Tag: Asia in Focus

Coverage of films from the Asia-Pacific region.

Confessions (Japanese Film Festival 2010)

There has been a fair amount of hype surrounding Confessions (告白), the latest film from Memories of Matsuko and Happy-Go-Lucky writer/director Tetsuya Nakashima. When it was released in Japan earlier this year, it spent a whopping four weeks at the top spot (although was admittedly knocked off by the unfortunately titled Bayside Shakedown 3: Set the Guys Loose). Along with being based on the 2008 best-selling Japanese novel by Kanae Minato, which according to AsianMediaWiki has sold over 700,000 copies to date, it is Japan’s official entry for the best foreign-language film category at the Academy Awards. Is it even possible to watch a film like this without any baggage? The answer is unequivocally “yes” when the film is this good.

On an average day at a middle-school, teacher Yoko Moriguchi (Takako Matsu, Villon’s Wife and Brave Story) calmly tells her class about the tragic death of her four-year-old daughter at the hands of two of their classmates. The initial shock and slight disbelief turns to horror when she further announces that she has tainted the two killer’s cartons of milk with HIV-infected blood. As we learn more about the story, each of the characters confesses their sins to the audience and new clues are revealed to this tragic tale. Yet as the lives of the two boys slowly start to unravel, we find that Moriguchi’s plan is a complex one indeed.

Dealing with difficult issues from school bullying, teenage violence and mental anxiety to murder and the prejudice over HIV/AIDS in the school system, Confessions is also a tightly woven thriller that barely lets you take a breath. Although drawing on some of the same themes as Sion Sono’s brilliant four-hour epic Love Exposure, the comparisons should end there. Where Sono’s film used the language of pop-culture to almost hit you over the head with the out-of-control influence on youth, sex and religion, Nakashima goes straight for the jugular in a coldly calculated way. Shot with almost slate-blue and grey tones, and accompanied by a theme song (“Last Flowers”) provided by Radiohead, Confessions slowly unfolds its grand plan to audiences, yet could never be accused of being tedious. Even at its most violent, Nakashima and cinematographers Masakazu Ato and Atsushi Ozawa infuse every scene with a surreal beauty that captivates as much as it horrifies.

As violent as some of the acts in the film are, the real terror comes from the human drama. Each of the main characters is given their own segment, or ‘confession’, giving us insight into the motivations of each player. If any criticism could be leveled at Confessions, it is that we don’t get enough time to spend with each of these characters. Takako Matsu’s performance is less of a role and more of a presence, one felt all throughout the film, despite that she is only really on-screen in a handful of scenes. We can almost feel her hands silently manipulating events behind the scenes, something that would only become more palpable on repeat viewings. Each of the kids is also excellent, tackling weighty tasks such as self-harm, torture and outright cruelty with a frightening reality. Did these actors have to draw upon some external source of motivation, or are these feelings inherent to us all? Do these cold-blooded killers deserve special treatment because they are so young, or is murder simply murder? The often terrifying portrayals by these youngsters may leave you questioning your own beliefs, especially when one finds themselves silently cheering at Moriguchi’s final revenge.

While this may not wash with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the next Oscar night, it has received the attention of a number of international festivals including the Jury Prize at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival in South Korean. It deserves to be spoken on in the same breath as Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy, and equally twisty tale of revenge and taboo themes. Although dealing with incredibly familiar themes of murder, revenge and guilt, this thriller manages to present them all in an original way that keeps you guessing until the end. Brutal and often confronting, Confessions is a film that is impossible to ignore.

Confessions is playing at the 14th Japanese Film Festival nationally. It is due to play again at Melbourne on 4 December 2010.

November 28, 2010
Flavor of Happiness (Japanese Film Festival 2010)

It’s hard to turn on the television these days without someone telling you how to cook. Buoyed by the wave of success that shows such as MasterChef and Japan’s own Iron Chef, celebrity and amateur cooking has become popular across the globe. The reasons are not difficult to fathom: all humans, in one way or another, have to eat at some stage. However, as recent documentaries like Food, Inc. have demonstrated, the manufacture and delivery of food has changed more in the last half-century than in all of recorded history. The art of cooking is a complex beast, but it is still an art that most feel they can master in a lifetime.

