IFFR: Update on Shun'ichi Nagasaki's HEART, BEATING IN THE DARK (YAMI UTSU SHINZÔ), w/ Shigeru Muro

Shun'ichi Nagasaki's Heart, Beating in the Dark (Yami utsu shinzô) is having its European première at the 35th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) on January 25th; it will open the festival, as part of the "Filmmaker in Focus" retrospective of thirteen of Nagasaki's movies. As was reported here on ScreenAnarchy back on September 11th of last year, the movie had its world première at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) on October 2nd of last year. It's a rethinking of Nagasaki's own 1982 movie of the same title (Japanese Movie Database entry), which is also being screened at IFFR as part of the said retrospective.

The cast of Heart, Beating in the Dark apparently includes Shigeru Muroi, Takashi Naitô, Shôichi Honda, Noriko Eguchi, Tarô Suwa (PDF file), and Kaori Mizushima.

Below is a description of Heart, Beating in the Dark from this page on the VIFF website.

The beat goes on... Twenty-odd years after the original Heart, Beating in the Dark, the idea of a remake comes up. After all, not too many people ever had the chance to see the amazing original. The two stars, Muroi Shigeru and Naito Takashi (both then unknown, both now famous), are happy to let their old performances be referenced ­ but they also want to be in the remake. For Naito, especially, the issue is the moral stance of the old movie. He wants to be in the new film so that he can criticize the character he played two decades ago. Well, not so much criticize... What he really wants to do is punch the guy.

And so the new film becomes something more than a remake. It's also a sequel, and at the same time a rethink. Naito and Muroi return as Ringo and Inako, older and in some ways wiser, while Honda Shoichi and Eguchi Noriko appear as another young couple on the run, with the guiltiest of guilty secrets in their hearts. Across these two couples, Nagasaki builds a searching (and extremely moving) meditation on what it means to live on the wrong side of the tracks, what it means to "grow up"... and what it means to be a loving parent. There has been no finer achievement in Japanese cinema this year.

IFFR: "Rotterdam opener: Nagasaki's HEART BEATING IN THE DARK"