The Ozu Diaries is a Yazujiro Ozu documentary for his fans (Film review)

Scene in Tokyo three years ago -- the year of the

120th anniversary of Yazujiro Ozu's birth

 

The Ozu Diaries (U.S.A., 2025)

-  Daniel Raim, director-scriptwriter

- Part of the HKIFF's Filmmakers and Filmmaking program 

 

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, there are fewer Japanese films than usual being screened at the Hong Kong International Film Festival this year.  But as it turned out, I've viewed the same amount of documentaries about Japanese subjects at the 50th HKIFF as I have Japanese films (which also included anime work The Lost Blossom along with the live action Meets the World).  

 

First up was Noh documentary The Path of Soul.  And then there's The Ozu Diaries, American filmmaker Daniel Raim's documentary about the late, great Yasujiro Ozu -- mainly in the Japanese auteur's own words (taken from his private journals but also letters) but supplemented by archival interviews and recollections by those who knew him (notably, Kinuyo Tanaka, the star of a number of his early works, scriptwriter Kogo Noda, child actor Tomio Aoki and Ozu's granddaughter, Akiko Ozu), and reflections on Ozu's works by Kiroshi Kurosawa, Wim Wenders, Luc Dardenne and Tsai Ming Liang.

 

Of the quartet of directors interviewed for the documentary, my sense is that the main contributions of the three non-Japanese ones was to emphasize Ozu's international influence and reputation.  However, I found it interesting and amusing to hear Kiyoshi Kurosawa talk about how he personally "discovered" the films of Ozu -- a director out of fashion at the time that the younger Japanese filmmaker decided to give Ozu's films a watch, beginning with the later, color talkies (rather than chronologically, with Ozu's silent black and white works).

 

In contrast, much appreciated colour along with insights were added by the inclusion of the interviews of those who had worked with Ozu; and I really liked that their recollections are of him as a person, not just a director.  Among other things, The Ozu Diaries reveals that he was a man who loved his sake, to dance and laugh, had Western as well as traditional Japanese ways about him, and who cared very much for -- and laughed a lot in the company of -- his mother. 

 

The Ozu Diaries covers a lot of ground, and even features excerpts from his diaries along with photographs and sketches from the time he spent as a conscripted soldier in Manchuria and Singapore.  It is worth noting though that Ozu expressly forbade the publication of at least one of his diaries from the war years.  And I do get the sense that Daniel Raim erred on the side of caution in terms of what he decided to include from those periods of Ozu's life in this documentary.  

 

Consequently, those looking for dirt to smear Ozu won't find it in this documentary by someone who surely ranks as a fan of the Japanese auteur.  Which, frankly, is a situation I think the vast majority of people attracted to go watch a documentary about Ozu would prefer.  For, after all, many cinephiles are attracted to the films of Ozu for their great humanity -- which often comes with far more doses of humour than those who still have yet to discover his works (some clips from which -- including home movies! -- are included in this documentary) realise.   

 

My rating for this film: 7.5   

A Japanese anime with arresting visuals and an Italian film with a whole lot of dialogue! (Film reviews)

  

Moments before the beginning of a Hong Kong 

International Film Festival screening

 

The Last Blossom (Japan, 2025)

- Baku Kinoshita, director and co-scriptwriter (with Kazuya Konomoto)

- Voice actors: Kaoru Kobayashi, Junki Tozuka, Pierre Taki, Hikari Mitsushima, Yoshiko Miyazaki

- Part of the HKIFF's Animation Unlimited program  

 

For those people who still think that anime is just for children: check out The Last Blossom.  Okay, yes, it has a child character (Kensuke is voiced by 30-something-year old Natsuki Hanae) and even a talking flower (voiced by Pierre Taki).  But this truly is a mature dramatic work about an elderly, dying yakuza serving a life sentence looking back at his life and reflecting in particular on the phase of his life back in the 1980s when he lived with the love of his life, devoted single mother Nana. 

 

Such is the length of the time line of The Last Blossom's story that both lead character Minoru and Nana are voiced by not one but two people; with Kaoru Kobayashi supplying Minoru's younger voice, Junki Tozuka his older one, Hikari Mitsushima voicing Nana in the 1980s and Yoshiko Miyazaki in the 21st century.  Yet I must confess that I only realised this when looking at the film credits!

 

Meanwhile, the Housenka flower is voiced by only one actor despite it appearing in flashback scenes taking place in the 1980s (when it was growing in the garden of the house that Minoru, Nana (who he chose not to marry so as to ensure that she would be unsaddled with yazuka connections) and her son Kensuke lived) and as a potted plant in Minoru's prison cell that Minoru talks to in the early 21st century period.  (More than incidentally: the audience of The Last Romance is informed that young and dying humans can hear the Housenka flower's utterances.  Also, people who are seriously ill (who may recover rather than die).)  

 

Such fancifulness is the exception rather than the rule in this sombre, evenly paced film that poignantly details a long, deep love and what Minoru was willing to do for the woman he loved, and also the sacrifices that he made not only for her but also Kensuke -- who Nana had accused Minoru of not thought of as his son -- and his yakusa boss/"older brother".  But director Kinoshita also is to be credited for making sure there is beauty in what would otherwise be an overly sad work: visually, including via a hanami fireworks display one festive evening; and with music, notably via inspired use of the classic Stand By Me tune.    