In Flavor of Happiness (しあわせのかおり), Chinese-born Wang Qingkuo (Tatsuya Fuji, from erotic masterpiece In the Realm of the Senses) owns and operates a restaurant called Little Shanghai, and the food is so good that it has caught the attention of a big-city department store. They send Yamashita Takako (Miki Nakatani, Zero Focus, Ring 2) down to convince Wang to allow them to sell his food through their store. Wang adamantly refuses, but Takako is persistent. She begins to visit Little Shanghai every day, soon forgetting her primary job and becoming obsessed with the food Wang serves. However, Wang collapses through stress and overwork, and is left partially paralysed as a result. Takako is determined not to let Wang’s excellent cooking fade away, and quits her job to learn the art of cooking and help restore Little Shanghai to its glory.

Let’s be honest: a fair chunk of this film is food porn. The often fetishistic approach to food making and preparation is taken to extremes, with lingering close-ups of some of the most mouth-watering collections of appetizers and main dishes you will ever see in one place. Yet this is only one of the reasons that this film will connect with audiences. In the session I was at, crowds cooed and awwed their way through a fairly lengthy running time, completely captivated by one woman’s passion to achieve mastery of this seemingly simple but infinitely nuanced profession.

The relative (perhaps deceptively) simple storyline is strengthened by the cast of two fantastic leads. Tatsuya Fuji’s gruff chef seems to be channeling the great Toshiro Mifune as he barks orders and obstinately refuses to let his paralysis completely cripple him. Balancing this out, like a sweet flavour compliments a harsh earthy one in a good meal, is Miki Nakatani. Having appeared in three Ringu films, Nakatani has proven that she is more than just a scream queen in some of the more interesting and diverse films of the last few years, including Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s (20th Century Boys) Happily Ever After, Japanese Film Festival 2010 program buddy Zero Focus and the multiple award-winning Memories of Matsuko. Here she is the right mixture of enthusiastic and mildly troubled, masking some past disturbances that are only hinted at throughout the film.

Flavor of Happiness is a pure joy from start to finish. The master-apprentice genre may seem a little played out at this late stage in the game, but everything about the Flavor of Happiness makes it seem fresh and new again. There will be no surprises in the final course of the film, but like cooking a feast, half the pleasure is in the preparation.

NB: In the interests of community service: before you even step foot in the cinema, make sure you do so on a full stomach. The sumptuous feasts on display will cause a collective rumbling of stomachs and the pooling of drool around one’s ankles. It would be hard to tell with most cinema floors though.

Flavor of Happiness is playing at the 14th Japanese Film Festival nationally. It is due to play again at Melbourne on 3 December 2010.

November 26, 2010
Zero Focus (Japanese Film Festival 2010)

Based on the novel by Seicho Matsumoto, Zero Focus (ゼロの焦点) marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of that famous Japanese author. A prolific writer of mystery, historical and non-fiction works alike, “Zero no Shoten” (also known as Zero Focus) is arguably his most famous work. Previously made for the screen by director Yoshitaro Nomura in 1961, this anniversary retelling of Zero Focus from director Isshin Inudo (Goo Goo, The Cat) promised to be a more accurate retelling of the authors original work.

Recently wed Sadako Ubara (Ryoko Hirosue, Departures, FLOWERS and Villon’s Wife) bids farewell to her husband Kenichi (Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tokyo Rendezvous) as he sets out on a week-long business trip to Kanazawa, but he is never seen again. Sadako travels to Kanazawa to find out what has happened to him, where she meets two women that both appear to have links with her missing man. There is Sachiko Murota (Miki Nakatani, Flavor of Happiness and Ring), the wife of the owner of the factory that Kenichi worked for. She is assisting with the election of Kanazawa’s first female mayor. Then there’s Hisako Tanuma (Tae Kimura, Survive Style 5+) a receptionist with who managed to get the job from the company owner. Both women hold secrets that Kenichi is determined to uncover, and whether there is any connection with the serial killer that began operating around the time her husband went missing.

Although remaking Yoshitaro Nomura’s 1961 classic film of the same name, Isshin Inudo’s Zero Focus is full of his own visual style, and a fair bit of Alfred Hitchcock to boot. Indeed, the publicity for this film pitches this as “Charlie’s Angels meets Hitchcock”, although aside from the casting of three women in the lead roles (and the iconic poster), there’s not much of a connection with the former. Inudo retains a period a setting, and it is a very handsome film to look at: post-war Japan of the 1950s has never looked this detailed or stunning on-screen, with sumptuous photography from Takahiro Tsutai. The stunning pictures are underscored by a soundtrack that sharply recalls frequent Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Hermann, creating a very stylish package that will please at least two of the senses throughout the film.

