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JAPAN CUTS: HARUNEKO

Soro Hakimoto’s Haruneko takes viewers into the strange and alluring dark night of the soul

FESTIVAL OF NEW JAPANESE FILM: HARUNEKO (SPRING CAT) (はるねこ) (Soro Hakimoto, 2016)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Sunday, July 16, 8:45
Festival runs July 13-23
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
www.haruneko-movie.com

Writer, director, editor, and composer Soro Hakimoto’s cinematic debut, Haruneko, opens with a swirling, unidentifiable image and gently haunting music featuring portentous voices that fade away as a misty forest emerges and an old white car appears, complete with a black cat. “Let’s sing,” the young driver (Keisuke Yamamoto) mumbles to himself as an old man (Yohta Kawase) looks steadily in front of him in the backseat. It’s an alluring beginning to a film that includes so many classic Japanese movie tropes: ghosts, ominous felines, yakuza, a mysterious forest, sudden bursts of singing, poorly translated subtitles, and a perplexing plot. Amid a lush green landscape is a lone cabin, where people come to die. It is operated by the Manager (Yamamoto) with the help of a young boy named Haru (Ryuto Iwata); also there are the boy’s piano-playing sister (Minako Akatsuka), their grandmother (Lily), and an old man (Min Tanaka) who sits in a rocking chair on the porch. In the middle of the forest is a dark area where the Manager, dressed in a striking white tuxedo, hosts a magic lantern show, spouting poetry and breaking out into uplifting J-pop as slides of a person’s life are projected onto a screen. “Petals are dancing in the wind to celebrate our meeting and departing,” the Manager says. “What is what you see to you? What is not what you don’t see to you?” Later the café is visited by a distraught and crazed yakuza on the run (Yo Takahashi) and a longhaired man (Llon Kawai) with a selfie stick who has committed a horrific atrocity, both seeking, in their own ways, to end their misery. Through it all, the residents of the café remain calm and understanding as their visitors face their destiny.

Produced by Shinji Aoyama (Eureka, Tokyo Park) and Takenori Sento (Ringu, H Story), the film recalls Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s elegiac Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, an exquisite tale of death and rebirth. Hokimoto made Haruneko shortly after the loss of his father, a stage designer, and there are certainly elements that evoke a man’s trying to come to terms with just what death is. Not all of it makes sense — wait till you see the band made up of adults in white cat masks — but Hokimoto is not overly concerned with that, instead concentrating on stunning visuals courtesy of documentary cinematographer Yoi Suzuki and glorious musical numbers. There are also some very funny moments alongside all the weirdness. “Reveal everything. Admit everything. Show everything. Get out everything. Hide nothing,” the Manager sings as men and women in black dance wildly and the forest comes alive with electrifying energy. Haruneko is making its North American premiere July 16 at 8:45 in the Experimental Spotlight section of Japan Society’s Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Cinema, which continues through July 23 with such other works as Konrad Aderer’s Resistance at Tule Lake, Akira Nagai’s Teiichi: Battle of Supreme High, Sion Sono’s Anti-Porno, and Jean-Gabriel Périot’s Summer Lights.

JAPAN CUTS: HENGYORO

Go Takamine is back with his first film in nearly twenty years, the surreal and magical Hengyoro

FESTIVAL OF NEW JAPANESE FILM: HENGYORO (QUEER FISH LANE) (変魚路) (Go Takamine, 2017)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Saturday, July 15, 2:30
Festival runs July 13-23
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

“Has my head been emptied? No matter how I cut this film, the blood of Okinawa spews forth,” iconoclastic Japanese auteur Go Takamine says about Hengyoro, his first film since 1989’s Untamagiru. The Okinawan-born writer and director has been making shorts, features, and documentaries about his home island since 1974, including Okinawan Dream Show, Okinawan Chirudai, and 1985’s extraordinary Paradise View. Hengyoro, which is having its international premiere July 15 as part of Japan Society’s annual Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Cinema, is set in Patai Village (Ifepataijyo) on Okinawa, where despondent souls who have survived death reside. Aging actors Tarugani (Taira Susumu) and Papajo (Kitamura Saburou) are putting on the “chain plays” Tomaiaka and Kurukanizashi, which combine film and theater. Meanwhile, Kame is making a plaster cast of a partially nude woman, hard rocker Missiler dances madly, serenading folksinger Ryukyu Lewd Bug leads a pack of unusual animals, and shop owner Shimabukuro Seitoku sends his trio of ear-cutting wives, the Bibiju, after Tarugani and Papajo. There is also an underwater plastic surgery lab, dragonfly spy planes, illegal aphrodisiacs, cranial ant insertion, a magical red cord and matching bag, and explosions that go “Pshoo.”