 

Beautifully rendered throughout, The Last Blossom is visually impressive.  But what makes it a thoroughly as well as quietly absorbing watch is its touching story revolving around a taciturn yet very understandable main character -- filled with regret but also imbued with a stubborn belief that defeat can be turned into victory in the final stretch with just one great move -- that tugs at the heart.

 

My rating for this film: 8.0 

 

Year One (Italy, 1974) 

- Roberto Rossellini, director and co-scriptwriter (with Marcella Mariani and Luciano Scaffa)

- Starring: Luigi Vannucchi 

- Part of the HKIFF's Gala Presentation program 

 

This Roberto Rossellini film was the opening film of the inaugural Hong Kong International Film Festival in 1977.  I imagine that it was very well received since the 4K restoration of it was chosen to be screened at the 50th edition of the fest; and got a far better audience reaction than that at the screening I attended, which saw a few walkouts and also people dozing off midway through the movie!

 

Early on in this neorealist work, its main character, real life Italian politician-statesman Alcide De Gasperi -- a leader of the Christian Democracy party who served as the country's prime minister from December 1945 to August 1953, passing away just one year later -- states that he prefers dialogue to monologue.  If only that was so too for Roberto Rossellini, in whose film De Gasperi (as played by Luigi Vannucchi) talks and talks and talks... at great length, and mainly at, rather than to, other people in an efforts to preserve a fragile democracy and turn a country divided and in shambles into one that could offer more to its people!

 

Year One mainly consists of three type of scenes.  The type that features the most has De Gasperi speaking in whole paragraphs -- expounding really -- without much pause, mainly about weighty, political issues, and prompting me to idly wonder how the actor was able to do so without his mouth turning dry and his needing to drink some water!  The second type features a Greek chorus or so featuring either the chattering class idly chatting in what looks like a bar situation or fellow politicians in serious discussion over political moves by various figures. 

 

And then there's which this incredibly talky film opened with, and I wish there had been more of: scenes with far more action than dialogue, and which I honestly think conveyed so much more with images than all the words coming out of De Gasperi's mouth did.  Including a dramatic World War II bombing scene; another of the terrible aftermath of bombs hitting a village; another showing Rome under Nazi occupation; a fourth showing Rome in the ecstatic moments after its liberation by Allied forces; and a fifth of frenzied rival political campaigning in the first post-war years.

 

I am sure people who with greater knowledge of Alcide De Gasperi and Italy in general would get far more out of Year One than the likes of me.  But, look: I knew about as little about Ghost Elephants before watching Werner Herzog's film about the search of them or Lebanon before viewing Lana Daher's Do You Love Me; and yet found them far more to my liking!  Also, it's not often that I come out a movie thinking its story might have been better served as a book or even as a radio show.  Or, at the very least, that it really would have been more effective in communicating its entirely serious messages with far less talk, however impassioned, and more action!

 

My rating for the film: 5.0  

A documentary about Noh and a feature film set in Kabukicho at the Hong Kong International Film Festival (Film reviews)

  

There still are (a few) films having their world premiere

at the Hong Kong International Film Festival

 

A HKIFF photographer taking photos of The Path of Soul's

director, Cheuk Cheung (and interpreter Joanna Lee?)

 

The Path of Soul (Hong Kong-Japan, 2026) 

- Cheuk Cheung, director 

- Part of the HKIFF's Reality Bites program 

 

In the wake of Japanese films being pulled from a culinary-themed film program organized by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department this past December, some of us film fans wondered and worried as to whether there would be any Japanese offerings at this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival.  The answer, we found, is that there are some in the program but just a handful.  And there would have been even fewer if not for this Hong Kong-Japan co-production helmed by Hong Kong filmmaker Cheuk Cheung.  

 

Best known for his trilogy of Chinese opera documentaries (including My Way (Hong Kong, 2012) and Bamboo Theatre (Hong Kong, 2019)), Cheuk Cheung's latest film looks at the Japan's Noh theatre.  Multiple years in the making (with footage going all the way back to 2017), The Path of Soul focuses on Hikaru Uzawa and Hisa Uzawa, two female Noh performers who also happen to be a mother-daughter pair.     

 

Although it's mentioned in this illuminating work that 15% of Noh performers are female, director Cheuk mentioned during the post-screening Q&A session -- which, by the way was wonderful for all the questions being good and the answers detailed and really interesting! -- that many people, including Japanese folks, still don't realise that there are (professional) female Noh performers.  Something else that's pointed out in the The Path of Soul is that females were only admitted into the Noh theatre world after the Second World War.  Not long in the grand scheme of things then, in view of this Japanese theatre art having been performed since the 14th century!

 

Inevitably then, The Path of Soul spends time discussing the challenges that both the senior Hisa Uzawa and junior Hikaru Uzawa face as a consequence of their being female in a traditionally male world.  At the same time though, the viewer gets the sense that females in the world of Noh are becoming normalised by way of footage showing the Uzawas not only performing but also teaching Noh to young girls along with boys and men as well as women who all seem perfectly happy to obey their instruction.  And their spouses looking to support them in their endeavors too.

