Japanese Film Festival 2014
Can you imagine a Japanese version of My Fair Lady? Masayuki Suo’s Lady Maiko is a musical loosely based on the Audrey Hepburn classic and is the opening film of this year’s Japanese Film Festival.
It’s one of over 50 titles featuring and, for the first time, 19 of these will be screening in Parramatta.
Very contemporary issues are explored. Growing homelessness in Tokyo is the theme of Tokyo Refugees. When the social media of this IT-obsessed world runs off the rails in The Snow White Murder Case, the who-dunnit gets a new scenario.
Next, be prepared to be scared out of your wits by what Japanese audiences labelled the most frightening of all horror series: JU-ON – The Beginning of the End.
And there has to be anime, in this case Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha 2 is about the subject’s journey to enlightenment and a follow-on to the prequel Buddha, shown in JFF 2011.
The contrasts continue to the last with what is, eventually, a feel-good film: The Vancouver Asahi. It’s based on the true story of pre-WWII Japanese migrants in Canada who overcome racial prejudice by the way they play baseball. (MMu)
November 13-23, Event Cinemas, George St and Parramatta, Adult $15-18, 5-Film Pass $75, japanesefilmfestival.net
Written by Michael Muir