Along the way, Go references Bruce Conner, Bill Morrison, Ingmar Bergman, and Alejandro Jodorowsky, so don’t expect to make much sense of the story. Gorgeously photographed by Takagi Shunichi and Hirata Mamoru, showing off the landscape as well as Sakata Kiyoko’s dazzling costumes, the film roams from black-and-white to color, from regular speed to slow motion, incorporating multiple genres and narrators amid changing film stocks as Go and editor Shun’ichi Takagi imaginatively mix in decomposing celluloid and archival footage Go shot years ago; he also populates the film with superimposed miniature people on brain coral and ghostly faces in trees, all set to a wildly diverse soundtrack by Nobuyuki Kikuchi. So what’s it all about? Is it a surreal commentary on WWII and the dropping of the atomic bombs? A sly take on the discrimination Okinawans have encountered from Japan? An exploration of storytelling itself? Does it even matter? Hengyoro, whose English title is Queer Fish Lane, is a visual and aural treat, an artistic feast that is as strange and confounding as it is entertaining and endearing. “We’ll follow wherever our path leads,” Papajo tells Tarugani; we’ll follow wherever Go’s path takes us. Hengyoro is screening July 15 at 2:30 in the Experimental Spotlight section of Japan Cuts; the festival runs July 13-23 with such other works as Yuki Tanada’s My Dad and Mr. Ito, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Daguerrotype, Sion Sono’s Anti-Porno, and the North American premiere of the restoration of Seijun Suzuki’s 1980 Zigeunerweisen.

BEYOND GODZILLA: ALTERNATIVE FUTURES & FANTASIES IN JAPANESE CINEMA

Gamera marches into Japan Society for conclusion of “Beyond Godzilla” film series

GLOBUS FILM SERIES
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Saturday, April 8, $13, 4:00 & 7:00
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Japan Society’s three-weekend, seven-film “Beyond Godzilla: Alternative Futures & Fantasies in Japanese Cinema” Globus Film Series concludes on Saturday, April 8, with two more tokusatsu kaiju eiga (special-effects-heavy monster movies) that are not about that fire-breathing superstar of postwar madness. At 4:00, Kihachi Okamoto (Sword of Doom, Japan’s Longest Day) goes sci-fi with 1978’s socially conscious Blue Christmas, as UFOs land on earth and have an unusual plan. Then, at 7:00, Gamera, who first trashed cities in 1965, returns in the third film in Shusuke Kaneko’s 1990s reboot, Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris, involving a cool cat and special effects by Shinji Higuchi (Shin Godzilla). “Ever since Ishiro Honda’s 1954 Godzilla first rampaged across screens around the world, its title monster has become both Japan’s best-known pop culture export and a universal symbol of mass destruction. But Godzilla has also cast a long, scaly shadow obscuring Japan’s other live-action contributions to the sci-fi/fantasy genre,” guest curator Mark Schilling says in a program note in which he also explains, “I curated a section of classic sci-fi and fantasy films sourced from Toho and elsewhere to show that the Japanese cinematic imagination extended beyond Godzilla in ways entertainingly rich and strange.” The series previously screened such cult classics as The H-Man, Invisible Man, and Latitude Zero (with Joseph Cotten!). On April 28, “Godzilla Legend — Music of Akira Ifukube” will feature Hikashu and guest musicians such as Charan-Po-Rantan performing works by Akira Ifukube, who composed scores for tons of films, including Godzilla, The Burmese Harp, Rodan, 13 Assassins, Frankenstein Conquers the World, King Kong Escapes, and Zatoichi the Fugitive, which Japan Society is showing April 7 in its Monthly Classics series.

NIHON BUYO DANCE

Geimaruza will perform nihon buyo dance at Japan Society this weekend (photo courtesy of the artists)

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
March 3-4, intro lecture & demonstration, $12 (free for same-night ticket holders), 6:30
March 3-4, performances, $55, 8:00
Saturday, March 4, workshop, $75, 2:00
Sunday, March 5, family program, $28, 4:00
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
www.geimaruza.com

