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Tag: Tokyo Film Festival

  • Tokyo: Yoji Yamada and Lee Sang-il Talk Japanese Cinema, Craft and Following Anime’s Global Success

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    Two generational talents of Japanese cinema shared the stage to discuss each other’s work at Tokyo International Film Festival, where each has been celebrated with an award. Yōji Yamada, 91, has more than 90 directing credits to his name, while Lee Sang-il’s Kokuho is the biggest Japanese live-action box office hit in decades, having passed 16 billion yen ($105 million), and is Japan’s entry for the best international film Oscar.

    Mutual respect was more than evident, and the conversation flowed through analysis of their craft to gentle teasing, mostly from Yamada, at the standing-room only event.

    The veteran director was the first recipient of the festival’s Akira Kurosawa Award in 2004, along with Steven Spielberg. This year, it was Lee’s turn to receive it, with Yamada given the Lifetime Achievement Award the previous day.

    “They’ve introduced our films side by side, but compared with his grand epic, mine feels like quite a lightweight. I’m almost embarrassed to see them together,” said Yamada of his Tokyo Taxi, his reimagining of Christian Carion’s Driving Madeliene (2022).

    Lee, whose film Kokuho translates as national treasure, replied: “If there is such a thing as a living national treasure in filmmaking, Yamada-sensei is definitely one. I just hope to absorb even a little of his dedication.”

    Though there was a moderator on stage, Yamada effectively took his role for the opening stretch of the talk, asking questioning Lee on how he had portrayed Japan’s traditional kabuki theater, and the human drama between two of its practitioners, so vividly and convincingly onscreen.  

    Yamada began by probing into the “dramatic structure” of Kokuho, the story of two kabuki actors whose lives are bound by artistry, desire, and fate.

    “Usually, when you have two male leads, a woman is between them in some sort of triangle. But here, something entirely different lies between them: homosexuality. It’s this irrational romantic force that becomes the very theme of the story. That’s what makes this film extraordinary,” said Yamada.

    That dynamic tension had been created by Shuichi Yoshida, the author of the 2018 novel on which the film is based, noted Lee. The director previously adapted Yoshida’s Akunin (Villain) in 2010 and Ikari (Rage) in 2016, both to acclaim.

    “The tension between bloodline and sexuality creates a fascinating duality. I didn’t want jealousy or rivalry like in Amadeus. Since both men devote themselves to the same suffering, I hoped a kind of transcendent beauty would emerge by the end,” explained Lee.

    For Yamada, that avoidance of conventional melodrama was one of the keys to the film’s power.

    The two leads trained for about a year and a half in total to portray the male kabuki performers of female roles, known as onnagata, noted Lee: “They even practiced on days off during shooting. Their persistence and dedication were incredible.”

    Tanaka Min, who plays the elderly kabuki master in Kokuho, was cast in his first major film role by Yamada in The Twilight Samurai in 2002 (the film won a record 12 Japan Academy Awards and was nominated for the then best foreign language film Oscar).

    “He’s a butoh dancer [postwar avant-garde theater] not an actor, and at first he was terrible,” laughed Yamada. “Completely wooden. But his physicality and voice had such presence that it didn’t matter. Even now he hasn’t really ‘improved’, but that’s what makes him special, like a Noh actor. You don’t need him to act; his just being there is enough.”

    Pushing back against Yamada’s playful ribbing about his reputation as a demanding director, Lee said, “That presence, combined with his movement, gives him a kind of magic. I wasn’t harsh in directing him. He doesn’t change no matter what you say, so instead of forcing it, I’d suggest small adjustments in tone or gesture. His stillness speaks volumes.”

    Aside from its setting in the niche world of highbrow traditional theater, another reason Kokuho’s commercial success has been a surprise is its nearly three-hour runtime. Lee revealed that his initial cut was actually four and a half hours. “All the kabuki scenes were about twice as long; That alone was an extra half hour; we had to trim a lot.”

    Despite Yamada’s best efforts, after an offstage prompt, talk turned to Tokyo Taxi, and how he approached the remake.

    “I simply asked myself, if it were Japan, how would it go? A Japanese taxi driver and an elderly Japanese woman, their relationship would of course be different,” said Yamada.

    Scenes with the taxi driver (Takuya Kimura) at home with his family, which were not part of the original, were singled out for praise by Lee for adding domestic realism.

    “I really wanted to make that breakfast scene,” said Yamada. “The year before, he [Kimura] played a top Paris-trained chef. This time, he’s eating natto [fermented soybeans]. But he’s very earnest and sincere. Always early on set: a true professional.”

    Next it was time for Lee to tease Yamada, asking why he always stands right beside the “Because the actors need to know I’m watching,” replied Yamada. “They can feel the director’s gaze. I don’t understand how some directors give directions from a monitor, sometimes from another room.”
    camera on set.

    Smiling as he did so, Yamada steered the conversation back to Kokuho, asking Lee about the numbers of extras in the kabuki scenes (500), and how he had broken multiple cinematic conventions in creating his tour de force.

    Answering an audience question about the potential for Japanese live-action filmmaking to emulate the international success of anime, Yamada made an impassioned plea for more government backing.

