Japan Cuts ’21: Wonderful Paradise

For Shuji Sasaya, home is not where the heart is and he is definitely not the king of his castle—especially since he was forced to sell his inherited McMansion to cover his gambling debts. None of the other family cliches apply to the rest of the Sasayas either, but at least they all get together for one last bash at the old family home in Masashi Yamamoto’s relentlessly bizarro Wonderful Paradise, which screens as an online selection of the 2021 Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film, at the Japan Society.

Nobody is happy about moving, even though none of the family has particularly fond memories of their time in the luxurious house. Sasaya’s daughter Akane tries to make some at the last minute by inviting the entire internet for a BYOB blowout. It doesn’t take long for pretty much everyone to show up, including her estranged mother, Akiko.

What starts as a party morphs into a matsuri festival fused with a rave. Good taste and any sense of realism quickly gets tossed out the window. Buckle yourself in for a Bollywood-style musical number, a Buddhist funeral using the local dealer’s pot for incense, a blood-soaked (but not fatal) same sex wedding, the ghosts of the Sasaya grandparents, a pop-up café with a coffee bean straight out of Little Shop of Horrors, and a boy who weirdly turns into a stick (sort of like what happens to Josie Packard in Twin Peaks, but we’re not supposed to be disturbed by it here).

The last part is a good example of the film’s tonal issues. Yamamoto and co-screenwriter present it all as good crazy fun, but a lot of what happens is really dark and twisted. It is also pretty difficult to care about any of these characters, except maybe Akane (and there is an outside chance for her nebbish brother Yuta).

Japan Cuts ’21: Mari and Mari

Norio’s rebound arrived suspiciously fast—like supernaturally so. He just found a new Mari in his flat, in place of his old Mari. Unlike Dick Sargent on Bewitched, he can tell she is not the same person, nor does she claim to be. Norio tries to figure out what-the-heck in Tatsuya Yamanishi’s Mari and Mari, which screens as an online selection of the 2021 Japan Cuts Festival of New JapaneseFilm, at the Japan Society.

For extra irony, Norio works for a casting agency. He thinks he lives happily with Mari Tanabe, his girlfriend of three years, who works at a bookstore. However, when he comes home one night, she is not there and nowhere to be found at her regular haunts. Then one night he comes home and finds Mari—the other Mari. She does not know why she is there, but she just feels compelled to be there.

First Norio freaks out and then slides into an angsty funk. He keeps throwing Mari II out and then letting her come back. Despite some fantastical elements, it is hard to figure just what Mari and Mari is. It is extraordinarily moody, but it lacks the mysteriousness of Richard Ayoade’s The Double. You can sometimes think of it a Vertigo without the suspense (and vertigo), but it is really more of a deadly serious spin on a Hong Sang-soo film like Yourself and Yours.

Japan Cuts ’21: To Sleep So as to Dream

It  was a retro silent movie about silent movie stars. How did this not get a big re-release push after Michel Hazanavicius’s The Artist won Best Picture (despite some subsequent blowback, it really is a great film)? Director-screenwriter Kaizo Hayashi’s vision is playfully twisty, in an almost Borgesian way. A crime has been committed that is surrounded in a greater mystery, but the Uotsuka Detective Agency is on the case in Hayashi’s To Sleep So as to Dream, which screens in its freshly restored glory as a classic selection of the 2021 Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film, at the Japan Society.

Madame Cherryblossom, a Norma Desmond-like grand dame of Japanese silent cinema, hires Uotsuka and his apprentice Kobayashi to recover her kidnapped niece Bellfower. However, “M. Pathe and Co,” the criminal organization that abducted her is so cagey, they only leave a riddle as to where the ransom money should be delivered. Unfortunately, every time the Uotsuka Agency gets close to recovering Cherryblossom, the M. Pathe magicians snatch her away—and increase the ransom another one million yen.

Technically, TSSATD is not a true silent. There are plenty of foley effects and incidental music. We can also hear characters voices, when they have been pre-recorded, as with the kidnappers’ initial reel-to-reel ransom tape. However, when characters speak face-to-face, we must read it in the intertitles. This is a somewhat eccentric approach, but Hayashi makes it work.

His wonderfully nostalgic noir visual style is a major reason why. Aesthetically, TSSATD is perfect for admirers of Guy Maddin, because it has the same darkly dreamy vibe. It is a world where gumshoes and stage magicians rub shoulders, while watching samurai in the hazy film-within-a-film. Cinematographer Yuichi Nagata makes all look suitably mysterious and nocturnal, while the mise en abyme movie shimmers with mystery.

