Stars: Sayu Kubota, Yuzu Aoki, Mituru Fukikoshi, Akaji Maro, Shunsuke Tanaka, Hitomi Takahashi, Atsuko Maeda | Written by Ken’ichi Ugana, Hirobumi Watanabe | Directed by Ken’ichi Ugana
Love Will Tear Us Apart is the latest film from director Ken’ichi Ugana, who has made a name for himself on the festival circuit with films like Extraneous Matter and Visitors. His latest is a strange tale that takes one part It Follows and one part slasher movie.
The film follows Wakaba, a young girl whose father is an abusive alcoholic and whose mother is too timid to defend herself or Wakaba. But that doesn’t stop Wakaba from defending her fellow classmate Koki who is being bullied by other students at elementary school. However that defence, and subsequent friendship between the two, is ruined by the school bullies turning their attention to Wakaba. But that attention doesn’t last long as the...
Love Will Tear Us Apart is the latest film from director Ken’ichi Ugana, who has made a name for himself on the festival circuit with films like Extraneous Matter and Visitors. His latest is a strange tale that takes one part It Follows and one part slasher movie.
The film follows Wakaba, a young girl whose father is an abusive alcoholic and whose mother is too timid to defend herself or Wakaba. But that doesn’t stop Wakaba from defending her fellow classmate Koki who is being bullied by other students at elementary school. However that defence, and subsequent friendship between the two, is ruined by the school bullies turning their attention to Wakaba. But that attention doesn’t last long as the...
- 2/28/2024
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
Considering the impact the, essentially newly found #MeToo movement in Japan had the last few years, as a number of scandals came to the fore, local cinema was bound to start dealing with the concept. Urara Matsubayashi, who is also an actress who was a victim of sexual assault herself, seems like the ideal person to talk about what is happening in that regard, in her directorial debut, “Blue Imagine”.
Blue Imagine is screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam
The film begins in rather harsh fashion, with a director and a producer getting an actress who is vying to be in a movie drunk, and one of them doing something completely despicable to her as soon as they are left alone. The said actress, Noel, later finds herself going to Blue Imagine, a cafe/restaurant which also doubles as sanctuary for women who have fallen victims of assault, even offering...
Blue Imagine is screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam
The film begins in rather harsh fashion, with a director and a producer getting an actress who is vying to be in a movie drunk, and one of them doing something completely despicable to her as soon as they are left alone. The said actress, Noel, later finds herself going to Blue Imagine, a cafe/restaurant which also doubles as sanctuary for women who have fallen victims of assault, even offering...
- 2/6/2024
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Implementing stage play aesthetics, and particularly excessive dialogue, is a practice that occasionally works quite well for cinema, especially when the story and the characters doing the talking are interesting. If not, though, the approach tends to become overly problematic, since the audience definitely expects different things from cinema than they do from theater. Shinya Nakata in his second film, “Ten Years + One Day” implements a similar approach. Let us see how he fares.
Ten Years + One Day is screening at Skip City International D-Cinema Festival
On a rural roadside outside of the urban centers, Harasaki and Morita reunite for the first time in ten years. The latter immediately insists on going to meet Kikushima, another girl from their common past, but the young man is reluctant. Her insistence, however, “convinces” him and the two meet Kikushima, who never actually left the village they find themselves now. There seems to...
Ten Years + One Day is screening at Skip City International D-Cinema Festival
On a rural roadside outside of the urban centers, Harasaki and Morita reunite for the first time in ten years. The latter immediately insists on going to meet Kikushima, another girl from their common past, but the young man is reluctant. Her insistence, however, “convinces” him and the two meet Kikushima, who never actually left the village they find themselves now. There seems to...
- 7/20/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Despite the fact that Kenichi Ugana usually follows genre paths in his filmmaking, his will to change styles is also evident throughout his body of work, which we have been covering since 2018 and “Good-Bye Silence”. His latest work, “Love Will Tear Us Apart” amusingly goes into slasher territory, in a movie that had its world premiere at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival and won the Grand Prix at the Portland Horror Film Festival.
“Love Will Tear Us Apart” review is part of the Submit Your Film Initiative
The film begins in an elementary school, where we are introduced to Wakaba, a girl who has to face her father's aggressive behavior, along with her mother. Probably due to this, when she sees one of her classmates, Koki, being bullied in school, she decides to help him, in a decision, though, that ends up with both of them being bullied by two particular students,...
