Japanese cinema has been on a somewhat successful stalemate for years now, with the titles produced (at least the ones we manage to sea in the West out of the 600 the country produces every year) retaining the same, relatively high quality, even though no particular steps forward have been made for years now Regarding the state of the industry in 2023, you can read the very informative article by Mark Schilling, but the thing I have to mention is that, despite the issues, local movies definitely have four things working quite well for them, particularly this year. First of all, the big names deliver almost always, with Miyazaki, Hamaguchi and Koreeda proving the fact this year also. Second of all, the quality of anime remains high as always and thirdly, some efforts at different cinematic approaches continue to take place, even though they can almost exclusively be found in low budget and short films.
- 12/19/2023
- by AMP Group
- AsianMoviePulse
Despite this one being a mediocre season for Asian cinema, Nyaff still managed to include a number of gems in its huge program, once more justifying its place as the biggest festival of Asian cinema in the Western world. With an obvious focus on titles by and about women, the programmers offered a diverse selection that included the whole spectrum of genre films from the whole region, while also of note was the inclusion of a plethora of shorts, both live-action and animation. Japanese and Korean (family) dramas, action and horror from Asean countries, while the Chinese mainland cinema highlighted a couple of captivating stories. Comedies are still a mixed-bag, at least for the Western audience, but some progress is also evident in that category also. Without further ado, here is a list of this year's coverage of New York Asian Film Festival
You can read the full reviews by...
You can read the full reviews by...
- 8/4/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Takumi Saitoh is a truly unique talent, who, after proving his prowess as an actor (he now has 165 credits to his name) continued in the same level as a director, with his segments in “Folklore” and “Food Lore”, and the features “Blank 13” and “Comply+-ance” being truly top notch. As such, his latest work, “Home Sweet Home”, based on the homonymous 2019 novel by Rinko Kamizu was one of the most anticipated films of the year. Let us see how he fared.
Home Sweet Home is screening at New York Asian Film Festival
Living in the harsh winter of Nagano, Kenji Kiyosawa, a sports instructor, is tired of being cold along with his wife, Hitomi, and newborn. As such, when he stumbles upon a company that manufactures pre-built houses that implement a technology that can warm the whole establishment with a single air-conditioner, his enthusiasm is unprecedented, as much as for his wife.
Home Sweet Home is screening at New York Asian Film Festival
Living in the harsh winter of Nagano, Kenji Kiyosawa, a sports instructor, is tired of being cold along with his wife, Hitomi, and newborn. As such, when he stumbles upon a company that manufactures pre-built houses that implement a technology that can warm the whole establishment with a single air-conditioner, his enthusiasm is unprecedented, as much as for his wife.
- 7/27/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
One of the prestigious national cinema awards in Japan presented by the Association of Tokyo Film Journalists, the 65th edition of the Blue Ribbon Awards announced its winners on February 24, 2023. The nominees are selected from movies released in 2022 within the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. Leading with 6 nominations, A Man by Kei Ishikawa, wins Best Film while Plan 75 by Chie Hayakawa picks up Best Director and Best Actress for Chieko Baisho. The full list of winners is described below.
Best Film
A Man
Kingdom 2: To Distant Lands
Small, Slow But Steady
Missing
Silent Parade
Dr Coto’s Clinic
Plan 75
Motherhood
Fragments of the Last Will
Wandering
A Man Best Director
Kei Ishikawa – A Man
Shinzo Katayama – Missing
Takahisa Zeze – Tombi: Father and Son; Fragments of the Last Will
Chie Hayakawa – Plan 75
Ryuichi Hiroki – 2 Women, Motherhood; Phases of the Moon
Best Actor
Sadao Abe – Lesson in Murder; I am...
Best Film
A Man
Kingdom 2: To Distant Lands
Small, Slow But Steady
Missing
Silent Parade
Dr Coto’s Clinic
Plan 75
Motherhood
Fragments of the Last Will
Wandering
A Man Best Director
Kei Ishikawa – A Man
Shinzo Katayama – Missing
Takahisa Zeze – Tombi: Father and Son; Fragments of the Last Will
Chie Hayakawa – Plan 75
Ryuichi Hiroki – 2 Women, Motherhood; Phases of the Moon
Best Actor
Sadao Abe – Lesson in Murder; I am...
