‘Kubi’ Teaser: Takeshi Kitano’s Epic War Film Premieres Out Of Competition At Cannes Later This Month

For three decades, filmmaker Takeshi Kitano was fixated on a period of Japanese history, in which Lord Oda Nobunaga was inexplicably betrayed by one of his closest allies, Akechi Mitsuhide, in an ambush at Honno-ji Temple. The reasons behind Mitsuhide’s deception are unknown, but Kitano dedicated years to concocting his own theories, going so far as to pen a novel imagining the events that led to the incident.  Adapted from his own book, “Kubi” is an outrageously exhilarating update of the samurai epic, dialing up the blood and guts and sprinkling in the sick humor to match.

In the early ’90s, Japan’s Takeshi “Beat” Kitano was on a roll, with a superb string of nuanced crime movies that stood in stark contrast to the good-vs.-evil bullet operas that were coming out of Hong Kong at the time. Kitano’s darkly funny cynicism (who else could have made Violent Cop?) made him stand out by miles, but it soon became his weakness, as became evident in the lean period after the success of Zatoichi in 2013. The experimental, semi-autobiographical trilogy that followed — Takeshis’, Glory to the Filmmaker and Achilles and the Tortoise — seemed to offer little more than self-sabotage, the work of a frustrated artist trying to take a blowtorch to his populist image without much thought for the future.

Lise Pedersen The highest award for docs-in-progress at the Cannes Film Market’s sidebar dedicated to documentary, Cannes Docs, has gone to Ya-Ting Hsu’s debut feature doc “Islands of the Winds.” Twenty years in the making, the film follows the anti-eviction struggle of the patients of Losheng Sanatorium for lepers, which became a symbol of the fight for democracy in Hsu’s native Taiwan. The prize comes with a €10,000 ($10,800) cash prize and project follow-up by IEFTA (the International Emerging Film Talent Assn.). It is produced by Hsu’s Taiwan-based Argosy Films and Media Productions, Huang Yin-Yu (Moolin Films, Ltd. & Moolin Production, Co., Ltd, Taiwan and Japan) and Baptiste Brunner (Wide Productions – La Cuisine aux Images, France).

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days” is a hot property in Cannes, and it’s yet to even premiere. Several buyers are currently circling the Japan-set, music-infused title from master filmmaker Wenders, which bows in competition on Thursday. Sources tell Variety that interested parties so far include Utopia, MUBI, Magnolia, Sideshow and Janus Films and Sony Pictures Classics. Wenders’ “Perfect Days” follows Tokyo toilet cleaner Hirayama, who seems content with his simple life. Outside of his everyday routine, he enjoys his passion for books and, in particular, for music. Over the course of the film, a series of unexpected encounters gradually reveal more of his past.

Directors’ Fortnight, a parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival, is planning to screen a programme of films from its selection at an event in Tokyo, Japan this December. 

Marta Balaga  Zoljargal Purevdash’s “If Only I Could Hibernate,” the first Mongolian film to be shown in Cannes’ official selection, marks another important step for the industry that’s ready to make some moves.  “Things are looking up,” observes the director, mentioning the newly established Mongolian National Film Council and Mongolian Film Fund. “Mongolia just introduced its new film law [which came into force in January 2022] so it’s really starting right now. I hope we will be able to make more films in the future.”  Her debut feature, presented at Un Certain Regard, was produced by Amygdala Films and France’s Urban Factory, with Urban Sales also on board. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “In Our Day,” the film by South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo which closes the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes film festival, has seen distributors in multiple territories move early to strike rights deals. French rights were picked up by Capricci), Spanish rights by L’Atalante Cinema and Greek rights by Ama Films. The film has its official premiere on May 25. Seoul-based Finecut has long been the sales agent for Hong’s plentiful output. In addition to the deals on “In Our Day,” Finecut signed agreements with L’Atalante, with France’s Ariona Films and Taiwan’s Cola Films for “In Water,” Hong’s first film of 2023 which premiered in the Encounters section in Berlin in February. The film was previously sold to Cinema Guild for North America.

