Today is the last day of the New York Asian Film Festival, but The Japan Cuts festival at the Japan Society continues, with a number of films including the Best of the Unreleased Naughties, a celebration of some of the great films of the last decade that have inexplicably never been released in the U.S. Japan Cuts may be a little more focused on human relationships than on martial arts and blood splattering wild boars , but there is still a nice mix of genre, arthouse, and anime to be found. We’ve already covered the co-presentations of Confessions, Boys on the Run, Golden Slumber, Dear Doctor, Blood of Rebirth, and Alien vs. Ninja, but serious and casual film enthusiasts alike will definitely want to check out Parade, Zero Focus, Nightmare Detective 2, and One Million Yen Girl at a minimum.

[For more information, visit the Japan Cuts website here. For all Japan Cuts 2010 articles, click here.]

Zero Focus (Japan 2009) – Zero Focus, a period murder mystery, has drawn deserved comparison to Hitchcock. Those comparisons are fair, but with its sweeping string score and psychosexual anxiety, Zero Focus evokes the claustrophobic small town mysteries of David Lynch as much as the free-floating dread of Vertigo. Impeccably crafted, Zero Focus functions best as a gorgeous evocation of its time – the late ‘50s – and place – frigid Kanazawa on the northern coast of Japan – conjuring up dazzling images of rocky shores, snowy roads and dark trains. Disappointingly, the underlying plot, in which Teiko (Ryoko Hirosue) searches for her missing husband and bodies begin to pile up, while more than serviceable, never quite lives up to the aesthetic achievements of the cinematography and sets. Teiko never gels as a character and the denouement, in which she serves almost a bystander, enforces that absence of a central performance. Nevertheless, Zero Focus is one of the most visually impressive achievements in the festival and, bolstered by a ferocious turn from Miki Nakatani, more than worth your time.

One Million Yen Girl (Japan 2008) – Lovely. Just lovely. You will have to excuse me if I can’t quite say for sure whether I am referring to the film itself or Yu Aoi’s winning central performance. The two are inseparable. Possessing the fragile beauty of a young Shu Qi, Aoi is utterly captivating in her role as Suzuko, a girl uncomfortable in her own skin and adrift in modern Japan. As good as she was in Hana and Alice and Hula Girls, Aoi here is alternately heartbreaking in her hurt and uncertainty and empowering in her inner strength, proving more than capable of carrying the weight of a film on her frail shoulders. It does not hurt that director Yuki Tanada’s script hits all the right beats. The premise is simple – after a brief, unjustified stint in prison, Suzuko decides to shed all human relationships and travel through the country, taking on part-time jobs until she makes enough money to move on. However, as much as she might like to be left alone, Suzuko finds that others can’t help but try to fit her into their own narratives and wishes. Flirting with, but largely avoiding, cliché and melodrama, Tanada has crafted an engaging character study, deserving of wider release.

Parade (Japan 2009) – Parade is an enigma of a film. Ostensibly without plot, the film follows four roommates (two girls and two guys) as they slowly and lazily share time and space without ever really getting to know each other. When a new element is introduced into the house, a rentboy with obscure motives, Parade threatens to become the heir to Japan’s tradition of social dramas wherein chaotic personalities disrupt ordered but unhappy lives (perhaps best exemplified by Takashi Miike’s Visitor Q and Yoshimitsu Morita’s The Family Game). However, Parade is more concerned with the moment than with the outcome, leading to a deceptively lackadaisical bombshell of a conclusion. As the plot is light and the script minimal, much of the weight of the film falls on the cast. Fortunately, director Isao Yukisada has chosen well - Karina and Shihori Kanjiya are effectively deglammed and Kento Hayashi and Keisuke Koide are respectively elfin and immature as the youngest members of the house. And, as in the Death Note films, Tatsuya Fujiwara (Battle Royale) continues the admirable trend of playing against his pretty boy looks.

Accidental Kidnapper (Japan 2010) – I wanted to like this one. Sadly, this story about the growing bond between a suicidal loser and the kid he arbitrarily decides to kidnap (“Accidental” is really a misnomer - the original Japanese title, Yukai Rhapsody, is more appropriate) is a little too cutesy for its own good. Not every film needs to be dark and edgy, but the characters are too facile and the dialogue too trite. Moreover, the mono-named You, so great as the mother in Nobody Knows and the call girl in Boys on the Run, is utterly wasted in a small role as the child’s mother. Fortunately, the filmmakers pull in a ringer by casting Sho Aikawa as the gangster father of the kidnapped boy. Even defanged as he is here, Aikawa supplies a sense of fun that is missing from the rest of the film.

Stay tuned for more coverage of the NYAFF and Japan Cuts.

© David Austin