Choice Cuts: The Bleeding Heart And Soaring Soul Of JAPAN CUTS 2013

AKB48 spreading music and hope in Japan.

While JAPAN CUTS is known for action packed, manga-inspired and genre-twisting blockbusters, especially those co-presented with NYAFF, there is another side to the festival encompassing impacting films that pull at heartstrings with their depth and far reaching soulfulness.

As the New York Times wrote in a feature about the more emotionally harder-hitting films this year:

A well-made bummer can be a beautiful thing, and while many countries have distinguished histories in the genre, none currently outdo Japan when it comes to outdo Japan when it comes to malaise and depression.

One of the more quietly devastating films in the lineup is Japan’s Tragedy. Directed by Masahiro Kobayashi and sharing the concept of the 1953 work of art, A Japanese Tragedy, the film focuses on an elderly father (played by  legendary Akira Kurosawa actor Tatsuya Nakadai), who while pain stricken by the death of his wife must cope with terminal illness. His son, who suffered major losses in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, remains lost emotionally and struggles to aid his father in recovery. Through his own affliction, the father tries to help his son one last time, deciding it best if he were allowed to die.

Shot mostly in black and white, the gravity of the themes and anguish of the characters are palpable and timely. In the tsunami that struck the northeastern Japan, some say “Japan’s elderly were hardest hit by the crisis” and even over two years later are displaced from their homes and not getting the care they need. When BAFICI first screened Japan’s Tragedy, they called the film “a profound analysis of the human condition and its unpredictable derivations” and noted that the titular tragedy is never pinpointed, stressing “the imprecision of that discomfort that afflicts Japan”. This silent yet pertinent theme is beautifully, painfully illuminated in Japan’s Tragedy.



Another powerful story is the documentary Live Your Dream: The Taylor Anderson Story. After being exposed to its language, culture, and history by her elementary school teacher, Taylor developed a love for Japan, ultimately taking part in the Japanese government’s Japan Exchange Teaching Programme (JET), which supports non-native Japanese to teach English in Japan. Tragically, Taylor is lost to the tsunami, but her life and legacy--shown through pictures, home videos, and heartwarming personal accounts within the film--offers a sense of hope that can only come by following one’s dreams.

Today the devastation from the tsunami can still be felt by the families of the 19,000 people dead or missing in Tohoku and the hundreds of thousands displaced, many still without permanent homes. Amidst slow recovery there are pleas to not forget those affected and still suffering. Live Your Dream shows us that even through loss, the memories we leave behind can never be forgotten.

For the JAPAN CUTS screening of Live Your Dream Taylor’s father and the documentary’s director will be on hand to introduce the film and take part in a Q&A it afterwards. Knowing many JET participants and hoping to apply for the program in the future, I see this film as a testament to Taylor and her family’s resilience. It’s a very moving portrayal and inspires people that despite everything one should never give up on their dreams.

Touching on similar themes, JAPAN CUTS presents the North American premiere of DOCUMENTARY OF AKB48: Show must go on. Japan’s pop music phenomenon AKB48, which boasts nearly 100 members, finds ways to give back to those in need in the months after 3/11. With some members hailing from Sendai (the largest city in the Tohoku region), the group tours the area and establishes the “A Project for Someone”, where they donate funds to the Tohoku region.

With three of JAPAN CUTS’ 24 feature films this year focusing on 3/11, it is evident the impact the devastation continues to have on Japan, from hardship to hope (related: Japan Society maintains regular updates of the recovery work funded by the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund). These films offer an opportunity to immerse oneself in the heartrending, often painful, but ultimately transforming stories that come from those experiencing and ultimately overcoming tragedy.

--Susan Berhane

Taylor Anderson and friend.

Images: (Top) DOCUMENTARY OF AKB48 No flower without rain © 2012 AKS Inc. / TOHO CO., LTD. / AKIMOTO YASUSHI, Inc. / North River Inc. / NHK Enterprises, Inc.  All Rights Reserved. (Bottom) Live Your Dream: The Taylor Anderson Story © 2012 Global Film Network All rights reserved.

No American Comparison For Japan's Leading Living Actor

Koji Yakusho. Photo by Kazuto Suetake.