Sunday night at the 76th Cannes Film Festival was all about the world premiere of the Jude Law and Alicia Vikander Henry VIII period pic Firebrand, which received a royal response from the crowd in the Grand Theatre Lumiere with an eight and a half minute standing ovation.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Variety has been given a sneak peek of the trailer (below) for Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days,” which world premieres in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The film is a deeply moving and poetic reflection on finding beauty in the everyday world around us. It follows Hirayama, who seems utterly content with his simple life as a cleaner of toilets in Tokyo. Outside of his very structured everyday routine he enjoys his passion for music and for books. And he loves trees and takes photos of them. A series of unexpected encounters gradually reveal more of his past. Koji Yakusho leads the cast. In 2005, he co-starred in “Memoirs of a Geisha,” which was nominated for six Academy Awards. In the following year, he co-starred in “Babel,” a film that was honored by the Cannes Film Festival and earned Golden Globes and Academy Awards.

Mark Schilling Japan Correspondent Two Japanese films by internationally renowned auteurs — “Monster” by Koreeda Hirokazu and “Kubi” by Kitano Takeshi — are in the Cannes lineup this year, and both carry with them big box office expectations in Japan.  “Monster,” which is screening in competition, will be released on June 2 by Gaga and Toho, the latter Japan’s largest distributor and theater chain operator. Koreeda’s two previous films — “The Truth” (2019), shot in France, and “Broker” (2022), filmed South Korea — were both box office disappointments in his home market. “Monster,” however, promises a return to the earnings form of his 2018 Palme d’Or winner “Shoplifters,” whose $34 million cumulative total was the fourth-highest among Japanese releases that year. 

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures has snapped up U.S., Canada and key international for Studiocanal and Heyday Films’ threequel Paddington in Peru.

Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest gem, “Monster,” begins on an enormous inferno. The facade of a hostess club is engulfed in flames of mysterious origin, attracting everyone from curious neighbors to squealing children chasing down roaring fire engines to witness the chaos.

Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s seventh go-round in Cannes competition, Monster, received a six-minute standing ovation Wednesday in the Grand Theatre Lumiere. He won the Palme d’Or back in 2018 for Shoplifters. Can he do it again?

Japan’s most prolific and successful contemporary filmmaker, Hirokazu Kore-Eda, is back in a favorite place, Cannes, for the unveiling of his latest effort, a return to his Japanese storytelling roots and a good one at that. For his seventh film in the main Cannes competition and his ninth overall (counting two that appeared in Un Certain Regard), Monster represents the first movie since his 1995 debut feature Mabofosi that the director has not had a screenplay credit on — this film being written by Sakamoto Yuji — but clearly with its humanist family-centered themes is right in this master craftsman’s wheelhouse.

While Southeast Asian films have premiered at the Cannes Film Festival many times before, and even won the Palme d’Or, there’s an energy around the region this year that we haven’t felt on the Croisette at previous editions. 

Taipei-based Screenworks Asia is launching international sales on award-winning director Hsin-Ying Sung’s female-centric psychological thriller Lost In Perfection ahead of the Cannes market. 

Prime Video To Remake South Korea’s ‘EXchange’ In Japan

Slow Horses star Jack Lowden is leading a John Maclean-helmed survival thriller that will be taken to Cannes Market by HanWay Films.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The selection of two restored films by Ozu Yasujiro for the Cannes Classics section will kick-off a six-month long celebration of the iconic Japanese auteur around the world. Cannes revealed last week that it will showcase Ozu’s 1947 “Record of a Tenement Gentleman” and his 1950 picture “The Muneteka Sisters.” The screenings mark the 120th anniversary of Ozu’s birth and the 60th anniversary of his death. Ozu died in 1963 on the day of his 60th birthday, just a few months after the release of his last film “The Taste of Sake.” Major studio, Shochiku, where Ozu spent the majority of career and made his iconic movies, is planning a series of curated retrospectives, festival screenings, and special events around the world that pay homage to his enduring legacy as one of the most influential directors in cinema. These will last until the end of 2023.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Sales agency The Match Factory is launching the trailer (below) of Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves,” which will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in Competition. This gentle tragicomedy is the fourth part of Kaurismäki’s working-class quartet, following “Shadows in Paradise,” “Ariel” and “The Match Factory Girl,” which The Match Factory, the company, is named after. The film tells the story of two lonely people (played by Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen) who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night. They then try to re-find each other: the first, only, and ultimate love of their lives. Their path toward this goal is clouded by the man’s alcoholism, lost phone numbers, not knowing each other’s names or addresses, and life’s tendency to place obstacles in the way of those seeking their happiness.