However, if ever the term “style over substance” was appropriate, it is with Zero Focus. In attempting to explore the complexities and growth of the critical post-war Japan, caused by a disruption that is often referenced but rarely discussed expressly, Inudo and Kenji Nakazono’s script (based on Matsumoto’s novel, of course) needlessly complicates what is otherwise a simple tale of murder and intrigue. What results is an unfortunately uneven film, where the complexities serve to derail the primary narrative and occasionally confound the audience. At other times, the film commits the worse crime of trying to tie up its can of worms with a few conveniently placed deus ex machinas, pushing the already disoriented viewer right of the edge of the logic cliff. Zero Focus is an ambitious and stylish but ultimately flawed film.

Zero Focus is playing at the 14th Japanese Film Festival nationally. It is due to play again at Melbourne on 2 December 2010.

November 26, 2010
Dear Doctor (Japanese Film Festival 2010)

Dear Doctor (ディア・ドクター) was one of the most critically acclaimed Japanese films of 2009, topping both the Yokohama Film Festival and Kinema Jumpo lists, and placing at #2 on the prestigious Japan Times list behind Yoshihiro Nakamura’s Fish Story and joining such prestigious films as Villon’s Wife, Zero Focus and Summer Wars. Garnering multiple awards at the Hochi Film Awards, Nikkan Sports Film Awards and the Japan Academy Prize for its writer/director Miwa Nishikawa and various members of the cast. So what is it about this seemingly simple tale of a country doctor that has got critics in a spin? Well, the answer is that it is not as simple as it seems.

A young medical intern Keisuke Soma (actor/model Eita, brother of Solanin actor Kento Nagayama) is sent to a small town in the country. Although he initially believes that he should be in a big-city hospital, he soon learns to love the community and its people. The town’s own Dr. Ino (Tsurube Shofukutei, About Her Brother) is worshiped by the village people, thanks to a seemingly 24 hour service and the ability to cure any ailment that comes his way. However, as Soma’s learning process continues, things about Dr. Ino are slowly unveiled, and raises doubts over whether he is who he says he is.

What at first appears to another retread of Northern Exposure soon turns out to be so much more, thanks to a cleverly crafted script and a unique method of storytelling. From the opening scenes of the film we learn that Dr. Ino is in fact missing, and the remainder of the film cuts between the investigation into his whereabouts and some of the stories that may lead us towards understanding why the doctor would flee this idyllic setting. This device allows us just enough information to begin forming an opinion on Ino, before being presented with new information that forces us to rethink our own moral position. Indeed, nothing about this film is as straightforward as it seems.

Dear Doctor poses the question of whether a single misdeed can destroy a lifetime of good ones and the love and respect of those around you. However, it doesn’t attempt to answer this question in any simple terms or with any grand speeches: the threads left unfinished as a result of Dr. Ino’s departure are more than indicative of the consequences that the town may face without him. In this way, it raises the far more philosophical question of the benefits of purely clinical physicians versus the virtues of more holistic caregivers. Again, this is not a debate that the film hopes to settle, but the simple way that it raises the question in the viewers’ minds elevates this tale to more than just a simple question of right and wrong.

Tsurube Shofukutei delivers an outstanding performance as Ino, using his status as a rakugoka (comic storyteller) and television personality to draw the audience in to his web of trust. This trust is vital for the audience, as it gives us an understanding as to how Ino may have gained the position that he risked so much to hold onto. The cinema audience is, after all, like a small town village: isolated from the outside world, often stuck in a moment in time and only able to relate to the events as they are filtered through to us.

He is supported by a wonderful ensemble cast include the comic timing and fragility of Kimiko Yo (Departures, A Lone Scalpel), who in many ways enables Ino and gives us just enough evidence to feel that perhaps Ino is not alone in his guilt. Teruyuki Kagawa (20th Century Boys), as a pharmacist who bargains with Ino over how many drugs he will buy, and indirectly influences the treatment regimes of the entire village, also gives us a sense of some of the broader consequences of the actions, but similarly speaks to both the motivations for Ino’s actions and the idea that the problems with the pharmaco-medical industry are not just isolated to small-town Japan.