While our JAPAN CUTS roundup last week only touched on this weekend's mini-retrospective honoring living Japanese screen legend Koji Yakusho, today's New York Times carries an extensive critic's notebook by Mike Hale heralding the arrival of Yakusho to NYC:

Few people know more about movies, or have a more prominent place in the world of Japanese film, than Koji Yakusho... Regularly cited over the last 15 years as Japan’s leading actor… Mr. Yakusho’s name is not familiar in the United States, but many American filmgoers, whether they know it or not, have seen his long, wonderfully expressive face and his full head of floppy black (now graying) hair.

Born Koji Hashimoto in 1956, the former municipal government worker became interested in acting after seeing a production of Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths. In a nod to his previous career, he took the stage name Yakusho, which means “municipal ward office” in Japanese. After studying at the prestigious Mumeijyuku acting studio, he landed the role of historical figure Oda Nobunaga in the popular NHK series Tokugawa Ieyasu (1983). The role made him a household name in Japan and launched his career in television and film. While best known to foreign audiences for the Hollywood films Memoirs of a Geisha and Babel, his career spans an immense collection of dignified work.

Due to the sheer volume of titles (over 70 films in 33 years), Yakusho does not appear to have any contemporaries in the West. When considering similar U.S. leading men, the staff at Japan Society couldn't decide: DeNiro, Eastwood, Redford and Hanks all seemed to align themselves to various aspects of Yakusho's persona and career. In the end, there was just no comparison.

Even among his peers in Japan, Yakusho stands out for the range of quality films and television dramas. The latter half of the 1990s was his most audacious period and solidified his reputation as Japan’s premier actor. First came the feel-good hit Shall We Dance? (1996), which inspired a dance craze in Japan and a Richard Gere Hollywood remake. The film’s popularity no doubt stemmed from Yakusho’s performance as a worn-out salary man who finds renewed vigor and lust for life when he enrolls in a late night dance class.

Following that triumph, he starred in a drastically different role in Shohei Imamura’s Palm d’Or-winning The Eel (1997). Imamura, one of the maverick directors from the Japanese New Wave of the 1960s, cast Yakusho as a man on the path to redemption following the murder of his adulterous wife. He won a Japanese Academy Award for both performances. 1997 also marked the release of A Lost Paradise, based on the novel by Junichi Watanabe. It features Yakusho as a middle-aged man who has an affair with a woman twenty years younger, ending in tragedy. The film came in second to Hiyao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke at the Japanese box office and critics universally praised his performance. That year he also won the prestigious Hochi Film Award for Best Actor for Bounce Ko Gal, a topical film that dealt with high school prostitution. Yet again that year, Yakusho began his collaboration with Kiyoshi Kurosawa with Cure, in which he played an emotionally repressed detective searching for a deranged serial killer. Further films with Kurosawa include the horror-thrillers Charisma, Kairo (a.k.a. Pulse), and Doppleganger .
Koji Yakusho appears tonight at JAPAN CUTS' New York Premiere screening of his latest film The Woodsman and the Rain, followed by a Q&A session and reception. The actor also appears at the July 21 screening of his hit samurai film 13 Assassins. JAPAN CUTS also presents Yakusho’s Shall We Dance?, Chronicle of My Mother, and Cure.

Recently Yakusho directed and starred in the film Toad’s Oil, also screening at JAPAN CUTS a drama about a greedy day trader whose son has a serious accident that results in a coma. Faced with a challenge that cannot be solved by money, Yakusho’s character begins an exploration of emotions and challenges that are new to him. The film received enthusiastically positive reviews from critics and one wonders if the next stage of Yakusho’s career will emulate that of Clint Eastwood or his Japanese contemporary Takeshi Kitano. Considering his long list of accomplishments, it would not be surprising if this versatile actor became one of World Cinema’s preeminent director-performers as well.

--Lyle Sylvander

Zen Again & Again

Hakuin Ekaku, 1685-1768, Two Blind Men on a Bridge. Ink on paper, 11 x 33 in. Man’yo-an Collection.

October is Zen Month here at Japan Society! Starting on October 1st, and continuing until January, the new exhibit, The Sound of One Hand: Paintings and Calligraphy by Zen Master Hakuin, opens with a veritable onslaught of Zen-related events following. The "Here & Zen" series includes lectures on art and lifestyle, performances, film screenings, workshops, as well as a second, free-of-charge exhibition.

On Saturday October 2nd, Stephen Addiss heads the symposium Hear the Sound of One Hand: Reflections on the Art of Zen Master Hakuin about the influence of Zen on artistic expression in Japan. Addiss is a co-curator of the exhibition with his wife Audrey Yoshiko Seo. Both are respected and prolific writers on Zen and art, and they wrote the exhibition catalogue. They are joined by Matthew Welch, Curator of Japanese and Korean Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and David Rosand, Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History at Columbia University.