“Love Will Tear Us Apart” review is part of the Submit Your Film Initiative
The film begins in an elementary school, where we are introduced to Wakaba, a girl who has to face her father's aggressive behavior, along with her mother. Probably due to this, when she sees one of her classmates, Koki, being bullied in school, she decides to help him, in a decision, though, that ends up with both of them being bullied by two particular students,...
- 7/8/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
by Filippo Recaneschi
Festivals are a must-have for every cinephile. That is more than true if you love Asian cinema, since almost only major titles get to be seen outside Asia. In the last 25 years, Far East Film Festival (Feff), held in Udine, Italy, has provided a catering of such movies for western audiences. In its 25th edition, held from 21st to 29th of April, Feff provided a unique selection of Asian movies and a variety of Asian-related events. The selection varied from works from first-feature directors as well as well-navigated ones, ranging from genre movies to arthouse independent movies.
It is impossible to talk about this year’s festival without mentioning Hirobumi Watanabe, which participated as both director and actor. One of his films is “Techno Brothers” (2023) a quirky road movie about two brothers making techno music and their cynical agent Himuro (Asuna Yanagi). The plot revolves around their...
Festivals are a must-have for every cinephile. That is more than true if you love Asian cinema, since almost only major titles get to be seen outside Asia. In the last 25 years, Far East Film Festival (Feff), held in Udine, Italy, has provided a catering of such movies for western audiences. In its 25th edition, held from 21st to 29th of April, Feff provided a unique selection of Asian movies and a variety of Asian-related events. The selection varied from works from first-feature directors as well as well-navigated ones, ranging from genre movies to arthouse independent movies.
It is impossible to talk about this year’s festival without mentioning Hirobumi Watanabe, which participated as both director and actor. One of his films is “Techno Brothers” (2023) a quirky road movie about two brothers making techno music and their cynical agent Himuro (Asuna Yanagi). The plot revolves around their...
- 5/2/2023
- by Guest Writer
- AsianMoviePulse
“Your Lovely Smile” is a rather weird film. Despite the fact that is Lim Kah-wai's work, the style essentially follows Hirobumi Watanabe's low-budget, self-starring, self-deprecating, ironic and realistic approach to cinema, with the former's hand mostly showing in the fact that the movie is in color and follows a road-film path, although the last part also appears occasionally in the latter's titles.
“Your Lovely Smile” is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival
Watanabe actually stars as himself here, playing a filmmaker who, despite having won a number of awards from festivals in Japan, finds himself once more facing the harsh realities of independent filmmaking, which seem to have grown even worse after the pandemic. As the story begins, he is stranded in his hometown doing odd jobs to make a living and pass the time essentially, occasionally meeting people from the industry with similar troubles. Eventually an...
“Your Lovely Smile” is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival
Watanabe actually stars as himself here, playing a filmmaker who, despite having won a number of awards from festivals in Japan, finds himself once more facing the harsh realities of independent filmmaking, which seem to have grown even worse after the pandemic. As the story begins, he is stranded in his hometown doing odd jobs to make a living and pass the time essentially, occasionally meeting people from the industry with similar troubles. Eventually an...
- 4/29/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Never mind the Blues-, here are the Techno Brothers, and they are ready to conquer Japan. The music band in the film pronounced as a trio of geniuses on a par with Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, The Beatles, Miles Davis and Bob Dylan by their agent Himuro (Asuna Yanagi), consists of real life Watanabe brothers (Hirobumi and Yuji) and Kurosaki Takanori, dressed up as if they came out of the Kraftwerk impersonators' competition. In case anyone wonders, yes – they are dressed in the signature red shirts and black ties, and they perform long electronic numbers in the most unlikely of places such as a recreation park and a green house to a very small, mostly unwilling audience.
“Techno Brothers” is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival
There are evident film influences from the 1990s in the “Techno Brothers”, from Jim Jarmusch's “Stranger Than Paradise”, the above indicated Jon Landis musical hit,...
“Techno Brothers” is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival
There are evident film influences from the 1990s in the “Techno Brothers”, from Jim Jarmusch's “Stranger Than Paradise”, the above indicated Jon Landis musical hit,...
