As the cost of living crisis grinds on and on, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the film title We’re Broke, My Lord! might be a biopic of your own life. Instead, it’s a big and beautiful samurai-themed comedy from director Tetsu Maeda. Opening the 27th Japanese Film Festival (JFF) proudly presented by The Japan Foundation, it’s adapted from the novel Daimyo Tousan by Jiro Asada and follows the misadventures of Koshiro (Ryunosuke Kamiki, who voiced Bô in Spirited Away). The son of a humble salmon salesman, he suddenly discovers he’s actually the scion of a shogun (Kôichi Satô ) and comes into a lot of land. Only this isn’t a classic rags-to-riches tale, because he also inherits a whack of debt. Figures.
You can find more gently undulating comedy in Yudo: The Way of the Bath. Penned by Kundō Koyama, who also wrote the screenplay for Best Foreign Language Oscar-winner Departures, and directed by Masayuki Suzuki, it takes us inside the steamy surrounds of a public bathhouse run by Gorō (Gaku Hamada, Kamen Rider Black Sun) and frequented by a wide array of men. But this well-worn tradition is at stake, with Gorō’s Tokyo-based architect brother Shirō (Tōma Ikuta) determined to tear it down and build apartments following the death of their father. Or go all-out with zany Groundhog Day shenanigans of a bad day at the office stuck in a time loop in Mondays: See You “This” Week!
Elsewhere in the festival, horror stans will be psyched about The Forbidden Play, the latest shocker from Ringu maestro Hideo Nakata. Adapted from the best-selling novel by Karuma Shimizu, it’s a careful-what-you-wish-for familial nightmare that sees a grieving young lad bury one of his late mother’s fingers in their backyard and pray for her return. What could go wrong? And dip into Immersion, the latest spooker from The Grudge director Takashi Shimizu, which brings neuroscientists and virtual reality experts together on a cursed island where a glitch in the machine is out to get you. Stick around after this screening at the Kino for a talk from RMIT Uni’s gore-loving Dr Jessica Balanzategui about how technological malevolence haunts J-horror.
If love is all you need, check out director Nobuhiro Doi’s We Made a Beautiful Bouquet, which depicts a whirlwind romance between two strangers (Kasumi Arimura and Masaki Suda) who both miss the same train and are spun into each other’s lives. The screenplay was written by Yûji Sakamoto, who recently delivered Hirokazu Kore-eda’s luminous Monster. And we love the look of lush anime Gold Kingdom and Water Kingdom with its fantastic tale of reluctant lovers upending ancient traditions and bonus cats and dogs cameos.
Fans of homegrown hero The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert will want to join the queerly beloved road trip that is Natchan’s Little Secret, a bittersweet comedy and all-too-rare dramatic examination of enduring stigma surrounding LGBTIQA+ communities in contemporary Japan that see three Shinjuku drag queens (played by Chieko Matsubara, Ken'ichi Takitô and Shu Watanabe) set out to ensure their late bar owner gets the send-off they deserve.
You can explore the program here. And just in case you are fully broke, fear not, you can still join in the fun. JFF is hosting a totally free series of classic black and white movies from esteemed director Kо̄ Nakahira, including noir thriller The Hunter’s Diary, horny teenage summer love drama Juvenile Jungle and hilarious heist caper Danger’s Where The Money Is!
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