- 2/28/2023
- by Suzie Cho
- AsianMoviePulse
Graduate student Aiko (Rena Matsui) has always had low self-esteem and not much of a social life because of a conspicuous birthmark on her face. When her life story as featured in a book is to be adapted into film, she falls for the director Tobisaka (Ayumu Nakajima) who accepts her as she is. [Source: Jfdb]
A romance based on a 2013 novel by Naoki Prize-winner and author of “Narratage”, Rio Shimamoto. Directed by Yuka Yasukawa (Dressing Up), this film received its world premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October 2021.
Theatrical release in Japan: September 16, 2022.
A romance based on a 2013 novel by Naoki Prize-winner and author of “Narratage”, Rio Shimamoto. Directed by Yuka Yasukawa (Dressing Up), this film received its world premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October 2021.
Theatrical release in Japan: September 16, 2022.
- 7/15/2022
- by Suzie Cho
- AsianMoviePulse
Move aside, Billie Eilish; it’s time for Anita to take back the stage. Lok Man Leung’s “Anita” delivers a loving tribute to Anita Mui — legendary Cantopop singer, actress, and activist. Much like Eilish, Mui too had a seamless start to her career. After years of performing on the streets, Mui underwent a fateful vocal cord surgery that lowered her pitch by an octave. Mui’s new voice charmed audiences though – and she skyrocketed to fame by winning the New Talent Singing Awards at the tender age of 19. She then polished her baritone pitch and outfits with Cantopop factory Capital Artists and fashion heavyweight Eddie Lau. She collaborated with movie icons too – like Stanley Kwan, Leslie Cheung, and Maggie Cheung, to name a few – in her first forays into the film industry. By the age of twenty-six, she already reaped the coveted markers of success in both music and...
- 4/29/2022
- by Grace Han
- AsianMoviePulse
“Love Nonetheless” is one part of the “L/R15” collaborative project produced by Gen Sato (the other being Rikiya Imaizumi’s “Straying”) which aims at a revival of the “pink film” in a fashion, though, that respects current social attitudes, essentially meaning without the sexual violence that also came to define the category in its heydays during the 70s. To achieve this goal, Sato has brought together the two filmmakers, in an effort to combine the romantic style of Imaizumi’s movies with Hideo Jojo’s past in the pink industry. The result is definitely different.
“Love Nonetheless” is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival
The story begins inside a secondhand bookstore, where the 30-year-old introverted, bookworm type owner Koji chases a school student, Misaki, who has run away with a book without paying. Their interaction however ends up in a rather unusual fashion, since the girl soon confesses...
“Love Nonetheless” is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival
The story begins inside a secondhand bookstore, where the 30-year-old introverted, bookworm type owner Koji chases a school student, Misaki, who has run away with a book without paying. Their interaction however ends up in a rather unusual fashion, since the girl soon confesses...
- 4/26/2022
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
There’s only one New Year’s resolution which makes sense in 2022: have as good a year as Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 2021. The Japanesewriter-director won near-unanimous acclaim at Cannes for Drive My Car – though admittedly not quite mine – just a couple of months after Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy won prizes at Berlin. If Hamaguchi’s more awarded second film is a dense telling of a Haruki Murakami short story, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is a little easier on the mind. An hour shorter and split into three self-contained stories, it’s a more accessible introduction to Hamaguchi’s undoubtedly unique and provocative style. And for cinephiles and casual moviegoers alike, Hamaguchi’s way of making films is not one to miss.
The first part, titled “Magic (or Something Less Assuring)”, is about a model whose best friend falls for her ex. Meiko (Kotone Furukawa) keeps a cool head...
The first part, titled “Magic (or Something Less Assuring)”, is about a model whose best friend falls for her ex. Meiko (Kotone Furukawa) keeps a cool head...
- 2/7/2022
- by Adam Solomons
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Move aside, Billie Eilish; it’s time for Anita to take back the stage. Lok Man Leung’s “Anita” delivers a loving tribute to Anita Mui — legendary Cantopop singer, actress, and activist. Much like Eilish, Mui too had a seamless start to her career. After years of performing on the streets, Mui underwent a fateful vocal cord surgery that lowered her pitch by an octave. Mui’s new voice charmed audiences though – and she skyrocketed to fame by winning the New Talent Singing Awards at the tender age of 19. She then polished her baritone pitch and outfits with Cantopop factory Capital Artists and fashion heavyweight Eddie Lau. She collaborated with movie icons too – like Stanley Kwan, Leslie Cheung, and Maggie Cheung, to name a few – in her first forays into the film industry. By the age of twenty-six, she already reaped the coveted markers of success in both music and...