- 4/26/2023
- by Marina D. Richter
- AsianMoviePulse
“Your Lovely Smile” is a rather weird film. Despite the fact that is Lim Kah-wai’s work, the style essentially follows Hirobumi Watanabe’s low-budget, self-starring, self-deprecating, ironic and realistic approach to cinema, with the former’s hand mostly showing in the fact that the movie is in color and follows a road-film path, although the last part also appears occasionally in the latter’s titles.
Watanabe actually stars as himself here, playing a filmmaker who, despite having won a number of awards from festivals in Japan, finds himself once more facing the harsh realities of independent filmmaking, which seem to have grown even worse after the pandemic. As the story begins, he is stranded in his hometown doing odd jobs to make a living and pass the time essentially, occasionally meeting people from the industry with similar troubles. Eventually an opportunity for a new movie appears,...
Watanabe actually stars as himself here, playing a filmmaker who, despite having won a number of awards from festivals in Japan, finds himself once more facing the harsh realities of independent filmmaking, which seem to have grown even worse after the pandemic. As the story begins, he is stranded in his hometown doing odd jobs to make a living and pass the time essentially, occasionally meeting people from the industry with similar troubles. Eventually an opportunity for a new movie appears,...
- 1/7/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
For “Kamata Prelude” Japanese actress Urara Matsubayashi turned producer and brought together Ryutaro Nakagawa, Mayu Akiyama, Yuka Yasukawa and Hirobumi Watanabe, who each direct one episode of this omnibus film. But Matsubayashi’s input doesn’t stop there, she set out to make a film focusing on sexual harassment in the Japanese film industry, based on what she experienced herself and saw happening around her. To underline her commitment to the film and its message, she also takes up the lead role.
Kamata Prelude is screening at Nippon Connection
At first glance “Kamata Prelude” tells the story of Machiko Kamata, a young, struggling actress who we see at auditions. She has to deal with different degrees of sexual harassment; however, the film also explores her dreams, anxieties and ambitions. This gives a deeper layer, not only looking at the way women are treated in the Japanese film industry, but in society as a whole.
Kamata Prelude is screening at Nippon Connection
At first glance “Kamata Prelude” tells the story of Machiko Kamata, a young, struggling actress who we see at auditions. She has to deal with different degrees of sexual harassment; however, the film also explores her dreams, anxieties and ambitions. This gives a deeper layer, not only looking at the way women are treated in the Japanese film industry, but in society as a whole.
- 6/6/2021
- by Nancy Fornoville
- AsianMoviePulse
Loneliness, silence, the general lack of communication, and following a particular routine every day are often misjudged, particularly during school times, with the people who act in that way frequently considered as “weirdoes” or even Being on the Spectrum. Tamochi Daisuke directs a film about such a person, which presents a whole other perspective on the concept.
“Into the Wrinkles of Winter” screened at the 42nd Pia Film Festival
Ikumi is always alone, shows no need to communicate or interact with her high school classmates, or anyone for that matter. Instead, she follows her own routine every day, which ensures as much alienation from everyone as possible. She goes to school earlier than anyone and goes out on the balcony of the empty classroom to take care and draw sketches of a leafy plan. She stops to the same convenience store to buy lunch, with the woman who runs it...
“Into the Wrinkles of Winter” screened at the 42nd Pia Film Festival
Ikumi is always alone, shows no need to communicate or interact with her high school classmates, or anyone for that matter. Instead, she follows her own routine every day, which ensures as much alienation from everyone as possible. She goes to school earlier than anyone and goes out on the balcony of the empty classroom to take care and draw sketches of a leafy plan. She stops to the same convenience store to buy lunch, with the woman who runs it...
- 5/7/2021
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Enduring a laborious monotony for a purgatorial lifetime used to be confined to the annals of myths and legends, etched into the pages of stories where men endeavoured rolling boulders up mountains before rolling back down and starting all over again. Since the rising of the industrial sun such an existence no longer enjoys the pleasantries of ancient fictions, instead carving into our largely hegemonic lifestyle like a knife through bone, the blood of its involuntary practitioners smeared into the food we eat, the clothes we don, and the technology we enjoy. The days of the week, the weeks of the month, melt into a lucid stream of consciousness broken up not by the act of rest but by its promise. Yet, as all too many have become aware this millennium, this is a half-truth for only a tiny fraction of those eking out their time; piercing the sumptuous monochromatic...
