film Festival (5,8 & 10 Nov 2016). Winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Harmonium is an off-kilter take on the venerable Japanese family drama, from the director of Au Revoir L'Ete and Hospitalité, starring Tadanobu Asano, Mariko Tsutsui, Kanji Furutachi and Taiga. Following its theatrical run, Harmonium will be released on Blu-ray as part...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Keep up with the wild and wooly world of indie film acquisitions with our weekly Rundown of everything that’s been picked up around the globe. Check out last week’s Rundown here.

– Sony Pictures Classics have announced they have acquired the rest of Pedro Almodóvar’s full library of films, including “Pepi, Luci, Bom”; “Labyrinth of Passion”; “Dark Habits”; “What Have I Done to Deserve This?”; “High Heels” and “Kika.” Spc will release his latest, “Julieta,” in theaters on December 21.

Based on short stories by Nobel laureate Alice Munro, “Julieta” is “about a mother’s struggle to survive uncertainty. It is also about fate, guilt complexes and that unfathomable mystery that leads us to abandon the people we love, erasing them from our lives as if they had never meant anything, as if they had never existed. The cast includes Adriana Ugarte, Emma Suárez and Rossy de Palma. It...

The New York-based film distributor has picked up Koji Fukada’s family drama and upcoming North American premiere Special Presentation selection at Toronto.

Harmonium premiered in Cannes where it won the Un Certain Regard jury prize and will open theatrically in 2017 followed by digital and home video release.

The film is intended as a companion piece to Fukada’s black comedy Hospitalité and chronicles the collapse of a seemingly ordinary Japanese family.

Kanji Furutachi, Mariko Tsutsui, Momone Shinokawa and Tadanobu Asano star.

Film Movement brokered the North American deal with MK2.

A 30-second teaser for Shion Sono’s upcoming film The Land of Hope has been uploaded to the official YouTube channel of its distributor, Bitters End.

It’s set in the Japanese countryside and revolves around a couple, Yoichi (Jun Murakami) and Izumi (Megumi Kagurazaka), who are living in a village as humble dairy farmers with Yoichi’s parents Yasuhiko (Isao Natsuyagi) and Chieko (Naoko Otani).

One day, a huge earthquake strikes and an evacuation begins, but Yoichi is hesitant to leave their lifetime home behind. When he discovers his wife is pregnant, he must do whatever it takes to protect her and their unborn child. Meanwhile, their neighbors (Yutaka Shimizu, Hikari Kajiwara, Denden, and Mariko Tsutsui). have to make their own choice about evacuation.

“The Land of Hope” is scheduled for an autumn release in Japan. A quick UK release is also likely due to Third Window Films being one of the co-producers.