Film Committee Blog

The Film Committee could not have imagined a better inaugural guest for FCCJ’s spacious new digs in Marunouchi: acclaimed writer-director-producer-cinematographer-editor-actor Shinya Tsukamoto.

Nearly three decades on from his 1989 cyberpunk masterpiece Tetsuo: The Iron Man, which hurtled him into international prominence, Tsukamoto has won dozens of awards but remains fiercely independent, creating high art on shoestring budgets, each film the impeccably crafted work of a singular visionary, from Tokyo Fist (1995), Bullet Ballet (1998) and A Snake of June (2002) to Kotoko (2011) and Fires on the Plain (2014, marking his last visit to FCCJ).

Mokunoshin, Ichisuke and Yu watch a sudden duel. ©SHINYA TSUKAMOTO／KAIJYU THEATER

An outspoken critic of the Abe Administration, the director continues his exploration of the moral implications of war in his new masterwork, Killing. Although it is his first jidaigeki period film, the parallels between his depiction of Japan’s bloody past and modern-day militarism cannot be ignored.

The phrase “film franchise” invariably evokes mega-budget Hollywood series like Harry Potter, X-Men, even James Bond. So when producer Miyuki Takamatsu told the FCCJ audience that Ten Years Japan represented a new type of arthouse franchise, it gave them pause.

Takamatsu, founder of the sales and distribution firm Free Stone Productions, decided to become a franchise player after seeing the angry, dystopian omnibus film Ten Years, in 2015. Co-directed by five young filmmakers in Hong Kong, it had been inspired by the Umbrella Movement that began shaking the colony in late 2014, and imagined an exceedingly bleak future under China’s tightening control.

Surprisingly, Ten Years went on to win Best Film at the HK Film Awards, causing China to black out the awards show and to ban the film. Nevertheless, it earned HK$6 million in covert, self-distributed screenings, and was seen around the world.

Miyuki Takamatsu, producer and "franchise" founder. @Mance Thompson

The Film Committee’s annual event in conjunction with the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) did not focus, as it has for the past decade, on the Japanese films in this year’s 31st edition. Instead, two of Japan’s most acclaimed directors, Isao Yukisada (Go, River’s Edge) and Daishi Matsunaga (Pieta in the Toilet, Hanalei Bay), joined us to discuss their participation in the omnibus film project Asian Three-Fold Mirror.

A coproduction between the Japan Foundation Asia Center and TIFF, Asian Three-Fold Mirror has twice brought together three young directors from Japan and other Asian countries to co-create omnibus films with a common theme. The first volume, Asian Three-Fold Mirror 2016: Reflections, which included Yukisada’s Pigeon, debuted at the 29th TIFF. On October 26, the second volume, Asian Three-Fold Mirror 2018: Journey, which includes Matsunaga’s Hekishu, will have its world premiere at the 31st TIFF.

The line between fiction and reality is blurred in Akio Fujimoto’s debut feature, Passage of Life. A poignant family drama with an undercurrent of political urgency, the Japan-Myanmar coproduction won both the Spirit of Asia Award and the Best Asian Future Film Award at the 2017 Tokyo International Film Festival — the first time a Japanese director had been so honored.

It went on to screen around the world to critical accolades, winning awards in the Netherlands and Thailand (where it qualified as a Burmese film). Just last month, it also received a Special Recognition honor from Japan’s Education Ministry, meaning that it is recommended for school viewings. As the awards season looms, there is every expectation that Passage of Life will be on many year-end lists.

The domestic accolades are especially important, since there are surprisingly few contemporary Japanese fiction films that incorporate pressing social issues into their storylines, and fewer still that treat non-Japanese characters (who barely seem to exist on screen here) with understanding or real compassion.

©Mance Thompson

Doppelgängers are much in the news these days, thanks to the buzz surrounding the US documentary Three Identical Strangers, which lays bare a shocking tale of triplets separated at birth, reunited in adulthood through a fluke, and their heartbreaking search for answers.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Asako I & II also features a mystery centered on a doppelgänger, but audiences should not expect any pat explanations. This “twin,” played impressively by Masahiro Higashide, is not the film’s protagonist. As the (English) title makes clear, that would be Asako herself — although those Roman numerals can be interpreted in a number of ways.