- 9/28/2020
- by James Cansdale-Cook
- AsianMoviePulse
Celebrating its 5th Anniversary, Asian Pop Up Cinema: Season 11 will present 22 movies and one of its strongest lineups with its first joint virtual and drive-in film festival both opening September 10 and running through October 10, 2020, with a Plus addition October 30 – 31 celebrating Halloween at the drive-in.
In addition to many North American premieres, the drive-in features seven movies with a grand opening and closing night screenings, the recurring annual Mid-Autumn Festival “Movie with Mooncakes” and a screening fundraiser for the Filipino Young Leaders Program (Fylpro) benefiting the frontline healthcare workers, while celebrating Filipino American History Month. The two drive-in screenings for Halloween weekend is a double-feature horror presentation directed by the internationally known Korean director Yeon Sang-ho, Train to Busan and its new sequel Peninsula.
The Festival’s programming is selected by Sophia’s Choice (aka Festival Director and Founder Sophia Wong Boccio) who went the extra mile to spotlight an exciting...
In addition to many North American premieres, the drive-in features seven movies with a grand opening and closing night screenings, the recurring annual Mid-Autumn Festival “Movie with Mooncakes” and a screening fundraiser for the Filipino Young Leaders Program (Fylpro) benefiting the frontline healthcare workers, while celebrating Filipino American History Month. The two drive-in screenings for Halloween weekend is a double-feature horror presentation directed by the internationally known Korean director Yeon Sang-ho, Train to Busan and its new sequel Peninsula.
The Festival’s programming is selected by Sophia’s Choice (aka Festival Director and Founder Sophia Wong Boccio) who went the extra mile to spotlight an exciting...
- 8/27/2020
- by Adam Symchuk
- AsianMoviePulse
The festival will play 46 features from eight Asian countries.
Udine’s Far East Film Festival (Feff) has revealed a lineup of 46 features including four world premieres, for the online-only edition of the event that will run from June 26 until July 4.
It will open with the international premiere of Lee Hae-jun and Kim Byung-seo’s disaster action film Ashfall, available to viewers in Europe only.
The film was a blockbuster hit in South Korea over Christmas, grossing almost $60m (£47.9m) by the end of January.
The world premieres are Ning Yuanyuan’s Chinese title An Insignificant Affair; Daigo Matsui’s Japanese...
Udine’s Far East Film Festival (Feff) has revealed a lineup of 46 features including four world premieres, for the online-only edition of the event that will run from June 26 until July 4.
It will open with the international premiere of Lee Hae-jun and Kim Byung-seo’s disaster action film Ashfall, available to viewers in Europe only.
The film was a blockbuster hit in South Korea over Christmas, grossing almost $60m (£47.9m) by the end of January.
The world premieres are Ning Yuanyuan’s Chinese title An Insignificant Affair; Daigo Matsui’s Japanese...
- 6/4/2020
- by 1101321¦Ben Dalton¦26¦
- ScreenDaily
Hirobumi Watanabe has created a cinematic style that can be easily described as trademark. His films are in black and white, are shot in his home county, Tochigi Prefecture, are laconic except for a few moments of extensive monologues, have a weird sense of humor, a very thin storyline, and feature many and lengthy scenes of people walking. “I Am Really Good” follows all those rules, but this time, instead of Watanabe himself, the protagonists are children.
In that style, the film follows the “recipe” by presenting the kids in their respective houses by themselves, the kids walking in the rural area, and the kids interacting briefly with some grown-ups. The scenes that take place in the house feature Watanabe’s social comment, which in this case, is presented through a radio talk show, where a number of experts (?) discuss the financial issues that Japan will face eventually as its population grows older,...
In that style, the film follows the “recipe” by presenting the kids in their respective houses by themselves, the kids walking in the rural area, and the kids interacting briefly with some grown-ups. The scenes that take place in the house feature Watanabe’s social comment, which in this case, is presented through a radio talk show, where a number of experts (?) discuss the financial issues that Japan will face eventually as its population grows older,...
- 5/8/2020
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
About the Film
Hirobumi Watanabe is not your usual director, as proven quite eloquently in some of his other films like “Poolsideman” and “Party ‘Round the Globe“, two very interesting, but also very strange productions. For his fifth film, though, Watanabe went a step even further, since he seems to have managed to shoot a movie from the fact that he had no idea of what his next movie would be about…
Synopsis
In the kind of the narrative, we watch Watanabe himself as a director who is trying to write a script, but seems to be stuck on ideas. The film continues in two axes, one focusing on his life as a filmmaker and the other as an actual person. In that fashion, we watch him meeting a producer, being chastised about his behaviour in festivals, praying to a temple to give him inspiration etc. As a person, which...
