{"id":31024,"date":"2013-07-15T14:55:46","date_gmt":"2013-07-15T18:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=31024"},"modified":"2013-07-17T17:36:22","modified_gmt":"2013-07-17T21:36:22","slug":"wit-life-239-japan-cuts-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2013\/07\/15\/wit-life-239-japan-cuts-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"WIT Life #239: Japan Cuts 2013!"},"content":{"rendered":"

WIT Life<\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/a> is <\/strong><\/em>a periodic series written<\/strong><\/em> by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator <\/strong><\/em>Stacy Smith<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>(Kumamo<\/a><\/strong><\/em>to-ken<\/a> CIR, 2000-<\/strong><\/em>03). She starts<\/strong><\/em> her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she sha<\/strong><\/em>r<\/strong><\/em>es some of the interesting tidbits and <\/strong><\/em>t<\/strong><\/em>r<\/strong><\/em>ends along with her own observations.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Director<\/a>

Director Toshiaki Toyoda (center) with Japan Society Senior Film Program Officer Samuel Jamier (left).<\/p><\/div>\n

Japan’s Society fabulous film festival Japan Cuts<\/a> is back and better than ever!\u00a0 The 2013 lineup includes 24 films, some new and some older, all depicting Japanese society in the way that only Japanese cinema can.\u00a0 This year’s festival kicked off last Thursday night with the movie I’M FLASH<\/a> from Japan Cuts favorite Toshiaki Toyoda.\u00a0 This director has attended previous festivals (2010’s Hanging Garden, 2012’s Monster’s Ball), and he was on hand this year as well to receive an award from Japan Society Senior Film Program Officer, Samuel Jamier (who announced this will be his last year with the festival.\u00a0 His unique, witty introductions to each film will be missed).<\/p>\n

Toyoda’s film stars Tatsuya Fujiwara, who appeared in the film Parade featured at Japan Cuts 2010, as the leader Rui of a religious sect called “Life is Beautiful.”\u00a0 Rui has inherited the family business but is becoming disenchanted with it, and his bad behavior leads to a wild night with grave consequences.\u00a0 The film takes place in Okinawa, and the presence of the sea is so prominent that it is almost an additional character.\u00a0 Aside from Rui, we get to know his (often hideous) family as well as the three bodyguards hired to protect him, though I wish they had gone more into their back stories.<\/p>\n

During the Q&A after the screening, Toyoda said that he had wanted to make a film after 3\/11.\u00a0 However, making one about what had happened felt crass, and Toyoda instead found himself making a differently themed movie about death.\u00a0 The fact that the water plays such a big part in the film was his way of connecting it to the tsunami and the people who lost their lives in the disaster.\u00a0 He remained tight-lipped in regard to an audience question about whether the religious sect in the movie was a reference to any particular Japanese cult, leaving it to viewers’ imagination.<\/p>\n

This week some other directors will be present when their films are screened, so stay tuned for more updates from Japan Cuts 2013!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WIT Life is a periodic series written by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends along with her own observations. Japan’s Society fabulous film festival Japan Cuts is back and better than ever!\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[53,263,18,1,36,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-film","category-translatinginterpreting","category-uncategorized","category-wit-life","category-writers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-84o","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31024"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31061,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31024\/revisions\/31061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}