Japanese Films at the Edinburgh Film Festival 2013

I did not cover the Edinburgh Film Festival last year and that turned out to be a major mistake because there were a lot of Japanese films shown. Well this year I’m ahead of the game and here is a post previewing Japanese films and films involving Japan at the Edinburgh Film Festival 2013. Tickets went on sale at the beginning of the week so take a gander at the titles.

 

The Complex                              

Japanese Title: クロユリ　団地

Romaji: Kuroyuri Danchi

Running Time: 106 mins.

Venue: Cineworld,

Screening Date: June 22^nd, 21:45 (Cineworld 5), June 25^th, 20:40 (Cineworld 11)

Director: Hideo Nakata

Writer: Hideo Nakata, Junya Kato, Ryuta Miyake (Screenplay)

Starring: Atsuka Maeda, Hiroki Narimiya, Masanobu Katsumura, Naomi Nishida, Sosei Tanaka, Masaya Takahashi, Satomi Tezuka, Taro Suwa, Yurei Yanagi, Megumi Sato, Mayumi Asaka

Hideo Nakata, the director of J-horror classic Ringu and Dark Water returns with another urban supernatural chiller with The Complex which premiered at this year’s Rotterdam International Film Festival. Reviews suggest this is a return to horror form for the director and the trailer strikes all the right notes for me! It stars the beautiful Atsuka Maeda who is a former member of AKB48 and starred in The Drudgery Train. Hiroki Narimiya, Tooru in Mirror Hell part of Rampo Noir and the titular character in the Phoenix Wright movie Ace Attorney is her male co-star. The supporting cast include Naomi Nishida (Library Wars, Swing Girls) and Megumi Sato (Cyborg She, Exte).

 

Asuka (Maeda) has moved into the Kuroyuri apartment complex. It is a place with a chequered history as mysterious deaths occurred there 13 years ago. It isn’t long before she starts hearing the sound “garigarigari” from the apartment next door where an old man lives and it isn’t long before he is found dead! This is the start of a series of horrifying events that strike the apartment. Asuka calls upon Sasahara (Narimiya), a man who cleans up the homes of the recently deceased, to help solve the mystery.

Lilou’s Adventure                              

Japanese Title: リルウの冒険

Romaji: Riruu no Bouken

Running Time: 117 mins.

Venue: Cineworld,

Screening Date: June 23^rd, 14:50 (Cineworld 11), June 25^th, 18:10 (Cineworld 05)

Director: Izuru Kumasaka

Writer: Izuru Kumasaka (Screenplay)

Starring: Lilou Diabate, Saera Nakandakari, Lamine Youl Diabate, Lily

This film strikes me as the most interesting at Edinburgh. It is tagged as being a “surrealistic story of two children’s journey across Japan” and while the story comes across as a simple adventure things are complicated by the fact that the main protagonist, the eponymous Lilou, is mixed-race. Not your usual white/Japanese mix but black and Japanese. Amidst the cool Twin Peaks dream sequences scenes of kawaii-Japan, 8-bit videogames and neon lights look to be darker ones where Lilou is challenged by others, perhaps because she is different. If the film explores this aspect of her character then consider me eager to watch it. Enough about my personal interests, here’s the trailer and synopsis.

Lilou is 10-years-old and half Japanese, half Guinean. She lives in Okinawa and has a friend named Kokoro. When Kokoro disappears, Lilou goes on a journey to find her, using clues from a video game.

New Year’s Resolutions For 2013 – Follow Your Dreams

Welcome to my last post of the year.

2012 has been a very good year for me. My blog has grown in terms of views, recognition and content. It reflects the completion of the resolutions I made last year.