 

During the Q&A, Cheuk revealed that he knows some Japanese but also worked with an interpreter when filming, and conducting interviews that were filmed and screened as part of, this absorbing offering.  He also revealed that he and Hikaru Uzawa are good friends.  Which helps to explain how open the Uzawas were with him.  Though, interestingly, he also mentioned that he felt that the best interview he had with Hikaru Uzawa was one in which she spoke with her eyes closed during it!

 

My rating for this film: 7.0 

 

Meets the World (Japan, 2025) 

- Daigo Matsui, director 

- Starring: Hana Sugisaki, Kotona Minami, Rihito Itagaki, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Yu Aoi

- Part of the HKIFF's Fantastic Beats program 

 

This ensemble film is an adaptation of a 2022 novel by Hitomi Kanehara, a writer who has explored serious, gritty subjects like pedophilia and self harm, and whose own life trajectory has been pretty dramatic and unconventional.  (Among other things, the daughter of an academic dropped out of school when she was just 11 years old and left home at age 15!)  

 

Having not read it (this not least because it's not been translated into English), I don't know if the novel version of Meets the World is serious and gritty.  But I can tell you that the film is far less so than might be expected, considering that its characters include a woman who works in hostess club and men who work in the male equivalent, one who has been spending time in a psychiatric facility and also ones who have spent significant portions of their lives contemplating suicide. 

 

Sometimes, this can work in its favour: in that, it's novel and actually pleasant to watch unlikely friendships form between Yukari (played by Hana Sugisaki), a 27-year-old bank worker who's also never had a boyfriend (thanks probably in part to her being super-immersed in yaoi fandom), and cool bar hostess Rai (portrayed by Kotona Minami) and her (sexually) sophisticated Kabukicho-based friendship circle, which include extrovert nightclub host Asahi (essayed by Rihito Itagaki), bar owner Oshin (played by Kiyohiko Shibukawa) and the charismatically melancholy Yuki (Yu Aoi playing against type). 

 

At other times though, it can feel like director Daigo Matsui is airbrushing elements that would add depth and logic to character story arcs and general proceedings.  This particularly so in the latter part of Meets the World when certain dramatic turns seem to come from out of the blue and throw the film for a loop.  This even more so when these "developments" are left unresolved and unexplained.

 

All in all, Meets the World works best when its characters are happy.  And innocent.  With my favourite moments and scenes in this emotionally all over the place movie being those where Yukari reveals and revels in her being a super fan of a manga that very amusingly has characters who are yakiniku (grilled meat) menu items that come in the form of handsome gay men!  

 

With regards to films that feature fans of yaoi: I must say I prefer BL Metamorphosis (Japan, 2022).  And with regards to cinematic adaptations of novels: it really would not be fair to compare this to Our Little Sister (Japan, 2015) -- because pretty much every movie is not as good as that.  But yes, well, I can't help thinking that if Hirokazu Kore-eda had directed this film, it most definitely would have been a far better offering than this promising-but-ultimately-rather-disappointing one from Daigo Matsui!

 

My rating for this film: 6.0       

Unreachable has a central premise that doesn't give it a ghost of a chance to be a good movie! (Film review)

  

Advertising for the Hong Kong International Film Festival

at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre 

 

Unreachable (Japan, 2025)

- Nobuhiro Doi, director

- Starring: Suzu Hirose. Hana Sugisaki, Kaya Kiyehara 

- Part of the HKIFF's Fantastic Beats program

 

With a 1,734 seating capacity and the largest screen of all of the Hong Kong International Film Festival venues, there is a sense that the films selected to screen at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre's Grand Theatre are the pick of the fest bunch.  I've had friends tell me that they focus on getting tickets for those fest offerings that play there and, often, this is a good, safe strategy.  But, actually, I've seen my share of duds -- or, at the very least, cinematic efforts that did not work for me, even if they did for some others -- there; including, very memorably in 2009, Tsai Ming Liang's I Don't Want To Sleep Alone, which sent many audience members who didn't walk out to sleep!

 

Very sadly, despite my wishing it was otherwise, Unreachable is another cinematic fail.  To be fair, I didn't notice any walkouts nor anyone falling asleep during its Hong Kong Cultural Centre screening.  But pretty early on, this Japanese film which had its international premiere at the Hong Kong International Film Festival revealed itself to be built on a, frankly, quite unbelievably far fetched premise and require a major suspension of disbelief to work that I was not prepared to grant it.

