Japan Society is pleased to announce its fall lineup for Monthly Classics and Monthly Anime, kicking off on September 2, 2022 with a 35mm screening of Kihachi Okamoto's satirical chambara, “Kill!”. 2006 anime classic “Tekkonkinkreet” will screen on September 16, featuring a Q&A with screenwriter Anthony Weintraub (“The Animatrix”). For October, Hideo Nakata's 90s J-horror classic “Ringu” screens on October 7th followed by Mamoru Oshii's rarely-screened 1985 ethereal masterpiece “Angel's Egg” on October 14th. Monthly Anime continues on November 4th with a 35mm screening of Hayao Miyazaki's beloved “My Neighbor Totoro”.
Tickets: $15/$12 students and seniors /$5 Japan Society members.
Lineup and other details are subject to change.For complete information visit japansociety.org.
Kill!
Friday, September 2, 2022 at 7:00 PM
Dir. Kihachi Okamoto, 1968, 114 min, 35mm, b&w. With Tatsuya Nakadai, Etsushi Takahashi, Yuriko Hoshi.
Kihachi Okamoto's darkly satirical chambara opens in the midst of a pummeling windstorm on the outskirts of a ravaged village where two swordsmen—a farmer hoping to be a reputable samurai and a former samurai who has taken on the yakuza life—accidentally become embroiled in a plot to assassinate the local clan leader. Exaggerated and poking fun at the genre's oft-repeated tropes, Okamoto's Kill! is a wickedly entertaining take on the same novel that inspired Kurosawa's Sanjuro.
Tekkonkinkreet
Friday, September 16, 2022 at 7:00 PM
Dir. Michael Arias, 2006, 103 min., DCP, color. With Kazunari Ninomiya, Yusuke Iseya, Yu Aoi.
Screening followed by a Q&A with screenwriter Anthony Weintraub.
Deep in the urban sprawl of a dilapidated pan-Asian cityscape named Treasure Town, streetwise orphans Black and White spend their days pickpocketing, soaring across rooftops and fighting petty turf wars. The arrival of a yakuza faction, however, brings a new set of challenges when plans to raze the metropolis and build an amusement park to replace it take hold. Widely energetic in its direction and innovative art style, Tekkonkinkreet adapts Taiyo Matsumoto's celebrated manga into a startling vision—as well as the first major animeproduction to be helmed and written by non-Japanese talent.
Ringu
Friday, October 7, 2022 at 7:00 PM
Dir. Hideo Nakata, 1998, 96 min, DCP, color. With Nanako Matsushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Miki Nakatani.
Investigating an urban myth of a cursed videotape that kills its watchers within seven days of viewing, journalist Reiko Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima) discovers a series of unnatural teenage deaths tied to a tangible, real-life tape when her niece falls victim to the curse. While tracking it down, Reiko unwittingly exposes her son to the tape, pitting her in a race against the clock to discover the secrets behind its origin. A dirgelike procession of contorted corpses, grainy video footage and disturbing imagery, Nakata's brooding J-horror classic unleashes a barrage of nightmare fuel that feeds off of the technological anxieties of our modern era.
Angel's Egg
Friday, October 14, 2022 at 7:00 PM
Dir. Mamoru Oshii, 1985, 71 min., Digital, color. With Mako Hyoudou, Jinpachi Nezu.
A groundbreaking collaboration between two anime legends that intertwines Mamoru Oshii's personal reflections on theology, existentialism and evolution with Yoshitaka Amano's fantastical ink art style, Angel's Egg remains a rarely screened and hard-to-find cult classic. Taking place in a seemingly quiescent time, two nameless strangers—a girl bearing a mystical egg and a man with a cruciate cane—journey across a primordial realm of decadent ruins, primitive fish and fossilized relics. An allegorical fantasy enriched by symbolism and biblical allusion, Oshii's beautifully melancholic OVA ruminates on the tragic underpinnings of existence in a world untouched by God.
My Neighbor Totoro
Friday, November 4, 2022 at 7:00 PM
Dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 1988, 86 min., 35mm, color. With Noriko Hidaka, Hitoshi Takagi, Chika Sakamoto.
A seminal work from Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki's 1988 animated feature follows the lives of sisters Satsuki and Mei who move with their father to an old, empty countryside home to live nearer to their ill mother. Discovering a plethora of forest spirits residing near the home's supposedly haunted grounds, the sisters befriend the gentle giant Totoro who lives within the depths of a giant camphor tree. Lovingly crafted and beloved by all—with even Akira Kurosawa citing the film as one of his favorites—Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro is recognized as one of the greatest animated features of all time.