    “Japanese animation is a huge global success, while our live-action films barely register. When I entered the industry 70 years ago, Japanese cinema was vibrant and internationally respected — Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, Ozu’s Tokyo Story, Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu. Now, Korea and China have surged ahead. It’s painful to watch,” Yamada said. “We need not just filmmakers’ effort but national support. The Korean government truly backs its film industry. Japan should do the same. It’s a matter of cultural policy.”

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    Gavin Blair

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  • Tokyo: Filmmaker Midi Z, Actress Zhao Liying on the Universal Themes of Mystery Thriller ‘The Unseen Sister’

    Tokyo: Filmmaker Midi Z, Actress Zhao Liying on the Universal Themes of Mystery Thriller ‘The Unseen Sister’

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    Taiwanese-Burmese filmmaker Midi Z caused a stir and gained good notices with his 2019 film Nina Wu, which dealt with the exploitation of women in entertainment, and was released in the midst of the global #MeToo movement, a long overdue public reckoning for powerful men who had committed acts of sexual violence and misconduct.

    Selected for the main competition at this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival, Z’s new film, The Unseen Sister, outwardly at least, has similar themes to Nina Wu — that is, the habitual abuse of women in the entertainment industry as well as the trials of women at the margins of society.

    Adapted from Zhang Yueran’s book Unseen Sister, the film tells the story of two sisters, one who is born officially as Qiao Yan and the other who takes on the name of Qiao Yan but lives in a twilight world of illegality, under the constant threat of being discovered. After swapping identities at a young age, the sisters grow up to very different lives in two different countries. The real Qiao Yan lives on the fringes of poverty in Myanmar and the assumed Qiao Yan becomes a famed actress in China. Fate, inevitably, brings them back together.

    Zhao Liying in ‘The Unseen Sister.’

    Shanghai Linmon Pictures

    The film stars Zhao Liying (The Legend of Shen Li, The Story of Minglan Legend of Chu Qiao, Legend of Lu Zhen and The Journey of Flower and Wild Bloom), a prominent television actor in China who is making the transition to features. The cast also includes Huang Jue, Xin Zhilei and Chinese rapper Gem.

    The Unseen Sister is produced by Shanghai Linmon Pictures, and is part of the company’s push into feature films with international appeal. After playing in Tokyo, the film will screen at the Singapore International Film Festival in December.

    During the Tokyo Film Festival, The Hollywood Reporter spoke to Z and Zhao about The Unseen Sister, the challenges of making a mainstream commercial film with arthouse credentials and the universal themes of the feature.

    Is The Unseen Sister the first mainstream Chinese film you’ve done?

    MIDI Z Yes, that’s correct. It’s the first mainstream film that I’ve done, in comparison to the past ones. This is the most commercial film, in terms of production budget and the production scale. All my earlier films, were a little bit smaller with less people on set, this one, it’s over 300 people on set. Ultimately, the core of the story and the core of the whole production is very Chinese. It’s about Chinese people. It’s about family. It’s about the values that Chinese people value a lot.

    Were there any specific challenges working on a bigger scale for you as a director? Did your process change in any way?

    MIDI Z I think the most important part [for me as a director] is communication, specifically communication with the actors. Within a story, within a production, the chemistry and the performance of the actors are actually much more important than the story itself, because the actors are the people that brings out the story. And so in the two months, right before production, there was actually a lot of communication between me and the actors, and the actors met very frequently to rehearse and to go through the story together to get the chemistry and to get that story ready for rolling. It is very valuable and that really, really helped me to bring out the story through the performance of the actors.

    Zhao Liying and Huang Jue in ‘The Unseen Sister.’

    Shanghai Linmon Pictures

    So in the film, there’s the use of two languages, Mandarin and the Yunnan dialect. Why did you choose to use two different dialects?

    MIDI Z It’s because of the story. It’s because of the setting of the character. The character is traveling from Yunnan to Beijing.

    For you as an actor, Zhao, do you speak the Yunnan dialect? If not, was that a real challenge to get right?

    ZHAO LIYING No I don’t speak it. We spent about a month before production to work on the dialect specifically to go through all of the lines that the script has in the Yunnan dialect, so that we can be more comfortable during production. That’s how we overcame the difficulty working with a different dialect.

    As an outsider, is the use of multiple dialects of Mandarin unusual for a mainstream Chinese film?

    MIDI Z It’s becoming more and more common now to have a different dialect because there are a lot of different people traveling between different cities in China, a lot more exposure to dialects. The Sichuan dialect, the Guizhou dialect, for example, are becoming more and more common in content, and I think that’s great.

    Watching The Unseen Sister, I felt the sensibilities, and perhaps the audience for this film, would be more international, particularly with the themes and ideas the film deals with. Is that fair to say?

    MIDI Z Ultimately, this is a very, very Chinese film. And when we think about Chinese nature of the film, there are two different parts to it. The first part is the core of the story itself — the values of the story is very Chinese. It’s about the individual and their family, and how the individuals wants and desires clash with the family’s wants and desires and how it came out to look. And then when we come to the second part of it, which is the outside of the story, which is what we see visually — the landscape, the location. The aesthetics of it, like all the production design, the architecture that we see. There was a lot of snow and it’s a very poetic aesthetic style, a very Chinese style.

