Many international and North American premieres unfurl til July 20 at Japan Society, and we've got the heads-up on a bunch of 'em. This year's festival features a religious girl vs. a talking genital growth (The Passion); a menacing samurai and his adorable cat (Neko Samurai); a children's rock n' roll concert (Hello! Junichi), and an environmentalist epic (The Tale Of Iya). As cinematic treats go that's just a taste of the kool-aid, so sit back and enjoy ScreenAnarchy's preview of Japan Cuts 2014.
Click to the right of the cute kitty with the katana for the preview. Click here for the fest's full lineup and to purchase tickets.
0.5mm
Ando Momoko's film is one of those special works of art in which you remain fully engaged in the moment-to-moment content while also being aware of all the rich themes that zing through the air around you. Is 0.5mm “about” gender since it concerns a young woman caring for elderly men — and always despite their wishes, at least initially? Or is it about generational contrast, and rapprochement, for the same reasons? What about the perennial Japanese theme of filial obligation, making it a dark inversion of something like Tokyo Story?
Well, yes… and no. It’s about all these things but mostly about love, and we know this because a voice-over pretty much says as much about two-thirds of the way through the 3+-hour runtime. With a remarkable gift for staging physical conflict so that it’s simultaneously laughably comic and profoundly sad, and for imbuing key scenes with novelistic ambiguity, Ando achieves one minor miracle after another. Add to this several affecting performances, including a wonderful turn by lead Ando Sakura, and specific images that are apt to remain with you for some time, and it becomes clear that 0.5mm isn’t just a highlight of the fest, but of 2014 generally. -- Peter Gutierrez
Neko Samurai
A cute cat and a grumpy samurai...I mean, really? Japan, what took you so long?! Neko Samurai stars a mean faced ronin, Kyutaro (Kitamura Kazuki of The Raid 2, Man from Reno, Japan's Tragedy and the recipient of thee Cut Above Awards at this year's Japan Cuts), looking for work in Edo. In the mean time, he ekes out a meager living making umbrellas. He is a fine swordsman but its his face that intimidates his enemies most. He is approached by a dog loving clan to assassinate a cat living in the house of a rivaling clan. The arranged marriage of two cats between the cat loving clan and shogun's will surely wipe out the dog loving clan! Kyutaro declines the job at first, but after seeing a large sum of rewards, he can't refuse. But once he sees the white cat, Tamanojoh, his heart melts. So he fakes the assassination and hides the cat in his boarding house with disastrous results - umbrellas ripped to shreds, cat pee on his bedspread...
Based on a TV series of the same name, Neko Samurai relies on its deadpan humor and of course, the adorableness of the white cat. Kitamura does a great job sustaining a straight face throughout the whole thing. Put down your swords and just look at that adorable cat's face. You will feel your murderous rage slipping away from your body. -- Dustin Chang
Japan Cuts 2014 celebrates Kitamura's career with candid introductions and Q&As for Man from Reno, Killers and Neko Samurai followed by the Japan CATS Party!
The Tale Of Iya
Tsuta Tetsuichiro's second feature crafts an environmentalist epic that sits wonderfully between surrealism and naturalism; the everyday and the fantastic.
In the Iya Valley, a grandfather and his grand daughter, Haruna, live in harmony with the land, while the village elders finalize construction on a tunnel that will connect their remote mountains with the outside world. As her grandfather falls ill to a mysterious illness, Haruna must face her changing world, for better or worse.
Though its glacial pace will make you feel the near three hour running time,
My Little Sweet Pea
Mugiko (Horita Maki) is a young woman who has one grand ambition in life: to become an anime voice actress. Her older brother (Matsuda Ryuhei) is skeptical, since she has had a string of successive passion pursuits that all failed to pan out. But she’s determined this time, working part time in a manga store and saving up for voice acting school. However, a spanner gets thrown into her works: her mother (Yo Kimiko), who essentially abandoned her years before, shows up out of the blue, causing her no end of annoyance. But then she disappears just as fast as she came, and Mugiko is left to piece together what it all means, and to uncover her mother’s past.