Hirobumi Watanabe is not your usual director, as proven quite eloquently in some of his other films like “Poolsideman” and “Party ‘Round the Globe“, two very interesting, but also very strange productions. For his fifth film, though, Watanabe went a step even further, since he seems to have managed to shoot a movie from the fact that he had no idea of what his next movie would be about…
Synopsis
In the kind of the narrative, we watch Watanabe himself as a director who is trying to write a script, but seems to be stuck on ideas. The film continues in two axes, one focusing on his life as a filmmaker and the other as an actual person. In that fashion, we watch him meeting a producer, being chastised about his behaviour in festivals, praying to a temple to give him inspiration etc. As a person, which...
- 3/19/2020
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Chicago’s Asian Pop-Up Cinema has announced the full line-up for its 10th Season including 16 new films from across Asia. Season Ten runs for five-weeks from March 10 through April 9, 2020. Each week will be dedicated to highlighting films from the same geographic location with one film shown on different days each week. A majority of the screenings will be presented at the festival’s primary venue, AMC River East 21. Select titles are screened at collaborative partners’ premises: Chicago Filmmakers, Alliance Française de Chicago, and the Chinese American Museum.
Asian Pop-Up Cinema’s Season Ten opens by honoring Hong Kong filmmaking with two North American Premieres starting with “I’m Livin it” on March 10. Nominated for 10 awards from the 39th Hong Kong Film Awards, “I’m Livin It”, tells the story of a man who was once a star in his finance firm (Aaron Kwok), but now spends his life in a...
Asian Pop-Up Cinema’s Season Ten opens by honoring Hong Kong filmmaking with two North American Premieres starting with “I’m Livin it” on March 10. Nominated for 10 awards from the 39th Hong Kong Film Awards, “I’m Livin It”, tells the story of a man who was once a star in his finance firm (Aaron Kwok), but now spends his life in a...
- 2/27/2020
- by Adam Symchuk
- AsianMoviePulse
The Far East Film Festival in Udine, one of the best-regarded specialty festivals on the calendar, is to postpone its upcoming edition. The festival is situated in North Eastern Italy where the coronavirus outbreak has recently struck hard.
The festival had been scheduled to run April 24 – May 2. Udine’s 22nd edition will now be held two months later, from June 26 to July 4.
Organizers made the announcement on Thursday. They said it was “a very hard decision to take,” given the amount of preparation that had already been undertaken. But they acknowledged that as Italy’s public health measures are being stepped up, they had little choice.
“Public health is the top priority,” said Far East fest co-founders Sabrina Baracetti and Thomas Bertacche in a statement, adding that they were glad that Italian institutions behind the event, and also its main venue and hub the Teatro Nuovo, had supported the date change.
The festival had been scheduled to run April 24 – May 2. Udine’s 22nd edition will now be held two months later, from June 26 to July 4.
Organizers made the announcement on Thursday. They said it was “a very hard decision to take,” given the amount of preparation that had already been undertaken. But they acknowledged that as Italy’s public health measures are being stepped up, they had little choice.
“Public health is the top priority,” said Far East fest co-founders Sabrina Baracetti and Thomas Bertacche in a statement, adding that they were glad that Italian institutions behind the event, and also its main venue and hub the Teatro Nuovo, had supported the date change.
- 2/27/2020
- by Patrick Frater and Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
“Uncle,” Danish director Frelle Petersen’s drama about a young woman’s life on a small farm with her disabled uncle, was awarded the Tokyo Grand Prix at the closing ceremony Tuesday of the 32nd Tokyo International Film Festival. Shot in rural Denmark with real-life farmer Peter Hansen Tygesen playing the title role, the film had its world premiere in the Japanese capital.
Winner of the second-place Special Jury Prize was “Atlantis,” Ukrainian director Valentyn Vasyanovych’s near-future drama.
Iran’s Saeed Roustaee was named Best Director for his thriller “6.5.” Navid Mohammadzadeh’s performance in the film earned him the Best Actor trophy.
The Best Actress award went to Nadia Tereszhiewicz for her performance in Dominik Moll’s “Only the Animals.” The film also scooped the Audience Award.
