Yasuharu Hasebe (1932 - 2009) / Decreased Asia Coverage at Screen

The below obituary for director Hasebe Yasuharu (長谷部安春監督) was written for Screen but unfortunately the budget daleks in London feel that unless a story holds a strong interest for readers in "the West", news from Asia is about as relevant as the surface temperature on Mars. Obituaries of well-known Japanese directors fall into the latter category.

All the trades are suffering cuts as we know -- Screen is no exception. Unfortunately there will be less of our great reporting in the Asia bureau (and a shorter standard article length) but we're not down for the count yet.


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Japanese director Yasuharu Hasebe dies at 77

77-year-old Japanese director Yasuharu Hasebe died of pneumonia on June 14, local media reported on Saturday. Hasebe was known for his action and exploitation films of the 1960s and 70s. In 2009 he made a return to mainstream feature films with a sequel in Toei's hit Partners franchise.

Tokyo native Hasebe joined Nikkatsu studios in 1958 as an assistant director under the likes of Suzuki Seijun. With 1966 directorial debut Black Tight Killers he became a key director in the company's line of action pictures including cult series Stray Cat Rock. He later spearheaded the "violent pink" line of hit exploitation releases.

Hasebe's work screened in the "No Borders, No Limits" Nikkatsu action retrospective at the Udine Far East Film Festival in 2005, which later toured the US.

In the 1980s Hasebe worked primarily in TV, heading up Nippon Television series Dangerous Detectives as well as its successful feature film version.

He later became a regular director on TV Asahi's Partners series, which Toei adapted into a $46m (Y4.44b) grossing 2008 smash. As reported on Screendaily.com last July, Toei announced a spin-off to be directed by Hasebe, marking his return to features.

In March of this year the lower profile sequel Partners: Investigator Mamoru Yonezawa’s Case File, based on a novel by Hasebe's son, earned approximately $7m.

Pia Film Festival Unveils Full 2009 Lineup

Received some materials from the Pia Film Festival the other day. They've announced the lineup of the 31st edition, which runs July 17 - 31 at the National Film Center in Kyôbashi (no more screenings at Shibuya's Cross Tower). The main competition lineup titles had been announced back in April but now you can check out the updated official site and download the flyer here (both Japanese only).

One of the competition features, Sasaki Sô's Puritan, was shortlisted during my stint as a pre-selection committee member for Skip City's new domestic feature category (article on Screen, collected SC entries). Puritan is an odd, schizophrenic film. Festival darling Ishii Yûya's Kawa no Soko kara Konnichiwa (『川の底からこんにちは』) will have its world premiere as this year's PFF scholarship film.

There's also a 16-film Clint Eastwood tokushû (which runs August 1 - 5, after the festival proper) and 3-film one on Ôshima Nagisa. A Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Songs　(Nihon Shunka-kô, 『日本春歌考』) and Death By Hanging (Kôshikei,『絞死刑』) will be introduced by Kurosawa Kiyoshi while In the Realm of the Senses (Ai No Corrida, 『愛のコリーだ』) will be introduced by Wakamatsu Kôji. Director Kore-eda Hirokazu will give a special talk on Ôshima's TV documentary work on July 30 (free entry).

If that wasn't enough, Pia and the National Film Center are running the second installment of their "History of Japanese Independent Cinema" from June 30 - July 24. Details here (Japanese only, for now).

I'm pleased that Skip City and PFF only overlap 3 days this year instead of fully. You'll see me loitering at both events.

Collected entries on the Pia Film Festival.

Image Set: The Shock Labyrinth (Sets 1 & 2)

Second batch of images from Shimizu Takashi's in-production 3D horror-thriller The Shock Labyrinth (Senritsu Meikyû 3D, 『戦慄迷宮3D』). Shooting wraps at the end of this month and it'll be in cinemas for October. Quick! Images are (c) The Shock Labyrinth Production Committee

Edit: Somehow the first set got deleted when I created this post, so now I've put them all below. Not sure what happened.

Poll: Why Aren't You Living In Japan?

As I dive into work for a couple weeks I thought I'd set up a quick poll in the sidebar on a topic I've been thinking about for a while now. It's only tangentially related to film and other Japanese contents but asks the rarely (never?) posed flipside to the single most asked question from Japanese to non-Japanese residents here ("Why did you come to Japan?"). The question is "Why aren't you living in Japan?"

With the vast and growing number of Japanese-themed movie, dorama, anime and music blogs run outside of the country I'm curious why people who obsess over this culture (far more than I do) don't make an attempt at living here. Are visits enough? Is it logistically impossible? Are you afraid of leaving your old life behind? Financial issues?

Hope to see some interesting comments and poll results.

Screenplay Submersible

As I just tweeted, I will be under the radar for a while as I work on a longish feature screenplay translation. Was hoping to offer up a movie/manga comparison of Tezuka adaptation MW and a look at two exciting new filmmakers that nobody's heard of yet, but work calls. I am grateful it's there.

Sabu's Arrested Memories Participates in Paris Project!

As I mentioned at the end of my Kanikosen post on May 31, there would be some good news regarding Sabu's first foreign language production Arrested Memories (collected entries).