    And the themes are universal themes. My films are really expressive about people’s lives. In order to speak to the audience, you really have to understand what lives they’re going through. And really this movie is about women and what they’re going through in society, the difficulties that they’re facing and their struggle. Their fight against whatever it is that is suppressing them, their desire and their yearning for freedom and for a better life.

    Zhao Liying in ‘The Unseen Sister.’

    Shanghai Linmon Pictures

    Zhao, regarding your role as Qiao Yan, she is very complex and she’s also a prominent actress like you are in real life. What attracted you to the project? And also did you relate to the fame and industry-related pressures Qiao Yan goes through?

    ZHAO LIYING I chose this character and chose this project because I really wanted to challenge myself. What really attracted me to the project was really Midi’s style and Midi’s very unique narrative style of his movies and his stories. And honestly, the character being an actress is really just a setting for the character in the story. And it isn’t about this one character in this one setting. It’s really about the entirety, like the overall story and the structure and style and the narration that really attracted me.

    Regarding whether the character was relatable… obviously, the story, it’s very dramatic. Sure I can relate to a certain extent, but of course these are very dramatic experiences that the character is going through. It doesn’t really happen in real life. The overall pressure, the suppression that [Qiao Yan] faces at work, I can definitely relate to that specific thing. There’s a scene where my character is filming a scene in hospital and she’s being stabbed with a needle, that really triggered me.

    Xin Zhilei in ‘The Unseen Sister.’

    Shanghai Linmon Pictures

    Midi, The Unseen Sister has some outward similarities with your last film Nina Wu, as there’s an actress as the lead character, she’s exploited by the men around her, and the entertainment industry is portrayed as quite negative. Why have you focused on stories around women being mistreated?

    MIDI Z I grew up in a family that is dominated by female. I grew up under the protection of my mom and my sister. They are both wonderful women. My interactions with my family affected my considerations when it came to storytelling and designing characters. This comprehension of my mom and my sister’s lives also affected me when whenever I write and create a female character. In The Unseen Sister, Qiao Yan really expresses this type of woman that is already successful to the standards of our current society, she’s famous, she’s wealthy, and yet she still faces these types of difficulties. This situation can really affect anyone.

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    Abid Rahman

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  • Japan’s TBS, Fuji TV & Major Studios Make Ambitious Play For U.S. And International Markets 

    Japan’s TBS, Fuji TV & Major Studios Make Ambitious Play For U.S. And International Markets 

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    Move over South Korea, there’s a new player in the international arena. Japan’s famously risk-averse broadcasters and studios have woken up to the world outside Japan and are making a bold move on the the U.S. and other international markets. 

    In part inspired by the global success of Korean content, but also aware that their huge domestic market is shrinking as Japan’s population declines, major players such as Toho, Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) and Fuji Television realize they need to find a source of revenue elsewhere in order to grow. And with deep libraries of anime, manga, movies, formats and games, they’ve also realized that they’re sitting on huge reservoirs of valuable IP. 

    Toho was among the first Japanese studios to make international moves, under forward-thinking president and CEO Hiro Matsuoka, taking back some rights to its Godzilla franchise and getting involved in merchandising in the U.S., rather than licensing away all the IP. After self-distributing its Japanese-language Godzilla Minus One in the U.S., the ambitious studio has gained an even firmer footing in the North America market by acquiring leading anime distributor Gkids. 

    Now the other studios and broadcast networks in Japan are taking note. At the TIFFCOM contents market, which wrapped in Tokyo today, TBS Holdings and Fuji TV both gave presentations on their international expansion plans, which include establishing new U.S. offices and selling and packaging their extensive libraries of IP.  

    “All these companies are now expending considerable resources on selling their formats and programming so they can increase revenue from outside Japan,” says former Disney Japan executive Harry Tanaka, who has co-founded Studio Muso to help U.S. studios navigate the complex world of Japanese IP. “For the longest time, they neglected that business but now they’re all turning in that direction.”

    Tanaka explains that format sales is the first step, but many of these companies are also talking about co-producing and co-investing with international partners to produce English-language content based on their properties, rather than passively licensing to third parties. 

    During TIFFCOM, TBS Holdings president Masamine Ryuho unveiled an ambitious expansion strategy, involving investment of $1BN (JPY160BN), new offices in Los Angeles and Seoul and the acquisition of New York-based formats licensing group Bellon Entertainment. 

    “TBS International plans to build a strong sales network in Europe and the U.S. mainly focusing on format sales, while in Korea we will develop new content, mainly dramas and remakes, building a strong foundation in Asia,” Ryuho said. 

    “In addition, with Tokyo being the hub of global operations, we are building a strategy to enter new markets in Southeast Asia, India, Europe and the Middle East. In order to realize all this growth, we will select business partners and engage in activities such as M&A, cooperative content investment and business alliances.” 

    TBS International vice president Goshu Segawa, who heads the new LA office, and Bellon Entertainment founder Gregory Bellon also took to the stage to announce expansion plans for Ninja Warrior and other TBS properties in North America. Bellon is TBS’ long-term partner in the exploitation of its Ninja Warrior IP across multiple platforms and markets, which already includes a FAST channel and adventure parks in the UK. 