Dear Doctor received almost universal acclaim upon release, although some may feel that it is perhaps a little too slow-moving or quaint for them. Thanks to some gorgeous photography of the Japanese countryside, Nishikawa deliberately lingers on some of the quieter moments of country life and takes her time with the conclusion. However, it would be difficult to understand the head-spaces of just about everyone in the film without this extended exploration. Dear Doctor is a well-paced film that will leave you thinking about it, and perhaps reconsidering some of your own beliefs, for some time after viewing.

Dear Doctor is playing at the 14th Japanese Film Festival nationally. No doubt a movie with a high-profile such as this will be picked up for distribution as well.

November 25, 2010
FLOWERS (Japanese Film Festival 2010)

If there is a meme running through the 14th Japanese Film Festival, and indeed throughout the history of Japanese cinema, it is the changing nature of family with each generation. Opening night film About Her Brother drew on the traditions of the great Ozu by touching on the impact of family throughout several generations, yet did so in a very casual and observational kind of way. Director Norihiro Koizumi, who got his start on the amnesiac-college-student-turned-masked-wrestler film Gachi Boy, takes a more direct examination of those generational differences, and produces one of the most beautiful and stunningly shot films to date.

FLOWERS (フラワーズ) follows the lives of six women across three generations, from 1936 through to 2009. In the 1930s, Rin (rising star Yu Aoi, About Her Brother) is having doubts about her arranged marriage. Rin does have three daughters eventually: Midori (Rena Tenanka, A Taste of Fish), a career minded woman in a man’s world, Kaoru (Yuko Takeuchi, Golden Slumber), who loses her husband in a tragic car accident. There is also the youngest daughter Sato (Yuki Nakama, Shinobi) who later gives birth to Kanna (Kyoko Suzuki, recently in a Japanese remake of Sideways) and Kei (Ryoko Hirosue, Departures, Villon’s Wife, Zero Focus). In our contemporary story, Kanna finds that she is also pregnant and is concerned over her ability to be a single parent.

More than anything else, FLOWERS is marvelous to look at with an aesthetic derived partly from Norihiro Koizumi’s advertising work, some of which earned him the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival Grand Prix. seems to have deliberately picked women who appeared in cosmetic company Shiseido’s Tsubaki commercials, and the artificial look of the film does take a few moments to get used to. Indeed, it takes a few moments to get your breath back as the stunning cinematography from Taishi Hirokawa uses crisp black and white for the 1930s, hyper-realistic colours for the 1960s/1970s time period (with a look and attitude that mirrors The Mary Tyler Moore Show) and a stark and uncomplicated palette for contemporary setting. On a technical level, the film is a tour de force with costumes, set design, photography and makeup of the highest quality throughout. Yet Koizumi also uses the distinctive language and look of the last eight decades of film-making in Japan to convey the changing roles and emotions of his women, with each period completely mimicking the style of filmmaking at the time. In this way, the viewer is virtually transported to each generation, making the separation slightly painful as we slip into another generation. It also makes FLOWERS incredibly effective at relating its story of generational femininity to a broad audience.

Many may feel that film tries to bite off too much, with multiple storylines all leading to similar conclusions. Indeed, the appearance of a montage based around an Olivia Newton-John song from Xanadu sticks out like a sore thumb in this otherwise beautiful film. While this gives us a broad brushstroke of mothers and daughters dealing with the business of motherhood, Koizumi’s advertising background is evident: it is more about the look and feel of each period. FLOWERS highlights the beauty of each of these generations, and using some of the most beautiful Japanese actresses on the cinema scene doesn’t hurt this cause one iota.

FLOWERS is a celebration of life. One has to take it or leave it, and sacrifices sometimes have to be made in the creation of it. It would be wrong to simply take the surface proposition that the film appears to offer: that is, procreation is the solution to all of life’s problems. Rather, each of the women in the film learns to embrace their lot in life on their own terms, and despite the often male-dominated worlds they live in, each demonstrates incredible strength in doing so. For lovers of cinema of all eras, there is a great deal to be found in this wonderful piece that spans over 70 years of Japan, and in turn, Japanese cinema history.

FLOWERS is playing at the 14th Japanese Film Festival nationally. It is due to play again at Melbourne on 2 December 2010. If there is any justice, this will be picked up for distribution as well.