 

Probably because they realised what a problem its plot holes would pose, the film's publicists had asked reviewers in its home market to not reveal a crucial plot detail that's actually pretty integral.  But since it gets divulged pretty early on in Unreachable, I reckon it's okay to do so -- and, in fact, think it really is the responsible thing to do should anyone be reading this review to decide whether or not they want to pay to go watch this movie! So... *spoiler alert*... okay, abandon hope all ye who read further:   

Misaki (played by Suzu Hirose), Yuka (portrayed by Hana Sugimoto) and Sakura (essayed by Kaya Kiyohara) are former children's choir members who have lived and grown up together ever since... they were murdered by a man who entered their practice room and attacked the members of the choir.  So, while trio behave like fairly regular young adults (dressing fashionably, watching movies on TV, going to work -- in an office in the case of one, and aquarium in another -- or attending classes at university), they are GHOSTS who cannot be seen by humans!  More specifically, the three friends are only visible to one another (since we don't see their adult selves actually interacting with others in the film) and maybe a tortoise!  

 

After this revelation, do I need to really say anything at all about the movie's story?  I wish it was otherwise but it would really be a tall order to care or have one's heartstrings successfully tugged after finding this out, right?  

 

This is such a great pity since I know that Suzu Hirose (who I first saw and became a fan of when watching Hirokazu Koreeda's sublime Our Little Sister) can enchant; and, based on what I saw of them in this movie, her Unreachable co-stars, Hana Sugisaki and Kaya Kiyehara, also are very watchable, and not just because they are easy on the eye too!  Furthermore, these three actresses exhibit lovely chemistry; so much so that I hope that they get chances to work together again, on a better movie with a script that makes far more sense and thus would speak to me!  

Truly, there's a sense of a massive own goal and missed opportunity to make a far better movie here.  Aesthetically and visually, Unreachable is actually quite lovely -- with beautiful set designs (particularly of the spacious house the three young... ghosts live in) and attractive choices of locations as well as a generally good looking cast and crew. (Even the killer is much less, well, unpleasant looking than one might expect.)  I just wish that they all featured in a less hare-brained movie that really could only work if one's being not only super generous and tolerant but, also, prepared to stop thinking... about its silly central conceit! 

My rating for this film: 4.0.

They Shot the Piano Player compares favourably to a number of Oscar-winning works! (Film review)

 

My life in Hong Kong: film festing, and way too ubiquitous 

police presence (See the police van on the 

other side of the road from the HKIFF advertising?) :S

They Shot the Piano Player (Spain-France-The Netherlands-Portugal-Peru-U.K., 2023)

- Fernando Treuba (who's also wrote the script) and Javier Mariscal, directors

- Voice actors: Jeff Goldblum, Tony Ramos, Abel Ayala, Roberta Wallach

- Part of the Hong Kong International Film Fetival's Animation Unlimited program 

 

The last animated movie I viewed prior to viewing this multinational offering was Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron (Japan, 2023).  I realise it's unfair to compare these two very different cinematic offerings -- but if I did so, I'd say that I actually liked They Shot the Piano Player better, and am surprised that it didn't even get nominated for the Animated Feature Film Oscar that the Studio Ghibli production won this year.

 

Speaking of Oscar nominated animated works: Persepolis (France-U.S., 2007) is one of three works I got to thinking of when viewing They Shot the Piano Player; with the other two being the non-animated Academy Award winners Searching for Sugar Man (2012) and Missing (1982).  For like Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi's work about a girl growing up in Islamic Revolution-era Iran, this offering from Fernando Teruba and Javier Mariscal is an animated docudrama -- in the latter case, about an American journalist trying to figure out what happened to a musical hero who appeared to have vanished into thin air, a la Searching the Sugar Man's Sixto Rodriguez, in a foreign, South American country similar to the fictional one that's the setting for Costa-Gavras' Missing.

 

It's 2010 and New York music journalist Jeff Harris (voiced by Jeff Goldblum) is planning on writing a book about the Brazilian bossa nova craze of the 1960s.  Early on in his research, he comes across a recording featuring the piano playing of Francisco Tenório Júnior and determines to learn more about this Brazilian musical talent.  

 

On research trips to Brazil, Jeff interviews illustrious Brazilian bossa nova musicians like Gilberto Gil, João Donato and Chico Buarque (voicing themselves in the movie) about their music, and memories of Tenório Júnior.  At some point, he changes the subject of his planned book to the piano player whose music, life and mysterious disappearance back in 1976 he has become well nigh obsessed with.  And eventually, he is able to piece together the tragic story of a much beloved musician and man who went missing while on tour in then dictator-ruled Argentina -- leaving behind a wife, children, mistress and many friends mourning his disappearance from their lives.

 

At one level, They Shot the Piano Player is a enthralling dramatic investigation into what happened to a piano player who look to have unwittingly got involved in South American politics, to his great detriment.  At another, it's a chilling indictment of totalitarian regimes and their state terrorism -- which, in South America, led, among other tragedies, to the "disappearance" tens of thousands of people, many, if not all, of them innocents.  At the same time, it's also a beautifully hand-drawn work that's a thoroughly affecting celebration of bossa nova, and the life of Tenório Júnior.

 

It is very much to its makers' credit that they attempted to do so much, and succeeded in doing so.  A feast for the eyes and ears, this work -- which also happens to be tri-lingual (English, Portuguese and Spanish) -- is also heart-breaking and heart-warming at different parts of its story -- which, it is worth emphasizing, is, at heart, non-fiction. (The fictional bit comes from the man who became obsessed with the story of Tenório Júnior -- so much so that he kept at it for some two decades! -- being not Jeff Harris but the film's co-director and scriptwriter, Fernando Trueba -- and instead of writing a book about the Brazilian musician, he made They Shot the Piano Player!)