The next weekend, on October 8th and 9th, actor-director Yoshi Oida brings his one man show, Interrogations: Words of the Zen Masters to Japan Society. Interrogations is a comical play about a Zen master addressing several koans to a student to test him, and to see if he has reached enlightenment. The play is accompanied with live music by Berlin-based experimental musician Dieter Trüstedt. Interrogations premiered in 1979 and has been performed by Oida and Trüstedt throughout the world (this summer it stopped in Barcelona). It’s a true classic of the genre, and offers something for Zen novices, adepts, and masters alike!

On October 15th, Japan Society screens Masaki Kobayashi's epic ghost-film omnibus Kwaidan. It’s made up of four separate, thematically related, traditional Japanese ghost stories, and is by turns hypnotic, jarring, and meditative.

Field to Table: the Role of Vegetables in the Japanese Diet, is a lecture by Elizabeth Andoh, a Japanese food expert and cookbook author, as well as Masato Nishihara, head chef at Kijitsu Restaurant. Japanese cuisine boasts an impressive vegetarian tradition, because Buddhist doctrine limits, and sometimes prohibits, the consumption of meat.

In addition to the main gallery exhibit an additional show entitled oxherding features ink paintings by Max Gimblett and poems by Lewis Hyde. Together they examine similar themes to Hakuin, but from a contemporary perspective. As inspiration, the exhibition takes the famous Zen parable, "The Ten Ox Herding Pictures", about tending and maintaining discipline in the mind for gaining enlightenment. Hyde as well as psychiatrist and author Mark Epstein present a lecture as well: Mindful Living, examining the ox herding parable and describing ways to map its Zen ideas onto Western lives.

A number of workshops are held as well. oxherding artist Max Gimblett leads four sumi ink painting workshops from October to January, Lewis Hyde offers a writing workshop, and world-famous shakuhachi musician Akikazu Nakamura teaches missoku Zen breathing meditation in October.

Ticket sales for the lectures, performances and workshops have just been released online, so get them while they’re hot, and get ready to expand your minds!

This cow is maditating on the ancient koan, "nothingness" 

N.O.

It’s A Wrap: JAPAN CUTS Concludes Its Biggest Year Yet!

Hidetoshi Nishijima (L) and Ryoko Hirouse (R) in Zero Focus

JAPAN CUTS 2010 screened its final film on July 16th and the numbers are in: over 5,500 tickets were sold, resulting in a record attendance in the four years Japan Society has produced the JAPAN CUTS film festival!

A number of films seem to have struck chords with audiences and critics alike. Twitch praised Parade’s “unsettling” tone and the “uniformly excellent” cast. Cinema Strikes Back loved  One Million Yen Girl, and thought that writer-director Yuki Tanada’s work “hit all the right notes.” The Village Voice found  Bare Essence of Life to be “unpredictable and occasionally astonishing.” Blogger J B Spins admired  Zero Focus’ “lush production” and praises it as “an emotionally complex thriller that holds together quite well.” This Week in New York called out Dear Doctor as a “warm, tenderhearted film.” In regards to Confessions , whose two screenings were both sold out, Reel Talk says  “Whatever the plot’s truth, of murder or revenge, Confessions crafts a chilling hundred-three minutes.”

A number of special events happened during JAPAN CUTS’ two-and-a-half weeks as well. Katie’s Japan Files reports from the Q&A with director Isao Yukisada and actor Tatsuya Fujiwara, after a screening of Parade. Cinema Knife Fight has a lengthy post from the Sushi Typhoon Party following the premiere of Mutant Girl’s Squad. In addition, Japan Society Film Program’s Tumblr has great wrap-ups of the films screened, with rare artwork and stills and insider photos from special events.

Kenichi Matsuyama in Bare Essence of Life

Samuel Jamier, chief film curator at Japan Society, predicts another big year for JAPAN CUTS in 2011. He wants to keep the focus on thoughtful, creative commercial films from innovative directors like Confessions’ Tetsuya Nakashima and One Million Yen Girl’s Yuki Tanada. Films based on original stories with strong scripts are a priority. He discusses in greater detail in a fantastic VCinema post-fest interview.