November 25, 2010
Hanamizuki (Japanese Film Festival 2010)

We’ve had a variety of inspirations for this year’s entries in the Japanese Film Festival – a novel (Feel the Wind), a manga (Solanin), a true story of calligraphy performance (Shodo Girls) and a 1960s Kon Ichikawa film (About Her Brother) – but Hanamizuki may be the first film based on a pop song. At least according to Asian Media Wiki, who state that the title is based on the 2004 You Hitoto pop song of the same name. One of the bigger productions for the Japanese film industry this year – with filming taking place in Hokkaido, Canada and New York – it has also been a box office hit in its native Japan. Released in August this year, Hanamizuki spent two weeks at the top position, knocking off Studio Ghibli’s The Borrower Arrietty and only defeated by Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s (20th Century Boys) highly anticipated Beck. Now thanks to the Japanese Film Festival, Australians get a chance to see this long before the majority of the world.

Canadian-born schoolgirl Saki (Yui Aragaki) lost her father to a terminal disease at a young age, and only has a flowering dogwood tree to remember him by. She is determined to get into a Tokyo university to study English, and her studies have become an all-consuming pastime. At least, that is, until she meets Gohei (Toma Ikuta), a student from the nearby fisheries high school who is determined to follow in the footsteps of his fisherman father. The two fall head-over-heels in love, but it is not meant to be: soon Saki must move from small-town Hokkaido to the big smoke of Tokyo, and Gohei is married to the sea. They attempt to have a long-distance relationship, but find their lives moving in very different directions. Yet this is not the end of the story.

The appeal for most fans of Japanese cinema is starlet Yui Aragaki, singer and actress on both the big and small screen. Hanamizuki sees this actress portray her character from a teenager up to the age of 28, marking one of the first times the youthful actress has played an adult character! Yet as earnest as she is in the role, reading her lines in both Japanese and English (the latter of which she studied to play this part), the strongest performance comes from Toma Ikuta. His pretty-boy looks (despite spending most of his life roughing it on a boat) notwithstanding, Ikuta brings a real emotional weight to a character that may have otherwise been just another boy from the wrong side of the tracks.

Hanamizuki is not going to be for all tastes, and the words “date movie” spring to mind almost immediately. Hanamizuki is a sweet, if not especially memorable, romance story that never truly distinguishes itself from the crowd. Director Doi Nobuhiro, coming largely from a television background, adds little flair to proceedings, nor does he have much of a voice in this fairly by-the-numbers production. Taking the production out to New York, Tokyo and Canada does add some breadth to the picture, although none of these locations (especially New York) are shot with any real beauty or intent. Ultimately, what’s gained in breadth is lost in-depth, although fans of straight romance stories won’t care and have a packet of tissues ready to roll from the outset.

Already sold out (or close to it) in Sydney, if you haven’t thought about going along to Hanamizuki, you might want to consider getting in fast. Or heading to Melbourne next week.

November 23, 2010
Japanese Film Festival 2010: Opening Night

On a steamy spring night in Sydney town, the 14th Japanese Film Festival officially opened at the Regent on George Street. As we were reminded in an opening address, this festival keeps growing every year, from the humble beginnings of 5 films and 500 guests to this year’s 21 films and almost 10,000 guests around Australia.

In an increasingly crowded festival market – the last two months alone saw the Korean Film Festival in Australia, Fantastic Planet, A Night of Horror, Festival of Jewish Cinema, Hola Mexican Film Festival, The Sydney Latin American Film Festival and the Lavazza Italian Film Festival to name but a few – the Japanese Film Festival stands out as one that consistently delivers high quality examples of a country that has long had a strong cinematic output. Indeed, the festival was the first to secure the right to screen the Oscar-winning Departures outside of Japan, demonstrating that the festival organisers have long had their collective fingers on the cinematic pulse of the country. 2010 is no exception, in a year that includes films from Yoji Yamada (About Her Brother), Tsutomu Abe (Kyoto Story, Happy Family Plan) and Tetsuya Nakashima (Confessions, Memories of Matsuko).

