Japanese Film Festival 2023
The Japanese Film Festival
The much-awaited Japanese Film Festival is making its comeback in 2023. It promises to deliver the finest selection of Japanese cinema on the grand screen for everyone's delight.
Now in its 19th year, this annual event features over 12 captivating titles across genres like drama, documentary, romance, mystery and animation, immersing audiences in diverse aspects of Japanese culture.
All films presented will be in Japanese with English subtitles.
Thursday 12 October 2023
The Water Flows To The Sea
6.30pm
High school student Naotatsu decides to move in with his uncle Shigemichi to live closer to school. However, on the day of his arrival, the one who came to pick him up at the station was a woman named Sasaki. She takes him to the shared house where Shigemichi lives. From that day on, a chaotic yet amusing life begins with the residents of the shared house. Naotatsu is drawn to Sasaki, who rarely expresses her feelings, only learn that she promised herself never to fall in love. What he doesn't know is that he is connected to her past and her decision.
#Manhole
9.05pm
Kawamura is a promising young man with a great job and a fiancée whose father owns the company. On the way home from a party on the eve of his wedding day, he falls to a deep bottom of a manhole. Trapped and horrified by incidents one after another, he gets desperate to escape and uses his only reliable tool, a smartphone, to locate himself with GPS, and reach police, friends and even social network's anonymous crowd. The clock ticks mercilessly and the morning is nearing. Can the groom get out of the hole intact and get married happily ever after to continue with his successful life?
Friday 13 October 2023
The Zen Diary
6.30pm
Tsutomu lives alone in the mountains, writing essays, cooking food with vegetables he grows and mushrooms he picks in the hills. His routine is happily disturbed when Machiko, his editor/love interest, occasionally visits. She loves to eat and he loves to cook for her. Tsutomu seems content with his daily life. On the other hand, he still hasn't let go of his wife's ashes although she died 13 years ago...
A Man
8.50pm
Over four blissful years, Rie and her son shared a loving new life with her second husband, Daisuke. His sudden accidental death brings not only grief, but an unnerving discovery for the widow: the man she thought she knew was posing under someone else's identity. In a startling dual narrative, the mystery around Mr. X unfolds beneath the hands of KIDO, the attorney handling the case. Prefaced by René Magritte's surrealist painting "Not to be Reproduced", this thought-provoking film is a vital addition to a growing genre of Japanese cinema that interrogates fragile morals permeating contemporary society.
Saturday 14 October 2023
Shylock's Children
12.00am
A million yen goes missing at the Nagahara Branch of Tokyo Daiichi Bank. Long-time customer service staff Nishiki sets out on a mission to uncover the truth together with his colleagues Airi and Tabata. After coming across one tiny question, they find themselves in the face of the massive corruption hidden behind the missing money... but this was merely the beginning of a scandal that would shake the megabank to its very core.
And Yet, You Are So Sweet
2.35pm
KISARAGI Maaya is in her second year of high school, and has just been completely rejected by her crush. Heartbroken and mortified, she vows out loud to "never confess to someone ever again"... only to realise later that her high school's heartthrob CHIGIRA Sui is within earshot! Upon hearing Maaya's weeping, CHIGIRA proposes a strange solution to heal her heartbreak that she pretends to have a crush on him instead. When CHIGIRA starts treating Maaya sweetly, it isn't hard for her to keep up pretences in this strictly one-sided love game... but as the pair grow closer, Maaya's feelings for CHIGIRA become undeniable. What will become of their "pretend crush" now?
Yokaipedia
4.45pm
After making wishes at a local shrine, Itsuki, Taichi and Sonny are visited by a ghost-like sprite during the night, who tells them about a mysterious Ghost Book that can grant any wish their hearts desire. But when the boys visit a second-hand bookstore in search of the book, chaos ensues as they are transported to an alternate universe inhabited by monsters! Not far behind is their schoolteacher Hayama, who's been dragged into the mayhem. The group soon realises they have a mission: they must capture the monsters in the Ghost Book before time runs out. Can they change destiny and return home before it's too late?
Small, Slow, but Steady
7.10pm
Keiko, a young pro boxer, was born with a hearing impairment. Boxing is a real challenge for her, but the club she belongs to is like a second home. After winning two difficult fights, a creeping fear begins to grow inside her. The club chairman, the only person who had accepted her as a boxer, is plagued by health issues and is losing his eyesight. Having learned that the gym is about to close for good, a confused Keiko goes on to her third bout. But perhaps the biggest challenge she faces is trying to understand the true nature and strength of her will to fight.
Sunday 15 October 2023
Lupin The Third, The Castle Of Cagliostro
12.00am
In the quaint European Duchy of Cagliostro, Lupin and Jigen end up with a damsel in distress on their hands. It's a daring rescue operation to find the castle's treasure and save the captured princess! Directed by MIYAZAKI Hayao, this action-adventure romp is said to have inspired some renowned film directors as well!
MONDAYS: See you this week!
2.10pm
Working over night with colleagues, a head injury from a traffic accident, constant sleepiness on the job and a bird slamming itself into the office window... on top of a pressing deadline at her advertising job, YOSHIKAWA is having the worst week ever. As if her headache wasn't bad enough, her coworkers ENDO and MURATA are going mad and claim the entire office is stuck in a time loop... but after a few rounds of reliving the same mundane Monday, YOSHIKAWA soon realises they're telling the truth. Now the teammates must work together, enlighten their oblivious colleagues and find a way to end this endless Monday!
The Lines that Define Me
4.10pm
After witnessing Sosuke’s first intimate encounter with a sumi-e painting, ink-painting master Kozan Shinoda spontaneously invites him to become his pupil and introduces him to the delicate, emotional power of bleeding ink. Overcome by the recent loss of his family, the chance gradually offers Sosuke a new path by which to ruminate on the dichotomising beauty of nature and ritualise his grief and self-expression.
We Made a Beautiful Bouquet
6.30pm
The last train at midnight leaves a group of stragglers stranded at the station, who opt for a bar rather than paying for a taxi home. Among them are twenty-two-years-olds Mugi and Kinu, whose curiosity for one another is fated to have a lasting and more intricate outcome than initially expected. Caught in the period of youth when many enter the gruelling Japanese workforce, the pair live under the pressure of maintaining an income without compromising their creative passions. Patient and bittersweet, this romance chronicles the fleeting lifespan of love, as Mugi and Kinu reckon with the hard realities of societal life imposing on their relationship and senses of self.
Organiser of this event
How to get to this event?
GSC Suriah Sabah Mall
8th Floor Suria Sabah Shopping Mall, Jalan Tun Fuad Stephens, 88000 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.