Director Yoshida Keisuke has created from this material a film which is quite sentimental and old-fashioned, and one which too obviously sets out to tug at the heartstrings and the tear ducts. However, it is well acted by all the principals, especially Yo Kimiko, who beings depth to a rather cartoonish portrayal – which, however is appropriate to the film’s otaku-friendly subject matter – of a flighty, irresponsible woman belatedly trying to make amends for her past mistakes. -- Christopher Bourne
The Passion
Frances-ko (Iwasa Mayuko) grew up in a convent. Since she is a virgin, she wants very much to have sexual experiences before she goes back to the convent when she gets old. But she doesn't really know the way of things in the world. Even though she works at a modeling agency, she has no idea how to talk to men. She asks men bluntly, "When our eyes met, did you think about having sex with me?" The answer is always no.
One day while praying, the answer comes down from below. It's a man faced tumor (hilarious Furutachi Kanji) that is attached to her vagina. He taunts her everyday, telling her how worthless she is as a woman. Now jobless, collecting garbage on the street (to be useful in some way, in her words), Frances-ko, just like anything in her life, accepts the trash talking tumor on her vagina with her typical nonchalance. She names the growth Mr. Koga and so begins an unusual symbiotic relationship between a woman and a tumor. Will Frances-ko finally find happiness?
Based on a prize winning novel of the same by Himeno Kaoruki, The Passion is a very funny and surprisingly tender film anchored by Iwasa's great performance as a naive woman who accepts the world as it comes to her. -- Dustin Chang
Killers
While superficially so familiar, Killers works hard to deliver any number of unexpected, and disturbing, pleasures. There’s Kitamura Kazuki's sleek psycho, with echoes of Messrs. Lecter, Bateman, and Morgan — except he and the directors aren’t simply content to trade on his icy good looks or to engage in third-act emoting for sympathy, but instead go for complexity, complete with awkwardness and an inconsistent M.O. The idea of recording and then posting kills online, as well as striking up a volatile relationship with a fledging murderer and audience surrogate (Antara Oka in a nothing-left-on-the-field performance), isn’t exactly radical either. But this central dynamic between the title characters, at first thematic and eventually dramatic, isn’t all that we’re treated to: they’re simply foregrounded points in a compelling continuum of evil that ranges from bullies of various stripes, to thugs and pimps, to corrupt politicians and beyond-horrific child molesters.
As a bonus, the thriller aspects, which include pursuit and suspense sequences, are more than satisfying in their own right, and provide a nice counterpoint to the psychodrama. Not for everyone, to be sure, but for fans of visceral cinema, this is a must-see right up through its final, cathartic minute. -- Peter Gutierrez
Full Disclosure: Sales for Killers are handled by XYZ Films, which our own Todd Brown is a partner at
Uzumasa Limelight
Ken Ochiai, a Japanese born director who studied in the West, brings focus to Kyoto's famous Uzumasa studios, once the home of dozens of chanbara pictures (sword action dramas) and the kirae-yaku, professional extras trained in the art of sword fighting and dying on screen.
Real life kirae-yaku Fukumoto Seizo turns in a beautiful and nuanced performance as the aging Kamiyama, who takes under his wing young and spirited Satsuki (Yamomoto Chihiro). When the network cancels the longest running chanbara show in favor of something more hip, Kami struggles with his impending retirement. Meanwhile, Satsuki gets the spotlight as the next big thing.
