Embassy of Japan in Egypt

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Japanese Cinema Program

Archives 2013

Date

Films

December

Thursday, December 19

From 6 P.M.

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Special Feature "Director Shinobu Yaguchi" Vol.5

Adrenaline Drive

After an unfortunate accident with a gangster in a black Jaguar, Suzuki, a meek and indecisive rental car clerk, is forced to visit the yakuza's lair. The thug stands ready to exact retribution by breaking all of Suzuki's fingers when a violent explosion rips through the den, killing off almost the entire gang.

Meanwhile, Shizuko, a plain, timid nurse, is stuck behind her glasses on the night shift at a local hospital. The other nurses on the shift tease her relentlessly, driving her to seek refuge at the local convenience store when she dreams of the "new self" predicted by her horoscope.

Drawn to the demolished building by the explosion, Shizuko discovers Suzuki, dazed and slightly wounded. She helps him into an ambulance. They are joined by the only other survivor, the Jaguar driver, who hovers near death, lying unconscious on a stretcher. Suddenly, all hell breaks loose. Before we know it, Suzuki and Shizuko are on the run with a trunk full of bloody cash and a very enraged mobster. To make matters worse, they have a gang of hopeless hooligans in hot pursuit. The timid young pair savor their first real taste of life as they fall in love, dodging the yakuza's vengeance. With tight camerawork and excellent script, Yaguchi manages to hold the tension throughout what is one of the funniest comedies to emerge from Japan.

Directed by Shinobu Yaguchi / 1999 / 111min.

November

1. Thursday, November 14

From 6 P.M.

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2. Thursday, November 28

From 6 P.M.

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1. Thursday, November 14 From 6 P.M.

Special Feature "Director Shinobu Yaguchi" Vol.3

ROBO-G

The latest from writer-director Yaguchi Shinobu, who has produced a string of hits including Happy Flight with his unique viewpoint and outstanding comedic sensibility. Mickey Curtis, credited as Igarashi Shinjiro, gives a wonderful performance as a stubborn old man in his first starring role.

Consumer electronics company employee Kobayashi is ordered to develop a bipedal robot, but fails miserably. He comes up with a plan to pass off a human in a suit as a robot, and finds an elderly man named Suzuki who fits inside the suit perfectly, but...

Directed by Shinobu Yaguchi / 2012 / 111min.

2. Thursday, November 28 From 6 P.M.

Special Feature "Director Shinobu Yaguchi" Vol.4

Happy Flight

This film, directed by Shinobu Yaguchi, one of the most noteworthy filmmakers in Japan, is not like other airplanes films which tend to be panic films or concentrate on pilots and flight attendants. It oversees all corners of the aviation industry. It is full of fun and exciting. Just like actually riding on a jumbo jet.

Directed by Shinobu Yaguchi / 2008 / 103min.

October

Thursday, October 24

From 6 P.M.

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Special Feature "Director Shinobu Yaguchi" Vol.2

Water Boys

It’s springtime in Japan and the Tadano High School swim team is barely keeping afloat.

When a pretty new coach turns up with the nutty idea of creating a top synchronized swimming team of her own, she has just a few problems to overcome. First, she's teaching at an all-boys school; second, the 5 boys who have committed to the team are all hopelessly bad swimmers; third, she suddenly discovers she’s 8 months pregnant and due for maternity leave.

Inspired by their darling coach’s dream, the boys bumble through the spring and summer, preparing a routine for Tadano High’s festival.

Will the Waterboys hard work be wasted, or can they paddle their way to the success and recognition they've worked so hard to win?

Directed by Shinobu Yaguchi / 2001 / 91min.

September

Thursday, September 26

From 6 P.M.

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Special Feature "Director Shinobu Yaguchi" Vol.1

Swing Girls

At a rural girl's high school in northern Japan, remedial math classes are being held during the summer break. Looking for a way out, Tomoko and two of her classmates volunteer to deliver lunches left behind by the school's brass band on the way to support the baseball team at a crucial game. However, when the band subsequently suffers a bout of food poisoning, Tomoko and her companions seize the chance to ditch summer school as replacement musicians. Despite a severe lack of talent, they gradually succumb to the infectious rhythms of big band jazz and start to take the music seriously. Just as they are about to perform in public for the first time, the band members they replaced return and the ring-ins are shunted to the sidelines. However, this fails to dampen the girls' newfound spirit, and they take up part-time jobs and practice in the streets to achieve their dream of playing at the school's music festival.

Directed by Shinobu Yaguchi / 2004 / 105min.

September 2013 - January 2014

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Brochure (November)

Special Feature "Director Shinobu Yaguchi"

Embassy of Japan is pleased to present the great comedies and emotional films.

Wonderful series directed by one of the most popular entertainment film directors' will be screened. Don't miss it!

August

Due to the current situation, please kindly be noted Japanese Cinema Program in August has been cancelled.

July

No Firm Show During Ramadan.

June

Thursday, June 27

From 6 P.M.

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The Wife of Gegege

Directed by: Takuji Suzuki

2010 / 119min.

A love story depicting the younger days of Mizuki Shigeru, author of "Gegege no Kitaro," the well-known comic on 'yokai' (supernatural beings), and his wife Mura Nunoe, who supported him through the years. Like the hit TV drama version, the film is based on Nunoe's autobiography, but it focuses mainly on their days as newlyweds when they lived through extreme poverty, and provides a heart-warming account of their struggles as they start a life together. In Shimane prefecture, 1961, 29 year-old Nunoe and Shigeru, a manga artist who lost his left arm in the war, get married, just five days after being introduced at a matchmaking meeting. They move to Tokyo and endure a life of abysmal poverty.