Here were my resolutions for 2012:

My resolutions for 2012

• In 2012, I’ll watch Eiichi Kudo’s 13 Assassins! – as suggested by m from Wildgrounds in my last post,
• In 2012, I’ll try and formalise my review structure – there have been different variations and my early reviews didn’t even have scores (gasp),
• In 2012, I’ll start a chanbara season (a bit of a no-brainer and an excuse to watch my DVD of Gohatto more than once),
• In 2012, I’ll spotlight directors, films and film distributors and try and bring a much more rigorous approach to reviews,
• In 2012, I’ll get more involved with film culture by going to festivals,
• In the first week of 2012, I will pick the Spring season anime I will watch and finish them quickly instead of dragging them out over a year,
• In 2012, I’ll practice writing my Kanji every day and not once a week,
• In 2012, I’ll try not to bore you… and I’ll try to get a handle on commas…

I got nearly all of them done!

This shows me that I am less lackadaisical and becoming much more organised much like Kondo from Key of Life!

I have organised a review format which I believe works well. I have focussed on directors and films with my seasons dedicated to Shinya Tsukamoto, and two for Sion Sono and a number for Korean films and Christmas. On top of covering film festivals I also went to the 56^th BFI London Film Festival. All of these things have been fun to do and have allowed me to meet new people. I also practiced Kanji every day and the results showed in a test where I aced the Kanji section! Since change is always inevitable I have also done other things… While blogging I have got into the habit of updating quite a lot – adding extra trailers and pictures and making sure they are still there. I have updated various parts of the blog including my Top Ten Films, Notable Director and Film Review Archives, but there are still some ancient areas such as my About page which may be changed.

I am happy with the progress that has been made, especially on the film front as I feel that I am watching great films and informing the world about them in my own little way. This has allowed me to meet all sorts of people and that has been a lot of fun.

That there are always changes that can be made goes without saying and they will be made. I really need to make something of my podcast and I should be a lot more adventurous with the way I present things. I may also drop the number of times I post a week. Towards the end of the year I found it a bit much having to write six times a week and I want to maintain quality.

I would like to thank everyone who has visited my blog and commented on it and I hope you continue to come back.

Anyway, part of 2013 will be continuing on past resolutions. Indeed, you could say that part of the battle will be just to continue that future.

Now we come to the most important bit:

My resolutions for 2013

• In 2013, I will go to Japan and blog from there (like Sadako’s Movie Shack!),
• In 2013, I will have a season dedicated to Hideo Nakata, Takashi Shimizu and Beat Takeshi,
• In 2013, I will review some older Japanese films,
• In 2013, I will write articles in different styles than the usual format,
• In 2013, I will speak Japanese and write Japanese every day and try and hook up with more Japanese friends to practice my conversational skills,
• In 2013, I will review more anime,
• In 2013, I will submit more reviews to the Korean blogathon,
• In 2013, I will attend more film festivals,
• In 2013, I will try not to bore you.

 

Happy New Year!

Genki Winter 2012 Anime Picks

Okay so one of my new year’s resolutions was:

In the first week of 2012, I will pick the Spring season anime I will watch and finish them quickly instead of dragging them out over a year,

Start off easy… The reason why I made this resolution was two-fold:

1. I write for anime websites and I frequently come across trailers and plot synopses that intrigue me.
2. I rarely start watching anime at the same time as others so when I visit favourite anime blogs I have to skip most content to avoid spoilers.

So here’s my Winter 2012 picks:

Rinne no Lagrange

Rinne no Largrange is a show that crosses girls and mecha in a collaboration between Production I.G. who are handling the story and Xebec who are producing it. Interestingly the car maker Nissan is providing robot designs.

Kamogawa City lies east of Tokyo next to the sea and this is where a young girl named Madoka lives. She is a proud girl with high spirits who helps people. One day she receives an unusual request, “Can you pilot a robot?” This request leads to a new life where she is part of a trio of mecha pilots defending the city from invaders from space

The production staff includes many industry veterans who have worked on a wide range of shows from Wolf’s Rain and Macross to Princess Jellyfish and Heroic Age. Interesting names include the overall director Tatsuo Satou who worked on Martian Successor Nadesico, while the character designs are by Takushige Norita who worked on Broken Blade and Chizuru Kobayashi who worked on Pandora Hearts. Screenplays were written by a team including Shoutaro Suga (Darker than Black) and Shigeru Morita (Gundam Seed, Blood+).