Running in hybrid mode this year, JAPAN CUTS returns to bring us the best of new Japanese cinema. Here’s some of our favourite picks.
JAPAN CUTS is hands-down one of our favourite festivals on the calendar. Showcasing some of the freshest Japanese releases, the mixture of mainstream, indie, emerging voices and experimental fare makes them an unmissable event.
This year the festival is running in hybrid mode, with a mixture of films playing at the Japan Society in New York and a selection available through their online platform. You’ll find everything from internationally recognised directors like Miike Takashi and Kiyoshi Kurosawa through to emerging talents. With a complete program of almost 30 films and a dozen shorts, you’ll have plenty to choose from.
Ticket packages for films, talks and events are now all available on the JAPAN CUTS website. Films start screening from 22 August 2022.
Go Seppuku Yourselves
Toshiaki Toyoda has rapidly become a festival staple, thanks in part to his outstanding collisions of sound and vision in Wolf’s Calling and The Day of Destruction. Here he completes his politically urgent Resurrection Trilogy and you just know it’s going to be a furious explosion of visuals with a pounding soundtrack. You don’t watch a Toyoda film, you feel it rattling in the back of your rib cage.
The Great Yokai War: Guardians
It wouldn’t be a Japanese festival without Miike Takashi on the bill. With his annual output alone you could fill half a program! A sequel to the 2005 The Great Yokai War, this is one hell of a closing night film for the festival this year. It’s also said to include the title character from the 1966 Daiei film series Daimajin!
It’s a Summer Film
A genuinely heartfelt love-letter to film, or at the very least it’s a push against the idea that movies are disappearing. Soshi Matsumoto’s feature debut, following a career in commercial and short work, it’s a sci-fi film of sorts that sees a group of school friends attempting to make a samurai film, but discover one of their number is a time traveller from the future. IT’S A SUMMER FILM is exactly what it says: a film about the joys of summer in all their fleeting and life-changing moments. Read our full review.
Aristocrats
Beautifully shot and impeccably cast, Sode Yukiko’s third feature unfolds in bookish chapters to give a portrait of a life, well…lived. Based on novel by Mariko Yamauchi, we named Sode’s tale of two women one of the best films of 2021 so far. When we meet the fairly upper-class Hanako (Mugi Kadowaki), she has recently split with her fiancé. The provincially born Miki (Kiko Mizuhara), worked hard to earn a place in a fancy university but has since fallen on more difficult times. ARISTOCRATS may not be be for all tastes: it’s wanders to the slow beat of its own drum. Yet its themes of belonging and expectation are universal, and one can’t help but feel that this is the kind of film that will reveal more of its subtleties on repeat viewings. Read full review.
Wife of a Spy
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s WWII drama-thriller starring the incomprable Yū Aoi and Issey Takahashi began its life as a television film with a theatrical version following. The director of Cure, Tokyo Sonata, Before We Vanish and more recently To the Ends of the Earth is always worth watching, and a Yū Aoi film is obligatory at any Japanese film festival.
Company Retreat
Atsushi Funahashi’s piece is a timely film about workplace sexual harassment in the #MeToo era, dealing with a highly publicised sexual harassment case and the social media reactions. Based on a true story, this drama uses documentary techniques and first-hand accounts of an actual sexual harassment case to dig into the polarising Japanese reactions.
Wonderful Paradise
Wonderful and weird go hand-in-hand in this truly bizarre film that just keeps getting stranger – and that’s just one of the things to love about it. It begins with a series of random arrivals at a mansion in the process of being packed up for sale by a quirky series of family members. After the disgruntled daughter puts out a social media invite for a party, the event becomes a festival, complete with food stalls and activities. Yet nothing can really prepare you for the back half of this film. From a child transforming into a stick through to a mutant coffee bean growing out of control, the script is equal parts midsummer sex comedy and pure train of thought. Read our full review.
The Goldfish: Dreaming of the Sea
Director Sara Ogawa is primarily known for her work in front of the camera, most recently Dear Patient. For her first directorial outing since 2017’s Beatopia, Ogawa tells a coming of age story about an 18-year-old who is dealing with the displacement of having grown up in foster homes and finding herself in the position of looking after a girl abused by her mother. If it looks gorgeous, that’s because Hirokazu Kore-eda’s long time cinematographer Yutaka Yamazaki is behind the camera.
Leo’s Return
A few years ago, Anshul Chauhan’s Kontora completely blew us away. Playing as part of the short films programs, his follow-up — about an aspiring actor who returns home to a wife harboring a monumental secret — plays for JAPAN CUTS audiences. Be sure to add this and some of the other excellent shorts (which also includes Born Pisces and Among Four of Us) to your must-see list.
Spaghetti Code Love
It’s impossible not to watch a film with this title, right? The first feature film from Takeshi Maruyama, who directed the viral ‘Labyrinth‘ music video for MONDO GROSSO. It’s described as a coming of age film following 13 people connected in unexpected ways. From what we’ve seen so far, it’s gorgeously shot too.
To Sleep As to Dream
Named by the BFI as one of the best Japanese films of all time, it’s a black and white film that features two detectives in the 1950s trying to track down an actress inside a frame of film from 1915. Filled with copious film references, this 35th anniversary edition of Kaizo Hayashi’s debut film has received a 2K restoration and is ready to find a whole new generation of film lovers.
You can follow along here with all our JAPAN CUTS 2021 coverage. Don’t forget to check out our coverage of past JAPAN CUTS festivals too.
You can read even more coverage of Japanese films — from the silent era to festivals and other contemporary releases — right here on The Reel Bits. Plus go beyond Japan with more film from Asia in Focus.