    “The key to realizing the potential of these properties it to adapt them for Western audiences,” said Segawa. “And to do so, my ambition is to team up with producers in Hollywood to unlock this potential.”

    TBS International has also struck a deal with LeBron James’ Springhill Company to adapt an unscripted format based on the broadcaster’s IP. The company’s Japanese-language content is also going global through shows produced by in-house division The Seven for Netflix, including the third season of sci-fi thriller Alice In Borderland and action fantasy YuYu Hakusho.

    Fuji TV also gave updates on its global strategy during TIFFCOM, including collaborations with Thailand’s GMM Studios International, POPS Worldwide in Southeast Asia, and Korea’s Kakao Entertainment and short drama producer Playlist. 

    Among other projects, Fuji TV is co-producing a Japanese remake of GMM Studios’ drama Girl From Nowhere; co-producing short dramas with Playlist and Kakao, leveraging the latter’s experience in webtoons; and co-producing and handling international distribution of kids’ short music content with POPS Worldwide. 

    “By co-creating with overseas studios and platforms, we will develop IP that will be accepted around the world,” said Koji Ishii, Fuji TV senior executive director and Head of Content Business Strategy. “We will also develop IP that can be used globally, such as video adaptations from webtoons and licensing business from short animations. By exploring new areas and co-creating with new partners, we will expand the IP business market from Japan to the entire world.”

    While it didn’t make a presentation at TIFFCOM, Toei also recently announced a global expansion strategy, which includes production of content aimed at international audiences, with a focus on Southeast Asia, Chinese-speaking territories and the U.S. 

    Nippon Television has been expanding its international business for several years, mostly through format sales of both scripted and unscripted properties, including its female-focused drama series Mother, which has so far been acquired for local-language remakes in 11 countries, with recent deals including Greece and the Philippines. 

    Other factors driving these expansion plans – the emergence of the streamers, providing a global distribution platform for both English and Japanese-language content, which has been behind the phenomenal growth in anime consumption over the past few years. 

    There’s also been a changing of the guard at the Japanese studios with more internationally focused executives such as Toho’s Matsuoka and Toei’s Noriyuki Tada taking over and shaking up previously conservative and insular companies. 

    And with ever-increasing demand for new stories and ideas to fill the pipelines of global streamers and studios, the interest appears to be reciprocated, at least from the U.S.

    “One of the reasons I’m doing this business is because I saw increasing demand for Japanese ideas,” says Tanaka, who is working with TBS, Japanese publisher Shueisha and other players to identify and secure Japanese IP for the U.S.

    “Marketwise, maybe it’s still China or India, but when it comes to ideas and projects we find that many U.S. executives already have an affinity with Japanese culture. The issues have been that, due to geographical distance, language barriers and the closed, conservative nature of Japanese studios, they haven’t been able to access or communicate with that culture in the way that they wanted.” 

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    Liz Shackleton

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  • Tokyo: VFX Pioneer George Murphy Talks AI, Virtual Production and the Future of Filmmaking

    Tokyo: VFX Pioneer George Murphy Talks AI, Virtual Production and the Future of Filmmaking

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    New technologies led by artificial intelligence and virtual production are profoundly changing visual effects but are still “another paintbrush” in the service of storytelling, says VFX veteran George Murphy.

    “Virtual production is not just a tool for VFX; it’s a storytelling tool that allows actors to feel fully immersed in the scene, instead of having to imagine everything against a blank screen,” Murphy tells The Hollywood Reporter, in an interview at the Tokyo International Film Festival ahead of appearing on the Motion Picture Association panel, Filmmaking 2.0: The Evolution of Real-Time VFX for Traditional Filmmakers.

    Murphy, a VFX supervisor and creative director at DNEG in London​, made his entry into filmmaking with Steven Spielberg’s Hook (1991), a production hailed for its seminal VFX, in particular the use of projected matte painting. Computerized effects were very much in their infancy when he joined Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). He was part of a small team that pioneered digital compositing for films and he quickly recognized the potential of these ground-breaking tools to transform filmmaking.

    “At ILM, we worked with Unix scripts and early computer graphics programs, but it was clear that these tools could create more believable, integrated images than anything before,” he says.

    Murphy’s background was in another visual medium. “I started out fully intending to be a freelance photojournalist, covering the real world,” he recalls. “In an odd way, it was those skills in capturing reality that prepared me for fabricating worlds that don’t exist.”​

    Creating those worlds and making them look believable won him an Oscar and BAFTA for Forrest Gump, and has seen him supervise effects on productions including Planet of The Apes, Mission: Impossible, Jurassic Park, The Matrix sequels and Black Sails.

    One of the biggest game-changers in recent years has been the development of virtual production, says Murphy. This technology, popularized by The Mandalorian, allows filmmakers to create virtual environments on LED screens in real time, replacing traditional green-screen backdrops.

    Murphy experienced the power of this technology firsthand on the set of Murder on the Orient Express back in 2016, where a train car was surrounded by LED screens displaying high-resolution footage of the world speeding by. “The actors didn’t have to pretend they were looking out at a snowy mountain scene. They were immersed in it, and that makes a huge difference in their performance. Things that were going past would actually catch their eyes,” he notes, saying it led to a more authentic feel and therefore immersive experience for the audience as well.