Female filmmakers will likely continue to make a strong showing. "There's definitely more visibility," Samuel told The Walls Street Journal about 2010's lineup, "and even when there isn't a female director, a lot of these films focus on dominant female roles." This year JAPAN CUTS showed new films from Tanada, Miwa Nishikawa (Dear Doctor) and Satoko Yokohama (Bare Essence of Life). These directors’ films have a fresh perspective on their respective genres and showcase the emergent and indelible power and skill of women making movies in Japan today.

One trend that does not seem to be happening in Japan, however, is 3D. Of course, in the U.S. we’re all about the 3D, but in Japan, the only major 3D film over the next year will be a digital re-release of the 2000 Tatsuya Fujiwara starrer Battle Royale.

Whatever the future of Japanese Cinema holds, one thing is certain. You will catch the best of it next year at JAPAN CUTS 2011!

N.O.

JAPAN CUTS Launch!

From Confessions

JAPAN CUTS is upon us! Tonight's opening screenings are the North American premiere of Sawako Decides [review] at 6:45 followed by the SOLD OUT screening of Confessions (here's a review if you don't already have a ticket).

The screenings are followed by an informal get-together, with beer and various refreshments available. If you have tickets, be prepared to provide each other emotional and psychological support after the darkly intense Confessions.

There are many other special screenings and events at JAPAN CUTS this year:

• Director Toshiyaki Toyoda holds film intros and Q&As for his films Hanging Garden and Blood of Rebirth.

• Masanori Mimoto, the main actor of Alien vs. Ninja attends the July 3 screening as a guest of NYAFF and will take part in a Q&A.

• Director Isao Yukisada and actor Tatsuya Fujiwara are on hand for the July 10 screening of Parade, and the director will also be there for screenings of his other film, Crying Out Love, in the Center of the World.

From Parade

• Two of the three auteurs behind Mutant Girls Squad, Yoshihiro Nishimura and Noboru Iguchi, hold a Q&A after the screening.

• Here representing Oh, My Buddha! are director Tomorowo Taguchi and actor (and singer) Daichi Watanabe.

• The closing film of the festival, Sweet Little Lies, has a Q&A with its director Hitoshi Yazaki.

And let’s not forget to mention the parties! In addition to the Launch Party on opening night, there’s the Sushi Typhoon Party on Saturday July 3 following Mutant Girls Squad. Come dressed as an alien, ninja or mutant girl, and help celebrate the launch of the Sushi Typhoon DVD label! On Saturday, July 10, there’s the Night of the Filmmakers Party following Oh, My Buddha! Keeping with the 1970s setting and laid-back hippie vibe of that film, Night of the Filmmakers will be a throwback to the time period.

From Bare Essence of Life (Ultra Miracle Love Story)

Although we at the Japan Society strive to provide you with a hearty smorgasbord for this year’s JAPAN CUTS, there really was a huge variety to choose from. Perhaps one reason for this is how the film business is works in Japan.

The Japanese film industry is structured pretty differently from Hollywood. In Hollywood, film productions – even "independent" ones sometimes – are overseen by major studios that provide the vast majority of the funding. In Japan, most major studios (Kadokawa, Toei, Nikkatsu) have less capital to invest in film productions, and therefore funding is often procured from other sources. Smaller, or boutique, film production companies, television stations, publishers, or corporations, from Japan or elsewhere (South Korea and France are two big examples) all invest in various Japanese films. This means that filmmakers can often have more creative leeway to make the films they want how they want.

Regardless of how the film business works in Japan, we’re just glad to have so much cool stuff to show you. Tickets are zooming off the virtual shelves, so take some time and reserve yours!

N.O.

Musashi Pities The Fool!

Fujiwara (R) as Musashi

If you don’t get your summertime fill of Japanese culture from the movies on tap at JAPAN CUTS  (or also the NYAFF), Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts has got your back!

There are two Japanese shows at this year’s annual festival – a dance performance by Suburo Tshigawara called Miroku and a staged retelling of Musashi. The latter has quite a pedigree. It’s directed by Yukio Ninagawa, who has directed hundreds of plays – ranging from Shakespeare to modern Japanese dramas – and is one of the major figures in the Japanese theater world. It’s written by the recently deceased prolific novelist and playwright Hisashi Inoue. And the main role of Musashi is played by bona-fide superstar Tatsuya Fujiwara of Battle Royale and Death Note fame.

The play is based on the Japanese tale of the wandering 17th century swordsman Musashi. He was famed for his sword-fighting techniques, and dueled many people throughout Japan. In this version, Musashi tricks a rival swordsman, Kojiro, by arranging to fight with his back to the sun, thereby temporarily blinding his opponent. After he wins the duel, he leaves Kojiro for dead – but he isn’t! And he’s itching for a rematch. Kojiro catches up with Musashi at a temple, and the peaceful villagers hanging out there must try and convince the rivals not to kill each other. Here’s a trailer.

