Tokie Hidari

Quote:
Commencing well-respected Nippon director Kazuo Kuroki’s sixth decade behind the camera, “A Boy’s Summer in 1945” (literally “A Beautiful Summer in Kirishima”) is a lyric, novelistic drama set in the countryside in the last days before Japan’s surrender ending WWII. Striking a welcome retro note in its languid pacing and delicate handling of seriocomic ensemble threads, handsome production is a natural for fests. It might also prove a cornerstone for retrospectives or ancillary releases of works by a helmer (“Preparation of the Festival,” “Ronin-gai”) who’s long been appreciated at home but has won just limited attention abroad.Read More »

Synopsis:
Summer vacation is nearly over and Korean undergraduate SanjunIm (Japanese name: Hayashi) is returning to his school in Tokyo from his home in Hokkaido. On the way he stops in Morimachi, in Hakodate, to visit Sunchun Jong (Japanese name: Akio Matsumoto), his father’s best friend. It has been 10 years since Sanjun has seen Matsumoto, in Sakhalin. He is married to a Japanese named Toshi and has a stepdaughter named Kayako. Kayako is now a junior high school student. Sanjun was born in Japan, the son of Korean immigrants. After Japan lost the war, Sanjun, with his father and brothers, remained in Japan. As a nisei (second generation), Sanjun lacks the sense of his Korean roots that the first generation of Koreans who came to Japan possess.Read More »

“What secrets lie deep in the buried forest? Veteran filmmaker Oguri Kohei, the director of such films as The Sting of Death and Sleeping Man, helms The Buried Forest (a.k.a. Umoregi), one of a select group of Japanese films entered in competition at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. With a cinematic look seemingly pulled straight from yesteryear, the film kicks off by focusing on a high school girl named Machi (Karen). To break up the monotony of summer, Machi decides that she and her friends should have some fun and start telling each other stories.Read More »