    Responsive tools like Epic Games’ Unreal Engine and Unity have also revolutionized the VFX workflow. “These tools allow us to create, edit, and test our work in real-time, which wasn’t possible a decade ago. You can see the result instantly instead of waiting hours for a render,” Murphy explains.

    He likens this change to moving from analog to digital photography: “The whole process has become much more flexible and collaborative, allowing us to explore creative choices and see what works best in the moment.”​

    With AI advancing at a bewildering pace, it is quickly finding a place in the VFX toolkit. For Murphy, AI offers both opportunities and challenges. He points out that AI can streamline labor-intensive tasks like rotoscoping (manually isolating elements within a scene) or tracking (following a moving object or character in footage).

    “With AI, we can now accomplish in minutes what used to take hours or even days,” he says. “It frees up artists to focus on the more creative aspects of their work”​

    Nevertheless, he believes that for all its power, machine learning isn’t a substitute for the creativity and ideation of a filmmaker, for now at least. “AI can process huge amounts of data, and it can imitate styles based on what it’s seen. But it doesn’t experience emotions, so it can’t capture the essence of human storytelling. That’s something only artists who have lived and felt can bring to a project,” he suggests. ​

    Another exciting development for Murphy is the expansion of storytelling across different media and platforms. During his work on The Matrix sequels, he witnessed the potential of what he calls “story worlds.” The Matrix franchise extended its narrative through video games, animated shorts, and comics, allowing fans to explore the story beyond the main films. Murphy sees this approach as crucial for the future of entertainment, as audiences look for ways to engage more deeply with stories.

    This “multiverse” approach to storytelling has become increasingly popular, especially with the rise of streaming and interactive platforms. Murphy believes that as technology advances, audiences will be able to interact with story worlds in new ways—perhaps even experiencing them in virtual reality or augmented reality. “We’re only scratching the surface of what’s possible,” he says. “Once VR becomes more accessible, the way we tell and experience stories is going to change fundamentally”​

    Looking forward, Murphy is enthusiastic about the possibilities that technology opens up but also concerned about the potential loss of craftsmanship.

    “There’s an artistry to physical effects, to building something by hand, and that’s still incredibly valuable. It gives you a grounding in reality that’s essential, even in digital work,” he explains​, adding that many of the best physical model makers went on to VFX careers.

    Ultimately, Murphy believes that technology should serve the story, not the other way around, and remains optimistic about the future of filmmaking.

    “These tools are just new brushes in our paintbox,” he says. “They allow us to push the boundaries of what’s possible. But the artist’s hand will always be there, guiding the story and making sure it resonates with the audience.”

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    Gavin Blair

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  • ‘Godzilla Minus One’ Trailer Sees Kaiju Destroy Post-War Japan

    ‘Godzilla Minus One’ Trailer Sees Kaiju Destroy Post-War Japan

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    The latest trailer for Godzilla Minus One dropped on Friday morning, and in the clip, we get a closer look at the awesome scale of the iconic kaiju that’s wreaking havoc in post-war Japan.

    The 37th installment in Toho’s long-running monster franchise, the film, which was the closing film at the Tokyo International Film Festival, is a period piece and shows Godzilla appearing as Japan struggles to recover after WW2.

    Godzilla Minus One is written and directed by noted CG animator and VFX artist Takashi Yamazaki (Lupin III: The First, The Great War of Archimedes). The film stars Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando, and Kuranosuke Sasaki.

    The film is Yamazaki’s third on-screen depiction of Godzilla, following his previous use of the character with CG imagery in Always: Sunset on Third Street 2 (2007) and Seibu-en’s Godzilla the Ride (2021).

    Toho International will release the film in North America in November, with Anime Ltd releasing the film in the U.K. and Ireland.

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  • Tokyo: ‘Komada — A Whisky Family’ Director Talks Making an Original Anime, Challenges Facing Industry

    Tokyo: ‘Komada — A Whisky Family’ Director Talks Making an Original Anime, Challenges Facing Industry

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    It’s been a long time coming, but anime veteran Masayuki Yoshihara finally helmed his first feature-length film with the 2023 release Komada — A Whisky Family.

    Yoshihara is best known for his anime projects on television, with credits including Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Eden of the East and Dragon Ball Z. In 2013, he helmed the well-received anime series The Eccentric Family for P.A. Works, based on the popular novel by Tomihiko Morimi. The Kyoto-set fantasy series ran for two seasons (25 episodes in total) and firmly established Yoshihara as a television director, the next step was to helm a fully-fledged anime movie.

    The opportunity to direct a feature would come with Komada, which screened this week at the Tokyo International Film Festival and was also part of the competition selection at Annecy Festival, and the Anima’t section at Sitges Festival this year.

    Set in the world of Japanese craft whisky production, and — unusually for an anime — based on an original idea, Komada tells the story of Rui, an aspiring artist who takes over the family distillery after the death of her father. The distillery is in a dire financial state following damage from an earthquake and interfamily disagreements on whether to stay independent or sell out to a rival distillery. Meanwhile, a young and seemingly lost journalist, Kotaro, is assigned to write stories about Rui’s attempts to save her family’s distillery and to relaunch Koma, the lost whisky that made the company’s name.

