Issue:
September 2023
Join the Film Committee
Join us on Thursday, September 7 at 5:30 pm for the thrillingly dark crime drama Bad Lands, adapted from the bestselling novel Keiso/Weeds by Naoki Prize-winning author Hiroyuki Kurokawa. Internationally acclaimed actress Sakura Ando (Shoplifters, A Man) delivers an astonishing performance in her first collaboration with director Masato Harada, who proves once again that he is a master storyteller. Ando plays Neri, a ruthless con woman who helps run complex – and profitable – phone scams in the slums of Osaka. When her younger half-brother Joe (Ryosuke Yamada, who also appeared in Harada’s Baragaki: Unbroken Samurai) is released from prison, Neri convinces her boss to hire him. But while Neri struggles with life at the lowest echelons of society, Joe appears to derive psychopathic pleasure from the pain he inflicts on others. Inhabiting a shadowy world of deceit and brutal criminal behavior, the two wayward siblings manage to play by the rules of the gang … until they don’t. Gradually, their marginalized yet tightknit community starts to come undone. Harada will be on hand for a Q&A session after the screening. (Japan, 2023, 143 minutes, in Japanese with English subtitles).
Karen Severns is chair of the FCCJ film committee