My rating for this film: 9.0

Masked Hearts won me over by being quirkily revelatory (Film review)

  

 I viewed four of this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival

offerings at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre :) 

 

Masked Hearts (Japan, 2023)

- Yuya Ishii, director and writer

- Starring: Mayu Matsuoka, Masataka Kubota, Koichi Sato 

- Part of the Hong Kong International Film Festival's Fantastic Beats program 

The second Japanese film I viewed at this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival differs in so many ways from the first. For starters, whereas Takeshi Kitano's Kubi is set in the past, focuses on middle-aged (or even older) men (specifically warring, plotting samurai lords) and has a lot of extreme violence, Yuya Ishii's Masked Hearts is set in the present day, has a young adult female protagonist and doesn't boast much violence (especially on screen!).  

 

Something else I got to thinking when viewing this comedy-drama -- that began as the story of a young female filmmaker in Tokyo confronted with sexism and ageism but then switches to becoming a work about her and her dysfunctional family after she decides to return home to make a movie with her father and two brothers -- is that, whereas Kubi is the sort of Japanese film that would get screened at Asian film festivals in the West, Masked Hearts isn't.  But/and is the kind of movie that Hong Kong audiences, both at film fests and in cineplexes, eat up.      

Having just viewed Norris Wong's The Lyricist Wannabe (Hong Kong-Taiwan, 2024), I saw parallels early on between the young Hong Kong woman aspiring to break into the music industry and Masked Hearts' Hanako (played by Mayu Matsuoka).  Specifically, both of the films' protagonists are romantics doggedly pursuing their dreams -- that, if they were Hollywood movies, would have a predictable trajectory.  But since they aren't, their narratives actually end up having quirky elements and interesting twists.

 

Among those quirky elements is the romantic interest added to Masked Hearts by way of the kind-hearted Masao (essayed by Masataka Kubota) -- who works in a slaughter house, and has a fondness for the ridiculously small "AbeMasks" handed out to Japanese households early on in the pandemic -- entering Hanako's life. More supportive than conventionally romantic, he goes with Hanako when she returns to the family home where her father, Osamu (portrayed by Koichi Sato), now lives alone.

 

A man of few words, Osamu turns out to be a man of many secrets.  And someone who loves his children -- elder businessman son Seiichi (played by Sosuke Ikematsu) and younger Catholic clergyman son Yuji (Ryuya Wakaba) as well as Hanako -- very much.  Suffice to say that all this gets revealed in the final third section of this ultimately pretty satisfying movie.  

 

Granted that it's not perfect and doesn't reach the heights of The Great Passage, the movie that Yuya Ishii's most well known for.  But the fact of the matter is that this (re)viewer still did come out of the fest screening of Masked Hearts -- held over at the Hong Kong Culture Centre's magnificent +1,700 capacity Grand Theatre -- with a smile and positive feeling that, even in a world where tragedy does occur, there still is much that's good in it, including people who may outwardly seem flawed but actually turn out to have quite a bit (of love and care) to give. :)

 

My rating for this film: 7.0.                             

Takeshi Kitano's Kubi entertained as well as shocked its Hong Kong International Film Festival audience! (Film review)

  

One day of a chart of 2024 Hong Kong International 

Film Festival screenings that includes information about

which were sold out and which not

 

Kubi (Japan, 2023)

- Takeshi Kitano (aka Beat Takeshi), director and scriptwriter

- Starring: Takeshi Kitano,Hidetoshi Nishijima, Ryo Kase, Tadanobu Asano, etc.

- Part of the Hong Kong International Film Festival's The Masters program

 

Back in 2017, I saw online chat and advertising for a Japanese epic centering on the decisive Battle of Sekigahara, which took place in 1600 and pitted the forces of Tokugawa Ieyasu against a coalition of Toyotomi loyalist clans, and eagerly awaited its arrival in Hong Kong cinemas (or, at least, film fests).  However, to date, Sekigahara does not appear to have been screened here -- or even gone straight to video.  The sense I got was that its subject was considered too Japan-specific for many overseas markets, including Hong Kong (although it did screen at a few North American film fests, including Toronto and Hawaii), so few cineastes outside of the Land of the Rising Sun would be interested in checking it out; this even though its cast included the likes of Koji Yakusho.

 

Happily this fate has not befallen another movie chronicling another major Japanese historical event -- this one the 1582 Honno-ji Incident.  At the very least, Kubi (whose title translates into English as "Heads"; presumably because so many of them are seen getting cut off in the film!) has made it to Hong Kong by way of screenings at this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival; thanks, I have a feeling, to its boasting a star studded cast, featuring art house and cult movie favourites, and headed by its director-scriptwriter, Takeshi Kitano.