    Komada is the latest project in a loose series P.A. Works has dubbed “the working series,” that is, film and TV projects featuring young people trying to navigate more traditional work environments. The other projects in the series include 2011’s Hanasaku Iroha: Blossoms for Tomorrow, which is set in a hot-spring inn; 2014’s Shirobako, set inside an anime studio; 2017’s Sakura Quest, a tourism-set feature; and 2021’s The Aquatope on White Sand, which takes place in an aquarium.

    During the Tokyo Film Festival, Yoshihara, speaking via a translator, opened up to The Hollywood Reporter about directing his first feature, why whisky became the theme, the (welcome) research they undertook for the film, and he offers his take on the challenges facing the anime industry.

    Komada — A Whisky Family is your feature directorial debut — was it a challenge to do a feature-length film because it’s something you haven’t done before?

    With a feature film, it’s longer, so when I was editing, some new ideas would come up, so it was a little hard to, you know, sort out everything. I have the knowledge and experiences from [working so long in the industry] and not just in terms of technique. I can put my passion into this project. As a director, I need to take a balanced [approach] for the whole project. I need to see the conditions [we’re working with] and also navigate the team, so that was a little bit difficult.

    Regarding the animation in Komada, some of the elements were incredible, particularly the scenes with whisky being poured into glasses. Was that difficult to do?

    Like you said, pouring liquid into a glass — well that’s really hard to do in animation. We can do those types of scenes by hand drawing them, but even with masterful use of hand drawing you would still feel like you’ve seen it before. For this movie, I wanted to go one level beyond, so for those liquid scenes, we used 3D as a basis.

    ‘Komada — A Whisky Family’

    Courtesy of the Tokyo International Film Festival

    Komada is an original story, right? Does that give you more freedom to do what you want? Is there less pressure on the creative process with an original story? Or is there more pressure given you don’t have the IP to rely on to draw fans in?

    I would say there’s a lot of pressure on my shoulders! First, I asked myself what did I want to make, and nothing really came into my mind. But for a long time, I’ve worked with and alongside young, aspirational people, and I wanted to put their feelings [and hopes and dreams] into this film. I wanted to show the before and after story of a group of young people, and the framework and story came afterward.

    So Komada is part of P.A. Works’ “working series.” What’s the idea behind that?

    The president of the company, [Kenji Horikawa], he planned this project that has now become a series. Komada wasn’t planned to be a part of the series, but during production, we realized it could be a good match for the theme [which is workplace dramas]. P.A. Works has a lot of projects that feature young people and their struggles with dealing with life. I also wanted to show the struggle that youth face, so I’m not surprised it matched the “working series” theme.

    'Komada — A Whisky Family'

    ‘Komada — A Whisky Family’

    Courtesy of the Tokyo International Film Festival

    What made you set the story in the world of whisky production?

    One of the reasons that we chose whisky, is that in the whisky industry it takes three years to mature the product before you get a tangible result. Sometimes they have to wait 10 years for the result. It’s a good way to depict the young people’s struggle [with time] and being patient.

    Are you a whisky fan? How much outside help did you have with detailed whisky information in the film?

    Actually, just near our company’s office, there is a whisky distillery [Wakatsuru Shuzo]. We always had a lot of outside help with the project.

    Did you do a lot of research, in terms of drinking whisky?

    (Laughs) Yes!

    Is the theme of whisky also a good way of reaching a broader audience?

    It’s interesting that there are a lot of whisky fans in Japan, and when they are fans of whisky, they are a little, I don’t know if it’s the right word in English, but they are like maniacs. Somewhat similar to those who like animation, the same level of passion.

    Shifting topics a little, there’s been a huge boom in the Japanese animation industry recently, with lots of investment from the likes of Netflix and others. Has the working conditions for animators in Japan improved?

    I would say there hasn’t been a big change, in terms of the animator’s position. But one big thing that I feel that these days is the shortage of animators is the problem. That situation has led to the quality of the output dropping.

    How do they fix the shortage of animators issue?

    Before in the Japanese animation world, we trained staff who applied to us, and that was why the quality was good. But now that we’re facing a shortage of people, we are having to go out to get people through social media, trying to find people who are interested. For those who want to join the industry, there are more opportunities. Before, if you wanted to join this industry, you had to find the door, now there are doors everywhere! The production side is always looking for more talent, so for sure there are more chances.

    Interview edited for length and clarity.

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  • Tokyo: Director Tetsuya Tomina Mines the Enigmas of Japan’s Sado Island in Metaphysical Romance ‘Who Were We?’

    Tokyo: Director Tetsuya Tomina Mines the Enigmas of Japan’s Sado Island in Metaphysical Romance ‘Who Were We?’

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    Japan’s Tetsuya Tomina is a director preoccupied with presence — a beguiling sense of place or striking actors simply existing on screen.

    His second feature, Who Were We?, which premiered in competition this week at the Tokyo International Film Festival, is a metaphysical love story that follows a man and a woman — played by young stars Nana Komatsu and Ryuhei Matsuda — who find themselves on the premises of an ancient gold mine on Japan’s remote Sado Island with no memory of how they got there or who they are.