The Best Screenplay prize went to Shin Adachi’s “A Beloved Wife,” one of two Japanese films in the competition, while Chinese...
Winner of the second-place Special Jury Prize was “Atlantis,” Ukrainian director Valentyn Vasyanovych’s near-future drama.
Iran’s Saeed Roustaee was named Best Director for his thriller “6.5.” Navid Mohammadzadeh’s performance in the film earned him the Best Actor trophy.
The Best Actress award went to Nadia Tereszhiewicz for her performance in Dominik Moll’s “Only the Animals.” The film also scooped the Audience Award.
The Best Screenplay prize went to Shin Adachi’s “A Beloved Wife,” one of two Japanese films in the competition, while Chinese...
- 11/5/2019
- by Mark Schilling
- Variety Film + TV
Winners in the International Competition also included Atlantis, Just 6.5, Only The Animals and Chaogtu With Sarula.
Danish filmmaker Frelle Petersen’s Uncle won the Tokyo Grand Prix Award at the close of the Tokyo International Film Festival (November 5), while Summer Knight, directed by China’s You Xing, took best film in the Asian Future section.
Set in rural Denmark, Uncle follows a girl caring for her disabled uncle who dreams of becoming a veterinarian and faces a heart-breaking choice. Summer Knight is also a coming-of-age story, set in China in the summer of 1997, about two boys attempting to recover a stolen bicycle.
Danish filmmaker Frelle Petersen’s Uncle won the Tokyo Grand Prix Award at the close of the Tokyo International Film Festival (November 5), while Summer Knight, directed by China’s You Xing, took best film in the Asian Future section.
Set in rural Denmark, Uncle follows a girl caring for her disabled uncle who dreams of becoming a veterinarian and faces a heart-breaking choice. Summer Knight is also a coming-of-age story, set in China in the summer of 1997, about two boys attempting to recover a stolen bicycle.
- 11/5/2019
- by 89¦Liz Shackleton¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
After his win with “Poolside Man” in the Japanese Cinema Splash section in the 2016 Tokyo Film Festival, Hirobumi Watanabe has gone on a creative spree that has him shooting one film per year, following the same cinematic recipe. This time, he strays a bit away from his usual narrative style, since “Scream” does not include the lengthy dialogues (monologues more correctly) of his previous works, in essence functioning like a silent film.
Scream is screening at the Tokyo International Film Festival
The quite thin story revolves around a man played by Watanabe himself, who tends (owns) a pigsty somewhere in the Japanese country. The film shows his everyday life in a very naturalistic fashion, with him tending the pigs, taking care of his elderly grandmother (including brushing her dentures) and eating with her, sitting in a roof watching the valley, and taking a hike in the agricultural roads of the area he leaves.
Scream is screening at the Tokyo International Film Festival
The quite thin story revolves around a man played by Watanabe himself, who tends (owns) a pigsty somewhere in the Japanese country. The film shows his everyday life in a very naturalistic fashion, with him tending the pigs, taking care of his elderly grandmother (including brushing her dentures) and eating with her, sitting in a roof watching the valley, and taking a hike in the agricultural roads of the area he leaves.
- 10/24/2019
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Watanabe’s third feature film is a very peculiar production, featuring a silent protagonist but constant talking, black and white cinematography, and a repetition that seems to be more meaningful than ever.
Yusuke Mizuhara works as a lifeguard at a swimming pool, situated in a rather quiet suburb of Tokyo. He is a loner, and his life is dominated by an unwavering routine, that begins the moment he wakes up in his house, continues at the swimming pool and at a cinema after work, and finishes in his house again. Even the smallest details are dictated from this routine, as the time and the place he spends his break, for example. Apart from watching a movie each day, his only entertainment is listening to the news from his car radio and reading about them on his computer. However, the news he listens to, always deal with terrorist acts, war, and violent incidents in general,...
Yusuke Mizuhara works as a lifeguard at a swimming pool, situated in a rather quiet suburb of Tokyo. He is a loner, and his life is dominated by an unwavering routine, that begins the moment he wakes up in his house, continues at the swimming pool and at a cinema after work, and finishes in his house again. Even the smallest details are dictated from this routine, as the time and the place he spends his break, for example. Apart from watching a movie each day, his only entertainment is listening to the news from his car radio and reading about them on his computer. However, the news he listens to, always deal with terrorist acts, war, and violent incidents in general,...