May

Thursday, May 23

From 6 P.M.

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Hankyu Railway - A 15-minute Miracle

Directed by: Yoshishige Miyake

2009 / 119min.

An ordinary train commute. A familiar landscape.

Whether riding to work, to school, to shop, or to meet someone special…

the train is a medium for people’s lives and stories.

When you look up from the words on the page, when you put away your cell phone or take off your headphones, a little sliver of magic – a life-changing “encounter” -- may be waiting for you.

A slight shift in your viewpoint can make your ordinary, everyday life sparkle.

April

Thursday, April 25

From 6 P.M.

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©Hana no Ato Associates

After the Flowers

Directed by: Kenji Nakanishi

2009 / 107min.

Spring in the Unasaka region. The area within the second enclosure of the castle is full of young girls delighting in the cherry blossoms. As she is enthralled by the cherry blossoms, Ito is suddenly greeted by a young samurai, Eguchi Magoshiro. Trained in swordsmanship by her father, Ito is said to have successively defeated the best students at the dojo Sonshiro attends and he has come to challenge her to a duel someday. At some point, Ito had grown fond of Sonshiro as a polite as well as skilled swordsman, but Ito’s father has chosen a fiance for her, Saisuke. Meanwhile, engagement talks move forward for Sonshiro also; the individual is Kayo, Ito’s uninhibited senior who is known have had experience with men. Yet, the engagement will elevate the status of Sonshiro’s family and if this makes him happy, then that is Ito’s hope; however, she catches Kayo together with a samurai with whom she is rumored of having an affair, Fujii Kageyu. Furthermore, a year later, Ito’s hope is mercilessly betrayed…

March

1. Thursday, March 7

From 6 P.M.

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2. Sunday, March 31

From 6 P.M.

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1. Thursday, March 7 From 6 P.M.

Spirited Away

Directed by: Hayao Miyazaki

2001 / 124 min.

Subtitled in English

Spirited Away tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a sullen ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood, enters an alternate reality inhabited by spirits and monsters. After her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba, Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba's bathhouse to find a way to free herself and her parents and escape to the human world….

One of the Most Successful Animated Film in Japanese History.

2. Sunday, March 31 From 6 P.M.

South Bound

Directed by: Yoshimitsu MORITA

2007 / 114 min.

Uehara Ichiro and Sakura are middle-aged radicals with three children: Yoko, an adult, and Jiro and Momoko. Ichiro is still raging against society, refusing to pay his taxes on the grounds that the Japanese government can’t even keep their pension records straight. He is also outraged that Jiro’s school trip to Hakone is costing as much money as it would take to send the kids all the way to Guam! Life in Tokyo gradually becomes unbearable for the family: Sakura’s mother comes back into their lives after twenty years (Sakura had eloped) and exposes the children to a more materialistic form of life. Yoko can no longer take her father’s tirades and makes plans to move out. Jiro and his friends are bullied by older students, and when he and a friend go to retrieve a basketball from one of the bullies, they end up beating him to a pulp and getting into trouble at school. Sakura makes an executive decision: the family will flee city life and start anew on Iriomote-jima in Okinawa.

February

Thursday, February 21

From 6 P.M.

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Your Friends

Directed by: Ryuichi HIROKI

2008 / 125 min.

Nakahara, a Writer visits the free school in a small city for his research on the children who have problem such as school refusal. At the school, he meets Emi, a volunteering college student who has lame leg.

Emi is called “Ms. Puffy” by the children because she always takes pictures of clouds. Interested in this girl, Nakahara asks her to be interviewed, but in vain. However, Emi has gradually changed her mind towards Nakahara when he comes to the school many times and evokes sympathetic responses from the children. Then she answers his questions and tells him about her own childhood…

When she was 5^th grade pupil in elementary school, Emi got injury sustained in car accident. Since then, she made barrier from her surroundings. On the other hand, Yuka was in delicate health and set someone off from her peers too. Emi became friends with Yuka and they nurtured a precious friendship.

The two girls were left out in the cold but they spent peaceful and happy days beside the classmates who were playing bully and ostracizing each other.

At the present day, having made an intense relationship with Yuka, Emi encourages gently the children who are suffering from their own weakness.

Gradually the story of loss she experienced and which brought her such gentleness is revealed…

January

Thursday, January 17

From 6 P.M.

*Display of Japanese New Year Tradition will be presented.

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One Million Yen and Girl

Directed by: Yuki TANADA

2008 / 121 min.

Suzuko is 21 years old and already tired of people. She begins a journey and promises herself to stick with one rule: once she saves up a million yen, she must leave for another town. When people get too close, she packs her bags and departs for another destination. Encouraged by the letters from her brother, who is the target of hazing at school, she begins to discover ways to open up through the interaction with people she meets on the road, and slowly but surely nurture courage to move on.

Suzuko has been let down by other people. Disappointed and hurt, she embarks on the road to self-rediscovery. It is a journey to face who she is and learn how to trust others once again. Suzuko is a manifestation of distrust and fear of others, which exist in all of us living in a modern society. By the end of the journey, Suzuko accepts herself as she is and smiles as she takes a step toward future inciting hope for all of us.

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