    The premise for the film came to Tomina as he was finishing his debut feature Blue Wind Blows (2018), which was also shot on Sado Island (and later premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in the Generation Kplus section). Walking the island, the director was struck by the sight of a landform known as”Split Mountain” in Japanese, a towering cliff cleft in half centuries ago by the gold mining that took place beneath it for generations beginning in the 1500s.

    Sado Island occupies a somewhat spooky place in the Japanese public consciousness. During the Edo period (1603-1868), the ruling Tokugawa shogunate shipped criminals and indigents to Sado Island and forced them to work the mines — often to their deaths. The island is also Japan’s closest landmass to North Korea and it is one of the sights where the Kim regime abducted Japanese citizens in the late 1970s and early 80s. But Tomina remains fixated on the place.

    ‘Who Were We?’

    Courtesy of the Tokyo International Film Festival

    “When I saw this cleft mountain, there was something about its presence that I was really drawn to,” he recalls. “During my research, I started to imagine the souls of those who worked in the mines and were buried in unmarked graves. But even though the island has a somewhat negative image, the local people are very kind, the food is delicious and the nature is so beautiful — so I really wanted to spend more time there.”

    “I began to imagine the mountain as a place between this world and the next, where two characters who passed away might meet,” he explains.

    Who Were We? is shot in rich, full-contrast color, framing its characters and landscapes in a retro 4:3 aspect ratio. With just a trace of plot, the film proceeds at a hypnotic pace, as the characters explore the mine and its surroundings, gradually coming to know one another. But their courtship arrives via innate chemistry since neither character has any recollection of who they were in their prior life.

    “Since the story is a bit detached from reality and the characters have a kind of blank psychology, I needed actors who could convince the audience just by being present,” Tomina explains. “Matsuda and Komatsu were my first choice and I’m very grateful they said yes because this was a small production and they are big stars in Japan.”

    Komatsu, also an in-demand fashion model, is best known internationally for her performance in Martin Scorsese’s Silence, while Matsuda has appeared in dozens of films but made his career breakthrough at the age of just 15 in Nagisa Ōshima’s Taboo (1999).

    The director gave his two leads no background for their characters other than the vague hints of biography that are in the script.

    “I don’t like for actors to draw from memory or psychology,” he says. “The way I like to shoot my films is to capture the actors simply as they are — to only capture their existence — and that’s the real reason I wrote this story of characters with no memory.”

    After shooting his first two features on Sado Island, Tomina says he’s probably still not ready to let go of the place. Of the two projects he currently has in development, one is again set there.

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  • ‘The Gospel of the Beast’ Review:  A Familiar if Convincingly Fatalistic Look at Filipino Gang Life

    ‘The Gospel of the Beast’ Review:  A Familiar if Convincingly Fatalistic Look at Filipino Gang Life

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    The mean streets of the Philippines become a testing ground for one young man caught between right and wrong, and life and death, in the coming-of-age crime thriller, The Gospel of the Beast. Written and directed by Sheron Dayoc (Women of the Weeping River), this gritty, despairing look at a country wracked by drugs, robbery and murder is less about the violence — of which there are a few gory examples — than about the limited choices available in a place where poverty seems to eclipse any morality. Premiering in competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival, the well-made if sometimes generic feature should see additional festival play and pickups by streaming services.

    Dayoc gives us a hint of what’s to come during a blood-soaked opening sequence set in a slaughterhouse, where 15-year-old Mateo (Jansen Pagpusao) dismembers pigs to help support his brother and sister. When he’s not knee-deep in animal parts, Mateo attends high school but is hardly able to pay attention in class. The fact that his father has mysteriously disappeared, putting the family in dire straits, does not make his life any easier.

    The Gospel of the Beast

    The Bottom Line

    Tough and tender.

    Venue: Tokyo International Film Festival (Competition)
    Cast: Jansen Pagpusao, Ronnie Lazaro, Nathan Sotto, John Renz Javier
    Director: Sheron Dayoc
    Screenwriters: Sheron Dayoc, Jeko Aguado

    1 hour 25 minutes

    After Mateo accidentally kills a rival during an afterschool fight, he has no choice but to flee town and seek protection in the arms of Uncle Berto (Ronnie Lazaro), a close companion of his missing father who leads a band of thieves and killers. Much of The Gospel of the Beast tracks Mateo’s slow initiation at Berto’s behest into Filipino thug life, charting how the irreverent but sweet-faced youth gradually transforms into a hard-nosed criminal.

    He moves into an abandoned villa that Berto’s clan has converted into a combination college dorm/torture center, bringing victims back at the request of a wealthy mafioso who utilizes their services.

    At first, Mateo is put off by all the dead bodies — which are very much treated like the slaughterhouse pigs — and he seems to be waiting for the right moment to get the hell out of there. But the gang also has its benefits: not only in terms of a livelihood, which is no small matter for the poverty-stricken teenager, but in terms of the camaraderie he’s never been able to find elsewhere.