 

The character of the future shogun of Japan also appears in Kubi but Tokugawa Ieyasu's just a supporting character -- and one there for comic relief at that! -- in the film that is said to have been some three decades in the making.  Rather, far more attention is given to the characters of: the then dominant warlord, Nobunaga Oda (played by Ryu Kase); the warlord nicknamed "the monkey" (because he was said to physically resemble one!) (portrayed by Takeshi Kitano), one of whose (more) capable lieutanants is played by Tadanobu Asano; and another high-ranking vassal, Mitsuhide Akechi (essayed by Hidetoshi Nishijima), who Nobunaga -- who had homosexual tendencies -- physically coveted.     

Before anything else: yes, homosexuality features pretty prominently in the film. And it's a historical fact that it was fairly common among samurai.  But even though there has been at least one film about it (Gohatto), it seemed that a significant proportion of the audience at the screening I attended were unprepared for it.  And it didn't help that the first homosexual scene in Kubi involved violence and seemed to be at least partially played for laughs.  (Consequently, cue laughter -- often uneasy in terms of "Should I be laughing?" as opposed to purely homophobic, but uncomfortable and rather strange to hear all the same -- for a number of other homosexual scenes in the film; including ones that I personally thought were not meant to be humorous!) 

 

If Takeshi Kitano being its director didn't already get you anticipating it, Kubi is by no means an ordinary, run-of-the-mill samurai epic.  Rather, it has copious amounts of startling violence, satire and what traditionalists might deem to be disrespect of samurai ways and actual historical personalities -- with some of the biggest names in Japanese history depicted acting outrageously and even actually dishonorably as they scheme against one another in their bids to gain power or, sometimes, just remain alive!

 

Your mileage might vary but I found Kubi to be enthralling and entertaining.  And even while there definitely were scenes that made me wince and gasp in shock, there also ones that made me laugh (as intended, I think!) and still others that I enjoyed for the sheer cinematic nature of it all.  At the very least, there most definitely is a sense that a big budget was assembled and lavished on this cinematic work; and used in ways that are masterful -- as one might expect from Takeshi Kitano who, by the way, had not planned to appear in the movie and only did so after "the film’s producers told him it would be harder to market overseas if he didn’t also appear"!

               

My rating for this film: 8.5

Enter the new dragon year!

 

"Dragon" installation in a Hong Kong public park! :D

 

Kong hei fatt choi!  It's now the third day of the new Year of the Dragon and I feel a need to mark the occasion with a blog post as well as assure people who wondered if I was alive that I indeed still am so.  Also, for the time being, I don't have plans to entirely stop blogging... but I might take a break for a bit.  

 

Somehow, I've just not felt the urge to blog as much as previously; probably because there's so little sense here that there actually are people reading what I've written -- unlike, say, over on Twitter (and no, I refuse to call it X still!).   For now, let's play it by ear and see how it goes, shall we? 

At the very least, I do still want to write reviews of Hong Kong films I see here.  And it would be nice to finish chronicling my most recent (October 2023!) Japan trip here, I think; since I know of at least one person who seems interested in checking out those posts!

Debutant director Sasha Chuk tells a very personal story indeed via Fly Me to the Moon (Film review)

  

The principal cast members and producer Stanley Kwan 

at a post-screening photo session and Q&A 

 

Fly Me To the Moon (Hong Kong, 2023)

- Sasha Chuk, director-scriptwriter

- Starring: Sasha Chuk, Wu Kang-ren, Chloe Hui, Yoyo Tse, Natalie Hsu, Angela Yuen

There is an achingly personal feel to this drama by first time feature film director Sasha Chuk who also wrote the screenplay for this cinematic adaptation of her (semi?) autobiographical novel and portrays the female protagonist as an adult.  Spanning two decades, Fly Me to the Moon begins its story in 1997 when the young Yuen (played by child actress Chloe Hui) and her mother arrive in Hong Kong to reunite with her father (portrayed throughout the film by Wu Kang-ren), who illegally immigrated to the then British Crown Colony, while her younger sister, Kuet, stayed behind in Hunan.

 

Able to only speak Hunanese, Yuen doesn't have an easy time at school and in other aspects of life.  And although her father has learnt to speak Cantonese and her mother soon gets a job as a waitress in a dim sum restaurant, life is not easy either for the adults in the family; as can be seen in the family living in a small sub-divided apartment, and her father turning to drugs for solace and ending up getting arrested and convicted shortly after the arrival -- to Yuen's delight -- of Kuet, who Yuen clearly adores.

 

Fast forward to 2007, and the girls are now at secondary school (with Yuen being played by Yoyo Tse) and successfully passing as native Cantonese-speaking Hongkongers; with Kuet (played as a teenager by Natalie Hsu) also being fluent in English and doing well at an elite school.  The sense one gets when watching them though is that they have consciously hidden not only the truth about their having come from Hunan from their schoolmates but, also, about their mother now working in a massage parlour and their father being a convict -- as all of these details would get them to be looked down upon, even ostracised, by even those who were supposed to be their friends.

 

If truth be told, the story of Mainland Chinese people moving to Hong Kong and finding life very hard in this city is one that's been told plenty of times before.  Ditto the notion that childhood experiences, including traumatising ones involving the father, stay with one into adulthood and affect the decisions one makes later in life -- with another recent Hong Kong film, Time Still Turns the Pages, showing that so very movingly and well.  (More than by the way, I do suspect that I would have been far more emotionally affected by Fly Me To the Moon if I hadn't viewed Nick Cheuk's standout offering only a few weeks ago.)  