Guests at the official reception were treated to a very special trio of representatives from Japan, including the aforementioned Tsutomu Abe, along with JAMI Principal and renowned film critic Tadao Sato and Vice Principal of JAMI, Shigeki Chiba. Sato spoke on behalf of the trio, emphasising that many of the Japanese filmmakers working in the industry today graduated from his school, and that the chance to screen these films outside of Japan (including the student film Wish You Were Here, screening with Abe’s Kyoto Story on the second night of the Sydney festival) was a great honour. The three speakers will also appear at the Kyoto Story/Wish You Were Here screening for a panel discussion. Audience members were also reminded that Japan’s cinematic output is around 300 films a year, so the staging of a festival of over 20 films in Australia is a magnificent achievement. The Japanese Ambassador and Minister for the Arts (NSW), Virginia Judge, made similar sentiments.

Just a few hundred metres down the road at the Event Cinemas on George Street, Yoji Yamada’s About Her Brother (Otôto) made its debut in Sydney. Tsutomu Abe spoke on behalf of veteran filmmaker Yoji Yamada, with whom he co-directed Kyoto Story. Yamada in turn dedicates the film to Kon Ichikawa. Ichikawa’s 1960 film, also named Otôto (and known as Her Brother) is re-imagined by Yamada, giving it his own unique twist. In that earlier film, the character of the ‘stupid’ brother dies early in the piece. This film imagines what would happen if he had lived. The narrative follows the widow and pharmacist Ginko (seasoned actress Sayuri Yoshinaga) and the estranged relationship she has with black sheep younger brother Tetsuro (Tsurube Shofukutei, Dear Doctor), who was last seen drunk and disorderly at the 13th commemoration of Ginko’s late husband’s death. When Ginko’s daughter Koharu (Yu Aoi, Redline; FLOWERS) is married, Tetsuro returns and not only ruins the wedding, but throws their entire lives into turmoil as well. An incredibly measured and evenly paced film, with some very self-conscious nods to Yasujirō Ozu. Shofukutei gives a marvelous performance as the easy to dislike but impossible to forget Tetsuro, who would have been a ridiculous caricature in lessor hands. Speaking volumes about the differences between generations in Japan, especially in the very Ozu-esque scenes inside Ginko’s pharmacy featuring three generations of women, volumes are said through the observational of this unconventional (but very familiar) family unit.

The 14th Japanese Film Festival runs in Sydney until Sunday 28th November 2010, before heading to Melbourne and Hobart. What distinguishes this festival is the sheer diversity of films screened from the intimate Kyoto Story and Hanamizuki, the reflective Solanin, the feel-good Shodo Girls, the sports-epic Feel the Wind, historical epic Castle Under Fiery Skies, the Hitchcockian Zero Focus, Japan’s official entry to the Academy Awards (Confessions) and an anime matsuri featuring the first CG animated film from Production IG, Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror. We will cover the entire festival right here on The Reel Bits.

November 23, 2010
Solanin (Japanese Film Festival 2010)

There’s a line in a song from the late Jeff Buckley that goes “Too young to hold on, and too old to just break free and run”. For anybody who feels trapped or obligated by the circumstances of their life, their job or their family, these words resonate deep inside us. They could also be readily applied to Takahiro Miki’s debut film Solanin, where music is represented as a powerful inspirational force for change.

Based on the popular manga series by Inio Asano, first published in Shogakukan’s Weekly Young Sunday in 2005 and 2006, the film adaptation was released earlier this year in Japanese cinemas. Thanks to the 14th Japanese Film Festival in Australia (JFF14), Australian audiences now get a chance to enjoy this theatrically as well.

Meiko (Aoi Miyazaki, The Summit: A Chronicle of the Stones to Serenity) and Taneda (Kengo Kora, Box!) have been together since university. It has been several years since they graduated, and they both find themselves at a loose end. Meiko is stuck in a dead-end office job, and Taneda knows that his true passion is playing music with his friends (although they are reluctant to actually plan in front of an audience). When Meiko quits her job in the hopes of “finding herself”, Taneda worries about what will happen to them financially and his dreams of making a living from his music. The pair fall headlong into the future, not knowing what it will bring.

Not since Toy Story 3 earlier this year have I found myself openly weeping so frequently during a film. Perhaps this is because that all people of a certain post-university age will have an instant connection with Solanin. Completely capturing the vibe of a generation lost in a sea of choice, but simultaneously having no particular goal to strive for, Solanin taps into the angst and uncertain future that all young adults around the world share. The theme resonates in particular with this particular generation of Japanese youth, who are largely free of the same expectations that their parent’s generation endured (and is explored from two different perspectives in JFF14 stable-mate Hanamizuki). Following the Japanese economic downturn of the 1990s, it wouldn’t make sense for many to so carelessly give up ‘sensible’ working careers in favour of pursuing ‘frivolous’ dreams. Yet this is something that is common to many around the world now, who find themselves in a post-global financial crisis state wondering if the pursuit of money is worth the hassle.