Geimaruza, a Japanese troupe consisting of alumni from Tokyo University of the Arts, will be at Japan Society this weekend with “Nihon Buyo Dance,” offering a mélange of kabuki and folk-dance performances, workshops, and a family-friendly event, melding the contemporary with the traditional. On March 3 and 4 at 8:00, six dancers and eight musicians (playing shamisen, fue, taiko, otsuzumi, and kotsuzumi) will perform Ayatsuri Sanbaso (Puppet Sanbaso), Oshukubai (The Nightingale in the Plum Tree), Shunkashuto (Four Seasons), and the musical numbers “Nagare,” “Toki,” and “Shishi.” featuring three drummers and fue). Each show will be preceded at 6:30 ($12, free for ticket holders) by the lecture-demonstration “A Comprehensive Intro/Demo to Nihon Buyo with Geimaruza.” On Saturday at 2:00 ($75), the workshop “Nihon Buyo Dance & Music with Geimaruza” will teach participants various movements, set to live music. The weekend comes to a close on Sunday at 4:00 ($28) with “Nihon Buyo Dance for Kids & Families,” featuring an introduction to kabuki-based dance and performances of Ayatsuri Sanbaso (Puppet Sanbaso) and Oshukubai (The Nightingale in the Plum Tree).

GIRL X

HANCHU-YUEI will perform GIRL X at Japan Society February 16-18 (photo © Hideto Maezawa)

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
February 16-18, $30, 7:30
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
www.hanchuyuei.com

In March 2016, Japan Society presented an English-language reading of Suguru Yamamoto’s Girl X (Yojo X). Now the fully staged, original Japanese version will be making its North American premiere at Japan Society, with three performances February 16-18 at 7:30. Written and directed by Yamamoto and performed by his theater collective HANCHU-YUEI, the black comedy takes place in Shinjuku in 2013, focusing on the after-effects of the March 11, 2011, earthquake. Kazuki Ohashi and Sachiro Nomoto play all the parts, primarily a young man with a hammer, his ex-girlfriend, and her younger brother, interacting with projections on a screen, casting giant shadows amid changing colors and text from other family members as Yamamoto (I Can’t Die without Being Born) explores communication between people and technology in contemporary society. The opening-night presentation will be followed by a reception with members of the cast and crew.

CRUEL BEAUTY: A ROMANTIC WEEKEND WITH MEIKO KAJI — LADY SNOWBLOOD: LOVE SONG OF VENGEANCE

Meiko Kaji reprises her role as an avenging angel-demon in LADY SNOWBLOOD: LOVE SONG WITH VENGEANCE

LADY SNOWBLOOD: LOVE SONG OF VENGEANCE (修羅雪姫怨み恋歌) (SHURAYUKIHIME URAMI RENKA) (Toshiya Fujita, 1974)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Saturday, February 11, 4:30
Series runs February 10-12
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Japan Society prepares for Valentine’s Day with the awesome weekend series “Cruel Beauty: A Romantic Weekend with Meiko Kaji,” paying tribute to the legendary genre actress and pop singer, who will turn seventy in March, by screening five of her films February 10-12. “Japanese movie stars don’t get much more iconic than actress Meiko Kaji,” guest curator Marc Walkow writes in a program note. “She remains an inimitable presence in Japanese cinema, and an icon who continues to inspire filmmakers and audiences around the world.” The series gets under way Friday night with the international premiere of Kinji Fukasaku’s 1975 three-part yakuza film New Battle without Honor and Humanity: The Boss’s Head and also includes Teruo Ishii’s Blind Woman’s Curse, Shunya Ito’s Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable, and Yasuharu Hasebe’s Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter, works that show off Kaji’s skills in contemporary and historical action movies. One of her most intense roles is Lady Snowblood, based on the manga by Kazuo Koike (Lone Wolf and Cub) and illustrator Kazuo Kamimura. Japan Society is screening the second film in the duology, 1974’s Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance, on February 11 at 4:30. In the first film, set during the Meiji Period of the late nineteenth century, Yuki Kashima is born in prison, her dying mother declaring her to be an asura demon who will avenge the murder of her father and brother and the mother’s rape. The cinematography pays tribute to its manga roots, with impressively composed shots that one can almost see on the page, the pacing between wide-angle and closeup echoing the rhythm of panels and frames. In the second film, Yuki, known as Lady Snowblood, has become a coldhearted master assassin who kills virtually without emotion. Hired by Seishiro Kikui (Shin Kishida) to recover an important document, she poses as a maid to infiltrate the home of anarchist Ransui Tokunaga (Juzo Itami) but soon finds herself in the middle of a conspiracy and coverup that could bring down the corrupt government following the Russo-Japanese War. Allying herself with Ransui’s hot brother, Shusuke (Yoshio Harada), she wields her sword with skillful abandon, leaving an ever-growing pile of bodies in her wake.