 

Still, Fly Me to the Moon does undeniably impress at a technical level, with standouts in this regard including: Chan Hok Lun and Ho Yuk Fai's cinematography, whose images could often tell what a thousand words migh not; William Chang Suk-ping's production design which produced interiors that came across as authentic, be they cramped Hong Kong underclass dwellings, a Hunanese grandmother's rustic room or comfortable Tokyo hotel accomodation; and the acting talent on show, some of whom had to act in multiple languages on account of the film having Hunanese, Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese dialogue!

 

The last includes Sasha Chuk -- who, in addition to her behind the camera roles, also appears in front of the camera as the adult Yuen in the scenes set in 2017.  There can be no denying that she is the heart and soul of Fly Me to the Moon -- and that she has laid bare her story as much as Yuen sought to hide her true identity, and often suppress her feelings, for much of her life.  As she told the audience at the film's world premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival back in October, "I’m from Hunan and I moved to Hong Kong when I was a child. I spent all my life being treated as an outsider, including the time when I went to university overseas. So wherever I am, I am an outsider. And I really wanted to depict my experience."  And this she has done so, in spades.

My rating for the film: 7.0

The 500 (actually "just" 499 now!) Rakans of Morioka's Ho-onji (Photo-essay)

Did you know that Morioka's on the New York Times' "52 Places To Go in 2023" list? I only learnt about it after making my hotel bookings for my October 2023 Japan trip -- and was actually a little horrified to hear this as I feared that this would mean that the prefectural capital of Iwate would be swarming with tourists.  But the only time I saw noticeably non-Japanese tourists in the city was over in the ruined castle grounds on my first day in Morioka -- a very loud Thai group, for the record -- and a couple of forlorn looking Americans looking for a place to shelter from the rain, like me, on my first evening in the city (I guess it's a city but it feels more like a small town by Hong Kong standards).  

 

And when I went over to that which I think is the most impressive of Morioka's attractions/sights, my experience was definitely accentuated by my being the only visitor to it!  I guess it "helps" that the 500 Rakans (Buddha's disciples) of Ho-onji aren't mentioned in the Morioka section of many Japan guide books. (One of the books I had listed just two actual sites in Morioka to check out that were not shops or restaurants!) But trust me when they are quite the sight -- and what an experience to be in a (large) room with them and other wooden carvings/sculptures and no one else! 

 

At the risk of blasphemy, I must say that it can make for quite an eerie experience -- but also a very cool one. And if one is able to resist running out screaming with fear after a few seconds and look closely at the Rakans (or, rather, the carvings of them), it really is very impressive how each and every one of them is distinct in look and, also, perceived personality! ;b

 

Not a Rakan (or Arhat) but Puppet Ponyo pointing at the

awesome gate of Ho-onji that gave me a clue that

this was a temple with some impressive sights within ;b 

 

Seriously, the carvings on the gate (including of this dragon

and another mythical creature) were pretty awesome!

 

Assorted statuary line the corridor between the main building

of the temple and that which is home to the  500 Rakans carved

between 1731 and 1735 in Kyoto by nine Buddhist masters

 

It takes the eye a few seconds to get used to the darkness

inside the hall of the 500 Rakans (and here's letting you

know that it also is eerily quiet in there!)

 

As your eye adjusts though, you'll notice the Rakans -- 

and how each and everyone of the 499 (one's not survived 

the centuries!) really does look distinct!

 

Look closely, and you'll see that the Rakans don't all have the

same clothing style; and that some have beards while others

are beardless, and some are bald but others are not, etc.!

 

They're also not also posed the same way -- and there are

a few that look like they're about to jump off the shelves! :D

 

All in all, I'm pretty proud of myself for staying as long as I

did in that hall -- and, in fact, making two complete circuits

of it to check out the Rakans as carefully as I did... before leaving,

and breathing a sigh of relief once I got outdoors into the sunlight! ;b

Eating jajamen and gyutan in Morioka!

  

What I ate at my first meal in Morioka

 

What I had for my final meal in Morioka

 

In my previous blog entry, I wrote about having had Akita jidori in Kakunodate and possibly also Morioka.  While in the capital city of Iwate Prefecture, I also had a dish that's associated with it -- and food associated with the capital city of the neighboring prefecture of Miyagi!    

 

Here's the thing: Morioka is famed for three very different noodle dishes -- but since eating one of them (wanko soba) seems more like a challenge than pleasure and another (reimen) sounds too much like Korean naengmyeong (AKA naengmyun), which I've eaten loads of (in South Korea and elsewhere), I elected to pass up on eating those two noodle dishes while in Morioka.  Instead, the one specialty noodle dish I decided I wanted to try while there was jajamen: which may sound like another Korean noodle dish, jajangmyeon, -- that itself is considered to be a Chinese dish by Koreans! -- but actually is quite different from it.