Japan Cuts ’21: The Great Yokai War—Guardians

He is a cult favorite among kaiju enthusiasts, but he is relatively under-represented on screen. There is his original 1966 film trilogy and his 2010 reboot series, but mighty Daimajin never had to duel it out with Gamera or Rodan. Takashi Miike partly rights that wrong by pitting him against a ticked-off collective of yokai (mythical Japanese spirits and demons) in The Great Yokai War: Guardians, which screens again the old-fashioned way during the 2021 Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film, at the Japan Society.

You need no familiarity with Miike’s The Great Yokai War of 2005 to fully enjoy Guardians, just an appreciation of the various traditional yokai. Many of those mythical entities apparently originated in the Fossa Magna rift and they have melded themselves into giant “Yokaiju” ball with the intention of barreling back into the sea. The problem is Tokyo is right smack dab in its path. In addition to causing horrendous destruction, it would release a primordial monster currently held in stasis beneath the city. Everyone coyly refers to it as “you-know-who,” clearly implying he is a big-name kaiju, whom Miike and the Kadokawa could not acquire the usage rights.

Frankly, some of the yokai are inclined to watch the world burn, but others would rather save it. To do so, they need to recruit a descendant of legendary samurai Watanabe no Tsuna to sacrifice himself to the mighty Daimajin. Scaredy-cat Kei Watanabe is not inclined to step up when they pull him into their parallel fairy world, but he gins up his courage to save his younger brother Dai, after he is tricked into being a replacement.

The Yokai (including outliers the Yeti, Cyclops, and Frankenstein Monster) are wonderfully bizarre and often gleefully over-the-top, but the kiddie melodrama can be more than a little too whiny and neurotic. Miike often has trouble establishing the right tone for his “family films,” like Ninja Kids!!!, but it is especially true here.

Japan Cuts ’21: KIBA The Fangs of Fiction

The Japanese publishing industry is more horizontally integrated than here in America. There, the line between book and magazine publishing is so porous, first serialization often comes baked into every big book deal. Japanese publishing houses still maintain literary journals to showcase their prestige authors, but diminishing ad revenue and circulation are just as challenging for them as they are for American periodicals. Nevertheless, a roguish editor shakes up the business with some unconventional signings in Daihachi Yoshida’s KIBA: The Fangs of Fiction which screens live-in-person today, as part of the 2021Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film, at the Japan Society.

Kunpu is the prestigious literary journal of the Iba family’s media empire. Trinity is their other one. That is the one Teruya Hayami edits. Trinity was thought to be on its last legs, but when the publishing patriarch passes away, the resulting uncertainty presents opportunities for a sly dog like Hayami. He starts by poaching Kunpu’s unappreciated junior editor Megumi Takano.

With her help, they sign the debut novel of Sei Yazawa, a Michael Chabon-ish hipster postmodern thriller writer. They also steal away Kunpu’s celebrated but lazy star author Daisuke Nikaido (think Norman Mailer in the 1980s) for his first manga. Really thinking outside the box, Hayami approaches model Saki Joshima to publish her secret Tarantino-esque hard-boiled fiction. However, the real coup would be snagging something from a legendary Salinger-like literary recluse.

It turns out two of the best films ever about the publishing industry are both Japanese. This is one of them. Yuya Ishii’s The Great Passage is the other. Yoshida mixes sly workplace comedy with some surprisingly dark twists and turns, but somehow his tonal shifts are not as jarring as they might sound. It is not exactly a thriller per se, but one darned thing definitely happens after another.

Japan Cuts ’21: School Radio to Major Tom & Go Seppuku Yourselves (shorts)

It is sort of like Love Letters for geek culture, but it is an analog throwback, which makes it cooler. Two lonely high schoolers collaborate on a radio drama, despite never meeting. Yet, a connection is still made in Chisaka Takuya’s short film School Radio to Major Tom, which screens on-demand as part of the experimental shorts package offered by this year’s Japan CutsFestival of New Japanese Film.

Those who attend this high school during the day and those assigned to the night shift rarely meet. It is a hard-and-fast social division, but Eisuke Hoshi doesn’t really fit into any cliques. His primary activities involve his solo stewardship of the school radio. As a result, he is quite surprised when his night-time counterpart discovers the tapes of his science fiction serial and starts recording the part of Major Tom in her own voice.