Musashi was performed in London in May to breathlessly positive notices. The Independent writes that “Yukio Ninagawa’s productions are often hauntingly numinous, but what he's done with Hisashi Inoue’s play Musashi transports us to a realm where life and death are literally one and the same.” The Telegraph notes the strong vein of comedy that goes through the performance (a samurai duel that turns into a tango? I’m in!) and says that “Both the play and the performances are vivid and entertaining.” He also notes that Fujiwara’s performance is “charismatic.”

Fujiwara’s newest film, Parade, directed by Isao Yukisada, will be screening in JAPAN CUTS. Like Musashi, Parade is balanced with serious themes and a light, breezy tone. Fujiwara will be attending the Noon screening of Parade on July 10th for a Q&A session – and later that evening will appear in one of the four performances of Musashi at the Lincoln Center. We hear tickets are getting scarce, so if you are interested, reserve ASAP!

A deptiction of Musashi battling a giant whale by our old friend Kuniyoshi

N.O.

Japanese + American

From the California roll to hip hop to Zen gardens, the cultures of the United States and Japan have crisscrossed the Pacific, profoundly influencing one another.

As New York City starts warming up for summer, Japan Society is taking a look at some of the amalgamations of Japanese and American culture over the last 150 years.

First, our Film department is bringing you Toyo's Camera: Japanese American History during WWII on May 28th (this Friday).

Although World War II was a bleak period for Japanese-American fusions, it is a worthwhile topic to begin such a discussion with because knowledge of the internment of Japanese-Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor remains surprisingly low in both the United States and Japan. To get a better grasp on the cultural exchanges of today, we should first learn about the history and the processes that brought us to the present.

Even though bringing in cameras to the internment camps was prohibited, one man managed to smuggle in his own camera lens and build a camera to document life behind barbed wires, with the help of other craftsmen in the camp. That man was Toyo Miyatake, a successful issei (first generation immigrant) photographer and owner of a photo-shop in the Los Angeles Little Tokyo district, and of one of the many Americans who was interned with his family against his will.

With his makeshift camera, Miyatake captured the dire conditions of life in the camps during World War II as well as the resilient spirit of his companions, many of whom were American citizens who went on to fight for their country overseas. Suzuki's documentary carries on the legacy of Miyatake's photography, addressing the historical context of the internment as well as the stories of other Japanese-Americans who were touched by this unfortunate chapter in American history.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with special guests writer/director Junichi Suzuki and actor George Takei.

Although he is best known in the U.S. for his role as Hikaru Sulu in the television series Star Trek, Takei is also an outspoken proponent of gay rights and active in state and local politics. He has won several awards and accolades in his work on human rights and Japanese-American relations, including his work with the Japanese American National Museum.

Then prepare yourselves for a busy June!

Marc Peter Keane, "SHINSO: Where Forest Meets Field"

On Thursday the 10th, in this commemorative 150th year of the first Japanese delegation to the U.S., a distinguished panel will examine the influence, modification and adaptations of food, music and landscape architecture in Fusion in Motion: 150 Years of Japan-America Integration. This panel will include Theodore C. Bestor, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University, Ian Condry, Associate Director of Comparative Media Studies at MIT and Marc Peter Keane, landscape architect.

The above picture is actually an example of Marc Peter Keane's zen-inducing garden trays for the Portland Japanese Garden in the autumn of last year. You can sense the luxurious quality of the materials he chooses to work with.

And on Monday the 14th, Senator Daniel Inouye, Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, is going to address Japan Society. Long a champion of Japanese-American issues, Senator Inouye has been outspoken in urging the Japanese government to accept the relocation of Futenma within Okinawa and thus conclude these recently contentious bilateral negotiations.

But where would the fun be if we told you every exciting summer event we've got planned?

Make sure you keep an eye out for as yet unannounced programs!

The Poles of Japanese Film

One thing I love about Japanese film is that it can be classic, elegant, and dignified or it can be garish, spastic, and barely clinging to any semblance of sanity.

This month we're bringing you both ends of the spectrum!

© Kadokawa Pictures, Inc.

First, on May 14th we're giving you the epitome of the matatabi (samurai gambler) movie: Lone Wolf Isazo, one of Raizo Ichikawa’s most spectacular performances.