 

Among other things, whereas jajangmyeon consists of noodles in black bean sauce (and chunks of beef and radish or potato), jajamen is topped with niku-miso and thin slices of cucumber and negi (Japanese leek), and served at the place I ate it at with a slice of pickled radish and some minced ginger.  And then there's the fact that jajamen is a two-phase dish!  For after you've eaten the bulk of what you're first presented with, you give the bowl back to a staffer at the eatery that you have the dish at (which tend to be specialist eateries for jajamen!); whereupon they'll fill your bowl up with hot water, you crack a raw egg into it and turn the concoction into something akin to egg drop soup that you then are expected to drain for the complete jajamen experience!  

 

While a modest dish (that's meatless), I enjoyed it quite a bit.  And, in all honesty, if I lived in Morioka, I could see myself having it monthly, if not more often.  But here's the thing: I think that it's one of those regional dishes (like Funabashi's sauce ramen, which I'd never have heard of if not for Funassyi!) that's next to impossible to find outside its home region/city/town!  Which, really, is too bad!

 

Still, I also have to admit that in the (relatively) short time that I was in Morioka, I didn't eat it again.  Because, well, there were other things I wanted to eat -- including the regional specialty of Sendai: gyutan (grilled ox tongue); which, funnily enough, I didn't have when I visited that city back in 2019 (because, then, I fixated more on the area's seafood)!

To be fair, I didn't expressly seek out gyutan while in Morioka either.  But while scouting out places to eat for my final meal in the city, I passed a place serving up gyutan that had such great smells wafting out of it that I decided that was what I wanted to eat there and then!

And so hungry was I that I went for a deluxe option that consisted of gyutan served on a hot plate and covered in a sauce that appeared to be a blend of tomatoes and garlic and was very yummy indeed; a (smaller) dish of conventionally grilled ox tongue; a bowl of mugi gohan (barley rice); and a bowl of clear oxtail soup.  Happily, I was able to do it all justice and polish off the lot!  Oh, and all this was nicely washed down with a bottle of nicely crisp and refreshing Kawatabi Cold IPA, produced by the Kibou no Oka brewery in Iwanuma, over in the neighboring prefecture of Miyagi! :)

Eating jidori in both Kakunodate and Morioka!

  

Oyakodon lunch set in Kakunodate

 

Bonjiri -- my favorite yakitori cut -- in Morioka

 

A friend and I were talking about dining strategies while in Japan.  He and his wife appear to be fans of Tabelog and target restaurants that have high scores on that crowd-sourced restaurant rating site.  I told him that I tend to be far more casual in how I decide where to eat while I'm in the Land of the Rising Sun; having few "must eat at" restaurants on my list and, instead, going for "want to eat" items based on what I've learnt that a region, city/town or prefecture is famous for.

 

In the past, I've done such as searched out specialist crab restaurants in Hokkaido, okonomiyaki in Hiroshima and sauce ramen in Funabashi.  And I targeted trying Hinai Jidori in the short time (i.e., less than a day) that I'd be spending in Akita Prefecture.

 

On a visit to Nagoya back in 2018, I had been introduced to jidori -- the chicken equivalent of craft beer (jibiru) vis a vis regular beer or craft ,micro-brew sake (jisake) vis a vis industrial-scale brewed sake.  And, truly, it was a relevation how much tastier and juicier the Cochin chicken I had there was than, well pretty much any other chicken I previously had in my life!  Like, say, Jeju black pig vis a vis normal pork.  Or, well, prime wagyu (like the Hida-gyu I had in Takayama) to regular beef!  

 

So when searching for a place to have lunch soon after I got to Kakunodate from Tazawako, despite the Heavens having opened shortly after I arrived in that historic Akita Prefecture town, I made sure to keep an eye out for places that served Hinai Jidori.  And after having found one, I actually went ahead and waited in line for about half an hour (much of it outdoors in the rain; albeit under an umbrella) for the privilege of eating an oyakodon (mother and child -- i.e., chicken and egg!) lunch set at a popular eatery where I was seated in the more traditional section where one was seated at a low table set on tatami flooring!

 

If truth be told, that seating arrangement was less comfortable than I'd like.  But it sure was nice to get out of the rain for a bit!  Also, the food was delicious -- though I must admit that I'm not sure if it was because I was ravenous at that point or because Hinai Jidori really is so much yummier than regular chicken!  At the same time though, the portions were quite a bit more generous than I expected or was used to -- and I must admit to struggling towards the end to finish it all; though, for the record, yes, I was indeed able to do that, albeit with a significant amount of effort!

 

And although I didn't plan for it to be so, it turned out that my dinner back in Morioka that evening also featured some more jidori: this time, in the form of yakitori sticks of chicken skin, liver and -- my favorite yakitori order, which is easily found in Japan but less so in Hong Kong -- bonjiri (Pope's Nose, aka chicken tail, aka chicken butt!)!  I must admit though that I'm unsure if the jidori in question was Iwate jidori or Akita's.  (It didn't help that the restaurant in question didn't have an English menu!)  Still, I do know though that it tasted good -- and hit the spot before I headed back to the hotel and hit the metaphorical hay after one of the earliest starts to the day I've had in a while! ;b