The belief that the dead live on in our memories is often the only comfort anyone can think to offer the bereaved, or those in the process of losing a loved one. But for Takashi (Mirai Moriyama), the introspective adult son at the heart of Kei Chika-ura’s quietly tectonic heartbreaker, that comfort is unavailable on multiple levels. Not only has he been long estranged from his father, Yohji (a shattering San Sebastian Best Performance-winning Tatsuya Fuji), but Yohji’s own precipitous descent into the fog of dementia means that whatever Takashi can now learn of him, at this late stage, is jumbled and fragmentary and possibly false. How can we adequately remember someone who cannot remember himself?
Like so much of “Great Absence,” that question is posed as a kind of mystery, made all the eerier by the ordinariness of the clues that tease its solution — an uncanceled meal delivery,...
Like so much of “Great Absence,” that question is posed as a kind of mystery, made all the eerier by the ordinariness of the clues that tease its solution — an uncanceled meal delivery,...
- 10/3/2023
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Tatsuya Fuji, Mirai Moriyama star.
Gaga Corporation has acquired international sales rights excluding Japan on Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Platform entry Great Absence ahead of its European premiere in San Sebastian later this month.
Tatsuya Fuji and dance artist Mirai Moriyama star in the recent TIFF world premiere, which marks director Kei Chika-ura’s second feature after Complicity premiered at 2018 TIFF.
Great Absence is inspired by Chika-ura’s own experiences and centres on Takashi, a man who has been estranged from his father Yohji for 20 years and returns home with his wife after receiving a call from the police...
Gaga Corporation has acquired international sales rights excluding Japan on Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Platform entry Great Absence ahead of its European premiere in San Sebastian later this month.
Tatsuya Fuji and dance artist Mirai Moriyama star in the recent TIFF world premiere, which marks director Kei Chika-ura’s second feature after Complicity premiered at 2018 TIFF.
Great Absence is inspired by Chika-ura’s own experiences and centres on Takashi, a man who has been estranged from his father Yohji for 20 years and returns home with his wife after receiving a call from the police...
- 9/20/2023
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Great Absence, the second feature film from Japanese director Kei Chika-ura, is receiving its world premiere in Toronto International Film Festival’s Platform section.
Inspired by Kei’s real-life experiences, the film tells the story of an actor living in Tokyo who is forced to travel home when the police call to say his father is suffering from dementia and has lost touch with reality. Making matters worse, his father’s second wife appears to be missing.
The actor makes the trip home with his own wife, full of conflicted emotions over a man who left the family when he was still a child, and starts an exploration into the mysteries of his father’s life. Along the way, the film touches on themes including time and memory, familial obligation and the role that women play in male-dominated Japanese society.
Veteran actor Tatsuya Fuji (In The Realm Of The Senses) plays the father,...
Inspired by Kei’s real-life experiences, the film tells the story of an actor living in Tokyo who is forced to travel home when the police call to say his father is suffering from dementia and has lost touch with reality. Making matters worse, his father’s second wife appears to be missing.
The actor makes the trip home with his own wife, full of conflicted emotions over a man who left the family when he was still a child, and starts an exploration into the mysteries of his father’s life. Along the way, the film touches on themes including time and memory, familial obligation and the role that women play in male-dominated Japanese society.
Veteran actor Tatsuya Fuji (In The Realm Of The Senses) plays the father,...
- 9/8/2023
- by Liz Shackleton
- Deadline Film + TV
Stars: Rinka Otani, Anna Yamada, Mayu Yamaguch, Fuju Kamio, Haruka Kudo, Hideko Hara, Yumi Adachi | Written by Takashi Shimizu, Daisuke Hosaka | Directed by Takashi Shimizu
Suicide Forest Village is the latest film from Takashi Shimizu, best known as the writer and director of The Grudge, both the original Japanese film and its US remake. But he has contributed a lot more to the genre both before and since. That includes an episode in another popular franchise, Tomie: Re-birth as well as Flight 7500 and Howling Village.
YouTuber Akina (Rinka Otani) livestreamed her trip into Aokigahara, the so-called Suicide Forest to prove that you can enter it and leave again. Needless to say things don’t go as planned. Hibiki watches it, both horrified and fascinated by what she sees.
The next day while she and her sister Mei (Mayu Yamaguch; Last Ninja-Red Shadow) are helping Akira and Miyu move they...
Suicide Forest Village is the latest film from Takashi Shimizu, best known as the writer and director of The Grudge, both the original Japanese film and its US remake. But he has contributed a lot more to the genre both before and since. That includes an episode in another popular franchise, Tomie: Re-birth as well as Flight 7500 and Howling Village.
YouTuber Akina (Rinka Otani) livestreamed her trip into Aokigahara, the so-called Suicide Forest to prove that you can enter it and leave again. Needless to say things don’t go as planned. Hibiki watches it, both horrified and fascinated by what she sees.
The next day while she and her sister Mei (Mayu Yamaguch; Last Ninja-Red Shadow) are helping Akira and Miyu move they...
- 3/15/2022
- by Jim Morazzini
- Nerdly
A death by suicide is one of the hardest things to process as it sums the excruciating pain of losing someone dear, to the guilt and regret of not having done enough to stop it. Someone may think a lie is a temporary patch. Some would express their feelings in a film. Director Katsumi Nojiri has scripted and directed “Lying to Mom”, a film sadly based on the experience of his own brother’s suicide and he has bravely injected it with a gentle humour.
“Lying to Mom” is screening at Nippon Connection
Shockingly, the film opens straight with the suicide of Koichi (Ryo Kase). After a last gaze from his window to the suburban Tokyo landscape, he hangs himself in his room. Even more disturbing is that his mother Yuko (Hideko Hara) is cheerfully cooking while watching a comedy show just a floor below. But Koichi was a hikikomori...
“Lying to Mom” is screening at Nippon Connection
Shockingly, the film opens straight with the suicide of Koichi (Ryo Kase). After a last gaze from his window to the suburban Tokyo landscape, he hangs himself in his room. Even more disturbing is that his mother Yuko (Hideko Hara) is cheerfully cooking while watching a comedy show just a floor below. But Koichi was a hikikomori...
- 5/30/2019
- by Adriana Rosati
- AsianMoviePulse
1996 came the all time classic from Japan "Shall We Dance?" That was inspired by the classic dance scene from the 50s movie "Anna and the King" but also gave inspiration to the Richard Ghere movie with the same title. Story: Shohei Sugiyama (Koji Yakusho) is an successful account, married with beautiful Masako Sugiyama (Hideko Hara) and has a beautiful daughter Chikage Sugiyama (played by Ayano Nakamura). Despite a good home and a nice family, Shohei is still unhappy, he has no hobbies, and often prefer to be lonley. One day he see another lonely woman staring outside her window. Who is she? And why do all the people who visit her look happy and dancing? One of them is his boss Tomio Aoki...
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[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 9/6/2016
- Screen Anarchy
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