Employing flashbacks within flashbacks and a brooding romantic style poised somewhere between Budd Boetticher and early Sergio Leone, director Kazuo Ikehiro charts Isazo’s descent from chivalrous naïf to vengeance-obsessed cynical wanderer, giving a definitive chronicle of the loneliness of the long-distance wanderer.

© Kadokawa Pictures, Inc.

Immediately after Lone Wolf Isazo, we're showing The Devil's Temple.

In this little known Kenji Misumi masterpiece, an abandoned temple nestled in the mountains is the scene of a fateful encounter between a Buddhist monk, two women in love with the same man, and a fallen samurai (Shintaro Katsu, at his most ferocious). As destinies collide: it appears that not just the lives of the quartet are at stake, but their very souls. Hell awaits!

Both films are the finale of the our Monthly Classic Series, The Double Edged Sword: The Chambara Films of Shintaro Katsu & Raizo Ichikawa.

© RoboGeisha Film Partners 2009

Then, on May 18th we're throwing RoboGeisha at you!

From the demented imagination of director Noboru Iguchi (Machine Girl) and special effects savant Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police) comes this brain-blasting vision of the future of genre cinema which defies description, sanity and good taste.

The evil, Tea Party-esque Kageno Corporation wants to return Japan to more traditional values and the weapons in their arsenal include their massive Geisha Army, two supernatural bikini-clad assassins and a plan to detonate a nuclear device on Mt. Fuji. But that's not enough! They're so evil that they also recruit two sisters and turn them into....RoboGeisha! However, RoboGeisha have uncontrollable hearts and it's not long before one of them begins to wonder if there's more to life than being a kimono-clad, robotic killing machine.

The screen swarms with nutso concepts like acid breast milk, butt swords and fried shrimp weapons while peekaboo sexiness and goofy ultra-violence are the order of the day. One part Japanese schoolgirl melodrama, one part grindhouse swordplay, one part open-plains chambara and one part Daimajin-esque, city-stomping "suitmation," RoboGeisha might just be the one cult movie to rule them all.

Might want to get your tickets for this one online before the crowds snatch up all the seats!

Mad, Bad... & All Over the Web

Last night the Mad, Bad... & Dangerous to Know film series kicked off with the screening of Tattoo (aka The Spider Tattoo), featuring Ayako Wakao, Akio Hasegawa, Gaku Yamamoto and directed by Yasuzo Masumura.

Today, the series was featured in New York Magazine, The Village Voice, and Time Out New York!

"As daft and beautiful a fusion of grindhouse exploitation and arty lyricism as anything on film."

-New York Magazine

"Kaji is the copy-ready deviant of the series, but Japan Society has seized the opportunity for layered programming, even if every film isn't killer. Besides spotlighting three actresses, "Mad, Bad . . . & Dangerous to Know" is also a tribute to the ruthlessly insistent filmmaker Yasuzo Masumura, a revealing high-low study in shame entertainment, and a never-mind-the-plot Scope showcase."

-The Village Voice

"If you're more in line with the stereotypically docile view of Japanese women, then this series—which surveys the work of transgressive actors Ayako Wakao, Mariko Okada, and Meiko Kaji—is not for you."

-Time Out New York

Saturday Double Feature

Saturday, March 20th

Zatoichi On the Road: Fighting Journey

座頭市喧嘩旅 (Zatoichi kenka-tabi)

5 PM

Also known as Zatoichi and the Scoundrels. In chapter five of the Blind Swordsman saga, Zatoichi encounters a dying man who asks him to deliver the maiden O-Mitsu to her family. Feeling honor-bound to fulfill the request, the cane sword-wielding masseur goes on a perilous journey and soon finds himself between a rock and a hard place as rival gangs compete to kidnap his beautiful protégée for a ransom. There will be blood indeed!

Scar Yosaburo

切られ与三郎 (Kirare Yosaburo)

7 PM

In Scar Yosaburo, a band of yakuza ruffians mutilate the face of an actor after he is caught with the gang boss’s mistress. A misty, moonlit tale from the Kabuki repertoire and a stirring classic of the most artful category of samurai films, zankoku jidai-geki ("cruel historicals").

The Double-Edged Sword: The Chambara Films of Shintaro Katsu and Raizo Ichikawa

With the centennial of director Akira Kurosawa’s birth coming up, 2010 will be the year of sword fighting films (chambara) at Japan Society!
The film series starts next month. Check out which films we’re going to feature!