Noticias

Japan Society is pleased to announce Love Letters: Four Films by Shunji Iwai, a weekend series celebrating the defining early works of filmmaker Shunji Iwai. One of the most original talents to emerge from Japan in the ’90s, Iwai tapped into the dreams and lives of Japan’s youth with his lyrical meditations on the hardships of young adulthood, capturing pivotal and unforgettable moments of life. Balancing popular entertainment with arthouse predilection, Iwai’s exhilarating takes on the youth film provided a much-needed voice for the younger generation, offering delicate portraits of adolescence, ripe with poetic yearnings of grief, friendship, and young love. Iwai’s sumptuous visual style, coupled with his affecting and underground appeal, opened a world of new possibilities in the ’90s cinescape—marking him as one of the most accomplished and unique filmmakers of his generation.

A primer on the director’s essential works, Love...

“Love Letter” marks the theatrical debut of Shunji Iwai’s filmmaking career, the director of such critically acclaimed pictures as “Picnic” (1996), “Swallowtail Butterfly” (1996), and “All About Lily Chou-Chou” (2001). It became an immediate hit in the Japanese box-office. Additionally, it was one of the first Japanese productions to be shown in South Korean cinemas since the end of World War II. Among its many prizes, the film won three Japanese Academy Awards in 1996.

Hiroko Watanabe (Miho Nakayama) is a woman living in the city of Kobe. Two years earlier, her fiancé Itsuki Fujii (Takashi Kashiwabara) died in a mountain climbing accident. Still in depression and grief, Hiroko writes a letter to her dead fiancé and sends it to the address she found in his old high-school yearbook. However, it was the wrong Itsuki Fujii she found. The mail reaches Otaru, a northern town far away from Kobe, and...

Earlier today it was announced that Noboru Iguchi (The Machine Girl, RoboGeisha) has started filming a new entry in the ongoing Tomie horror film series called Tomie Unlimited and that 15-year-old model/actress Moe Arai was hand-picked the play the lead role.

There have been seven theatrically-released live-action Tomie films in total since 1999, taking the series right through the J-horror boom of the early 00s and beyond.

Based on a popular manga by Junji Ito, the films feature a malicious ghost/entity/whatever in the form of a seductive high school girl named Tomie. Every story involves Tomie using her supernatural ability to make men lust after her, eventually causing them to become irrational, jealous, and violent. Once Tomie’s true nature revealed, she usually ends up brutally murdered and dismembered (spoiler alert!), only to regenerate from whatever body parts remain and start all over again in the next film.

Earlier today it was announced that Noboru Iguchi (The Machine Girl, RoboGeisha) has started filming a new entry in the ongoing Tomie horror film series called Tomie Unlimited and that 15-year-old model/actress Moe Arai was hand-picked the play the lead role.

There have been seven theatrically-released live-action Tomie films in total since 1999, taking the series right through the J-horror boom of the early 00s and beyond.

Based on a popular manga by Junji Ito, the films feature a malicious ghost/entity/whatever in the form of a seductive high school girl named Tomie. Every story involves Tomie using her supernatural ability to make men lust after her, eventually causing them to become irrational, jealous, and violent. Once Tomie’s true nature revealed, she usually ends up brutally murdered and dismembered (spoiler alert!), only to regenerate from whatever body parts remain and start all over again in the next film.