Issue:
April 2024
Join the Film Committee
Join us on Wednesday, April 10 at 6 pm for a sneak preview of Shimako Sato’s spectacular origin story The Yin Yang Master Zero. While it’s become more common for female directors to helm big-budget fantasy films in Hollywood (think Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel and Barbie), writer-director Sato is truly a pioneer in Japan. Commemorating the 1,100th anniversary of the birth of Abe no Seimei, Japan’s most powerful Onmyoji (yin yang master), Sato made the film with the full cooperation of Baku Yumemakura, whose ongoing series of 18 novels about the historic character and his milieu has sold nearly 7 million copies worldwide. The Yin Yang Master Zero has been shot on an unprecedented scale with eye-popping visual effects and features a roster of Japan’s hottest stars. Set in the mid-Heian Period, it follows the goings-on at the Onmyoryo Bureau of Taoist Geomancy, where the Onmyoji help the emperor decide policies by divination, astrology and other spiritual practices, to protect the ancient capital from curses, demons and other threats. Among the young apprentices studying esoteric cosmology there is Abe no Seimei (Kento Yamazaki), an impudent youth who has a great talent for witchcraft but no desire to advance up the food chain. One day, he’s asked by aristocrat Minamoto no Hiromasa (Shota Sometani) to investigate a mysterious phenomenon at Princess Yoshiko’s palace and reluctantly complies. But no sooner do the two begin probing than the princess (Nao) disappears, and a powerful curse descends upon the imperial court. Sometani will join the director for the Q&A session after the screening. (The Yin Yang Master Zero, Japan, 2024, 113 minutes, in Japanese with English subtitles)
Karen Severns is chair of the FCCJ Film Committee
