Presented by The Japan Society, the New York based JAPAN CUTS returns for a 12th year of showcasing contemporary Japanese cinema in North America.
Playing from 19 – 29 July, the 10 days of films present US audiences with a chance to see blockbusters like BLEACH or Inuyashiki, indie gems including Blank 13, or award-winning films in the vein of Radiance. We’re just super impressed that they managed to secure the legendary Kirin Kiki as a guest.
As the sessions quickly sell out, we’ve put together a Top 11 list of films to see at the event. Tickets are on sale at The Japan Society site. Be sure to check back here at The Reel Bits for review coverage.
Yocho (Foreboding)
After impressing audiences and critics last year with Before We Vanish, Kiyoshi Kurosawa returns with another sci-fi film. Starring Kaho, Shōta Sometani and Masahiro Higashide, this was originally screened as a five part television series on WOWOW, and has been re-edited to this theatrical version.
Mori, The Artist’s Habitat
Festival guest Kirin Kiki is a stable of Japan’s prestige films and a living legend. Here she stars in Shuichi Okita’s (The Mohican Comes Home) portrait of reclusive artist Morikazu Kumagai(the equally legendary Tsutomu Yamazaki), who never left his home in the last 30 years of his life. This imagines a day in his life where he and wife (Kiki) entertain a throng of guests.
Blank 13
Actor and singer Takumi Saito (Shin Godzilla, TV’s Akira and Akira) makes his feature directorial debut with BLANK 13, attracting an impressive cast for a heartfelt exploration of the uniqueness of funerals in Japan. Read full Review >>>
Radiance
Festival favourite Naomi Kawase (Still the Water) returns with the film that won the prize of the Ecumenical Jury at Cannes this year. Misako writes voiceovers for vision-impaired film viewers, attempting to conjure the complexity of cinematic images through description alone. Presenting her latest work to a panel, she is confronted by Masaya – a renowned, now partially sighted photographer – who condemns her writing as overly subjective. Read full Review >>
Outrage Coda
‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano’s third film in the Outrage series, following Outrage Beyond, sees the yakuza war escalating with honour filled violence. It’s the last stand of the old school Kitano brings a bloody, downbeat and completely fitting conclusion to his yakuza saga. Read full Review >>
Dear Etranger
Mark Schilling of The Japan Times said of this film that “Realism in Japanese family dramas…does not often get this real.” For her sixth feature, director Yukiko Mishima brings the powerhouse presence of Tadanobu Asano as a middle-aged man struggling with his life post divorce and remarriage.
Side Job
Ryuichi Hiroki is one of the more prolific filmmakers in Japan, having made an additional three films since this first came out in July 2017. This may be one of the more powerful. Dealing with the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami, it depicts Fukushima city worker Miyuki (Kumi Takiuchi), who travels to Shibuya in Tokyo to work as a prostitute.
BLEACH
Directed by Shinsuke Sato, and based on the manga and anime of the same name, this is one of the biggest blockbusters on the Japanese event calendar – and it gets its US Premiere at JAPAN CUTS. The anime adaptation ran for 366 episodes over 14 seasons between 2004 and 2012, with four subsequent animated film spin-offs.
Night Is Short, Walk On Girl
Genius Party and Space Dandy director Masaaki Yuasa continues to push the boundaries of Japanese animation, which won Animation of the Year at 41st Japan Academy Prize. Based on the novel of the same name by Tomihiko Morimi, it shares characters and settings from Morimi’s The Tatami Galaxy, following a ‘Senior’ as he courts the mysterious ‘The Girl With Black Hair’ over a night that seems to last a year.
Last Winter, We Parted
Tomoyuki Takimoto (Hayabusa: The Long Voyage Home) returns with a mystery based on the novel by Fuminori Nakamura. Takanori Iwata plays a journalist investigating a cold case murder. The Japan Society says this one has “shades of Blow Up.” We’re sold.
Still Walking
Hirokazu Kore-eda‘s 2008 film gets a special screening in honour of festival guest Kirin Kiki and the film’s 10th anniversary. The Shoplifters director is one of Japan’s most important filmmakers, and this is arguably one of the best Japanese films of the 21st century.