- 3/27/2019
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Watanabe’s third feature film is a very peculiar production, featuring a silent protagonist but constant talking, black and white cinematography, and a repetition that seems to be more meaningful than ever.
Yusuke Mizuhara works as a lifeguard at a swimming pool, situated in a rather quiet suburb of Tokyo. He is a loner, and his life is dominated by an unwavering routine, that begins the moment he wakes up in his house, continues at the swimming pool and at a cinema after work, and finishes in his house again. Even the smallest details are dictated from this routine, as the time and the place he spends his break, for example. Apart from watching a movie each day, his only entertainment is listening to the news from his car radio and reading about them on his computer. However, the news he listens to, always deal with terrorist acts, war, and violent incidents in general,...
Yusuke Mizuhara works as a lifeguard at a swimming pool, situated in a rather quiet suburb of Tokyo. He is a loner, and his life is dominated by an unwavering routine, that begins the moment he wakes up in his house, continues at the swimming pool and at a cinema after work, and finishes in his house again. Even the smallest details are dictated from this routine, as the time and the place he spends his break, for example. Apart from watching a movie each day, his only entertainment is listening to the news from his car radio and reading about them on his computer. However, the news he listens to, always deal with terrorist acts, war, and violent incidents in general,...
- 2/24/2019
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Let us take things from the beginning. Hirobumi Watanabe is not your usual director, as proven quite eloquently in the other films of his I have watched, “Poolsideman” and “Party ‘Round the Globe“, two very interesting, but also very strange productions. For his fifth film, though, Watanabe went a step even further, since he seems to have managed to shoot a movie from the fact that he had no idea of what his next movie would be about…
“Life Finds A Way” is available from Article Films
In the kind of the narrative, we watch Watanabe himself as a director who is trying to write a script, but seems to be stuck on ideas. The film continues in two axes, one focusing on his life as a filmmaker and the other as an actual person. In that fashion, we watch him meeting a producer, being chastised about his behaviour in festivals,...
“Life Finds A Way” is available from Article Films
In the kind of the narrative, we watch Watanabe himself as a director who is trying to write a script, but seems to be stuck on ideas. The film continues in two axes, one focusing on his life as a filmmaker and the other as an actual person. In that fashion, we watch him meeting a producer, being chastised about his behaviour in festivals,...
- 2/23/2019
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Writer/director Hirobumi Watanabe is a relative newcomer to Japanese cinema, with his first film “And the Mud Ship Sails Away” released in 2013. However, he has become one of the most watched new talents with 2016’s “Poolside Man” taking the Cinema Splash Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival. With this new film “Party ‘Round the Globe” (2017) he once again shows a unique talent for unusual tragi-comic storytelling.
Party “Round the Globe is screening at Nippon Connection
The film begins with a charming sequence, as a young child narrates the story of a fantastical land where a boy fixated on the moon creates a machine that fills the sky with hundreds of other moons. So many moons are there that it becomes impossible to distinguish which is real. All of the children then decide to take balloons and float off to find the true moon. This introductory sequence, brightly colored...
Party “Round the Globe is screening at Nippon Connection
The film begins with a charming sequence, as a young child narrates the story of a fantastical land where a boy fixated on the moon creates a machine that fills the sky with hundreds of other moons. So many moons are there that it becomes impossible to distinguish which is real. All of the children then decide to take balloons and float off to find the true moon. This introductory sequence, brightly colored...
- 5/29/2018
- by Matthew Cooper
- AsianMoviePulse
Chris Kraus’s film exploring inter-generational legacy of the Holocaust scores twice at Tiff.
German director Chris Kraus’s The Bloom of Yesterday has won the $50,000 Grand Prix at the Tokyo International Film Festival (Tiff), running Oct 25 to Nov 3.
Set against the backdrop of a conference devoted to the German death camp Auschwitz, the film stars German actor Lars Eidinger as a Holocaust researcher who is forced to confront his connection to the past by an intern played by French actress Adèle Haenel.
The film also won the Wowow Viewer’s Choice Award.
Croatian film-maker Hana Jusic won Best Director for her debut feature Quit Staring At My Plate, about a woman living cheek by jowl with her family in a tiny apartment.
The Special Jury Prize went to Amanda Kernell’s Sami Blood inspired by the Swedish 1930s practice of forcibly removing indigenous Sami children from their families.
The film follows the fate of Elle Marja...