Don’t mistake this for a cookie-cutter coming-of-age drama, however, as there is genuine weight and emotion to be found here. While not driven by a overly dramatic narrative or indie rock attitude as some of the marketing might suggest, much of the exertion of the film (and of the characters) is used in managing their day-to-day existence. Solanin is content to observe these characters as they are. Wonderful characters they are too, with the lead performance by Aoi Miyazaki one of the standouts of the year. At veteran in the industry at the tender age of 24, she earned a Best Actress Award at the Cinemanila International Film Festival for her lead performance in Harmful Insect.

Her performance here is filled with a quiet strength: we first meet her at the depth of depression and (without spoilers) we leave her at a much more accepting place, with the young actress showing incredible range and nuance. Kengo Kora, who we are soon to see in the Haruki Murakami adaptation Norwegian Wood, also convinces and endears as the often slack but always loevable Taneda. During the moments he is not on screen, his absence is keenly felt, particularly through the powerful supporting roles of band-mates Kenta Kiritani (Beck) and real-life bassist Yoichi Kondo.

Solanin is easily one of the must-see entries at this year’s Japanese Film Festival. Emotionally buoyed by a strong soundtrack and a cast of real characters who just get by on getting by, it will be a cynical person indeed who leaves the cinema without at least taking a second look at their life and wondering where it is all going next.

Solanin is playing at the 14th Japanese Film Festival nationally. If there is any justice, this will be picked up for distribution as well.

November 22, 2010
Shodo Girls (Japanese Film Festival 2010)

The thing that has always excites me about cinema is that I am constantly learning new things. Prior to Shodo Girls, I had no idea that there was such a thing as competition performance calligraphy. Yes, the gentle art of fancy lettering is a no-holds-barred bloodletting that gets pretty fierce. Plus, it’s all based on a true story! Well, except for the bloodletting part. I just got kind of carried away. One has to admit, that theatrical poster (to the left) does make this look like an action epic. That aside, Shodo Girls is one of the most unlikely delights I have seen in quite some time.

Satoko (Riko Narumi) leads her high-school calligraphy club, but struggles to keep the numbers of people up. Their little world is rocked when a new substitute teacher, Ikezawa (Nobuaki Kaneko, Crows Zero II) arrives and brings a fresh new approach to calligraphy. Resigned to the fact that their calligraphy is boring, the girls decide to revitalise their economically ailing town by staging a bit of performance calligraphy. After some false starts, and a Rocky-style training montage with music (the second of the festival, following Feel the Wind), the girls enter themselves in the “Shodo Girls Koshien”, in which they must make calligraphy on giant sheets of paper to music.

The tension between traditional and radical modernisation is a theme that runs strong throughout Japanese cinema, and indeed throughout Japan, and Shodo Girls conveys this tension effectively. Yet in some ways the films can’t escape another cinematic tradition: that of a small team of misfits overcoming great odds at competition level. Indeed, some of the similar themes can be seen in this year’s festival hits Feel the Wind and Solanin to a lesser extent. However, Shodo Girls manages to transcend this cliché to some degree via a cast of terrific characters that the script spends some time getting to know.

The film’s lead, Riko Narumi, has been in a number of similar films over the last few years. Indeed, her most recent film before this one, Bushido Sixteen, is about a rivalry that grows during kendo training, leading up to one final tournament. Her character is at first somewhat overbearing, but thanks to the other members of the team – including singer/actress Mitsuki Takahata, who is absolutely wonderful in the role of the overly earnest Kiyomi, whose beaming enthusiasm inspires the rest of the group – manages to become a rousing leader capable of drawing words on big pieces of paper with the best of them.