- 11/22/2021
- by Grace Han
- AsianMoviePulse
IFC presents Mia Hansen-Løve’s Cannes entry Bergman Island, Film Movement brings Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy to the arthouse this weekend, as A24’s surprise hit Lamb and Greenwich Entertainment’s The Rescue go wider week two after a strong open. It’s early days but a nascent specialty revival may be in the works ahead of a stream of potential hits from The French Dispatch to Spencer to Belfast.
Icelandic horror folktale Lamb moves from 500 to over 800 screens after viewers – can we say flocked? – to the Ari Aster-ish genre pic (Hereditary in 2018 was also from A24). Adventure documentary The Rescue, by the directors of Free Solo, where intrepid divers save a Thai boys soccer club trapped in a remote flooded cave, expands from five screens to 552.
“Is there hope? Yes” said Howard Cohen, co-president of Roadside Attractions, which is opening Hard Luck Love Song. “There have to...
Icelandic horror folktale Lamb moves from 500 to over 800 screens after viewers – can we say flocked? – to the Ari Aster-ish genre pic (Hereditary in 2018 was also from A24). Adventure documentary The Rescue, by the directors of Free Solo, where intrepid divers save a Thai boys soccer club trapped in a remote flooded cave, expands from five screens to 552.
“Is there hope? Yes” said Howard Cohen, co-president of Roadside Attractions, which is opening Hard Luck Love Song. “There have to...
- 10/15/2021
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
The short life and brilliant career of Hong Kong singer, actress and social activist Anita Mui is celebrated in the middling biopic “Anita,” starring 31-year-old model Louise Wong in her film debut. This handsomely decorated and lushly filmed portrait nails the look and electric atmosphere in Hong Kong’s entertainment industry during its 1980s and ’90s heyday but only fitfully captures the sassy energy and fearless spirit that made Mui an adored figure who became known as the “Madonna of the East” and the “Daughter of Hong Kong.” Archival footage of Mui sprinkled throughout the film highlights the difference.
“Anita” joins a long list of productions about Mui (Miu Yim-fong), who died from cervical cancer in Dec. 2003 at the age of 40. Among these are the lengthy Chinese TV series “Anita Mui Fei” (2007) and “Dearest Anita” (2019), a fact-based drama inspired by members of the Mui Nation online fan club. This big-budget...
“Anita” joins a long list of productions about Mui (Miu Yim-fong), who died from cervical cancer in Dec. 2003 at the age of 40. Among these are the lengthy Chinese TV series “Anita Mui Fei” (2007) and “Dearest Anita” (2019), a fact-based drama inspired by members of the Mui Nation online fan club. This big-budget...
- 10/14/2021
- by Richard Kuipers
- Variety Film + TV
Was Ryûsuke Hamaguchi referencing the tarot when he wrote his Berlinale Silver Berlin Bear winning, and 2021 New York Film Festival selection, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy?
According to Tarot.com the wheel of fortune card in the upright position signifies change. The wheel turns in one continuous motion, churning events in a ceaseless progression of ups and downs, thus freeing us from the past. No one can escape its cyclical action. Hamaguchi weaves the same concept of the movement of time into this film which contains three short stories that follow the lives of women who are navigating love, loss, reconnection, and letting go.
Magic (Or something Less Assuming) is the first entry, and it follows Meiko (Kotone Furukawa) as she taunts and gaslights her ex-boyfriend Kazuaki (Ayumu Nakajima), who now has feelings for her best friend Tsugumi...
According to Tarot.com the wheel of fortune card in the upright position signifies change. The wheel turns in one continuous motion, churning events in a ceaseless progression of ups and downs, thus freeing us from the past. No one can escape its cyclical action. Hamaguchi weaves the same concept of the movement of time into this film which contains three short stories that follow the lives of women who are navigating love, loss, reconnection, and letting go.
Magic (Or something Less Assuming) is the first entry, and it follows Meiko (Kotone Furukawa) as she taunts and gaslights her ex-boyfriend Kazuaki (Ayumu Nakajima), who now has feelings for her best friend Tsugumi...
- 10/9/2021
- by Valerie Complex
- Deadline Film + TV
When Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi made his return to fiction after time away in the realm of documentary, he dispensed with the idea that stories must conform to feature length. “Happy Hour,” the sprawling ensemble drama that sparked interest in him among cinephiles, ran more than five hours, and while his latest, “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy,” boasts a conventional enough running time of 121 minutes, the film is actually composed of three short stories, stitched together and somewhat arbitrarily presented as a single package.