Arrested Memories will participate in Paris Project 2009, a co-production initiative established under the Paris Cinema International Film Festival. Now in its 7th edition, it's one of the key project markets in the EU. The fine people at Korea's Finecut are representing Arrested Memories (as well as handling international sales of Kanikosen). Things are looking good for Sabu's English language debut...

Here's the full list of 14 projects. You'll notice the first in line is Kawase Naomi's And Protect, Protected. I wrote a profile on this project for the Hong Kong Asian Film Financing Forum in March. There, it won a prize to participate in Paris Project.

Edit: And congratulations to Edmund Yeo on his short film Love Suicides making it into the short film competition, up against the likes of Tsai Ming-liang and an artist I admire very much called "Blu" (see my Jan. 15 entry). As I wrote on Twitter, I saw Edmund's Kingyo at Shinjuku's Wald 9 last week and was very impressed.

Update: The project book is available as a PDF here. You can read the synopsis for Arrested Memories (I didn't write it), And Protect, Protected and the other projects.


AND PROTECT, PROTECTED de Naomi Kawase
Japon / Kumie Inc.

ARRESTED MEMORIES de Sabu
Corée du Sud / Finecut co.

BLUE BIRDS de Christophe Van Rompey
Belgique – Chine / Sancta Media - Xstream Pictures

COME TO MY VOICE (Sesime Gel) de Hüseyin Karabey
Turquie / A-si Film

CORNEA de Jochem de Vries
Pays-Bas / NFI Productions

HARD LABOUR (Trabalhar Cansa) de Juliana Rojas et Marco Dutra
Brésil / Dezenove Som e Imagens

LEONES de Jazmin Lopez
Argentine / Rei Cine

MARINA de Stijn Coninx
Belgique / Eyeworks Film & TV Drama

MOSAIQUE (Jialefou) de Xiaoshuai Wang
Chine / Chinese Shadows - Tempo Films Investment

NAHUEL THE HUMAN SUBMARINE de Fernando Díaz
Espagne – Mexique – Argentine / Diagonal TV - Alebrije Producciones - Machaco Films

REMOTE CONTROL de Byamba Sakhya
Mongolie / Guru Media

RHAPSODY IN PERA (Beyolu Rapsodisi) de Umut Aral
Turquie / Atlantik Film

THE YEAR WITHOUT A SUMMER de Tan Chui Mui
Malaisie / Da Huang Pictures

TUESDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS (Marti, Dupa Craciun) de Radu Muntean
Roumanie / Multi Media East

Release date and promo materials for Hitoshi Matsumoto's Symbol

Matsumoto Hitoshi's Symbol (『しんぼる』, see March 22 entry) is set for a September 12th release, distributor Shochiku announced today. Trailers, posters and flyers will hit cinemas nationwide tomorrow. You can see the teaser on the official site linked above. Some wild CG work! The film itself features dialogue in Japanese, Spanish, English and Russian as well as some foreign location work.

Edit: In my March article on the film for Screen I purposely avoided calling it "prison" or "jail" when I wrote that Matsumoto played "a man plotting to escape some manner of entrapment". You knew it would be something much stranger...

Image Set: Be Sure To Share

A few images from Sono Sion's Be Sure To Share (Chanto Tsutaeru, 『ちゃんと伝える』). For some good plot and background info on the film you can check out this page on the official site of the New York Asian Film Festival (June 19 - July 5). NYAFF also posted an English-subtitled trailer on Youtube here.

Be Sure To Share will close NYAFF on July 5 as a world premiere. Very much looking forward to seeing the film later this month. Images（C）2009 "Be Sure To Share" Production Committee.

Update: I got lightbox (2.0) working again. Not sure how long the place I'm hosting the .js files will last, though. Any (free) suggestions welcome.

Midnight Eye Update / Shinsedai Cinema Festival

A couple of of updates that I'm sure J-cinema fans are already aware of, but just in case.

First is a fresh batch of material on Midnight Eye including reviews of Taiwan-set Japanese propaganda film The Story of Wu Fong, Ichikawa Kon's Alone Across the Pacific, and Shimizu Hiroshi's Sayon's Bell, which starred "Shirley" Yamaguchi Yoshiko.

There's also an interview with author Ian Buruma (always thought that was a great name for a Japan expert) about his intriguing 2008 novel The China Lover, which casts Yamaguchi as the protagonist. Film rights are mentioned at the end which reminded me of Kore-eda Hirokazu's 2007 HAF project Night-fragrant Flower (PDF notes here) which unfortunately never got off the ground.


Next is the launch of a new Japanese film event in my old hometown of Toronto at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre. Dubbed the Shinsedai Cinema Festival (Aug 21-23), the event will introduce Torontonians to some key independent films from recent years. I've championed two of them previously -- Chikuma Yasutomo's Now, I... (collected posts) and Ichii Masahide's Naked Of Defenses (Midnight Eye Best of 2008).

I spent a lot of time in Phlegmingdon Park as a child and recall a field trip to the pleasant JCCC for a shodô lesson where I learned to write the kanji for the numbers 1-3. I seem to remember 4 blowing my mind.