Karata and Higashide.
© 2018 NETEMO SAMETEMO FILM PARTNERS & COMME DES CINÉMAS

The innocent man wrongly accused, fighting for the elusive truth that will free him: it’s a familiar theme in literature and film, and it seems unlikely to ever wear out its welcome.

It’s somewhat surprising, then, that Franz Kafka’s great existential nightmare, “The Trial” (“Der Process”) has been filmed only twice before. The first time was in 1963 by Orson Welles, who set his expressionist interpretation against the backdrop of the Cold War; the second was in 1993 by David Jones, who returned the story to its Prague roots, giving it a less overtly contemporary subtext.

John Williams, a Welshman who has made his home in Japan for several decades, has now transplanted the tale to Tokyo, and the great accomplishment of his adaptation is that it seems both absurd and yet frighteningly plausible.

Williams, flanked by Niwa (left) and Tsuneishi (right). ©Mance Thompson

Even the infrequent filmgoer in Japan knows that Hirokazu Kore-eda became the first Japanese director in 21 years to win the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival on May 19, for his latest masterwork, Shoplifters.

But the good news was quickly hijacked by right-wing Japanese commentators, who — without viewing the film, and perhaps without having a clue that the bulk of Japanese cinema does not treat the country’s social ills as if they are taboo subjects — immediately began condemning it for the damage it could cause to Japan’s international reputation.

©Mance Thompson

Soon, the headlines had politicized the win even further, suggesting that Prime Minister Abe’s reported failure to call Kore-eda with congratulations was surely proof that he disapproved of its empathetic portrait of a family living in poverty and shoplifting to get by.

Those who are familiar with writer-director Koji Fukada’s award-winning work, particularly his 2016 Harmonium, the Jury Prizewinner in the Cannes Un Certain Regard section, will find that his first international coproduction feels both more placid and yet politically charged.

Those familiar with the work of actor Dean Fujioka, a homegrown megastar with a fervid Asian following, may be surprised by his limited screen time in a film by a director whose leanings are resolutely arthouse, rather than commercial.

Yet both men have clearly benefitted from the collaboration, and Fujioka’s presence is sure to help The Man from the Sea reach a much-expanded audience.

 All photos ©Mance Thompson, except bottom right:  ©FCCJ

Is The Blood of Wolves the first salvo in an electrifying new yakuza film franchise from Toei Studios? The film’s “planning producer,” Muneyuki Kii, dares to hope so. Its director, Kazuya Shiraishi, does too. And Yuko Yuzuki, the woman whose rough-and-tumble bestselling novel, Korou no Chi, reignited the studio’s  passion for jitsuroku eiga (actual record films), says, without hesitation, that Shiraishi’s the man if there are sequels in the offing.

Shiraishi and Yuzuki were at FCCJ to talk with the audience after our sneak peek of The Blood of Wolves. It marked the first time the Film Committee has hosted the author of the original novel on which a film is based, and the second time that Shiraishi has been on the dais. He was at FCCJ with four other directors to kick off the Nikkatsu Roman Porno reboot project in 2016, having directed Dawn of the Felines. It would go on to become the most successful of the five releases.

Atsuko Hirayanagi has set a high bar for herself. Her first feature, the Japan-US coproduction Oh Lucy!, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in mid-2017, finished the year with Independent Spirit Awards nominations for Best First Feature and Best Actress (for Shinobu Terajima’s beautifully calibrated performance), and earned rapturous critical praise during its recent rollouts in the US, France and elsewhere.

A poignant character study that deep-dives into the lonely life of a protagonist whose type is rarely depicted on screen, Oh Lucy! is an off-kilter culture-clash comedy combined with a deeply moving drama. Upon its world premiere at Cannes, Variety called it “a chocolate truffle with an arsenic core,” and Hirayanagi’s greatest accomplishment is that the film’s bittersweet aftertaste is pleasantly light and lingering.

Appearing for the Q&A session following FCCJ’s sneak preview screening, the writer-director and her star admitted they are curious about audience reactions on the film ’s home turf. Said Hirayanagi, “I’m grateful that Oh Lucy! is opening in Japan, and I’m extremely curious about how the Japanese audience is going to react, and how they’ll feel about this film. Being here is kind of surreal, and at the same time, a dream come true.”