German director Chris Kraus’s The Bloom of Yesterday has won the $50,000 Grand Prix at the Tokyo International Film Festival (Tiff), running Oct 25 to Nov 3.
Set against the backdrop of a conference devoted to the German death camp Auschwitz, the film stars German actor Lars Eidinger as a Holocaust researcher who is forced to confront his connection to the past by an intern played by French actress Adèle Haenel.
The film also won the Wowow Viewer’s Choice Award.
Croatian film-maker Hana Jusic won Best Director for her debut feature Quit Staring At My Plate, about a woman living cheek by jowl with her family in a tiny apartment.
The Special Jury Prize went to Amanda Kernell’s Sami Blood inspired by the Swedish 1930s practice of forcibly removing indigenous Sami children from their families.
The film follows the fate of Elle Marja...
- 11/3/2016
- ScreenDaily
Competition section features six world premieres including titles from Koji Fukada and Yoshihiro Nakamura.
The 28th Tokyo International Film Festival (October 22-31) has unveiled its line-up with six world premieres in the Competition section, including Turkish director Mustafa Kara’s Cold Of Kalandar, Hao Jie’s My Original Dream and Thai film-maker Kongdej Jaturanrasmee’s Snap.
Also world-premiering in Competition are three Japanese titles: Kohei Oguri’s Foujita, Yoshihiro Nakamura’s The Inerasable and Koji Fukada’s Sayonara – the most local films in the main section since 2004.
The other selections are either Asian or international premieres. The topics of war or refugeeism are a common thread among some films, echoing current day headlines. “We were not conscious about choosing those types, it just happened that way and we noticed afterwards,” said Competition programming director Yoshi Yatabe.
“As much as possible we’d like to cover a wide range of geographical areas and genres,” he said of...
The 28th Tokyo International Film Festival (October 22-31) has unveiled its line-up with six world premieres in the Competition section, including Turkish director Mustafa Kara’s Cold Of Kalandar, Hao Jie’s My Original Dream and Thai film-maker Kongdej Jaturanrasmee’s Snap.
Also world-premiering in Competition are three Japanese titles: Kohei Oguri’s Foujita, Yoshihiro Nakamura’s The Inerasable and Koji Fukada’s Sayonara – the most local films in the main section since 2004.
The other selections are either Asian or international premieres. The topics of war or refugeeism are a common thread among some films, echoing current day headlines. “We were not conscious about choosing those types, it just happened that way and we noticed afterwards,” said Competition programming director Yoshi Yatabe.
“As much as possible we’d like to cover a wide range of geographical areas and genres,” he said of...
- 9/29/2015
- ScreenDaily
Competition section features six world premieres including titles from Koji Fukada and Yoshihiro Nakamura.
The 28th Tokyo International Film Festival (October 22-31) has unveiled its line-up with six world premieres in the Competition section, including Turkish director Mustafa Kara’s Cold Of Kalandar, Hao Jie’s My Original Dream and Thai film-maker Kongdej Jaturanrasmee’s Snap.
Also world-premiering in Competition are three Japanese titles: Kohei Oguri’s Foujita, Yoshihiro Nakamura’s The Inerasable and Koji Fukada’s Sayonara – the most local films in the main section since 2004.
The other selections are either Asian or international premieres. The topics of war or refugeeism are a common thread among some films, echoing current day headlines. “We were not conscious about choosing those types, it just happened that way and we noticed afterwards,” said Competition programming director Yoshi Yatabe.
“As much as possible we’d like to cover a wide range of geographical areas and genres,” he said of...
The 28th Tokyo International Film Festival (October 22-31) has unveiled its line-up with six world premieres in the Competition section, including Turkish director Mustafa Kara’s Cold Of Kalandar, Hao Jie’s My Original Dream and Thai film-maker Kongdej Jaturanrasmee’s Snap.
Also world-premiering in Competition are three Japanese titles: Kohei Oguri’s Foujita, Yoshihiro Nakamura’s The Inerasable and Koji Fukada’s Sayonara – the most local films in the main section since 2004.
The other selections are either Asian or international premieres. The topics of war or refugeeism are a common thread among some films, echoing current day headlines. “We were not conscious about choosing those types, it just happened that way and we noticed afterwards,” said Competition programming director Yoshi Yatabe.
“As much as possible we’d like to cover a wide range of geographical areas and genres,” he said of...
- 9/29/2015
- ScreenDaily
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