Above: "Wolf Children," playing this Saturday and Sunday at the Whitsell Auditoriam
The standard dilemma of the festival programmer: show box-office
hits proven to resonate with audiences or critical darlings of the art circuit?
This year's edition of the NW Film Center's annual Japanese Currents program
(December 8-15) manages dodge that choice with an unusually rich selection of
crowd-pleasing hits from name-brand directors, all of which are receiving their
Portland premieres during the festival. As a regional introduction to
contemporary Japanese cinema, you won't do better than this group of films.
They span genres and styles and provide an ideal look at the state of Japanese
cinema, brows high and low.
1. First among equals in this year's batch is Hirokazu Kore-eda's “Like Father, Like Son.” Well known to western audiences for his thoughtful dramas “Nobody Knows,” “I Wish” (both of which are streaming on Netflix), and “Still Walking” (which was released by the Criterion Collection in 2010), Kore-eda crafts quiet, character-based dramas and, like Woody Allen, attracts the top talent for his projects despite their somewhat limited commerciality. Fresh off winning the Jury prize at Cannes, “Like Father” is the story of two families--one white-collar wealthy, the other working class--who learn that their 6-yr-old sons were switched at birth. Featuring a quietly impassioned lead performance by Actor and musician Fukuyama Masaharu recalling the late-80s work of William Hurt, “Like Father, Like Son” was also a solid hit in Japan. It appears that Kore-eda has broken through.
2. Best picture at Japan's 2012 Academy Awards, Daihachi Yoshida's high school drama “The Kirishima Thing” asks a compelling question: how would the student body react if the most popular guy in school, a handsome scholar athlete, simply disappeared?
3. Another major hit and winner at awards time, journeyman director Hideki Takeuchi's “Thermae Romae” is a time-travel comedy about a public bath designer in ancient Rome (best actor winner Hiroshi Abe) who accidentally time-travels back and forth between the and modern-day Japan and uses the opportunity to get a creative leg up on his competition by cribbing from the future. The film's fish-out-of-water laughs recall the best examples of the genre with a uniquely Japanese twist.
4. Action fans will recognize Keishi Ohtomo's “Rouroni Kenshin” as a superior example of commercial jidai geki. Based on the manga and anime about a master killer who swears off killing, the film feels very much like the satisfying start of a franchise for hot young actors Takeru Sato and Emi Takei and features a who's who supporting cast of flamboyant killers and characters. Briskly paced and formulaic in the best possible way, “Rouroni” will satisfy fans of popular fare like the Zatoichi films and introduce new viewers to the satisfaction of a well-crafted Japanese period swashbuckler.
5. Director Shuichi Okita's name will be familiar to NW Film Center regulars. His previous films (“The Chef of South Polar” and “The Woodsman and the Rain”) have shown the last two years of the festival, and like them, “A Story of Yonosuke” is a character-based piece with a dry humor. Unlike one two films, this time Okita's quirky characters dabble in awkward romance as a sweet rural bumpkin comes to 1987 Tokyo for his freshman year of college.
6. What happens when a young woman falls in love and starts a family with a shape-shifting wolf spirit, who then abandons her and their two werewolf children? Admirers of anime will dig “Wolf Children,” Mamoru Hosoda's follow-up to sci-fi hit “Summer Wars.” Years of work at legendary Ghibli animation studio honed Mr. Hosoda's clean, expressive style and “Wolf Children” is an ideal entree into cinematic anime.
Also showing: Producer Ridley Scott's “Japan In A Day,” a post-3/11 pastiche narrative edited together from crowd-sourced footage (screening with the short subject film “Narrow Passage to the Deep North”) and the Sapporo Shorts festival, an annual collection of short films from various directors and genres.
All films screen as part of the Northwest Film Center's annual Japanese Currents program at the Portland Art Museum's Whitsell Auditorium, and are presented in conjunction with The Japan Foundation. For more information visit NWfilm.org.
1. First among equals in this year's batch is Hirokazu Kore-eda's “Like Father, Like Son.” Well known to western audiences for his thoughtful dramas “Nobody Knows,” “I Wish” (both of which are streaming on Netflix), and “Still Walking” (which was released by the Criterion Collection in 2010), Kore-eda crafts quiet, character-based dramas and, like Woody Allen, attracts the top talent for his projects despite their somewhat limited commerciality. Fresh off winning the Jury prize at Cannes, “Like Father” is the story of two families--one white-collar wealthy, the other working class--who learn that their 6-yr-old sons were switched at birth. Featuring a quietly impassioned lead performance by Actor and musician Fukuyama Masaharu recalling the late-80s work of William Hurt, “Like Father, Like Son” was also a solid hit in Japan. It appears that Kore-eda has broken through.
2. Best picture at Japan's 2012 Academy Awards, Daihachi Yoshida's high school drama “The Kirishima Thing” asks a compelling question: how would the student body react if the most popular guy in school, a handsome scholar athlete, simply disappeared?
3. Another major hit and winner at awards time, journeyman director Hideki Takeuchi's “Thermae Romae” is a time-travel comedy about a public bath designer in ancient Rome (best actor winner Hiroshi Abe) who accidentally time-travels back and forth between the and modern-day Japan and uses the opportunity to get a creative leg up on his competition by cribbing from the future. The film's fish-out-of-water laughs recall the best examples of the genre with a uniquely Japanese twist.
4. Action fans will recognize Keishi Ohtomo's “Rouroni Kenshin” as a superior example of commercial jidai geki. Based on the manga and anime about a master killer who swears off killing, the film feels very much like the satisfying start of a franchise for hot young actors Takeru Sato and Emi Takei and features a who's who supporting cast of flamboyant killers and characters. Briskly paced and formulaic in the best possible way, “Rouroni” will satisfy fans of popular fare like the Zatoichi films and introduce new viewers to the satisfaction of a well-crafted Japanese period swashbuckler.
5. Director Shuichi Okita's name will be familiar to NW Film Center regulars. His previous films (“The Chef of South Polar” and “The Woodsman and the Rain”) have shown the last two years of the festival, and like them, “A Story of Yonosuke” is a character-based piece with a dry humor. Unlike one two films, this time Okita's quirky characters dabble in awkward romance as a sweet rural bumpkin comes to 1987 Tokyo for his freshman year of college.
6. What happens when a young woman falls in love and starts a family with a shape-shifting wolf spirit, who then abandons her and their two werewolf children? Admirers of anime will dig “Wolf Children,” Mamoru Hosoda's follow-up to sci-fi hit “Summer Wars.” Years of work at legendary Ghibli animation studio honed Mr. Hosoda's clean, expressive style and “Wolf Children” is an ideal entree into cinematic anime.
Also showing: Producer Ridley Scott's “Japan In A Day,” a post-3/11 pastiche narrative edited together from crowd-sourced footage (screening with the short subject film “Narrow Passage to the Deep North”) and the Sapporo Shorts festival, an annual collection of short films from various directors and genres.
All films screen as part of the Northwest Film Center's annual Japanese Currents program at the Portland Art Museum's Whitsell Auditorium, and are presented in conjunction with The Japan Foundation. For more information visit NWfilm.org.
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