Japanese Films at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Film Festival announced some of the films that will be screened at the festival on Thursday, April 16th, and two Japanese films made the cut.
The first is from festival favourite Hirokazu Koreeda and it is his live-action adaptation of the manga Umimachi Diary. This film has the English language title Our Little Sister and is based on an award-winning josei manga series called Umimachi Diary which was created by Akimi Yoshida and published in the magazine flowers in 2006.
The story of the film takes place in Kamakura, where three sisters live together. The focus is on Yoshino, the middle of three sisters. One morning, after she wakes up in a man’s room, her father’s obituary is delivered to her. Yoshino hadn’t met her father in fifteen years, since her mother divorced him. After not seeing him for so long, she doesn’t know how to feel at the announcement of his death. Only at her father’s funeral do the sisters meet their half-sister whom they had never met. Since the girl has no family to take care of her they decide to let her stay with them.
The film stars a whole gamut of brilliant actors such as Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa, Lily Franky, Shinichi Tsutsumi, Ryo Kase, Jun Fubuki, and Kirin Kiki. It is in the competition category.
The second film is Journey to the Shore, directed by former horror auteur Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Pulse, Tokyo Sonata), and is in the Un Certain Regard category.
The story follows Mizuki who is reunited with her husband Yusuke who disappeared for three years. He insists on taking Mizuki on a journey with him visiting all of the places he went to and all of the people who helped him while he was travelling. Mizuki begins to understand the mystery of his disappearance.
Kurosawa is adapting the 2010 novel Kishibe no Tabi by Kazumi Yumoto and to bring to life the characters he has two actors who should be familiar to Japanese film fans in the UK. Taking the male lead is Tadanobu Asano, star of Vital, Ichi the Killer, and Gohatto. Eri Fukatsu has starred in the crime drama Villain and the fun Koki Mitani comedy, The Magic Hour.
