JAPANESE FILM FESTIVAL

BY AMELIA GROOM

Showcasing a diverse range of Japanese cinema from recent years, The 12th Japanese Film Festival opens next month. Director Minoru Kawasaki will be in Sydney for the festival, with his two films in the program making their Australian premieres. His space-invading political satire Monster X Strikes Back features the monster Guilala from the 1960s cult panic movie The X from Outer Space, and is sure to be a hit.

Another likely favourite is Ichi (by Fumihiko Sori), which tells the story of a beautiful, blind and lonesome female samurai, and features swordplay choreographed by Hiroshi Kuze, the man behind Akira Kurosawa’s astounding sword fight sequences.

Memories of Matsuko, from the director of the brilliant and bizarre Kamikaze Girls, Tetsuya Nakashima, features his signature brightly-coloured poppy art direction and special effects in a modern fairytale/musical about a woman’s will to survive. Another colourful burst of pop-art visuals, Arch Angels (Issei Oda) is about three schoolgirls who find themselves blessed with superpowers after a bizarre chicken ramen explosion.

For something entirely different, I Just Didn’t Do It (Masayuki Suo) is an engaging courtroom drama that casts a critical eye over Japan’s legal system with its 99.9% guilty conviction rate. There’s also a taste of the best new anime to come out of Japan with The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Mamoru Hosoda), which won the 2007 Japanese Academy Award for Best Animation and tells the story of 17 year-old tomboy Makoto and her time travels.

Among many more, the festival will also feature Yojiro Takita’s Departures, a unique story about a man discovering life through death as he works caring for the deceased. Screening at the festival’s closing night, Departures won the 2008 Grand Prix des Americas and is Japan’s official entry for the 2009 Academy Awards’ foreign-language film category. For more information on the Japan Film Festival and the full program see www.jpf.org.au

The 12th Japanese Film Festival
December 2-9
Greater Union, 505 ‘ 525 George St
Tickets: $12-$14, 5-film pass $55 (excluding opening and closing films), 9273 7431