Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme, Nationwide
It’s the birthplace of Godzilla, Totoro, samurai epics and futuristic robot movies, but ordinary life is another thing Japanese cinema has always excelled at, from Ozu to Kore-eda. Not forgetting Akira Kurosawa, whose 1952 masterpiece Ikiru serves as the inspiration for this year’s showcase. The predicaments here are universal and everyday: an affair between a student and an older woman (The Cowards Who Looked To The Sky); a middle-aged comic artist dealing with his mother’s dementia (Pecoross’ Mother And Her Days); a teacher who suspects one of his pupils is being abused by his parents (Being Good). Some are less ordinary, it must be said: anime Miss Hokusai, on the artist’s daughter, for example; or Uzumasa Limelight, about a veteran actor who’s died thousands of times in samurai movies. Starting in London, the films play in 13 UK cities over the coming months.
ICA, SW1, Fri to 11 Feb; touring to 26 Mar
Crime: Hong Kong Style, Manchester
Many a western film-maker has benefited from Hong Kong’s deep pool of crime-themed ingenuity, from Quentin Tarantino (who took inspiration from Ringo Lam’s City On Fire for Reservoir Dogs) to Martin Scorsese (who remade Infernal Affairs as The Departed). This season – which also visits 15 other UK venues later this year – returns to the source, with 19 of the coolest, smartest, hardest-boiled offerings to have come out of the territory. Highlights include Lam’s latest, Wild City, and a focus on Infernal Affairs co-writer Felix Chong, who has brought the crime genre up to date with his surveillance-driven Overheard trilogy (there’s a Q&A with him after Overheard 3). But there are also classics from the 1960s onwards, including Shaw Brothers kung fu thriller The Boxer From Shantung; Wong Kar-wai’s stylish debut As Tears Go By; and John Woo’s 1977 comedy The Pilferers’ Progress.