Perhaps what is most surprising about Shodo Girls is that it is all based on a true story. Like Happy Family Plan in 2009, Shodo Girls is designed to act as something of a cultural ambassador to the Japanese Film Festival, complete with language learning activities for the school groups who have no doubt bought out the first session of this film. After all, where else but Japan would performance calligraphy be met with such unbridled enthusiasm? It is the perfect antidote to the overbearing high-school glee clubs from High School Musical, Spectacular! or TV’s Glee, and instead takes us on a gentle journey through personal development, complete with male cheerleaders. Along with giving us an insight into the importance of this gentle art of the Japanese psyche, it is designed as a wholesale “feel good” picture that is guaranteed to having people roused and ready to enrol in calligraphy lessons by the end of its swift running time.

Like the art it portrays, Shodo Girls is a film with charms that become more apparent the longer one reflects on them. Director Ryuichi Inomata has a strong history of television film production, and his previous feature film – 2007’s weepy dog-drama A Tale of Mari and Three Puppies, a film I randomly managed to catch on television in Hiroshima late last year – had a distinctly “movie of the week” feel to it. Although Shodo Girls pays a strong debt to these traditions, it is nevertheless a thoroughly enjoyable character-driven piece that is sure to be a crowd-pleaser at this year’s festival circuit.

Shodo Girls is playing at the 14th Japanese Film Festival nationally. It does not appear to have an Australian distributor attached at the time of writing.

November 22, 2010
Feel the Wind (Japanese Film Festival 2010)

The Hakone Ekiden is one of the biggest university athletic events in Japan. Run every year on January 2 and 3, the two-day relay marathon follows a course of almost 220 kilometres between Tokyo and Hakone and is a matter of massive prestige for the universities involved. Seasoned writer Sumio Omori, who became the youngest winner of the Kuniko Mukoda Award for screenwriting, uses this difficult course to make his directorial debut with Feel the Wind (風が強く吹いている or Kaze ga Tsuyoku Fuiteiru), a fictionalised account of a struggling team to overcome great odds. Winner of Best New Director at the 19th Japan Movie Critic Awards and the 31st Yokohama Film Festival, Feel the Wind is the kind of film engineered to make audiences feel good.

University student Haiji (Keisuke Koide, from the blockbuster Rookies) is a former runner whose career has slid due to injury. He had all but given up on the dream of running the Hakone Ekiden until he meets elite runner Kakeru (Kento Hayashi), who has left running due to a fight with his coach. Gathering eight other housemates, who have never run before, they form the necessary team of 10 athletes to fulfil Haiji’s dream of qualifying for the ekiden (marathon relay). Most of them are not up to the challenge, but the rag-tag team of roommates are determined to help Haiji fulfil his seemingly impossible dream.

© 2009 Feel the Wind Film Partners

Sports movies are always popular with crowds, and there is something about marathon running that seems to particularly appeal to the masochist is all of us. From at least Chariots of Fire onwards, which was admittedly about sprinting taken to balletic heights, track athletics have been taken as a convenient outlet for personal pain and anguish. Everybody on the team has something to work through, from Haiji’s injury to the manga-obsessed Prince (Yuichi Nakamura) and his lack of self-worth, and by the end of Feel the Wind, we get the impression that their accomplishments in the race have also worked through some of those “issues” as well. As the distributor Shochiku succinctly puts its “Through the training and the experience, each member finds their inner strength and the joy of feeling the wind”. Wind joy, that’s what it’s all about.

Feel the Wind misses a few steps during the middle act, which drags on a little too long, and by the end of the marathon itself audiences may feel like they have run the entire distance. Perhaps this is a side-effect of the bookish origins, as the film is an adaptation of Shion Miura’s novel that centres on the race. One would imagine we get much more personal insight into the personal pain of the competitors in the novel, although this highly emotional film borders on the melodramatic at times. However, Feel the Wind has that Rocky spirit, without Sylvester Stallone’s endless monologues to nobody in particular. It’s appeal is indicated by Feel the Wind‘s Top 10 rankings in Japanese Film of 2009 lists in both the Kinema Junpo and Yokohama Film Festival. Indeed, the latter puts it in such fine company as the brilliant Love Exposure, Japanese Film Festival stable-mates Dear Doctor and Villon’s Wife, and one of my personal favourite films of the year, Summer Wars. On the Brisbane leg of the 14th Japanese Film Festival, this was voted an audience favourite. This will no doubt connect with audiences, but just be prepared to watch a lot of running.

Feel the Wind is playing at the 14th Japanese Film Festival nationally. It does not appear to have an Australian distributor attached at the time of writing.

November 20, 2010