Technically, Takuya never quotes from “Space Oddity” verbatim, but he paraphrases it all over the place. If it was a rights issue, the Bowie estate is being short-sighted, because this is the most potently nostalgic film they could ever hope to have showcase his tunes.

Even though they do not share any proper scenes together, Chka Arakawa and Tokuma Kudo are both terrific as the young radio programmers. It is hard to precisely describe their relationship, but they definitely make it into something.

Fittingly, the film’s grungy VHS-looking really suits the 1989 setting and the analog media that plays such a role in the film. Strictly speaking, School Radio is a teen drama, albeit a rather mature and wistful one, but the science fiction story the characters spin (heavily Bowie-influenced with maybe a touch of Space 1999) gives it extra genre appeal. Very highly recommended, School Radio to Major Tom screens as part of the experimental shorts package (even though it is totally accessible) during this year’s Japan Cuts (and it also screens on-demand with It’s a Summer Film! at Fantasia.

Japan Cuts ’21: It’s a Summer Film!

Can't decide if you are in the mood for a sappy teen romance, a samurai Chanbara film, or some light science fiction? Well, you do not have to choose. This film does it all—and it might just save the future of filmmaking in the process. Genres collide, but the can-do spirit of teen filmmakers prevails in Soushi Matsumoto’s It’s a Summer Film!, which screens on-demand and in-person, as part of the 2021 Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film, at the Japan Society.

Nobody loves samurai films more than “Barefoot.” (She and her friends have somewhat eccentric nicknames that don’t seem to bother them.) Much to her frustration, the film club throws all its resources behind the popular Karin’s weepy teen melodrama instead of her script, Samurai Spring. Her friends, “Kickboard” (of the Astronomy Club) and “Blue Hawaii,” (a member of the kendo team) encourage her to go it on her own, but she is reluctant until she suddenly finds her perfect lead.

For some reason, the mysterious Rintaro insists she must make her film, but he is reluctant to star in it. Barefoot is confused when he talks about being her greatest fan, but there is definitely romantic attraction percolating between them. Things really get confusing when the crew learns Rintaro’s secret—so much so, it becomes unclear whether Samurai Spring will be completed in time for the high school’s summer festival.

In some ways, Summer Film bears some thematic similarities to the original Bill & Ted, but its teen characters are much smarter. It might best compare to One Cut of the Dead, because they both use genre elements to pay “feel-good” tribute to the filmmaking process. Summer Film has more to offer than cuteness, but it is indeed as a cute as a button.

Japan Cuts ’21: The Pass—Last Days of the Samurai

Forget about Tom Cruise. In Japan, Tsuginosuke Kawai is often regarded as the last samurai. At the end of the Shogunat era, his Nagaoka clan found itself caught between forces loyal to the Shogun and the newly restored emperor. He wanted to avoid a fight, but the Boshin War draws him in anyway in Takashi Koizumi’s The Pass: The Last Days of the Samurai, which screens live-and-in-person during the 2021 Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film, at the Japan Society.

Kawai is the Nagaoka Clan’s chief retainer. Given his lord’s advanced years, he is also the de facto strategist and decision-maker. He tries to remain neutral after the Shogun’s abdication, but the two warring factions just won’t have it. Reluctantly, Kawai assumes command of an alliance of smaller clans, even though he suspects their efforts will ultimately prove futile. However, they might have a prayer of survival, if they continue to hold the strategic Enoki Pass. Whoever controls the pass controls Nagaoka Castle.

Pass is a terrific samurai film that is rife with tragic Shakespearean overtones, which makes sense, given Koizumi was the assistant director on Kurosawa’s Ran. Hardnosed Koji Yakusho (the star of Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins and Hara-Kiri) is instantly credible and immensely compelling as the shrewd, but world-weary Kawai. In many ways, you could consider this a samurai equivalent to Eastwood’s late-career cowboy movies. He also perfectly personifies Ivan Morris’s conception of the “Nobility of Failure” in Japanese history and culture.

Yakusho also shares some keenly poignant chemistry with Takako Matsu, playing his eternally patient wife, Osuga. Their marriage is not perfect, but it endures. As added bonuses, the legendary Tetsuya Nakadai and Kyoko Kagawa turn up in small parts. However, there is no question Yakusho owns the film, body and soul.