The vignettes are, by the director’s own description, explorations of “coincidence and imagination” — the first three of what he conceived as seven stories, pointing toward what might have been another epic-length project. Audiences tend not to take well to coincidence in drama, which can feel unrealistic when handled clumsily. In Hamaguchi’s hands, however, lucky (or unlucky) twists don’t feel so much like manipulation...
The vignettes are, by the director’s own description, explorations of “coincidence and imagination” — the first three of what he conceived as seven stories, pointing toward what might have been another epic-length project. Audiences tend not to take well to coincidence in drama, which can feel unrealistic when handled clumsily. In Hamaguchi’s hands, however, lucky (or unlucky) twists don’t feel so much like manipulation...
- 3/11/2021
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, after the excellent “Asako I&ii” seems to have established a specific style, contextually at least, that has “unremarkable” people experiencing remarkable, somewhat surrealistic events, and characters, particularly women, who exhibit behaviors that are exactly the opposite of how Japanese people usually conduct themselves. This approach is cemented in the three episodes of “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy”.
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is screening on Berlinale
The first episode, “Magic (or Something Less Assuring)” has two best friends, younger Meiko and on the brink of middle age Tsugumi chatting, in the back of a car, about a man the latter met, and her growing fondness of him. The discussion is rather revealing, with the two women speaking quite sincerely about both him and the way they conduct themselves on relationships, including sex. Soon, however, it is revealed that the man Tsugumi was talking about is Meiko’s ex boyfriend,...
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is screening on Berlinale
The first episode, “Magic (or Something Less Assuring)” has two best friends, younger Meiko and on the brink of middle age Tsugumi chatting, in the back of a car, about a man the latter met, and her growing fondness of him. The discussion is rather revealing, with the two women speaking quite sincerely about both him and the way they conduct themselves on relationships, including sex. Soon, however, it is revealed that the man Tsugumi was talking about is Meiko’s ex boyfriend,...
- 3/5/2021
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is cinema portmanteau: three short stories focused on three different characters, each a little lovesick and just a little lost. The director is Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, an emerging filmmaker from Japan who seems to have already mastered his craft, and whose work is perfectly at home to such dilemmas. His 2015 film Happy Hour, a five-hour saga, followed the lives of four women in Kobe, one of whom had filed for divorce. Next came Asako I & II in 2018, an adaptation of Tomoka Shibasaki’s novel about a woman who starts seeing a man who looks exactly like the boy she loved when she was younger––a story of doppelgängers, it also showcased his touch for surrealist flourishes.
While fast closing in on auteur status, Hamaguchi’s films continue to hold a kind of literary spirit: Happy Hour the epic; Asako the novella; and now Wheel of Fortune,...
While fast closing in on auteur status, Hamaguchi’s films continue to hold a kind of literary spirit: Happy Hour the epic; Asako the novella; and now Wheel of Fortune,...
- 3/4/2021
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
One of the few things that may be keeping Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 2015 film Happy Hour from being recognized as one of the great films of the 2010s is its length: At over five hours, its drama of mid-30s women wrestling with their place in life is undoubtedly imposing, regardless of the fact that Hamaguchi’s style is clean and crisp, underscored by shadows of mystery, with none of the arduous challenge usually presented by lengthy art films. Possibly if it had been presented in the format of a multi-episode series, its audience would have easily found it. Hamaguchi’s follow-up, Asako I & II, broke things up cleverly by segmenting its Vertigo-esque story of lovers lost and found into two parts. Now, the Japanese director’s latest, the sly and intriguing portmanteau Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, which is premiering in Berlin's main competition, helps the audience by being...
- 3/4/2021
- MUBI
Diaphana has taken French rights to Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s drama.
On the eve of the EFM, Berlin-based sales outfit m-appeal has announced two key deals for its Berlinale Competition contender Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy in advance of the film’s world premiere next week.
Leading French arthouse outfit Diaphana will handle Japanese filmmaker Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s latest film in France and is planning a theatrical release later this year on 80 to 150 prints.
Other deals confirmed are Paulo Branco’s Lisbon-based Leopardo Filmes for Portugal; GreenNarea Media for Korea; and Andrews Films for Taiwan. All are planning a theatrical release...
On the eve of the EFM, Berlin-based sales outfit m-appeal has announced two key deals for its Berlinale Competition contender Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy in advance of the film’s world premiere next week.
Leading French arthouse outfit Diaphana will handle Japanese filmmaker Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s latest film in France and is planning a theatrical release later this year on 80 to 150 prints.