The sequel, a kind of Eastern spaghetti Western, is not nearly as focused as the original, with inexplicable plot twists (especially the inconsistent use of guns), but the violence is extreme and beautiful; blood doesn’t just gusht out of Yuki’s victims but sizzles on the soundtrack. In the opening scene, Lady Snowblood is ambushed at a cemetery as she mourns her mentor; after dispatching everyone, she coolly drinks from the pond where one dead man’s blood has spilled, the taste of vengeance sweet indeed. The film features brutal torture and a propensity for stabbing eyes, as if pounding into our heads that justice is blind. The villains also are spreading the plague, as various people’s faces and bodies become grotesque and deteriorate, referencing the effects of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Pay close attention to the final blood splatter.) Although not nearly as good as its predecessor, Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance is still a must-see, particularly for the formidable Kaji, an avenging angel-demon and preying tiger who served as the direct inspiration for Black Mamba (Uma Thurman) in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. I (and she even sings some of the songs). All of the films in the Japan Society series are sequels or follow-ups, but don’t let that scare you off. “In the world of Japanese genre filmmaking — samurai and yakuza films, exploitation movies, horror films — sequels were very rarely linked to each other by a continuing storyline,” Walkow explains. “Viewers needn’t be worried if they haven’t seen the original entries; all the films stand on their own.”

FILM SCREENING AND ARTIST TALK: CUTIE AND THE BOXER

Documentary tells the engaging story of a pair of Japanese artists and the life they have made for themselves in Brooklyn

CUTIE AND THE BOXER (Zachary Heinzerling, 2013)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, January 27, $15, 7:00
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
www.facebook.com/cutieandtheboxer

Zachary Heinzerling’s Emmy-winning Cutie and the Boxer is a beautifully told story of love and art and the many sacrifices one must make to try to succeed in both. In 1969, controversial Japanese Neo Dada action painter and sculptor Ushio Shinohara came to New York City, looking to expand his career. According to the catalog for the recent MoMA show “Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde,” which featured four works by Ushio, “American art had seemed to him to be ‘marching toward the glorious prairie of the rainbow and oasis of the future, carrying all the world’s expectations of modern painting.’” Four years later, he met nineteen-year-old Noriko, who had left Japan to become an artist in New York as well. The two fell in love and have been together ever since, immersed in a fascinating relationship that Heinzerling explores over a five-year period in his splendid feature-length theatrical debut. Ushio and Noriko live in a cramped apartment and studio in DUMBO, where he puts on boxing gloves, dips them in paint, and pounds away at large, rectangular canvases and builds oversized motorcycle sculptures out of found materials. Meanwhile, Noriko, who has spent most of the last forty years taking care of her often childlike husband and staying with him through some rowdy times and battles with the bottle, is finally creating her own work, an R. Crumb-like series of drawings detailing the life of her alter ego, Cutie, and her often cruel husband, Bullie. (“Ushi” means “bull” in Japanese.) While Ushio is more forthcoming verbally in the film, mugging for the camera and speaking his mind, the pig-tailed Noriko is far more tentative, so director and cinematographer Heinzerling brings her tale to life by animating her work, her characters jumping off the page to show Cutie’s constant frustration with Bullie.

Ushio Shinohara creates one of his action paintings in CUTIE AND THE BOXER

Ushio Shinohara creates one of his action paintings in Emmy-winning CUTIE AND THE BOXER

During the course of the too-short eighty-two-minute film — it would have been great to spend even more time with these unique and compelling figures — the audience is introduced to the couple’s forty-year-old son, who has some issues of his own; Guggenheim senior curator of Asian Art Alexandra Munroe, who stops by the studio to consider purchasing one of Ushio’s boxing paintings for the museum; and Chelsea gallery owner Ethan Cohen, who represents Ushio. But things never quite take off for Ushio, who seems to always be right on the cusp of making it. Instead, the couple struggles to pay their rent. One of the funniest, yet somehow tragic, scenes in the film involves Ushio packing up some of his sculptures — forcing them into a suitcase like clothing — and heading back to Japan to try to sell some pieces. Cutie and the Boxer is a special documentary that gets to the heart of the creative process as it applies both to art and love, focusing on two disparate people who have made a strange yet thoroughly charming life for themselves. Cutie and the Boxer is screening January 27 at 7:00 at Japan Society and will be followed by a discussion and Q&A with Ushio and Noriko in the gallery, where Ushio’s “Tokyo Bazooka” was on display in 1982 and where the couple was part of the memorable “Making a Home” exhibition in 2007.