While much of Uzumasa Limelight's sentiment and nostalgia falls on the sappier side of melodrama, the film's love for the golden age of chanbara and its performers is undeniable. From its wonderfully choreographed sword fights, to the little touches in showcasing a filmmaking community, and again the magnetic Fukumoto, Ochiai gives us a look behind the scenes that is largely fascinating. -- Ben Umstead
Pecoross' Mother And Her Days
This delightfully funny and emotionally poignant film by Morisaki Azuma, reportedly the oldest active film director in Japan, follows Yuichi (Iwamatsu Ryo), a manga artist/musician/salaryman – who calls himself “pecoross” in honor of his own onion-shaped bald head – who must deal with his mother Mitsue’s (Harada Kiwako) ever worsening dementia. The film frequently flashes back to Mitsue’s past, as she is impacted by the atomic bomb which hit nearby Nagasaki, as well as her difficult life with her often drunken husband (Kase Ryo). The film has a beautiful flow and a deeply humanistic feel; it beautifully captures the ebbs and flows of human lives. -- Christopher Bourne
Greatful Dead
Touching upon ills of the society, Uchida Eiji's Greatful Dead is a dark comedy (emphasis on dark). Nami (Takiuchi Kumi), an attention starved girl grows up to be a sociopath who spies on people she calls 'solitarians' - unfortunate souls who (nearly) went mad out of loneliness. She finally finds her match in Shiomi (Sasano Takashi), a cranky elderly man and former TV star, living alone after his wife's death. She relishes obsessively on his every move through her binoculars. Things get up close and personal when Shiomi is approached by a comely Korean Christian volunteer Su-yong (Kkot-bi Kim from Breathless) who turns him into a life-affirming, bible quoting Christian. Nami can't stand losing her favorite solitarian and takes a drastic measure to reclaim her prized possession. Things turn violent, very very violent.
Uchida sets up Nami's story nicely and wins over our sympathy early on, thanks to Takiuchi Kumi's physical performance and deadly smile, only to turn it upside down later on. The growing number of shut ins and elderly people is a real problem and Uchida is not afraid of pursuing the touchy subject to extreme. It's a sickly entertaining film. -- Dustin Chang
Why Don't You Play In Hell?
After a pair of intense dramas dealing with the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan (Himizu, The Land of Hope), Sono Sion returns to his far more outré roots with a roaring vengeance in Why Don’t You Play in Hell?, a movie as aggressive and in-your-face as its title, and it's an absolute blast. The adrenaline and insane energy with which this film runs could fuel any number of electric power plants, and there’d still be some juice left to spare.
Combining a gangland saga with a cinephilic requiem for the death of 35mm, the film is funny, bloody, and gleefully amoral. It boasts some impressive turns from such faces familiar to Japanese film fans as Tsutsumi Shinichi, Kinimura Jun, and Sakaguchi Tak, whose entire role is a cracked homage to Bruce Lee, iconic yellow track suit and all. But the film is stolen lock stock and barrel by Nikaido Fumi, the amazing 19-year-old actress who plays her role with tons of gum-smacking attitude. It's a funny and sexy performance that is positively mesmerizing. She’ll be the guest of honor at Japan Cuts’ opening night. -- Christopher Bourne
Hello! Junichi
Ishii Katsuhito, the man behind Taste Of Tea and Funky Forest, makes an unabashedly children's movie, starring the scrumptious Mitsushima Hikari (Love Exposure, Sawako Decides) as a chain smoking, unorthodox teacher in training at an Elementary School.
The film features trials and tribulations of a shy and awkward 3rd grader, Junichi and his ragtag group of friends. This is the time when borrowing an animal-shaped eraser from a girl you have a crush on is as much a big deal as, I don't know, being a goalie at a World Cup shootout.
The only "Ishii-ness" comes from the dance sequence performed by Ishii regular Gashuin Tatsuya, playing once again, the weird grandfather. Extremely good natured and optimistic, Hello! Junichi is a movie for kids starring kids. If you enjoy listening to high-pitched shrills of 9 year old munchkins for 90 minutes, this movie is for you. -- Dustin Chang
Man From Reno
This transnational San Francisco-set mystery has a bunch of intriguing elements: a female Japanese bestselling novelist (Fujitani Ayako), the titular “man from Reno” (Kitamura Kazuki), both with very dark secrets, and a tale involving rare turtles, dead corpses, and stolen identities. Again, this is potentially intriguing material. But everything here is, strangely enough, rather underpowered dramatically. It’s all so laid back that even the most potentially dramatic twists don’t have much of a resonant effect. It’s an interesting example of cinematic cultural exchange, unfortunately one with untapped potential. -- Christopher Bourne