    If Dayoc’s film treads familiar ground, especially during the first act, it distinguishes itself afterwards by lucidly depicting how gangs can often function like surrogate families for kids with nowhere else to turn. Mateo not only gets the hang of being a bad guy, but starts to relish it, befriending another boy, Gudo (John Renz Javier), who moves into the villa. Their relationship is soon tested by the other members, as well as by Berto, forcing Mateo to decide where his allegiances lie: with his new family or himself.

    The choice he winds up making speaks to the utter helplessness of his situation, and The Gospel of the Beast feels both realistic and determinedly fatalistic, offering little redemption for Mateo or others like him. Dayoc’s vision of his country’s youth is certainly a grim one, and yet the director never resorts to mere poverty porn, focusing instead on the upsides of communal gang life, including in a drunken singalong sequence filled with tenderness and warmth.

    There’s warmth also in cinematographer Rommel Andreo Sales’ lensing, which is less despairing than the world it depicts, giving the locations a certain dreamlike quality. That aesthetic gibes well with the film’s coming-of-age narrative, in which a young boy turns into a man while learning a few life lessons in the process. The catch, though, is that this is the modern-day Philippines, and so what Mateo learns is not, as one would hope, to eventually do the right thing, but rather to harness the beast within.

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  • ‘Tatami’ Review: Searing Iranian-Israeli Sports Drama Delivers an Especially Timely Punch

    ‘Tatami’ Review: Searing Iranian-Israeli Sports Drama Delivers an Especially Timely Punch

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    At a moment of war and deep division in the Middle East, a film co-directed by an Israeli and an Iranian is already a victory in and of itself. But the gripping sports drama Tatami, which follows a female judo champ whose career is severely jeopardized by Iran’s government during an international tournament, is more than just a promising collaboration between two filmmakers hailing from opposing sides of a major conflict.

    Set during one nail-biting day at the world championship in Tbilisi, Tatami — whose title refers to the mat where judoka fighters engage in combat — is both a riveting story of an athlete trying to achieve gold for the first time, and a searing political thriller where Iranian women are subjected to persecution, intimidation and possibly kidnapping at the hands of their country’s far-reaching authoritarian regime. Vibrantly helmed and performed, with co-director and Cannes best actress winner Zar Amir Ebrahimi (Holy Spider) playing one of the leads, the film is a win both behind and in front of the camera.

    Tatami

    The Bottom Line

    Gripping, in all senses of the term.

    Venue: Tokyo International Film Festival (Competition)
    Cast: Arienne Mandi, Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Jaime Ray Newman, Ash Goldeh, Lir Katz, Ash Goldeh, Valeriu Andriuta
    Directors: Guy Nattiv, Zar Amir Ebrahimi
    Screenwriters: Guy Nattiv, Elham Erfani

    1 hour 45 minutes

    Shot in stark black-and-white by DP Todd Martin (The Novice), who uses the Academy ratio to lend the drama a claustrophobic feel, Tatami bears some of the marks of classic boxing flicks like Body and Soul or The Set-Up, where a talented fighter is attacked by sinister forces outside the ring while taking a pummeling inside it. Here, those forces are the political operatives sent to Tbilisi to prevent national champion Leila Hosseini (the impressive Arienne Mandi, an American actress of Chilean and Iranian descent) from advancing too far in a tournament that could end with her fighting — and possibly losing to — the reigning Israeli champ, Shani Lavi (Lir Katz).

    Instead of throwing the fight for the mob, Hosseini is coerced to declare forfeit for the glory of Iran. This she refuses to do so, winning one combat after another, and thus deepening the pressure on her coach, Maryam (Amir Ebrahimi), as well as on her husband (Ash Goldeh) back home. Her decision transforms Tatami into a riveting tale of women versus men, athletes versus government agents, and freedom versus oppression.

    It’s also an engrossing sports flick in its own right, and one with a convincingly femme-centric point of view. Leila is a bull in the ring, taking out opponents with spectacular body slams (or whatever they’re called in judo) that she seems to pull out of her hat. She’s also a loving mother and wife — a fact that’s put to the test when the authorities start harassing her family, pressuring her to give up before she reaches the last round.

    Maryam is under the gun as well, both as Leila’s longtime coach and as a daughter whose father is quickly taken into custody, and possibly beaten, so that she’ll act on the regime’s behalf. The well-structured script (by co-director Guy Nattiv and Elham Erfani) reveals that Maryam may herself have forfeited a tournament when she was at the prime of her career, making her inner conflict all the more nerve-wracking.

    The film’s pressure-cooker atmosphere builds to a crescendo as Leila gets closer to the final, surviving several beatings on the mat while government thugs, as well as the rest of her team, tighten their grip around her. Dynamic editing by Yuval Orr keeps the action on the move, cutting between multiple viewpoints — including that of a concerned tournament official, played by Jaime Ray Newman — as Martin’s roving camera takes us in and out of the ring, with the bulk of the movie set in one location.

    In your typical fight flick, an underdog like Leila would wind up prevailing against all odds, winning the title even though her government does everything it can to stop her. That the filmmakers opted for a different denouement is both a welcome twist and a meaningful one, underscoring the grueling political situation both Leila and Maryam find themselves in. In Tatami, victory is less about getting the gold than about choosing whose side you’re on, even if it means losing so much else in the process.

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