Other deals confirmed are Paulo Branco’s Lisbon-based Leopardo Filmes for Portugal; GreenNarea Media for Korea; and Andrews Films for Taiwan. All are planning a theatrical release...
- 2/26/2021
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
From 1937 to 1941, Shanghai was dubbed a “solitary island” in that, alone in China after the Japanese invasion, there were areas within it that were under international control, namely the French and British Concessions. They were, undoubtedly, teeming with spies and collaborators and double agents, but it strains credibility that they could have been anything like as fraught and riven as the French-administered enclave in the 1941 of Sixth Generation Chinese director Lou Ye’s grandiloquently incoherent misfire “Saturday Fiction.” Starring/wasting the luminous Gong Li, the black and white film strays further away from the observational art-house calm of Lou’s 2014 “Blind Massage,” and plows deeper into the tangled thickets of dubious motivation and incomprehensible behavior that marred his last film, police procedural “The Shadow Play.”
It takes some time to work out what on earth is going on, largely because of Lou’s most confusing and counterproductive decision, which is...
It takes some time to work out what on earth is going on, largely because of Lou’s most confusing and counterproductive decision, which is...
- 9/4/2019
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Saturday Fiction
Chinese filmmaker Lou Ye’s eleventh feature Saturday Fiction promises to be among his more extravagant offerings of late, featuring a handsome international cast led by Gong Li, also including Zhang Songwen, Huang Xiangli, and Wang Chaunjun. Produced through Lou’s YingFilms, Helge Albers through Berlin’s Achtung Panda! and Japan’s Uplink, the period drama is lensed by Dp Zeng Jian. Lou Ye’s 2003 Purple Butterfly brought him to the Cannes competition. Three years later, he was famously banned from filmmaking in China for five years following 2006’s Summer Palace and his representation of Tiananmen Square (which was yanked from the official Cannes comp).…...
Chinese filmmaker Lou Ye’s eleventh feature Saturday Fiction promises to be among his more extravagant offerings of late, featuring a handsome international cast led by Gong Li, also including Zhang Songwen, Huang Xiangli, and Wang Chaunjun. Produced through Lou’s YingFilms, Helge Albers through Berlin’s Achtung Panda! and Japan’s Uplink, the period drama is lensed by Dp Zeng Jian. Lou Ye’s 2003 Purple Butterfly brought him to the Cannes competition. Three years later, he was famously banned from filmmaking in China for five years following 2006’s Summer Palace and his representation of Tiananmen Square (which was yanked from the official Cannes comp).…...
- 1/4/2019
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Cast includes Gong Li, Mark Chao, Tom Wlaschiha, Pascal Greggory and Joe Odagiri.
Berlin-based production house Achtung Panda! and Japan’s Uplink have boarded Saturday Fiction, a 1940s-set period drama from controversial Chinese director Lou Ye.
Gong Li, Taiwanese actor Mark Chao, German actor Tom Wlaschiha, France’s Pascal Greggory and Japan’s Joe Odagiri and Ayumu Nakajima head the cast of the multilingual drama, also produced by Lou’s YingFilms. Chinese actors Zhang Songwen, Huang Xiangli and Wang Chuanjun also star.
Helge Albers is producing for Achtung Panda! and is presenting the project to sales agents, distributors and other potential European partners at the Efm.
Lou recently completed The Shadow Play, a drama following Chinese families over three decades of reform and increased openness in China. As the film is undergoing a lengthy review process by Chinese authorities, he returned to Shanghai to start work on pre-production and actors’ rehearsals for Saturday Fiction.
Set in Shanghai...
Berlin-based production house Achtung Panda! and Japan’s Uplink have boarded Saturday Fiction, a 1940s-set period drama from controversial Chinese director Lou Ye.
Gong Li, Taiwanese actor Mark Chao, German actor Tom Wlaschiha, France’s Pascal Greggory and Japan’s Joe Odagiri and Ayumu Nakajima head the cast of the multilingual drama, also produced by Lou’s YingFilms. Chinese actors Zhang Songwen, Huang Xiangli and Wang Chuanjun also star.
Helge Albers is producing for Achtung Panda! and is presenting the project to sales agents, distributors and other potential European partners at the Efm.
Lou recently completed The Shadow Play, a drama following Chinese families over three decades of reform and increased openness in China. As the film is undergoing a lengthy review process by Chinese authorities, he returned to Shanghai to start work on pre-production and actors’ rehearsals for Saturday Fiction.
Set in Shanghai...
- 2/16/2018
- by Liz Shackleton
- ScreenDaily
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